On the Incarnation

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–11.7 · 12.1–22.5 · 23.1–34.3 · 35.1–43.7 · 44.1–55.6 · 56.1–57.3

1. 1.1Athanasius links this work to the preceding one against the pagans and announces his subject: the Word's becoming man, which Jews slander, Greeks mock, and Christians worship.
2. 1.2The mockery of unbelievers only magnifies the Word's divinity, since by the cross he overthrows idols and wins over scoffers.
3. 1.3The Word, bodiless by nature, took a body not by necessity of his nature but out of the Father's love for humankind, for our salvation.
4. 1.4Athanasius will begin with creation, since the Father saves the world through the same Word through whom he made it.
5. 2.1Athanasius begins with rival accounts of creation, first the Epicurean view that all things arose by chance without providence.
6. 2.2The variety and order of the world show that it did not arise by chance but has a cause, God.
7. 2.3Athanasius states Plato's view that God made the world from pre-existing uncreated matter.
8. 2.4Creation from pre-existing matter would make God weak, a mere artisan rather than a creator.
9. 2.5Heretics invent a creator other than the Father of Jesus Christ.
10. 2.6Jesus' words on marriage and John's prologue show that the Creator is the Father of Christ, against the heretics.
11. 3.1Christian faith holds that God made all things from nothing through the Word, as Genesis and the Shepherd of Hermas teach.
12. 3.2Hebrews 11:3 confirms creation from nothing by God's word.
13. 3.3God, who is good, made humans in his image with a share in the Word's power so that they might live in blessedness.
14. 3.4God gave the first humans a law and paradise: obedience would keep them incorrupt, transgression would bring natural corruption and death.
15. 3.5Genesis 2:16–17 threatens not only death but remaining in the corruption of death.
16. 4.1Athanasius explains that the origin of humanity belongs to his subject.
17. 4.2Human transgression was the occasion of the Word's coming down in love.
18. 4.3Humanity's salvation was the reason for the Word's embodiment.
19. 4.4By turning from God humans incurred the threatened death and began to return to the non-being from which they came.
20. 4.5Turning to evil, which has no real being, humans lose their hold on being itself and remain in death.
21. 4.6Humans are mortal by nature, but by keeping God's likeness they would have remained incorrupt and lived as gods.
22. 5.1Humans, corruptible by nature but graced by the Word, turned by the devil's counsel to corruption and so caused their own death.
23. 5.2Through the devil's envy death entered, and corruption prevailed over the whole human race beyond its natural force.
24. 5.3Human sin grew without limit, from the first invention of wickedness to insatiable lawlessness.
25. 5.4Adultery, theft, murder, and war filled the whole world.
26. 5.5Humanity fell even into unnatural vice, as Paul describes in Romans 1.
27. 6.1Under death and corruption the human race, made in God's image, was perishing.
28. 6.2Death held legal power over humanity by God's own law, which created a dilemma both absurd and unfitting.
29. 6.3It would be absurd for God's word of death to be broken, for God would then be untruthful.
30. 6.4It would be unfitting for rational beings sharing in the Word to perish.
31. 6.5God's goodness could not let his work be destroyed by the devil's deceit.
32. 6.6It would be most unfitting for God's craftsmanship in humanity to vanish.
33. 6.7What was the good God to do: let his rational creatures perish, which would make their creation pointless?
34. 6.8Neglecting his own work would show weakness in God rather than goodness.
35. 6.9Having made humans, God could not let them perish before his eyes.
36. 6.10God's goodness required that humanity not be left to corruption.
37. 7.1Yet God must also remain truthful in his law concerning death.
38. 7.2Athanasius considers whether repentance alone could restore humanity.
39. 7.3Repentance would neither keep God truthful nor undo natural corruption; it only stops sinning.
40. 7.4Since humanity had lost the grace of the image and fallen into corruption, only the creating Word could restore it.
41. 7.5Only the Word, above all things, could re-create all, suffer for all, and intercede for all with the Father.
42. 8.1The Word, who fills all things, comes into our world by stooping down in love.
43. 8.2Seeing humanity's ruin and liability to death, the Word in mercy takes a body like ours.
44. 8.3The Word took a real body from a pure virgin, making it his temple and instrument.
45. 8.4The Word gave his body to death for all, so that the law of death was spent and humans might be brought back to incorruption.
46. 9.1The immortal Word took a mortal body so that, offered as a spotless sacrifice, it might die for all and abolish death.
47. 9.2The Word paid humanity's debt by offering his body, and so clothed all with incorruption.
48. 9.3As a king dwelling in one house protects a whole city, so it is with the King of all.
49. 9.4The Son's dwelling in one human body ended the enemies' plots and the power of death over all.
50. 10.0The Word's saving work was supremely fitting to God's goodness.
51. 10.1Like a king defending his city, the Word blotted out death by offering his body and corrected human neglect by his teaching.
52. 10.2Paul and Hebrews confirm that Christ died for all.
53. 10.3Hebrews 2:10 shows that only the creating Word could restore humanity.
54. 10.4Hebrews 2:14–15 shows that the Word took flesh to destroy the devil through death.
55. 10.5Christ's sacrifice ended the law of death and began new life; as in Adam all die, in Christ all will be made alive.
56. 10.6Athanasius closes the first reason for the incarnation and turns to further reasons.
57. 11.1Knowing that human nature could not by itself know its uncreated Maker, God in mercy did not leave humans without knowledge of him.
58. 11.2Creatures who do not know their Maker gain nothing and are no better than animals.
59. 11.3God made humans in his image, the Word, so that through the Word they might know the Father and live in blessedness.
60. 11.4Humans rejected this grace and turned to idols, giving God's honor to wood, stone, and men.
61. 11.5Humans came to worship demons with animal and human sacrifices.
62. 11.6Magic, oracles, and astrology spread among humankind.
63. 11.7Though God had made himself known in many ways, he alone was not known amid universal impiety.
64. 12.1Besides the image, God provided the works of creation so that careless humans could still know their Maker.
65. 12.2God also sent the law and the prophets so that humans could learn of him from other humans.
66. 12.3The order of creation reveals the Word, who governs all so that through him all may know God.
67. 12.4Humans could have learned of God from the saints.
68. 12.5The law and prophets, though sent to the Jews, were a school of divine knowledge for the whole world.
69. 12.6Despite God's goodness, humans sank so deep in sin that they seemed irrational.
70. 13.1With humanity darkened by demonic error, what was God to do?
71. 13.2If humans were to live like animals, there was no point in making them in God's image.
72. 13.3If humans were unworthy to know God, knowledge of God should never have been given.
73. 13.4God gains no glory if his creatures credit others with their making.
74. 13.5A human king does not let his lands go over to others but writes, sends friends, and finally comes himself.
75. 13.6Much more will God keep his creatures who share his image from perishing through error.
76. 13.7Only the Word, himself the image of the Father, could renew humanity made according to that image.
77. 13.8The renewal required the abolition of death and corruption.
78. 13.9The Word took a mortal body to abolish death and renew those made in the image.
79. 14.1A portrait spoiled by dirt is redrawn on the same wood when the subject sits for it again.
80. 14.2The Son, the Father's image, came to renew and find lost humanity, and spoke of rebirth of the soul.
81. 14.3No mere human could teach the whole world about the Father or withstand the demons.
82. 14.4Humans cannot convert souls they cannot even see.
83. 14.5Creation alone was not enough, since humans erred despite it.
84. 14.6Only the Word, who sees souls and reveals the Father through creation, could renew the knowledge of God.
85. 14.7Creation could no longer teach humans, whose eyes were now turned downward.
86. 14.8The Word came as a man so that those who ignored creation might know him through the works of his body.
87. 15.1Like a good teacher, the Word came down to teach by simpler means, as 1 Corinthians 1:21 says.
88. 15.2Because humans sought God in bodily things, the Word took a body so that through his bodily works they might find the truth and the Father.
89. 15.3Wherever humans turned, the incarnate Word met them and taught them.
90. 15.4Creation confessed Christ, and his works showed him alone to be the Son of God among men.
91. 15.5Christ's expulsion of demons showed they were not gods.
92. 15.6Christ's resurrection showed the heroes and poets' gods to be false.
93. 15.7Christ's birth, death, and resurrection eclipsed all human deeds so as to lead people from every error to the Father.
94. 16.1The Word appeared in a body to turn human senses to himself and show by his works that he is God.
95. 16.2Ephesians 3:17–19 speaks of the breadth, length, height, and depth of Christ's love.
96. 16.3The Word has reached every dimension, creation, incarnation, Hades, and the world, filling all with the knowledge of God.
97. 16.4The Word did not offer his sacrifice at once but first lived in the body, showing by his works that he is God.
98. 16.5By becoming man the Savior both abolished death and revealed himself as the Word, the king of all.
99. 17.1The incarnate Word was not confined to the body: he contains all things, outside the universe in his being and present in all by his powers.
100. 17.2Though in a human body, the Word continued to give life to and govern the whole universe.
101. 17.3A human soul can think of distant things but cannot move them.
102. 17.4Unlike a soul, the Word was not bound to his body but was in it, in all things, beyond all, and at rest in the Father.
103. 17.5The Word lived as a man while giving life to all and remaining with the Father; he was not defiled by the body but sanctified it.
104. 17.6The Word is in all things without sharing their nature.
105. 17.7As the sun is not soiled by what it shines on, the Word was not soiled by his body but cleansed it.
106. 18.1Eating, birth, and suffering are said of the Word because the body was truly his own, not a mere appearance.
107. 18.2Christ's works showed him to be the Son of God, as he told his unbelieving hearers.
108. 18.3As creation reveals the invisible Word, so his works in the body reveal him as God's Power and Word.
109. 18.4Christ's power over demons and diseases, especially healing the man born blind, shows him to be Lord and Maker of human nature.
110. 18.5His virgin birth was a sign that he is the Maker and Lord of all bodies.
111. 18.6Turning water to wine, walking on the sea, and feeding the five thousand show his lordship over creation.
112. 19.1Christ's bodily works were meant to lead those blind to creation to know the Father through him.
113. 19.2His authority over demons, which they themselves confess, shows he is the Son of God.
114. 19.3At the cross the darkened sun, the earthquake, and the split rocks confessed Christ as God and Savior.
115. 19.4Athanasius turns to Christ's death, the chief point of the faith, which also shows him to be God.
116. 20.1Athanasius sums up: only the creating Word, the Image and Life itself, could restore incorruption, renew the image, and teach of the Father.
117. 20.2Having shown his divinity, Christ paid the debt of death for all and showed his incorruptible body as the firstfruits of the resurrection.
118. 20.3Athanasius excuses his repetitions as better than omissions.
119. 20.4Christ's body, fully human, truly died, but because the Word dwelt in it, it did not see corruption.
120. 20.5In Christ's body the death of all was fulfilled and death itself destroyed.
121. 20.6The immortal Word took a mortal body to offer it for all and to destroy the devil.
122. 21.1Since Christ's death, believers no longer die under condemnation but are only dissolved for a time, to gain a better resurrection.
123. 21.2Believers are like seeds sown for resurrection, as 1 Corinthians 15 promises.
124. 21.3An objector asks why Christ did not die privately and honorably rather than by the shameful cross.
125. 21.4Human death comes from natural weakness, but the Lord is not weak; he is God's Power, Word, and Life itself.
126. 21.5A private death in bed would have made Christ seem merely human; as Life and Power he kept his body strong.
127. 21.6Christ received death from others rather than from sickness, since the healer could not be sick.
128. 21.7Christ accepted death but not sickness; he hungered but did not perish, and his body rose whole without corruption.
129. 22.1Christ neither died of himself nor fled the plot against him, but met death to destroy it.
130. 22.2Awaiting death to destroy it showed Christ as Savior and Life.
131. 22.3Christ had no death of his own; he received humanity's death in order to destroy it.
132. 22.4Christ's public death served his resurrection, a trophy over death and a pledge of the resurrection of all.
133. 22.5Had his body grown sick, Christ would have seemed powerless or unloving as a healer.
134. 23.1A hidden death would have made his resurrection unwitnessed and incredible.
135. 23.2Having done his miracles publicly, Christ had to die publicly to show himself Life itself.
136. 23.3The apostles' preaching needed public witnesses of the death, since even so the Pharisees suppressed the resurrection.
137. 23.4Only a public death could show death's defeat.
138. 24.1An objector asks why, if the death had to be public, Christ did not choose a glorious death instead of the cross.
139. 24.2A self-chosen death would have suggested power over only one kind of death, so Christ accepted the death others inflicted.
140. 24.3Like a wrestler who lets his enemies pick his opponent, Christ accepted the most shameful death to show his victory over every death.
141. 24.4The cross became a trophy over death, and Christ's body stayed whole so that none could use it as a pretext for dividing the Church.
142. 25.1For believers who ask why the cross, Athanasius answers that it alone served our salvation.
143. 25.2Christ bore our curse by dying the accursed death of the cross.
144. 25.3On the cross Christ stretched out his hands to draw both Jews and Gentiles to himself.
145. 25.4Jesus foretold his death on the cross as drawing all to himself.
146. 25.5Dying lifted up in the air, Christ cast down the devil, the ruler of the air, and opened the way to heaven.
147. 25.6Lifted up on the cross, Christ cleansed the air of demons and opened heaven's gates for us through his body.
148. 26.1The cross was the fitting death; creation bore witness to Christ there, and he raised his body on the third day, incorruptible.
149. 26.2Christ did not rise immediately, lest people say he had not truly died.
150. 26.3Waiting one day between death and resurrection proved both.
151. 26.4The third-day resurrection showed that the body had truly died.
152. 26.5He did not wait longer than three days, lest people doubt that the risen body was the same.
153. 26.6Rising on the third day, while witnesses of his death were still present, Christ showed his body immortal and death destroyed.
154. 27.1Christians' contempt for death, which they trample by the sign of the cross and faith, proves that death is defeated.
155. 27.2Once feared even by the saints, death is now trampled by believers who prefer to die rather than deny Christ.
156. 27.3Converts, even the young and women, so despise death that they eagerly become martyrs.
157. 27.4Like a bound tyrant, death is mocked by all who pass by in Christ, as Scripture says.
158. 28.1Even Christian children disregard life and prepare for death, proof of Christ's victory.
159. 28.2Faith in the cross overcomes the natural fear of death.
160. 28.3As asbestos shows fire powerless, so faith shows death powerless.
161. 28.4Whoever still doubts death's defeat after so many martyrs may wonder, but should not remain stubborn in unbelief.
162. 28.5Whoever doubts should embrace faith in Christ and will see death's weakness, as many former scoffers turned martyrs have.
163. 29.1Since death is trampled by the cross and faith in Christ, it is Christ who has conquered it.
164. 29.2Death, once feared and now despised since Christ's resurrection, has been conquered by him.
165. 29.3As sunrise shows the sun has driven off the night, the daily defeat of death in Christians shows that Christ has abolished it.
166. 29.4The eagerness of martyrs, men, women, and children, shows that Christ gives each believer victory over death.
167. 29.5As a trampled serpent or a lion played with by children is plainly powerless, so is death.
168. 29.6Let no one doubt that Christ has abolished death and its corruption.
169. 30.1The visible facts prove Christ's resurrection more clearly than words.
170. 30.2If believers trample death, Christ first trampled it in his own body, which must therefore have risen.
171. 30.3The dead can do nothing; let anyone judge from what is seen whether Christ is dead.
172. 30.4Christ's daily work of converting multitudes everywhere shows that he is alive, indeed is Life itself.
173. 30.5A dead man could not convert consciences, reform sinners, and drive out demons as Christ does.
174. 30.6Idols and demons flee at Christ's name, the work of a living God.
175. 30.7It is absurd to call the defeated demons alive and their conqueror dead.
176. 31.1That Christ overcomes the pagan gods, not they him, refutes those who deny his resurrection.
177. 31.2Christ daily works in souls while the pagan gods do nothing, so it is they who are dead, not he.
178. 31.3Christ's daily saving work and death's evident weakness leave no doubt about his bodily resurrection.
179. 31.4Christ's body, mortal, had to die, but as the temple of Life it could not stay dead.
180. 32.1God is known not by sight but by his works, so Christ's invisibility is no argument against his resurrection.
181. 32.2Since Christ's works plainly show his risen power, denial of the resurrection is willful.
182. 32.3As the blind know the sun by its warmth, unbelievers should recognize Christ's power in believers.
183. 32.4The demons, who see the unseen, obey Christ's name, which shows he is not dead.
184. 32.5The demons confess what unbelievers deny, that Christ is God.
185. 32.6Christ raised his body and is the true Son of God, the Father's own Word, who took flesh, abolished death, and promised resurrection to all.
186. 33.1Athanasius turns to answer Jewish unbelief and Greek mockery.
187. 33.2Jews and Greeks object to the cross and the incarnation; Athanasius will answer both.
188. 33.3The Jews' own Scriptures refute them, foretelling the virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14.
189. 33.4Balaam's oracles in Numbers and Isaiah 8:4 foretell the coming of a man from Israel.
190. 33.5Isaiah 19:1 and Hosea 11:1 show that the one who comes is the Lord.
191. 34.1Scripture plainly foretells Christ's death, its purpose, and the plot against him.
192. 34.2Isaiah 53 foretells the Word's suffering for our sins, his dishonor for our honor.
193. 34.3Isaiah 53:8–10 shows that the sufferer is no ordinary man, since his generation cannot be told.
194. 35.1Scripture also foretells the cross.
195. 35.2Deuteronomy 28:66 foretells the life hanging before the people's eyes.
196. 35.3Jeremiah 11:19 foretells wood put into his bread.
197. 35.4Psalm 22 foretells the piercing of hands and feet.
198. 35.5Only crucifixion fits these prophecies.
199. 35.6Isaiah 11:10 foretells the nations' hope in the root of Jesse.
200. 35.7No patriarch or prophet was born of a virgin, so the prophecy points to Christ alone.
201. 35.8A star from heaven marked Christ's birth, unlike those of Moses, David, or Abraham.
202. 36.1No king reigned before he could say father or mother, as Isaiah 8:4 foretells of Christ.
203. 36.2No king of Israel or Judah was the hope of the nations.
204. 36.3Israel's history was one of constant war with the nations, so the one in whom the nations hope must be someone else.
205. 36.4No prophet or king died on a cross for all, or ended Egypt's idolatry by going there.
206. 37.1None of the patriarchs or prophets was pierced and hung on a tree for the salvation of all.
207. 37.2The one foretold to suffer for all is called Life itself, and his generation cannot be told.
208. 37.3The prophecies fit only Christ, born of a virgin, whose fleshly father no one can name.
209. 37.4The heavenly star signaled the birth of the Word who came from heaven.
210. 37.5The magi from Persia worshiped the newborn Christ, and the nations now forsake idols for him.
211. 37.6Egypt's idolatry ended only when Christ came there in the body.
212. 37.7Christ, crucified before the sun and creation, is the Life of all who gave his body as a ransom.
213. 38.1Isaiah 65:1–2 speaks of one made manifest to those who did not seek him and stretching out his hands.
214. 38.2Only the bodiless Word, appearing in a body and stretching out his hands on the cross, fits Isaiah 65.
215. 38.3Isaiah 35 foretells God's coming with healing of the blind, deaf, lame, and mute.
216. 38.4Isaiah's signs mark the time of God's coming, and they never happened in Israel before Christ.
217. 38.5The miracles of Elijah and Elisha did not include healing the blind from birth, which Scripture would have recorded.
218. 38.6The healing of the man born blind was unheard of, as those who saw it admitted.
219. 39.1Jewish critics may say the prophecies are still awaiting fulfillment.
220. 39.2Daniel's seventy weeks mark the time of Christ's coming.
221. 39.3Daniel's prophecy names the anointed Holy of holies, after whose coming Jerusalem and prophecy end.
222. 39.4Earlier anointed kings did not end prophecy or Jerusalem, and prophecy continued even in the exile.
223. 40.1The end of Jerusalem and of prophecy shows that the Holy of holies has come.
224. 40.2Prophecy and Jerusalem served until the truth they foreshadowed arrived.
225. 40.3Genesis 49:10 foretells that Judah's rule lasts until the expected one of the nations comes.
226. 40.4With no king, prophet, or temple left, and the nations turning to Israel's God through Christ, denial of his coming is perverse.
227. 40.5The nations now worship Israel's God, showing that the Lord foretold in Scripture has appeared in the body.
228. 40.6Everything the expected Messiah was to do has already been done.
229. 40.7With Israel's institutions gone and the earth filled with the knowledge of God, Christ has plainly come.
230. 40.8Athanasius concludes his argument against Jewish objections.
231. 41.1The Greeks mock the incarnation while blind to their own shameful idols.
232. 41.2Athanasius will show the Greeks that the Word's manifestation in a body is not absurd.
233. 41.3Those who deny the Word altogether mock what they do not know.
234. 41.4Greeks who admit a divine Word ruling the world undercut their own mockery.
235. 41.5If the Word pervades the world, which philosophers call a great body, he can also enter a human body.
236. 41.6If it were absurd for the Word to be in a body, it would be absurd for him to be in the universe.
237. 41.7Humanity is part of the universe, so the Word can fittingly use a human body as he uses the whole.
238. 42.1As a man's power reaches even his toe, the Word who moves the universe can move a single human body.
239. 42.2If creatureliness made the incarnation unfitting, the Word could not be in creation either.
240. 42.3What holds for the whole creation holds for man, a part of it.
241. 42.4The pagans' own writers say that in the divine we live and move and have our being.
242. 42.5The Word, already present in all things, can reveal himself through what he indwells.
243. 42.6As the Word could have spoken through sun or fire, he fittingly used a human body to reveal the truth and the Father.
244. 42.7As the mind speaks through the tongue without being diminished, the Word uses a human body without loss.
245. 43.1The Word came as a man, not as sun or star, because he came to heal and teach, not to make a display.
246. 43.2A healer adapts his coming to what the sick can bear, so that it profits them.
247. 43.3Only humanity, not sun or stars, had strayed from the knowledge of God.
248. 43.4Since humans could not know the Word in the whole, he took a part, a human body, so that they might know him there.
249. 43.5Through a body like theirs, humans can more readily know the Father from Christ's divine works.
250. 43.6As the Word is in creation without sharing its limits, so in his body he sanctified it without being lessened.
251. 43.7Plato himself pictures the maker taking the helm of the storm-tossed world; so the Word came to steer erring humanity.
252. 44.1Objectors ask why God did not save humanity by a mere command, as he created.
253. 44.2Creation from nothing needed only a command, but healing an existing humanity required the physician to come among it.
254. 44.3Since existing humanity was perishing, the Word had to take a human instrument to save it.
255. 44.4Corruption was inside the body, so life had to be joined to the body to overcome it.
256. 44.5Life had to be joined to the body itself, or corruption would have remained in it even if death were defeated.
257. 44.6The Savior put on a body so as to find death there, blot it out, and clothe the body with immortality.
258. 44.7Straw kept from fire still fears it, but straw wrapped in asbestos is safe.
259. 44.8A command alone would have left the body mortal; clothed with the Word, it no longer fears death.
260. 45.1The Word took a body to give it life and to reveal himself everywhere.
261. 45.2The Word filled all things with the knowledge of himself, as Isaiah 11:9 says.
262. 45.3Wherever people look, heaven, humanity, demons, or water, they find the Word revealed as Lord.
263. 45.4Christ's resurrection shows him, not the heroes in Hades, to be true Lord and God.
264. 45.5Christ touched every part of creation and triumphed over the powers, so that none might be deceived.
265. 45.6Seeing the Word's divinity everywhere, humanity is no longer deceived and knows the Father through him.
266. 45.7If arguments fail, the Greeks should look at the visible evidence.
267. 46.1Idolatry and oracles began to fail only when the Word came among humans.
268. 46.2The poets' gods and heroes were exposed as mortals only after Christ's resurrection.
269. 46.3Demons and magic lost their power when the Word appeared on earth.
270. 46.4Greek wisdom was made foolish when God's true Wisdom appeared, and the world is turning from idols to Christ.
271. 46.5Local idols could not win even their neighbors, but Christ is worshiped everywhere as the one Lord.
272. 47.1The famous oracles fell silent once Christ was preached everywhere.
273. 47.2The sign of the cross drives away the demons' illusions.
274. 47.3Christ's coming exposed the poets' gods as mortals and revealed him alone as true God.
275. 47.4Magic, once powerful in Egypt, Chaldea, and India, was exposed and abolished by the Word's coming.
276. 47.5Where the philosophers persuaded few, Christ through simple men has persuaded multitudes everywhere to despise death and seek immortality.
277. 48.1Athanasius appeals to experience, not words alone.
278. 48.2Christian virgins, chaste youths, and martyrs prove the truth of the faith.
279. 48.3The sign of the cross and the name of Christ put demons, oracles, and magic to flight.
280. 48.4Athanasius challenges the Greeks to say who Christ is, who has overcome all things.
281. 48.5Christ cannot be a mere man or a magician, since he has overcome all gods and all magic.
282. 48.6The cross's victory over all magic shows Christ is no magician.
283. 48.7Christ cannot be a demon, since he drives demons out.
284. 48.8Since all demons flee his name, Christ is not a demonic power, as some Jews once charged.
285. 48.9Christ is neither man, magician, nor demon, but truly the Son of God, the Father's Word, Wisdom, and Power.
286. 49.1No man but Christ was born of a virgin, healed as he did, or gave sight to the man born blind.
287. 49.2Asclepius found healing herbs; Christ remade what was lacking from birth.
288. 49.3Heracles and Dionysus are honored for lesser deeds, while Christ, who drove out disease, demons, and death and taught self-control, is mocked.
289. 49.4No other man's death darkened the sun and shook the earth.
290. 49.5No teaching but Christ's has spread the same everywhere to the ends of the earth.
291. 49.6The pagan gods cannot keep Christ's worship out of their lands; his teaching ends theirs.
292. 50.1No king, sage, or magician ever won the world from idols as Christ has.
293. 50.2The philosophers' clever writings persuaded only while they lived, and they spent their energy quarreling.
294. 50.3The Word, teaching simply and dying as a man, eclipsed the sophists and filled his churches.
295. 50.4Christ's death drives out demons and transforms fornicators, murderers, and cowards.
296. 50.5Faith in Christ made barbarians peaceful and assured people of immortality.
297. 50.6The Greeks never claimed resurrection for their gods, leaving that power to Christ.
298. 51.1Christ's teaching has made even children vow lifelong virginity.
299. 51.2Christ alone has had virtue preached to the most distant and savage peoples.
300. 51.3Christ persuaded the nations to give up savagery and idols and worship the Father through him.
301. 51.4Idol-worshiping nations were constantly at war.
302. 51.5Idolatry could not reform warlike peoples who lived by the sword.
303. 51.6Converted to Christ's teaching, warlike peoples give up bloodshed and seek peace.
304. 52.1Christ has brought the peace foretold in Isaiah 2:4.
305. 52.2Idol-worshiping barbarians still rage against one another.
306. 52.3Hearing Christ's teaching, barbarians turn from war to farming and prayer, fighting the devil instead.
307. 52.4The demons kept humans at war lest they turn against the demons; Christ's peace shows his divinity.
308. 52.5Christ's disciples fight demons by virtue, chastity, patience, and even martyrdom.
309. 53.1Christ alone has overcome idolatry, demons, magic, and Greek wisdom, so that magicians burn their books and the wise turn to the Gospels.
310. 53.2Former worshipers abandon their gods and worship the crucified Christ as God.
311. 53.3If Christ's works are not human but divine, unbelievers are impious not to recognize him.
312. 53.4Those who knew God from creation would recognize the Word in Christ's works.
313. 54.1As the invisible God is known by his works, let people judge Christ's works to see whether they are human or divine.
314. 54.2If Christ's works are divine, one should marvel that through humble means immortality and God's providence have been revealed.
315. 54.3The Word became man that we might be made god, revealed the invisible Father, and suffered so that we might inherit incorruption.
316. 54.4Christ's achievements are as countless as the waves of the sea.
317. 54.5Athanasius will mention one more wonder and leave the rest for the reader to marvel at.
318. 55.1Since Christ came, idolatry, Greek wisdom, and demonic deception have steadily declined.
319. 55.2Christ's teaching grows while all opposition declines; so worship him.
320. 55.3As sunlight drives out darkness, the Word's coming has driven out the darkness of idols.
321. 55.4When a hidden king appears, the pretenders who deceived his people are exposed.
322. 55.5When the Word appeared, the demons' false claims to divinity were exposed and people turned to the true God.
323. 55.6Human things pass while Christ's word remains, showing him to be God and the only-begotten Son.
324. 56.1Athanasius offers this as an outline and urges the reader to study the Scriptures for fuller knowledge.
325. 56.2The Scriptures were given by God, and Athanasius passes on what he learned from inspired teachers.
326. 56.3Christ will come again in glory to raise and judge all, giving the kingdom to the good and eternal fire to the wicked.
327. 56.4Jesus foretold his coming on the clouds in the Father's glory.
328. 56.5Believers must be ready, since all will stand before Christ's judgment seat.
329. 57.1Understanding Scripture requires a good life and a pure soul.
330. 57.2Only those who imitate the saints can understand their words.
331. 57.3To grasp the Scriptures one must purify one's life and imitate the saints, so as to share the good things prepared for those who love God; the work ends with a doxology to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.