Athanasius: On the Incarnation

On the Incarnation of the Word.

§1. Introductory.—The subject of this treatise: the humiliation and incarnation of the Word. Presupposes the doctrine of Creation, and that by the Word. The Father has saved the world by Him through Whom he first made it.

See Contra Gentes, i. The word (Μακάριε) may be an adjective only, but its occurrence in both places seems decisive. The name was very common (Apol. c. Ar. passim). ‘Macarius’ was a Christian, as the present passage shews: he is presumed (c. Gent. i. 7) to have access to Scripture.

τῆς εὐσεβείας. See 1 Tim. iii. 16, and note 1 on De Decr. 1.

§2. Erroneous views of Creation rejected. (1) Epicurean (fortuitous generation). But diversity of bodies and parts argues a creating intellect. (2.) Platonists (pre-existent matter.) But this subjects God to human limitations, making Him not a creator but a mechanic. (3) Gnostics (an alien Demiurge). Rejected from Scripture.

Or, “been made in one way only.” In the next clause I formerly translated the difficult words ὡς ἐπὶ σώματος ἕνος ‘as in the case of the universe;’ but although the rendering has commended itself to others I now reluctantly admit that it puts too much into the Greek (in spite of §41. 5).

εἰς τὸ εἶναι.

Matt. xix. 4, &c.

John i. 3.

§3. The true doctrine. Creation out of nothing, of God’s lavish bounty of being. Man created above the rest, but incapable of independent perseverance. Hence the exceptional and supra-natural gift of being in God’s Image, with the promise of bliss conditionally upon his perseverance in grace.

Gen. i. 1.

Herm. Mand. 1.

Heb. xi. 3.

c. Gent. xli. and Plato, Timæus 29 E.

Gen. ii. 16, sq.

§4. Our creation and God’s Incarnation most intimately connected. As by the Word man was called from non-existence into being, and further received the grace of a divine life, so by the one fault which forfeited that life they again incurred corruption and untold sin and misery filled the world.

Cf. Orat. ii. 54, note 4.

c. Gent. 3–5.

Eccles. vii. 29; Rom. i. 21, 22.

Rom. v. 14.

Wisd. vi. 18.

Ps. lxxxii. 6, sq.

Cf. Concil. Araus. II. Can. 23. ‘Suam voluntatem homines faciunt, non Dei, quando id agunt quod Deo displicet.’

Wisd. ii. 23, sq.

§5. For God has not only made us out of nothing; but He gave us freely, by the Grace of the Word, a life in correspondence with God. But men, having rejected things eternal, and, by counsel of the devil, turned to the things of corruption, became the cause^{Edition note 1} of their own corruption in death, being, as I said before, by nature corruptible, but destined, by the grace following from partaking of the Word, to have escaped their natural state, had they remained good. 2. For because of the Word dwelling with them, even their natural corruption did not come near them, as Wisdom also says[^n210]: “God made man for incorruption, and as an image of His own eternity; but by envy of the devil death came into the world.”

But when this was come to pass, men began to die, while corruption thence-forward prevailed against them, gaining even more than its natural power over the whole race, inasmuch as it had, owing to the transgression of the commandment, the threat of the Deity as a further advantage against them.

Rom. i. 26, sq.

§6. The human race then was wasting, God’s image was being effaced, and His work ruined. Either, then, God must forego His spoken word by which man had incurred ruin; or that which had shared in the being of the Word must sink back again into destruction, in which case God’s design would be defeated. What then? was God’s goodness to suffer this? But if so, why had man been made? It could have been weakness, not goodness on God’s part.

Gen. ii. 15.

Gal. iii. 19 (verbally only).

Cf. Anselm cur Deus Homo, II. 4, ‘Valde alienum est ab eo, ut ullam rationalem naturam penitus perire sinat.’

§7. On the other hand there was the consistency of God’s nature, not to be sacrificed for our profit. Were men, then, to be called upon to repent? But repentance cannot avert the execution of a law; still less can it remedy a fallen nature. We have incurred corruption and need to be restored to the Grace of God’s Image. None could renew but He Who had created. He alone could (1) recreate all, (2) suffer for all, (3) represent all to the Father.

Literally “what is reasonable with respect to God,” i.e. what is involved in His attributes and in His relation to us, cf. Rom. iii. 26, cf. Anselm, ib. I. 12, who slightly narrows down the idea of Athan. ‘Si peccatum sic dimittitur impunitum, similiter erit apud Deum peccanti et non peccanti, quod Deo non convenit….Inconvenientia autem iniustitia est.’

See previous note.

See previous note.

§8. The Word, then, visited that earth in which He was yet always present ; and saw all these evils. He takes a body of our Nature, and that of a spotless Virgin, in whose womb He makes it His own, wherein to reveal Himself, conquer death, and restore life.

Acts xvii. 27.

Cf. vi. 3.

Cf. 43. 2.

Cf. Orat. iii. 33, note 5, also ib. 31, note 10.

Cf. Orat. iii. 33, note 5, also ib. 31, note 10.

The simile is inverted. Men are the ‘straw,’ death the ‘fire.’ cf. xliv. 7.

§9. The Word, since death alone could stay the plague, took a mortal body which, united with Him, should avail for all, and by partaking of His immortality stay the corruption of the Race. By being above all, He made His Flesh an offering for our souls; by being one with us all, he clothed us with immortality. Simile to illustrate this.

ἀντίψυχον.

Possibly suggested by the practice of the emperors. Constantinople was thus dignified a few years later (326). For this simile compare Sermo Major de Fide, c. 6.

Or, “to put an end to death.”

§10. By a like simile, the reasonableness of the work of redemption is shewn. How Christ wiped away our ruin, and provided its antidote by His own teaching. Scripture proofs of the Incarnation of the Word, and of the Sacrifice He wrought.

2 Cor. v. 14.

Heb. ii. 9, sq.

Heb. ii. 14, sq.

Cf. Gal. vi. 17

1 Cor. xv. 21, sq.

1 Tim. vi. 15.

§11. Second reason for the Incarnation. God, knowing that man was not by nature sufficient to know Him, gave him, in order that he might have some profit in being, a knowledge of Himself. He made them in the Image of the Word, that thus they might know the Word, and through Him the Father. Yet man, despising this, fell into idolatry, leaving the unseen God for magic and astrology; and all this in spite of God’s manifold revelation of Himself.

Cf. 13. 2.

Cf. Rom. i. 25

αὐτῶν may refer to the δαίμονες, in which case compare c. Gent. 25. sub fin.

See c. Gent. 25. 1, τα ὅμοια τοῖς ὁμοίοις. Or the text may mean simply “as their due.”

§12. For though man was created in grace, God, foreseeing his forgetfulness, provided also the works of creation to remind man of him. Yet further, He ordained a Law and Prophets, whose ministry was meant for all the world. Yet men heeded only their own lusts.

§13. Here again, was God to keep silence? to allow to false gods the worship He made us to render to Himself? A king whose subjects had revolted would, after sending letters and messages, go to them in person. How much more shall God restore in us the grace of His image. This men, themselves but copies, could not do. Hence the Word Himself must come (1) to recreate, (2) to destroy death in the Body.

The Bened. text is corrected here on the ground (1) of ms. evidence, (2) of construction (for which see 6, 7, and c. Gent. 20. 3).

§14. A portrait once effaced must be restored from the original. Thus the Son of the Father came to seek, save, and regenerate. No other way was possible. Blinded himself, man could not see to heal. The witness of creation had failed to preserve him, and could not bring him back. The Word alone could do so. But how? Only by revealing Himself as Man.

Cf. Luc. xix. 10.

See John iii. 3, 5.

§15. Thus the Word condescended to man’s engrossment in corporeal things, by even taking a body. All man’s superstitions He met halfway; whether men were inclined to worship Nature, Man, Demons, or the dead, He shewed Himself Lord of all these.

1 Cor. i. 21.

Lit. “draws toward Himself.”

Lit. “infer.”

Lit. “draws toward Himself.”

Cf. 14. 2.

§16. He came then to attract man’s sense-bound attention to Himself as man, and so to lead him on to know Him as God.

Eph. iii. 18, sq.

διὰ τούτου, perhaps, in both places—“by it,” viz. His body.

διὰ τούτου, perhaps, in both places—“by it,” viz. His body.

§17. How the Incarnation did not limit the ubiquity of the Word, nor diminish His Purity. (Simile of the Sun.)

Cf. St. Aug. de Fid. et Symb. 10, Rufin. in Symb. Apost. 12. So also Tertull. adv. Marc. ‘Quodcunque induerit ipse dignum fecit.’

1 Pet. ii. 22.

§18. How the Word and Power of God works in His human actions: by casting out devils, by Miracles, by His Birth of the Virgin.

Compare Orat. iii. 31, note 11.

John x. 37, sq.

Cf. 49. 2.

§19. Man, unmoved by nature, was to be taught to know God by that sacred Manhood, Whose deity all nature confessed, especially in His Death.

§20. None, then, could bestow incorruption, but He Who had made, none restore the likeness of God, save His Own Image, none quicken, but the Life, none teach, but the Word. And He, to pay our debt of death, must also die for us, and rise again as our first-fruits from the grave. Mortal therefore His Body must be; corruptible, His Body could not be.

αὐτοζωή, see c. Gent. 40, 46, and Orat. iv. 2, note 4.

See especially §7.

e.g. viii. 4; x. 5, &c. ‘It is quite a peculiarity of Ath. to repeat, and to apologise for doing so,’ (Newman in Orat. ii. 80, note 1).

ἐπίβασις, compare ἐπιβαίνειν, 43. 4, &c.

ἐπίβασις, compare ἐπιβαίνειν, 43. 4, &c.

Cf. 10. 4, above.

§21. Death brought to nought by the death of Christ. Why then did not Christ die privately, or in a more honourable way? He was not subject to natural death, but had to die at the hands of others. Why then did He die? Nay but for that purpose He came, and but for that, He could not have risen.

1 Cor. xv. 53, sqq.

§22. But why did He not withdraw His body from the Jews, and so guard its immortality? (1) It became Him not to inflict death on Himself, and yet not to shun it. (2) He came to receive death as the due of others, therefore it should come to Him from without. (3) His death must be certain, to guarantee the truth of His Resurrection. Also, He could not die from infirmity, lest He should be mocked in His healing of others.

Cf. Joh. x. 17, 18.

Cf. Matt. xxvii. 42.

i.e. when sustained by its union with Him.

§23. Necessity of a public death for the doctrine of the Resurrection.

Acts xxvi. 26.

Luke xxiv. 11.

§24. Further objections anticipated. He did not choose His manner of death; for He was to prove Conqueror of death in all or any of its forms: (simile of a good wrestler). The death chosen to disgrace Him proved the Trophy against death: moreover it preserved His body undivided.

i.e. suggested as ἔνδοξον (supra, 1); a reading παρ᾽ ἐαυτοῦ has been suggested: (devised) “by Himself.”

§25. Why the Cross, of all deaths? (1) He had to bear the curse for us. (2) On it He held out His hands to unite all, Jews and Gentiles, in Himself. (3) He defeated the “Prince of the powers of the air” in His own region, clearing the way to heaven and opening for us the everlasting doors.

Gal. iii. 13.

Deut. xxi. 23.

Eph. ii. 14.

John xii. 32.

Eph. ii. 2, and see the curious visions of Antony, Vit. Ant., 65, 66.

Heb. x. 20.

Cf. Lightfoot on Coloss. ii. 15, also the fragment of Letter 22, and Letter 60. 7.

Luc. x. 18.

Ps. xxiv. 7, [LXX.]

§26. Reasons for His rising on the Third Day. (1) Not sooner for else His real death would be denied, nor (2) later; to (a) guard the identity of His body, (b) not to keep His disciples too long in suspense, nor (c) to wait till the witnesses of His death were dispersed, or its memory faded.

Literally ‘at an even’ [distance], as contrasted with (a) the same day (2, above), (b) the third day (ἐν τριταί& 251· διαστήματι (6, below). ἐν ἴσῳ must therefore be equivalent in sense to δευτεραίου. Possibly the literal sense is ‘[had the Resurrection taken place] at an equal interval between the Death and the [actual day of] the Resurrection.’

§27. The change wrought by the Cross in the relation of Death to Man.

Cf. Ps. lv. 4, lxxxix. 47; Job. xviii. 14.

Cf. Acts ii. 24

Cf. above, 21. 2.

§28. This exceptional fact must be tested by experience. Let those who doubt it become Christians.