To Adelphius

Contents

1. 1Athanasius praises Adelphius for exposing a new Arian error that refuses worship to the incarnate Word, and deplores the heretics' fall.
2. 2Athanasius identifies the new error with the old heresies of Valentinus, Marcion and Mani, and explains why he answers it.
3. 3Athanasius explains that Christians do not worship a creature but the Word made flesh, never dividing the body from the Word, as the leper and others in the Gospels show.
4. 4Athanasius argues that creation itself worshiped its creator in the body, and that the incarnation brings no dishonor but our deification and freedom.
5. 5Athanasius shows that refusing to worship the incarnate Word is ingratitude for the redemption he won in the flesh, which remains inseparable from him in heaven.
6. 6Athanasius sets out the right faith from the prophets and apostles: the Word came in the flesh and gave himself for us, so that his coming is the ransom from death.
7. 7Athanasius argues that as Israel rightly worshiped God in the temple, so the Lord's body, his temple, is rightly worshiped with him.
8. 8Athanasius concludes that only a creator Word could save creatures, and that the Church both confesses his Godhead and worships his coming in the flesh.