On the Incarnation: De Incarnatione Verbi Dei

by Athanasius of Alexandria

This is where the saying not one iota of a difference

This was very important to Athanasius as only if Jesus was fully human could he atone for human sin and only if Jesus was fully divine could he have the power to save us.

the Word of the Father is Himself divine, that all things that are owe their being to His will and power, and that it is through Him that the Father gives order to creation, by Him that all things are moved, and through Him that they receive their being.

the Word's becoming Man and His divine Appearing in our midst. That mystery

we adore;

He has not assumed a body as proper to His own nature, far from it, for as the Word He is without body. He has been manifested in a human body for this reason only, out of the love and goodness of His Father, for the salvation of us men.

the renewal of creation has

been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it in the beginning.

Word of God Himself, Who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing? His part

it was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father.

The Word was not hedged in by His body, nor did His presence in the body prevent His being present elsewhere as well. When He moved His body He did not cease also to direct the universe by His Mind and might. No. The marvelous truth is, that being the Word, so far from being Himself contained by anything, He actually contained all things Himself.

when His Godhead is veiled in human nature, His bodily acts still declare Him to be not

man only, but the Power and Word of God.

Because it was precisely in order to be able to die that He had taken a body, and to prevent the death would have been to impede the resurrection.

He did not see corruption. His body rose in perfect soundness, for it was the body of none other than the Life Himself.

He waited one whole day to show that His body was really dead, and then on the third day showed it incorruptible to all. The interval was no longer, lest people should have forgotten about it and grown doubtful whether it were in truth the same body.

Every one is by nature afraid of death and of bodily dissolution; the marvel of marvels is that he who is enfolded in the faith of the cross despises this natural fear and for the sake of the cross is no longer cowardly in face of it.