Here is the best-known writing of one who is described as having saved the Christian Religion. He was born at the end of the third century and his early years were spent in Alexandria, Egypt at a time when the church passed through rigorous persecution and martyrdom was common. He is best known for his struggle against the doctrine of Arius, a prominent bishop who taught of Jesus, that ‘ there was a time when He was not.’ It was whilst Athanasius was a young man that he wrote his little treatise on the Incarnation of the Eternal Word. He did not write it to confute Arius for this false teaching had not yet found expression in the churches, rather, Athanasius wrote for his young friend Macarias two little books, the first was called “Against the Heathen” and in it he refutes the claims of the contemporary paganism of his day and demonstrates the possibility of the knowledge of God coming to the human soul and in the second he sets out the positive content of the Christian faith as he himself had received it. So, this second book called “On the Incarnation” is not controversial, not argumentative; it is a straightforward statement of the truth held by the church in those days concerning the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. There is hardly a superfluous word in these short chapters. The whole is about seventy pages long and the translation from the Greek is delightful, the language simple and although it does require our concentration to read its thought, the reward of doing so is rich. This particular edition published by St Vladimirs Seminary Press includes an introduction written by C.S. Lewis that is full of instruction in itself and well worth the purchase of the book. Athanasius stood contra mundum (A phrase well known as associated with this man as he was ‘Athanasius against the world’) for the Trinitarian doctrine ‘whole and undefiled’, when it looked as though Christianity was slipping away into the religion of the heretic Arius. Included in this edition is a smaller work on the interpretation of the Psalms, which is illuminating too. I found this whole little book a delight to read, bringing some fresh light too and with it something of the atmosphere of the wonder of Christ, the Person for Whom many had been martyred in the days of the young man who wrote it.
