   |
Handout #80 |
|
Athanasius (295-373 A.D.) |
| God
became man that we might become God
The Word of God, incorporeal and incorruptible, came among us, though he had never been far off. For he left no part of the creation void of his presence, but filled all things, living as he does with the Father. But he came among us to help us by showing us his love.. Filled with compassion for our race, taking pity on our weakness, condescending to our corruption, refusing to allow death to have dominion over us, in order that what had begun should not perish and that the work of his Father should not be useless, he took a body, a body no different from ours ... Those who talk of the human aspects of the Word also know what appertains to his divinity... When they speak of his tears they know that the Lord shows us humanity by his tears and his divinity by raising Lazarus; they know that the Lord experienced hunger and thirst, while feeding in a divine manner five thousand people with five loaves; they know that his human body lay in the tomb and was raised as the body of God... The Word was made man that we might be made God: he was made visible by his body that we might have an idea of the invisible Father, he endured the outrages inflicted on him by men that we might share in his immortality. He did not undergo any harm, since as Word of God he was impassable and incorruptible. But in this way he saved from danger the suffering humanity for which he endured all this. Extracts quoted in Quasten, Patrology,III, II3f. |
