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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 63
60. (9.) Moreover the words 'He is become surety' denote the pledge in our behalf which He has provided. For as, being the 'Word,' He 'became flesh [2188] ' and 'become' we ascribe to the flesh, for it is originated and created, so do we here the expression 'He is become,' expounding it according to a second sense, viz. because He has become man. And let these contentious men know, that they fail in this their perverse purpose; let them know that Paul does not signify that His essence [2189] has become, knowing, as he did, that He is Son and Wisdom and Radiance and Image of the Father; but here too he refers the word 'become' to the ministry of that covenant, in which death which once ruled is abolished. Since here also the ministry through Him has become better, in that 'what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh [2190] ,' ridding it of the trespass, in which, being continually held captive, it admitted not the Divine mind. And having rendered the flesh capable of the Word, He made us walk, no longer according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, and say again and again, 'But we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,' and, 'For the Son of God came into the world, not to judge the world, but to redeem all men, and that the world might be saved through Him [2191] .' Formerly the world, as guilty, was under judgment from the Law; but now the Word has taken on Himself the judgment, and having suffered in the body for all, has bestowed salvation to all [2192] . With a view to this has John exclaimed, 'The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ [2193] .' Better is grace than the Law, and truth than the shadow.
[2188] John i. 14.
[2189] S:45, note.
[2190] Rom. viii. 3.
[2191] John iii. 17.
[2192] Vid. Incarn. passim. Theod. Eranist. iii. pp. 196-198, &c. &c. It was the tendency of all the heresies concerning the Person of Christ to explain away or deny the Atonement. The Arians, after the Platonists, insisted on the pre-existing Priesthood, as if the incarnation and crucifixion were not of its essence. The Apollinarians resolved the Incarnation into a manifestation, Theod. Eran. i. The Nestorians denied the Atonement, Procl. ad Armen. p. 615. And the Eutychians, Leont. Ep. 28, 5.
[2193] John i. 17.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians.asp?pg=63
