An essay written as part of my Grad. Dip. Theology in 2016.
The fourth century work On the Incarnation is traditionally split into five major sections (plus a prologue and conclusion) but this précis focusses on the first three sections, headed “The divine dilemma regarding life and death”, “The divine dilemma regarding knowledge and ignorance” and “The death of Christ and the resurrection of the body”. The intent is both educational (to help Christians understand God’s action in taking on a human body) and apologetic (to argue for Christian claims in the light of various opposing interpretations of Jesus’ life and death).
In style, the language usage is informal (at least in the Behr’s English translation of the original Greek text), with many questions that are often phrased rhetorically. Athanasius often appeals to reason, analogy and to the authority of Christian scriptures.
On the Incarnation commences with an account of the creation of the world, emphasising that, contrary to Epicurus, Plato and some Christian heretics, “God brought the universe into being through the Word “ (sec. 3). God specially blessed humans with rationality, knowing the risk that they might turn away – as they quickly did. In the natural order of things we would never have existed, but by God’s will we came into being and had the opportunity to experience incorruptibility. Having transgressed the one commandment God set, we returned to that natural state of mortality and nothingness. It is important to start here, because our human plight and God’s love for us is the whole reason for the Word’s subsequent “embodiment” (sec. 4).
A dilemma faced God in relation to human corruption: it would be absurd for us not to die, for that would make God a liar since the original law said that transgression would lead to death; but it would be improper for something partaking in the Word to perish. The path through the horns of this dilemma required a re-creation that was equal to the first creation (sec. 7). That is why the incorporeal, incorruptible and immaterial Word came into our realm. In his love for human beings, and having pity on our weakness, “he takes for himself a body”. He wasn’t simply “in a body” as though just manifesting an appearance to us – he “prepared for himself … a body” and “made it his own” (sec. 8). The Word realised that there was no other way to undo the corruption of humans except by dying. But God cannot die, so he took on a body that was capable of dying. By offering his body “as a substitute for all” he fulfilled the requirement for death. But by virtue of the Word’s own incorruptibility he also brings a promise of incorruptibility to all through his resurrection (sec. 9).
A similar dilemma can be seen in regard to human rationality. God bestowed on us a grace –the image of Jesus Christ was built in to human being – so that “they might be able to receive through [Jesus] a notion of the Father, and knowing the Creator they might live the happy and truly blessed life” (sec. 11). But humans foolishly despised that grace, turned away from God, and fashioned idols to replace God. What was God to do? On the one hand, God could do nothing and allow humans to be deceived, but that would raise the question of why God created rational humans in the first place. On the other hand, God had already provided evidence in creation, the law and prophets to prompt human thinking in the right direction and those interactions had not worked. Somehow the grace – the divine image – needed to be restored to humans and that is why “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“ (sec. 13).
The incarnation shows God’s love for humanity in two ways. First, it banished death and recreated us. But it also performed an educational role, as Jesus’ visible life revealed him to be “the Word of the Father, the ruler and king of the universe” (sec. 16). The Word “possessed a real and not illusory body” but at the same time he did things that revealed him to be Son of God, Lord, Creator, Maker, divine – such as commanding demons and healing illnesses (Athanasius 2011, sec. 18). All of these things were done so that, seeing Jesus, people “might gain a notion through him of the knowledge of the Father” (sec. 19).
The Incarnation is inseparable from the Passion. The Word “sojourned among us” so that he might die for us. He “offered the sacrifice on behalf of all” to free us from the liability to our past transgression and to show through his incorruptible body the “first-fruits of the universal resurrection” (sec. 20). As a consequence, we who are “faithful in Christ” no longer die in the way we used to. Since corruption was destroyed by the grace of the resurrection, when we die we only “dissolve” for a time. We do not perish but are more like “seeds sown in the ground” with the assurance that we will rise again (sec. 21).
Various questions could be posed about why Jesus’ death and resurrection occurred the way they did. For the benefit of non-Christians Athanasius explains why it would not have been as appropriate for Jesus to die from an illness, or in private, or to arrange his own death (secs. 21–24). For Christians, he notes several other symbolic and cultural reasons for death by crucifixion (sec. 25).
A clear proof that death has lost its sting through the incarnation is that Christians are no longer scared of it. “Human beings, before believing in Christ, view death as fearsome and are terrified by it. But when they come to faith in him and to his teaching, they so despise death that they eagerly rush to it.” (sec. 27) Anyone who sees and understand the confidence of Christian martyrs should see the cause – that the Christ we follow has destroyed the power of death (sec. 29). The same is shown by the lives of Christians, who forsake adultery, murder, injustice and greed, and who discard idolatry (sec. 30). All of those visible facts are inevitable consequences of the previous argument about the incarnation: if the Word came into a body then it has to be that the body will die since it is mortal but that the body cannot remain dead because it has become the “temple of life” (sec. 31).
The fourth and fifth sections – “Refutation of the Jews” and “Refutation of the Gentiles” – are not covered in this summary.