Book Summary
In the fourth century, amid early Christianity's theological battles, Athanasius of Alexandria wrote his masterpiece On the Incarnation (De Incarnatione Verbi Dei) around 318-335 AD. As a sequel to Against the Heathen, it defends the doctrine that God became man in Jesus Christ, written with urgency during the Arian controversy. Exiled repeatedly for his orthodoxy, Athanasius addresses believers and skeptics alike in a world of pagan thought and heresies.
The treatise examines humanity's fall and God's rescue. God created humans in His image for divine communion, but sin led to corruption, idolatry, and death—a turning from the divine Logos, resulting in decay.
Why not just forgive or recreate us? Athanasius explains that God's justice required satisfying the death sentence for sin, and recreation would suggest imperfection in His original work. The Incarnation is the flawless answer: the eternal Word, fully divine, takes on human flesh. In Christ, God renews the marred image from within.
Using vivid analogies—a king reclaiming a city or an artist restoring a portrait—Athanasius shows how the Logos conquers corruption through His death and resurrection, granting believers immortality. The Incarnation reveals God visibly, refuting idolatry via Christ's miracles, teachings, and cruciform victory.
He counters objections: God entered flesh because humanity needed a tangible Savior; the shameful cross publicly defeated death. Evidence includes Christianity's triumph over persecution and the silencing of pagan oracles.
Athanasius ends by calling readers to Scripture and faith, where prophecies point to Christ. The Incarnation enables theosis: "He became man that we might become divine."
Its clarity shaped Nicene orthodoxy and inspired thinkers like C.S. Lewis. Today, amid secularism, it proclaims God's radical love: He entered our brokenness to redeem it, inviting wonder and encounter.
On the Incarnation
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Chapter 1: Creation and the Fall
(1) In our previous book, we talked a lot about some main points regarding the worship of idols by non-believers and how those false beliefs started. We also, with God's help, briefly explained that the Word of the Father is divine, that everything exists because of His will and power, and that it is through Him that the Father organizes creation. It is by Him that everything moves and exists. Now, Macarius, true lover of Christ, we need to go further in our faith and think about the Word becoming human and His divine appearance among us. The Jews criticize this mystery, the Greeks make fun of it, but we worship it; and your love and devotion to the Word will grow even more because, in His humanity, He seems of little value. The truth is, the more non-believers mock Him, the more He shows His divine nature. The things they say are impossible, He shows to be possible; what they laugh at as unworthy, His goodness makes worthy; and what they dismiss as "human," He, by His power, shows to be divine. Through what seems like His complete poverty and weakness on the cross, He overturns the showiness of idols and quietly convinces the mockers and non-believers to recognize Him as God.
To understand these topics, we first need to remember what has already been discussed. You need to know why the Word of the Father, who is so great and high, appeared in a human body. He didn't take on a body because it was natural for Him—far from it—because as the Word, He doesn't have a body. He appeared in a human body only because of the love and goodness of His Father, for our salvation. So, let's start with the creation of the world and God, its Creator. The first thing you need to understand is this: the renewal of creation was done by the same Word who made it in the beginning. There is no conflict between creation and salvation because the same Father used the same Agent for both, saving the world through the same Word who created it in the beginning.
(2) When it comes to how the universe and everything in it was made, people have had different ideas, each choosing what they like best. For example, some believe everything just happened by itself, randomly. The Epicureans think this way; they don't believe there's any intelligent Mind behind the universe. This idea goes against everything we experience, including our own existence. If everything came into being automatically, without a guiding Mind, everything would be the same and have no differences. The universe would just be all sun or all moon or something else, and in the human body, everything would be just a hand or an eye or a foot. But in reality, the sun, the moon, and the earth are all different, and even in the human body, there are different parts like the foot, hand, and head. This variety shows that things didn't just happen by chance but were created by a Cause that came before them. From this Cause, we can understand that God is the Designer and Maker of everything.
Some people agree with what Plato, a great Greek philosopher, thought. He said that God made everything using material that already existed, similar to how a carpenter builds things using wood that's already there. But people who think this way don't understand that saying God didn't create the material Himself suggests that God has limitations. Just like a carpenter can't make anything without wood, it would mean God couldn't create without something already there. How could God be called the Creator if He needed something else, like existing material, to make things? If God only used material that was already there and didn't create it Himself, He wouldn't be the Creator, just a craftsman.
Then, there's the idea from the Gnostics, who made up a different Creator for everything, separate from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They just ignore what the Scriptures clearly say. For example, when Jesus reminded the Jews about what it says in Genesis, "He who created them in the beginning made them male and female," and explained that because of this, a man should leave his parents and be united with his wife, He added about the Creator, "What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate" (Matt. 19:4-6). How can they claim there's a creation separate from the Father based on that? Also, St. John says, "All things came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being" (John 1:3). So, how could the Creator be someone different from the Father of Christ?
(3) These are the ideas people suggest. But the wrongness of their foolish talk is clearly shown by the teachings of the Christian faith. From it, we learn that because there is a Mind behind the universe, it didn't create itself. Since God is infinite and not limited, the universe wasn't made from something that already existed, but from nothing at all. God brought it into being through the Word. Genesis says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1). Also, in the helpful book The Shepherd, it says, "Believe first and foremost that there is One God Who created and arranged all things and brought them from non-existence into being." Paul also points this out when he says, "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things we see now did not come from things that had appeared before" (Heb. 11:3). God is good—or rather, He is the source of all goodness, and it's impossible for someone who is good to be stingy or selfish about anything. Not holding back existence from anyone, He made everything out of nothing through His own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ. Among all His earthly creations, He showed special kindness to humans. To them, who as animals were naturally temporary, He gave a special grace that other creatures didn't have—the mark of His own Image, a share in the rational being of the very Word Himself. This way, by reflecting Him and becoming reasonable themselves, and expressing the Mind of God just like He does, though in a limited way, they might continue forever in the blessed and only true life of the saints in paradise. But since humans could choose either way, God made sure this grace was conditional from the start on two things—a law and a place. He put them in His own paradise and gave them a single rule. If they kept the grace and stayed innocent, then the life of paradise would be theirs, without sorrow, pain, or worry, and after it, the promise of immortality in heaven. But if they went astray and became corrupt, losing their original beauty, they would fall under the natural law of death and no longer live in paradise. Instead, dying outside of it, they would remain in death and decay. This is what the Holy Scripture tells us, stating God's command, "Of every tree in the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die" (Gen. 2:16-17). "You shall surely die"—not just die, but stay in a state of death and decay.
(4) You might be wondering why we're talking about the origin of humans when we started out to discuss the Word becoming human. The first topic is important for the second because of this: it was our unfortunate situation that made the Word come down to us, our wrongdoing that drew out His love for us, so He quickly came to help us and appeared among us. It was because of us that He took on a human form, and for our salvation that in His great love He was born and showed up in a human body. God had made humans like this (as a spirit with a body) and wanted them to stay uncorrupted. But humans, having turned away from thinking about God to their own evil ideas, ended up under the rule of death. Instead of staying in the state God created them, they were becoming completely corrupted, and death had full control over them. Because they broke the commandment, they were going back to their original nature; just as they were created from nothing in the beginning, they were now on their way to returning to non-existence through corruption. The presence and love of the Word had brought them into being; so when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost their existence too; because only God truly exists, and evil is non-existence, the opposite of good. Naturally, humans are mortal since they were made from nothing; but they also have the likeness of Him who exists, and if they keep that likeness through constant thinking about Him, then their nature loses its power and they remain uncorrupted. This is confirmed in Wisdom: "Keeping His laws ensures incorruption." And being incorrupt, they would be like God, as the Holy Scripture says, "I have said, You are gods and sons of the Highest all of you: but you die as men and fall like one of the princes" (Psalm 82:6-7).
(5) This was the situation for people: God not only created them from nothing, but He also generously gave them His own life through the grace of the Word. However, by listening to the devil, they turned away from eternal things to things that decay, causing their own downfall into death. As I mentioned before, even though they were naturally prone to decay, their connection with the Word gave them a chance to escape this natural law, as long as they kept the innocence they were created with. The presence of the Word protected them from natural decay, as Wisdom says: "God created man for incorruption and as an image of His own eternity; but by envy of the devil death entered into the world" (Wisdom 2:23-24). When this happened, people started dying, and corruption spread wildly among them, even more than naturally expected, because it was the punishment God had warned them about for breaking His command. They went beyond all limits in their sinning; after inventing wickedness at the start and getting caught in death and decay, they kept getting worse, never stopping at one kind of evil, but always coming up with new sins. Adulteries and thefts were everywhere, murder and rape filled the earth, laws were ignored in corruption and injustice, and all kinds of wickedness were done by everyone, both individually and together. Cities fought against cities, nations rose against nations, and the whole earth was torn apart by factions and battles, each trying to outdo the other in evil. Even unnatural crimes were happening, as the martyr-apostle of Christ says: "Their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature; and the men also, leaving the natural use of the woman, flamed out in lust towards each other, committing shameless acts with their own sex, and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error" (Rom. 1:26-27).
Chapter 2: The Divine Dilemma and How the Incarnation Solves It
(6) In the last chapter, we learned that because death and decay were taking a stronger hold on people, humanity was heading towards destruction. Humans, who were made in God's image and had reason that reflected the Word Himself, were disappearing, and God's work was being undone. The law of death, which came from the Transgression, was overpowering us, and there was no way out. What was happening was truly terrible and inappropriate. It would have been unthinkable for God to go back on His word and for humans, after sinning, not to die; but it was just as terrible for beings that once shared the nature of the Word to perish and return to nothingness because of decay. It was not fitting for the goodness of God that creatures He made should be destroyed because of the devil's trickery; and it was extremely inappropriate for God's work in humanity to disappear, either because of their own carelessness or because of evil spirits' deceit. So, as the creatures He made with reason, like the Word, were actually dying, and such noble works were heading towards ruin, what was God, being Good, supposed to do? Was He to let decay and death take over them? In that case, what was the point of making them in the first place? Surely, it would have been better to never have been created at all than to be created and then neglected and destroyed; and, besides that, such indifference to the destruction of His own work right before His eyes would suggest not goodness in God but limitation, and that much more than if He had never created humans at all. Therefore, it was impossible for God to let humans be taken by decay, because it would be inappropriate and unworthy of Himself.
(7) But, even though this is true, it's not the whole story. As we mentioned before, it was unimaginable that God, the Father of Truth, would go back on His word about death just to make sure we kept existing. God couldn't contradict Himself. So, what was God supposed to do? Should He ask people to repent for their wrongdoing? You might think that would be fitting for God, and argue that just as they became subject to decay through their wrongdoing, they could return to being whole through repentance. But repentance wouldn't uphold God's truthfulness, because if death didn't have power over people, God would still be seen as untrue. Repentance doesn't change people from what they naturally are; it only stops them from sinning. If it were just about breaking a rule and not about the resulting decay, repentance might have been enough. But once wrongdoing started, people fell under the power of corruption, which was natural to them, and lost the grace they had as beings made in God's image. No, repentance couldn't solve the problem. What—or rather, Who—was needed for the grace and restoration we required? Who else but the Word of God Himself, who in the beginning made everything out of nothing? It was His role, and His alone, to bring the decaying back to wholeness and to keep the Father's truthfulness intact. For He alone, being the Word of the Father and above all, was both able to recreate everything and worthy to suffer on behalf of everyone and to represent everyone before the Father.
(8) For this reason, the Word of God, who is without a physical body, cannot decay and is not made of material things, came into our world. In one way, He was never far from it before, because no part of creation was ever without Him. He is always united with the Father and fills everything that exists. But now, He entered the world in a new way, lowering Himself to our level out of love and revealing Himself to us. He saw the human race, which is meant to reflect the Father's Mind like He does, fading away and being ruled by death and corruption. He saw that corruption held us tightly because it was the punishment for our wrongdoing. He also saw how it would be impossible for the law to be canceled before it was fulfilled. He noticed how wrong it was for the things He created to disappear. He saw the extreme wickedness of humans growing against them and their universal fate of death. Seeing all this, He felt sorry for us and was moved with compassion for our limitations. He couldn't stand the idea of death having control over us, rather than allowing His creations to perish and His Father's work for us to be wasted. So, He took on a human body, just like ours. He didn't just want to have a body or just appear; if that were the case, He could have shown His divine majesty in a different and better way. No, He took our body, and He took it directly from a pure, spotless virgin, without a human father involved—a pure body, untouched by human interaction. He, the Mighty One, the Creator of all, prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself and took it as His own, as the tool through which He was known and in which He lived. By taking a body like ours, because all our bodies were subject to decay and death, He offered His body to death instead of all of us and presented it to the Father. He did this out of pure love for us, so that in His death, everyone might die, and the law of death would be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body what it was meant for, it lost its power over people. He did this to turn people back to being free from decay, who had turned to decay, and make them alive through death by taking on His body and through the grace of His resurrection. In this way, He would make death disappear from them as completely as straw disappears in fire.
(9) The Word understood that the only way to get rid of corruption was through death. However, as the Word, He was immortal and the Son of the Father, so He couldn't die. That's why He took on a body that could die. By doing this, His body, being connected to the Word who is above everything, could serve as a sufficient exchange for everyone when it died. His body remained incorruptible because He lived in it, and through the grace of the resurrection, it ended corruption for everyone else too. By offering His body to death as a pure and spotless sacrifice, He immediately abolished death for His human brothers and sisters by offering Himself in their place. Since the Word of God is above all, when He offered His own body as a substitute for the life of everyone, He completed everything needed through His death. Also, because the immortal Son of God united with our human nature, all people were promised incorruption through the resurrection. Humanity is so connected that, because the Word lived in one human body, the corruption that comes with death lost its power over everyone. It's like when a great king enters a large city and lives in one of its houses; because he lives in that one house, the whole city is honored, and enemies and robbers stop bothering it. In the same way, the King of all came into our world and lived in one body among many, and as a result, the enemy's plans against humanity were defeated, and the corruption of death, which once controlled them, simply stopped existing. The human race would have completely perished if the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God, hadn't come among us to end death.
(10) This amazing work was truly fitting for the goodness of God. Imagine a king who has built a city. If robbers attack it because the people were careless, the king doesn't ignore it. Instead, he saves it from destruction, caring more about his own honor than the people's mistakes. In the same way, the Word of the All-good Father didn't forget the human race He created. By offering His own body, He ended the death they faced and corrected their mistakes with His teachings. With His power, He restored all of human nature. The Savior's own inspired followers tell us this. We read: "For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge that if One died for all, then all died, and He died for all so that we should no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died and rose again, our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 5:14-15). Another says: "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by God's grace He might taste death for everyone" (Heb. 2:9). The same writer explains why it was necessary for God the Word to become a man: "For it was fitting for Him, for whom and through whom everything exists, to make the Author of their salvation perfect through suffering" (Heb. 2:10). This means that saving humanity from corruption was only fitting for the One who made them in the first place. He also explains that the Word took on a human body to offer it as a sacrifice for others: "Since the children share in flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" (Heb. 2:14-15). By sacrificing His own body, He did two things: He ended the law of death that blocked our way, and He gave us a new beginning of life with the hope of resurrection. Death came to men through a man; by the Word becoming Man, death was destroyed and life was renewed. Paul, a true servant of Christ, says: "For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:21-22). Now, when we die, we don't die as people condemned to death, but as those who are already beginning to rise, waiting for the general resurrection of all, "which God will show in His own time" (1 Tim. 6:15), the same God who made it happen and gave it to us.
So, the first reason for the Savior becoming human is clear. But there are other reasons that show why His blessed presence among us is so appropriate. Let's look at those now.
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