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Saint Athanasius' "On the Incarnation" CHAPTER V
The Resurrection(26) Fitting indeed, then, and wholly
consonant was the death on the cross for us; and we can see how
reasonable it was, and why it is that the salvation of the world
could be accomplished in no other way. Even on the cross He did
not hide Himself from sight; rather, He made all creation witness
to the presence of its Maker. Then, having once let it be seen
that it was truly dead, He did not allow that temple of His body
to linger long, but forthwith on the third day raised it up,
impassable and incorruptible, the pledge and token of His victory.
It was, of course, within His power thus to have raised His body
and displayed it as alive directly after death. But the all-wise
Savior did not do this, lest some should deny that it had really
or completely died. Besides this, had the interval between His
death and resurrection been but two days, the glory of His incorruption
might not have appeared. He waited one whole day to show that
His body was really dead, and then on the third day showed it
incorruptible to all. The interval was no longer, lest people
should have forgotten about it and grown doubtful whether it
were in truth the same body. No, while the affair was still ringing
in their ears and their eyes were still straining and their minds
in turmoil, and while those who had put Him to death were still
on the spot and themselves witnessing to the fact of it, the
Son of God after three days showed His once dead body immortal
and incorruptible; and it was evident to all that it was from
no natural weakness that the body which the Word indwelt had
died, but in order that in it by the Savior's power death might
be done away.
(27) A very strong proof of this destruction
of death and its conquest by the cross is supplied by a present
fact, namely this. All the disciples of Christ despise death;
they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it,
by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it
as on something dead. Before the divine sojourn of the Savior,
even the holiest of men were afraid of death, and mourned the
dead as those who perish. But now that the Savior has raised
His body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe
in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing, and prefer to die rather
than to deny their faith in Christ, knowing full well that when
they die they do not perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible
through the resurrection. But that devil who of old wickedly
exulted in death, now that the pains of death are loosed, he
alone it is who remains truly dead. There is proof of this too;
for men who, before they believe in Christ, think death horrible
and are afraid of it, once they are converted despise it so completely
that they go eagerly to meet it, and themselves become witnesses
of the Savior's resurrection from it. Even children hasten thus
to die, and not men only, but women train themselves by bodily
discipline to meet it. So weak has death become that even women,
who used to be taken in by it, mock at it now as a dead thing
robbed of all its strength. Death has become like a tyrant who
has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch; bound
hand and foot the passers-by sneer at him, hitting him and abusing
him, no longer afraid of his cruelty and rage, because of the
king who has conquered him. So has death been conquered and branded
for what it is by the Savior on the cross. It is bound hand and
foot, all who are in Christ trample it as they pass and as witnesses
to Him deride it, scoffing and saying, "O
Death, where is thy victory? O Grave, where is thy sting ?"[1]
(28) Is this a slender proof of the impotence
of death, do you think? Or is it a slight indication of the Savior's
victory over it, when boys and young girls who are in Christ
look beyond this present life and train themselves to die? Every
one is by nature afraid of death and of bodily dissolution; the
marvel of marvels is that he who is enfolded in the faith of
the cross despises this natural fear and for the sake of the
cross is no longer cowardly in face of it. The natural property
of fire is to burn. Suppose, then, that there was a substance
such as the Indian asbestos is said to be, which had no fear
of being burnt, but rather displayed the impotence of the fire
by proving itself unburnable. If anyone doubted the truth of
this, all he need do would be to wrap himself up in the substance
in question and then touch the fire. Or, again, to revert to
our former figure, if anyone wanted to see the tyrant bound and
helpless, who used to be such a terror to others, he could do
so simply by going into the country of the tyrant's conqueror.
Even so, if anyone still doubts the conquest of death, after
so many proofs and so many martyrdoms in Christ and such daily
scorn of death by His truest servants, he certainly does well
to marvel at so great a thing, but he must not be obstinate in
unbelief and disregard of plain facts. No, he must be like the
man who wants to prove the property of the asbestos, and like
him who enters the conqueror's dominions to see the tyrant bound.
He must embrace the faith of Christ, this disbeliever in the
conquest of death, and come to His teaching. Then he will see
how impotent death is and how completely conquered. Indeed, there
have been many former unbelievers and deriders who, after they
became believers, so scorned death as even themselves to become
martyrs for Christ's sake.
(29) If, then, it is by the sign of the
cross and by faith in Christ that death is trampled underfoot,
it is clear that it is Christ Himself and none other Who is the
Archvictor over death and has robbed it of its power. Death used
to be strong and terrible, but now, since the sojourn of the
Savior and the death and resurrection of His body, it is despised;
and obviously it is by the very Christ Who mounted on the cross
that it has been destroyed and vanquished finally. When the sun
rises after the night and the whole world is lit up by it, nobody
doubts that it is the sun which has thus shed its light everywhere
and driven away the dark. Equally clear is it, since this utter
scorning and trampling down of death has ensued upon the Savior's
manifestation in the body and His death on the cross, that it
is He Himself Who brought death to nought and daily raises monuments
to His victory in His own disciples. How can you think otherwise,
when you see men naturally weak hastening to death, unafraid
at the prospect of corruption, fearless of the descent into Hades,
even indeed with eager soul provoking it, not shrinking from
tortures, but preferring thus to rush on death for Christ's sake,
rather than to remain in this present life? If you see with your
own eyes men and women and children, even, thus welcoming death
for the sake of Christ's religion, how can you be so utterly
silly and incredulous and maimed in your mind as not to realize
that Christ, to Whom these all bear witness, Himself gives the
victory to each, making death completely powerless for those
who hold His faith and bear the sign of the cross? No one in
his senses doubts that a snake is dead when he sees it trampled
underfoot, especially when he knows how savage it used to be;
nor, if he sees boys making fun of a lion, does he doubt that
the brute is either dead or completely bereft of strength. These
things can be seen with our own eyes, and it is the same with
the conquest of death. Doubt no longer, then, when you see death
mocked and scorned by those who believe in Christ, that by Christ
death was destroyed, and the corruption that goes with it resolved
and brought to end.
(30) What we have said is, indeed, no
small proof of the destruction of death and of the fact that
the cross of the Lord is the monument to His victory. But the
resurrection of the body to immortality, which results henceforward
from the work of Christ, the common Savior and true Life of all,
is more effectively proved by facts than by words to those whose
mental vision is sound. For, if, as we have shown, death was
destroyed and everybody tramples on it because of Christ, how
much more did He Himself first trample and destroy it in His
own body! Death having been slain by Him, then, what other issue
could there be than the resurrection of His body and its open
demonstration as the monument of His victory? How could the destruction
of death have been manifested at all, had not the Lord's body
been raised? But if anyone finds even this insufficient, let
him find proof of what has been said in present facts. Dead men
cannot take effective action; their power of influence on others
lasts only till the grave. Deeds and actions that energize others
belong only to the living. Well, then, look at the facts in this
case. The Savior is working mightily among men, every day He
is invisibly persuading numbers of people all over the world,
both within and beyond the Greek-speaking world, to accept His
faith and be obedient to His teaching. Can anyone, in face of
this, still doubt that He has risen and lives, or rather that
He is Himself the Life? Does a dead man prick the consciences
of men, so that they throw all the traditions of their fathers
to the winds and bow down before the teaching of Christ? If He
is no longer active in the world, as He must needs be if He is
dead, how is it that He makes the living to cease from their
activities, the adulterer from his adultery, the murderer from
murdering, the unjust from avarice, while the profane and godless
man becomes religious? If He did not rise, but is still dead,
how is it that He routs and persecutes and overthrows the false
gods, whom unbelievers think to be alive, and the evil spirits
whom they worship? For where Christ is named, idolatry is destroyed
and the fraud of evil spirits is exposed; indeed, no such spirit
can endure that Name, but takes to flight on sound of it. This
is the work of One Who lives, not of one dead; and, more than
that, it is the work of God. It would be absurd to say that the
evil spirits whom He drives out and the idols which He destroys
are alive, but that He Who drives out and destroys, and Whom
they themselves acknowledge to be Son of God, is dead.
(31) In a word, then, those who disbelieve
in the resurrection have no support in facts, if their gods and
evil spirits do not drive away the supposedly dead Christ. Rather,
it is He Who convicts them of being dead. We are agreed that
a dead person can do nothing: yet the Savior works mightily every
day, drawing men to religion, persuading them to virtue, teaching
them about immortality, quickening their thirst for heavenly
things, revealing the knowledge of the Father, inspiring strength
in face of death, manifesting Himself to each, and displacing
the irreligion of idols; while the gods and evil spirits of the
unbelievers can do none of these things, but rather become dead
at Christ's presence, all their ostentation barren and void.
By the sign of the cross, on the contrary, all magic is stayed,
all sorcery confounded, all the idols are abandoned and deserted,
and all senseless pleasure ceases, as the eye of faith looks
up from earth to heaven. Whom, then, are we to call dead? Shall
we call Christ dead, Who effects all this? But the dead have
not the faculty to effect anything. Or shall we call death dead,
which effects nothing whatever, but lies as lifeless and ineffective
as are the evil spirits and the idols? The Son of God, "living and effective,"[2] is active every day and effects
the salvation of all; but death is daily proved to be stripped
of all its strength, and it is the idols and the evil spirits
who are dead, not He. No room for doubt remains, therefore, concerning
the resurrection of His body.
Indeed, it would seem that he who disbelieves this bodily rising
of the Lord is ignorant of the power of the Word and Wisdom of
God. If He took a body to Himself at all, and made it His own
in pursuance of His purpose, as we have shown that He did, what
was the Lord to do with it, and what was ultimately to become
of that body upon which the Word had descended? Mortal and offered
to death on behalf of all as it was, it could not but die; indeed,
it was for that very purpose that the Savior had prepared it
for Himself. But on the other hand it could not remain dead,
because it had become the very temple of Life. It therefore died,
as mortal, but lived again because of the Life within it; and
its resurrection is made known through its works.
(32) It is, indeed, in accordance with
the nature of the invisible God that He should be thus known
through His works; and those who doubt the Lord's resurrection
because they do not now behold Him with their eyes, might as
well deny the very laws of nature. They have ground for disbelief
when works are lacking; but when the works cry out and prove
the fact so clearly, why do they deliberately deny the risen
life so manifestly shown? Even if their mental faculties are
defective, surely their eyes can give them irrefragable proof
of the power and Godhead of Christ. A blind man cannot see the
sun, but he knows that it is above the earth from the warmth
which it affords; similarly, let those who are still in the blindness
of unbelief recognize the Godhead of Christ and the resurrection
which He has brought about through His manifested power in others.
Obviously He would not be expelling evil spirits and despoiling
idols, if He were dead, for the evil spirits would not obey one
who was dead. If, on the other hand, the very naming of Him drives
them forth, He clearly is not dead; and the more so that the
spirits, who perceive things unseen by men, would know if He
were so and would refuse to obey Him. But, as a matter of fact,
what profane persons doubt, the evil spirits know--namely that
He is God; and for that reason they flee from Him and fall at
His feet, crying out even as they cried when He was in the body,
"We know Thee Who Thou art, the
Holy One of God," and, "Ah, what have
I in common with Thee, Thou Son of God? I implore Thee, torment
me not."[3]
Both from the confession of the evil spirits and from the daily
witness of His works, it is manifest, then, and let none presume
to doubt it, that the Savior has raised His own body, and that
He is very Son of God, having His being from God as from a Father,
Whose Word and Wisdom and Whose Power He is. He it is Who in
these latter days assumed a body for the salvation of us all,
and taught the world concerning the Father. He it is Who has
destroyed death and freely graced us all with incorruption through
the promise of the resurrection, having raised His own body as
its first- fruits, and displayed it by the sign of the cross
as the monument to His victory over death and its corruption. |