Saturday, August 22, 2009

St. Athanasius on the body of the Lord

"'they approve the former people [the Jews] for the honor paid by them to the Temple, but they will not worship the Lord who is in the flesh as a God indwelling a temple. . . . And [the Jews] did not, when they saw the Temple of stones, suppose that the Lord who spoke in the Temple was a creature; nor did they set the Temple at nought and retire far off to worship. . . . Since this was so, how can it be other than right to worship the body of the Lord, all-holy and all-reverend as it is, announced by the Holy Spirit and made the vestment of the Word. . . . He that dishonors the Temple dishonors the Lord in the Temple; and he that separates the Word from the Body sets at nought the grace given to us in him.'"

St. Athanasius, Ad Adelphium 7-8, as quoted by Gary A. Anderson, in his "To see where God dwells: the Tabernacle, the Temple, and the origins of the Christian mystical tradition," Communio: international Catholic review 36, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 61-62.

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