328–373

Athanasius and Nicene christology: only the Creator can save

In the Orations against the Arians, Athanasius offers four arguments: the passages where the Arians saw the superiority of the Father refer to Christ's human status; worship of a creature would be idolatry; only God can save; God could not be without his Reason, that is, the Word. Pelikan shows that the defenders of Nicaea linked consubstantiality with the conviction that only the Creator can save: "He who called people from non-being into being can call them again from falling away into nothing." González notes that Athanasius apparently assumed that Jesus had no human rational soul and that the Word took its place. He stressed the unity of the divine and the human in Christ: the properties of one can be transferred to the other, so it is fitting to worship the man Jesus, and Mary is the Theotokos.