This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant - Athanasius of Alexandria

Surely it would have been better never to have been created at all than, having been created, to be neglected and perish; and, besides that, such indifference to the ruin of His own work before His very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation, and that far more than if He had never created men at all. It was impossible, therefore, that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of Himself.

"So, men as they were, and human in all their thoughts, on whatever objects they fixed their senses, there they saw themselves met half-way , and taught the truth from every side. 4. For if they looked with awe upon the Creation, yet they saw how she confessed Christ as Lord; or if their mind was swayed toward men, so as to think them gods, yet from the Saviour's works, supposing they compared them, the Saviour alone among men appeared Son of God; for there were no such works done among the rest as have been done by the Word of God. 5. Or if they were biassed toward evil spirits, even, yet seeing them cast out by the Word, they were to know that He alone, the Word of God, was God, and that the spirits were none. 6. Or if their mind had already sunk even to the dead, so as to worship heroes, and the gods spoken of in the poets, yet, seeing the Saviour's resurrection, they were to confess them to be false gods, and that the Lord alone is true, the Word of the Father, that was Lord even of death. 7. For this cause He was both born and appeared as Man, and died, and rose again, dulling and casting into the shade the works of all former men by His own, that in whatever direction the bias of men might be, from thence He might recall them, and teach them of His own true Father, as He Himself says: ​"​ I came to save and to find that which was lost. ​"​"

ولأنه صالحٌ[109]، بل وصلاحه فائق، فقد خَلَق بكلمته الذاتي[110]- مخلِّصِنا يسوع المسيح- الجنسَ البشريَّ على حسب صورته الذاتية، خلقه كشبهه حتى يستطيع أن يُدرك ويعرف الموجودات، وأعطاه الإمكانية أن يُدرك ويعرف معنى أزليَّة الله حتى أنه إن احتفظ بهبة أنه مخلوق كشبه الله[111] لا يبتعد بالمرَّة عن تصوُّره الصحيح عن الله أو أن يهجر شركة الحياة مع القديسين. بل إذ لديه النعمة الموهوبة له، وعنده القوَّة الذَّاتية لكلمة الله يستطيع أن يبتهج ويكون له حوار مع الله ويحيا حياةَ الخلود بغير ألم في سعادة [112]حقيقية. وإذ لا يوجد ما يعوق[113] معرفته عن ما هو إلهي فإنه يرى باستمرار- من خلال نقاوة قلبه[114] - صورة الآب أي كلمة الله الذي خُلِق هو نفسه على صورته[115]، ويدهش عندما يتأمل في عناية كلمة الله بالعالم[116]