Simple reading · Open the interactive atlas

Athanasius of Alexandria

Church Father

A shared early Father and the bishop named in the Ethiopian account of Frumentius’s consecration.

Reception

Early shared witness

Primary sources

Athanasius relates the Incarnation to deification by grace; this is not a loss of creaturehood.

For He was made man that we might be made God.

— St. Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word (Chapter 54, Section 3), trans. Archibald Robertson

Passage context and translation

Athanasius explains the Incarnation as the divine Word's healing and elevation of human nature. His language of becoming God concerns created humanity's share in divine life, while the Word remains God by nature.

Before the excerpt

by the Word becoming man, the universal Providence has been known, and its Giver and Artificer the very Word of God.

After the excerpt

and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father

Robertson translation in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Volume 4; section 54.3 is read with the surrounding account of the Word's incarnation and the promise of immortality.

Sources and further reading

Open The Great Cloud in the interactive atlas

All records