Contra Gentiles

The purpose of the book, a vindication of Christian doctrine, and especially of the Cross, against the scoffing objection of Gentiles. …for almost day by day [our religion] asserts itself by facts, and manifests itself brighter than the sun by the doctrine of Christ.

Against the Heathen (Contra Gentiles), by St. Athanasius (html)

Athanasius against the world. He was exiled five different times due to his defense of Nicaea against the Arians. Athanasius spent his final years in Alexandria, in peace. He died in 373. In this work, Athanasius attacks various pagan beliefs and practices.

For a moment, I have wondered to myself: “Why work through this book? We don’t have Osiris and Zeus.” As soon as I thought it, the answer was clear: of course we do; we just call these by other names today.

Athanasius writes that if men gave proper heed to Christ’s divine nature, they would have recognized Him as the Savior of the world. Further, that the Cross – far from being a disaster – was a healing of Creation.

The Greeks and Romans could never understand such a thing. What kind of god dies a slave’s death? One need not even get to the resurrection given this stumbling block; the crucifixion was sufficient. The gods were supreme, ruling, strong, victorious. Yet, here was Jesus on the Cross, and this Jesus is claimed to be not a god, but the God.

…how, one might fairly ask them, is it still open to us to regard the matter as human, instead of confessing that He Who ascended the Cross is Word of God and Savior of the World?

Athanasius offers that in the beginning evil did not exist. Evil was later contrived by men, at the same time devising idols. “God, Maker of all and King of all,” made, through His Word, the human race in His image. We then see and know realities by means of this, as we are made in His image.

God the Word is the image of God the Father, and man is made in this same image. When the mind of man does not mingle lusts with it, but transcends above and sees the Word, it sees also the Father of the Word…

…taking pleasure in contemplating Him, and gaining renewal by its desire toward Him.

This is how Adam, the first of men, was created.

So, purity of soul is sufficient of itself to reflect God, and the Lord also says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

So, evil did not exist in man in the beginning. Yet, man declined from this condition, “owing to his absorption in material things.” Man began to seek preference in things nearer to himself – nearer to his body and his senses.

…they fell into lust of themselves, preferring what was their own to the contemplation of what belonged to God.

Man was not willing to leave that which was close to him, entangling the soul with bodily pleasures. We see this in the bodily lust manifest in taking of the fruit of the forbidden tree.

…[they] knew that they were naked, and knowing, were ashamed. But they knew that they were naked, not so much of clothing as that they were become stripped of the contemplation of divine things….

I have heard other symbolic understandings of this awareness of nakedness, all offering a richness not found if one considers this realization merely physically. I very much appreciate Athanasius’s explanation of this, and offer one other: when they were naked, but not yet “aware” of this, the two – Adam and Eve – were transparent to each other, fully open, fully exposed to each other. Not merely physically, but emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, mentally. In other words, the two truly one.

Matthew 22: 37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Why do I introduce this here, when considering this transparency – this nakedness – when Adam and Eve were without sin in the Garden? I consider this greatest commandment, concluding: we demonstrate our love for God by demonstrating love toward our neighbor. For husbands and wives, the closest possibility of demonstrating love for God is to demonstrate love for one another, and the ultimate demonstration of this is through this transparency – this nakedness – of Adam and Eve before the fruit.

Is this a detour from Athanasius, and his view that the two were naked because they were stripped of the contemplation of divine things? I don’t think so. Both with God and in marriage, transparency – nakedness – demonstrates love to its fullest.

Anyway, back to St. Athanasius: man, given the freedom of choice, abused it. Instead of contemplating God, he contemplated the body; misled, the name of the good was abused – pleasure now being considered the very essence of good. It is an issue that always plagues man, and often plagues entire societies.

We have been fighting against this issue even recently, with our being entirely consumed by materialism (contemplating things below; random atoms smashing randomly against each other). Finding that this road leads to nihilism and a completely unsatisfactory life, it seems clear that in recent years, the fight against this has strengthened. But it is a constant fight – individually, first and always, yet often consuming society.

We fall in love with pleasure, and, being “mobile” (in Athanasius’s term), we devise ways to exercise that pleasure – no longer according to virtue, but in chasing false things and pleasures that we devise. Having rejected the good, we entertain thoughts of what is opposed to it. We are able to use the members of our body in either direction.

And here, Athanasius introduces what is an important concept in this part of his work: what is, and what is not.

But good is, while evil is not; by what is, then, I mean what is good inasmuch as it has its pattern in God Who is. But what is not I mean what is evil, in so far as it consists in a false imagination in the thoughts of men.

All that is, is found in God; if it is not found in God, it is not. Evil is not.

Conclusion

We have come to see that we can move the members of our body as we wish, abusing the power given to us. We can move toward God, or we can move in the opposite way:

…instead of beholding the Creation, she turns the eye to lusts…thinking that by the mere fact of moving she is maintaining her own dignity, and is doing no sin in doing as she pleases; not knowing that she is made not merely to move, but to move in the right direction.

How many of us have lived just like this? When most deeply in our lusts, feeling we were most free, most liberated, doing no sin?

Epilogue

Man without God sees progress in this liberation and ever-increasing sin. But this is not progress. Progress is progress only if it is moving in the right direction – a return to the center as I have put it before (and probably heard someone say before me). Sin can be seen as confusing activity (moving) with progress – meaning moving toward the center, in the right direction.