Part 3 — Why the Word Was Made Man
Corruption was only half of it: men had lost the knowledge of God as well, and every route back had been passed by, so the Image Himself came in a body to renew it.
Before you listen
Parts one and two were about death. This part turns to a second loss and treats it as no smaller: men had stopped knowing God at all, and the world had filled up with idols and demons in His place. Athanasius asks his question again, what was God to do, and this time the answer has to restore knowledge and not only life. Follow the routes to knowledge as he lists them, the image, the works of creation, the law and the prophets, each one open and each one passed by.
Listen for The word "know". Nearly every turn of this part is about what men were able to know and by which route, and the argument advances by closing one route at a time until only one is left.
Open the reading · 25:04The text in hand
The passage, in full
What, then, was God to do? What was to be done, but to renew again what was after the image, so that through it men might once more be able to know Him? And how could this have come to pass, except by the coming of the very Image of God, our Saviour Jesus Christ? It could not be done through men, since they themselves are only made after the image. Nor could it be done through angels, for they are not images either. So the Word of God came in His own person, that as the Image of the Father He might be able to create afresh the man who is after the image.
The passage, in full
For He was not shut up within the body. He was not present in the body in such a way as to be absent elsewhere. Nor, while He moved the body, was the universe left empty of His working and His providence. This is the most astonishing thing of all: being the Word, He was not contained by anything, but rather Himself contained all things.
A line to keep
It is as when a likeness painted on a panel has been blotted out by stains from without. The one whose likeness it is must come again, so that the portrait may be renewed in the same material.
A line to keep
Men had overlooked creation before, and no longer had their eyes turned upward, but downward.
What this part is doing
The loss here is ignorance
The part opens on a weakness that is not sin but limit: what is made falls short of grasping the One who made it. The share in the Image was given so that men could know their Maker, and Athanasius says plainly what was at stake in losing it, that creatures who do not know their own Maker have no profit in existing. By the end of section eleven God alone went unrecognized, and His Word with Him.
Every way of knowing was already open
Three routes are set out in order and each is described as sufficient in itself: the grace of being after the image, the works of creation, and then the law and the prophets, men close at hand from whom higher things are learned more readily. Athanasius keeps saying it was open to them. The routes are not faulted; what he records is that men did not lift their heads.
Working from below
Since men's eyes had turned downward, the Word comes and works from below, through the deeds done in a body, and so meets the senses where they had sunk. The long stretch of miracles is set out as evidence rather than as wonder: each work is matched to a thing men had put in God's place, creation, other men, demons, the dead, so that whichever way they turned they were met there and taught the same thing.
Words it keeps using
Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or counted. They exist so you can notice what did not land.
What has gone wrong in this part, beyond death and corruption?
Men have lost the knowledge of God. God did not leave men destitute of the knowledge of Himself, since creatures who do not know their own Maker have no profit in existing; by the end of that same passage God alone went unrecognized, and His Word with Him (section 11).
Why could the renewal not be done by a man, or by an angel?
Because what needed renewing was the image, and only the Image itself could renew it. Men are themselves only made after the image, and angels are not images either, so the Word of God came in His own person (section 13).
Why work through a body, rather than show the truth through creation once more?
Because that route had already been passed by, and was no longer safe. Men had overlooked creation before and no longer had their eyes turned upward but downward, so He came and dwelt among us as man, working from below through the works of the body (section 14).
Terms
the image
The share in the Word given to men beyond bare existence, so that they carry a shadow of Him, are rational, and can abide in blessedness. To be stripped of the grace of being in the image is the loss that repentance cannot repair.
after the image
Athanasius's term for man, held apart from the Image itself, which is the Word. Men are made after the image and share in it by grace, which is why he argues that no man and no angel could renew it, but only the Image of the Father in person.
knowledge of God
Men's recognition of their own Maker, given as a grace rather than possessed by nature. Athanasius treats its loss as ruinous in itself, since without it men would differ in nothing from the irrational animals and their existence would be without profit.
providence
God's ordering of and care for what He has made. Athanasius argues for it from the ordered distinctness of things — a universe made by chance would be all sun or all moon, and a man all hand or all eye.