Athanasius and the Adoration of the Word Made Flesh

Even his name sounds mythical: Athanasius.

To some of us, this theologian from the ancient shores of North Africa might as well be mythical. Encountering Athanasius, known as “the dwarf” by his opponents, is like meeting someone vastly foreign and ancient descending from the jagged peaks of the Himalayas or emerging from the depth of a primeval forests.[2] He is not only nearly mythical, but epic. His epic status is captured in the tagline Athanasius contra mundum, Athanasius against the world.

But when I imagine Athanasius, I don’t see some Gimli battling hordes of Arian orcs. When I picture the Greek speaking “dwarf,” I see an old magi adoring the Christ. Athanasius strikes me as something like the representation of the magi in Albrecht Dürer’s Adoration of the Magi, stooping down in enraptured adoration of the Christ child. The epic Athanasius bends the knee in worship and love for the Child who is infinitely more startling and awe inspiring than he himself is.

The effect of a book like Athanasius’s classic On the Incarnation communicates Athanasius’s gaze of wonder at the fact that the eternal Logos, the eternal Word, became flesh. This mystery “we adore,” he said.[3] Reading On the Incarnation is like Athanasius turning to us and saying, “Do you see Him? Do you see the Christ, the Word made flesh?” And as we read, Athanasius’s worship becomes our own.

Athanasius adored Christ. He could not get past the fact that the Word who created ex nihilo is the same one who accomplished our salvation. On the Incarnation contemplates the Word who was Creator and Redeemer.

The Word and Creation

Athanasius recognized that creation was the action of the triune God. God is the master Artist, the “Maker and Artificer” of all things.[4] Reading On the Incarnation is like Athanasius turning to us and saying, “Do you see Him? Do you see the Christ, the Word made flesh?” Click To TweetGod is the painter who reveals Himself through His creation.  The Logos or Word of God was the Agent of creation whose image is impressed on all of creation.[5] This Word was no mere creature, but the eternal and uncreated God Himself. He was the “Image Absolute” of the Father.[6]

God created humanity to bear the image of the “Image Absolute.” They reflected God. They were created in a special way to perceive the wonder of God in creation. God created this capacity for adoration within people and presented creation as a finite expression of His infinite beauty. Creation was the mutual delight of God and man. God delighted in, and mankind wondered at, the image of the Word impressed on creation. For Athanasius, beauty and its perception came from the Word.

The Word Incarnated (In-fleshed) for Redemption

Athanasius recognized that the fall of man was a rejection of God. Mankind rejected the triune God and descended away from goodness, truth, and beauty into the corruption of non-being. People were guilty of “throwing away their birthright of beauty” and descended into the idolatrous chaos of no longer loving God through creation, but creation instead of God.[7]

To remedy this, God renewed the world through the same Agent who created it: the Word, the second person of the Trinity. God repainted the Word into broken humanity and creation through the incarnation. Click To TweetAgain, Athanasius used artistic language to describe this. God is the master painter who redraws his Image on spoiled creation through the Son: “You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God.”[8]

God repainted the Word into broken humanity and creation through the incarnation. The Creator of the physical senses was seen in the flesh.[9] The transcendent God was near and immanent. In God’s taking on flesh, the physical body and creation itself was sanctified. The cross, the center of the faith, displayed the purification of sin. Through the public nature of the bodily death and resurrection, God draws humanity out of their corruption into the beauty, goodness, and truth they were created for.

The only proper response is repentance and adoration of the Word made flesh. The incarnation of the Word put in motion the restoration of the cosmos. Humanity can again see the divinity of the Word unfolded and displayed throughout creation.[10]

Come and Adore Him

Athanasius may seem foreign and awe inspiring to us, emerging from the sands of history and the shores of North Africa. But the Word who became flesh, the object of Athanasius’s reflection and the One who held his gaze, is infinitely more wonderful. Athanasius bids us to come and look at the mystery. He invites us to see the beauty of Christ, which is the same beauty that illuminates the cosmos. Take up and read On the Incarnation and heed Athanasius’s invitation, “Oh come, let us adore Him.”

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Endnotes

[1] Online: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albrecht_Dürer_-_Adorazione_dei_Magi_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg. Accessed 11/25/2023.

[2] Originally, Karl Barth said this about his encounter with John Calvin. Barth said, “Calvin is a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power, something directly down from Himalaya, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I lack completely the means, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, not to speak of presenting it adequately.” One wishes that Barth would have more “assimilated” the personal piety of Calvin. Karl Barth, Revolutionary Theology in the Making: Barth-Thurneysen Correspondence 1914-1925, trans. James D. Smart (Richmond: John Knox, 1964), 101.

[3] Athanasius, On the Incarnation, trans. A. Religious (Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 1996), §1, 24.

[4] Athanasius, On the Incarnation §2, 27.

[5] Peter J. Leithart, Athanasius (Grand Rapids, Baker Academic 2011), 92.

[6] Athanasius, On the Incarnation §11, 38.

[7] Athanasius, On the Incarnation §3, 29.

[8] Athanasius On the Incarnation §14, 41–42.

[9] Athanasius On the Incarnation §15, 43.

[10] Athanasius On the Incarnation § 45.