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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 130 Pages
Page 15
69. Again, if the Son were a creature, man had remained mortal as before, not being joined to God; for a creature had not joined creatures to God, as seeking itself one to join it [2680] ; nor would a portion of the creation have been the creation's salvation, as needing salvation itself. To provide against this also, He sends His own Son, and He becomes Son of Man, by taking created flesh; that, since all were under sentence of death, He, being other than them all, might Himself for all offer to death His own body; and that henceforth, as if all had died through Him, the word of that sentence might be accomplished (for 'all died [2681] ' in Christ), and all through Him might thereupon become free from sin and from the curse which came upon it, and might truly abide [2682] for ever, risen from the dead and clothed in immortality and incorruption. For the Word being clothed in the flesh, as has many times been explained, every bite of the serpent began to be utterly staunched from out it; and whatever evil sprung from the motions of the flesh, to be cut away, and with these death also was abolished, the companion of sin, as the Lord Himself says [2683] , 'The prince of this world cometh, and findeth nothing in Me;' and 'For this end was He manifested,' as John has written, 'that He might destroy the works of the devil [2684] .' And these being destroyed from the flesh, we all were thus liberated by the kinship of the flesh, and for the future were joined, even we, to the Word. And being joined to God, no longer do we abide upon earth; but, as He Himself has said, where He is, there shall we be also; and henceforward we shall fear no longer the serpent, for he was brought to nought when he was assailed by the Saviour in the flesh, and heard Him say, 'Get thee behind Me, Satan [2685] ,' and thus he is cast out of paradise into the eternal fire. Nor shall we have to watch against woman beguiling us, for 'in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the Angels [2686] ;' and in Christ Jesus it shall be 'a new creation,' and 'neither male nor female, but all and in all Christ [2687] ;' and where Christ is, what fear, what danger can still happen?
[2680] De Decr. 10.
[2681] 2 Cor. v. 14.
[2682] diameinosin, S:63, n. 8; S:73, Gent. 41, Serm. Maj. de Fid. 5.
[2683] John xiv. 30. echei t. rec. heuriskei Ath. et al.
[2684] 1 John iii. 8.
[2685] Matt. xvi. 23.
[2686] Mark xii. 25.
[2687] Gal. vi. 15; iii. 28.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians-2.asp?pg=15
