On the Incarnation of the Word of God by Saint Athanasius of Alexandria

First transcribed:De incarnatione Verbi Dei, before 325 c.e. (English translation, 1880)

Edition(s) used:Saint Athanasius on the Incarnation: The Treatise “De Incarnatione Verbi Dei.” Rev. ed. Translated and edited by a Religious of Community of Saint Mary the Virgin. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1993

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Didactic treatise; exegesis; theology

Core issue(s): Atonement; Incarnation; Jesus Christ; redemption; sacrifice; union with God

Overview

Saint Athanasius of Alexandria writes that the Redeemer is also the Creator. God became incarnate to redeem fallen humankind and renew all creation. In addition, Christ, the Son of God—the incarnate, redeeming Word—is also the creating Word, who made the universe in the beginning. For the universe is not self-generated nor preexistent as many philosophers think, but was made by God through his Word. It was the fall of humanity, through the exercise of free will, that occasioned God’s response of love in sending his redeeming Word. This response could be thought of as inevitable because of God’s goodness. It was impossible for God to leave humankind declining on a path toward inevitable extinction. Human repentance does not suffice as a means of self-restoration to divine favor. Repentance might stop future sin, but it will not repair the corruption of the race that has already been brought about by previous sins, and the sinner is inclined to return to sin again. For this reason, the Word entered the world.

The Word, who received his humanity from a pure virgin, did not just become embodied but was born and did not just appear but lived, so that by becoming subject to human life and death, he might break the hold that death had over the entire human race, according to Saint Athanasius. Like a king who did not neglect his fair city after it had been attacked by robbers but rather saved and restored it, so has the Word restored the plundered nature of humankind.

The second reason for the Incarnation is that although humans were made in the image of God, through neglect they failed to know their maker and turned instead to worshiping false gods. Humans proved to be still incapable of knowing God by the means God had subsequently sent, the law of Moses, the prophets, and holy men. Therefore it became necessary for the very image of the Father to come and effect the re-creation of humankind.

This coming in the flesh did nothing to change Christ’s nature as God, as the sun is not changed by the contact of its rays with the earth, Saint Athanasius explains. When Christ died in what for the human mind is a paradoxical death, the sun hid its face and the mountains quaked, showing by those miracles that Christ was God. In answer to the question of why, if the one who gave life to all had to die to pay the debt owed by all, he did not choose some private means of dying instead of subjecting himself to a public execution; Saint Athanasius says that no death by sickness, age, or hunger would have sufficed for the one who came to conquer death. Christ accepted the harshest form of death, on the terms of his enemies, to defeat death in all its forms by rising on the third day after his execution. His victory over death is confirmed by his disciples, who are willing to die as martyrs for their faith at the hands of those who hate them, and who scorn death as something no longer to be feared.

Saint Athanasius found further testimony to Christ’s resurrection in his unprecedented influence on the lives of men and women throughout the world, Jew and Gentile alike. If Christ had not been resurrected, how could the pagan gods have been routed from the minds of so many? He noted that the Savior works powerfully in the world and wondered how the Giver of Life could remain dead.

After discussing Christ’s incarnation and victory over death in the Resurrection, Saint Athanasius proceeds to a refutation of nonbelievers. To Jews, Christ is a stumbling block, but their very Scriptures prophesy abundantly about his miraculous birth from a virgin, his death on the cross, and his resurrection. All their prophecy points to Christ and ends with Christ. To Gentiles, Christ is foolishness. They mock Christians but fail to see the folly of their gods and idols. They say that Christians hold to a belief unfitting of a God, namely, that a God would debase himself to enter creation. However, Saint Athanasius writes, if Gentiles listen to their philosophers, who hold that the universe is animated by the divine Logos, they would understand that these philosophers also allow for the presence of God in a material body. Plato himself writes of God having come to rescue the tottering universe. The pagan gods, moreover, are refuted by Christ’s own works and those of his disciples, and the pagan gods, being false gods, are powerless to stop the defection of their former worshipers. Saint Athanasius says if you study the Scriptures yourself, you will learn these things, but know that to understand the Scriptures, a good life and a pure soul are required. You cannot understand without these.

Christian Themes

Saint Athanasius’s On the Incarnation of the Word of God follows his Contra gentes (c. 318, Against the Heathen, 1892). The two works may be regarded as forming a single project, a systematic treatise following an apologetic. Athanasius’s predecessor Origen of Alexandria did the same on a larger scale in Kata Kelsou (248, also known as Contra Celsum; Origen Against Celsus, 1660) and Peri archōn (220-230, also known as De principiis; On First Principles, 1936).

Saint Athanasius maintains the Christological position that eventually defeated Arianism, which considered the divine Logos as a creature of God, begotten as a product of the Father’s will as a medium between the supreme God and creation. Athanasius, maintaining that begetting is an aspect of nature and not will, teaches that the Son possesses the same divine nature as the Father and is equal to the Father. He argues that the incarnation of the Word was absolutely essential for human salvation. There was no other remedy for fallen humankind, which had succumbed to corruption and would eventually have extinguished itself. The redemption of humankind required the Word’s incarnation and death because humans could not escape the corruption, the penalty for sin, on their own. The Word Incarnate restored God’s creation, which had become disoriented by sin, because the indwelling of God the Word in the human body freed it from its natural liability, and the entire human race was freed by Christ’s union with it. Athanasius not only responds to believers’ doubts about the identity of the Redeemer with the Creator-Word but also refutes objections from Jewish and pagan critics of the doctrine of the Incarnation.

Saint Athanasius accounts for the universality of life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, a very particular and concrete historical series of events, by saying that “the common savior of all has died on our behalf.” Christ’s resurrection is the first fruit of the resurrection to come of those who believe in him. Athanasius shows how the birth, life, and death of the Savior Christ is foretold in the Hebrew scriptures. He also incorporates Greek philosophy, not to explore divine nature but to confirm Christian doctrine. The Greeks, he says, especially the Platonists, fail to understand that the invisible and infinite God has indeed entered history and yet remains eternally with his Father, has died but is the Giver of life, and is not only human but also is God the Word. The concluding chapters take up a basic principle of his theology, that understanding these truths requires purity of mind and heart.

Sources for Further Study

Anatolios, Khaled. Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought. New York: Routledge, 1998. This introduction to Athanasius’s life, writings, and theology emphasizes the importance of reading Athanasius on his own terms and not those of later controversies.

Brakke, David. “Athanasius.” In The Early Christian World, edited by Philip F. Esler. New York: Routledge, 2000. Discusses the contribution of Athanasius to the development of the Nicene trinitarian formula. Provides an overview of contemporary scholarly debate on Athanasius.

Pettersen, Alvyn. Athanasius. Harrisburg, Pa.: Morehouse, 1995. Focuses on Athanasius’s key role in the success of the Nicene formula and the defeat of Arianism.

Thomson, Robert W. Athanasius “Contra Gentes” and “De Incarnatione.” Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1971. Provides a new translation of these works together with the Greek text.

Young, Frances M. From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and Its Background. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983. A useful overview of the entire period of the trinitarian and Christological controversies, including the influential role played by Athanasius.