Epilogue
Epilogue (Again in the Augustinian Mode)
What is the nature of things? What is their ultimate reality? What can we say about metaphysics?
You have taught us, O Lord, that it is all about Christ, the Word who is proper to your essence, who assumed flesh and made that flesh proper to himself. On the cross, your Word suffered and offered himself, his own flesh, as a suitable sacrifice, and since the flesh was the flesh proper to the Word, that flesh could not stay dead. Through your Spirit, the stability and power of that resurrected flesh is communicated to us who believe and are baptized, so that in our flesh, the flesh of the church, your Word, the Christ, can and will work out his triumph. He is the radiance of your eternal light, and he has shone through his own “proper” flesh, imprinted the image of his radiance on his flesh by works of power, and now through the Spirit is imprinting that image on the church. Through your Son and Spirit, the radiance that is your Word shines through the temple of the Spirit and through us is trampling death and Satan underfoot.
This you taught your servant Athanasius, and this you have taught us through him. You have taught us that your Word that is proper to your being, the Word that has made our flesh proper to himself, now makes us proper to himself, so that in your Son we become sons, in your Word we become proper to the Word. In the Word made flesh, our flesh is “worded.”[271] By your Spirit, you taught your servant to say:
As we are all from earth and die in Adam, so being regenerated from above of water and Spirit, in the Christ we are all quickened; the flesh being no longer earthly, but being henceforth made Word [logōtheisēs], by reason of God’s Word who for our sake “became flesh.” (Discourses 3.33)
Creatures “worded” in the Word: for your servant Athanasius, there can be no deeper metaphysics than this, no deeper account of the nature of things. For it is all about Christ, the eternal Word made flesh, the Truth, the Way, the Life, and the measure of all truth, all ways, all life.
So you have taught your servant; so you teach us. Beyond speaking that Word, you have taught us to say nothing, but only called us to turn our hands, our hearts, our tongues to you in grateful service and praise.