Unsettled Christianity

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August 9th, 2009 by Joel

Athanasius on the Great Physician

For whereas man sinned, and is fallen,
and by his fall all things are in confusion:

death prevailed from Adam to Moses,
the earth was cursed,
Hades was opened,
Paradise shut,
Heaven offended,
man, lastly, corrupted and brutalised cf.Psalm 49:12,
while the devil was exulting against us—
then God, in His loving-kindness,
not willing man made in His own image to perish,
said, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go?’
But while all held their peace,
the Son said, ‘Here am I, send Me.’
And then it was that, saying ‘Go Thou,’
He ‘delivered’ to Him man,
that the Word Himself might be made Flesh,
and by taking the Flesh, restore it wholly.
For to Him, as to a physician,
man ‘was delivered’ to heal the bite of the serpent;
as to life, to raise what was dead;
as to light, to illumine the darkness;
and, because He was Word, to renew the rational nature.

– St. Athanasius, On Luke 10:22

Post By Joel (9,262 Posts)

Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).

Website: → Unsettled Christianity

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