St Athanasius; incarnation

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.(45) The Word of God thus acted consistently inassuming a body and using a human instrument tovitalize the body.He was consistent in workingthrough man to reveal Himself everywhere, as wellas through the other parts of His creation, so thatnothing was left void of His Divinity andknowledge.For I take up now the point I madebefore, namely that the Savior did this in order thatHe might fill all things everywhere with theknowledge of Himself, just as they are alreadyfilled with His presence, even as the DivineScripture says, "The whole universe was filled withthe knowledge of the Lord."[3] If a man looks up toheaven he sees there His ordering; but if hecannot look so high as heaven, but only so far asmen, through His works he sees His power,incomparable with human might, and learns fromthem that He alone among men is God the Word.Or, if a man has gone astray among demons andis in fear of them, he may see this Man drive themout and judge therefrom that He is indeed theirMaster.Again, if a man has been immersed in theelement of water and thinks that it is God as indeedthe Egyptians do worship water he may see its verynature changed by Him and learn that the Lord isCreator of all.And if a man has gone down even toHades, and stands awestruck before the heroeswho have descended thither, regarding them asgods, still he may see the fact of Christ'sresurrection and His victory over death, andreason from it that, of all these, He alone is veryLord and God.For the Lord touched all parts of creation, andfreed and undeceived them all from every deceit.As St.Paul says, "Having put off from Himself theprincipalities and the powers, He triumphed on thecross,"[ 4] so that no one could possibly be anylonger deceived, but everywhere might find thevery Word of God.For thus man, enclosed onevery side by the works of creation andeverywhere in heaven, in Hades, in men and on theearth, beholding the unfolded Godhead of theWord, is no longer deceived concerning God, butworships Christ alone, and through Him rightlyknows the Father.On these grounds, then, of reason and ofprinciple, we will fairly silence the Gentiles in theirturn.But if they think these arguments insufficientto confute them, we will go on in the next chapterto prove our point from facts.Chapter 7 Notes1.See Acts xvii.28.2.Literally, "He shared nothing of the things ofthe body."3.Isaiah xi.9.4.Col.ii.15.Go Back to the top of Chapter 78.Refutation of theGentiles--continuedhen did people begin to abandon theworship of idols, unless it were since thevery Word of God came among men? Whenhave oracles ceased and become void of meaning,among the Greeks and everywhere, except sincethe Savior has revealed Himself on earth? Whendid those whom the poets call gods and heroesbegin to be adjudged as mere mortals, exceptwhen the Lord took the spoils of death andpreserved incorruptible the body He had taken,raising it from among the dead? Or when did thedeceitfulness and madness of demons fall undercontempt, save when the Word, the Power of God,the Master of all these as well, condescended onaccount of the weakness of mankind and appearedon earth? When did the practice and theory ofmagic begin to be spurned under foot, if not at themanifestation of the Divine Word to men? In aword, when did the wisdom of the Greeks becomefoolish, save when the true Wisdom of Godrevealed Himself on earth? In old times the wholeworld and every place in it was led astray by theworship of idols, and men thought the idols werethe only gods that were.But now all over the worldmen are forsaking the fear of idols and takingrefuge with Christ; and by worshipping Him as Godthey come through Him to know the Father also,Whom formerly they did not know.The amazingthing, moreover, is this.The objects of worshipformerly were varied and countless; each placehad its own idol and the so-called god of one placecould not pass over to another in order topersuade the people there to worship him, but wasbarely reverenced even by his own.Indeed no!Nobody worshipped his neighbor's god, but everyman had his own idol and thought that it was lordof all.But now Christ alone is worshipped, as Oneand the Same among all peoples everywhere; andwhat the feebleness of idols could not do, namely,convince even those dwelling close at hand, Hehas effected.He has persuaded not only thoseclose at hand, but literally the entire world toworship one and the same Lord and through Himthe Father.(47) Again, in former times every place was fullof the fraud of the oracles, and the utterances ofthose at Delphi and Dordona and in Boeotia andLycia and Libya and Egypt and those of the Kabiriand the Pythoness were considered marvelous bythe minds of men.But now, since Christ has beenproclaimed everywhere, their madness too hasceased, and there is no one left among them togive oracles at all.Then, too, demons used todeceive men's minds by taking up their abode insprings or rivers or trees or stones and imposingupon simple people by their frauds.But now, sincethe Divine appearing of the Word, all this fantasyhas ceased, for by the sign of the cross, if a manwill but use it, he drives out their deceits.Again,people used to regard as gods those who arementioned in the poets Zeus and Kronos andApollo and the heroes, and in worshipping themthey went astray.But now that the Savior hasappeared among men, those others have beenexposed as mortal men, and Christ alone isrecognized as true God, Word of God, GodHimself.And what is one to say about the magicthat they think so marvelous? Before the sojourn ofthe Word, it was strong and active amongEgyptians and Chaldeans and Indians and filled allwho saw it with terror and astonishment.But by thecoming of the Truth and the manifestation of theWord it too has been confuted and entirelydestroyed.As to Greek wisdom, however, and thephilosophers' noisy talk, I really think no onerequires argument from us; for the amazing fact ispatent to all that, for all that they had written somuch, the Greeks failed to convince even a fewfrom their own neighborhood in regard toimmortality and the virtuous ordering of life.Christalone, using common speech and through theagency of men not clever with their tongues, hasconvinced whole assemblies of people all theworld over to despise death, and to take heed tothe things that do not die, to look past the things oftime and gaze on things eternal, to think nothing ofearthly glory and to aspire only to immortality.(48) These things which we have said are nomere words: they are attested by actualexperience.Anyone who likes may see the proof ofglory in the virgins of Christ, and in the young menwho practice chastity as part of their religion, andin the assurance of immortality in so great and glada company[ 1] of martyrs.Anyone, too, may putwhat we have said to the proof of experience inanother way [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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