Friday, September 14, 2012

A Voice from the Past - Athanasius

And, in short, the achievements of the Saviour effected through his incarnation are of such a kind and so great, that if anyone wished to expound them he would be  like those who gaze at the vast expanse of the sea and wish to count the number of its waves. For as one cannot grasp all the waves with his eyes, since the successive waves elude the perception of him who tries to count them; so also he who tries to comprehend all the accomplishments of Christ in the body is unable to grasp them all in his reckoning, for those that pass before his mind are more than he thinks he has grasped. So it is better not to view or speak of all of which one cannot even express a part, but to recall one part, leaving you to wonder at the whole. For they are all equally amazing, and wherever anyone looks, there to his exceeding wonder he sees the divinity of the Word.

Athanasius, 293-373 AD, The Incarnation of the Word of God, 54 (Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione, translated by Robert W. Thomson, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1971, pp. 269, 271)

Are there things that distinguish Jesus Christ from other religious leaders? What are the similarities and differences?

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