ABSTRACT

Irenaeus and Athanasius on the Significance of Embodiment

Emily Engelhardt

Director: Dr. Jason Whitt, Ph.D.

What is the significance of the human body, and how does our understanding of the body influence the way we live? In a culture that proclaims freedom and autonomy above all other virtues, the Christian understanding of a person’s body not belonging to oneself but to God is radical. Irenaeus in Against Heresies and Athanasius in On the Incarnation defend the Christian faith and understanding of the body against heretics of their day, upholding the intrinsic goodness of creation and of human bodies. These saints point to the Incarnation as the necessary way in which God has thoroughly redeemed human flesh and the whole of man. Irenaeus’ and Athanasius’ understanding of the body as handiwork of God, integral to being human, and fully redeemed by God influence the way humans consider their bodies and treat them in the medical field.

APPROVED BY DIRECTOR OF HONORS THESIS:

Dr. Jason Whitt, Department of Medical Humanities

APPROVED BY THE HONORS PROGRAM:

Dr. Elizabeth Corey, Director

DATE:

IRENAEUS AND ATHANASIUS ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMBODIMENT

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

Baylor University

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the

Honors Program

By

Emily Engelhardt

Waco, Texas

May, 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ...... iii

Introduction ...... 1

Chapter One: Irenaeus on the Body ...... 7

Chapter Two: Athanasius on the Body ...... 23

Chapter Three: Applications of the Significance of Embodiment . . . 37

Bibliography ...... 49

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to give a tremendous thanks Dr. Jason Whitt for his mentorship, guidance, patience, and support.

I would like to thank Dr. Junius Johnson, Dr. Michael Foley, Dr. Jonathan Tran, and Fr. Lee Nelson for their advice and impactful teaching that influenced the ideas behind this work.

I would like to thank Dr. Matthew Anderson and Dr. Bill Neilson for taking the time to read my thesis and offer feedback on this project.

A special thanks to Isabel Kazan for encouraging me to change my thesis topic (long after it should have been decided and researched) in order that I could research a topic I find fascinating.

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INTRODUCTION

What are human bodies, and how should we think about them?

These questions can be answered from different perspectives. For example, a doctor may answer these questions by describing a human body’s anatomy and physiology. An athlete may answer these questions by describing how his body allows him to play and compete. A young mother may answer these questions in the context of childbirth and breastfeeding. I would like to answer these questions from a theological perspective. In this thesis, I will argue that Irenaeus and Athanasius understand the human body as fundamentally good and fully redeemable by God, which is ultimately affirmed in the Incarnation of Christ. The body is intentionally molded and given objective value by God, which affects the way a person understands his own body and his relation to God.

Patristic Fathers: Studying Irenaeus and Athanasius

A critical step necessary to answering these questions is to consider them removed from this age because every culture is saturated with its own assumptions and beliefs. C. S. Lewis wrote an essay on the importance of reading old books. (This essay is often found as an introduction to Athanasius’ book On the Incarnation.) Lewis does not think all modern books should be thrown to the wayside. However, should he advise an

“ordinary reader” to read exclusively new or old books, he would advise the person to read old books. Old books have endured the test of time. Lewis says:

A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light. (Lewis, 1946, p. 1)

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The more time a book has on trial against Christian thought, the more opportunities there are for Christians to evaluate it and determine its validity. Every author has his own assumptions, and these are brought to light through the perspectives of other thinkers not belonging to his generation or culture. Lewis says that old books produce a backdrop of

“mere Christianity” that a reader can compare with “controversies of the modern moment” (p. 2), which puts modern controversies in perspective of the history of

Christian thought.

Lewis argues that reading old books allows readers to understand the foundation on which modern books stand. Lewis compares reading a modern book to entering a conversation at eleven o’clock which began at eight o’clock (p. 1). Ideas have histories.

To truly understand a conversation, a reader must enter it earlier to understand the conversation’s context. To fully understand a concept examined in modern books, a person should first enter the conversation by studying old books.

Every age has its own outlook. Every age will have characteristics unique to it that enable writers to articulate certain truths, and liable to make certain mistakes. Since no age is completely neutral nor does it provide a faultless perspective, any reader needs books that will compare and correct the characteristic mistakes of his own period (Lewis, p. 2). Old books, and not modern books, are a litmus test for modern concerns. There is a blindness of every person towards his generation’s and culture’s assumptions. While it is not possible to fully escape this blindness, reading old books is a way to prevent ignorance and blindness from growing, allowing a person to better see the biases of his current generation and culture.

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Irenaeus and Athanasius are considered Patristic Fathers who provide an ancient, yet valuable, perspective within the Christian tradition. Their understanding of the

Incarnate, Christian God has endured the test of time. This thesis will examine Irenaeus’

Adversus Haersus (Against Heresies) and Athanasius’ De Incarnatione (On the

Incarnation) with the intent of bringing their ideas into modern culture to better understand the body.

A Brief Account of American Culture on the Body

One of the highest esteemed values in society is autonomy. In Tom Beauchamp and James Childress’ book Principles of Biomedical Ethics,1 “Respect for Autonomy” is one of their four Principles of their approach to biomedical ethics2 (1993, p. 37). The emphasis on autonomy in American culture promotes an individualistic mindset.

According to Beauchamp and Childress, “Autonomous actions should not be subjected to controlling constraints by others… We must respect individuals’ views and rights so long as their thoughts and actions do not seriously harm other persons” (p. 126). This prioritization of autonomy creates a mindset where the emphasis of decision-making is based on a person’s individual choice. This attitude extends from what a person does to how a person understands his body. The body comes to be considered an object that is affected by a person’s choices.

An implication of prioritized autonomy in American culture is that a person’s body belongs to him. The assumption that a person’s body is his own, combined with the

1 Beauchamp and Childress are considered “mainstream bioethical thinkers” (Arras, 2016). This book is a common textbook assigned to Bioethics courses at universities in America. 2 The other three are: Non-maleficence, Beneficence, and Justice.

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virtue of autonomy, gives birth to a society that encourages a person to do whatever he likes with his body. Matthew Anderson says in the first chapter of Earthen Vessels: “The iron law of our age is that our bodies are our own and we can choose to do with them as we please on the single condition that no one else is harmed” (2011, p. 23). A person is the agent who acts upon his body in whatever way he pleases: his body belongs to him and no one else. Society is not concerned that an individual’s choices for his own body may hurt him because it is his choice. Anderson says that in modern culture, “Our bodies are no longer begotten, but are made, constructed by our own individual wills and by the institutions of society that tell us how to act” (p. 25). A body is not viewed as a gift given by a transcendent God. A body is considered to be subject only to a person’s wishes and desires. An individual is granted the authority to construct his body.

The prioritization of autonomy as a virtue in society extends to how the body is treated. The general American understanding of the human body opposes the general

Christian understanding of the body.

A Brief Account of the Bible on the Body

A fundamental Christian perspective of the body is that a human’s body does not fundamentally belong to that person. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he says:

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NIV)

The authority with which Paul speaks to the Corinthians about what they can and cannot do with their bodies is founded on a belief that their bodies are not their own. In 1

Corinthians 6, Paul is encouraging Corinthians to “Flee from sexual immorality” (1

Corinthians 6:18a, ESV). Paul says, “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but

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for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (1 Corinthians 6:13b, ESV). Paul argues that what people should or should not do with their bodies depends on the Lord’s will, and not their own will. God declares ownership over every aspect of a person’s life, including what a person decides to do with his body. The Corinthians were seeking the gratification of their own desires, but Paul says this is not the top priority of a Christian. A Christian no longer belongs to himself: bought by Christ, he belongs to God.

Richard Hays argues that Paul is writing for the philosophers of Corinth. These philosophers believed that enlightened, wise people have the freedom to act in whatever way they choose (1997, p. 101). Paul says that the physical body is not merely a transient reality of little importance, but that what a person does with his body is important. Not every desire should be gratified. Instead of surrendering control to one’s appetites, Paul reminds the Corinthians that God is their master and the one to whom desires should be surrendered. Paul refutes the claim that life as a Christian disregards the importance of the body. Rather, Paul calls attention to the body and says that what a person does with it on earth is important.

The conclusion of Paul’s defense of the importance of the body and that

Christians belong to God is to “glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:20c, ESV). The telos of human bodies is not separate from the telos of an individual: a person and his body are for God. The focus is not on an individual’s freedom, choices, and desires, but on God, and seeking that he be glorified. Individual autonomy and choice is not what should be sought, but rather the glorification of God.

This belief is directly contrary to society. Society values autonomy and freedom as some of its highest values. According to society, if there is anything a person has a

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right to change, it is himself. Anyone who says otherwise is considered to be unlawfully imposing himself in to a private decision about one’s possession. Thus, the Christian view that a human person, including a person’s body, does not belong to himself is controversial. Since Christians believe they have been bought and belong to someone else, Christians are not to be ruled by their own desires, but are to live in a way where their ultimate authority is to God and not themselves.

Irenaeus and Athanasius are a part of the beginning of the Christian tradition.

Their theological accounts of the Incarnate God were, and continue to be, formational to the Christian faith. Their ideas should not be considered irrelevant, but can still be applied to how God and the human body are understood in modern society.

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CHAPTER ONE

Irenaeus on the Body

Introduction to Irenaeus

Irenaeus of Lyons is considered a father of orthodox Christianity. Irenaeus was a theologian of the second century, living from approximately 140 A.D. until about 200

A.D. While he is not a representative of the entirety of Christian thought in this time, he represents Christians in Alexandria, where Gnosticism was prevalent. He read the writings of Apostolic Fathers: those who lived in first and second century who either met the apostles or where heavily influenced by them. The Apostolic Fathers who influenced

Irenaeus include: Polycarp, Clement, Ignatius, Hermas, Justin, and Theophilus. Of these teachers, Irenaeus’ greatest role model was Polycarp. Irenaeus’ admiration for him was evident: “We ourselves saw him in our early youth, for he lived long and was in extreme old age when he left this life in a most glorious and most noble martyrdom” (AH 3.3.4).

Irenaeus was trained by Apostolic Fathers such as Polycarp, as well as teachers from Asia

Minor, Syria, and Rome. Irenaeus’ writing against Gnosticism was sent to other

Christians, such as Clement in Alexandria, Tertullian in Carthage, and Hippolytus in

Rome. Irenaeus succeeded ninety-year-old Pothinus when he died in 177 A.D., assuming the role of Bishop of Lyons. Lyons, in southern France, is where Irenaeus wrote Adversus

Haereses (AH).

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Irenaeus was passionate about defending the Christian tradition as passed down by the apostles. This passion is clear when Irenaeus describes Polycarp teaching this faith:

[Polycarp] always taught the doctrine he had learned from the apostles, which he delivered to the church, and it alone is true…he was a witness to the truth of a much greater authority and more reliable than Valentinus and Marcion and the others with false opinions. (3.3.4)

Irenaeus desires to be a witness to the truth like Polycarp. Valentinus and Marcion are

Gnostic heretics whose teaching Irenaeus refutes. Irenaeus wants to protect the Christian faith from those who teach it falsely. Irenaeus believes in objective truth, and believes it is worth fighting for in words and ideas against heretics to defend it. He seeks for truth to be taught and passed down, despite people like Valentinus and Marcion who teach what is false.

Irenaeus strongly believes that truth is transmitted through tradition, so he seeks to protect and defend tradition. In Book Three of AH, Irenaeus recounts that Polycarp calls Marcion “the firstborn of Satan.” In contrast, Irenaeus gestures to what he knows to be true. He says: “…the church of Ephesus… is a true witness to the tradition of the apostles” (3.3.4). Irenaeus seeks to protect the tradition that is founded in Christ, which is passed down to the apostles who instruct Irenaeus’s teachers, and who then teach

Irenaeus. Since Irenaeus perceives that this tradition is vulnerable to competing false ideas, he adamantly defends the truth of the Christian tradition.

Irenaeus defends traditional church teaching as upright, true, and organized, especially when compared to Gnostic teaching. He accuses Gnostic heretics of being

“blind to the truth…the traces of their doctrine are scattered without agreement or logic”

(5.20.1). Irenaeus contrasts this to Christian tradition, claiming:

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The way of the church members…contains the firm tradition from the apostles… for all believe in one and the same God and in the “economy” of the incarnation of the Son of God…and preserve the same organization in the church and await the same coming of the Lord. (5.20.1)

Irenaeus does not seek to be novel. He relies on church tradition and teaching to refute

Gnosticism. Church tradition is preserved through the passing on of apostolic teaching.

Irenaeus strives to defend the church from heresy that would distort this unity of belief and misdirect the church.

Introduction to Adversus Haereses

Irenaeus is most famous for his work Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies

[AH]), written around 180 A.D., where he combats Gnostic heresies. Irenaeus wrote AH out of pastoral concern. Irenaeus did not want Christians to fall away from apostolic teaching through false beliefs of heretics. In Book One of AH, Irenaeus says that heretics:

have been sent forth by Satan to bring dishonor upon the Church, so that, in one way or another, men hearing the things which they speak, and imagining that we all are such as they, may turn away their ears from the preaching of the truth. (1.25.3)

Irenaeus is concerned that the witness of the Church will be tainted by heretics, causing men to turn away from Christianity because they observe the heretics who claim to be a part of the church. Irenaeus is worried that men, “seeing the things [heretics] practise, may speak evil of us all, who have in fact no fellowship with them, either in doctrine or morals, or in our daily conduct” (1.25.3). Irenaeus does not claim fellowship with heretics in any way: neither with doctrine, morals, nor daily conduct. Irenaeus wants to separate the identity of the Church from that of heretics, so people outside the church will not conflate the beliefs and behavior of non-Christians with Christians, damaging the reputation of the Church.

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Introduction to Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a belief that salvation depends upon gnosis, which means knowledge. The belief is that to receive salvation, a person must achieve an understanding of knowledge that is only revealed to some people, to a chosen few.

Gnostic sects arose in the same period as early Christianity. Gnosticism is based on a certain dualism. Hans Jonas says this certain dualism “is an estrangement between man and the world” (2012, p. 433) and is “the loss of the idea of a kindred cosmos- in short, an anthropological acosmism” (p. 433). Man is exalted, and the world is degraded. Jonas calls this a “cosmic nihilism” where there is no inherent value or purpose to the world. In

Gnostic dualism, where man and the world are pitted against each other, the world and man are considered incompatible. This leads to a belief that “the Divine has no part and no concern in the physical universe; that the true God, strictly transmundane, is not revealed or even indicated by the world” (p. 435). The human body is considered part of the physical universe. The body is not considered a part of man, but an unfortunate part of what it means to live in the world. Gnostics consider there to be a vast space of difference between humans and the rest of the world. Not only is there a divorce between what it means to be a human, there is a separation of the divine and the physical. God is completely unrelated to the world in the sense that it reveals nothing about him. Humans are considered to partake in both the worldly and divine realm: human bodies are of the world, and human souls are divine. Gnosticism does not allow for a relationship between man or God and the physical world: whatever is material is divorced from the Gnostic understanding of God and man.

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In Gnostic teaching with which Irenaeus was familiar, the material world is considered to have been created by something inferior to God. Nature was created by a

Demiurge, “a power far removed from the supreme source of Being, a perversion of the

Divine, retaining of it only the power to act, but to act blindly, without knowledge; he created the world out of ignorance and passion” (Jonas, 2012, p. 436). The world and its parts are inevitably seen as less-than what is immaterial. The material, and therefore, the human body, are considered “negative realities” (Gasparro, 2014). The material and spiritual oppose each other and will continue to do so until matter is destroyed. However, whatever is spiritual will endure.

According to Gnostics, a special knowledge, gnosis, is necessary to escape the oppression of the material world. The Valentinian school described the content of gnosis:

"What makes us free is the knowledge who we were, what we have become; where we were, wherein we have been thrown; whereto we speed, wherefrom we are redeemed; what is birth and what rebirth” (Jonas, 2012, p. 445-446). Each of these states describe a movement from a past state into a future state. There is an inherent lack of focus on the present. According to Gnostics, a person is moving from one eternity to a future eternity.

The violent language of a person being “thrown” into a body reflects the negative perspective Gnostics have on the body.

Irenaeus on Gnosticism

Irenaeus writes AH to refute a variety of Gnostic sects. He summarizes various

Gnostic beliefs in Book Five:

Then all the heretics are stupid…they contradict their own salvation, some introducing a Father other than the Demiurge, others saying that the world and its substance were made by angels, others saying that this matter, far removed from

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their so-called Father, flourished spontaneously and innately, and others deriving its substance from deficiency and ignoring in what the Father contains. Yet others despise the visible coming of the Lord and reject his incarnation. Still others, again, ignorant of the “economy” of the Virgin, says he was generated by Joseph. Some say that neither soul nor body can receive eternal life, but only the “inner man,” which they identify with their mind, judging it alone to rise to perfection. Others say the soul is saved, but the body cannot share in salvation from God… (5.19.2)

Irenaeus complains that heretics are inconsistent. When Irenaeus refutes Gnostics, he defends the consistency of Christianity and seeks to show it is reasonable. He believes and argues that God works in ways which are most “fitting.” Irenaeus defends the

Trinitarian God: Father, Son, and Spirit, and rejects other deities such as “Demiurges.” A

Gnostic theme is attributing the power of creation out of nothing to gods other than the

Christian God. It is essential to Irenaeus’ arguments that God is the one who created matter. Irenaeus knows the Incarnation- God becoming man, begotten by the Father and conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb- is critical to defending the Christian faith from Gnostics. Irenaeus defends Christianity against the Gnostic emphasis on the perfection of the mind and the omission of the body from salvation. Irenaeus seeks to defend the Christian faith from distortions of Gnostic heretics.

In Book One of AH, Irenaeus explains the philosophy of some of the heretics he opposes, in order to protect the Church. In Gnosticism, God is not the Source of all matter and life, but he is one among many: a being greater than other beings. One of these beings, Achamoth, meets with Jesus, which Irenaeus explains in AH 1.4.5:

…[Christ] brought healing to [Achmoth’s] passions…For it was not possible that they should be annihilated… because they had already taken root and acquired strength [so as to possess an indestructible existence]. All that he could do was to separate them and set them apart, and then commingle and condense them, so as to transmute them from incorporeal passion into unorganized matter. He then by this process conferred upon them a fitness and a nature to become concretions and corporeal structures, in order that two substances should be formed— the one evil,

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resulting from the passions, and the other subject indeed to suffering, but originating from her conversion. And on this account (i.e., on account of this hypostatizing of ideal matter) they say that the Saviour virtually created the world.

According to the Gnostics Irenaeus is refuting, Christ takes Achmoth’s passions and forms them into physical matter. These passions are so resilient that Christ is not considered to have the power to destroy them. Christ sorts through them and forms them into two substances: one is evil, which originates from passions, and the other matter is subject to suffering, which originates from Achmoth’s conversion. These two clumps of matter describe the origin of the matter of the world: the matter of the world can either be classified as evil or subject to suffering. When matter is considered to have originated in such a manner, it is seen as something opposed to what is divine. This account vacated matter of any intrinsic goodness. This story of Achmoth is one example of why the

Gnostics rejected anything material as possessing anything good. Their philosophy attributed pain, evil, and suffering to the corporeal.

According to Gnostics, salvation does not come through the life, death, and resurrection of the Incarnate Jesus Christ. Rather, it comes through perfect knowledge of

God. This knowledge is an immaterial means to salvation. Irenaeus explains this belief:

They further hold that the consummation of all things will take place when all that is spiritual has been formed and perfected by Gnosis (knowledge); and by this they mean spiritual men who have attained to the perfect knowledge of God, and been initiated into these mysteries by Achmoth. And they represent themselves to be these persons. (1.6.1)

In Gnosticism, the powerful force that acts upon men is purely spiritual. The perfecting, redeeming power of the world is not God Incarnate, but gnosis. Salvation depends on knowledge. Man’s goal in life is to attain this gnosis. If a man fails to attain this knowledge, he is damned.

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Contrary to the Gnostics, Irenaeus offers an account of a God who creates what is good and redeems his creation through becoming Incarnate. Gnostics claim to have a special knowledge which is the means for their salvation. This knowledge is not available to everyone, but is revealed to some by revelation. Irenaeus says: “They tell us, however, that this knowledge has not been openly divulged, because all are not capable of receiving it, but has been mystically revealed by the Saviour through means of parables to those qualified for understanding it” (1.3.1). Gnostics believe that only those qualified to understand (which happens to conveniently be themselves) are recipients of this mystical revelation. Salvation is not available to anyone nor everyone, but only certain people who have received revelation. The necessity of knowledge for salvation leads people towards a dangerous idolization of knowledge, since that is the means of salvation.

The Gnostic myth of which Irenaeus is keenly aware and refutes begins with two gods: Barbelo and a Father. They generate divine entities (named “Aeons” by Gnostics), such as Thought, Foreknowledge, and Eternal Life. These beings are personified intellectual attributes. One of these entities is Adamas: a perfect human, and parallel to the Adam in Genesis. Adamas becomes untied with Perfect Knowledge, or gnosis. This myth illustrates that humanity without fault is united to perfect knowledge.

Valentinus was a prominent Gnostic that Irenaeus combats in his writing.

Valentinus imagines a human soul is granted to a body by a god. A person’s body is distinct from his soul and composed of matter. A human soul is capable of unification with the spiritual realm, but the material body is not. For the soul to be perfected, a person must mature and come to perfect knowledge. Additionally, Valentinian Gnostics

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were encouraged to leave the tradition of apostolic succession, causing great concern for

Irenaeus. For this reason, Irenaeus considered Valentinian Gnostics the most dangerous of Gnostics.

One of the most significant claims of Gnostics is that they deny that God took on flesh and that flesh was part of his nature. Irenaeus says: “…they deny that He assumed anything material [into His nature], since indeed matter is incapable of salvation” (1.6.1).

According to Gnostics, Jesus did not take on flesh. God was not made man. Since God did not fully assume flesh, flesh was not redeemed. Flesh is therefore corrupt and stays that way. It cannot be saved by Christ, nor is it worth saving. The substance of flesh is considered merely a temporary reality with no further significance. Compared to spiritual realities, the flesh is not worth a second thought.

Another Gnostic group that Irenaeus targeted was the Ebionites. This Jewish-

Christian group had two sects: the Judaic Ebionites, who believed Jesus was a prophet who worked miracles, and the Gnostic Ebionites, who believed Christ was purely a spirit and invisible to men. The Ebionites believed in one God, but they did not accept the

Incarnation. Jesus was considered to be fully man and not divine, conceived by Mary and

Joseph, instead of the traditional Christian teaching of Jesus’ conception through Mary and the Holy Spirit.3 Irenaeus draws light to the significance of the Incarnation and Jesus’ conception by the Holy Spirit and Mary to combat this heresy. Irenaeus says the

Ebionites

…do not receive by faith into their soul the union of God and man, but who remain in the old leaven of [the natural] birth, and who do not choose to

3 “And the angel answered [Mary], “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luke 1:35, ESV).

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understand that the Holy Ghost came upon Mary, and that the power of the Most High did overshadow her. (5.1.3)

Gnostics do not grasp that Jesus is fully God and fully man. The Gnostic perspective does not have room for a God-man because the material world should remain separate from anything spiritual. The divine and material must remain divorced, allowing no possibility for God to become man.

Gnostics divorce what is physical from what is spiritual. They are concerned with the spiritual because the material is an unfortunate necessity that is not permanent, but will be sloughed off when their spirit is perfected. Irenaeus notes:

Just as what is material cannot share in salvation, for it is not receptive of it, they say; so again what is spiritual cannot undergo perishability, whatever acts it experiences. For as gold deposited in mud does not lose its beauty but preserves its own nature because mud cannot harm gold, so they themselves, they say, no matter what material acts they experience, cannot be harmed or lose the spiritual substance. (1.6.2)

Gnostics claim that what is material, the flesh, is incapable of receiving salvation. Since the flesh is perishable, it cannot be sanctified. This leads Gnostics to disregard what they do in the flesh. Irenaeus uses this metaphor of mud and gold to illustrate how Gnostics understand the flesh: a person’s true quality and character is like gold. The gold represents a person’s spiritual substance. This metaphor compares a person’s body to be like mud: the gold is temporary covered in mud, but the body is not permanent as mud is not permanent. The mud cannot permanently change the character or nature of the gold.

Just as a mud does not affect any intrinsic properties of gold, neither is the body considered to affect the true nature of a person. Mud only covers the gold for time as the body is a temporary mask and carrier for soul. The implications of likening the body to mud is to understand anything done to the body or in the body as having no true influence

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on a person. As stirring the mud covering gold has no real effect on gold, neither is anything that affects the body considered to affect the person. As mud cannot affect gold, so is a person free to do what he wishes with his body since Gnostics understand the soul to be unaffected by the body. Gnostics have divorced the body from their identity and value. They believe deeds done in the flesh cannot impact their spirit, because a person is fundamentally spiritual. The essence of who they are is rooted in the spiritual, and cannot be influenced by the physical.

Irenaeus’ Defense Against Gnosticism

Irenaeus refutes the mystical knowledge Gnostics seek. In Book Four, Irenaeus says:

This is the true Gnosis: the teaching of the apostles, and the ancient institution of the church, spread throughout the entire world, and the distinctive mark of the body of Christ in according with the successions of bishops, to whom the apostles entrusted each local church, and the unfeigned preservation, coming down to us, of the scriptures, with a complete collection allowing for neither addition nor subtraction; a reading without falsification and, in conformity with the scriptures, an interpretation that is legitimate, careful, and without danger or blasphemy. (4.33.8)

Irenaeus appeals to the organization and structure of the church. Truthful knowledge is found through the universal community of the church, and not through individual revelation. Knowledge about Christ, the one who brings salvation, is available through the teaching of the church, and is not limited to a special few. Through the succession of bishops, the teaching of the Christian faith is carried on. The knowledge required for salvation is not limited to a few that receive special revelation, but is available to all who are willing to enter the church and submit themselves to its teaching.

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Irenaeus defends that creation is good and material components of our world are not inherently evil. One reason this is important to grasp is to understand that God could take on flesh. God is not tainted by becoming human. Irenaeus argues that not only did the Son take on flesh and become man in the Incarnation, but he seeks to redeem creation through the act of taking on the handiwork of his Father (5.14.4).

Irenaeus upholds traditional Christian teaching that a man is neither solely a soul nor a body, but he is both. Irenaeus says that both the body and soul of a man will receive salvation: “[Followers of Christ] hope for the same salvation of the whole man, that is, of soul and body” (5.20.1). Unlike Gnostic heretics, Irenaeus does not hold the soul of a man above his body or vice versa. Irenaeus upholds the integrity of both body and soul and believes they are both essential to what it means to be man. Irenaeus acknowledges that God created a man as both a physical and spiritual being. Spiritual and physical realities are not divorced; rather, the soul and body of man are made to be unified in man.

The whole of man, body and soul, is capable of receiving salvation.

The foundation of Irenaeus’ defense of the flesh is in Jesus Christ, who is God

Incarnate. Because Christ became flesh, he is able to redeem humans:

Christ alone is able to teach divine things, and to redeem us: He, the same, took on flesh of the Virgin Mary, not merely in appearance, but actually, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, in order to renovate us. (5.1.1)

The Incarnation is necessary for salvation. In the womb and through the flesh of Mary,

Christ receives his physical body. Irenaeus claims it is heresy that Christ was flesh only in appearance. Irenaeus knows that Christ was one with his body: unified, and not separate. Christ was flesh in actuality and not by mere appearance. Through the operation and power of the Holy Spirit, the Son of God is conceived in Mary’s womb and made

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man. Christ redeems the whole human: both physical and spiritual, body and soul.

Salvation comes to man through the Incarnation of Christ. It is by God’s work, and not man’s power or knowledge, that men are saved.

One reason the Word became flesh was to redeem the fullness of humanity: spirit and body. God desired to save mankind so that men would not be destroyed.

…the Word of God, powerful in all things, and not defective with regard to His own justice, did righteously turn against that apostasy, and redeem from it His own property, not by violent means, as the [apostasy] had obtained dominion over us at the beginning, when it insatiably snatched away what was not its own, but by means of persuasion, as became a God of counsel, who does not use violent means to obtain what He desires; so that neither should justice be infringed upon, nor the ancient handiwork of God go to destruction. (5.1.1)

He redeemed men because they belonged to God first. God became a man to redeem humans and reclaim his property. In the Fall, man turned away from God through use of his free will and broke the relationship between God and man, submitting himself to the dominion of the Apostate, or Satan. God became flesh to restore this relationship. Only through God Incarnate, the Son of God, is the relationship between God and man able to be restored. Mankind belongs to him, and only through the Son becoming flesh can man enter God’s presence again.

There is power in that Jesus became man, that he might save man. God did not save man from a distance, but saved men by participating in his creation he was redeeming. Through God becoming man was he able to save men: “…the Lord thus has redeemed us through His own blood, giving His soul for our souls, and His flesh for our flesh…” (5.1.1). God did not stay separate from men, but he redeems them by entering into mankind and becoming man. God Incarnate is the marriage of God and his creation.

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He becomes as intimately involved with his creation as possible. In the mystery of the

Incarnation, God becomes flesh and makes his dwelling among us.

Through the Incarnation God sets up a new relationship between man and God.

Through the Incarnation, God:

has also poured out the Spirit of the Father for the union and communion of God and man, imparting indeed God to men by the means of the Spirit, and, on the other hand, attaching man to God by his own incarnation, and bestowing upon us at His coming immortality durably and truly, by means of communion with God… (5.1.1)

God is able to come to man through the Spirit, but man is only able to come to God because of his Incarnation. By becoming human flesh, God establishes this new relationship and the means by which man can reach God.

Irenaeus argues that it was necessary for God to become man to save man. Since man is in the “economy” of flesh, God must become flesh to enter the economy in order to save it. Irenaeus says that if man were of any other substance, that would be the substance God must become to save man. Irenaeus says: “But now the saving Word was made what the man who perished was, through himself effecting communion with him and obtaining his salvation” (5.14.2). God becoming Incarnate is the method in which

God enters the economy of man and to obtain salvation for him. By becoming man, God participates in a special communion with man that could not have been accomplished in any other way.

God becomes flesh that he might be the second Adam. To redeem the whole of man, God had to become like Adam: “For He would not have been one truly possessing flesh and blood, by which He redeemed us, unless He had summed up in Himself the ancient formation of Adam” (5.1.2). Jesus parallels Adam, through whom sin entered

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mankind. Human nature became fallen after man sinned. Jesus counteracts the distortion caused by Adam:

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. (Romans 6:18-19, ESV)

As Adam’s sin reverberated throughout mankind, so did Christ’s death and resurrection resonate through the universe, opening a path to God for all men. Adam’s act led to death, while Christ’s act leads to life. In order to heal the brokenness throughout all men that Adam initiated, Christ must become man as a second Adam that mends what was broken.

Irenaeus argues that human flesh is capable of receiving salvation. Irenaeus argues that God Incarnate is the structure by which the entirety of man is saved. He says:

“But vain in every respect are they who despise the entire dispensation of God, and disallow the salvation of the flesh, and treat with contempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not capable of incorruption” (5.2.2). Irenaeus grants that God has the authority to set up a system as he desires. Irenaeus shows this dispensation of God planning to save men involves God becoming Incarnate. This way, the flesh will become capable in incorruption.

Further evidence that humans in their body are capable of receiving salvation is that humans are able to receive the Eucharist. The sacrament of Christ’s body and blood becoming real food and drink4 is a mystery and a miracle that is a means of grace and foretastes Christ’s second coming:

4 “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:55-56, ESV).

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When, therefore, the mingled cup and manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him? (AH 5.2.3)

As Christ transforms water into wine at the wedding of Cana, so does Christ turn wine and bread into his own blood and body. The term “Eucharist” comes from the Greek term

“eucharistia,” meaning “thanksgiving,” and which refers to the elements of bread and wine. Christians receive the body and blood with thanksgiving, because it is a sign and means by which God gives himself to his people. The physical bodies of Christians receive the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, which is the resurrected body of

Christ. Christians are united to Christ by partaking in his body and blood. Irenaeus references Ephesians 5:30 which says: “…we are members of [Christ’s] body” (ESV).

Through Christ, humans can receive the incorruptible body of Christ into their bodies, becoming united into his incorruptible body.

Conclusion:

Irenaeus refutes Gnosticism in Against Heresies. He defends the church’s apostolic teaching as the institution where truth is pure and undefiled. Irenaeus encourages others to turn to the traditional teaching of the church in search for truth.

Irenaeus affirms the goodness of all material which God created, including the substance of man. Irenaeus argues that God became flesh to enter the specific economy of man, with the goal of saving men. The Incarnation unites God to man in a unique way, and affirms that human flesh is capable of receiving the divine. A further affirmation that the human body can receive what is divine is the act of humans receiving the Eucharist.

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CHAPTER TWO

Athanasius on the Body

Introduction to Athanasius and His Opponent Arius

Athanasius lived in the fourth century from about 293 A.D. until 373 A.D. He is known for his theological work after the Council of Nicaea summoned by Emperor

Constantine I in 325 A.D. The Council of Nicaea is considered to be the first ecumenical council. Its purpose was to settle a dispute over the nature of Christ Jesus between Arius, a priest in Alexandria, and Alexander, a bishop of Alexandria.

Athanasius’ lifetime was spent opposing Arianism. Arianism was founded by

Arius, a priest in the early 4th century. In an effort to maintain monotheism in

Christianity, Arius declared that Jesus is inferior to God the Father. He did not believe that Jesus was of the same substance of the Father, nor did Arius think Jesus participates in the divinity of God. Arius thought Jesus had a beginning: the Word of God did not exist eternally, but he was thought to have been created by God and was finite.

Athanasius was a personal secretary to Bishop Alexander at the Council of

Nicaea, though it is likely he did not participate. At this council, Arius was declared a heretic and exiled because he refused to sign a document that declared Jesus is the same divine nature of God. In other words, this claim is that Jesus is homoousion tō Patri, “of the same substance of God the Father.” Athanasius and Bishop Alexander maintained the belief that the Son of God and the Father were homoousia: of the one, same substance.

From this conflict sprung the purpose for the phrase in the Nicene Creed, that the Son is

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“Very God from Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousia) with the Father, by whom all things were made.”

Athanasius entered the debates pertaining to Arius in 328 A.D when he became

Bishop of Alexandria following Bishop Alexander’s death. Athanasius was exiled at least five times due to theological disagreements with various emperors. He tended to his flock of citizens in Alexandria, a vibrant city of culture that included Gnostic and Manichean communities.

In On the Incarnation, a group Athanasius argues against are Platonists. These

Platonists believe that “God had made all things out of pre-existent and uncreated matter, just as the carpenter makes things only out of wood that already exists” (1.2). This perspective claims that matter existed before God. According to the Platonists, God is not the creator of matter, but merely a craftsman who “worked up existing matter and did not

Himself bring matter into being” (1.2). God is stripped from his role as Creator.

Athanasius argues that God did not merely reshape matter that already existed, but God created matter ex nihilo. God is the cause of all matter. Athanasius elevates God to the source of matter and not subordinate to anything.

One of the most significant groups that Athanasius opposes in On the Incarnation is the Gnostic sect. Gnostics do not believe God is the Creator and Father of Jesus, but according to Athanasius they “have invented for themselves an Artificer of all things other than the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1.2). They divorce God the Father and

God the Creator, and say that the one who created the universe is not the same one who is the Father of Christ. Athanasius argues that the Artificer of the universe and the Father of

Jesus Christ are one and the same. According to Biggs, the threat of Gnosticism to the

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integrity of Christian faith was significant: “But in the second century, while

[Gnosticism] was yet living and aggressive, it constituted a danger greater than the Arian controversy, greater than any peril that has ever menaced the existence of the Faith”

(1913, p. 62). Gnosticism is full of half-truths that distracted people from essential truth in Christianity. Athanasius will go to great lengths to defend Christianity from

Gnosticism.

As mentioned in the last chapter, Gnostics attribute creative capabilities to a demiurge, which is a secondary god that is created. This belief is contrary to the Christian declaration of God’s intentional creation. Athanasius refers to a couple of passages in

Scripture to support the claim that God is the creator of all things. The first passage of which Athanasius reminds his audience is Matthew 19:4, where Jesus recalls Genesis:

“He who created them in the beginning made them male and female…” (1.2). Athanasius uses this passage as evidence that God the Father is the creator of humans. Next

Athanasius recalls John 1:3: “All things became by Him and without Him came nothing into being” (1.2). Athanasius says this verse clearly states that the Artificer is God the

Father. Athanasius uses these verses as evidence that God the Father is God the Creator.

Not only did God create humans, but he created all things that exist. God is the Artificer of the universe, and the Father of Christ.

Athanasius’ Argument in On the Incarnation

The Fall

Athanasius begins On the Incarnation by looking at the Fall. God became

Incarnate because of the human condition. Before the Fall, Athanasius describes the human state: “For God had made man thus (that is an embodied spirit), and had willed

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that he should remain in incorruption” (1.4). Athanasius defined man as an embodied spirit. To be human is not to be a body or a spirit, but to be both, intimately united. Man was originally uncorrupted, and it was God’s will that he should remain in such a state.

However, in the Fall, man utilizes his free will to turn from God to seek selfish ends.

Athanasius says that men “turned from the contemplation of God to evil of their own devising” (1.4). The perfect relationship man had with God is broken. The human condition is changed when man turns away from God out of his own devising and free will, and sin enters the world.

Athanasius thinks the Fall is central to the Incarnation. Athanasius says: “[I]t was our sorry case that caused the Word to come down, our transgression called out His love for us, so that He made haste to help us and to appear among us” (1.4). The condition of humans after the Fall gave a reason for God to become Incarnate. Athanasius says that “It is we who were the cause of His taking human form, and for our salvation that in His great love He was both born and manifested in a human body” (1.4). The state of humans coupled with the love of God results in God manifesting himself on earth in a human body. Athanasius says that God became flesh for the salvation of humans; for the sake of man did God became man.

The Divine Dilemma

The reason God became flesh issues from what Athanasius calls “the divine dilemma.” The first part of the divine dilemma begins with human sin. Sin is a trespass against God, and allows death to enter God’s creation. Athanasius says: “But men, having turned from the contemplation of God to evil of their own devising, had come inevitably under the law of death” (1.4). When man sinned, he turned away from God. His

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orientation was at first towards God in contemplation of Him, but then man turns away towards evil. The consequence of this turning away from God is death. Men are responsible for their action because they choose to turn away from God towards evil out of their own free will.

When man sinned, his orientation changed. Athanasius elaborates on why this is the case:

…[Men] had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again. The presence and love of the Word has called them into being; inevitably, therefore when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with it; for it is God alone who exists, evil is non-being, the negation and antithesis of good. (1.4)

Men were brought into existence out of non-existence by God, but their trajectory is changed towards non-existence through the corruption of sin. Any orientation not towards God is away from him. When a man is in sin, he is turned away from God, who is the essence of being and goodness. Evil is the absence of the good. When man turns away from God in sin, he loses his focus on God, the sustainer and giver of all life. Thus, death for man enters the world through sin. Athanasius notes, “Instead of remaining in the state in which God had created them, they were in the process of becoming corrupted entirely, and death had them completely corrupted under its dominion” (1.4). Since the state of man changes with sin, man’s path in life is directed towards death without intervention.

There is a problem with this change in man’s state and God’s character: it is unfitting that God’s creation, which God deemed to be very good, should perish.

Athanasius identifies this problem: “Man, who was created in God’s image and in his possession of reason reflected the very Word Himself, was disappearing, and the work of

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God was being undone” (2.6). The power of death indicates that power belongs to death and evil spirits:

It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil; and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear, either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits. (2.6)

If the devil and evil spirits have their way, evil has conquered, and God is put to shame.

God becomes unworthy of his very essence of goodness. He is not revealed as an omnipotent God who cares for his creatures and sustains their life. For the integrity of

God’s character to remain, Athanasius knows that man’s sin and evil spirits cannot have the final say on the destiny of man.

Athanasius reasons that death and sin made a problem for God. Should God “let corruption and death have their way with [his creatures]” (2.6)? If God allows death to reign, He is in error because He reasonably should not have even created mankind in the first place. Athanasius says:

Surely it would have been better never to have created at all than, having been created, to be neglected and perish; and, besides that, such indifference to the ruin of his own work before His very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation, and that far more than if He had never created men at all. (2.6)

God is scandalized if he does not change the course of humans that are bound to death.

The very creation of man would be regrettable. God’s character would be shown as indifferent because he would be allowing his creation to come to ruin. Without any intervention, humans are on a trajectory from existing into non-existence. God’s creation would reflect a God of limitation, not of goodness, if his creation continued on the path from life to death.

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Another reason it was scandalous for humans to decay and disappear is because humans are made in the image of God. It is unfitting that death should reign over humans, not only because they are God’s creation, but also because they are images of God, their creator. Athanasius says:

[The Word] saw the reasonable race, the race of men that, like Himself, expressed the Father’s Mind, wasting out of existence, and death reigning over all in corruption…He saw how unseemly it was that the very things of which He Himself was the Artificer should be disappearing. (2.8)

The relationship between men and God is not only of creation to Creator, but also between an image and the source of the image. As a pot reveals something about the potter who formed it, so does the creation of God reveal something about God.

Athanasius says the Word sees how unseemly this would be for his handiwork to disappear, and thus he is prompted to action.

Because of God’s character, he intervened on behalf of his creatures. To “leave man to be carried off by corruption” (2.6) would be “unfitting and unworthy” (2.6) of

God himself. God must find a solution to this problem. One option Athanasius entertains is that God could go back on his word and revoke the consequence of sin as death. That would resolve the dilemma: humans would no longer be bound for death due to their sin, and God’s creation would not waste of out of existence. However, Athanasius says it is unthinkable that “the Father of Truth should go back on His word regarding death in order to ensure our continued existence” (2.7). This is not a possible solution to solving the dilemma: God cannot go back on his design (that death or a consequence of sin) nor on his word. He must remain faithful.

Another option Athanasius entertains is if the solution to God’s dilemma would be repentance. If sin was “of a trespass only, and not of subsequent corruption,

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repentance would have been well enough” (2.7). However, transgressions by men were greater than a single occurrence: “once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the Image of God” (2.7). Sin is more than a one-time occurrence. Sin bereaves men of grace that belonged to them in the beginning.

Repentance will not be enough to fix the problem.

Solution to the Divine Dilemma

Athanasius concludes that only God himself can remedy this situation. More specifically, Athanasius says it is the Word of God that must save mankind from death:

Who, save the Word of God Himself, Who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing? His part was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father. (2.7)

The Word of God must solve this problem; because he is the one who made all things from nothing,5 it is fitting that he is the one that saves all things from perishing into nothing. The Word of God is the one mediator between God and man.6 A mediator is necessary because the only one capable of intervening in this situation must be able to suffer on behalf of all men, and be with the Father. It is most fitting for the Word of God to be the ambassador of men to the Father.

5 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1-3, ESV). 6 “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5, ESV).

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Because of God’s character, the Word of God must save men. He does so by becoming man and taking on flesh. For the purpose of mediating between God and man,

“the incorporeal and incorruptible Word of God entered our world…He entered the world in a new way, stooping to our level in His love and self-revealing to us” (2.8). That the

Word of God stoops to enter the world on the level of men is a miracle. God enters the world he created out of love for men and to reveal himself to them. God was previously purely spiritual, but he clothes himself in flesh and reveals himself to men through sensible realities.

The Word becoming flesh is the means by which the invisible God becomes visible to man. Athanasius argues that the body that the Word takes on allows God to be seen by man:

For the Word of God was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality. (8.54)

God the Son makes seen God the Father, who is unseen. In this passage, Athanasius also makes it clear that God is becoming man for the sake of men, and as a means of their salvation. The Incarnation is the means by which men pass from mortality to immortality, from a transient life to eternal life.

Christ took on a body because a body was necessary to save men. Athanasius is adamant that the Word became flesh: Jesus did not merely appear to have a body, but he became one with his body. Concerning this he writes:

…He took to Himself a body, a human body even as our own. Nor did He will merely to become embodied or merely to appear; had that been so, He could have revealed His divine majesty in some other and better way. No, He took our body, and not only so, but He took it directly from a spotless, stainless virgin… (2.8)

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Christ did not merely appear to be a man, or appear to take on flesh, but he became flesh.

This body is the same kind and substance of which all humans are composed. Conceived by the Holy Spirit through the virgin Mary, the Word “[takes] a body like our own” (2.8) and becomes man. This was the best way possible for God to reveal his divine majesty.

The divinity of God is made flesh and revealed to mankind in the most apparent way: by taking up residency in the world of men.

It was essential for Christ to take on a body because of the nature of a body. The important feature of a body in this situation is its ability to die. In order for Christ to conquer death and remove it as a necessary consequence of all men because of their sin,

Christ needed a way to die. The Word became flesh to die, therefore satisfying the law of death. Athanasius argues:

Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. (2.8)

Christ surrenders his body in the place of all humans. He offers himself to the Father out of love for men. The consequence of sin is death, and death should be the terminal, ultimate fate of men should the world run its course, uninterrupted and without intercession. However, Christ intercedes. He takes on flesh so he could die. The only way this offering for the sin of men is possible is because Christ took on a body. The power of death is voided for men because the death of Christ satisfied its demands.

Since Christ, who is the perfect man, died and was resurrected, death is conquered and its power terminated. The death of Christ was the only death that could satisfy death’s demands:

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…through belonging to the Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all, and, itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling, might thereafter put an end to corruption for all others as well, by the grace of the resurrection. (2.8)

The only sufficient one who could offer an exchange for what men should rightfully be paying is the Word himself. Through the Word’s death and resurrection, corruption for all is ended. Only the creator and author of life can satisfy death’s demands for all people: “For naturally, since the Word of God was above all, when He offered His own temple and bodily instrument as a substitute for the life of all, He fulfilled in death all that was required” (2.9). Christ’s death and resurrection halts the power of death for people in the past, present, and future. Christ offers his bodily life a substitute for all to fulfill death’s requirements. Christ “make[s] [men] alive through death by the appropriation of

His body and the grace of His resurrection” (2.8). Christ conquers death by death.7 There is a power and finality in Christ’s death and resurrection, like the world had never known before.

Christ’s death and resurrection offers a new possibility of life for men that would not have been possible otherwise. Christ’s death pays for the penalty of sin for which men were responsible. However, since Christ takes on human nature, he is able to atone for the sin of men: “Naturally also, through this union of the immortal Son of God with our human nature, all men were clothed with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection” (2.9). Christ clothes what once was corruptible with the incorruptible.

Christ makes a new reality possible for men: “…by the virtue of the Word’s indwelling in

7 “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:56-57, ESV).

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a single human body, the corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all”

(2.9). By the power of Christ’s death and resurrection through becoming flesh, death loses its power over men.

Christ did not need to die and be resurrected for his own sake, but for the sake of all men. Athanasius uses a metaphor to illustrate how Jesus’ occupancy of a body redeems all of men:

You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its house; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honored, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. (2.9)

As the presence of one great ruler in a single home affects a whole city, so does Christ our King in a single body affect every body. The influence of Christ is not limited to his own body, but when he overturns death, his influence is spread. Christ the King redeems flesh by taking on flesh, and conquers death and corruption.

It is most fitting that this is the way in which God saves men. It is best that he redeems men, rather than let them perish and allow death to rule:

A king who had founded a city, so far from neglecting it when through the carelessness of the inhabitants it is attacked by robbers, avenges it and saves it from destruction, having regard rather to his own honor than to the people’s neglect. (2.10)

Christ comes to man’s aid. Rather than let the city be wrecked by robbers who attack the city because of the carelessness of the city’s inhabitants, Christ the King saves the inhabitants from destruction, despite their carelessness. It is more consistent with His

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character to intercede on behalf of man than to passively let his creation, imprinted with his own image8 and deemed very good,9 to perish.

Since Christ became man, through his death and resurrection he redeems the whole of man. This includes man’s body:

… the Word of the All-good Father was not unmindful of the human race that He had called to be; but rather, by the offering of His own body He abolished the death which they had incurred and corrected their neglect by His own teaching. Thus by his own power he restored the whole nature of man. (2.10)

God remains mindful of his creation. He did not create a universe and step away, but remains involved with his creation. He corrects and restores men.

Christ did not assume a body only to prevent men from death, but to redeem their bodies. Athanasius argues that the Incarnation was necessary for human bodies to be redeemed so they can be resurrected:

Suppose the Word had come outside the body instead of in it, He would, of course, have defeated death, because death is powerless against the Life. But the corruption inherent in the body would have remained in it none the less. Naturally, therefore, the Savior assumed a body for Himself, in order that the body, being interwoven as it were with life, should no longer remain a mortal thing, in thrall to death, but as endued with immortality and risen from death, should thenceforth remain immortal. (7.44)

God assumes a body to not only conquer death, but to redeem the physical body so that it may be resurrected. The corruption that was inherent to the body is redeemed through the

Savior’s death and resurrection so the body does not remain mortal. The body will rise from the dead and will remain immortal.

The Savior’s death and resurrection changes the status of death for Christians.

Athanasius goes as far to say that death is not a terrible circumstance:

8 Genesis 1:27 9 Genesis 1:31

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But now that the Savior raised His body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing…knowing full well that when they die they do not perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible through resurrection. (5.27)

Christ’s death is powerful enough to change the statues of death. For those who believe in

Christ, death has lost its power. Death has changed from a sign of finality to a doorway into eternal life.

Conclusion

Athanasius in On the Incarnation argues that it is most fitting for the Word of

God to become man to save man from death. Since the Savior assumed a body, and died, and was resurrected, the demands of death have been satisfied, and death has lost is power. The trajectory of man that was, at first, set towards death, has been shifted towards life through Christ’s intercession. Through Christ is man saved from corruption and from death. It becomes possible for man to enter eternal life and for his body to be resurrected from the dead.

Athanasius specifically calls to mind that God took on flesh. By assuming flesh,

God communicates that flesh is worth redeeming. The body is not something to be discarded when we die because God has gone through great lengths to redeem the body.

The body is clothed in incorruptibility, and will not be separate from man.

The body is considered an integral part of being human. Having a body is part of what it means to be human because God took on a body. Athanasius reveals that the only way to save man was for God to become man. When God became man, he had a body, which affirms that the body is an indispensable part of what it means to be human.

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CHAPTER 3

Applications of the Significance of Embodiment

Modern Gnosticism

Hans Jonas in his essay “Gnosticism and Modern Nihilism” argues that modern nihilism derives from ancient Gnosticism. He relates Gnosticism to modernity and reveals that some of its implications are woven into a modern understanding of the world.

Jonas draws from Paschal to describe man’s feeling of utter loneliness when he considers himself to be “a particular blind accident” (2012, p. 430). In a relativistic world, where man is an accident, the consciousness of man and the act of reflecting occurs in spite of nature, and not because of it. Men are evidently capable of reflection, while it appears that reflection does not appear in the rest of nature. According to Paschal, man’s consciousness and ability to reflect is what distinguishes him from the rest of nature.

There is a lack of continuity between man and nature, estranging man and making him a foreigner in the world. Man is surrounded by nature, and appears to belong to it, yet man is different from nature. In an effort to know more about oneself, man will compare himself with the world. Jonas says: “The utter contingency of man’s existence in the scheme deprives that scheme of any human sense as a possible frame of reference for man’s understanding of himself” (p. 431). If man does not believe in objective truth, he has no frame of reference with which to understand himself. When man’s existence is considered an accident, he has no objective truth or reality to cling to. Man needs objective ground on which to stake himself so that he can understand who he is.

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Both man and nature are considered to exist without purpose. Nature is unable to guide or give direction to man. Jonas says: “With the ejection of teleology from the system of natural causes, nature, herself purposeless, ceased to provide any sanction to possible human purposes” (p. 431). Nature is considered to be without purpose and so cannot point to a God. This understanding of man and natures paints an image of a purposeless world and an apathetic or non-existent Creator. This God, if he exists, is separate and removed from his creation. The existence of nature and man reveal a

Creator’s power and might, but not any purpose or meaning to creation. God is considered to be transmundane: extended or beyond this world.

The implications of this perspective exalt the spiritual side of man and even put it in opposition to the human body. The estrangement between man and the world creates a certain dualism (Jonas, 2012, p. 433). Jonas categorizes Gnosticism into two parts. The first is about the relationship between God and man: “the Divine has no part and no concern in the physical universe” (Jonas, p. 435). This is seen when God is understood to be separate from man. In modern society, even if a person believes there is a God, he is unlikely to concede that God is still intimately involved with his creation. Rather, if God created the world, he created it and stepped away. God is not understood to be concerned about the matters of his creation.

This understanding of a distant God is manifested today in what is referred to as

“Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” (MTD). This “New American Religion” is popular among American adolescents. Unaffiliated with any denomination, this form of

Christianity does not have theological roots to hold it grounded. God is seen as uninvolved with the world: he created it and stepped back. This God cares primarily

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about a person being good, and wants people to be happy. MTD may have its roots in individualistic culture, where people do not stake a claim about what is true and what is false. This religion is more about “attaining subjective well-being…and getting along amiably with other people” than it is about habitual prayer, “building character through suffering,” and “basking in God’s love and grace” (Mohler, 2005). MTD is a flavor of

Christianity that portrays God as unconcerned, disconnected, and uninterested in his creation. This portrait of God is far from the God Irenaeus and Athanasius describe. Their writing describes a God who is so invested in his creation that he becomes as intimate as possible with his creation by taking on flesh.

The second part of modern Gnosticism that Jonas references is based on the belief that there is more than one Creator. God creates man’s soul, but there is another, more inferior, creator that makes matter:

…it states that the world is the creation not of God but of some inferior principle; and, in its anthropological aspect, that man's inner self - called the pneuma - is not part of the world, of nature's creation and domain, but, within that world, is as totally transcendent and as unknown by all worldly categories as is its transmundane counterpart, the unknown God without. (Jonas, p. 435)

Man’s “inner self,” or man’s soul or spirit, is divorced from his “outer self,” otherwise known as the body. The soul is created by God, while the body is material and created by something inferior to God, making the spiritual more valuable than the material. The soul is considered completely separated from and incomprehensible to the world.

Gnostic dualism is not unique to the past, but has manifested itself in society.

These two aspects of Gnostic dualism: that the divine is separate from the universe, and that the soul is divine but not the body, are the foundation on which society understands itself.

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It is on this primary human foundation of a dualistic mood, a passionately felt experience of man, that the formulated dualistic doctrines rest. The dualism is between man and the world, and concurrently between the world and God. It is a duality not of supplementary but of contrary terms, a polarity of incompatibles, and this fact dominates Gnostic eschatology. (Jonas, p. 435)

Man is considered separate from the world because the essence of man is spirit, while the essence of the world is material. The world and God are considered separate because God is not understood to be involved in the world. Man, who is considered to be fundamentally spiritual, is divorced from a concept of belonging to God, and belonging in his body.

The ways in which people understand the purposes of technology reflect society’s understanding of the body. A foundational understanding of the body is necessary because the rapid development of new and increasingly advanced technology creates moral demands. Technology is outpacing developed ethics, making moral demands for which society is not yet prepared. In this way, technology and its applications to medicine raise questions about the body. Technology is increasingly capable of making significant changes to the body. Paul Lauritzen mentions an aspect of society’s embrace of technological dualism is a desire to escape the body: “What is new is that this longing to escape the vulnerabilities and limitations of the body is united with a technology that holds out the prospect of fundamentally changing that body” (Laurizen, 2004, p. 14). The body, in our society, can be seen as a frustrating limitation. Technology seeks to reduce the number of limitations the body “imposes” upon a person. Lauritzen realizes ethics should be developed now, since manipulations to the body are increasingly available:

“[W]e need to ask whether we wish to accept and promote a view of bodily vulnerability as merely an obstacle to human flourishing, which ought to be overcome at any cost”

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(2004, p. 14). Is the body merely a piece of property that a person has freedom to manipulate and use for his own ends and purposes, as long as no other person’s rights are infringed upon?

Applications of Irenaeus and Athanasius

The understanding of the body developed by Irenaeus and Athanasius reveal that the body is more than an instrument, separate from the true being of a person. A person’s body is not separate from what it means to be a human, as declared by God through his action of becoming man to redeem the entirety of men. The body should not be considered a mere limitation to a person, but an essential part of a person.

The body is ultimately affirmed in the Incarnation. Both Irenaeus and Athanasius point to the Incarnation as the central point where the body is redeemed and affirmed to be good. That God freely chose to become man, and to redeem man through the means of becoming flesh himself affirms embodied man. God does not remain separate and distinct from this world, but he participates in his own creation. He takes on flesh through Mary.

Through this act, he affirms that the body is good because it is worth saving. The

Incarnation is the maximal affirmation of the body.

By God becoming Incarnate, God affirms that the whole of man is his body and his soul because Christ took on both. He came to save both. Christ deems the body worth saving by becoming flesh, and affirms that the whole of man is body and soul.

Not only does Jesus Christ affirm the goodness of the body when he takes on flesh, but he redeems the whole of man, including his flesh, in his death and resurrection.

By becoming fully man, Christ redeems mankind from his heights to his depths: there is not any part of man that is excluded.

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The Incarnation affirms that the body matters. The body is not merely an instrument for the soul, but the body and soul are intimately intertwined: “We are embodied creatures, creatures whose experience of the world is affected by the structures not just of our brains but of our entire bodies” (Anderson, 2011, p. 56). A temptation in modern society is to reduce a human to only his mind. Descartes is famous for his line: “I think, therefore I am,” and takes this to be the first principle of his philosophy (Schouls,

1989). Descartes builds his philosophy from primarily understanding himself as one who thinks. Irenaeus and Athanasius point to the Incarnation as evidence that man is truly both body and soul. The mind is a part of man, but it is not the essence of man. The

Incarnation of God affirms that the body is significant, and an essential part of what it means to be a human.

Society often finds ways to divorce what is considered to be the true substance of a person from his body. One of the most evident examples of this divorce is transgenderism. In the transgender movement, people say that their feelings are what is true about them, and not their bodies. A person’s body can be evidence of the opposite way a person feels. A person’s identity is divorced from his body. Gender is considered to be fluid. While people generally identify as the same gender as their biology,

American culture now allows people to separate the two. The body is no longer considered integral to identity.

Unity of Spiritual and Material

Irenaeus and Athanasius offer an alternative understanding of the human that is contrary to a divorced mind and body. The Incarnation is evidence that the human spirit and soul are unified: “Unity, not duality, harmony, not opposition, clearly prevails in this

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cosmic view of human nature” (Cooper, 2008). Human nature from the perspective of the

Incarnation presents a narrative that man is both spiritual and physical. Dualism is rejected, and the unity of spirit and flesh enters in its place. Humans are fundamentally united beings, not composed of opposing parts, but are creatures of whose components are inseparable and complimentary. The body is integral to human life: “… this life is not something that is separated from the body, but is within the body, permeating every part and allowing us to move a as a unified, organized whole” (Anderson, 2011, p. 59). The body is an integral part to what it means to be human.

Not only are the spiritual and physical components of man unified, but they are dignified. According to Irenaeus and Athanasius, God is the creator of all things, including the material and the body. Not only is what God creates good, but all of creation is redeemed when God takes on flesh: “God's own enfleshment in Jesus Christ has definitively ennobled the status of all matter: bodily, sacramental, and cosmic”

(Cooper, 2008). The whole world is changed. It is no longer on a path to death and decay, but it has been entered into by its creator, the God of the universe. God is not removed from his creation, but takes care to enter it fully by becoming flesh. Nature and God are related in a way that the natural world points to its Creator: “…Christianity affirms the constitutive place of certain bodily, material, and particular forms as contingent, symbolic media impregnated with divine presence” (Cooper, 2008, p. 179). Nature does not exist for its own sake, but references God and the divine.

Irenaeus and Athanasius affirm that there is intrinsic goodness to the body. When

God becomes Incarnate, the body is maximally affirmed as good. It is not just the human body that has intrinsic value, but the entirety of a person. Intrinsic value of a human

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removes pressure from the human to seek his value elsewhere. Society is quick to look for value in human life in a person’s ability, or in what a person is able to produce. S.

Kay Toombs observes in her book How Then Should We Die?, that in society “A person’s worth is judged according to his or her capacity to produce (to be useful) or his ability to achieve a certain status” (2010, p. 9). Worth and value for a person in society are derived from what a person does, accomplishes, and produces. Irenaeus and

Athanasius offer an alternative narrative: that human value is intrinsic. Value is not determined by the capabilities of a person’s mind or body, but his existence.

Value lies not singularly in peoples’ minds, but in their whole selves. Toombs says: “…so convinced are people that mental disorder will rob them of all humanity (in their own eyes and in the eyes of others that they consider physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia to be the only viable alternative” (p. 21). In a society that “posits absolute autonomy, radical individualism and the exercise of personal control as primary values”

(p. 12), euthanasia is a reasonable and rational option. However, Irenaeus and Athanasius argue that God declared the full human, both body and soul, is what holds value. What

God declared worth saving is a man’s embodied self. That is where worth lies, and not in what a man is able to produce or achieve.

The concept of a human as a person with a deep intimacy and unity between body and soul has implications for medicine. Medicine would be considered more holistic, affecting not only the body but the entire person. Illness and treatment are not limited to affecting the body, but affect the entire person: “an intervention on the human body affects not only the tissues, the organs and their functions but also the person himself on different levels” (Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, 1987). What happens to a body,

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in health or illness, resonates throughout the rest of the person. A person is not reducible to his body, nor his soul, but should be considered in his entirety. This means that health should be treated and cultivated not only by physicians, but additionally by those who specialize in spiritual health, such as pastors and priests. If a person is body and soul, health should be pursued in various facets of a person’s life.

Application to the Eucharist

Irenaeus points out that the Eucharist is revealing of the nature of the human body. If the Eucharist is the true body of Christ, then the relationship between the

Eucharist and humans is informative of the nature of human bodies. Cooper, in Life in the

Flesh: An Anti-Gnostic Spiritual Philosophy, affirms Irenaeus’ argument that the body’s reception of the Eucharist is a sign that the human body can receive divinity:

Just as ordinary human flesh, since it was united with God the Word, became capable of communicating divine life, so our flesh, when united with the flesh of the Saviour in the eucharist, becomes receptive to the properties of divine life. (2008, p. 79)

Humans are united to the divine because God became Incarnate. Through Christ, our flesh has become a means to connect to the divine. This connection between what is fully divine and fully human may be most evident in the sacrament of the Eucharist. This connection extends to other forms of material as well. The Eucharist is evidence that the material world, especially the flesh, can receive the divine.

Cooper goes as far as to link the reception of the Eucharist to the guarantee that human bodies will be resurrected.

The oral, bodily reception of Christ's life‐giving flesh in the sacrament by the Christian faithful, who are already spiritually united to God through the Holy Spirit and baptismal faith, brings about a co‐inherence between their flesh and

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Christ's flesh, guaranteeing their ultimate bodily restoration from the effects of decay and death. (2008, p. 81)

When Christians receive the Eucharist, they are uniting their own flesh with the flesh of

Christ. The flesh of a mere human receives, consumes, (and is consumed by), the divine flesh of Christ. As Cooper notes in this passage, Christians are already united to Christ in his death and resurrection through baptism. The sacrament of the Eucharist unites the flesh of God and man. This unification affirms that the human body will be restored from death and decay. Death does not have the final say of what happens to the human body, but submits to the power Christ has over death, because of his Incarnation and resurrection.

Future Research

One of the areas in which this research can apply is marriage, gender, and sexual ethics. The foundational understanding of the body that Irenaeus and Athanasius established can be built upon in these areas of ethics. John Paul II writes: “The theology of the body, which is linked from the beginning with the creation of man in the image of

God, becomes in some way also a theology of sex, or rather a theology of masculinity and femininity…” (2006, p. 165). A theological understanding of the body has a branching effect, influencing the ethics of sex, masculinity, and femininity. More specifically, a theological understanding of gender affects the concept of marriage:

“In the mystery of creation, man and woman were in a particular way “given” to one another by their Creator…The fundamental fact of this existence in man in every stage of his history is that God “created them male and female”; in fact, he always creates them in this way, and they are always such” (John Paul II, 2006, p. 200).

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A theologically-based understanding of sexuality and gender does not end with marriage, but influences questions of human telos. Marriage, seen as an image of the relationship between Christ and the Church, offers insight into the relationship between God and man.

In the Old Testament, God’s love for his people is compared to a husband’s love for his bride. In the New Testament, God’s love is embodied when God becomes Incarnate. In

Revelation, God is the bridegroom who is being united to his bride, the Church. One of the purposes of the human body is to reveal that man is made for God.

A foundational understanding of the body additionally influences how one understands medical technology. One such instance is In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF). The physical procedures a woman goes through to ovulate multiple eggs to be collected, and to prepare her womb to carry an implanted egg causes her body much strain. Women report trying to distract themselves and go to someplace else in their mind while enduring extreme stress, pain, or discomfort. This example demonstrates an effort to separate the mind from the body. Women who go through the procedures necessary for IVF describe themselves trying to emotionally separate their mind and body to try and cope with what is happening to them (Corea, 1987). That this procedure causes women to create a distance between their minds and their bodies raises ethical questions. What technology is currently making possible is outpacing formulated Christian ethics. Christian ethics in the medical field must be founded on a theological understanding of the body.

Conclusion:

Irenaeus and Athanasius defended Christianity against heretics of their time. Their arguments are applicable to modern understandings of the body. These Patristic Fathers affirmed intrinsic goodness of the body. Through the Incarnation, the entirety of man and

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nature are redeemed and ennobled. Man’s essence is not just a soul, nor a body, but both, as affirmed in the Incarnation because God takes on flesh. The entirety of man, including his body, is redeemed. The most evident place where man receives what is divine into his body is in the Eucharist: Christ’s divine, resurrected body is received into man’s body, foreshadowing the time when humans will be resurrected in their bodies.

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