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Copyright Antony Thorpe 2013

Essay submitted as part of Graduate Diploma of Theology at Charles Sturt University.

Based on chapters 2-5 of Athanasius, On the Incarnation write an essay of
approximately 2000 words that critically assesses how 'Jesus saves' in Athanasius'
Christology?
In your answer you will need to demonstrate an understanding of the major
developments in the theology of the person and work of Jesus Christ leading up to
and including the Patristic period.






Like a stone of the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe.

Bruce Cockburn

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For the Christians of the early church, getting the story about Jesus correct was a task
that spans many centuries. It could be said that even today, the debate about Jesus
continues, with various people having rather different perceptions of who and what he
was. The New Testament gospel writers were mainly concerned with identifying
Jesus as the Messiah of Israel. The writers of the epistles, especially Paul, explained
how this proclamation applied to Gentiles as well. Today the incarnation of the divine
Word in the human person of Jesus remains an enigmatic topic of conversation.
Discussion continues as well about the nature of salvation. This essay examines
these issues through the lens of writing by Athanasius. Athanasius, writing in the 4
th

century during a time of ongoing debate about the nature of Jesus, contributed
immensely towards what the church understands now as the doctrine of incarnation,
as well as the salvation story that is woven into our understanding of the incarnation.

During the times of the church fathers, the understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ
developed as people tried to make sense of it in terms of philosophical categories that
were quite different in significant ways from those concerns on the writers of the New
Testament. Through the second and third centuries different understandings were
formed as this process took place. Their big challenge, of course, was to do so in a
way that recognised the foundations of the writing of the apostles and gospel writers
during the beginning years of the Christian faith.

One early view that quickly disappeared was that of Ebionitism, which proposed that
Jesus was merely an ordinary human being. The opposite point of view was that Jesus
only seemed human but was really totally divine. This view is known as Docetism
and was popular with 2
nd
century Gnostics (McGrath, p. 356). Irenaeus was one of the
early church leaders who built up a strong refutation to the claim that Jesus was
actually divine but only had the appearance of being human (Spence, pp. 17 - 20).
Other developments included the thought of Justin Matyr who sought to develop a
Logos Christology and showed how the ultimate fulfilment of concepts in Greek
philosophy was to be found in Christianity (McGrath, pp. 356 - 357). Origen
developed a Christology which emphasised that the eternal Word (Logos) was
coeternal though subordinate to the Father (McGrath, 2001, p. 357)

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The presence of these views is an indicator that there remained great difficulties for
many people to hold the view of a person who was both fully human and fully divine.
This brief survey brings us to the time of Athanasius and Arius in Alexander during
the early 4
th
century. Arius, whose concerns to preserve the unity of God the as Father
and the son as a created being rather than as the Word coexisting with the Father, was
at the centre of a controversy in the church at Alexandria for a period of some sixty
years. (Spence, 2008, p. 26).

Athanasius was important for his response to Arius and the teaching about the
Incarnation that became so formative for the church from the 4
th
century until today.
Solidarity with humanity by incarnation of the eternal Word in human form is a vital
motif in his writings. For example, noting how totally corrupt human life and human
nature had become, God was driven to make this response thorough the incarnation,
All this He saw and, pitying our race, moved with compassion for our
limitation, unable to endure that death should have the mastery, rather than that
His creatures should perish and the work of His Father for us men come to
nought, He took to Himself a body, a human body even as our own. Nor did He
will merely to become embodied or merely to appear; had that been so, He
could have revealed His divine majesty in some other and better way. No, He
took our body, and not only so, but He took it directly from a spotless, stainless
virgin, without the agency of human fathera pure body, untainted by
intercourse with man. (Athanasisus, p. 7)
His full humanity means that he did not take humanity as a kind of outside covering
over the inner reality of being divine. This would have been close to docetism. Rather,
his very person took on human life as His form of being. This human body of Jesus
itself became the point at which the Word could be known.

The New Testament writers, often referred to by Athanasius, were also concerned
with the humanity of Jesus. In the beginning of the gospel of Matthew, there is an
extensive geneaology of Jesus (Matthew 1:1 - 17). The final verse about the different
eras of fourteen generations hints that a sense of order is pointing to a divine plan
behind a human life. The genaeology places the person of Jesus in a quite human,
although particular, context. This was the son of Jospeh and Mary, not a superbeing
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who fell to Earth from a dying civilisation on a distant world and was raised by
human parents.

These concerns with the divine and human nature of the person Jesus are also woven
in the other New Testament writings, several of which were written prior to the
gospels. In writing to the Phillipians, (2:5-8) Paul tenderly describes the movement of
God in Christ though he was in the form of God emptied himself, taking the
form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. The incarnation could be
considered as a mirror image of the movement of creation, where humanity is
invested with the image of God. Here in Jesus we have the move from God granting
humans to bear His image, to offering himself in the likeness of humanity, taking on
their vulnerability.

Hence this human life in which the Word came to dwell became the point at which the
Word was able to engage in solidarity with humanity. This notion of solidarity was
particularly important for not only the doctrine of the person of Jesus according to
Athanasius but also for the work of salvation. In fact we do not have a grand scheme
of philosophical consideration of the divine and human nature of Jesus by Athanasius,
but rather a set of teachings that is based in the actions and purpose of God in Jesus:
He has been manifested in a human body for this reason only, out of the love and
goodness of His Father, for the salvation of us men.(Athanasius, p. 2) Anatolios
(2008, p. 37) also emphasizes this as the central to our faith.

This manifestation was vital to Athanasius in opposing the argument of Arius that
Jesus the Christ was not co-eternal with the Father, but was a created being although
ranking somewhere about other created beings. (McGrath 2001, p. 358; Spence, 2008,
p. 27) Athanasius would have been familiar with scripture for the divine nature of
Christ as well as His humanity. The writers of the gospels indicate much about these
matters. In particular, the prologue to Johns gospel is quite clear in describing the
divinity of the Word in the person of Jesus, And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, full of grace and truth. We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son
from the Father. (John 1:14)

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Similarly, in Pauls letter church at Colossae (Colossians 2:19), he emphasised the
divine nature of Jesus. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and
through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in
heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. There are other passages
that could be discussed but these selections show a very clear conception on the part
of the early church that the person of Christ was both human and divine.

Solidarity is the motif used in order to describe the way that the dwelling of the
Word within one human life and overcoming death in that body, has the result that
death become powerless over the remainder of humanity. In this way the writing of
Athanasius reflects the kind of way that that Christians live in Christ (Romans 6:23;
12:5; 1 Corinthians 15:22; etc) and with Christ (Romans 8:17; Galatians 2:20; etc).
There is therefore an intimacy and a unity between the actions of Jesus, his death and
resurrection, and what these things mean to humanity. For the solidarity of mankind
is such that, by virtue of the Words indwelling in a single human body, the corruption
with goes with death has lost its power over all (Athanasius, p. 8) The one action of
Jesus death and resurrection therefore affects all.

In other places through his writing, Athanasius continues to emphasise how this
offering is not just the offering of a single person but in some way takes all of
humanity with it. After describing how he surrendered his body to death Thus taking
a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death..,
Athanasius notes, This he did our of sheer love for us, so that in his death all might
die, and the law of death thereby be abolished. (p. 7). In this way the
consequences of corruption for our death have been overcome. Athanasius thus
reflects the teaching of Paul if One died on behalf of all, then all died (2 Corinthians
5:14). This leads us to think about the manner and methodology of salvation.

A vital aspect of salvation according to Athanasius manifests in the way that the
language of how salvation takes place. The term substitute is used occasionally
within the text. It could be quite easy, given that many of us were taught about
Christianity through the models of penal substitution, to take a certain perspective
when this work occurs in the writing of Athanasius. Meyer (1998, p. 150) has
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suggested that Athanasius anticipated Anselm by writing of a sacrifice to propitiate
sin. However, for Anatolios, there is little sense in the work of Athanasius that Jesus
was a substitute victim (2008, p. 40). Rather, Athanasius describes that way that,
being both divine and human, Jesus offering and sacrifice (Athanasius, p. 8) was
not just a replacement for us, but substituted for us to accomplish in his death what
humanity could not do by itself, due to the corruption that had come to dominate.
Death did not come as punishment but rather so that the salvation from the cross
would overcome the power of death. He accepted death at the hands of men, thereby
to destroy it in His own body. (Athanasius, p. 18) And so, Athanasius description
about the way that Jesus means salvation for us is expressed in the concept of
offering. It was by surrendering to death the body which he had taken, as an offering
and sacrifice free from every strain, that he forthwith abolished death (Athanasius, p.
8) By overcoming death, there was a way open for humanity to experience the
original communion intended during creation through the act of a self-giving god
rather than a god seeking to punish for sin.

A powerful result of the salvation that resulted from the death of the cross was that
changed status of death for humanity. It was not that death was simply something that
He experienced because of His humanity, but rather death was transformed because of
the one who went through such a death. This changed status of death became one of
the ways that Athanasius gave evidence for the reality of salvation. The attitude
towards death has so radically changed, especially in the life of the disciples, that it is
inevitable that something very real had happened to the status of death (Athanasius, p.
21) This being so, the way has been opened to regain our fellowship with God.

While some aspects of Christianity today have tended to emphasise an otherworldly
aspect, Athanasius and other people of importance to early developments of theology
did not dismiss the world of everyday experience so quickly. They saw the world as
the locus of Gods action, Not even His birth from a virgin, therefore, changed him in
any way, nor was He defiled by being in the body. Rather, He sanctified the body by
being in it. (Athanasius, p. 14) The sanctification of the body is another way of
emphasising that creation and salvation are one in Jesus. Athanasius sets the stage for
his story about salvation in Jesus Christ by outlining the importance of creation right
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at the beginning of his work. Firstly he explains, There is thus no inconsistency
between creation and salvation for the one Father has employed the same Agent for
both works (p. 2) Later he builds the case for salvation as being the reworking of
creation (p.12) The Word of God came in His own Person, because it was He alone,
the image of the Father Who could recreate man made after the image.

Christian faith and teaching faced many challenges in the first centuries as now. It is
still bewildering at times to consider one person who was fully divine and fully
human, especially when your philosophical categories tend to separate these domains.
The centuries in which the Church Fathers were establishing their theology were quite
turbulent, as they were also grappling with the scriptures. Athanasius came at a time
when what people thought of Jesus could have taken a very different path (Spence,
2008, p. 27). He strengthened the understanding of humanity and divinity in Jesus
from scriptures and also outlined the effective salvation that was gained through the
cross and the resurrection. Furthermore, his work shows people today that salvation
and the world that God created are deeply intertwined in the story of God and His
people. Creation matters! Once, at a synod meeting, the question was asked by a
layperson, What does this word incarnation mean? There is a real reason for people
to keep reading Athanasius!




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References

Anatolios, K (2008) Athanasius Christology today: the life, death, and
resurrection of Christ in On the incarnation in Martens, P (Ed) In the shadow
of the incarnation: essay on Jesus Christ in the early church in honor of Brian
Daley, S.J. Retrieved from ebrary.

Athanasius, St (4
th
century) On the incarnation. Retrieved from Christian
Classic Ethereal Library online.
<www.ccel.org/ccel/athanasius/incarnation.html>

Cockburn, B (1992) In the cry of a tiny babe in Nothing but a burning light
(music album) Liberation Records Pty Ltd

McGrath, AE (2001). Christian theology : an introduction (3rd ed.) Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers. Retrieved from CSU library ereserve.

Meyer, J.R. (1998). Athanasius use of Paul in his doctrine of salvation Vigilai
Chritianae, 52(2), 146-171. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/stable/1584748

Spence, A (2008). Christology: A Guide for the perplexed. New York: T&T
Clark