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Works Athanasius of Alexandria (295-373) Orationes contra Arianos Four Discourses against the Arians
Discourse III.

56.

But they ought, when they hear ‘I and the Father are one,’ to see in Him the oneness of the Godhead and the propriety of the Father’s Essence; and again when they hear, ‘He wept’ and the like, to say that these are proper to the body; especially since on each side they have an intelligible ground, viz. that this is written as of God and that with reference P. 424 to His manhood. For in the incorporeal, the properties of body had not been, unless He had taken a body corruptible and mortal 1; for mortal was Holy Mary, from whom was His body. Wherefore of necessity when He was in a body suffering, and weeping, and toiling, these things which are proper to the flesh, are ascribed to Him together with the body. If then He wept and was troubled, it was not the Word, considered as the Word, who wept and was troubled, but it was proper to the flesh; and if too He besought that the cup might pass away, it was not the Godhead that was in terror, but this affection too was proper to the manhood. And that the words ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ are His, according to the foregoing explanations (though He suffered nothing, for the Word was impassible) , is notwithstanding declared by the Evangelists; since the Lord became man, and these things are done and said as from a man, that He might Himself lighten 2 these very sufferings of the flesh, and free it from them 3. Whence neither can the Lord be forsaken by the Father, who is ever in the Father, both before He spoke, and when He uttered this cry. Nor is it lawful to say that the Lord was in terror, at whom the keepers of hell’s gates shuddered 4 and set open hell, and the graves did gape, and many bodies of the saints arose and appeared to their own people 5. Therefore be every heretic dumb, nor dare to ascribe terror to the Lord whom death, as a serpent, flees, at whom demons tremble, and the sea is in alarm; for whom the heavens are rent and all the powers are shaken. For behold when He says, ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ the Father shewed that He was ever and even then in Him; for the earth knowing its Lord 6 who spoke, straightway trembled, and the vail was rent, and the sun was hidden, and the rocks were torn asunder, and the graves, as I have said, did gape, and the dead in them arose; and, what is wonderful, they who were then present and had before denied Him, then seeing these signs, confessed that ‘truly He was the Son of God 7.’


  1. Or.i. 43, 44, notes; ii. 66, n. 7.Serm. Maj. de Fid.9. Tertull.de Carn. Chr.6.  ↩

  2. §44, nn. 2, 6.  ↩

  3. ii. 56, n. 5.  ↩

  4. Job xxxviii. 17 , LXX.  ↩

  5. Vid. Matt. xxvii. 52, 53 , similar passagesupr.p. 88.  ↩

  6. δεσποτὴν , §14, &c.  ↩

  7. Vid. Matt. xxvii. 54 . Vid.Or.ii. 16; 35, n. 2. Cf. Leo’s Tome (Ep.28.) 4. Nyssen,contr. Eunom.iv. p. 161. Ambros.Epist.i. 46. n. 7. vid. Hil.Trin.x. 48. Also vid. Athan.Sent. D.fin.Serm. Maj. de Fid.24.  ↩

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Four Discourses against the Arians
Vier Reden gegen die Arianer (BKV) Compare
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Einleitung zu den Reden gegen die Arianer (BKV)
Introduction to Four Discourses against the Arians

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Faculty of Theology, Patristics and History of the Early Church
Miséricorde, Av. Europe 20, CH 1700 Fribourg

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