Church Fathers on Christmas: Athanasius

In whatever direction the bias of men might be, from thence he might recall them, and teach them of his own true Father, as he himself says: I came to save and to find that which was lost.

A portrait once effaced must be restored from the original. Thus the Son of the Father came to seek, save, and regenerate. No other way was possible. Blinded himself, man could not see to heal. The witness of creation had failed to preserve him, and could not bring him back. The Word alone could do so. But how? Only by revealing himself as Man.

For as, when the likeness painted on a panel has been effaced by stains from without, he whose likeness it is must needs come once more to enable the portrait to be renewed on the same wood: for, for the sake of his picture, even the mere wood on which it is painted is not thrown away, but the outline is renewed upon it; in the same way also the most holy Son of the Father, being the Image of the Father, came to our region to renew man once made in his likeness, and find him, as one lost, by the remission of sins; as he says himself in the Gospels: I came to find and to save the lost. Whence he said to the Jews also: except a man be born again, not meaning, as they thought, birth from woman, but speaking of the soul born and created anew in the likeness of God's image.

But since wild idolatry and godlessness occupied the world, and the knowledge of God was hidden, whose part was it to teach the world concerning the Father? Man's, might one say? But it was not in man’s power to penetrate everywhere beneath the sun; for neither had they the physical strength to run so far, nor would they be able to claim credence in this matter, nor were they sufficient by themselves to withstand the deceit and impositions of evil spirits. For where all were smitten and confused in soul from demoniacal deceit, and the vanity of idols, how was it possible for them to win over man’s soul and man’s mind — whereas they cannot even see them? Or how can a man convert what he does not see?

But perhaps one might say creation was enough; but if creation were enough, these great evils would never have come to pass. For creation was there already, and all the same, men were groveling in the same error concerning God.

Who, then, was needed, save the Word of God, that sees both soul and mind, and that gives movement to all things in creation, and by them makes known the Father? For he who by his own providence and ordering of all things was teaching men concerning the Father, it is he who could renew this same teaching as well.

How, then, could this have been done? Perhaps one might say that the same means were open as before, for him to show forth the truth about the Father once more by means of the work of creation. But this was no longer a sure means. Quite the contrary; for men missed seeing this before, and have turned their eyes no longer upward but downward.

Whence, naturally, willing to profit men, he sojourns here as man, taking to himself a body like the others, and from things of earth, that is by the works of his body [He teaches them], so that they who would not know him from his providence and rule over all things, may even from the works done by his actual body know the Word of God which is in the body, and through him the Father.

Thus the Word condescended to man's engrossment in corporeal things, by even taking a body. All man's superstitions he met halfway; whether men were inclined to worship nature, man, demons, or the dead, he showed himself Lord of all these.

For as a kind teacher who cares for his disciples, if some of them cannot profit by higher subjects, comes down to their level, and teaches them at any rate by simpler courses; so also did the Word of God. As Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 1:21, “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the word preached to save them that believe.”

For seeing that men, having rejected the contemplation of God, and with their eyes downward, as though sunk in the deep, were seeking about for God in nature and in the world of sense, feigning gods for themselves of mortal men and demons; to this end the loving and general Savior of all, the Word of God, takes to himself a body, and as Man walks among men and meets the senses of all men half-way, to the end, I say, that they who think that God is corporeal may from what the Lord effects by his body perceive the truth, and through him recognize the Father.

In whatever direction the bias of men might be, from thence he might recall them, and teach them of his own true Father, as he himself says: I came to save and to find that which was lost.

So, men as they were, and human in all their thoughts, on whatever objects they fixed their senses, there they saw themselves met half-way, and taught the truth from every side. For if they looked with awe upon the Creation, yet they saw how she confessed Christ as Lord; or if their mind was swayed toward men, so as to think them gods, yet from the Savior's works, supposing they compared them, the Savior alone among men appeared Son of God; for there were no such works done among the rest as have been done by the Word of God. Or if they were biased toward evil spirits, even, yet seeing them cast out by the Word, they were to know that he alone, the Word of God, was God, and that the spirits were none. Or if their mind had already sunk even to the dead, so as to worship heroes, and the gods spoken of in the poets, yet, seeing the Savior's resurrection, they were to confess them to be false gods, and that the Lord alone is true, the Word of the Father, that was Lord even of death.

For this cause, he was both born and appeared as Man, and died, and rose again, dulling and casting into the shade the works of all former men by his own, that in whatever direction the bias of men might be, from thence he might recall them, and teach them of his own true Father, as he himself says: I came to save and to find that which was lost.

He came then to attract man's sense-bound attention to himself as man, and so to lead him on to know him as God.

For men's mind having finally fallen to things of sense, the Word disguised himself by appearing in a body, that he might, as Man, transfer men to himself, and center their senses on himself, and, men seeing him thenceforth as Man, persuade them by the works he did that he is not Man only, but also God, and the Word and Wisdom of the true God.

This, too, is what Paul means to point out when he says: That ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God. For by the Word revealing himself everywhere, both above and beneath, and in the depth and in the breadth — above, in the creation; beneath, in becoming man; in the depth, in Hades; and in the breadth, in the world — all things have been filled with the knowledge of God.

Now for this cause, also, he did not immediately upon his coming accomplish his sacrifice on behalf of all, by offering his body to death and raising it again, for by this means he would have made himself invisible. But he made himself visible enough by what he did, abiding in it, and doing such works, and showing such signs, as made him known no longer as Man, but as God the Word.

For by his becoming Man, the Savior was to accomplish both works of love; first, in putting away death from us and renewing us again; secondly, being unseen and invisible, in manifesting and making himself known by his works to be the Word of the Father, and the Ruler and King of the universe.[1]

Church Fathers on Christmas: Athanasius