Athanasius of Alexandria — Commentary on Scripture

Isaiah 61:1

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

What is there to wonder at, what to disbelieve, if the Lord who gives the Spirit, is here said himself to be anointed with the Spirit, at a time when, necessity requiring it, he did not refuse in respect of his manhood to call himself inferior to the Spirit?

Isaiah 63:13

That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble?

There can be no doubt that in refusing the accompaniment of an angel Moses was inviting God to lead them himself. God was making this promise, “This word that you have just spoken I shall accomplish, since you have found favor with me and I know you in preference to all the others.” It is also said in Isaiah, “the one who made the shepherd of the sheep to ascend the earth? Where is he who put the Holy Spirit in their midst, who led Moses by his right hand?” … At that time God promised to lead the people himself, and now he promises to send, no longer an angel but the Spirit who is above the angels. It is he who becomes the guide of the people. He thereby shows that the Spirit is neither from among the creatures nor even an angel, but he is superior to creation, united to the divinity of the Father.

Isaiah 65:1

I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.

Who then, one might say to the Jews, is he that was made manifest? For if it is the prophet, let them say just when he was hid, afterward to appear again. And what manner of prophet is this, who was not only openly made manifest from obscurity but also stretched out his hands on the cross? None surely of the righteous, save the Word of God only, who, incorporeal by nature, appeared for our sakes in the body and suffered for all.

Isaiah 66:3

He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.

He is angry with them, saying by Isaiah, “Who has required these of your hands?” And by Jeremiah, since they were very bold, he threatens, “Gather together your whole burnt offerings with your sacrifices, and eat flesh, for I did not speak to your ancestors or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” For they did not act as was right, neither was their zeal according to law, but they rather sought their own pleasure in such days, as the prophet accuses them, beating down their bondsmen and gathering themselves together for strifes and quarrels, and they struck the lowly with the fist and did all things that tended to their own gratification. For this cause, they continue without a feast until the end, although they make a display now of eating flesh, out of place and out of season. For, instead of the legally appointed lamb, they have learned to sacrifice to Baal; instead of the true unleavened bread, “they collect the wood, and their fathers kindle the fire, and their wives prepare the dough, that they ma…

He is angry with them, saying by Isaiah, “Who has required these of your hands?” And by Jeremiah, since they were very bold, he threatens, “Gather together your whole burnt offerings with your sacrifices, and eat flesh, for I did not speak to your ancestors or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” For they did not act as was right, neither was their zeal according to law, but they rather sought their own pleasure in such days, as the prophet accuses them, beating down their bondsmen and gathering themselves together for strifes and quarrels, and they struck the lowly with the fist and did all things that tended to their own gratification. For this cause, they continue without a feast until the end, although they make a display now of eating flesh, out of place and out of season. For, instead of the legally appointed lamb, they have learned to sacrifice to Baal; instead of the true unleavened bread, “they collect the wood, and their fathers kindle the fire, and their wives prepare the dough, that they make cakes to the host of heaven and pour out libations to strange gods, that they may provoke me to anger, says the Lord.” … Therefore now, “he who among them sacrifices an ox is as he who strikes a man, and he who sacrifices a lamb is as he who kills a dog, he that offers fine flour, it is as [if he offered] swine’s blood.…” Now these things will never please God, neither has the Word required this of them. But he says, “These have chosen their own ways, and their abominations are what their soul delights in.”

Jeremiah 1:5

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Concerning Jeremiah, God says, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” … If such terms are used in Scripture of things created, but the term ever is used of the Word, then it follows, O enemies of God, that the Son did not come out of nothing, nor is he to be numbered at all among created things, but he is the Father’s image and eternal word, never having not existed, but never existing as the eternal radiance.

Jeremiah 2:1-4

Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

The prophets say, “And the Word of the Lord came to me.” … All these messages proscribe in every light the Arian heresy and signify the eternity of the Word, and that he is not foreign but proper to the Father’s essence.

Jeremiah 2:12

Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.

Who that witnessed these things, or that has merely heard of them, will not be greatly appalled and cry aloud to the Lord, saying, “Will you make a full end of Israel?” Who that is acquainted with these proceedings will not with good reason cry out and say, “A wonderful and horrible thing is done in the land,” and, “The heavens are astonished at this, and the earth is even more horribly afraid.” The ancestors of the people and the teachers of the faith are taken away, and the impious are brought in to lead the churches? Who that saw when Liberius, bishop of Rome, was banished, and when the great Hosius, the father of the bishops, suffered these things, or who that saw so many bishops banished out of Spain and the other parts could fail to perceive—however little sense he might possess—that the charges against Athanasius also and the rest were false, and altogether mere calumny? This is also why others endured the suffering they did, because they saw plainly that the conspiracies laid against these men were founded in falsehood.

Jeremiah 2:13

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Is it right to say that what is God’s offspring and proper to him exists out of nothing? Or, is it reasonable in the very idea that what is from God has accrued to him, that someone should dare to say that the Son does not always exist? For in this again the generation of the Son exceeds and transcends human thoughts, that we become parents of our own children in time, since we ourselves first did not exist and then came into being. But God, in that he always exists, is always Father of the Son. And the origination of humankind is brought home to us from parallel experiences. However, since “no one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Father but the Son, and the one to whom the Son will reveal him,” therefore the sacred writers to whom the Son has revealed him have given us a certain image from things visible, saying, “Who is the brightness of his glory and the expression of his person”; and again, “For with you is the well of life, and in your light shall we see lights.” And when the Word chides Israel, he says, “You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom,” and this is t…

Is it right to say that what is God’s offspring and proper to him exists out of nothing? Or, is it reasonable in the very idea that what is from God has accrued to him, that someone should dare to say that the Son does not always exist? For in this again the generation of the Son exceeds and transcends human thoughts, that we become parents of our own children in time, since we ourselves first did not exist and then came into being. But God, in that he always exists, is always Father of the Son. And the origination of humankind is brought home to us from parallel experiences. However, since “no one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Father but the Son, and the one to whom the Son will reveal him,” therefore the sacred writers to whom the Son has revealed him have given us a certain image from things visible, saying, “Who is the brightness of his glory and the expression of his person”; and again, “For with you is the well of life, and in your light shall we see lights.” And when the Word chides Israel, he says, “You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom,” and this is the fountain that says, “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters.” Although the illustration is rather ordinary and vague compared with what we would like, it is still nonetheless possible from it to understand something above humanity’s nature, instead of thinking the Son’s generation is on a level with ours. For who can even imagine that the radiance of light ever did not exist so that he should dare to say that the Son has not always existed or that the Son did not exist before his generation? Or who is capable of separating the radiance from the sun or to conceive of the fountain as always void of life that he should madly say, “The Son exists from nothing,” when it is the Son who says, “I am the life”? Or, who can conceive of him as “alien to the Father’s essence,” who says, “He that has seen me, has seen the Father”? For the sacred writers, wishing us to understand things in this way, have given these illustrations. It is unseemly and truly irreligious, when Scripture contains such images, to form ideas concerning our Lord from others that are neither in Scripture nor have any religious bearing.

Jeremiah 2:18

And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?

For the fool does not know that those who depart far from God shall perish. And besides, there is the restraint of the prophetic admonition that says, ‘What have you to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Gihon? And what have you to do in the way of Ashur, to drink the waters of the rivers?”

Jeremiah 4:3

For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.

The departure from virtue gives place for the entrance of the unclean spirit. There is, moreover, the apostolic injunction, that the grace given us should not be unprofitable. Those things that he wrote particularly to his disciple, he enforces on us through him, saying, “Do not neglect the gift that is in you. For he who tills his land shall be satisfied with bread. But the paths of the slothful are strewn with thorns.” The Spirit warns ahead of time not to fall into them, saying, “Break up your fallow ground. Do not sow among thorns.”

Jeremiah 5:8

They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour's wife.

Let us then, as is becoming, as at all times, yet especially in the days of the feast, be not hearers only, but doers of the commandments of our Savior. Having imitated the behavior of the saints, we may enter together into the joy of our Lord who is in heaven, which is not transitory but truly abides.… But they who are not doers are compared, in their disgrace, with beasts without understanding, and becoming like them in unlawful pleasures, they are spoken of as wanton horses. Also, for their craftiness, errors and being laden with death, they are called, by John, a “generation of vipers.”

Jeremiah 6:16

Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.

What sprinklings shall we now employ while we celebrate the feast? Who will be our guide as we haste to this festival? None can do this, my beloved, but him whom you will name with me, even our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the Way.” For it is he who, according to the blessed John, “takes away the sin of the world.” He purifies our souls, as Jeremiah the prophet says in a certain place, “Stand in the ways and see, enquire, and look which is the good path, and you shall find in it cleansing for your souls.”

Jeremiah 6:20

To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.

Actions not done lawfully and piously are not of advantage, though they may be reputed to be so, but they rather argue hypocrisy in those who venture on them. Therefore, although such persons feign to offer sacrifices, yet they hear from the Father, “Your whole burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices do not please me. Although you bring fine flour, it is vanity. Incense also is an abomination to me.” … And by Jeremiah, since they were very bold, he threatens, “Gather together your whole burnt offerings with your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spoke not to your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” For they did not act as was right, neither was their zeal according to law. But they rather sought their own pleasure in such days, as the prophet accuses them, beating down their bond servants and gathering themselves together for fights and quarrels. They struck the lowly with the fist and did all things that tended to their own gratification. For this cause, they continue wi…

Actions not done lawfully and piously are not of advantage, though they may be reputed to be so, but they rather argue hypocrisy in those who venture on them. Therefore, although such persons feign to offer sacrifices, yet they hear from the Father, “Your whole burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices do not please me. Although you bring fine flour, it is vanity. Incense also is an abomination to me.” … And by Jeremiah, since they were very bold, he threatens, “Gather together your whole burnt offerings with your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spoke not to your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” For they did not act as was right, neither was their zeal according to law. But they rather sought their own pleasure in such days, as the prophet accuses them, beating down their bond servants and gathering themselves together for fights and quarrels. They struck the lowly with the fist and did all things that tended to their own gratification. For this cause, they continue without a feast until the end, although they make a display now of eating flesh, out of place and out of season. For, instead of the legally appointed lamb, they have learned to sacrifice to Baal. Instead of the true unleavened bread, “they collect the wood, and their fathers kindle the fire, and their wives prepare the dough, that they may make cakes to the host of heaven. And they pour out libations to strange gods, that they may provoke me to anger, says the Lord.” They have the just reward of such devices, since, although they pretend to keep the Passover, yet joy and gladness is taken from their mouth, as Jeremiah said: “There has been taken away from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the voice of those who are glad, and the voice of those who rejoice, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.”

Jeremiah 13:23

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.

For as the prophet speaks,” If the Ethiopian changes his skin, or the leopard his spots,” then will they be willing to think religiously who have been instructed in irreligion. You, however, beloved, on receiving this, read it by yourself. If you approve of it, read it also to the brethren who happen to be present, that they, too, on hearing it, may welcome the council’s zeal for the truth and the exactness of its sense and may condemn that of Christ’s foes, the Arians, and the futile pretenses, which for the sake of their irreligious heresy they have been at the pains to frame among themselves.

Jeremiah 14:10-12

Thus saith the LORD unto this people, Thus have they loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet, therefore the LORD doth not accept them; he will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins.

Hence it is that they are always writing, and always altering their own previous statements, and thus they show an uncertain faith, or rather a manifest unbelief and perverseness. And this, it appears to me, must be the case with them. Since they have fallen away from the truth and desire to overthrow that sound confession of faith that was drawn up at Nicaea, they have, in the language of Scripture, “loved to wander and have not restrained their feet.” Therefore, like Jerusalem of old, they labor and toil in their changes, sometimes writing one thing and sometimes another, but only for the sake of gaining time, and that they may continue enemies of Christ and deceivers of humankind.

Jeremiah 15:18

Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?

Now the so-called gods of the Greeks, unworthy of the name, are faithful neither in their essence nor in their promises, because they are not everywhere. The local deities amount to nothing over the course of time and undergo a natural extinction. For these reasons, the Word cries out against them, that “faith is not strong in them,” that they are “waters that fail” and “there is no faith in them.” But the God of all, who is indeed truly faithful, who is ever the same, says, “See now that I, even I am he,” and “I change not.” Therefore, his Son is “faithful,” being ever the same and unchanging, deceiving neither in his essence nor in his promise, as is written by the apostle to the Thessalonians: “Faithful is he who calls you, who also will do it.” For in doing what he promises, he is faithful to his words.

Jeremiah 17:10

I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

For such things as these serve for exercise and trial, so that, having proved ourselves zealous and chosen servants of Christ, we may be fellow heirs with the saints. For thus Job: “The whole world is a place of trial to people on the earth.” Nevertheless, they are proved in this world by afflictions, labors and sorrows, to the end that each one may receive of God such reward as is appropriate for him, as he said by the prophet, “I am the LORD who tries the hearts and searches the reins, to give to everyone according to his ways.”

Jeremiah 20:8-10

For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.

For so shall we remain partakers of Christ if we hold fast to the end the Spirit given at the beginning. For he said, “do not quench,” not because the Spirit is placed in the power of people and is able to suffer anything from them, but because bad and unthankful people manifestly wish to quench it, since they, like the impure, persecute the Spirit with unholy deeds.… Now they, being without understanding, and deceitful and lovers of sin, walk still as in darkness, not having that “light that lights every one who comes in the world.” Now a fire such as this laid hold of Jeremiah the prophet, when the word was in him as a fire and he said, “I leave every place and am not able to endure it.” And our Lord Jesus Christ, being good and a lover of humankind, came that he might cast this on earth, and he said, “And would that it were already kindled!”

Jeremiah 23:22

But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

This enables us to see that the Council of Nicaea breathes the spirit of Scripture. God says in Exodus, “I am that I am,” and through Jeremiah, “Who is in his substance and has seen his word?” and just below, “if they had stood in my subsistence and heard my words.” Now subsistence is essence and means nothing else but very being, which Jeremiah calls existence, in the words “and they heard not the voice of existence.”

Jeremiah 25:10-14

Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle.

Israel … killed those who were sent, and not even before the Lord of the vineyard were they ashamed, but even he was slain by them. Truly, when he came and found no fruit in them, he cursed them through the fig tree, saying, “From now on, let there be no fruit from you.” The fig tree was dead and fruitless so that even the disciples wondered when it withered away. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet: “I will take away from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the scent of myrrh and the light of a lamp, and the whole land shall be destroyed.” For the whole service of the law has been abolished from them, and from now on and forever they remain without a feast.