Ante-Nicene Fathers (Volume 6) - XVII - Alexander of Alexandria

Required reading
Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol 6) (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read the work of Alexander of Alexandria

My summary
Today we read some fragments written by Alexander of Alexandria.

Most of the reading is taken with epistles written to:
(i) the city of Constantinople;
(ii) fellow ministers of the Catholic Church in every place;
(iii) the Christians in Alexandria and Mereotis;
(iv) Aeglon (Bishop of Cynopolis).

The fragments are primarily concerned with defending the divinity of Christ against the false teaching of Arius and colleagues. 

A good summary of Alexander's position is: 'Concerning whom we thus believe, even as the Apostolic Church believes. In one Father unbegotten, who has from no one the cause of His being, who is unchangeable and immutable, who is always the same, and admits of no increase or diminution; who gave to us the Law, the prophets, and the Gospels; who is Lord of the patriarchs and apostles, and all the saints. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; not begotten of things which are not, but of Him who is the Father; not in a corporeal manner, by excision or division as Sabellius and Valentinus thought, but in a certain inexplicable and unspeakable manner, according to the words of the prophet cited above: "Who shall declare His generation?" Since that His subsistence no nature which is begotten can investigate, even as the Father can be investigated by none; because that the nature of rational beings cannot receive the knowledge of His divine generation by the Father.'

What grabbed me
I liked how Alexander kept asking 'Why did Christ die?': 'For else why should Christ have died? Had He committed anything worthy of death? Why did He clothe Himself in flesh who was invested with glory? And since He was God, why did He become man? And since He reigned in heaven, why did He come down to earth, and become incarnate in the virgin's womb? What necessity, I ask, impelled God to come down to earth, to assume flesh, to be wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger-cradle, to be nourished with the milk from the breast, to receive baptism from a servant, to be lifted up upon the cross, to be interred in an earthly sepulchre, to rise again the third day from the dead? What necessity, I say, impelled Him to this? It is sufficiently discovered that He suffered shame for man's sake, to set him free from death; and that He exclaimed, as in the words of the prophet, "I have endured as a travailing woman."In very deed did He endure for our sakes sorrow, ignominy, torment, even death itself, and burial.'

Christ came and died for our sake.

Next week's reading
Commence the work of Methodius by beginning 'The banquet of the ten virgins' and reading Discourses I to IV.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.