To begin: the introduction by C.S. Lewis is fantastic! Google "cslewis introduction of on the incarnation" to read it yourself. You'll read the famous quote, "The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books."

But I loved this one, too: "I believe that many who find that "nothing happens" when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand."

What surprised me Athanasius' book: how much it was about death and resurrection.

"Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death in place of all, and offered it to the Father."

"The Word of God came in His own Person, because it was He alone, the Image of the Father, Who could recreate man made after the Image."

"The supreme object of His coming was to bring about the resurrection of the body."

Something I never before considered: "He neither endured the death of John, who was beheaded, nor was He sawn asunder, like Isaiah: even in death He preserved His body whole and undivided, so that there should be no excuse hereafter for those who would divide the Church."

It's the kind of book where I discovered after having followed the lines (I can't really call it 'reading') for three or four pages that I hadn't a *clue* what I had just read. I took my time, went back and followed the argument. Yes, it is work to read this book.

I'm adding this book to a short list of books I want to read if I received a terminal diagnosis. The perspective on death is why.