Open sample · Greek Fathers
On the Incarnation of the Word
Athanasius of Alexandria, c. 318. An open sample from the Project's reading edition.
Editorial introduction (extract)
The De incarnatione is in some respects the easier of the two works that constitute Athanasius' early apologetic diptych — the first being the Contra Gentes with which it is paired in the manuscript tradition. The work is easier in that its rhetorical line is more sustained, its citations of Scripture more selective, and its argument less encumbered by the polemical addresses that mark Athanasius' later anti-Arian writings. It is in other respects more demanding, because the line of argument depends on a chain of theological commitments that Athanasius does not pause to justify, and which a modern reader can easily overlook.
The translation that follows is fresh: we have not relied on Robertson, Thomson, or Behr, although we have consulted each of them and have learned a great deal from all three. Departures from their readings are noted in the apparatus to the full edition (this open sample carries only the opening sections without the apparatus). We have preferred, where the Greek admits it, to retain the periodic construction; English versions of Athanasius too often resolve his sentences into a sequence of short declaratives that misrepresent the texture of the original. The reader will find some sentences here demanding. We believe Athanasius' Greek is also demanding.
The opening sections are reproduced below in their entirety. Subsequent sections, together with the full apparatus and the editorial introduction in its complete form, are available to members.
The text, §§ 1–3
In our former book we dealt fully enough with a few of the chief points about the heathen worship of idols, and how those false fears originally arose. We also, by God's grace, briefly indicated that the Word of the Father is Himself divine, that all things that are owe their being to His will and power, and that it is through Him that the Father gives order to creation, by Him that all things are moved, and through Him that they receive their being. Now, Macarius — true lover of Christ, as your name implies — let us follow up that essay by setting forth the right view of the Word's becoming Man, in order that, though the impious deny it, you yourself may perceive the reason for the lowliness — so apparently unbecoming His majesty — to which He condescended, and the entire fitness of His action; and that the Saviour we have come to know is the true Word of God, the very Maker and Lord of all.
In what follows, then, it will be necessary first to speak about the creation of the universe and about God its Maker, so that the reader may rightly grasp, from this consideration of the lower things, the dignity of Him who is their Author; and then to consider the regeneration that He has wrought, and the reasons for which He, the Word of God, became Man — for the salvation of mankind. The matter is one which all the orthodox have always set forth with much faith and reverence; and to repeat in our own day what has been delivered to us by the teachers of the past is not, we conceive, to be inconsiderate, but to set down the same things in a new arrangement, that those who fall in with this work may learn from it both the cause that the Lord, the Word, took flesh, and what is to be said about it.
Of the making of the universe and the creation of all things many have held many opinions, and each has laid down the law just as he pleased. For some say all things have come into being of themselves, and as it were by chance — as do the Epicureans, who fable that there is no providence over the universe in the face of facts that openly cry out against them. Others, again — among them Plato, who is so highly thought of by the Greeks — argue that God has made the world out of pre-existent and unoriginate matter, since God could make nothing unless the matter already existed; in the same way as the wood must exist ready at hand for the carpenter, that he may know how to work it. But they do not realise that to say this is to ascribe weakness to God; for if He cannot of Himself make what comes into being, but requires assistance from something already in existence, He is plainly weak.
It is in fact the doctrine of the Church and the truth itself that the all-creating and all-sustaining Word of the Father has, of His infinite goodness, taken on Him a body and shown Himself in human form, that those who had become incapable of perceiving God in His own proper substance might at least come to know Him through His works in the body, and through that body might learn of the Father. This is the wonder of His coming, this the new thing of His Incarnation — that this same Word, who is the maker of all, has Himself entered the realm of His own creation, that the salvation of all might be effected.
A note on the translation
The phrase rendered "in a new arrangement" in §1 (Greek: καινῇ τάξει) has occasioned some discussion in the editorial circle. Robertson took it to mean "in a new disposition", that is, with a fresh ordering of the material; Thomson preferred "in a new arrangement"; Behr followed Thomson. Dr Stamatiou, reading the proofs, pointed out that the formula appears elsewhere in Athanasius with the sense of "in their proper sequence" — a sense more native to early Christian rhetorical theory. We have nevertheless retained "in a new arrangement", on the grounds that Athanasius is here distinguishing his own treatment from those of his predecessors and is, in fact, indicating a deliberate re-ordering. We acknowledge that this reading is not certain.
Bibliographical note
The standard critical text remains that of Robertson (NPNF, second series, vol. iv, Oxford 1892), against which all serious work continues to be measured. The translation of Thomson (Oxford Early Christian Texts, 1971) introduced a number of important readings and remains indispensable. The recent translation of Behr (St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2011) offers a fresh and accessible English version, with a substantial theological introduction; we have differed from it on several points, but our debt to it is real and gratefully acknowledged.