Athanasius the Great, Part 4: On God the Word, 2 & “On the Incarnation”, 1, Prof. C. Veniamin

Series: Mystical Theology
Episode 14: Athanasius the Great, Part 4: On God the Word, 2 & “On the Incarnation”, 1

Episode 14 of our “Mystical Theology” series consists of Part 2 of our presentation of God the Word according to St. Athanasius the Great, and includes the reading of excerpts from his famous, “On the Incarnation of the Word”.

Themes covered in this podcast are listed in the Timestamps below.

Q&As related to Episode 14 available in The Professor’s Blog.

Recommended background reading: Christopher Veniamin, ed., Saint Gregory Palamas: The Homilies (Dalton PA: 2022); The Orthodox Understanding of Salvation: "Theosis" in Scripture and Tradition (2016); and Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, Empirical Dogmatics of the Orthodox Catholic Church: According to the Spoken Teaching of Father John Romanides, Vol. 1 (2012), Vol. 2 (repr. ed. 2020).

Join the Mount Thabor Academy Podcasts and help us to bring podcasts on Orthodox theology and the spiritual life to the wider community. 

Transcript

the Angel Logos

Speaker 1 0:00

In an article entitled Jesus Christ, the Life of the World, father John Romanides points out that, in order to prove their point, the Arians and Eunomians argued, as did the Jew Trifo with Justin Martyr, that it was not the angel of the Lord in the burning bush who said I am he who is Exodus 3, 14, but God himself by means of the angel, the created Logos, angel. The fathers insisted that the angel Logos revealed this about himself also. So angel, if you think about it this way, I think it could be helpful. This is before terminology had settled and we had ascribed the word hypostasis to the threeness of God, the Holy Trinity. And the Old Testament uses the word angel instead of hypostasis. And it's clear. Saint Athanasius the Great says it's clear from the context whether the angel of the Lord in question is a created or an uncreated angel. The fathers insisted then that the angel Logos revealed this about himself also and not only about God. So God is God, the Father, the angel Logos is the Son. The angel of the Lord spoke in his own right also when to Moses he said I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham and the God of your father, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, exodus 3, 6.

Old Testament Christocentric

Speaker 1 2:12

And as I just mentioned, athanasius against the Arians argues that the name angel is sometimes applied to the uncreated Logos and sometimes to a created angel. He insists that there can be no confusion on whether one sees a created angel or the uncreated Son of God, sometimes called angel in the Old Testament. He insists that when the Son is seen, so is the Father, for he is the Father's radiance. Saint Athanasius uses the analogy of the Son and the radiance of the Son quite a bit in his writings. He likes that analogy and he uses it for the Father and the Son, and thus the Father and the Son, he says, are one. What God speaks, it's very plain. He speaks through the Logos and not through another. And he who has seen the Son knows that in seeing him he has seen not an angel, nor one merely greater than angels, nor, in short, any creature, but the Father himself. Brings us back again to the point that the Son is the express image of the Father. There is no other image of the Father than the Son. No one can see the Father outside the Son. The Son is the vision of the Father, vision of the Father, and he who hears the Logos he says knows that he hears the Father, as he who is irradiated by the radiance knows that he is enlightened by the Son. Contra Arianos 3, paragraphs 12 to 14. As a key to the Old and New Testaments, st Athanasius states, quote that there is nothing that the Father operates except through the Son, unquote Contra Arianos 3, 12. So what this means is that the Old Testament is Christocentric, since Christ is the pre-incarnate angel of the Lord and of the Great Council, the Lord of glory and the Lord of Sabaoth, in whom the patriarchs and prophets see and hear God and through whom they receive grace, succor and forgiveness. Christ is the pre-incarnate angel of the Lord.

Angels

Speaker 1 5:21

It's interesting because, if you allow yourself to reflect for a moment, angels. We say that quite rightly. The angels are bodiless, they're incorporeal. What is the shape of an angel when they appear? They're sometimes described as men, sometimes as angels, like the appearance of the three angels at Mamre. This is in honor of God's creation of man. They appear as men, they appear in the form of men. They may be depicted with wings to show that they are angels, distinguish them from men, but their form is that of man. That's a respect for the crowning point of God's creation, as St Gregory Palamas says, which is man. That is also a foreshowing of the mystery of the Incarnation that God, the second hypostasis of the Holy Trinity. God the Son is to come as man. God the Son is to come as man. So, again, these theophanies are not only logocentric, they are Christocentric, and they have the Trinitarian dimension intrinsic to them.

Speaker 1 7:05

Saint Basil the Great, who also follows this line of interpretation in his refutation of the Eunomians, says, though scripture presents an angel in the narrative, the voice of God follows. He said to Moses I am the God of your father Abraham. He said to Moses I am the God of your father Abraham, exodus 3.6. And a little later again, I am he who is. Could the same one be both angel and God? Is this not, therefore, the angel of great counsel? Isaiah 9, 6.

Speaker 1 7:45

After summarizing the same observations about the encounter between the angel Logos and Jacob which one finds in St Athanasius the Great and the earlier fathers, st Basil gives expression to the same interpretative principle as we saw in the Bishop of Alexandria. It is clear to all that where the same person is called both angel and God, it is the only begotten to whom reference is being made? To him who manifests himself to human beings from generation to generation and announces the will of the Father to his saints. So he who calls himself he who is is to be thought of as none other than God, the Logos, who in the beginning is with God. Of course, eunomius answers these arguments of Basil by claiming that the Son is the angel of him who is, but not he who is himself. And this angel is called God to show his superiority over all the things created by him. So Eunomius claims that he who sent Moses was himself he who is, but he by whom he sent and spake was the angel of him who is and the God of all else.

The theology / economy distinction

Speaker 1 9:28

Let's take a look at St Gregory of Nyssa, who talks about this against Eunomius, book 11, paragraph 3. The important point in Eunomius' reply is that it bears witness to the fact that the identity of the angel in the Old Testament with Christ, the only begotten Son of God and Creator, was so entrenched in the tradition that the Eunomians could never think of getting rid of it, that the Unomians could never think of getting rid of it. Now St Augustine, a younger contemporary, was about to do this in North Africa, in spite of the fact that his teacher, ambrose, and all the rest of the Western fathers agreed with the tradition described above. But this is a problem, and we'll come back to this when we compare St Augustine to the Cappadocian Fathers, once we've looked in some detail at the theology of the Cappadocian father. So what St Athanasius gives us above all is a theological vision.

Reality of God transcends theology

Speaker 1 10:52

Theology was distinguished from economy and the doctrine of God is placed in its proper context. Three in one had to be apprehended in itself, and the oneness of God, as I said earlier, is the chief concern of Saint Athanasius, pointing to the emotion, the consubstantiality of the Son and Word of God that he is in every respect equal in his divinity with God the Father, differing only as to hypostasis, which is a segue to the contribution made by the great Cappadocian fathers. God is God, god is how God is, and then everything flows from that. It's not. God is this way because it's to our benefit for him to be this way, naturally and properly. It would be to our benefit, since we're created in the image of the Son and Word of God. But God is as he is and that's just how he is, and that is the revelation. That's why we have the revelation that we have he reveals himself to us, have he reveals himself to us, and one of the things that we shall see in due course we've already begun to discuss it to some degree is that the reality of God transcends even the highest concepts that we could possibly have. The reality of God transcends even Orthodox theology. Once we have the experience of the living God, then we see, course, more clearly how orthodox theology is rightly described as signposts, pointers, a map that helps you to aim for the right thing, quote, unquote or not stray, you know, by setting definitions and boundaries and so forth, which are all very helpful, all very important, but which, in the experience of theosis, are abolished. There's something greater, in other words, and that something greater is the experience, that union and communion with the Living God himself, who loves us.

God the Holy Trinity is One Being

Speaker 1 13:56

We tend at times to think of the three hypostases as three beings, but they are not. They're not three separate beings with three separate wills. They're not simply acting in unison for our salvation because they agree with one another. They have one and the same will, one and the same energy, and this is what I want to get to, because this is part of the great contribution of the Cappadocian fathers, who reinforce the homoousion of St Athanasius and at the same time add to our, let's say, terminology the mystery of the threeness, an exactitude with which we can describe or define more accurately the threeness of God. But in that definition of the threeness of God, we must never think that we're speaking of three individual beings, and we'll talk about that in some detail. So, yes, there's a reason for that emphasis we're speaking of one God.

Speaker 1 15:38

Well, an example is the famous icon of Rublev taking the hospitality of Abraham. Now, it's important to know that, first of all, historically, biblically, the central angel is depicted as slightly larger than the other two angels. Why? Because, first and foremost, this is a Christological revelation. The one who revealed himself to Abraham, who visited Abraham, is Christ. The two angels on either side of him are created angels and indeed, when we read the narrative, we see that it's those two angels who go on to Sodom, right, so we know that they are created angels, but together.

Speaker 1 16:42

You know, the genius of Rublev was to point out that this is also a Trinitarian revelation. The primary revelation is Christological. The secondary, but equally important, is the Trinitarian dimension. But that's not to say that they are three separate beings. It's a prefiguration of what we're given later in explicit terms the mystery of the Holy Trinity, which is there from the beginning, but the Trinity itself, the Holy Trinity, is not three beings, as I said before, working in unison, one being, one action. One action, one operation, one energy power, glory kingdom, which is an expression of the one same will.

Christ the Godman

Speaker 1 17:53

This will become even clearer with the Christological dimension after we look at the Cappadocian fathers and, with God's help, we get to St Cyril of Alexandria's contribution Christologically, and St Maximus, a confessor as well. You'll see even more clearly why it's important that we focus on and there's a treatise that goes by this name, written by St Cyril of Alexandria that Christ is one. Christ is not a human being in whom God dwells. He is the God-man, but he's not the man-God. He's the God-man. You can't turn that around, because he's not a and he is the one who assumed our human nature. Not a prosopon, not a human hypostasis, but human nature. He became flesh. Scripture does not say that the Logos joined a human prosopon to himself. So all of this will come into focus as we go along.

Reading from “On the Incarnation”

Speaker 1 19:16

St Gregory the Theologian says when I speak of God, you must think at once of one flash of lightning and of three. This is the mystery of God, that the one is three and the three are one. And we have been called not to comprehend that mystery but to enter into it and to become sharers of the life of the Holy Trinity. And all of this, god willing, will be unpacked for you, at least a little bit, as we go along. And now we continue our episode on St Athanasius the Great, with readings and some commentary from his On the Incarnation of God, the Word. And so here we are turning back to De Incarnatione, on the Incarnation, one of the greatest theological treatises ever written. And when did St Athanasius write it? Some say 19. I think the theories range between 18 to 20. And so he's a very young man, all right.

The “law of death”

Speaker 1 20:39

So paragraph six, paragraph 6. The beginning of the divine dilemma and its solution in the incarnation man, who was created in God's image and in his possession of reason, reflected. The very word himself was disappearing and the work of God was being undone. The law of death which followed from the transgression prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape. The thing that was happening was, in truth, both monstrous and unfitting. It would of course have been unthinkable that God should go back upon his word and that man, having transgressed, should not die. But it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption, having shared the nature of the word. That's probably not a good translation, right. It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil, and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits. As then, the creatures whom he had created, reasonable like the word and that, by the way, reasonable word, that's a play on logos were in fact perishing and such noble works were on the road to ruin.

Speaker 1 22:43

What then was God being God to do? Was he to let corruption and death have their way with them? In that case, what was the use of having made them in the beginning? Surely it would have been better never to have been created at all than having been created to be neglected and perish. And besides that, such indifference to the ruin of his own work before his very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation. If God were indifferent to the ruin of his own work before his very eyes, that would argue not goodness in God but limitation, and that far more than if he had never created man at all. So it was impossible that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of himself. So the good God could not abandon us. It's not in his nature, it's unthinkable, and indeed we know that he did not, and so the treatise continues have already noted it was unthinkable that God, the Father of Truth, should go back upon his word regarding death in order to ensure our continued existence. He could not falsify himself.

Repentance not enough, because of corruption

Speaker 1 24:31

What, then, was God to do? Was he to demand repentance from men for their transgression? You might say that that was worthy of God and argue further that as through the transgression they became subject to corruption, so through repentance they might return to incorruption again. But repentance would not guard the divine consistency. They might return to incorruption again, but repentance would not guard the divine consistency, for if death did not hold dominion over men, god would still remain untrue. Nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature. All that it does is to make them cease from sinning.

Logos heals corruption and true to His word

Speaker 1 25:26

Had it been a case of a trespass only and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough. But when, once transgression had begun, men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the image of God. No, repentance could not meet the case. What, or rather who was it that was needed for such grace and such recall as we required? Who, save the word of God himself, who also, in the beginning, had made all things out of nothing? His part it was, and his alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father his consistency of character with all, for he alone being word of the Father and above all, was, in consequence, both able to recreate all and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father. Okay, paragraph 7.

Speaker 1 26:55

Saint Athanasius says that repentance would not have been enough. Why, what's God to do? Was he to demand repentance from men for their transgression? And he says well, it might seem reasonable to say that, but repentance would not guard the divine consistency, for if death did not hold dominion over men, god would still remain untrue. That's the one point. So he has to be consistent. In other words, god must be true to his own word. And that's what we do when we pray to God. If you look carefully at the prayers that we say in the liturgy and other prayers we say to God, you said whosoever calleth upon my name in faith whatsoever, you shall ask in my name, that will I do, please do it now. We say Do this now. We're calling upon your name, please have mercy, because we know that God must remain true to his word. So that is what is meant by this consistency. Repentance would not guard the divine consistency. But then he says nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature.

Corruption: of two kinds

Speaker 1 28:27

This is fascinating, what Saint Athanasius is saying in just a few words. Repentance by itself is not capable of regenerating our nature. What does repentance do? He says all that it does is to make them cease from sinning. Now, this is what man can do. Had it been a case of a trespass only and not of a subsequent corruption, so if we had a sin but not a corruption that followed it, repentance would have been enough. But once transgression had begun, men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the image of God. Okay, let's have a look at this again when he says when, once transgression had begun, men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were. So what is the power of their corruption?

Speaker 1 29:43

Remember we said that there are two kinds of corruption. There's the corruption that is in us by virtue of the fact that we were brought into existence out of nothing. That means that we need God to continue to exist. We need God. Not only does God bring us into existence, but he keeps us in existence. For us to remain, we need God, because in us is this corruption. What is the corruption Out of nothing? The change. Corruption means change. We were nothing and we became beings Out of nothing.

Speaker 1 30:44

The other form of corruption is the decay and the destruction that is brought about by our separation from God. In other words, this is a sinful state. When we sin and we are separated from the source of life, then we die spiritually and we die physically. So let's read this again when, once transgression had begun, men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature that's the one corruption to their nature, that's the one corruption and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the image of God, and they lost the grace. So that's the second form of corruption. We became subject to both. Why? Because we're no longer in communion with the giver of life. Surely, it would have been better never to have been created at all then, having been created to be neglected and perish. So that's clear.

Speaker 1 31:54

Saint Athanasius is saying if that were the end, then better not to have been created. And besides that, such indifference to the ruin of his own work before his very eyes would argue not goodness in God, but limitation. So if God observed the tragedy of the fall and remained unmoved by it, this would suggest that there was a limit to his goodness. It was impossible, therefore, that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of himself. So repentance could not do the trick. Why himself? So repentance could not do the trick? Why? Because we are subject to the corruption of our nature, which is now, after the fall, desperately in need of regeneration. It's not enough not to sin, but the damage has been done. So we took the poison. Just to use an analogy, poison is working its way in us and there are consequences. What is required is healing.

Speaker 1 33:14

What, or rather who, was it that was needed for such a grace and such recall as we required? The who is, of course, the one who created us in the beginning, who saved the word of God himself, who also, in the beginning, had made all things out of nothing. His part it was, and his alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father his consistency of character with all, so keeping the word again, for he alone, being word of the Father and above all, was, in consequence, both able to recreate all and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father. Okay, so it's the word of God himself, the Father. Okay, so it's the Word of God Himself. Why? Why is the Word of God Himself the One who was needed? He's the One who had made all things out of nothing in the beginning.

Speaker 1 34:30

How do we know that Enarchi in ologos, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made. That was made. So you see the focus. The theologian tells us. The focus is on the Word of God. He is the creator.

Speaker 1 35:04

Some people get confused because we say in the Creed I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. So they say, well, well, the father is the creator. If the father is the creator, how is the logos the creator? And in one lord, jesus Christ, the only begotten, begotten of the father before all worlds, light of light, true God, of true God, begotten, not made of one essence with the Father or consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made. So Father, son and Holy Spirit, they are one God, one being. And Holy Spirit, they are one God, one being.

Speaker 1 36:05

Okay, his part, it was, and his alone, says Saint Athanasius, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father his consistency of character with all. Okay, this is getting interesting. I think the first part of that we can understand a little easier. He alone, being word of the Father and above all, was in consequence able to recreate all. Okay, look, we have the point that he alone can recreate, he is the creator in the beginning and he alone can recreate.

Speaker 1 36:40

But it's his role to be the one who does what, not only recreate and suffer, to suffer for all, on behalf of all, and to be a mediator. He says ambassador, to be a mediator before the Father or to the Father on behalf of all. So how is it that he is a mediator? Because he is the word of the Father, who created the world with the Father, and he is the Logos of the Father. It was right that he alone should take on this role.

(The Risk in creation)

Speaker 1 37:34

And that refers to the pre-eternal council and the mystery. And that refers to the pre-eternal council and the mystery, what Father Sofroni refers to as the risk in creation. When God created man, he took a risk. Why? Why did he take a risk? Because by creating man with free will, he knew that not all would follow the way of god. But unless he created man with free will, man could not be in his image, because God is free.

Offerer and Offering: the Divine Liturgy

Speaker 1 38:20

Now Saint Athanasius is going to say more about this, but let's make a note here that the Logos is able to one recreate and two. There are two aspects to two to suffer and to be a mediator. So this ambassadorial role, so it's to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father. Remember, the liturgy teaches us everything the divine liturgy, the shape of the liturgy, and, of course, we are reminded time and time again that the one who offers and the one who is offered in the divine liturgy is the same one. It's Jesus Christ.

Appeal for support

Speaker 1 39:26

The liturgy addresses the Father first and foremost, and the one who is celebrating the liturgy is the high priest, christ. He is the one who offers and the one who is offered, so he's the one who suffers and he's the ambassador, mediator. That's very important. The bishop, or the priest, as St John Chrysostom said, lends his voice and his hand. The one who celebrates is Christ. Well, I think this is pretty deep stuff, so we have to take it a bit slowly, but it's okay. It's better to read a few lines carefully and to take them in, then to read many lines not to understand very much. So let's leave it there. With God's help, we'll continue next time. Click on the support the show button in the description box and become a supporter of the Mount Tabor Academy podcasts, which aim to introduce the theology and spiritual life of the Orthodox Church to the wider community.