On The incarnation

Which prophecies speak about his death?

"A man in affliction and knowing how to bear sorrows, because his face was turned away. He was despised and esteemed not. He bears our sins and suffers for our sake; we considered him to be in distress and affliction, and suffering. He was wounded for our sins and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace is upon him, by his bruises we have been healed" (Isaiah 53:3 - 5) "For all we, like sheep have gone astray; the human beings has gone astray from his way, and the Lord has delivered him to our sins. And he, though being in affliction, opens not his mouth.. Like a sheep led to the slaughter, and as a Lamb before its shearers is dumb, so opens not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away" (Isaiah 53: 6 - 8)

Which prophecies speak about the birth from a Virgin?

"Behold a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted as God with us" (Isaiah 7:14) Moses: "A star will rise from Jacob and a human being from Israel, and he will break down the princes of Moab" (Numbers 24:17) "How fair are your tents, O Jacob, and your encampments, O Israel; like shady valleys and like gardens beside rivers, and like tents set up by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters. There will come forth a human being from his seed, and he shall rule over many peoples: (Numbers 24: 5 - 7) "Before the child knows how to cry out father or mother, he will take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of Assyria" (Isaiah 8:4) That a human being shall appear then is foretold by these. (optional but good extra) From this, the Jews can ask themselves: Which of the righteous and holy prophets and the patriarchs mentioned in the divine scriptures ever had the creation of his body from a virgin only? What woman without a man was sufficient to produce human beings? Did not each prophet have his father as the author of his being? Whose birth did a star run in the heavens and indicate to the inhabited word the one born? Whatever king that ever was reigned and gained trophies over his his enemies before he was able to cry out father or mother? And who was such a king in Israel and in Judah in whom all the nations place their hopes and and had peace?

3.1The presence and love of the Word called us into being; inevitably, therefore when we lost the knowledge of God, we lost existence with it. Why? 3.2 What is the definition of evil?

3.1 We lost existence with it because humans have turned to things which exist not, evil is non-being and the good is being since he has come into being from existing God Pg 53 3.2 Evil is non-being, the good is being, since it has come into being from the existing god. Pg 53

Now with the common Savior of all dying for us, St. Athanasius says that the faithful in Christ no longer die by death, since corruption has ceased. What happens instead to the faithful in Christ?

According to the mortality of the body we are dissolved only for the time which God has set for each, that we may be able "to attain a better resurrection" (Hebrews 11:35). For as seeds sown in the ground, we do not perish when we are dissolved, but as sown we shall arise again, death having been destroyed by the grace of the Savior. "For the corruptible must put on incorruptibility and the mortal must put on immortality. And when the mortal put on immortality then shall come to pass the word that has been written: Death has been swallowed up in victory: O death, where is thy sting?" (1 Corinthians 15: 53 - 55)

St. Athanasius says that the Word by taking on a body capable of death, and offering to death the body He had taken, which is holy and free from every spot or stain, He abolished death from all with a body like the body He took, by offering of a like (His body being exactly like the body of human beings taken from the human being, who were perishing). Now the corruption of death no longer holds ground against human beings because of the indwelling of the Word in them through the one body. He explains this concept with a metaphor. Give and explain the metaphor

As when a great king has entered some large city and made it his dwelling in one of the houses in it, such a city is certainly made worthy of high honor, and no longer does any enemy or bandit descend upon it, but it is rather reckoned worthy of all care because of the kings having taken residence in one of its houses; so also does it happen with the king of all. Coming himself into our realm, and dwelling in a body like the others, every design of the enemy against human beings has henceforth ceased, and the corruption of death, which had prevailed formerly against them, perished. For the race of human beings would have been utterly dissolved had not the master and savior of all, the son of God, come for the completion of death. Pg 58

What comparisons does St. Athanasius make between Christ and the Greek legends Aesculapius, Hercules, and Dionysus?

Asclepios was made a god by them because he practiced healing and discovered herbs for the suffering of bodies , not forming them himself out of the earth but discovering them by science from nature ---- the Savior did not heal the wound but formed the creation and restored the formation Heracles us worshipped as a god by the Greeks because he fought with humans equal to himself and killed wild beasts by guile ----The Word banished sicknessess and demons and death itself from human beings Dionysys was worshipped by them because he taught human beings drunkenness----Jeus teaching sobriety, is mocked by them

By nature, man is mortal and corruptible, since he was made from nothing. But he bears also the likeness of Him Who is. What can we do to remain incorrupt?

Because of the likeness to the One Who is, to remain incorruptible, man has to have guarded this likeness through his comprehension of Him which would have blunted his natural corruption

What is the weakness of the human body that would not allow Jesus to die a natural death?

Because the death which befalls human beings comes to them according to the weaknesses of their own nature, for not being able to remain for long, in time they are dissolved. For this reason also diseases come upon them, and, weakening, they die. But the Lord is not weak, but the Power of God, and the Word of God, and himself Life. If, then, it was in some private place that he laid his body upon a bed in the manner of human beings, it would have been supposed that he also suffered this through the weakness of nature and because he had nothing more than other humans. But since he was Life, and Word of God and because death on behalf of all had to take place, therefore, on the one hand, as being life and power he strengthened the body in him, as as, on the other hand, death had to occur, he took the occasion, provided not from himself but from others, to complete the sacrifice. For it was neither fitting for the Lord to be ill, he who healed the illnesses of others, nor again for the for the body to be weakened, in which he strengthened the weaknesses of of others. He could not prevent death, because it was for this that he had the body, and it was unfitting to prevent it, lest the resurrection should also be hindered. Moreover, it was again unfitting for illness to precede death lest it be thought a weakness of him who was in the body.

Why does God remain man for many years rather than becoming man and immediately dying and rising again, or in other words, why did he not immediately complete the sacrifice on behalf of all upon coming, but remained in the world for a while?

But by means of it he made himself visible, remaining in it and doing such works and giving signs which made him known to be no longer a human being but the God Word.

At the end of St. Athanasius' refutation of the Jews he asks, "What more has he who is expected by them to do when he comes?" He then continues to ask a number of questions regarding what they expect the one who is to come will do and goes on to show how Christ has done this. What are these questions that he asks?

Call the Gentiles? - but they have already been called To make prophet and king and vision to cease? - this has already happened To refute the godlessness of idols? - it has already been refuted and condemned To destroy death? It is already destroyed What then must Christ do, which has not been done? Or what is left unfulfilled, that the Jews now rejoice and disbelieve. For if they have neither king nor prophet nor Jerusalem nor sacrifice nor vision, but the whole world is filled with the knowledge of God, and those from the Gentiles are abandoning godlessness, and henceforth taking refuge in the God of Abraham through the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, it should be clear even those who are exceedingly obstinate that Christ has come

St. Athanasius writes that the Lord neither endured the death of John, who was beheaded,nor was He sawn asunder, like Isaiah: even in death He preserved His body whole and undivided. What reason does St. Athanasius give for the maintenance of His whole body undivided?

Christ did not contrive death for his own body, lest he should appear fearful of some other death, but he accepted and endured on the cross that inflicted by others, especially by enemies, which they reckoned fearful and ignominious and shameful, in order that this being destroyed, he might himself be believed to be Life, and the power of death be completely annihilated. Ignominious death which they thought to inflict, this was the trophy of his victory over death. Therefore he neither endured the death of John by being beheaded, nor as Isaiah was he sawn in part, that in death he might keep his body undivided and whole and that there be no pretext for those wishing to divide the church

How does St. Athanasius refute the Jews who, without denying what is written in the scripture, contend that they are still waiting for these things to come, that God the Word has not yet come?

Daniel prophesied saying, "Seventy weeks are decreed for your people, and your holy city, to put an end to sin, and to seal up sins, and to efface iniquities, and to atone for iniquities, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint the holy of holies, and that you might know and understand from the going forth of the Word to give an answer and to build Jerusalem until Christ be prince" (Daniel 9: 24 - 25) He that is anointed is declared to be not simply human but the holy of holies, and Jerusalem is to stand until his advent, and then the prophet and vision cease in Israel. Of old David was anointed, and Solomon, and Hezekiah, but then Jerusalem and the place nevertheless stood and prophets were prophesying, Gad, and Asaph, and Nathan, and after them Isaiah, and Hosea, and Amos, and the others. Moreover, those who were anointed were called holy men, but not holy of holies. The prophet or vision only ceased from Israel, when Christ, the holy of holies had come For a sign and a great proof of the advent of the God Word is that Jerusalem no longer stands, nor does a prophet arise, nor is vision revealed to them, and right so. Moses also prophesied that the kingdom of the Jews would stand until Him, saying, "There will not be lacking a prince from Judah or a leader from his loins, until what is laid up for him comes, and he is the expectation of the nations" (Genesis 49:10). So the Savior himself cried out saying, "The law and the prophets prophesied until John" (Matthew 11:13)

Some argue that "it would have been better for the Lord to have avoided the designs of the Jews against Him, and so to have guarded His body from death altogether." How does St. Athanasius refute this?

For as it was not fitting for the Word of God, being life, to give death to his own body by himself, so neither was it suitable to flee from that given by others. But rather to follow it to destruction, whence it was right that he neither laid aside the body himself nor fled when the jews took counsel. Such action did not show weakness on the part of the Word, but rather made him known to be savior and life, in that he both waited for death to destroy it and hastened to complete the death given to him for salvation of all. And, besides, it was not his own death that the savior came to complete, but that of human beings. Therefore he did not lay aside the body by his own death--- for he had none, being life. But he accepted that death coming from human beings, in order to destroy it completely when it came to his own body. Pg 73

St. Athanasius says that the Word Himself, who is "in the image" of the Father had to come to recreate us, "in the image" of God. What metaphor does he give to explain this? 9.2 What does Christ mean when he said, "unless one be born again?

For as when a figure painted on wood has been soiled by dirt from the outside, it is necessary for him whose figure it is to come again, so that the image can be renewed on the same material. Because of his portrait even the material on which it is painted is not cast aside, but the portrait is reinscribed on it. In the same way the all holy son of the father, being the image of the father, came to our place to renew the human being made according to himself, and to find him, as one lost, through the forgiveness of sins, as he himself says in the gospels "I came to seek and save that which was lost" (lk 19.10) 9.2 "unless one be born again" (jn 3.5), is not referring to the birth from women, as they supposed, but indicates the soul being born again and recreated in that which is after the image. Pg 63/64

St. Athanasius, in providing more proof of the resurrection of Jesus, states that a dead man cannot act, but our Savior still works. What are all the different ways that Christ is still working after His death and resurrection?

For since the Savior works so many things among human beings, and daily in every place invisibly persuades such a great multitude, both from those who dwell in Greece and in the foreign lands, to turn to his faith and to obey his teaching to believe in the resurrection. He draws to piety, persuades to virtue, teaches about immortality, leads to a desire for heavenly things, reveals the knowledge of the Father, inspires power against death, shows himself to each, and purges away the godlessness of idols

St. Athanasius references two passages from the New Testament that show that Christ blotted out death which had occurred by the offering of his own body, restoring every aspect of human beings by his own power. What are those two references? He then points out why it was necessary for none other than the God Word to be incarnate. What verse does he refer to? Then he finally refers to a verse that shows that he took a for himself a body to sacrifice for similar bodies. What verses does he refer to? Finally which verse shows describes that since through human beings death seized human beings, through the incarnation, death and resurrection of the Word, all humans share in life and the resurrection?

For the love of christ constrains us, as we judge this, that if one died for all, then all died; and he died for all that that we should no longer live for ourselves but for him who died and rose" (2 Cor 5.14-15) 8.1.2--"We see jesus who, for a little while, was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the passion of death, that by the grace of God he might taste death on behalf of all" (Heb 2.9) 8.2 "For it was fitting that he, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Heb 2.10) 8.3 "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of them, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is the devil, and might deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage" (Heb 2.14-15) 8.4 "For as by a human being came death, by a human being has come also the resurrection of the dead; for as in adam all die, so in christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor 15.21-22) Pg 59/60

How does St. Athanasius explain how God is revealed through St. Paul's verse saying, "being rooted and grounded in love, that you may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and know the love of christ which surpasses knowledge" (Eph 3:17-19)?

For the word unfolded himself everywhere, above and below and in the depth and in the breadth: above, in creation; below, in the incarnation in the depth, in hell; in breadth, in the world. Everything is filled with the knowledge of God. Pg 66

St. Athanasius uses the barbarian to show the changes within a person because of Christ. What are the changes he describes? What verse from Isaiah describes this change?

Formerly, they were idolaters, the Greeks and Barbarians made war on each other, and were cruel towards their own kin. There was not anyone at all who crossed land or sea without arming the hand with a sword because if their irreconcilable fighting amongst themselves. They worshipped idols and offered sacrifices to demons, and those who thought such things were altogether incapable of being reeducated from the superstition of idols. But when they were converted to the teaching of Christ the, as truly pricked in their minds, they laid aside the cruelty of murder and no longer think things og war, but every thought of theirs was peaceful and towards friendship. "They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into sickles, and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn any more to wage war" (Isaiah 2:4) The barbarians who have an innate savagery of manners, while they still sacrifice to their idols, rage against one another, and cannot bear to remain without a sword for a single hour, but when they hear the teaching of Christ, they immediately turn to farming instead of war, and instead of arming their hands with swords stretch them out in prayer, and ina word, instead of fighting amongst themselves, henceforth, they arm themselves against the devil and the demons, subduing them with sobriety and virtue of soul

In refuting the Gentiles, how does St. Athanasius explain why God couldn't save mankind merely through His will, in the same way he created them?

Formerly, when nothing at all existed, only a nod and an act of will was needed for the creation of the universe. But when the human being had once been made, and necessity required the healing, not for things that were not, but for things that had come to be, it followed that the healer and Savior had to come among those who had already been created, to heal what existed. For it was not non-existent things that needed salvation, so that a command alone would have sufficed, but the human being, already in existence, who was corrupted and perishing.

Our Lord cried out to the unbelieving Jews and said, "If I do not do the works of My Father, believe Me not; but if I do, even if ye believe not Me, believe My works, that ye may know that the Father is in Me and I in the Father." What are the works that St. Athanasius lists that that Jesus performed that show his divinity?

He commanded demons and drove them away. He healed illnesses to which the human race was subject. He purified lepers, made the lame to walk, Made the deaf hear, made the blind see again, and simply put, cast away every illness and every infirmity from human beings

Of course, the Lord had the power to raise His body directly after death but He did not. Why did He wait 3 days before resurrecting?

He could have raised the body immediately upon death and shown it alive again, but foreseeing well the Savior did not do this. For someone might have said that he had not died at all, or that death had not fully touched him, if he had shown the resurrection immediately. Had the interval between death and resurrection been within the same day, the glory of incorruptibility would have been obscure. So, in order that the body might be shown to be dead, the Word waited one intermediary day, and on the day showed it to all as incorruptive. So that death might be shown in the body, he raised it on the third day. YEt lest, by raising it up when it had remained for a long time and been completely corrupted, he should be disbelieved, as though he bore not his own but another body, for because of the length of time, one might distrust what appeared and forget what happened, therefore he waited no more than three days nor put off for long those who had heard from him about the resurrection, but while the word was still echoing in their ears and their eyes were still expecting and their minds were in suspense, and those who put him to death and witnessed the death of the Lord body were still living upon earth and in the same place

What are some examples of the influence of Christ on the morals of society, not only through the preaching of His disciples but by persuading them in their minds, that St. Athanasius describes?

He not only preached through his own disciples, but even persuaded them in their minds to lay aside the savagery of their manners, and no longer to honor the ancestral gods but to recognize him and through him to worship the Father.

Why was His death not in secret?

He would have been supposed by all to be telling tall tales and would have been distrusted even more when speaking about the resurrection, as there would be no one at all to witness to his death. Death must precede resurrection, for there would be no resurrection without death preceding, so that if the death of the body took place somewhere in secret, death neither appearing no taking place before witnesses, its resurrection also would be unseen and unwitnessed. FOr if, when the death and resurrection had thus occured in the sight of all, the Pharisees of the time did not wish to believe but compelled even those who had seen the resurrection to deny it, surely, if these things had taken place in secret, they would have devised many pretexts for disbelief

St. Athanasius tells us that there was a debt owing which needed to be paid because all men were due to die. He then gives a second reason for why the Word dwelt among us. (The first reason being to prove His Godhead by His works). What is this second reason?

His second reason is that He aimed to make all not liable to and free from the ancient transgression, and to show himself superior to death, displaying his own body as incorruptible, the first-fruit of the universal resurrection. Pg 70

St Athanasius says that the madness of idolatry and godlessness held firm the inhabited world and then asks who could then teach the inhabited world about the Father. Why could not a human being not do this?

Humans were not able to traverse everywhere under the sun, nor by nature were they able to run so far, nor were they sufficient to become credible regarding this, nor were they able by themselves to withstand the deceit and illusion of the demons. Pg 64 (Own words) Since humans were limited and were under the deception of false Gods and demons they were unaware of the existence of soul and spirit and in turn unaware of the true image of God. Therefore they could not convert and teach the inhabited world about the Father whom they could not see.

What is the parallel made by St. Athanasius between the sun rising and the resurrection of Christ defeating death?

If after the night the sun appears and every earthly place is enlightened by it, there is no doubt at all that the sun, spreading its light out everywhere, is also the one chasing away the darkness and illuminating everything, so also, with death being despised and trampled down since the saving manifestation of the Savior in the body and the conclusion of the cross, it is clear that he is the Savior, being revealed in the body destroying death, and daily displaying the trophies against it in his disciples

The Savior, by taking a body and dwelling among humans drew to himself the perceptible senses of all human beings so that human beings can again see God. He became an object for the senses so that those who were seeking God through the senses might apprehend the Father. How did he bring back people's senses to the Father who (a) were predisposed to other human beings regarding men as gods, or (b) predisposed or drawn to demons, or (c) were fixed on the dead, worshipping the dead as heros?

If their minds were predisposed towards human beings, such that they supposed to them as gods, yet comparing the works of the savior with theirs, the savior alone among human beings appeared the son of God, for there were no such works among them as done by God word. And if they were predisposed towards the demons, yet seeing them put to flight by the lord, they knew that only he was the Word of God and that demons were not gods. If their mind was then fixed even on the dead, so as to worship heroes and those said by the poets to be gods, yet seeing the resurrection of the savior they confessed that the former were false and that only the Word of the Father was the true Lord and the one reigning even over death. Pg 65

What does St. Athanasius describe as necessary for the searching and right understanding of Scripture in addition to the study of it? Why is it needed? What analogies does he give?

In addition to the study and true knowledge of the scriptures, there is needed a good life and a pure soul and the virtue which is according to Christ, so that the mind, guided by it, may be able to attain and comprehend what it desires, as far as it is possible for human nature to learn about the God Word. If someone would wish to see the light of the sun, he would certainly wipe and clear his eyes, purifying himself to be almost like that which he desires, so that as the eye thus becomes light it may see the light of the sun If someone would wish to see a city or a country, he would certainly fo to that place for the sight, in the same way, one wishing to comprehend the mind of the theologians must first wash and cleanse his soul by his manner of life, and approach the saints themselves by the imitation of their works

It is written "The body of the Word, then, being a real human body, in spite of its having been uniquely formed from a virgin, was of itself mortal and, like other bodies, liable to death." Therefore, what two opposite marvels occurred together in a paradoxical manner at once when Jesus died? How did this occur (include the reference mentioned)?

It happened that both things occurred together in a paradoxical manner: the death of all was completed in the lordly body, and also death and corruption were destroyed by the Word in it. For there was a need for death, and death on behalf of all had to take place, so that what was required by all might occur. The Word, since he was not able to die - for he was immortal - took to himself a body able to die, that he might offer it as his own on behalf of all and as himself suffering for all, through coming into it: "he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage (Hebrews 2:14 - 15)

In refuting the Jews, St. Athanasius says that the Jews have their rebuttal from the scriptures which they also read. Which prophecies speak about the cross?

Moses: "You will see your life hanging before your eyes and you will not believe." (Deuteronomy 26:66) Prophets witness saying: "But I, as a gentle lamb led to the slaughter, knew it not. And they plotted wickedly against me saying, 'Come let us cast wood in his bread and efface him from the land of the living.'" (Jeremiah 11:19) "They pierced my hands and my feet; they numbered all my bones, they divided my garments among them, and for my vesture they cast lots" (Psalm 21: 17 - 19) But death in the air, taking place on wood, could be none other than the cross; in no other death are the hands and feet pierced, except on the cross. (optional but good extra) From this, the Jews can ask themselves: Which of the holy prophets or patriarchs of old died on the cross for the salvation of all? Who was wounded and destroyed for the healing of all? - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all died on the bed. Moses and Aaron on the mountain. David died in his house, without the object of any plotting by the people. Isaiah was sawn asunder, but he was not hanged upon the wood. JEremiah was abused but he did not die under condemnation. Ezekiel suffered, but not for the people

Why did God choose the human body specifically to come through?

Nothing in creation had gone astray in its notions of God, save the human being only. Neither sun nor moon nor heaven nor stars nor water nor air altered their course, but knowing their Creator, the Word, they remained as they were made. But human beings alone, having rejected the good, henceforth fabricated things that do not exist instead of the truth, and ascribed the honor due to God, and the knowledge of him, to demons and human beings fabricated in stone. He takes part of the whole for himself as an instrument, the human body, and came into it, in order that since human beings were not able to know him in the whole, they should not fail to know him in the part, and since they were not able to lift up their gaze to his invisible power, they might be able, at any rate, to know and contemplate him from things similar.

St. Athanasius writes that "a blind man cannot see the sun, but he knows that it is above the earth from the warmth which it affords." Similarly, how can those who are in the blindness of unbelief recognize the Godhead of Christ and the resurrection?

So also the naysayers, even if they do not yet believe, being still blind to the truth, yet at least knowing the power of the others who believe, let them not deny the divinity of Christ and the resurrection accomplished by him. For it is clear that if Christ was dead, he would not have expelled the demons and despoiled the idols, for demons would not have obeyed a dead man. But if they are clearly expelled by the naming of him, it is clear that he is not dead, but rather the demons, who see things invisible to human beings, would have been able to know if Christ were dead and not to obey him in any way

1. In starting his treatise, why does St. Athanasius say that it is necessary first to speak about the creation of the universe and its maker?

So that one may thus worthily reflect that its recreation was accomplished by the word who created it in the beginning. For it will appear not at all contradictory if the father works its salvation in the same one by whom he created it. Pg 50

What does St. Athanasius say is the proof that death was destroyed by the resurrection? Explain the analogy which he uses of a defeated tyrant to explain his point. Explain also how he uses the analogy of asbestos to support his point.

That devil, who formerly exulted wickedly in death, its pangs having been loosed (Acts 2:24), only he remains truly dead. And the proof of this is that human beings, before believing in Christ, view death as fearsome and are terrified at it. But when they come to faith in him and to his teaching, they so despise death that they eagerly rush to it and become witnesses to the resurrection over it affected by the Savior. For even while they are still young in stature they hasten to die, and not only men but also women practice for it with exercises. It has become so weak that even women who were formerly deceived by it, now mock it as dead and paralyzed. When a tyrant has been defeated by a legitimate king and bound hand and foot, all those that then pass by mock him, hitting and reviling him, no longer fearing this fury and barbarity because of the victorious king, in this way, death also having been conquered and placarded by the Savior on the cross, and bound hand and foot, all those in Christ who pass by trample on him, and witnessing to Christ they mock death, jeering at him, and saying what was written above, "O death, where is your victory? O hell, where your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:55) And just as, while it the nature of fire to burn, if someone were to say there is something fearful of burning but rather which shows it to be weak, as is said of asbestos, then who does not believe this claim, if he wished to put the claim to the test, putting on the inflammable material and touching fire would certainly be convinced thereby of the weakness of the fire

St. Paul says, "For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of preaching to save those who believe." How did the Lord, by taking to Himself a body like the rest, facilitate man's knowledge of Himself?

The lover of human beings and the common savior of all, takes to himself a body and dwells as human among humans and draws to himself the perceptible senses of all human beings, so that those who think that God is in things corporeal might, from what the lord wrought through the actions of the body, know the truth and through him might consider the father. Pg 65

Modern Gentiles admit the existence of the Word and his works in the natural world, but ridicule the doctrine of the incarnation. What is St. Athanasius's refutation of this and what specific analogy does he use to describe this?

The philosophers of the Greeks say that the cosmos is a great body, and they speak truly. If then the Word of God is in the cosmos, which is a body, and has come into it all and into each part of it, it is not surprising that he came in a human being. If it is fitting for him to come into the cosmos and to be made known in the universe, it would also be fitting for him to appear in a human body and that it should be illumined and moved by him. For the human race is part of the whole, and if the part is unsuitable to be his instrument towards the knowledge of his divinity, it would be most absurd that he should be made known even through the whole cosmos. For whatever they think regarding the whole, this they must necessarily conceive regarding the part, for the human being is also part of the whole. The mind, while pervading the whole of a human being, is indicated by a part of the body such as the tongue, and no one says that the essence of the mind is diminished by this, so also is the Word, who pervades all things, made use of a human instrument , this would not seem unfitting. If it were unfitting to have used a body as an instrument, it would be unfitting also for him to be in the whole

St. Athanasius says that in their transgressions human beings had not stopped short of any defined limits but passed beyond measure inventing evils and exceeding all lawlessness. What were the various evils human beings were committing that he refers to?

The various evils that human beings were committing that st. Athanasius refers to were adulteries and thefts everywhere, the whole earth was full of murders and plundering. There was no concern for law regarding corruption and vice; every wickedness, individually and jointly, was being carried out by all. Cities warred cities, nations rose against nations; the whole world was torn apart by fractions and battles, everyone competing in lawlessness. Pg 54

Seeing the rational human race perishing and death reigning through corruption, wanting to have mercy on our race, and not wanting death to have dominion so that what He created should not perish and the work of the Father for human beings should not be in vain, what did our Lord do to return human beings again to incorruptibility and abolish the law of death and why?

What our Lord did to return human beings again to incorruptibility and abolish the law of death was that He Himself came into being from the beginning, because it was absurd that his works should be destroyed, It was therefore not right to permit human beings to be carried away by corruption, because this would be improper to and unworthy of the goodness of God. Pg 56

Why were his hands stretched on the cross?

With one he might draw the ancient people and with the other those from the Gentiles, and join both together in himself. THis he himself said when he indicated by what manner of death he was going to redeem all, "When I am lifted up, I shall draw all to myself." (John 12:32)

In regards to the practices of gentiles and pagans, list the pagan practices that began to cease as a result of the incarnation of the Word.

Worship of idols Oracles amongst the Greeks Calling mortals gods and heroes Deceit and madness of demons Craft and teachings of magic Thinking that there is a wisdom of the Greeks

2. Why is it necessary to speak of the origin of human beings when speaking of the manifestation of the Savior to us? What happened to the nature of human beings when they despised the commandment of God? How is this different from how God desired or willed the nature of human beings to be when he created them? What would keep the nature of human beings in the original state God willed for them? How does this relate to how St. Athanasius defines evil?

to know that our own cause was the occasion of his descent and that our own transgression evoked the words love for human beings. For we were the purpose of his embodiment, and for our salvation he so loved human beings as to come to be and appear in a human body. 2.2 They received the previously threatened condemnation of death, and thereafter no longer remained as they had been created, but were corrupted as they had contrived; and, seizing them, death reigned. 2.3 God Created the human being and willed that he should abide in incorruptibility 2.4 2.5 Evil is non-being, the good is being, since it has come into being from the existing god. Pg 53