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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 84 Pages
Page 78
2. But if they are in doubt whether He is God at all, let them reverence Thomas, who handled the Crucified and pronounced Him Lord and God [4784] . Or let them fear the Lord Himself, who said, after washing the feet of the disciples: 'Ye call Me Lord and Master [4785] , and ye say well, for so I am.' But in the same body in which He was when he washed their feet, He also carried up our sins to the Tree [4786] . And He was witnessed to as Master of Creation, in that the Sun withdrew his beams and the earth trembled and the rocks were rent, and the executioners recognised that the Crucified was truly Son of God. For the Body they beheld was not that of some man, but of God, being in which, even when being crucified, He raised the dead. Accordingly it is no good venture of theirs to say that the Word of God came into a certain holy man; for this was true of each of the prophets and of the other saints, and on that assumption He would clearly be born and die in the case of each one of them. But this is not so, far be the thought. But once for all 'at the consummation of the ages [4787] , to put away sin' 'the Word was made flesh [4788] ' and proceeded forth from Mary the Virgin, Man after our likeness, as also He said to the Jews, 'Wherefore seek ye to kill Me, a man that hath told you the truth [4789] ?' And we are deified not by partaking of the body of some man, but by receiving the Body of the Word Himself.
[4784] John xx. 28.
[4785] Ath. quotes John xiii. 13 in this, the order of several mss. and later fathers, both here and elsewhere.
[4786] 1 Pet. ii. 24.
[4787] Heb. ix. 26.
[4788] John i. 14.
[4789] Ib. viii. 40.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/letters-2.asp?pg=78
