On the Incarnation: Saint Athanasius (Popular Patristics Series Book 44)

by Athanasius of Alexandria

It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than secondhand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.

If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said.

It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes.

We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.

Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction.

For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others.

The work translated here, On the Incarnation, is one of the classic texts of early Christianity. Its influence on all later theology cannot be understated.

and not think that the Savior has worn a body as a consequence of nature, but that, being by nature bodiless and existing as the Word, by the love for humankind and goodness of his own Father he appeared to us in a human body for our salvation.

For it will appear not at all contradictory if the Father works its salvation in the same one by whom he created it.

For if all things came into being spontaneously without providence, as they claim, all things would necessarily have simply come into being and be identical and without difference.

Such order indicates that they did not come into being spontaneously, but shows that a cause preceded them, from which one can apprehend the God who ordered and created all things.

giving them a share of the power of his own Word, so that having as it were shadows of the Word and being made rational, they might be able to abide in blessedness, living the true life which is really that of the holy ones in paradise. And knowing again that free choice of human beings could turn either way, he secured beforehand, by a law and a set place, the grace given.

For we were the purpose of his embodiment, and for our salvation he so loved human beings as to come to be and appear in a human body.

For God has not only created us from nothing, but also granted us by the grace of the Word to live a life according to God.

For these reasons, then, with death holding greater sway and corruption remaining fast against human beings, the race of humans was perishing, and the human being, made rational and in the image, was disappearing, and the work made by God was being obliterated.

It was therefore right not to permit human beings to be carried away by corruption, because this would be improper to and unworthy of the goodness of God.

Being the Word of the Father and above all, he alone consequently was both able to recreate the universe and was worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to intercede for all before the Father.

For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God comes into our realm, although he was not formerly distant. For no part of creation is left void of him; while abiding with his own Father, he has filled all things in every place.

For the Word, realizing that in no other way would the corruption of human beings be undone except, simply, by dying, yet being immortal and the Son of the Father the Word was not able to die, for this reason he takes to himself a body capable of death, in order that it, participating in the Word who is above all, might be sufficient for death on behalf of all, and through the indwelling Word would remain incorruptible, and so corruption might henceforth cease from all by the grace of the resurrection.

For being above all, the Word of God consequently, by offering his own temple and his bodily instrument as a substitute for all, fulfilled in death that which was required; and, being with all through the like [body], the incorruptible Son of God consequently clothed all with incorruptibility in the promise concerning the resurrection.

For the race of human beings would have been utterly dissolved had not the Master and Savior of all, the Son of God, come for the completion of death.

But human beings, being again foolish, despising the grace thus given to them, so turned away from God and so darkened their own soul, that they not only forgot the concept of God but also fashioned for themselves others instead.

For neither by human beings was it possible, since they were created “in the image”; but neither by angels, for they were not even images. So the Word of God came himself, in order that he being the image of the Father (cf. Col 1.15), the human being “in the image” might be recreated.

to himself a body like theirs and from below—I mean

through the works of the body—that those not wishing to know him from his providence

the Word, since he was not able to die—for he was immortal—took to himself a body able to die, that he might offer it as his own on behalf of all and as himself suffering for all, through coming into it “he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Heb 2.14–15).

For only upon the cross does one die with hands stretched out. Therefore it was fitting for the Lord to endure this, and to stretch out his hands, that with the one he might draw the ancient people and with the other those from the Gentiles, and join both together in himself.

and it was demonstrated to all that the body died not by the weakness of the nature of the indwelling Word, but in order that death might be destroyed in it through the power of the Savior.

by the sign of the cross all magic ceases, all witchcraft is brought to naught, all idols are deserted and abandoned, all irrational desire ceases,

For the Son of God “is living and active” (Heb 4.12), works daily, and effects the salvation of all. But death is daily proved to have become completely weakened, and it is the idols and demons rather who are dead, so that from this no one can any longer doubt regarding the resurrection of his body.

He who disbelieves the resurrection of the lordly body would seem likely to be ignorant of the power of the Word and Wisdom of God.

the works are a proof of the resurrection.

For it is a property of God not to be seen, but to be known by his works,

“Behold, the Lord sits upon a swift cloud, and he will come to Egypt, and the graven images of Egypt will be shaken” (Isa 19.1).

“He will be,” it says, “the root of Jesse and he that rises to rule the nations, and in him will the nations hope” (Isa 11.10).

He it is that was crucified, with the sun and creation as witnesses together with those who inflicted death upon him; and by his death salvation has come to all, and all creation been ransomed. He it is who is the Life of all, and who like a sheep delivered his own body to death as a substitute for the salvation of all, even if the Jews do not believe.

“Be strong, weak hands and feeble knees; be consoled, faint-hearted in spirit; be strong, fear not, for behold our God requites judgment; he will come and save us. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf will hear; then will the lame leap like a hart and the tongue of those who stammer will be clear” (Isa 35.3–6).

When the truth is present, what need is there any more for the shadow?

let them know that the Lord came not to be put on display but to heal and to teach those who were suffering.

the Savior rightly put on a body, in order that the body, being interwoven with life, might no longer remain as mortal in death, but, as having put on immortality, henceforth it might, when arising, remain immortal.

death does not appear by itself, but in the body; therefore he put on the body, that finding death in the body he might efface it.

For the Lord touched all parts of creation and freed and disabused everything from every error, as Paul said, “Disarming the principalities and powers, he has triumphed on the Cross” (Col 2.15), in order that no one might be any longer deceived, but might find everywhere the true Word of God.

what the weakness of idols could not do—persuade even those dwelling nearby—this Christ has done, persuading not only those nearby, but simply the entire inhabited world, to worship one and the same Lord, and through him God, his Father.

Christ alone among humans is known to be God of true God, the God Word.

Who, then, and how great is this Christ, who by his naming and presence overshadows and brings to naught everything everywhere, and who is alone powerful over all, and has filled the whole inhabited world with his teaching?

This is, on the one hand, the proof of the Savior’s divinity, that what human beings were unable to learn among idols, they have learned from him, and, on the other hand, no small refutation of the weakness and nothingness of the demons and idols.

those who become disciples of Christ, instead of fighting against each other, stand arrayed against the demons by their lives and deeds of virtue, putting them to flight and mocking their prince, the devil, so that, in their youth they are temperate, in temptations they endure, in toils they persevere, when insulted they forbear, and deprivations they disregard, and, what is most wonderful is that they scorn even death and become martyrs for Christ.

let him rather marvel that through such a paltry thing things divine have been manifested to us, and that through death incorruptibility has come to all, and through the incarnation of the Word the universal providence, and its giver and creator, the very Word of God, have been made known.

For he was incarnate that we might be made god; and he manifested himself through a body that we might receive an idea of the invisible Father; and he endured the insults of human beings, that we might inherit incorruptibility.