Part 5 — The Resurrection, and the Victory over Death
The body was raised on the third day, at an interval chosen to prove it had truly died; and the daily contempt of death among ordinary believers is offered as visible proof that it rose.
Before you listen
Part five turns from the death to what followed it, and it spends nearly as much attention on the timing as on the fact. Why the third day, and not at once, and not after a long while — Athanasius treats that interval as an argument rather than an incident. Then from section 27 onward he shifts ground entirely and argues from something anyone could see: ordinary people who no longer fear dying. Follow that move, from the risen body to the behaviour of people who were nowhere near the tomb.
Listen for The phrase "monument of victory". It keeps returning, and by the end of the part it names two things — the risen body itself, and the disciples in whom death is trampled day by day.
Open the reading · 19:49The text in hand
The passage, in full
He could have roused the body at the very moment of death and shown it alive again. But here too the Saviour saw well ahead, and did not do so. For someone might have said that it had not died at all, or that death had not come into full contact with it, had He displayed the Resurrection at once. And perhaps, if the interval between the death and the rising had been a slight one, the glory of that incorruption would have been left obscure. And so, in order that the body might be shown to be dead, the Word waited through one intervening day, and on the third He showed it to all incorruptible. To prove the death in the body, then, He raised it on the third day.
The passage, in full
For if death has been brought to nothing, as the argument has shown, and if all men trample him because of the Lord, then much more did the Lord Himself first trample him with His own body, and bring him to nothing. And once death had been slain by Him, what had to follow but that the body should rise, and be displayed as the monument of victory over him? Or how could death have been shown to be brought to nothing, unless the Lord's body had risen?
A line to keep
O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting?
A line to keep
it died as mortal, but came to life again because of the Life within it
What this part is doing
The interval was chosen, not incidental
Athanasius gives reasons for the three days on both sides. Raised at the moment of death, the body could have been said not to have really died, or that death had not come into full contact with it; left to lie long and decay, it could have been doubted as the same body at all. Three days is where both objections fail, and the witnesses to the death were still alive and on the spot.
The proof offered is people, not the tomb
From section 27 the argument moves outdoors. Death is said to be undone because those who believe in Christ no longer fear him: they choose to die rather than deny their faith, and young people and women go to meet him eagerly. Athanasius calls this clear proof rather than illustration, and he says plainly that before the Saviour's sojourn death was fearful even to the saints.
A dead man does nothing
The last sections test the Resurrection against a plain rule: a dead man can do nothing, and his influence reaches only to the tomb. Yet Christ persuades multitudes day by day, stops the adulterer and the murderer mid-course, and is fled from at the naming of His name. Working, Athanasius says, is not what belongs to the dead.
Words it keeps using
Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or counted. They exist so you can notice what did not land.
Why did the Word wait until the third day rather than raising the body at once?
Because had He shown it alive immediately, someone might have said it had not died at all, or that death had not come into full contact with it — and if the interval were slight, the glory of that incorruption would have been left obscure. He also did not wait long enough for decay, so that no one could distrust it as a different body (section 26).
What does Athanasius put forward as the proof that death has been undone?
That death is despised by all the disciples of Christ. They advance against him and no longer fear him, but tread him down as dead by the sign of the Cross and by faith in Christ, choosing to die rather than deny their faith (section 27).
How does the argument get from Christ's daily works to His Resurrection?
By a rule anyone can apply: a dead man can do nothing, and his influence reaches only to the tomb. Yet Christ persuades multitudes from Greece and from foreign lands to come over to His faith, halts the adulterer and the murderer, and drives out the demons and the idols. That is not the work of a dead man, but of one who lives (section 30).
Terms
the Resurrection
The rising of the body the Word had made His own, by whose grace corruption ceases from those who share His nature, and in whose promise incorruption is held out to all.
incorruption
Not merely deathlessness but permanence in being: what man would have kept had he guarded his likeness to the One who is. It is promised again through the Resurrection.
the monument of victory
The lasting public sign that death has been defeated. Athanasius uses it first of the resurrection of the Lord's body, which was to be shown to all as proof that corruption had been blotted out, and then of the Cross itself, the death meant as a disgrace.
the sign of the Cross
The mark by which, in this part, believers tread death down as already dead. Athanasius pairs it repeatedly with faith in Christ, and says that by it all magic is stopped and all sorcery brought to nothing.