Refutation of the Gentiles by St. Athanasius.
This is also from his book On The Incaranation
St. Athanasius is really writing about the non-Jewish pagans.
In St. Athanasius's world and eyes there were the pagan Jews, the pagan Gentiles and the Christians.
A perfect examples of these pagans in our day can be found in Christiane and some of her friends on the Feelings thread.
St. Athanasius completely demolished their position against Jesus and the Father. Pray that the Lord will open the eyes of any sincered pagan that reads these words.
CHAPTER VII
REFUTATION OF THE GENTILES
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(41) We come now to the unbelief of the Gentiles; and this is indeed a matter for complete
astonishment, for they laugh at that which is no fit subject for mockery, yet fail to see the shame
and ridiculousness of their own idols. But the arguments on our side do not lack weight, so we will
confute them too on reasonable grounds, chiefly from what we ourselves also see.
First of all, what is there in our belief that is unfitting or ridiculous? Is it only that we say that the
Word has been manifested in a body? Well, if they themselves really love the truth, they will agree
with us that this involved no unfittingness at all. If they deny that there is a Word of God at all, that
will be extraordinary, for then they will be ridiculing what they do not know. But suppose they
confess that there is a Word of God, that He is the Governor of all things, that in Elim the Father
wrought the creation, that by His providence the whole receives light and life and being, and that
He is King over all, so that He is known by means of the works of His providence, and through
Him the Father. Suppose they confess all this, what then? Are they not unknowingly turning the
ridicule against themselves? The Greek philosophers say that the universe is a great body, and they
say truly, for we perceive the universe and its parts with our senses. But if the Word of God is in
the universe, which is a body, and has entered into it in its every part, what is there surprising or
unfitting in our saying that He has entered also into human nature? If it were unfitting for Him to
have embodied Himself at all, then it would be unfitting for Him to have entered into the universe,
and to be giving light and movement by His providence to all things in it, because the universe, as
we have seen, is itself a body. But if it is right and fitting for Him to enter into the universe and to
reveal Himself through it, then, because humanity is part of the universe along with the rest, it is no
less fitting for Him to appear in a human body, and to enlighten and to work through that. And
surely if it were wrong for a part of the universe to have been used to reveal His Divinity to men, it
would be much more wrong that He should be so revealed by the whole!
(42) Take a parallel case. A man's personality actuates and quickens his whole body. If anyone
said it was unsuitable for the man's power to be in the toe, he would be thought silly, because,
while granting that a man penetrates and actuates the whole of his body, he denied his presence in
the part. Similarly, no one who admits the presence of the Word of God in the universe as a whole
should think it unsuitable for a single human body to be by Him actuated and enlightened.
But is it, perhaps, because humanity is a thing created and brought into being out of non-existence
that they regard as unfitting the manifestation of the Savior in our nature? If so, it is high time that
they spurned Him from creation too; for it, too, has been brought out of non-being into being by
the Word. But if, on the other hand, although creation is a thing that has been made, it is not
unsuitable for the Word to be present in it, then neither is it unsuitable for Him to be in man. Man is
a part of the creation, as I said before; and the reasoning which applies to one applies to the other.
All things derive from the Word their light and movement and life, as the Gentile authors
themselves say, "In Him we live and move and have our being."[1] Very well then. That being
so, it is by no means unbecoming that the Word should dwell in man. So if, as we say, the Word
has used that in which He is as the means of His self-manifestation, what is there ridiculous in that?
He could not have used it had He not been present in it; but we have already admitted that He is
present both in the whole and in the parts. What, then, is there incredible in His manifesting Himself
through that in which He is? By His own power He enters completely into each and all, and orders
them throughout ungrudgingly; and, had He so willed, He could have revealed Himself and His
Father by means of sun or moon or sky or earth or fire or water. Had He done so, no one could
rightly have accused Him of acting unbecomingly, for He sustains in one whole all things at once,
being present and invisibly revealed not only in the whole, but also in each particular part. This
being so, and since, moreover, He has willed to reveal Himself through men, who are part of the
whole, there can be nothing ridiculous in His using a human body to manifest the truth and
knowledge of the Father. Does not the mind of man pervade his entire being, and yet find
expression through one part only, namely the tongue? Does anybody say on that account that
Mind has degraded itself? Of course not. Very well, then, no more is it degrading for the Word,
Who pervades all things, to have appeared in a human body. For, as I said before, if it were
unfitting for Him thus to indwell the part, it would be equally so for Him to exist within the whole.
(43) Some may then ask, why did He not manifest Himself by means of other and nobler parts of
creation, and use some nobler instrument, such as sun or moon or stars or fire or air, instead of
mere man? The answer is this. The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to
teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been just to
appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not
merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed Him, and to be
manifested according as they could bear it, not vitiating the value of the Divine appearing by
exceeding their capacity to receive it.
Moreover, nothing in creation had erred from the path of God's purpose for it, save only man.
Sun, moon, heaven, stars, water, air, none of these had swerved from their order, but, knowing
the Word as their Maker and their King, remained as they were made. Men alone having rejected
what is good, have invented nothings instead of the truth, and have ascribed the honor due to God
and the knowledge concerning Him to demons and men in the form of stones. Obviously the
Divine goodness could not overlook so grave a matter as this. But men could not recognize Him as
ordering and ruling creation as a whole. So what does He do? He takes to Himself for instrument
a part of the whole, namely a human body, and enters into that. Thus He ensured that men should
recognize Him in the part who could not do so in the whole, and that those who could not lift their
eyes to His unseen power might recognize and behold Him in the likeness of themselves. For,
being men, they would naturally learn to know His Father more quickly and directly by means of a
body that corresponded to their own and by the Divine works done through it; for by comparing
His works with their own they would judge His to be not human but Divine. And if, as they say, it
were unsuitable for the Word to reveal Himself through bodily acts, it would be equally so for Him
to do so through the works of the universe. His being in creation does not mean that He shares its
nature; on the contrary, all created things partake of His power. Similarly, though He used the
body as His instrument, He shared nothing of its defect,[2] but rather sanctified it by His
indwelling. Does not even Plato, of whom the Greeks think so much, say that the Author of the
Universe, seeing it storm-tossed and in danger of sinking into the state of dissolution, takes his seat
at the helm of the Life-force of the universe, and comes to the rescue and putseverything right?
What, then, is there incredible in our saying that, mankind having gone astray, the Word
descended upon it and was manifest as man, so that by His intrinsic goodness and His
steersmanship He might save it from the storm?
(44) It may be, however, that, though shamed into agreeing that this objection is void, the Greeks
will want to raise another. They will say that, if God wanted to instruct and save mankind, He
might have done so, not by His Word's assumption of a body, but, even as He at first created
them, by the mere signification of His will. The reasonable reply to that is that the circumstances in
the two cases are quite different. In the beginning, nothing as yet existed at all; all that was needed,
therefore, in order to bring all things into being, was that His will to do so should be signified. But
once man was in existence, and things that were, not things that were not, demanded to be healed,
it followed as a matter of course that the Healer and Savior should align Himself with those things
that existed already, in order to heal the existing evil. For that reason, therefore, He was made
man, and used the body as His human instrument. If this were not the fitting way, and He willed to
use an instrument at all, how otherwise was the Word to come? And whence could He take His
instrument, save from among those already in existence and needing His Godhead through One
like themselves? It was not things non-existent that needed salvation, for which a bare creative
word might have sufficed, but man--man already in existence and already in process of corruption
and ruin. It was natural and right, therefore, for the Word to use a human instrument and by that
means unfold Himself to all.
You must know, moreover, that the corruption which had set in was not external to the body but
established within it. The need, therefore, was that life should cleave to it in corruption's place, so
that, just as death was brought into being in the body, life also might be engendered in it. If death
had been exterior to the body, life might fittingly have been the same. But if death was within the
body, woven into its very substance and dominating it as though completely one with it, the need
was for Life to be woven into it instead, so that the body by thus enduing itself with life might cast
corruption off. Suppose the Word had come outside the body instead of in it, He would, of
course, have defeated death, because death is powerless against the Life. But the corruption
inherent in the body would have remained in it none the less. Naturally, therefore, the Savior
assumed a body for Himself, in order that the body, being interwoven as it were with life, should
no longer remain a mortal thing, in thrall to death, but as endued with immortality and risen from
death, should thenceforth remain immortal. For once having put op corruption, it could not rise,
unless it put on life instead; and besides this, death of its very nature could not appear otherwise
than in a body. Therefore He put on a body, so that in the body He might find death and blot it
out. And, indeed, how could the Lord have been proved to be the Life at all, had He not endued
with life that which was subject to death? Take an illustration. Stubble is a substance naturally
destructible by fire; and it still remains stubble, fearing the menace of fire which has the natural
property of consuming it, even if fire is kept away from it, so that it is not actually burnt. But
suppose that, instead of merely keeping the fire from it somebody soaks the stubble with a quantity
of asbestos, the substance which is said to be the antidote to fire. Then the stubble no longer fears
the fire, because it has put on that which fire cannot touch, and therefore it is safe. It is just the
same with regard to the body and death. Had death been kept from it by a mere command, it
would still have remained mortal and corruptible, according to its nature. To prevent this, it put on
the incorporeal Word of God, and therefore fears neither death nor corruption any more, for it is
clad with Life as with a garment and in it corruption is clean done away.
(45) The Word of God thus acted consistently in assuming a body and using a human instrument to
vitalize the body. He was consistent in working through man to reveal Himself everywhere, as well
as through the other parts of His creation, so that nothing was left void of His Divinity and
knowledge. For I take up now the point I made before, namely that the Savior did this in order
that He might fill all things everywhere with the knowledge of Himself, just as they are already filled
with His presence, even as the Divine Scripture says,
"The whole universe was filled with the knowledge of the Lord."[3]
If a man looks up to heaven he sees there His ordering; but if he cannot look so high as heaven,
but only so far as men, through His works he sees His power, incomparable with human might,
and learns from them that He alone among men is God the Word. Or, if a man has gone astray
among demons and is in fear of them, he may see this Man drive them out and judge therefrom
that He is indeed their Master. Again, if a man has been immersed in the element of water and
thinks that it is God--as indeed the Egyptians do worship water--he may see its very nature
changed by Him and learn that the Lord is Creator of all. And if a man has gone down even to
Hades, and stands awestruck before the heroes who have descended thither, regarding them as
gods, still he may see the fact of Christ's resurrection and His victory over death, and reason from
it that, of all these, He alone is very Lord and God.
For the Lord touched all parts of creation, and freed and undeceived them all from every deceit.
As St. Paul says,
"Having put off from Himself the principalities and the powers, He triumphed on the
cross,"[4]
so that no one could possibly be any longer deceived, but everywhere might find the very Word of
God. For thus man, enclosed on every side by the works of creation and everywhere--in heaven,
in Hades, in men and on the earth, beholding the unfolded Godhead of the Word, is no longer
deceived concerning God, but worships Christ alone, and through Him rightly knows the Father.
On these grounds, then, of reason and of principle, we will fairly silence the Gentiles in their turn.
But if they think these arguments insufficient to confute them, we will go on in the next chapter to
prove our point from facts. |
