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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 46
43. Behold then what men considered the foolishness of God because of the Cross, has become of all things most honoured. For our resurrection is stored up in it; and no longer Israel alone, but henceforth all the nations, as the Prophet hath foretold, leave their idols and acknowledge the true God, the Father of the Christ. And the illusion of demons is come to nought, and He only who is really God is worshipped in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ [2059] . For the fact that the Lord, even when come in human body and called Jesus, was worshipped and believed to be God's Son, and that through Him the Father was known, shows, as has been said, that not the Word, considered as the Word, received this so great grace, but we. For because of our relationship to His Body we too have become God's temple, and in consequence are made God's sons, so that even in us the Lord is now worshipped, and beholders report, as the Apostle says, that God is in them of a truth [2060] . As also John says in the Gospel, 'As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become children of God [2061] ;' and in his Epistle he writes, 'By this we know that He abideth in us by His Spirit which He hath given us [2062] .' And this too is an evidence of His goodness towards us that, while we were exalted because that the Highest Lord is in us, and on our account grace was given to Him, because that the Lord who supplies the grace has become a man like us, He on the other hand, the Saviour, humbled Himself in taking 'our body of humiliation [2063] ,' and took a servant's form, putting on that flesh which was enslaved to sin [2064] . And He indeed has gained nothing from us for His own promotion: for the Word of God is without want and full; but rather we were promoted from Him; for He is the 'Light, which lighteneth every man, coming into the world [2065] .' And in vain do the Arians lay stress upon the conjunction 'wherefore,' because Paul has said, 'Wherefore, hath God highly exalted Him.' For in saying this he did not imply any prize of virtue, nor promotion from advance [2066] , but the cause why the exaltation was bestowed upon us. And what is this but that He who existed in form of God, the Son of a noble [2067] Father, humbled Himself and became a servant instead of us and in our behalf? For if the Lord had not become man, we had not been redeemed from sins, not raised from the dead, but remaining dead under the earth; not exalted into heaven, but lying in Hades. Because of us then and in our behalf are the words, 'highly exalted' and 'given.'
[2059] [De Incar. S:S:46, 51, &c.]
[2060] ontos en humin ho theos. 1 Cor. xiv. 25. Athan. interprets en in not among; as also in 1 John iii. 24, just afterwards. Vid. en emoi. Gal. i. 24. entos humon, Luke xvii. 21, eskenosen en hemin, John i. 14, on which text Hooker says, 'It pleased not the Word or Wisdom of God to take to itself some one person among men, for then should that one have been advanced which was assumed and no more, but Wisdom, to the end she might save many, built her house of that Nature which is common unto all; she made not this or that man her habitation, but dwelt in us.' Eccl. Pol. v. 52. S:3. S. Basil in his proof of the divinity of the Holy Spirit has a somewhat similar passage to the text, de Sp. S. c. 24.
[2061] John i. 12.
[2062] 1 John iii. 24.
[2063] Phil. iii. 21.
[2064] It was usual to say against the Apollinarians, that, unless our Lord took on Him our nature, as it is, He had not purified and changed it, as it is, but another nature; 'The Lord came not to save Adam as free from sin, that He should become like unto him; but as, in the net of sin and now fallen, that God's mercy might raise him up with Christ.' Leont. contr. Nestor. &c. ii. p. 996. Accordingly, Athan. says elsewhere, 'Had not sinlessness appeared [cf. Rom. viii. 3, pempsas] "in the nature which had sinned," how was sin condemned in the flesh?' in Apoll. ii. 6. 'It was necessary for our salvation,' says S. Cyril, 'that the Word of God should become man, that human flesh "subject to corruption" and "sick with the lust of pleasures," He might make His own; and, "whereas He is life and lifegiving," He might "destroy the corruption," &c....For by this means, might sin in our flesh become dead.' Ep. ad Success. i. p. 138. And S. Leo, 'Non alterius naturae erat ejus caro quam nostra, nec alio illi quam caeteris hominibus anima est inspirata principio, quae excelleret, non diversitate generis, sed sublimitate virtutis.' Ep. 35 fin. vid. also Ep. 28. 3. Ep. 31. 2. Ep. 165. 9. Serm. 22. 2. and 25. 5. It may be asked whether this doctrine does not interfere with that of the immaculate conception [i.e. that Christ was conceived sinless]; but that miracle was wrought in order that our Lord might not be born in original sin, and does not affect, or rather includes, His taking flesh of the substance of the Virgin, i.e. of a fallen nature. If indeed sin were 'of the substance' of our fallen nature, as some heretics have said, then He could not have taken our nature without partaking our sinfulness; but if sin be, as it is, a fault of the will, then the Divine Power of the Word could sanctify the human will, and keep it from swerving in the direction of evil. Hence 'We say not that Christ by the felicity of a flesh separated from sense could not feel the desire of sin, but that by perfection of virtue, and by a flesh not begotten through concupiscence of the flesh, He had not the desire of sin;' Aug. Op. Imperf. iv. 48. On the other hand, S. Athanasius expressly calls it Manichean doctrine to consider ten phusin of the flesh hamartian, kai ou ten praxin. contr. Apoll. i. 12 fin. or phusiken einai ten hamartian. ibid. i. 14 fin. His argument in the next ch. is on the ground that all natures are from God, but God made man upright nor is the author of evil (vid. also Vit. Anton. 20); 'not as if,' he says, 'the devil wrought in man a nature (God forbid!) for of a nature the evil cannot be maker (demiourgos) as is the impiety of the Manichees, but he wrought a bias of nature by transgression, and 'so death reigned over all men.' Wherefore, saith he, 'the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil;' what works? that nature, which God made sinless, and the devil biassed to the transgression of God's command and the finding out of sin which is death, did God the Word raise again, so as to be secure from the devil's bias and the finding out of sin. And therefore the Lord said, "The prince of this world cometh and findeth nothing in Me."' vid. also S:19. Ibid. ii. 6. he speaks of the devil having 'introduced the law of sin.' vid. also S:9.
[2065] John i. 9.
[2066] prokopes 'internal advance,' Luke ii. 52.
[2067] eugenous
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