Renewal in Christ: Athanasius on the Christian Life

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Renewal in Christ: Athanasius on the Christian Life

appetite, devising new kinds of sins. Adulteries and thefts were everywhere, murder and raping filled the earth, law was disregarded in corruption and injustice, all kinds of iniquities were perpetrated by all, both individually and in common. Cities were warring with cities, nations were rising against nations, and the whole earth was torn apart with factions and battles, while each strove to outdo the other in wickedness. Even crimes contrary to nature were not unknown, but as the martyr-apostle of Christ says: “Their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (Rom 1:26–27). It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon his word and that humanity, having transgressed, should not die; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into nonexistence through corruption §6 – The Divine Dilemma We saw in the last section that because death and corruption were gaining ever firmer hold on them, the human race was in the process of destruction. People, who were created in God’s image and in their possession of reason reflected the very Word himself, were disappearing, and the work of God was being undone. The law of death, which followed from the transgression, prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape. The thing that was happening was in truth