On the Incarnation

Athanasius’s seminal work, On the Incarnation, is now available in a fresh layout and a new foreword with biographical details and historical context.

Athanasius (296–373) was one of Christianity’s greatest thinkers.

He served as a bishop in Alexandria, Egypt, the heart of north African Christianity. He is celebrated as a Church Father, a Confessor and Doctor of the Church, and the leading defender of the orthodox Christian doctrine of the Trinity against the Arian heresies. Athanasius was a formidable and prolific theologian. One of his greatest works is On the Incarnation, which remains a rich treasure for the Christian faith. In this short book, you will discover:

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- How sin separates us from God.

- Why it was necessary for God to become man in the incarnation of Jesus Christ for our redemption.

- Why Jesus had to suffer and die on the cross for our sins.

- How his death and resurrection overcame Satan, sin, and death.

- How the incarnation of Christ restores our relationship with God the Father.

- And how the incarnation enables us to become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4).

“It was our sorry case that caused the Word to come down, our transgression that called out His love for us, so that He made haste to help us and to appear among us. 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.”
— Athanasius, On the Incarnation

“Death has become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch; bound hand and foot the passers-by sneer at him, hitting him and abusing him, no longer afraid of his cruelty and rage, because of the king who has conquered him. So has death been conquered and branded for what it is by the Savior on the cross.”
— Athanasius, On the Incarnation