Renewal in Christ: Athanasius on the Christian Life

Chapter 7: Refutation of the Gentiles

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§49 – Jesus Is Greater than Greek Gods What man that ever was, for instance, formed a body for himself from a virgin only? Or what man ever healed so many diseases as the common Lord of all? Who restored that which was lacking in man’s nature or made one blind from birth to see? Aesculapius 1 was deified by the Greeks because he practiced the art of healing and discovered herbs as remedies for bodily diseases, not, of course, forming them himself out of the earth, but finding them out by the study of nature. But what is that in comparison with what the Savior did when, instead of just healing a wound, he both fashioned essential being and restored to health the thing that he had formed? Hercules, too, is worshiped as a god by the Greeks because he fought against other men and destroyed wild animals by craft. But what is that to what the Word did in driving away from people diseases, demons, and even death itself? Dionysus is worshiped among them, because he taught people drunkenness; yet they ridicule the true Savior and Lord of all, who taught people temperance. That, however, is enough on this point. What will they say to the other marvels of his divinity? At what man’s death was the sun darkened and the earth shaken? Why, even to this day people are dying, and they did so also before that time. When did any such marvels happen in their case? Now shall we pass over the deeds done in his earthly body and mention those after his resurrection? Has any person’s teaching, in any place or at any time, ever prevailed everywhere as one and the same, from one end of the earth to the other, so that his worship has fairly flown

1 Aesculapius – According to Greek mythology, the son of Apollo who became the god of healing.