Lastly, it must again be insisted that in his polemic against Arianism Athanasius is centrally soteriological. It is unnecessary to collect passages in support of what will be fully appreciated only after a thorough study of the controversial treatises. The essence of his position is comprised in his paraphrase of St. Peter's address to the Jews, Orat. ii. 16, sq., or in the argument, ib. 67, sqq., i. 43, and iii. 13. With regard to the Incarnation, it may be admitted that Athanasius uses language which might have been modified had he had later controversies in view. His common use of anthropos for the Manhood of Christ (see below, p. 83) might be alleged by the Nestorian, his comparison of it to the vesture of the High Priest (Orat. i. 47, ii. 8, see note there) by the Apollinarian or Monophysite partisan. But at least his use of either class of expressions shews that he did not hold the doctrine associated in later times with the other. Moreover, while from first to last he is explicitly clear as to the seat of personality in Christ, which is uniformly assigned to the Divine Logos (p. 40, note 2 and reff.), the integrity of the manhood of Christ is no less distinctly asserted (cf. de Incarn. 18. 1, 21. 7). He uses soma and anthropos indifferently during the earlier stages of the conflict, ignoring or failing to notice the peculiarity of the Luciano-Arian Christology. But from 362 onward the full integrity of the Saviour's humanity, sarx and psuche logike or pneuma, is energetically asserted against the theory of Apollinarius and those akin to it [96] (cf. Letters 59 and 60, and c. Apoll.). Some corollaries of this doctrine must now be mentioned.
The question of the sinlessness of Christ is not discussed by Athanasius ex professo until the controversy with Apollinarianism. In the earlier Arian controversy the question was in reality involved, partly by the Arian theory of the preptotes of the Word, partly by the correlated theory of prokope (cf. Orat. ii. 6, sqq.), and Athanasius instinctively falls back on the consideration that the Personality of the Son, if Divine, is necessarily sinless. In c. Apoll. i. 7, 17, ii. 10 the question is more thoroughly analysed. The complete psychological identity of Christ's human nature with our own is maintained along with the absolute moral identity of His will (thelesis, the determination of will, not the thelema ousiodes or volitional faculty) with the Divine will.
With regard to the human knowledge of Christ, the texts Mark xiii. 32, Luke ii. 52, lie at the foundation of his discussion Orat. iii. 42-53. The Arians appealed to these passages to support the contention that the Word, or Son of God in His Divine nature, was ignorant of the Day,' and advanced in knowledge. The whole argument of Athan. in reply is directed to shewing that these passages apply not to the Word or Son in Himself, but to the Son Incarnate. He knows as God, is ignorant as man. Omniscience is the attribute of Godhead, ignorance is proper to man. The Incarnation was not the sphere of advancement to the Word, but of humiliation and condescension; but the Manhood advanced in wisdom as it did in stature also, for advance belongs to man. That is the decisive and clear-cut position of Athanasius on this subject (which the notes there vainly seek to accommodate to the rash dogmatism of the schools). Athanasius appeals to the utterances of Christ which imply knowledge transcending human limitations in order to shew that such knowledge, or rather all knowledge, was possessed by the Word; in other words such utterances belong to the class of divine' not to that of human' phenomena in the life of Christ. So far as His human nature was concerned, He assumed its limitations of knowledge equally with all else that belongs to the physical and mental endowments of man. Why then was not Divine Omniscience exerted by Him at all times? This question is answered as all questions must be which arise out of any limitation of the Omnipotence of God in the Manhood of Christ. It was for our profit, as I at least think' (ib. 48). The very idea of the Incarnation is that of a limiting of the Divine under human conditions, the Divine being manifested in Christ only so far as the Wisdom of God has judged it necessary in order to carry out the purpose of His coming. In other words, Athanasius regarded the ignorance of Christ as economical' only in so far as the Incarnation is itself an oikonomia, a measured revelation, at once a veiling and a manifestation, of all that is in God. That the divine Omniscience wielded in the man Christ Jesus an adequate instrument for its own manifestation Athanasius firmly holds: the exact extent to which such manifestation was carried, the reserve of miraculous power or knowledge with which that Instrument was used, must be explained not by reference to the human mind, will, or character of Christ, but to the Divine Will and Wisdom which alone has both effected our redemption and knows the secrets of its bringing about. With Athanasius, we may quote St. Paul, tis egno noun Kuriou.
It may be observed before leaving this point that Athanasius takes occasion (§43, fin., cf. 45) to distinguish two senses of the words the Son,' as referring on the one hand to the eternal, on the other to the human existence of Christ. To the latter he limits Mark xiii. 32: the point is of importance in view of his relation to Marcellus (supra, p. xxxvi.).
As a further corollary of the Incarnation we may notice his frequent use (Orat. iii. 14, 29, 33, iv. 32, c. Apoll. i. 4, 12, 21) of the word theotokos as an epithet or as a name for the Virgin Mary. The translation Mother of God' is of course erroneous. God-bearer' (Gottes-bärerin), the literal equivalent, is scarcely idiomatic English. The perpetual virginity of Mary is maintained incidentally (c. Apoll. i. 4), but there is an entire absence in his writings not only of worship of the Virgin, but of Mariology,' i.e., of the tendency to assign to her a personal agency, or any peculiar place, in the work of Redemption (Gen. iii. 15, Vulg.). Further, the argument of Orat. i. 51 fin., that the sending of Christ in the flesh for the first time (loipon) liberated human nature from sin, and enabled the requirement of God's law to be fulfilled in man (an argument strictly within the lines of Rom. viii. 3), would be absolutely wrecked by the doctrine of the freedom of Mary from original sin (immaculate conception'). If that doctrine be held, sin was condemned in the flesh' (i.e., first deposed from its place in human nature, see Gifford or Meyer-Weiss in loc.), not by the sending of Christ, but by the congenital sinlessness of Mary. If the Arians had only known of the latter doctrine, they would have had an easy reply to that powerful passage.
[96] The doctrine of Athanasius is, not formally but none the less really, the doctrine of Chalcedon, which again stands or falls together with that of Nicæa. Like the latter, it transcends the power of human thought to do more than state it in terms which exclude the (Nestorian and Monophysite) alternatives. The Man Jesus Christ is held to have lacked nothing that constitutes personality in man; the human personality which therefore belongs to it ideally, being in fact merged in the Divine personality of the Son. The impersonality,' as it is sometimes called, of Christ quâ man is therefore better spoken of as His Divine Personality. Personality and will are correlated but not identical ideas.
§6. Derivative Doctrines. Grace and the Means of Grace; The Christian Life; The Last Things.
The idea of Grace is important to the theological system of Athanasius, in view of the central place occupied in that system by the idea of restoration and new creation as the specific work of Christ upon His fellow-men (supra, §2, cf. Orat. ii. 56, Exp. in Pss. xxxiii. 2, cxviii. 5, LXX.). But, in common with the Greek Fathers generally, he does not analyse its operation, nor endeavour to fix its relation to free will (cf. Orat. i. 37 fin., iii. 25 sub fin.). The divine predestination relates (for anything that Ath. says) not to individuals so much as to the Purpose of God, before all ages, to repair the foreseen evil of man's fall by the Incarnation (Orat. ii. 75, sq.). On the general subject of Sacraments and their efficacy, he says little or nothing. The initiatory rite of Baptism makes us sons of God (de Decr. 31, cf. Orat. i. 37 ut supra), and is the only complete renewal to be looked for in this life, Serap. iv. 13). It is accompanied (de Trin. et Sp. S. 7) by confession of faith in the Trinity, and the baptism administered by Arians who do not really hold this faith is therefore in peril of losing its value (Orat. ii. 42, fin.). The grace of the Spirit conferred at baptism will be finally withdrawn from the wicked at the last judgment (Exp. in Ps. lxxv. 13, LXX.). In the de Trin. et Sp. S. 21 baptism is coupled with the imposition of hands as one rite. On the Eucharist there is an important passage (ad Serap. iv. 19), which must be given in full. He has been speaking of sin against the Holy Spirit, which latter name he applies [see above, ch. iii. §1 (22)] to the Saviour's Divine Personality. He proceeds to illustrate this by John vi. 62-64.
For here also He has used both terms of Himself, flesh and spirit; and He distinguished the spirit from what is of the flesh in order that they might believe not only in what was visible in Him, but in what was invisible, and so understand that what He says is not fleshly, but spiritual. For for how many would the body suffice as food, for it to become meat even for the whole world? But this is why He mentioned the ascending of the Son of Man into heaven; namely, to draw them off from their corporeal idea, and that from thenceforth they might understand that the aforesaid flesh was heavenly from above, and spiritual meat, to be given at His hands. For what I have said unto you,' says He, is spirit and life;' as much as to say, what is manifested, and to be given for the salvation of the world, is the flesh which I wear. But this, and the blood from it, shall be given to you spiritually at My hands as meat, so as to be imparted spiritually in each one, and to become for all a preservative to resurrection of life eternal.'
Beyond this he does not define the relation of the outward and visible in the Eucharist to the spiritual and inward. The reality of the Eucharistic gift is insisted on as strongly as its spirituality in such passages as ad Max. (Letter 61) 2 sub fin., and the comment on Matt. vii. 6 (Migne xxvii. 1380), See to it, therefore, Deacon, that thou do not administer to the unworthy the purple of the sinless body,' and the protest of the Egyptian bishops (Apol. c. Ar. 5) that their churches are adorned only by the blood of Christ and by the pious worship of Him.' The Holy Table is expressly stated to have been made of wood (Hist. Ar. 56), and was situated (Apol. Fug.) in a space called the hierateion. The Eucharist was celebrated in most places every Sunday, but not on week-days (Apol. c. Ar. 11). But in Alexandria we hear of it being celebrated on a Friday on one occasion, and this was apparently a normal one (Apol. Fug. 24, Apol. Const. 25). To celebrate the Eucharist was the office of the bishop or presbyter (Apol. c. Ar. 11). Ischyras (supr. p. xxxviii.) was held by Athanasius to be a layman only, and therefore incapable of offering the Eucharist. The sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist is not touched upon, except in the somewhat strange fragment (Migne xxvi. 1259) from an Oratio de defunctis, which contains the words he de ge anaimaktos thusia exilasmos. He insists on the finality of the sacrifice of the Cross, Orat. ii. 9, hai men gar kata nomon...ouk eichon to piston, kath' hemeran parerchomenai; & 211; de tou Soteros thusia hapax genomene teteleioke to pan. On repentance and the confession of sins there is little to quote. He strongly asserts the efficacy of repentance, and explains Heb. vi. 4, of the unique cleansing and restoring power of baptism (Serap. iv. 13, as cited above.) A catena on Jeremiah preserves a fragment [supra, ch. iii. §1 (38)], which compares the ministry of the priest in baptism to that in confession: houtos kai ho exomologoumenos en metanoia dia tou hi& 153;reos lambanei ten aphesin chariti Christou. Of compulsory confession, or even of this ordinance as an ordinary element of the Christian life, we read nothing.