In his introduction to Athanasius' On The Incarnation, C.S Lewis makes a convincing case for the reading of old books. He wants his readers to go for firsthand knowledge over against secondhand, not only because it is worth acquiring firsthand knowledge, but “is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.” Lewis feels it is easier to learn from great men of the old rather than their modern commentators, because "the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator." However he observes the trend, that in every subject, modern books are favored much more than ancient ones. Lewis laments over the fact that this mistaken preference is nowhere more rampant than in theology. He finds this not at all helpful, especially for amateurs. Lewis feels so, because an amateur is “much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light.”
Lewis also points out how each age has got its own “characteristic blindness” and thus reading old books would expose us to our blind spots. He says “People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.” He also points out how reading old books would make one recognize the common thread of plain and central Christianity which he, quoting Baxter, fondly called ‘mere Christianity’, is “no insipid interdenominational transparency, but something positive, self-consistent, and inexhaustible.” This he says would make those who thought “’Christianity’ is a word of so many meanings that it means nothing at all” to see how “that unvarying something” is found in all these books so consistently and so unmistakably the same. This standard Christianity, he says quite autobiographically, was “an all too familiar smell” for him in all good old books. And he notes how these books, though written by those belonging to different circles of Christendom, still had that “recognisable, not to be evaded, the odour which is death to us until we allow it to become life”.
Later on in this introduction, he points out how for him, doctrinal books are more helpful than devotionals. He says “For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that "nothing happens" when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.”
Concerning Athanasius, his book and this translation to English, Lewis has nothing but praise. Concerning the book and this translation, his appreciation is summarized in this little sentence : “This is a good translation of a very great book.” When it comes to Athanasius, Lewis greatly appreciates both the man and his writing. Regarding his writing, Lewis says “only a master mind could, in the fourth century, have written so deeply on such a subject with such classical simplicity”, and concerning him, Lewis says “It is his glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away.”
This introduction by C.S Lewis and the book On The Incarnation by Athanasius can be read here.
