VDM Verlag The God-Man: Athanasius in Early Christianity

The God-Man sets the Christology of Athanasius of Alexandria in the context of its sources, & evaluates its reception to the Council of Chalcedon. His well-known emphasis upon the Son’s divinity is shown to be underpinned and counterpointed by a theological integration of creatio ex nihilo into his Christology. The lack of continuity between the soul and divine being pushes Athanasius to insist on the need for an ontological understanding of mediation, a project opposed by Arius. This book shows that the influence of Contra Gentes / De Incarnatione’s dynamic emphasis upon the Logos’s divine-human identity, is evident in both miahypostatic and dyohypostatic Christologies, and that different aspects of the Athanasian corpus are responsible for multi-dimensional Christological developments. The impact of Athanasius is shown by a re-evaluation of Apollinarius, and in an exploration of the development of Christological language in Antiochene and Alexandrian Christologies of the fifth century. The motif of ontological mediation and relation of both natures in the God-Man in these contexts demonstrates that Athanasius’s resolution was pivotal in the development of Christian doctrine.