Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. (Heb 10:11–25)

If any of our own people inquire, not from love of debate but from love of learning, why He suffered death in no other way save on the cross, let them also be told that no other way than this was good for us, and that it was well that the Lord suffered this for our sakes. For if He came Himself to bear the curse laid upon us, how else could he have “become a curse” unless He received the death set for a curse? And that is the cross. For this is exactly what is written: “Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree.” Again, if the Lord's death is the ransom of all, and by His death “the dividing wall of hostility” is broken down, and the calling of the nations is brought about, how would He have called us to Him had He not been crucified? For it is only on the cross that a man dies with his hands spread out. Thus it was fitting for the Lord to bear this also and to spread out His hands, that with the one He might draw the ancient people and with the other those from the Gentiles and unite both in Himself. For this is what He Himself has said, signifying by what manner of death He was ransom to all: “I, when I am lifted up,” He says, “will draw all men to myself.” For the devil, the enemy of our race, having fallen from heaven, wanders about our lower atmosphere and there, bearing rule over his fellow spirits, as the devil's peers in disobedience, not only works illusions by their means in them that are deceived but tries to hinder them that are going up. About this the apostle says, “Following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,” while the Lord came to cast down the devil and clear the air and prepare the way for us up into heaven, as said the apostle, “Through the curtain, that is to say, His flesh”—and this must be by death. Well, by what other kind of death could this have come to pass than by one which took place in the air, I mean, the cross? For only He that is perfected on the cross dies in the air. Therefore, it was quite fitting that the Lord suffered this death. For thus being lifted up, He cleared the air of the malignity both of the devil and of demons of all kinds, as He says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,” and made a new opening of the way up into heaven, as He says once more, “Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors!” For it was not the Word Himself that needed an opening of the gates, being Lord of all; nor were any of His works closed to their maker; but it was we who needed it, whom He carried up by His own body. For as He offered it to death on behalf of all, so by it He once more made ready the way up into the heavens.

Athanasius, On the Incarnation 25