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St. Athanasius On the Incarnation: The Treatise De Incarnatione Verbi Dei
Hardcover
Published January 1, 1970
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 14, 2025
Wonderful book.
Felt very modern in its emphasis on non-being as destruction, and the rejection of God as the turning towards absence of being. I wonder if this influenced Lewis' 'The Great Divorce'. Interesting how this was seen as intimately linked to the famous 'clobber passage' at the end of Romans 1.
Also modern in its view of Christ as already in all things in the world - which I had never deeply thought about before. The divine word as already present in the whole making itself more present in the part - the analogy given by Athanasius is of the mouth giving expression to the mind (or perhaps soul?), which is everywhere in the body. A fascinating emphasis on theosis as part of redemption, alongside the familiar view of Christ's death as a quasi-ransom (death in some sense required, needing to be satisfied).
Interesting too is how he goes through each aspect of the incarnation and passion as peculiarly fitting for the Son of God to do - an argument I'd never heard made before.
His proof of the resurrection is also powerful - he points to believers' lack of fear of death and the obvious working of Christ in their lives.
CS Lewis in intro: 'There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books…. This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or Mr. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself.
Now this seems to me topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light. Often it cannot be fully understood with out the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why—the reason, of course, being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point. In the same way sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed “at” some other book; in this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you knew its real significance. The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity (“mere Christianity” as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.'
Felt very modern in its emphasis on non-being as destruction, and the rejection of God as the turning towards absence of being. I wonder if this influenced Lewis' 'The Great Divorce'. Interesting how this was seen as intimately linked to the famous 'clobber passage' at the end of Romans 1.
Also modern in its view of Christ as already in all things in the world - which I had never deeply thought about before. The divine word as already present in the whole making itself more present in the part - the analogy given by Athanasius is of the mouth giving expression to the mind (or perhaps soul?), which is everywhere in the body. A fascinating emphasis on theosis as part of redemption, alongside the familiar view of Christ's death as a quasi-ransom (death in some sense required, needing to be satisfied).
Interesting too is how he goes through each aspect of the incarnation and passion as peculiarly fitting for the Son of God to do - an argument I'd never heard made before.
His proof of the resurrection is also powerful - he points to believers' lack of fear of death and the obvious working of Christ in their lives.
CS Lewis in intro: 'There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books…. This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or Mr. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself.
Now this seems to me topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light. Often it cannot be fully understood with out the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why—the reason, of course, being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point. In the same way sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed “at” some other book; in this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you knew its real significance. The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity (“mere Christianity” as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.'
April 22, 2025
Decent translation. Short and easy read on early apologetics. His arguments are relevant and interesting from a different time and place over a thousand years earlier.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews