Athanasius, the Logos, and salvation through the senses

Contemplation in "On the Incarnation of the Word"

When I wrote the first version of the essay below, while attending Harvard Divinity School, I was 27 years old. When Athanasius wrote On the Incarnation of the Word, he was even younger — perhaps as young as 20. My essay, which is nothing special in my view, has nonetheless previously been published in various versions. In 1984, it appeared both in Anvil (the English theological journal of the Church Mission Society) and in Mission and Ministry, the magazine of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. Later, it was translated for a Swedish theological journal, and finally, twenty years ago this coming June, it was reprinted in Touchstone magazine. Because its subject is the acquisition of holiness, with contemplation very much in view, I am presenting this newly revised version here. Forty-one years have passed since my first version was typed (without the benefit of a computer), and perhaps my youthfulness still shows through, but I simultaneously take pleasure in and am somewhat abashed by the thought that Athanasius was a fresh-faced young man when he penned his great treatise. There’s a gulf fixed between geniuses and plodders who write essays about geniuses, as this essay demonstrates.