The Body of the Universe

Athanasius insists that the Word is one, while creatures are many. He anticipates the Arian objection that there is also oneness in creation – one earth and one son. But the oneness of the creation is different from the oneness of the Word. Creatures are one “with respect to its own essence,” but no single creature is capable of functioning in isolation from the rest of creation: “none is of itself adequate and sufficient for the service and ministry entrusted to it.” The sun gives light, but fulfills its work along with the moon and stars: “while each is one insofar as each essence is one, they are all involved in a single a common service ( leitourgia ).”

Strikingly, in this context Athanasius cites Romans 12:4-5, Paul’s statement on the body of Christ: “no one thing is simply alone; but all the things that have come to be are as ‘members of one another, so as to be one body’ . . . completing the universe.”

Creation is a body; perhaps Athanasius would also accept the implication that the body of Christ is a new creation, in the specific sense that it embodies the one-and-many of the creation.