In Chapter 6, St. Athanasius gives many proofs from logic and from Scripture regarding the truth of the timing of the Jewish Messiah's Incarnation, His earthly ministry, His death, and His Resurrection. He shows that the only arguments of the Jews amount to nothing more than ridicule and deception.

(Reminder: There are many, many Scripture references in the corresponding Chapter 6 of the essay by Athanasius. If you click on any footnote number, it takes you to the end of the chapter in the essay, where you can point to the scripture reference and read it. To return to where you were reading, simply press the footnote number of the reference, or press "Alt" and the "left-Arrow" key.)

From the very first book of the Old Testament and onwards, there are literally dozens of prophecies about the coming Messiah, the Deliverer: in biblia02/vz01/Bytie03.htm#15" target="xrefs" title="Double-click">Genesis 3:15, the Lord said to the serpent - "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He [the Messiah] will bruise your [Satan's] head, and you will bruise his heel." And when God told Abram to get up and go from his home in Haran, He promised Abram - "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. In you all of the nations of the earth will be blessed" (biblia02/vz01/Bytie12.htm#3" target="xrefs" title="Double-click">Genesis 12:3).

In Chapter 6 of On the Incarnation of the Word, Athanasius then lists Old Testament Scripture text after text - to prove that Jesus is the Jewish "Messiah," the "Christ" in Greek, which means the "Anointed One" of the Jews, Who would be a blessing to all nations of the earth.

Question:
1. Look up the footnote '38' for the quotation, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name 'Emmanuel,' which means 'God is with us.'" Which OT prophet foretold this?
(Only one of the following answers is correct.)
a) Hezekiah
b) Isaiah
c) Ezekiel

 



Athanasius next lists several more OT Scriptures. Then in paragraph (34) "Moreover, the Scriptures are not silent..." he quotes some verses from Isaiah ch. 53 about the Messiah's death: "A man that is afflicted and knows how to bear weakness, for His face is turned away. He was dishonored and not considered, He bears our sins and suffers for our sakes. And we for our part thought Him distressed and afflicted and ill-used; but it was for our sins that He was wounded and for our lawlessness that He was made weak. Chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His bruising we are healed" (biblia02/vz23/Isaia53.htm#3" target="xrefs" title="Double-click">Isaiah 53:3-5).

You might wonder why this quotation sounds different than what you may be accustomed to hear in most English translations. Athanasius is quoting from the Greek Septuagint, translated in the second century B.C., that used Hebrew and Aramaic source texts which are earlier than those the Western Bible uses. In the tenth century A.D., Jewish rabbis revised their Scriptures to obfuscate many references to Jesus because they had rejected Him as their Messiah and destroyed most of the older Hebrew manuscripts. Because the Protestant Reformers wanted to return to the "original Hebrew language," Luther and later Bible translators used this Jewish OT from the tenth century AD that also left out several "deuterocanonical" books which are in the Septuagint and Orthodox Bibles today.

Athanasius next quotes another OT Scripture: "For all we have strayed like sheep, man has strayed from his path, and the Lord has given Him up for our sins; and He Himself did not open His mouth at the ill-treatment. Like a sheep He was led to slaughter, and as a lamb is dumb before its shearer, so He opened not His mouth; in His humiliation His judgment was taken away."

Question:
2. Look up the footnote '45' - where does this quotation come from?

 



In paragraph "(35) You have heard the prophecy of His death..." Athanasius lists some OT texts that refer to the Cross: "You shall see your Life hanging before your eyes, and shall not believe."47 The Orthodox Study Bible has this: "Your Life shall hang before your eyes; and you shall fear day and night, and you will not believe in your Life." But look at biblia02/vz05/Vtoroz28.htm#66" target="xrefs" title="Double-click">Deuteronomy 28:66 in a Western Bible - quite different!

One of the Psalms is very prophetic about the Messiah's death. It states - "They pierced My hands and My feet, they counted all My bones, they divided My garments for themselves and cast lots for My clothing" (biblia02/vz19/Psalom022.htm#16">Psalm 21(22):16-18).

Question:
3. Athanasius says a death that occurs on wood when the body is lifted up with the hands and feet pierced can be none other than...
(Only one of the following answers is correct.)
a) death by hanging.
b) death by guillotine.
c) death by crucifixion.

 



Now let's go on to the next paragraph, "(36) Then, again, what king that ever was..." - and look at the line of reasoning by St. Athanasius: What king ever was recognized as ruler by foreign powers even before he was born? The Jewish kings Joash and Josiah assumed the throne at about age seven. But the Wise Men from the East saw Christ's star and were journeying to Israel to see Him possibly even from March 25th, the Annunciation to Mary!

Athanasius next writes - "on whom the nations are to set their hopes," referring obliquely to biblia02/vz23/Isaia42.htm#1">Isaiah 42:1-4 (see biblia02/nz01/Matfei12.htm#21">Matthew 12:21) without mentioning the source: this shows us how much his mind was filled with Scripture! Foreign rulers do not lightly set their hope on a king who has conquered them by force of arms, they normally regard the conqueror "with implacable hostility." But on Jesus they have set their hope as the only power to keep their world from falling apart. How much is this needed today!

Question:
4. "Did any of the holy prophets or of the early patriarchs die on the cross for the salvation of all? Was any of them wounded and killed for the healing of all? Did the idols of Egypt fall down before any righteous man or king that came there?"
yes / no.

 



"(37) Again, does Scripture tell of anyone..." - in this paragraph we see again that Athanasius understands "Scripture" to be the Old Testament: that was his whole Bible! Nobody in the OT "was pierced in hands and feet or hung upon a tree at all" - why? Because crucifixion hadn't been invented yet!

And why does Athanasius write - "Who shall declare of what lineage He comes?" Don't we have the lineage of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke? The point Athanasius is making is that OT prophets and kings traced their lineage through their fathers' lines. But Jesus had no earthly father, so Matthew writes - "Jacob became the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus who is called Christ"(biblia02/nz01/Matfei01.htm#15">Matthew 1:16), not that Joseph became His father, like "Matthan became the father of Jacob" and in all the preceding verses. And Luke gives the genaeology of Mary, not of Joseph! This is why John 3:16 calls Jesus God's "only begotten Son": only He is eternally begotten of the Father; we become God's children by adoption (biblia02/nz13/Rimlia08.htm#15">Romans 8:15).

Next, Athanasius writes - "He it is Who won victory from His demon foes and trophies from the idolaters even before His bodily appearing — namely, all the heathen who from every region have abjured the tradition of their fathers and the false worship of idols and are now placing their hope in Christ and transferring their allegiance to Him." Try to imagine being in the time of Athanasius: the Greco-Roman Empire had just been converted from paganism to Christianity under Emperor Constantine. Athanasius was living in Egypt, part of that empire which had just switched from false worship of sun and moon to the worship of the Jews' Messiah, the Christ. Look up and read this article: The Sun was Darkened from the Sixth to the Ninth Hour, implying that there was a solar eclipse on the Day of the Messiah's Crucifixion, with the bright side of the moon facing the sun and blocking its light, making the sun appear dark to observers on Earth and leaving the dark side of the moon facing Earth.

Only one problem with this: astronomers calculated all of the solar eclipses, and there wasn't one anywhere near Jerusalem in any year within decades of Christ's crucifixion. So beware of sectarian nonsense on the internet! The darkness might have been a heavy cloud covering, similar to the cloud accompanying Israel in the wilderness during their Exodus from Egypt.

Question:
5. What Scriptures is Athanasius referring to when he writes - "He it is Who was crucified with the sun and moon as witnesses"?

 



Now look at paragraph "(38) Yet the Jews disbelieve this." The Lord told Moses to establish Passover on the 14th day of Nisan, the first month on the Jewish "lunar" calendar, meaning each month begins with a full moon. The moon takes 14 days, half of its orbit around Earth, to move from "behind" the Earth when we see the full face of the moon, to between the Earth and the sun. God caused a supernatural darkening of the sun and moon, possibly an uncheduled solar-and-lunar eclipse, on the terrible Day of His Son's crucifixion, "Yet the Jews disbelieve this." Athanasius is amazed at this, and so are we... but "doubters gotta doubt" - there will always be people who refuse to believe. How sad!

Next, Athanasius quotes from biblia02/vz23/Isaia65.htm#1">Isaiah 65:1-2, which says - "I was made manifest to those who did not seek Me, I was found by those who had not asked for Me..."

Question:
6. Who are the "I" and "those" [people] that Athanasius is referring to here?
(Only one of the following answers is correct.)
a) Moses and the Egyptians.
b) Jeremiah and the Babylonians.
c) Jesus and the Gentiles.

By the way, Athanasius writes about the "stammerers" being healed: there aren't any such healings in the OT, but read biblia02/nz02/Mark07.htm#31">Mark 7:31-36 - Jesus healed the stammerer!

 



Let's move on to paragraph "(39) But surely they cannot fight..." where Athanasius brings up one of the most frequent objections of the Jews, which is that they acknowledge many of the OT texts as referring to the Messiah, but they say that he hasn't come yet and they are still waiting for him. To refute this argument of the Jews, Athanasius points out Daniel's prophecy of "Seventy weeks" from Daniel's time to when the Lord will "make a complete end of sin and for sins to be sealed up and iniquities blotted out," etc.

The Hebrew language often uses "week" to mean "seven years," so (7 "weeks" + 62 "weeks") x 7 "days," that is, years = 483 years from Daniel's time to Christ's crucifixion: biblia02/vz27/Daniil09.htm#24">Daniel 9:24-26, where Daniel mentions "the Anointed One, the prince", the Messiah, "the Holy One of holies" being cut off. Then in 70 AD Jerusalem was destroyed. The 7 remaining "days," that is, years, of the 70 weeks are mentioned in the NT book of Revelation.

Question:
7. What is your reaction when you read about all these prophecies being fulfilled in Jesus?

 



In our final paragraph of this chapter, "(40) So the Jews are indulging in fiction" Athanasius quotes from biblia02/vz01/Bytie49.htm#10">Genesis 49:10 - "A ruler shall not fail from Judah nor a prince from his loins, until the things laid up for him shall come and the Expectation of the nations Himself." This is another amazing prophecy about the Messiah's coming, at which time there will be no more rulers from Judah because the Romans destroyed the capital and renamed the whole country.

John the Baptizer was the last of the prophets. Then Jesus appeared, was crucified and rose again, and the Gentiles began forsaking idols, as Athanasius mentioned earlier and reminds us again, and placing their faith in the God of Israel Who had come in the flesh, Incarnate. Athanasius then lists even more OT prophecies that were fulfilled in Jesus, the Messiah: look them up!

Question:
8. Do you believe that Athanasius has sufficiently proved his case, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ?
yes / no.

 

That's it for today! See you in the next lesson!