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By Archibald Robertson.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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76 Pages (Part II)
Page 40
Lastly, it must again be insisted that in his polemic against Arianism Athanasius is centrally soteriological. It is unnecessary to collect passages in support of what will be fully appreciated only after a thorough study of the controversial treatises. The essence of his position is comprised in his paraphrase of St. Peter's address to the Jews, Orat. ii. 16, sq., or in the argument, ib. 67, sqq., i. 43, and iii. 13. With regard to the Incarnation, it may be admitted that Athanasius uses language which might have been modified had he had later controversies in view. His common use of anthropos for the Manhood of Christ (see below, p. 83) might be alleged by the Nestorian, his comparison of it to the vesture of the High Priest (Orat. i. 47, ii. 8, see note there) by the Apollinarian or Monophysite partisan. But at least his use of either class of expressions shews that he did not hold the doctrine associated in later times with the other. Moreover, while from first to last he is explicitly clear as to the seat of personality in Christ, which is uniformly assigned to the Divine Logos (p. 40, note 2 and reff.), the integrity of the manhood of Christ is no less distinctly asserted (cf. de Incarn. 18. 1, 21. 7). He uses soma and anthropos indifferently during the earlier stages of the conflict, ignoring or failing to notice the peculiarity of the Luciano-Arian Christology. But from 362 onward the full integrity of the Saviour's humanity, sarx and psuche logike or pneuma, is energetically asserted against the theory of Apollinarius and those akin to it [96] (cf. Letters 59 and 60, and c. Apoll.). Some corollaries of this doctrine must now be mentioned.
[96] The doctrine of Athanasius is, not formally but none the less really, the doctrine of Chalcedon, which again stands or falls together with that of Nicaea. Like the latter, it transcends the power of human thought to do more than state it in terms which exclude the (Nestorian and Monophysite) alternatives. The Man Jesus Christ is held to have lacked nothing that constitutes personality in man; the human personality which therefore belongs to it ideally, being in fact merged in the Divine personality of the Son. The 'impersonality,' as it is sometimes called, of Christ qua man is therefore better spoken of as His Divine Personality. Personality and will are correlated but not identical ideas.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/athanasius-life-arianism-2.asp?pg=40
