The second section of the de Incarnatione is in large measure apologetic; the third section (xxxiii.-lv.), even polemical. The main interest of both parts, however, is that, apart from details, they answer some great à priori objections to the actual fact of the Incarnation, and the mode of its occurrence. Thus (1) Athanasius deals with the somewhat modern difficulty that the Incarnation is incompatible with the idea of the Divine infinity (xli., xlii.; cp. xvi., xvii.). His reply is that though the Logos dwelt in the body, He was not pent up in it. He did not cease to be in the entire creation, as the source of its life, and movement, and order. There is nothing absurd in the idea that the Word should manifest Himself, as in the whole universe, so specially in a part. "For humanity too is a part of a whole" (xlii.). And this is justified by analogy: for the human mind "though pervading man throughout, is interpreted by a particular part of the body, the tongue." Similarly the Word, though pervading the universe, may well use the human body as an instrument. (2) Again, it is asked, “Why did the Word not manifest Himself through some nobler part of the creation than man?" as if it were unworthy of Him to dwell in a mere human body. Athanasius answers that the Word came "not to make a display, but to heal and instruct the suffering." It was man alone that had gone astray; "neither sun nor moon nor heaven nor the stars nor water nor air had swerved from their order; but knowing their artificer and sovereign, the Word, they remain ever as they were" (xliii.). The Word became man in order to aid him, thus condescending to his weakness, and coming as it were to the rescue of the storm-tossed universe, by taking His seat at the helm and correcting its calamities.1 Here again it is noticeable that Athanasius finds the true answer to a specula1 Ath. refers to a passage of Plato, Polit. 273 D.

tive difficulty in the character of God. (3) Again, "Why did not God aid man by mere fiat (veúpati μóvę)? Why was the Word compelled to assume a body-He who had called the creatures into being?" Athanasius replies that the question now was not of creating a world-calling it out of non-existence, but of restoring that which was already existent. "It was not things non-existent that needed salvation, so that a bare fiat should suffice, but man, already existent, was going to corruption and ruin" (xliv.). Further, the corruption had made its seat within the body, "death was engendered within," and it was necessary that life also should be, as it were, "wedded" (σvμπλaкîνai) to the body, if the inherent corruption was to be vanquished and expelled. For the life of the Logos is, as it were, the asbestos robe protecting the body from the ravages of death; it was with good reason, therefore, that the Saviour clad Himself with a body, in order that man's mortality might be swallowed up of life.1

The whole book concludes (xlv. ff.) with a valuable summary of the facts of Christian experience as attesting the present and victorious energy of the risen Christ; the decay of paganism and its accompanying evils, the expulsion of demons, the spiritual triumphs of the faith in nations, in society, in the individual character (lii.).2 "In a word," says Athanasius, "the achievements of the Saviour, resulting from His becoming man, are of such kind and number, that if one should wish to enumerate them, he may be compared to men who gaze at the expanse of the sea and wish to count its waves."

So far we have been concerned with Athanasius' theory

1 The question raised by Athanasius is discussed more fully elsewhere (p. 326); cp. Greg. Nyss. Orat. cat. mag. xvii.

2

Especially noteworthy is the martyrs' contempt of death (lii.). Cp. the great passage in chap. xlii.; and Cyprian, ad Donat.

of redemption.1 Dorner makes one criticism which may be repeated here, namely, that though the arguments of Athanasius imply the completeness of Christ's human nature, he yet makes express mention only of the body, without any reference to the human soul of Christ. He regards our Lord rather as the Logos veiled in human flesh, than as the man passing through the different stages of human probation and development. In this respect he seems to fall short of his own conception of the Incarnation-that it was no mere theophany, but an actual participation in the lot and sufferings of man.2 It is, in fact, characteristic of Athanasius that he habitually looks upon the Logos as the sole motive, hegemonic," personal principle in the God-man. To him Christ is the indivisible God-man, the Divine Saviour and Enlightener, essentially one with the God whom He manifests. Here is a point of contrast between Athanasius and the Antiochene school (Arius and afterwards Nestorius). To the latter, salvation seemed to consist not so much in essential fellowship with Deity, as in the knowledge of God coming to the aid of human freedom; and Christ was accordingly regarded less as the Logos incarnate than as the perfect, inspired man, communicating a revelation of Divine truth to men. The interest of Athanasius, in a word, was ethical and religious; that of his opponents in the Arian struggle was mainly intellectual.3

From Athanasius' doctrine of the Incarnation we pass to his anti-Arian polemic and his conception of the Trinity.

1 Substantially the same soteriology is found in Orat. c. Arian. i. 40-43, ii. 67-70.

2 Dorner, Person of Christ, div. i. vol. ii. p. 259. But Harnack (Dogmengesch. ii. 213 note) points out that in Orat. iii. 30, odp§ is expressly explained as meaning "human nature" in its totality. The verity of Christ's human soul was asserted by the Council of Alexandria (362), the doctrine being further developed by Hilary.

3 Harnack, ii. 161 f.

VOL. II.-3

His method of dealing with Arianism consists in a clear development of its consequences. Thus, for example-(1), if Arius be right, the doctrine of an eternal Trinity is false: there was a time when the Godhead was, as it were, incomplete (Mens), and the sacred Triad only attains completeness by the inclusion within itself of a created being-once non-existent, now deified and worshipped. An alien substance (§évŋ kaì ảλλoτpía púois) is introduced into the sphere of Deity; a pagan addition is made to the fulness of the Godhead.1 (2) Again, the Fatherhood of God cannot have been an eternal fact. There was a time when He as yet did not possess His Logos and Radiance (ἦν πότε ἄλογος, καὶ, φῶς ὤν, ἀφεγγὴς ἦν) (3) Further, the worship of an Arian Christ is in principle merely polytheistic. It is the worship of two Gods, one increate, the other created. On the other hand, if Arius be right the worship of the Church is heathenish. (4) Finally, if the Logos be merely a creature, and therefore alterable in character (TрETTÓS), he can neither reveal the Father nor unite man to God. It is this last consideration on which Athanasius lays the greatest stress. His strong soteriological interest prompts him to grasp, and forcibly point out, the real issue at stake, namely, the question whether the Son be a creature or not. "Divine Sonship and creatureliness," he says in effect, "are ideas incompatible with each other."5 The essential meaning of "Son" in relation to Deity must imply consubstantiality of essence. The Arian insistance on posteriority to the Father assumed a condition, namely, time, which could not exist in the case of God. If Christ, in fact, be literally a Son,

2 Ibid. 24, 25.

1 Orat. c. Arian. i. 17, 18. Orat. iii. 16. This is a favourite anti-Arian thesis. Cp., e.g., Bas. Caes. Ep. cexliii. 4, πολυθεία κεκράτηκε· μέγας θεὸς παρ' αὐτοῖς καὶ μικρός. See Orat. i. 35, and ii. 67, 70. Cp. Orat. ii. 2, 20, 73.

5

He must be what the Father is. No creature could mediate between God and and man; could unite the creature to the Creator; could bestow the grace of adoption-adoptive sonship implying a real, essential sonship.1

".2

Athanasius' general method of explaining expressions which implied the creatureliness of the Son, and which accordingly were pressed by the Arians, was to refer them to His manhood. As man, Christ is "exalted" for us; as man He "receives"; as man He is "anointed"; as man He was "created the beginning of the ways of God as man He is called "firstborn of creation." 3 In short, all such expressions as ποιεῖν, γένεσθαι, κτίζειν, K.T.., are to be referred to "the ministry and the economy" of the Word. In the third Oration various New Testament statements are examined, especially such as imply human limitations in the incarnate Word.5 These (such is Athanasius' usual line of interpretation) are to be looked at ethically as instances of condescension to man's weakness and ignorance, not as implying any failure of power or knowledge in the Word.

In Athanasius' positive doctrine of the Trinity the following points are important:

(1) We notice his tenacious hold on the doctrine of the monarchia. His starting-point is the statement uía

1 Orat. ii. 24, 34, 35, 66–69. Cp. Newman, Ath. Treatises, ii. 35. 2 Orat. i. 41 (Phil. ii. 9), 46 (Ps. xlv. 7 f.), 53 ff. (Prov. viii. 22; Heb. i. 4 and iii. 1). The discussion of Prov. viii. 22 LXX. Kúpos ĚKTIσÉV μe ἀρχὴν ὅδων αὐτοῦ εἰς ἔργα αὐτοῦ, takes up a large part of Orat. ii., see esp. ii. 50.

Col. i. 15; see Orat. ii. 62.

5 See esp. iii. 27 for a list of Arian "stock" passages.

4 Orat. i. 62.

6 iii. 37 ff. deals with the subject of Christ's supposed ignorance (S. Mk. xiii. 32). On this point (see below, p. 299) Ath. speaks uncertainly. In iii. 43 he simply says, ὡς μὲν λόγος γινώσκει, ὡς δὲ ἄνθρωπος ἀγνοεῖ· ȧv@púrov yàp lôlov тò ȧyvoeîv. But see other suggestions in 48. In iii. 53 Ath. allows the idea of wрoкown in Christ.