Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    On the Incarnation (Translated by Archibald Robertson)
    On the Incarnation (Translated by Archibald Robertson)
    On the Incarnation (Translated by Archibald Robertson)
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    On the Incarnation (Translated by Archibald Robertson)

    By Saint Athanasius

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    One of the most important works of Christian theology, the treatise “On the Incarnation” was written by the fourth century Egyptian religious leader St. Athanasius of Alexandria. An influential Christian theologian and church elder, St. Athanasius, also known as Athanasius the Great, Athanasius the Confessor, and Athanasius the Apostolic, was the twentieth bishop of Alexandria from 328 AD to 373 AD. St. Athanasius played an important role in the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD where Roman Emperor Constantine the Great convened the council to address the question of whether Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God and distinct from his Father. “On the Incarnation” expands with clarity on the conclusion reached by the First Council of Nicaea, that God became man through His son, Jesus of Nazareth, and through Jesus, we too may become one with God. While brief, St. Athanasius explores in detail why God became flesh through Jesus and why this transformation was necessary to save the corrupted human soul and prepare it for a perfect and immortal union with God. This treatise, by one of the most important and influential teachers of Christian philosophy, is an essential read for all students of the Christian faith. This edition follows the translation of Archibald Robertson.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateSep 27, 2018
    ISBN9781420959567
    On the Incarnation (Translated by Archibald Robertson)

    Read more from Saint Athanasius

    Related to On the Incarnation (Translated by Archibald Robertson)

    Related ebooks

    Religion & Spirituality For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      What The New Testament Doesn’t Say

      May 20, 2019

      When professing Christians deny Biblical creation, we often point them to the Words of Jesus and the New Testament authors, which clearly affirm their own belief in Biblical creation. Because Christians are, by definition, people who believe what Jes

      5 min read

    • Article

      Gulliver’s Travels

      Oct 30, 2018

      Gulliver’s Travels
      5 min read

    • Article

      Is There A God?

      Jun 12, 2020

      Sometime around the mid-1st Century, Paul the apostle found himself preaching to some of the greatest philosophers in history in the Greek city of Athens. This was a somewhat unusual event because Paul normally began his missionary work at the Jewish

      1 min read

    • Article

      Trans: The Middle Ages Had Another Word For It

      Oct 29, 2020

      HISTORY ECHOES. Sometimes, it’s a place that echoes across time. Sometimes, it’s a turn of phrase. Consider these two statements. The first is by John Wycliffe, the fourteenth-century philosopher and heresiarch: So about this white and round priest-c

      4 min read

    • Article

      Stepping Into The Book Of Romans

      Oct 2, 2020

      The New Testament book of Romans is a copy of a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Rome, sometime around the end of 58AD while he was in Corinth. He had never been to the Roman church before, although he had desired to do so for a lo

      2 min read

    • Article

      Overcoming Our Separation From God Part II

      Sep 4, 2020

      The fact that God has to take the initiative to reveal Himself to us chafes against the rebellious heart of man. We don’t want to submit to the ways of God and His revelation of Himself. People often try to create a god convenient to their desires:

      2 min read

    • Article

      Why It’s Good To Be Wrong: Nothing obstructs access to the truth like a belief in absolute truthfulness.

      Jan 15, 2015

      That human beings can be mistaken in anything they think or do is a proposition known as fallibilism. Stated abstractly like that, it is seldom contradicted. Yet few people have ever seriously believed it, either. That our senses often fail us is a t

      12 min read

    • Article

      A Burden On The Heart Of The Believer “I Charge You Therefore, Preach The Word!”

      Oct 21, 2019

      Most of us would recognise that the last words of a great and godly man or woman before their death would likely be words of great value. Words to consider and ponder. Jesus’ seven statements from the Cross are of that category and are thus recorded

      5 min read

    • Article

      Learning about THE RECORDS

      Apr 9, 2021

      Learning about THE RECORDS
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Charmed Life of Frank Wilczek

      Mar 17, 2021

      Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek’s new book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, is both a way of thinking about the abundance that characterizes our exterior and interior worlds, and a kind of alternative to traditional religion, a way of being “born aga

      13 min read

    • Article

      To Thine Eyes

      Feb 12, 2023

      To Thine Eyes
      3 min read

    • Article

      Passed With A Synod And A Wink

      Oct 28, 2021

      SO THE RESULTS ARE IN. A new dawn has broken, has it not? Where there is discord may we bring harmony; let’s get it done. Et cetera. What? You didn’t know there was a General Election on? Well there was. All across England (and the Channel Islands).

      3 min read

    • Article

      GALILEO vs The Inquisicion

      Jul 13, 2023

      GALILEO vs The Inquisicion
      8 min read

    • Article

      “My People Are Destroyed For Lack Of Knowledge…”

      Sep 24, 2021

      “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” – Hosea 4:6 Believers tend to q

      4 min read

    • Article

      Radiance

      Dec 30, 2022

      Radiance
      7 min read

    • Article

      Grappling With Evil

      Oct 28, 2021

      Grappling With Evil
      6 min read

    • Article

      On Christmas

      Nov 30, 2021

      On Christmas
      13 min read

    • Article

      Will Power

      Dec 5, 2023

      Will Power
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Edge of Bethlehem

      Jul 26, 2021

      The Edge of Bethlehem
      18 min read

    • Article

      Entertaining Angels

      Aug 27, 2019

      Entertaining Angels
      3 min read

    • Article

      Chronology Matters

      May 30, 2022

      DATING ANCIENT PAPYRI To understand why dating a papyrus is important, it is useful to consider why we are studying antiquity at all. Of course, the main reason is because there is so much to be amazed about, so much to enjoy. There’s nothing wrong w

      5 min read

    • Article

      Top 10 Books About Online: An Excerpt from ‘Attention: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction’

      Aug 13, 2018

      1. The Catalog of Nibru (Various, circa 21st to 20th Centuries B.C.) I, the king, was a hero already in the womb I am a king treated with respect Not only did the lord make the world appear in its correct form Lady of all the divine powers These line

      8 min read

    • Article

      Getting to Know God What is God Like?

      Jun 12, 2020

      In previous articles we established the importance of knowing God, and the basis upon which we can know Him best. It is from God’s self-revelation found in the Bible that we can learn most clearly who God is and what He demands from us. With this art

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for On the Incarnation (Translated by Archibald Robertson)

    4.5/5

    168 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      A classic explanation of the Incarnation as well as the Trinity. If more people read it, we'd have less people comparing the Trinity to a fidget spinner.
    • 1/5
      This is a hard one for me to "rank". The writing is many hundreds of years old, so it takes a while to get into the flow. The whole book was really just justification for a particular theological perspective, rather than any real "meat". If what a reader wants is a hard-core apologist defense of the political/theological view that eventually held sway back in the 4th and 5th centuries regarding emerging Christianity, this is probably a good book to read. What made it particularly difficult was that many (or most) of the arguments that cited more ancient scripture were dramatic stretches of interpretation if not massive re-interpretation of what seems to be the earlier meaning. I love reading G-d books though, so it was worth trying. If you like them too, give it a try and see what you think. If nothing fun, the ancient style is interesting.
    • 5/5
      This is a classic. the review of this by C.S. Lewis, his introduction to it which can be found online, sums it up well. This book helps so much in understanding and realigning ourselves with the faith of the early church fathers in its purity, rather than all the baggage and mystery that often surrounds it from tradition. This is 'the faith once delivered to the saints' - challenging liberals, high churchmen and evangelicals alike.
    • 5/5
      A great, short, and perfectly concise account of the narration and what it means to all.
    • 4/5
      Athanasius is the Father of Orthodoxy in many ways, and this is his magnum opus. For students of historical theology, this is a must. For students of Orthodox Christianity, this is important. I am not sure I would recommend to the run of the mill church goer, partially because the issues Athanasius raises may seem remote to the issues facing today's church. In fact, this book MADE today's church, and that fact that we take so much of what he says for granted shows how deeply he influenced us.
    • 5/5
      Athanasius wrote the work to explain the incarnation to one Macarius, who was possibly a new convert. In so doing, he gave a summary of orthodox Christian belief as he understood it, and argued for its veracity. I confess I wasn't persuaded by all of his arguments: in general, it was not that I disagreed with his theology, but rather that his arguments for why that theology should be accepted occasionally seemed to boil down to 'you should believe this because it's obviously true' - when often the truth isn't obvious at all. There is, however, an awful lot here to ponder, and to meditate upon. The early sections in particular contain some wonderful passages on the theology of the incarnation. I shall need to read it a couple more times to appreciate it properly, I think. The historical context is interesting: writing at the time when Christianity was newly religio licita and was spreading rapidly, and with the recent personal memory of Christian martyrs unafraid to die rather than deny their faith, he sees all this as irrefutable evidence of the truth of Christianity. His arguments here, while not without a kernel of truth, are less than convincing to the modern (especially Western) reader, but they must have seemed far more convincing in his own day. I was a little apprehensive about the section 'Refutation of the Jews', fearing an unpleasant tirade; in that, I did Athanasius a disservice. The section essentially amounts to Athanasius expressing his bafflement that so many of his Jewish contemporaries remain unconvinced that Jesus is the fulfilment of the prophecies within their own Scriptures. He systematically addresses the prophecies of the Jewish Scriptures that are applied by Christianity to Jesus, metaphorically wringing his hands and saying 'it's obvious, why can't you see it?', seemingly oblivious to the fact that people are capable of drawing very different conclusions from the same data, and that some people have considered the evidence and just don't agree with him. His 'Refutation of the Gentiles' is similar: his plea for the Greeks to abandon paganism and philosophy and turn to Jesus is deeply earnest but shallow in argument.The edition I have also contains a short but superb introduction by CS Lewis, which is worth reading by itself. It discusses why reading works such as this has merit for the ordinary Christian, as opposed to the professional theologian whose preserve such works are usually considered. It also discusses why reading 'old books' as well as new books is a useful exercise: "Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct that characteristic mistakes of our own period. ... People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. ... Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction." (pp. 4-5) A tad over-optimistic, perhaps, but an excellent incentive to read the book.
    • 5/5
      Is it possible to review this? This is one for the coat pocket- to be read again and again and again. Essential Christianity here. Awesome (and I rarely use that word).CS Lewis' introduction is a classic in its own right.

    Book preview

    On the Incarnation (Translated by Archibald Robertson) - Saint Athanasius

    cover.jpg

    ON THE INCARNATION

    (ATHANASIUS DE INCARNATIONE)

    By SAINT ATHANASIUS

    Translated by ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON

    On the Incarnation

    By Saint Athanasius of Alexandria

    Translated by Archibald Robertson

    Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5955-0

    eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5956-7

    This edition copyright © 2018. Digireads.com Publishing.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

    Cover Image: a detail of St. Athanasius by Francesco Solimena (1657-1747), from Santa Maria Assunta Cathedral, Naples / De Agostini Picture Library / A. Dagli Orti / Bridgeman Images.

    Please visit www.digireads.com

    CONTENTS

    Preface.

    Of the Incarnation of the Word.

    I.

    II.

    III.

    IV.

    V.

    VI.

    VII.

    VIII.

    IX.

    X.

    XI.

    XII.

    XIII.

    XIV.

    XV.

    XVI.

    XVII.

    XVIII.

    XIX.

    XX.

    XXI.

    XXII.

    XXIII.

    XXIV.

    XXV.

    XVI.

    XXVII.

    XXVIII.

    XXIX.

    XXX.

    XXXI.

    XXXII.

    XXXIII.

    XXXIV.

    XXXV.

    XXXVI.

    XXXVII.

    XXXVIII.

    XXXIX.

    XL.

    XLI.

    XLII.

    XLIII.

    XLIV.

    XLV.

    XLVI.

    XLVII.

    XLVIII.

    XLIX.

    L.

    LI.

    LII.

    LIII.

    LIV.

    LV.

    LVI.

    LVII.

    Preface.

    The following pages are an attempt to discharge a debt incurred by the Translator, in the opinion of many kind friends, by the publication of an edition of the Greek text in 1882. The translation, originally made for a class attending lectures on the Incarnation, has now been carefully re-written. It is offered to the public under a strong sense of serious imperfections, but still in the hope that it may prove a fairly accurate reproduction of the sense of the original.

    It aims primarily at helping the theological student who is working at the Greek text; but it may also prove welcome, it is hoped, to those who wish to read the work without having recourse to the Greek.

    To the latter class some apology is due for what is felt to be an awkward and not always very readable style. The writer has preferred to adhere as closely as possible even to the redundancies and harsh turns of the text, to producing a smoother result at the cost of literal fidelity.

    The translations of New Testament citations follow the revised English version, except where once or twice cogent reasons have appeared for departing from it. The translations of passages from the Old Testament are literal renderings of the LXX. as quoted by Athanasius. The LXX. orthography of proper names has been followed, though not without some misgiving in less familiar cases. In some cases, as in the frequent recurrence of particles like λοὶπὸν, πάλιν, &c., close adherence to the Greek has not always been thought necessary; nor has the Translator been able to do justice to the paronomasia of λόγος and λογικός in an important passage.

    It is needless for him to add that he will thankfully accept any criticisms or corrections. With regard to the matter of the book, it has seemed undesirable to repeat what was said in the short introduction to the Greek text. But for the sake of readers who have not that introduction before them, a chronological table of the main events of the life of Athanasius has been given, as well as a very concise synopsis of the matter of the work.

    It remains for the Translator to express his gratitude to the Rev. Walter Lock, Fellow of Magdalen and Sub-Warden of Keble College, Oxford, for many very kind and useful suggestions at different times, and for his help in revising the sheets of the present translation.

    Hatfield Hall, Durham,

    September 1884.

    Of the Incarnation of the Word.

    I.

    Whereas in what precedes we have drawn out—choosing a few points from among many—a sufficient account of the error of the heathen concerning idols, and of the worship of idols, and how they originally came to be invented; how, namely, out of wickedness men devised for themselves the worshipping of idols: and whereas we have by God’s grace noted somewhat also of the divinity of the Word of the Father, and of His universal Providence and power, and that the Good Father through Him orders all things, and all things are moved by Him, and in Him are quickened: come now, Macarius (worthy of that name), and true lover of Christ, let us follow up the faith of our religion, and set forth also what relates to the Word’s becoming Man, and to His divine Appearing among us, which Jews traduce and Greeks laugh to scorn, but we worship; in order that, all the more for the seeming low estate of the Word, your piety toward Him may be increased and multiplied. 2. For the more He is mocked among the unbelieving, the more witness does He give of His own Godhead; inasmuch as He not only Himself demonstrates as possible what men mistake, thinking impossible, but what men deride as unseemly, this by His own goodness He clothes with seemliness, and what men, in their conceit of wisdom, laugh at as merely human, He by His own power demonstrates to be divine, subduing the pretensions of idols by His supposed humiliation—by the Cross—and those who mock and disbelieve invisibly winning over to recognise His divinity and power. 3. But to treat this subject it is necessary to recall what has been previously said; in order that you may neither fail to know the cause of the bodily appearing of the Word of the Father, so high and so great, nor think it a consequence of His own nature that the Saviour has worn a body; but that being incorporeal by nature, and Word from the beginning, He has yet of the loving-kindness and goodness of His own Father been manifested to us in a human body for our salvation. 4. It is, then, proper for us to begin the treatment of this subject by speaking of the creation of the universe, and of God its Artificer, that so it may be duly perceived that the renewal of creation has been the work of the self-same Word that made it at the beginning. For it will appear not inconsonant for the Father to have wrought its salvation in Him by Whose means He made it.

    II.

    Of the making of the universe and the creation of all things many have taken different views, and each man has laid down the law just as he pleased. For some say that all things have come into being of themselves, and in a chance fashion; as, for example, the Epicureans, who tell us in{1} their self-contempt, that universal providence does not exist, speaking right in the face of obvious fact and experience. 2. For if, as they say, everything has had its beginning of itself, and independently of purpose, it would follow that everything had come into{2} mere being, so as to be alike and not distinct. For it would follow in virtue of the unity of body that everything must be sun or moon, and in the case of men it would follow that the whole must be hand, or eye, or foot. But as it is this is not so. On the contrary, we see a distinction of sun, moon, and earth; and again, in the case of human bodies, of foot, hand, and head. Now, such separate arrangement as this tells us not of their having come into being of themselves, but shows that a cause preceded them; from which cause it is possible to apprehend God also as the Maker and Orderer of all. 3. But others, including Plato, who is in such repute among the Greeks, argue that God has made the world out of matter previously existing and without beginning. For God could have made nothing had not the material existed already; just as the wood must exist ready at hand for the carpenter, to enable him to work at all. 4. But in so saying they know not that they are investing God with weakness. For if He is not Himself the cause of the material, but makes things only of previously existing material, He proves to be weak, because unable to produce anything He

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1