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Moreover we proclaim the holy Virgin to be in strict truth the Mother
of God. For inasmuch as He who was born of her was true God, she
who bare the true God incarnate is the true mother of God. For we
hold that God was born of her, not implying that the divinity of the
Word received from her the beginning of its being, but meaning that
God the Word Himself, Who was begotten of the Father timelessly
before the ages, and was with the Father and the Spirit without
beginning anti through eternity, took up His abode in these last days
for the sake of our salvation in the Virgin's womb, and was without
change made flesh and born of her. For the holy Virgin did not bare
mere man but true God: and not mere God but God incarnate, Who did
not bring down His body from Heaven, nor simply passed through the
Virgin as channel, but received from her flesh of like essence to our
own and subsisting in Himself. For if the body had come down from
heaven and had not partaken of our nature, what would have been the use
of His becoming man? For the purpose of God the Word becoming man
was that the very same nature, which had sinned and fallen and become
corrupted, should triumph over the deceiving tyrant and so be freed
from corruption, just as the divine apostle puts it, For since by man
came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. If the
first is true the second must also be true.
Although, however, he says, The first Adam is of the earth
earthy; the second Adam is Lord from Heaven, he does not say that
His body is from heaven, but emphasises the fact that He is not mere
man. For, mark, he called Him both Adam and Lord, thus
indicating His double nature. For Adam is, being interpreted,
earth-born: and it is clear that man's nature is earth-born since he
is formed from earth, but the title Lord signifies His divine
essence.
And again the Apostle says: God sent forth His only-begotten
Son, made of a woman. He did not say "made by a woman."
Wherefore the divine apostle meant that the only-begotten Son of God
and God is the same as He who was made man of the Virgin, and that
He who was born of the Virgin is the same as the Son of God and
God.
But He was born after the bodily fashion inasmuch as He became man,
and did not take up His abode in a man formed beforehand, as in a
prophet, but became Himself in essence and truth man, that is He
caused flesh animated with the intelligent and reasonable to subsist in
His own subsistence, and Himself became subsistence for it. For
this is the meaning of "made of a woman." For how could the very
Word of God itself have been made under the law, if He did not
become man of like essence with ourselves?
Hence it is with justice and truth that we call the holy Mary the
Mother of God. For this name embraces the whole mystery of the
dispensation. For if she who bore Him is the Mother of God,
assuredly He Who was born of her is God and likewise also man. For
how could God, Who was before the ages, have been born of a woman
unless He had become man ? For the son of man must clearly be man
himself. But if He Who was born of a woman is Himself God,
manifestly He Who was born of God the Father in accordance with the
laws of an essence that is divine and knows no beginning, and He Who
was in the last days born of the Virgin in accordance with the laws of
an essence that has beginning and is subject to time, that is, an
essence which is human, must be one and the same. The name in truth
signifies the one subsistence and the two natures and the two
generations Of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But we never say that the holy Virgin is the Mother of Christ
because it was in order to do away with the title Mother of God, and
to bring dishonour on the Mother of God, who alone is in truth worthy
of honour above all creation, that the impure and abominable Judaizing
Nestorius, that vessel of dishonour, invented this name for an
insult. For David the king, and Aaron, the high priest, are also
called Christ, for it is customary to make kings and priests by
anointing: and besides every God-inspired man may be called Christ.
but yet be is not by nature God: yea, the accursed Nestorius
insulted Him Who was born of the Virgin by calling Him
God-bearer. May it be far from us to speak of or think of Him as
God-bearer only, Who is in truth God incarnate. For the Word
Himself became flesh, having been in truth conceived of the Virgin,
but coming forth as God with the assumed nature which, as soon as He
was brought forth into being, was deified by Him, so that these three
things took place simultaneously, the assumption of our nature, the
coming into being, and the deification of the assumed nature by the
Word. And thus it is that the holy Virgin is thought of and spoken
of as the Mother of God, not only because of the nature of the
Word, but also because of the deification of man's nature, the
miracles of conception and of existence being wrought together, to
wit, the conception the Word, and the existence of the flesh in the
Word Himself. For the very Mother of God in some marvellous manner
was the means of fashioning the Framer of all things and of bestowing
manhood on the God and Creator of all, Who deified the nature that
He assumed, while the union preserved those things that were united
just as they were united, that is to say, not only the divine nature
of Christ but also His human nature, not only that which is above us
but that which is of us. For He was not first made like us and only
later became higher than us, but ever from His first coating into
being He existed with the double nature, because He existed in the
Word Himself from the beginning of the conception. Wherefore He is
human in His own nature, but also, in some marvellous manner, of
God and divine. Moreover He has the properties of the living flesh:
for by reason of the dispensation the Word received these which are,
according to the order of natural motion, truly natural.
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