AGAINST THE HEATHEN, earth, and things in the heaven to things in the air, and combining parts into wholes and moving them all by His beck and will, pro- duces well and fittingly, as the result, the unity of the universe and of its order, Himself remaining unmoved with the Father while He moves all things by His organising action, as seems good for each to His own Father. 4. For what is surprising in His godhead is this, that by one and the same act of will He moves all things simultaneously, and not at intervals, but all collectively, both straight and curved, things above and beneath and intermediate, wet, cold, warm, seen and invisible, and orders them according to their several nature. For simultaneously at His single nod what is straight moves as straight, what is curved also, and what is intermediate, follows its own move- ment; what is warm receives warmth, what is dry dryness, and all things according to their several nature are quickened and organ- ised by Him, and He produces as the result a marvellous and truly divine harmony.
$ 43. Three similes to illustrate the Word's relation to the Universe.
And for so great a matter to be understood by an example, let what we are describing be compared to a great chorus. As then the chorus is composed of different people, children, women again, and old men, and those who are still young, and, when one, namely the con- ductor, gives the sign, each utters sound ac- cording to his nature and power, the man as a man, the child as a child, the old man as an old man, and the young man as a young man, while all make up a single harmony; 2. or as our soul at one time moves our several senses according to the proper function of each, so that when some one object is present all alike are put in motion, and the eye sees, the ear hears, the hand touches, the smell takes in odour, and the palate tastes,—and often the other parts of the body act too, as for instance if the feet walk; 3. or, to make our meaning plain by yet a third example, it is as though a very great city were built, and administered under the presence of the ruler and king who has built it; for when he is present and gives orders, and hashis eye upon everything, all obey; some busy themselves with agriculture, others hasten for water to the aqueducts, another goes forth to procure provisions,—one goes to senate, another enters the assembly, the judge goes to the bench, and the magistrate to his court. The workman likewise settles to his craft, the sailor goes down to the sea, the car- penter to his workshop, the physician to his treatment, the architect to his building; and 27 while one is going to the country, another is returning from the country, and while some walk about the town others are going out of the town and returning to it again: but all this is going on and is organised by the presence of the one Ruler, and by his management: 4. in like manner then we must conceive of the whole of Creation, even though the example be inadequate, yet with an enlarged idea. For with the single impulse of a nod as it were of the Word of God, all things simultaneously fall into order, and each discharge their proper functions, and a single order is made up by them all together.
$44. The similes applied to the whole Universe, seen and unseen, For by a nod and by the power of the Divine Word of the Father that governs and presides over all, the heaven revolves, the stars move, the sun shines, the moon goes her cir- cuit, and the air receives the sun’s light and the ether his heat, and the winds blow: the mountains are reared on high, the sea is rough with waves, and the living things in it grow, the earth abides fixed, and bears fruit, and man is formed and lives and dies again, and all things whatever have their life and movement; fire burns, water cools, fountains spring forth, rivers flow, seasons and hours come round, rains descend, clouds are filled, hail is formed, snow and ice congeal, birds fly, creeping things go along, water-animals swim, the sea is navi- gated, the earth is sown and grows crops in due season, plants grow, and some are young, some ripening, others in their growth become old and decay, and while some things are vanishing others are being engendered and are coming to light. 2. But all these things, and more, which for their number we cannot mention, the worker of wonders and marvels, the Word of God, giving light and life, moves and orders by His own nod, making the uni- verse one. Nor does He leave out of Himself even the invisible powers; for including these also in the universe inasmuch as he is their maker also, He holds them together and quickens them by His nod and by His provi- dence. And there can be no excuse for dis- believing this. 3. For as by His own providence bodies grow and the rational soul moves, and possesses life and thought, and this requires little proof, for we see what takes place,—so again the same Word of God with one simple nod by His own power moves and holds to- gether both the visible universe and the invis- ible powers, allotting to each its proper func- tion, so that the divine powers move in a di- viner way, while visible things move as they are 28 seen to do. But Himself being over all, both Governor and King and organising power, He does all for the glory and knowledge of His own Father, so that almost by the very works that He brings to pass He teaches us and says, “‘ By the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the maker of them is seen 7.”
$45. ConcLusion. Doctrine of Scripture on the subject of Part i.
For just as by looking up to the heaven and seeing its order and the light of the stars, it is possible to infer the Word Who ordered these things, so by beholding the Word of God, one needs must behold also God His Father, proceeding from Whom He is rightly called His Father’s Interpreter and Messenger. 2. And this one may see from our own experience; for if when a word proceeds from men ® we infer that the mind is its source, and, by think- ing about the word, see with our reason the mind which it reveals, by far greater evidence and incomparably more, seeing the power of the Word, we receive a knowledge also of His good Father, as the Saviour Himself says, “ He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father 2%.” But this all inspired Scripture also teaches more plainly and with more authority, so that we in our turn write boldy to you as we do, and you, if you refer to them, will be able to verify what we say. 3. For an argument when confirmed by higher authority is irresistibly proved. From the first then the divine Word firmly taught the Jewish people about the abolition of idols when it said‘: ‘* Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in the heaven above or in the earth beneath.” But the cause of their abolition another writer declares”, saying: ‘‘ The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the works of men’s hands: a mouth have they and will not speak, eyes have they and will not see, ears have they and will not hear, noses have they and will not smell, hands have they and will not handle, feet have they and will not walk.” Nor has it passed over in silence the doctrine of creation; but, knowing well its beauty, lest any attending solely to this beauty should worship things as if they were gods, instead of God’s works, it teaches men firmly beforehand when it says3: “ And do not when thou lookest up with thine eyes and seest the sun and moon and all the host of heaven, go astray and worship them, which the Lord thy God hath given to all nations under heaven.” But He gave them, not to be their gods, but that by their agency 7 Wisd. xiii. 5.
8 Cf. de Sent. Dionys. 23. 2X XX 4s 9 Joh. xiv. 9.
3 Deut. iv. 19.
CONTRA GENTES.
the Gentiles should know, as we have said, God the Maker of them all. 4. For the people of the Jews of old had abundant teaching, in that they had the knowledge of God not only from the works of Creation, but also from the divine Scriptures. And in general to draw men away from the error and irrational imagin- ation of idols, He saith+: “Thou shalt have none other gods but Me.” Not as if there were other gods does He forbid them to have them, but lest any, turning from the true God, should begin to make himself gods of what were not, such as those who in the poets and writers are called gods, though they are none. And the language itself shews that they are no Gods, when it says, ‘‘Thou shalt have none other gods,” which refers only to the future. But what is referred to the future does not exist at the time of speaking.
§ 46. Doctrine of Scripture on the subject of Part 3.
Has then the divine teaching, which abol- ished the godlessness of the heathen or the idols, passed over in silence, and left the race of mankind to go entirely unprovided with the knowledge of God? Not so: rather it antici- pates their understanding when it says5: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God;” and again, ‘“‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy strength;” and again, “ Thou shalt wor- ship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve, and shalt cleave to Him.” 2. But that the providence and ordering power of the Word also, over all and toward all, is attested by all inspired Scripture, this passage suffices to confirm our argument, where men who speak of God say ®: ‘Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth and it abideth. The day con- tinueth according to Thine ordinance.” And again 7: “Sing to our God upon the harp, that covereth the heaven with clouds, that pre- pareth rain for the earth, that bringeth forth grass upon the mountains, and green herb for the service of man, and giveth food to the cattle.” 3. But by whom does He give it, save by Him through Whom all things were made? For the providence over all things belongs naturally to Him by Whom they were made; and who Js this save the Word of God, concerning Whom in another psalm & he says: ‘“‘ By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the Breath of His mouth.” For He tells us that all things were made in Him and through Him.
4. Wherefore He also persuades us and says 9, 5), 6 Ps, cxix. go. Ps. xxxiii. 6.
9 Ps. cxlviii. 5.
AGAINST THE HEATHEN.
29 He spake and they were made, He com- manded and they were created;” as the illus- trious Moses also at the beginning of his ac- count of Creation confirms what we say by his narrative’, saying: and God said, “let us make man in our image and after our likeness:” for also when He was carrying out the creation of the heaven and earth and all things, the Father said to Him 2, ‘‘ Let the heaven be made,” and “let the waters be gathered together and let the dry land appear,” and “let the earth bring forth herb” and “ every green thing: ” so that one must convict Jews also of not genuinely attending to the Scriptures. one might ask them to whom was God speak- ing, to use the imperative mood? If He were commanding and addressing the things He was creating, the utterance would be redundant, for they were not yet in being, but were about to be made; but no one speaks to what does not exist, nor addresses to what is not yet made a command to be made. For if God were giving a command to the things that were to be, He must have said, “‘ Be made, heaven, and be made, earth, and come forth, green herb, and be created, O man.” But in fact He did not do so; but He gives the command thus: Let us make man,” and “let the green herb come forth.” By which God is proved to be speaking about them to some one at hand: it follows then that some one was with Him to Whom He spoke when He made all things. 6. Who then could it be, save His Word? For to whom could God be said to speak, except His Word? Or who was with Him when He made all created Existence, except His Wis- dom, which says3: “When He was making the heaven and the earth I was present with Him?” But in the mention of heaven and earth, all created things in heaven and earth are included as well. 7. But being present with Him as His Wisdom and His Word, looking at the Father He fashioned the Universe, and organised it and gave it order; and, as He is the power of the Father, He gave all things strength to be, as the Saviour says +: “ What things soever I see the Father doing, I also do in like manner.” And His holy disciples teach that all things were made “through Him and unto Him;” 8. and, being the good Offspring of Him that is good, and true Son, He is the Father’s Power and Wisdom and Word, not being so by participation 5, nor as if these qualities were imparted to Him from without, as they are to those who partake of 5 petoxy, cf. de Syn. 48, 51, 53- This was held by Arians, but in common with Paul Samos. and many of the Monarchian heretics. ‘The same principle in Orig. on Ps. 135 (Lomm. xiii. 134) ov Kara eTOVGaY GAG KaT ovalay Beds.
Him and are made wise by Him, and receive power and reason in Him; but He is the very Wisdom, very Word, and very own Power of the Father, very Light, very Truth, very Right- eousness, very Virtue, and in truth His express Image, and Brightness, and Resemblance. And to sum all up, He is the wholly perfect Fruit of the Father, and is alone the Son, and un- changing Image of the Father.
$47. Necessity of a return to the Word if our corrupt nature ts to be restored.
Who then, who can declare the Father by number, so as to discover the powers of His Word? For like as He is the Father’s Word and Wisdom, so too condescending to created things, He becomes, to impart the knowledge and apprehension of Him that begat Him, His very Brightness and very Life, and the Door, and the Shepherd, and the Way, and King and Governor, and Saviour over all, and Light, and Giver of Life, and Providence over all. Hav- ing then such aSon begotten of Himself, good, and Creator, the Father did not hide Him out of the sight of His creatures, but even day by day reveals Him to all by means of the or- ganisation and life of all things, which is His work. 2. But in and through Him He reveals Himself also, as the Saviour says ®: “TI in the Father and the Father in Me:” so that it follows that the Word is in Him that begat Him, and that He that is begotten lives eter- nally with the Father. But this being so, and nothing being outside Him, but both heaven and earth and all that in them is being depen- dent on Him, yet men in their folly have set aside the knowledge and service of Him, and honoured things that are not instead of things that are: and instead of the real and true God deified things that were not, “serving the crea- ture rather than the Creator 7,” thus involving themselves in foolishness and impiety. 3. For it is just as if one were to admire the works more than the workman, and being awestruck at the public works in the city, were to make light of their builder, or as if one were to praise a musical instrument but to despise the man who made and tuned it. Foolish and sadly disabled in eyesight! For how else had they known the building, or ship, or lyre, had not the ship-builder made it, the architect built it, or the musician fashioned it? 4. As then he that reasons in such a way is mad, and beyond all madness, even so affected in mind, I think, are those who do not recognise God or worship His Word, our Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour of all, through Whom the Father orders, and 30 CONTRA GENTES.
holds together all things, and exercises provi-| For just as for them who walk after His dence over the Universe; having faith and|example, the prize is life everlasting, so for piety towards Whom, my Christ-loving friend, | those who walk the opposite way, and not that be of good cheer and of good hope, because | of virtue, there is great shame, and peril with- immortality and the kingdom of heaven is the| out pardon in the day of judgment, because fruit of faith and devotion towards Him, if only | although they knew the way of truth their acts the soul be adorned according to His laws. | were contrary to their knowledge.
INR OOUCTION TO) THES TREATISE ON THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD.
THE tract ‘against the Gentiles’ leaves the reader face to face with the necessity of restoration by the Divine Word as the remedy for corrupt human nature. How this necessity is met in the Incarnation is shewn in the pages which follow. The general design of the second tract is to illustrate and confirm the doctrine of the Incarnation by shewing (1) its necessity and end, (2) the congruity of its details, (3) its truth, as against the objections of Jews and Gentiles, (4) its result. He begins by a review (recapitulating « Gent. 2—7) of the doctrine of creation and of man’s place therein. The abuse by man of his special Privilege had resulted in its loss. By foregoing the Divine Life, man had entered upon a course of endless undoing, of progressive decay, from which none could rescue him but the original bestower of his life (2—7). Then follows a description in glowing words of the Incarnation of the Divine Word and of its efficacy against the plague of corruption (8—10). With the Dzvine Life, man had also received, in the knowledge of God, the conscious reflex of the Divine Likeness, the faculty of reason in its highest exercise. This knowledge their moral fall dimmed and perverted. Heeding not even the means by which God sought to remind them of Himself, they fell deeper and deeper into materialism and superstition. To restore the effaced likeness the presence of the Original was requisite. Accordingly, condescending to man’s sense-bound intelligence—lest men should have been created in vain in the Image of God—the Word took Flesh and became an object of Sense, that through the Seen He might reveal the Invisible (11—16).
Having dwelt (17—19) upon the meaning and purpose of the Incarnation, he proceeds to speak of the Death and Resurrection of the Incarnate Word. He, Who alone could renew the handiwork and restore the likeness and give afresh the knowledge of God, must needs, in order to pay the debt which all had incurred (16 mapa mdvrov dpeddpevor), die in our stead, offering the sacrifice on behalf of all, so as to rise again, as our first-fruits, from the grave (20—32, note especially § 20). After speaking of the especial fitness of the Cross, once* the instrument of shame, now the trophy of victory, and after meeting some difficulties con- nected with the manner of the Lord’s Death, he passes to the Resurrection. He shews how Christ by His triumph over the grave changed (27) the relative ascendancy of Death and Life: and how the Resurrection with its momentous train of consequences, follows of ne- cessity (31) from the Incarnation of Him in Whom was Life.
The two main divisions of contemporary unbelief are next combated. In either case the root of the difficulty is moral; with the Greeks it is a frivolous cynicism, with the Jews, inveterate obstinacy. The latter (33—40) are confuted, firstly, by their own Scriptures, which predict both in general and in detail the coming of Jesus Christ. Also, the old Jewish polity, both civil and religious, has passed away, giving place to the Church of Christ.
Turning to the Greeks (41—45), and assuming that they allow the existence of a per- 32 INTRODUCTION TO THE TREATISE ON THE vading Spirit, whose presence is the sustaining principle of all things, he challenges them to reject, without inconsistency, the Union of that Spirit, the Logos (compare St. Augustine Conf. VII. ix.), with one in particular of the many constituents of that Universe wherein he already dwells. And since man alone (43. 3) of the creatures had departed from the order of his creation, it was man’s nature that the Word united to Himself, thus repairing the breach between the creature and the Creator at the very point where it had occurred.
God did not restore man by a mere fiat (44) because, just as repentance on man’s part (7) could not eradicate his disease, so such a fiat on God’s part would have amounted to the annihilation of human nature as it was, and the creation of a fresh race. Man’s definite disorder God met with a specific remedy, overcoming death with life. Thus man has been enabled once: more to shew forth, in common with the rest of Creation, the handiwork and glory of his Maker..
Athanasius then confronts the Greeks, as he had the Jews, with facts. Since the coming of Christ, paganism, popular and philosophic, had been falling into discredit and decay. The impotence and rivalries of the philosophic teachers, the local and heterogeneous character, the low moral ideals of the old worships, are contrasted with the oneness and inspiring power of the religion of the Crucified. Such are the two, the dying and the living systems; it remains for him who will to taste and see what that life is which is the gift of Christ to them that follow Him (46—end).
The purpose of the tract, in common with the contra Gentes, being to commend the religion of Christ to acceptance, the argument is concerned more with the Incarnation as a living fact, and with its place in the scheme of God’s dealing with man, than with its analysis as a theological doctrine. He does not enter upon the question, fruitful of controversy in the previous century at Alexandria, but soon to burst forth into furious debate, of the Sonship of the Word and of His relation to God the Father. Still less does he touch the Christo- logical questions which arose with the decline of the Arian tempest, questions associated with the names of Apollinarius, Theodore, Cyril, Nestorius, Eutyches, Theodoret, and Dios- corus. But we feel already that firm grasp of soteriological principles which mark him out as the destined conqueror of Arianism, and which enabled him by a sure instinct to anticipate unconsciously the theological difficulties which troubled the Church for the century after his death. It is the broad comprehensive treatment of the subject in its relation to God, human nature, and sin, that gives the work its interest to readers of the present day. In strong reaction from modern or medieval theories of Redemption, which to the thoughtful Christian of to-day seem arbitrary, or worse, it is with relief that men find that from the beginning it was not so; that the theology of the early Church interpreted the great Mystery of godliness in terms which, if short of the fulness of the Pauline conception, are yet so free from arbitrary assumptions, so true to human nature as the wisest of men know it, so true to the worthiest and grandest ideas of God (see below, p. 33 ad fin.). The de Incarnatione, then, is perhaps more appreciated in our day than at any date since the days of its writer.
It may therefore be worth while to devote a word or two to some peculiarities incidental to its aim and method. We observe first of all how completely the power of the writer is absorbed in the subject under discussion. It is therefore highly precarious to infer anything from his silence even on points which might seem to require explanation in the course of his argument. Not a word is said of the doctrine of the Trinity, nor of the Holy Spirit; this directly follows from the purpose of the work, in accordance with the general truth that while the Church preaches Christ to the World, the Office and Personality of the Spirit belongs to her inner life. The teaching of the tract with regard to the constitution of man is another case in point. It might appear (§ 3, cf. rz. 2, 13. 2) that Athanasius ascribed the reasonable soul of man, and his immortality after death, not to the constitution of human nature as such, but to the grace superadded to it by the Creator (4 rod kar’ elxéva ydpis), INCARNATION OF THE WORD. 33 a grace which constituted men Aoyicoi (3. 4) by virtue of the power of the Logos, and which, if os Jorfeited by sin, involved the privilege of immortality. We have, then, to carefully consider whether Athanasius held, or meant to suggest, that man is by nature, and apart from union with God, (1) rational, or (2) immortal. If we confine our view to the treatise before us, there would be some show of reason in answering both questions in the negative; and with regard to immortality this has been recently done by an able correspondent of Z%e Times (April 9, 1890).
But that Athanasius held the essential rationality and immortality of the soul is abso- lutely clear, if only from ¢. Gent. 32 and 33. We have, then, to find an explanation of his language in the present treatise. With regard to immortality, it should be observed (x) that the language employed (in 4. 5, where xevaOjvat rod eivar dei is explained by 76 8:adv- Oévras pévery ev tS Bavaro kai th Odpa) suggests a continued condition, and therefore something short of annihilation, although not worthy of the name of existence or life,—(2) that even in the worst of men the image of God is defaced, but not effaced (14. 1, &c.), and that even when grace is lost (7. 4), man cannot be as though the contact with the divine had never taken place;—(3) that in this work, as by St. Paul in 1 Cor. xv., the final destiny of the wicked is passed over (but for the general reference 56. 3) in silence. It may be added (4) that Athanasius puts together a// that separates man from irrational creatures without clearly drawing the line between what belongs to the natural man and what to the kar’ exdva ydpis. The subject of eschatology is nowhere dealt with in full by Athanasius; while it is quite certain (c. Gent. 33) that he did not share the inclination of some earlier writers (see D.C.B. ii. p. 192) toward the idea of conditional immortality, there is also no reason to think that he held with the Uni- versalism of Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and others (see Migne, Patr. Gr. xxvii. p. 1404 A, also 1384 C, where ‘the unfortunate Origen’s’ opinions seem to be rejected, but with an implied deprecation of harsh judgment). As to his view of the essential rationality of man (see ¢. Gent. 32) the consideration (4) urged above once more applies (compare the discussion in Harnack, Dg. ii. 146 sqq.). Yet he says that man left to himself can have no idea of God at all (11. 1), and that this would deprive him of any claim to be considered a rational being (ib. 2). The apparent inconsistency is removed if we understand that man may be rational potentially (as all men are) and yet not rational in the sense of exercising reason (which is the case with very many). In other words, grace gives not the faculty itself, but its integrity, the latter being the result not of the mere psychological existence of the faculty, but of the reaction upon it of its highest and adequate object. (The same is true to a great extent of the doctrine of zvedpa in the New Testament.)