After refuting the objections frequently brought up by the Jews, St. Athanasius now turns to objections brought up by the Gentiles, that is, non-Jews - mainly the Greek-speaking people of the Greco-Roman Empire who considered themselves to be the peak of civilization. He writes: "they laugh at that which is no fit subject for mockery" -- mockery and ridicule are often used in arguments when opponents can't come up with any substantive, logical reasons for their objections. Habit is very strong in human behavior: it's hard to change habits! And yet, the Greeks for several centuries, since the time of Plato, had in their philosophical system the concept of the "Logos" - the Word - as the force that governs all things: "there is a Word of God, that He is the Governor of all things" and created everything. Many Bible scholars claim that the Greeks borrowed this idea from the Hebrew concept of "Wisdom" (see biblia02/vz20/Pritch08.htm#1">Proverbs ch. 8).

Question:
1. See the Gospel of biblia02/nz04/Ioann01.htm#1">John 1:1-14 - how did the Apostle John make use of the Greek concept of the "Logos", the Word, in explaining Who Jesus was?

 



Now let's look at paragraph "(42) Take a parallel case." A man's "personality" (or "person" - the soul) animates the whole body, so it would be foolish to say that it doesn't animate the toe. In the same way, the Logos, the soul of the cosmos, can animate a single human body that is part of the cosmos. Also, if the Greeks believe that the Logos brought the cosmos - everything that now exists - from non-being into being and holds it all together, it can't be unfitting that the Logos brought into being and indwells a special man. [Note that in Athanasius' day, many Christians didn't differentiate between the Word and the Holy Spirit as to which of them caused Mary to conceive. That came in 381 A.D., decades after Athanasius' death, when the Person of the Holy Spirit was clarified in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.] Then Athanasius and Luke quote one of the Greek poet-philosophers: "In Him we live and move and have our being" [from Aratus’s Phaenomena] (biblia02/nz05/Deania17.htm#28">Acts 17:28). Along with the Apostle John, both St. Paul and St. Athanasius could make use of Greek concepts to show that Jesus is not only the Jewish Messiah, but also the fulfilment of Greek philosophy.

In this paragraph, Athanasius differentiates between the Logos and things that are made: this is a crucial distinction because Arianism taught that Christ was a created being, not the pre-eternal Logos. Further, he writes - "He sustains in one whole all things at once" - obliquely referring to St. Paul's letter to the Colossians, biblia02/nz19/Koloss01.htm#16">ch 1:16-17. Then Anthanasius writes - "Does not the mind of man pervade his entire being, and yet find expression through one part only, namely the tongue?"

Question:
2. Where does a word (logos) mainly come from, at least in Athanasius' day?
(Only one of the following answers is correct.)
from a handwritten document.
from our tongue.
from a computer screen or speakers.

 



Athanasius makes an important point in paragraph "(43) Some may then ask": why didn't Christ come booming down from heaven like a star or a comet? Wouldn't that have made quite an impression on all of humanity? Why did He come as a little baby? Think about our human nature and our free will: if He had come "just to appear and dazzle the beholders" - what would be left of our free will? It would be totally stupid for someone not to believe in Him! God created us with a free will, so He will not override our freedom.

Although Jesus performed many miracles, He still left room for people to doubt and disbelieve. There will always be doubters and skeptics - that's not evidence of God's failure to convince them; just the opposite: it is proof that God respects their moral freedom. He didn't create us as robots. All the rest of creation: sun, moon, stars, water, air, etc. obey His command. Only mankind has the ability to accept or reject Him, to worship objects of His creation rather than the Creator Himself.

"So what does He do? He takes to Himself for instrument a part of the whole, namely a human body, and enters into that." Amazing! He allows us the freedom to recognize Him in one born as a little baby by a teenage girl who got pregnant out of wedlock (so the Pharisees accused Him: see biblia02/nz04/Ioann08.htm#40">John 8:41). And yet, He overcame their arguments by His miracles, brilliant parables and sharp repartees. Still, "doubters gotta doubt" - He left room for their skepticism and opposition, even to the point of allowing them to arrest, torture, and crucify Him.

Thus Athanasius does not blame the Jews any more than he blames the Gentiles, because both have rejected Him as the incarnate Word of God. The Early Church Fathers were not anti-Semitic, as some accuse them of being: they defended the faith equally from all those, both Jews and Gentiles, who argued against Jesus Christ being fully man and fully divine Son of God. In our modern world, we must stand up against the skepticism and secular materialism that denies the existence of God and the deity of Christ.

Question:
3. In the section "Thus He ensured that men ... might recognize and behold Him in the likeness of themselves", what arguments does Athanasius make?
(One or more of the following answers may be correct.)
By seeing the miraculous works done by Jesus, men would judge Him to be not Divine, but human.
Men would learn to know God by seeing Him in a body like theirs.
Jesus being in creation means that He shares a created nature like other objects.
Although He used a human body as His instrument, He did not share human defects.

 



In the following paragraph, "(44) It may be, however," Athanasius mentions another objection by the Gentiles: why couldn't God simply express ("signify") His will to mankind that He wanted to heal them? Of course, God did precisely that, speaking to Israel through Moses and the prophets, but they disregarded, imprisoned, and even killed those spokesmen for God. If all that were needed is for God to express His will, why wouldn't we humans simply obey? Because we are stubborn and as dumb as a rock! The healer must take on our human nature in order for us to possibly see the difference between God's ideal for us and our present fallen condition that is "in process of corruption and ruin."

The corruption in our human nature is not something external to our bodies, but bound up in our defective genetic code. We are born with a sentence of death pronounced on us: our bodies will grow old and wear out if they don't first succumb to disease and decay by bacteria and viruses: witness the current pandemic! Death is "within the body, woven into its very substance and dominating it as though completely one with it," so the need is "for Life to be woven into it instead." The incarnate Word could and did expel death in a few individuals: He raised Jairus' daughter, the widow's son, and Lazarus from the dead. But this was not enough: He needed to excise death from human nature by trampling down death by His own death and resurrection.

Question:
4. Using the analogy of stubble and fire, Athanasius says:
(Select the best answer.)
Stubble will succumb to fire even if it is soaked with asbestos.
Stubble no longer fears fire because it has put on what fire cannot touch.
The body is kept from death and is made immortal by a mere command.

When our body has put on Christ, the Life, it no longer fears death or corruption, for it is clothed with Life!

 



The incarnate, Living Word used a body - "a human instrument" - to revive back to life our mortal bodies: paragraph "(45) The Word of God thus...." This enables us to experience "what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know Christ's love which surpasses knowledge" (biblia02/nz17/Efesia03.htm#18">Ephesians 3:18-19) and thus "The whole universe will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord" (biblia02/vz23/Isaia11.htm#9">Isaiah 11:9), as Athanasius quotes that Old Testament prophet.

He summarizes Christ's victory as a Man over demons, over the false gods of the Egyptians, and those Greek hero gods who have descended into Hades, showing Christ's victory over death by His resurrection. All of these are proofs that "He alone is very Lord and God."

Question:
5. How can one possibly be any longer deceived by the devil, because...
(One or more of the following answers may be correct.)
we can find the very Word of God everywhere.
we see the works of His creation in the heavens, in Hades, in men, and on the earth.
we can behold the revealed Godhead of the Word in Jesus Christ.
we are no longer deceived, but rather we worship Christ alone.

 


 

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