On the Incarnation by St Athanasius (b. ~296 – d. 2 May 373) is a treatise on the subject. It is commonly believed that this was written in about 318 AD. This was apparently written to a man named Macarius for educational purposes taking into account arguments and heresies up until that time.
Now, Macarius, true lover of Christ, we must take a step further in the faith of our holy religion, and consider also the Word’s becoming Man and His divine Appearing in our midst. That mystery the Jews traduce, the Greeks deride, but we adore; and your own love and devotion to the Word also will be the greater, because in His Manhood He seems so little worth. For it is a fact that the more unbelievers pour scorn on Him, so much the more does He make His Godhead evident.
The text comprises 57 paragraphs, sometimes organized into 9 chapters. The chapter titles are placeholders but this is nonetheless the general structure.
I: Creation and the Fall – ¶1 to ¶5
II: The Divine Dilemma and Its Solution in the Incarnation – ¶6 to ¶10
III: The Divine Dilemma and Its Solution in the Incarnation (continued) – ¶11 to ¶18
IV: The Death of Christ – ¶19 to ¶25
V: The Resurrection – ¶26 to ¶32
VI: Refutation of the Jews – ¶33 to ¶40
VII: Refutation of the Gentiles – ¶41 to ¶45
VIII: Refutation of the Gentiles (continued) – ¶46 to ¶55
IX: Conclusion – ¶56 to ¶57
A few key points and excerpts are provided below. This is not intended to be a summary.
St Athanasius begins by emphasizing that God created everything out of nothing. “God is Himself the Cause of matter” for if He has to rely on pre-existing matter, then that is a limitation. As such, all existence comes from Him. Since sin is a rejection of His command and of Him, the source of all existence, it follows that the result is corruption and death (“non-existence”).
The Fall of our first parent gives God a dilemma. Although He cannot go back on His own word, He also does not want His creation to die. Whilst repentance may be sufficient to not sin in the future, it does not take away the penalty of death. Hence, the Word of God took for Himself a body to suffer and die as a substitute for us.
It was by surrendering to death the body which He had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, that He forthwith abolished death for His human brethren by the offering of the equivalent.
The author then continues to defend why God took on a body. As men became worse and their knowledge of the Creator diminished, the means of salvation needed to correspond to such conditions. Nature (creation) points to the Creator but if that was enough, “then such great evils would never have occurred”.
The Savior of us all, the Word of God, in His great love took to Himself a body and moved as Man among men, meeting their senses, so to speak, half way. He became Himself an object for the senses, so that those who were seeking God in sensible things might apprehend the Father through the works which He, the Word of God, did in the body.
Almost as a sidebar, the author makes a point regarding the immanence and transcendence of God, that despite taking Himself a body He is not limited by it. He still existed in all things and directed the entire universe whilst being “outside the whole” (that is, distinct from creation).
After publicly performing works and miracles to demonstrate that He is God, He died on our behalf, thereby satisfying the “law of death” and giving us a new beginning. The author addresses several common arguments regarding Christ’s death and resurrection.
Most of the objections to Christ’s “accursed” and public death on the Cross are obvious. Nevertheless, it is good that the author covers them.
For example, why didn’t He just get sick and die an old man? One answer is that He who healed others (miraculously) cannot fall sick. Although He can suffer, that is not His nature. More obvious is that if He had died a seemingly ordinary death, then He would seem no different to the rest of us.
Perhaps a more interesting answer is that if He had died in any lesser way, it would be as if He could only overcome a certain type of death.
Death came to His body, therefore, not from Himself but from enemy action, in order that the Savior might utterly abolish death in whatever form they offered it to Him.
As for the crucifixion specifically and why not some other form of execution:
A marvelous and mighty paradox has thus occurred, for the death which they thought to inflict on Him as dishonor and disgrace has become the glorious monument to death’s defeat. Therefore it is also, that 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.
The author then devotes 8 paragraphs to refuting the arguments of the Jews citing or alluding to over fifteen scriptural references, Old Testament prophecies that foretell Christ’s suffering, death by crucifixion, His birth, escape to Egypt, the timing of His birth (the “seventy weeks” mentioned by Daniel), amongst other things. These will not be repeated here for these arguments are “standard”.
As for refuting the arguments of the Gentiles such as the Greeks, the author devotes 15 paragraphs. Addressing the argument that God taking on human nature implies something undignified, St Athanasius points out the inconsistency:
The Greek philosophers say that the universe is a great body, and they say truly, for we perceive the universe and its parts with our senses. But if the Word of God is in the universe, which is a body, and has entered into it in its every part, what is there surprising or unfitting in our saying that He has entered also into human nature?
To the argument as to why God didn’t save humanity “by the mere signification of His will”—that is, by simple command—rather than taking on a body and suffering death, the author points to the change in circumstance:
In the beginning, nothing as yet existed at all; all that was needed, therefore, in order to bring all things into being, was that His will to do so should be signified. But once man was in existence, and things that were, not things that were not, demanded to be healed, it followed as a matter of course that the Healer and Savior should align Himself with those things that existed already, in order to heal the existing evil.
St Athanasius continues the defense of the Incarnation by recounting history in general terms, that Christ and His teachings have led men to abandon their idolatry and that the Name of Christ is the only thing that has the power to consistently drive out demons. (Keep in mind that it was only in recent years that Roman emperor Constantine had converted to Christianity. Christians had been persecuted on and off up until then.)
He does, amongst other things, point out the weakness of the demons that drive their tactics of distraction as well as “divide and conquer”:
It is also no small exposure of the weakness and nothingness of demons and idols, for it was because they knew their own weakness that the demons were always setting men to fight each other, fearing lest, if they ceased from mutual strife, they would turn to attack the demons themselves. For in truth the disciples of Christ, instead of fighting each other, stand arrayed against demons by their habits and virtuous actions, and chase them away and mock at their captain the devil.
This was achieved by Jesus Christ during his lifetime and continues through His Church.
St Athanasius concludes his treatise with a reminder that Christ’s Second Coming will not be like His First Coming:
…no longer in humiliation but in majesty, no longer to suffer but to bestow on us all the fruit of His cross—the resurrection and incorruptibility. No longer will He then be judged, but rather will Himself be Judge, judging each and all according to their deeds done in the body, whether good or ill.
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