On the Incarnation of the Word

Summary

On the Incarnation of the Word is a short treatise in which Athanasius of Alexandria explains why the eternal Word of God became a human being, died and rose again. It forms the second half of a two-part work addressed to a Christian friend named Macarius; the first part, Against the Heathen, argues against idolatry and for the existence of one God known through creation and the Word. The date is disputed: older scholars placed it before the Council of Nicaea in 325, while many now date it to the 330s, during Athanasius's first exile. Athanasius begins with creation. The same Word through whom God made the world out of nothing is the one who renews it. Human beings were made in the image of God and given a share of the Word's life, but by turning from God they began to slide back toward the nothingness from which they came; death and corruption took hold of them. God could neither simply let his creatures perish nor cancel the penalty of death he had warned of. Repentance alone would not cure a nature already corrupted. The solution, Athanasius argues, was for the Word to take a human body, offer it to death on behalf of all, and so destroy death from within, raising the body incorrupt. A second reason is knowledge: people who no longer recognized God in creation could learn him again from the works Christ did in a body. The cross, Athanasius says, was a public death so that the resurrection would be beyond doubt. The later chapters offer proofs. Christians, even children, now despise death; idols and oracles fall silent where Christ is preached; prophecies in the Jewish Scriptures point to his birth, death and the end of sacrifice in Jerusalem; and Greek philosophers cannot explain the change the gospel has worked. The book closes by urging the reader to study the Scriptures with a pure life. The treatise is admired for its clear, confident argument and was much read in the Eastern and Western churches. In 1944 C. S. Lewis wrote an introduction to a modern translation recommending it as an example of an old book every Christian should read.

Top Lessons

• Creation and redemption belong together

  Athanasius insists that the Word who saves the world is the same Word who made it, so salvation restores creation rather than escaping it.

• Evidence from changed lives

  He argues from what he can see: ordinary believers facing death without fear.

• Argument from evidence

  Athanasius points to changed lives and the courage of martyrs as evidence for the resurrection.

• For the Christian reader

  Athanasius defended the full divinity of Christ in the decades after the Council of Nicaea and was exiled five times for it. This book explains why it matters: only God himself could restore his image in fallen humanity and defeat death. C. S. Lewis, who wrote an introduction to a 1944 translation, urged Christians to read such old books alongside new ones. Read it with John 1:1–14 and Hebrews 2:14–15.

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