St Athanasius the Great LETTERS, Part II, Complete

Translated by Cardinal Newman.

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Page 11

4. Why therefore do we tarry, and why do we delay, and not come with all eagerness and diligence to the feast, trusting that it is Jesus who calleth us? Who is all things for us, and was laden in ten thousand ways for our salvation; Who hungered and thirsted for us, though He gives us food and drink in His saving gifts [4421] . For this is His glory, this the miracle of His divinity, that He changed our sufferings for His happiness. For, being life, He died that He might make us alive, being the Word, He became flesh, that He might instruct the flesh in the Word, and being the fountain of life, He thirsted our thirst, that thereby He might urge us to the feast, saying, 'If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink [4422] .' At that time, Moses proclaimed the beginning of the feast, saying, 'This month is the beginning of months to you [4423] .' But the Lord, Who came down in the end of the ages [4424] , proclaimed a different day, not as though He would abolish the law, far from it, but that He should establish the law, and be the end of the law. 'For Christ is the end of the law to every one that believeth in righteousness;' as the blessed Paul saith, 'Do we make void the law by faith? far from it: we rather establish the law [4425] .' Now these things astonished even the officers who were sent by the Jews, so that wondering they said to the Pharisees, 'No man ever thus spake [4426] .' What was it then that astonished those officers, or what was it which so affected the men as to make them marvel? It was nothing but the boldness and authority of our Saviour. For when of old time prophets and scribes studied the Scriptures, they perceived that what they read did not refer to themselves, but to others. Moses, for instance, 'A prophet will the Lord raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; to him hearken in all that he commands you.' Isaiah again, 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and ye shall call his name Emmanuel [4427] .' And others prophesied in different and various ways, concerning the Lord. But by the Lord, of Himself, and of no other, were these things prophesied; to Himself He limited them all, saying, 'If any man thirst, let him come to Me [4428] '--not to any other person, but to 'Me.' A man may indeed hear from those concerning My coming, but he must not henceforth drink from others, but from Me.

[4421] Cf. supr. p. 88.

[4422] John vii. 37.

[4423] Exod. xii. 2.

[4424] Heb. ix. 26.

[4425] Rom. x. 4; iii. 31.

[4426] John vii. 46.

[4427] Deut. xviii. 15; Is. vii. 14. These two texts are also quoted together in Orat. i. S:54.

[4428] John vii. 37.

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