On the Incarnation by Athanasius - Pt. 1

A reader's commentary

I like to read classics and so I thought it might be interesting to share my thoughts as I read through this short book of theology. I’m hoping that this might be interesting to you who don’t want to read the book but might want to know more about it. I’m also hoping that there might be some pearls of wisdom that will make it worth your time to read these posts. This isn’t a book review or book study but just my spontaneous response to the text. Let me know if this is something you appreciate or not.

At first glance, I LOVE how short this book is - just 110 pages and almost half of that is the introduction (48 pages)! Ok, I really HATE when the editor (or translator) thinks they have as much (or more) to say than the author! Do lengthy introductions bother anyone else? I just skipped it - it looked pretty boring. But I did grab a couple of interesting facts before I quit reading - Athanasius lived from 299 - 373 AD and was the bishop of Alexandria. While he was bishop he was exiled five times!

I know that was a pretty tumultuous time in the church with all the different heresies arising and the leadership trying to come to some agreement on doctrinal issues like the nature of Jesus and the Trinity. So, this book is pretty influential and dates back to the 4th century.

Let’s dive in. The full title is On the Incarnation of the Word and his Manifestation to us through the Body. So we are talking about when the Word was made flesh in the person of Jesus, or when God came down to earth in the form of Jesus. My guess is that the author will want to tell us exactly what he thinks about the nature of Jesus because I know that was a hot topic back then. Even today there are people who speculate on the nature of Jesus, who don’t accept the Nicene formulation:

One Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one being with the Father.

There are so many questions surrounding this amazing phenomenon. How much of Jesus is God and how much is human? Is it 50/50? Or 100/100? How did God cram all of that God-ness into a mere human body? Anyway, let’s see what Athanasius has to say about this.

I do like how this text is easily readable. I don’t know if that is due to the the author or the translator, but it is pretty easy to read.

I like these phrases: “the Savior has worn a body” and “the Father appeared to us in a human body.” He wants to go back to the beginning and explain why the Incarnation was necessary. Should be interesting!

He scoffs at those who say “that all things have come into being spontaneously and as by chance” - he’s talking to you evolutionary biologists! His counter argument is that the diversity and order of creation shows the hand of the Creator. He quotes Genesis, The Shepherd of Hermas and the Book of Hebrews as evidence.

I had never heard of the Shepherd of Hermas before but apparently it is an early 2rd century book that some considered as part of the canon, before the canon had been firmly established. Interesting!

I have always wondered about the canon and its formation. Do you think that some books which were written at the same time as our Scriptures are worth studying? I mean we already study the writings of the church fathers and we take into consideration the writings of the Rabbis in their commentary on the Hebrew scriptures. Certainly the extra-biblical writings, such as the books of the Apocrypha (which some consider to be Scripture), the Dead Sea Scrolls (containing some of the oldest Christian writings) and the Nag Hammadi (including the Gospel of Thomas) are worthy of our consideration. Are they as valuable or authoritative as our canonical Scripture? Probably not, but definitely worth reading and carefully considering.

“For God is good, or rather the source of all goodness, and one who is good grudges nothing, so that grudging nothing its existence, he made all things through his own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ.”

After Creation Athanasius talks about how God made human beings “not simply like all the irrational animals upon the earth” but also “by giving them a share of the power of his own Word, so that having as it were shadows of the Word and being made rational, they might be able to abide in blessedness, living the true life.”

Oh how God tried to endow his Creation with goodness! Of course we know that humans were not able to “abide in blessedness” even while they contained “shadows of the Word” within.

How does Athanasius describe the Fall?

He states that God gave them a law. If they transgressed, or turned away, they would “know themselves enduring the corruptibility of death according to nature.” So, he proposes that humans at first were granted “incorruptibility” as long as they followed the law. Meaning that as long as they did what God told them they would live pain-free immortal lives. As we know, they disobeyed and exposed themselves and their descendants to “corruptibility”, or suffering and death.

It is interesting to see that he asserts that God was protecting the humans at first, granting them security in Paradise, allowing them to eat of the Tree of Life. By transgression, or sin, the layer of protection was removed and they became subject to the laws of Nature, like the other animals. Though, presumably, the gift of a “share of the power” of the Word still remained and kept them separate from the other animals.

I guess I always thought of it like there was NO death in the world at all and then Sin brought Death, but it makes more sense this way. There was a whole world outside the walls of Paradise and as the first humans are expelled from those protective walls they are exposed to the same Natural Law that ruled the world and obviously, so would their descendants. Which means also, that Original Sin is not like some disease we inherit, but it’s just the way the world IS outside the Garden. It sounds like a very tiny difference, but to me, that brings clarity to something I have been confused about for quite some time.

Already this is worth my time!

Next, he explains that it was this sin that triggered the Incarnation. God created us and hated to see us corrupted. So he sent the Word to save us, as Athanasius states, “it will appear not at all contradictory if the Father works its salvation in the same one by whom it created it.”

Some things he mentions that I find interesting:

1. “Evil is non-being, the good is being, since it has come…from…God”

2. “Human beings, turning away from things eternal and…turning towards things of corruption, were themselves the cause of corruption in death.”

3. humans escape “their natural state by the grace of participation in the Word.”

4. “from the beginning they were the inventors of evil and called death and corruption down upon themselves; while later, turning to vice and exceeding all lawlessness, not stopping at one evil but contriving in time every new evil, they became insatiable in sinning.”

5. “it was improper that that what had once been made rational and partakers of his Word should perish, and once again return to non-being through corruption.”

Humans, it seems, chose sin, rejected the law and God’s protection. In that transgression they exposed themselves to the natural world where suffering and death resides. For whatever reason, humans continued in sin, increased their evil deeds to such an extent that they were in danger of perishing. God did not want to see his lovely creation perish so he sent his son to save them.

He quotes the Book of Wisdom several times, this is an Apocryphal book also known as the Wisdom of Solomon.

Along with the danger of “perishing” apparently human also faced a danger of returning to “non-being through corruption.” Earlier he said that evil is “non-being” and that is very intriguing to me because we often say that God is good and God is the source of all Being (or Ground of all Being) and so it’s not just a battle between good and evil but Being and non-Being. It is as if the world is “unmade” through evil. The world is imbued with God’s goodness and Divine order - evil apparently returns everything to a chaotic state.

God had no choice but to save Creation, he could not allow humans to destroy it. There was no question of letting it be undone, God could not let it be destroyed.

So it would have to be saved.

Athanasius writes that the “God Word who in the beginning made the universe” would be the one “to bring the corruptible to incorruptibility” and “recreate the universe.”

I love this idea of re-creation. Jesus, the Word of God, created the world and once humans messed it up - he re-created it!

Now he starts talking about the Incarnation itself.

One interesting thing he highlights is that through the Incarnation, God comes into our realm, but God is already here! Listen to how Athanasius describes it: “For no part of creation is left void of him, while abiding with his own Father, he has filled all things in every place.”

God didn’t come down from Heaven to Earth to be with us - already the earth is filled with Divine Presence, but instead he “condescended” to our mortal, fragile, corruptible state of being. It is more like Jesus changed forms from Divine to mortal and let us see him. He created his body as a Temple and dwelt in it. Then he offered the Body to the Father. Doing so, “the incorruptible Son of God consequently clothed all with incorruptibility.” He restored our protective shield. But instead of our whole living area (the Garden) being safe, only people are safe now - the world is still corruptible, subject to decay and moral failings.

I hope he will talk later on about why some people don’t accept this and therefore are not saved - or whatever he believes about this. Because I believe that Jesus came to save all humans, whether they like it or not, whether they accept it or not. I’m just not sure how this works. I have a feeling that somehow you must choose to repent or confess, but lots of theologians say that humans are not able to turn themselves, that they need God’s grace. So will God save everyone or only some? And why? Let me know what you think!