Athanasian Creed · 8 of 9

What Is in the First Place and What in the Last

215.WHAT IS IN THE FIRST PLACE AND WHAT IS IN THE LAST It is known from two passages in Matthew and in Luke which have been quoted, that the Lord is the Son of God, or that His Father was the very Divine which created the universe. If therefore as Man He is the Son of God, it follows also that the Lord as Man is God. It is known that everyone is named from his father, and is called his son, from this and on account of this, namely, that the life of every man is from his father, and only the clothing is supplied in the mother; thence it is that every man is named from the father and not from the mother. Why therefore, when it is known that His Father was His Divine, is it said in the church that the Lord is “the son of Mary,” from which comes the belief that the Lord was thus born a mere man, or not God as to the Human?

216.And further, what a man has from his father is the very love, or the very affection, because the love is man’s very life, and the body lives from that; and thus it is plain that man’s very life is from the father, and nothing of life from the mother. Since therefore the very life was Divine, or was the Divine love, and the body is simply obedience, it thence clearly follows that the Lord as Man is God. (Here quote, first and last, what is written in Luke 1:34, 35.)

217.The Lord is treated of in the whole prophetic Word. To quote the many passages where He is called “the Holy One of Israel,” “the Redeemer,” and “Jehovah the Redeemer,” would be too diffuse. See Isaiah 60:1, etc., where it is said, “Jehovah shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee”; besides many other things there which were said concerning the Divine Human.

218.The affection of man, into which he is born, is from his father, because this is his soul. With men when they are born there is evil affection and lust, because the soul of the father is such. But with the Lord alone there was good affection from birth, because the soul from the Father was the Divine Itself, which is nothing but the love of good, and good itself; then to the love all wisdom conjoins Itself, and from that all evil is expelled; for they cannot be together. Wherefore the Lord made His Human Divine from the Divine in Himself.