On the Incarnation, Chapter 54: “He Became Man That We Might Become God”

Chapter 54 of Athanasius’s On the Incarnation (De Incarnatione Verbi Dei) contains the most famous single sentence in the history of the theosis doctrine: “He became man so that we might become God” (Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν). Written around 335 AD, when Athanasius was barely thirty years old, On the Incarnation is a sustained argument for why God became human. The answer, Athanasius insists, is not merely to save humanity from sin but to transform humanity’s nature: to make the mortal immortal, the corruptible incorruptible, the human divine.

Athanasius was the great champion of Nicene orthodoxy against the Arians, who denied that Christ shared the Father’s divine essence. His argument in chapter 54 is that the Incarnation only makes sense if Christ is fully God: if the Word is a lesser being (as the Arians claimed), then his taking on flesh could not divinize humanity. Only God can make humans gods.

This formulation was not original to Athanasius. Irenaeus had said something similar in the second century. But Athanasius gave it its definitive and most radical expression. The passage became the proof-text for theosis in Eastern Orthodox theology and remains central to the debate today.

§54.3 · PG 25, col. 192B

Greek

Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν· καὶ ἐφανέρωσεν ἑαυτὸν διὰ σώματος, ἵνα ἡμεῖς τοῦ ἀοράτου Πατρὸς ἔννοιαν λάβωμεν· καὶ ὑπέμεινε τὴν παρὰ ἀνθρώπων ὕβριν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς ἀφθαρσίαν κληρονομήσωμεν.

English

For he was made man that we might be made God (θεοποιηθῶμεν); and he manifested himself through a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and he endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.

§54.3 (cont.) · PG 25, col. 192B–C

Greek

οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐζημιοῦτο ἐν σώματι ὠν, οὐδὲ ἐμολύνετο ἐν αὐτῷ ὠν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ἐθεοποίησε τὸ φορεθέν, καὶ πλέον καὶ τῷ γένει τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐχαρίσατο τοῦτο.

English

For he did not suffer any loss from being in a body, nor was he defiled by being in it, but rather he deified (ἐθεοποίησεν) what he put on, and beyond this, bestowed this gift bountifully upon the race of men.

Translator's Notes

§54.3: The verb θεοποιέω (theopoieo, “to make god, to divinize”) is Athanasius’s preferred term for theosis. It is more explicit than the noun θέωσις (theosis), which can be read as a process; θεοποιέω is an active verb meaning “to make [someone] god.” The ἵνα (“so that, in order that”) construction makes the purpose explicit: the Incarnation is not an end in itself but the means to human divinization. This three-part formula (he became man / he manifested through a body / he endured suffering) paired with three purposes (that we might become God / receive knowledge of the Father / inherit immortality) is characteristic of Athanasius’s rhetorical style.

§54.3 (cont.): The claim that Christ “deified what he put on” (ἐθεοποίησε τὸ φορεθέν) is the strongest possible assertion: the human nature that Christ assumed was itself made divine. And this gift is then “bestowed bountifully upon the race of men” (τῷ γένει τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐχαρίσατο). For Athanasius, divinization is not limited to Christ; it extends to all humanity through him. This is the orthodox theosis position at its most expansive.