the Apostles, and to the true Christian faith. It meant a
denial of the Incarnation, the redemption by blood and the
glorious Resurrection-making the incarnate Word a sort
of divine phantom.
The combatant spirit of the heroic ‘Defender of the
Faith’ was again stirred to its depths, and he mustered all
his energy, his logic and his accumulated knowledge to
refute the new heresy. He had become an old man now,
but the fire of his youthful soul was still aflame, and he
could not bear to see the physiognomy of his Lord
disfigured in any way.
He wrote a three-volume work expounding the
Faith again, and refuting Apollinarius without once
mentioning his name. Such consideration proved that tho
love he bore for the erring person still gripped his heart in
spite of his grief at the error. After this last defence,
Athanasius laid down his pen, and did not take it up again.
He had used it superbly as a faithful and profound
portrayer of the Saviour of mankind, thus providing all
truth seekers down through the ages with a bright beacon
to guide them into the paths of' Truth about Him and in
Him. Arius could no more say "He is only human";
Apollinarius could no more say "He is only Divine". For
Athanasius had proven to all those who had ‘ears to hear’
and ‘eyes to see’ that the Christ made the two into a
perfect unity and was the God-man-that ineluctable and
ineffable mystery, eternally surpassing the thought and
eternally captivating the heart.^59 He was both fully God,
and also fully man. That is why only through Him could
God reveal Himself and impart divine life. Christians who
believed otherwise would be idolatrous, for if they
worshipped a Christ who was not Consubstantial with
God, they would be worshipping other than God.^60
elle
(Elle)
#1