In the section of the Orationes
with which we will now be dealing, Athanasius is occupied with refuting two
Arian proof-texts, Philippians 2:9 and Psalm 45:8. The verse from Philippians
reads, “Wherefore God has highly exalted him and has given him a name that is
above every name,” while the Psalm verse runes, “Thou hast loved righteousness
and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, has anointed thee with the oil
of gladness above thy fellows.” In both cases the Arain contention, as
presented by Athanasius, is that these verses testify to the alterable nature
of the Son and his advancement by grace. While Athanasius is of course
concerned, in his response ,t to defend the unalterability of the Son, the
fundamental issue for him is whether the role of the Son is to be seen as
merely passive with regard to the exaltation mentioned in Philippians and the
anointing spoken of in the Psalm. He discusses this question in terminology of
“giving” and “receiving,” and the framework in which this question is to be
placed is clearly that of the Creator-creature, or partaken-partaking
distinction. The problem, then, in Athanasian terms, is this: to give is
essentially a divine activity; to be given and to receive is essentially a
creaturely stance; if, then, the Son is “given” a name above every other name
(Phil. 2:9), and if he “receives” the anointing of the Holy Spirit (Ps. 45:8),
does this not suggest that the Son is a creature and not the Creator?
In response, Athanasius reiterates
that the Son as God, cannot be given anything. Rather, it is only the terminology
of active “giving” that is properly applicable to the divinity of the Son. For
“the Word of God is full and lacks nothing” (CA 1:43) and “what the
Father gives, He gives through the Son” (CA 1:45). Therefore, the Son’s
essential activity, as God, belongs in the sphere of divine giving. However,
Athanasius also distinguishes between what can be spoken of the Son humanly, ανθρωπινως, “on account of the flesh that he
bore,” and what is spoken of the Son divinely θεικως (CA 1:41). The distinction
between “giving” and “receiving” is then articulated in terms of the
distinction between the divine and human in Christ. In this way, Athanasius
applies the terminology of “receiving” to the entirety of Christ’s human
career, which is viewed essentially as a reception of grace. Christ, he says,
received grace “as far as his humanity was exalted and this exaltation was its
deification (ελαμβανε γαρ κατα το υψουσθαι τον ανθρωπον, υψωσις δε ην το θεοποιεισθαι αυτον)” (CA 1:45). From
Athanasius’s perspective, it is of course essential to view this conjunction of
divine giving and human receiving in such a way that a continuity of identity
is maintained and the Son’s unalterabilty is thus safeguarded. So he sums up
his Christology of “giving” and “receiving” with an emphasis on the
unaterability of the Word, quoting Hebrews 13:8: “’Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday, today, and for ever,’ remaining unalterable, and it is the same one
who gives and receives, giving as God’s Word, receiving as a human being (μενων ατρεπτος, και ο αυτος εστι διδους και λαμβανων, διδους μεν ως Θεου Λογος, λαμβανων δε ως ανθρωπος)” (CA 1:48). (Khaled
Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought [Routledge Early
Church Monographs; London: Routledge, 1998], 156-57)
