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The angel of the Lord was sent to the holy Virgin, who was descended
from David's line. Far it is evident that our Lord sprang out of
Judah, of which tribe no one turned his attention to the altar, as
the divine apostle said: but about this we will speak more accurately
later. And bearing glad tidings to her, he said, Hail thou highly
favoured one, the Lord is with thee. And she was troubled at his
word, and the angel said to her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast
found favour with God, and shalt bring forth a Son and shalt call
His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins.
Hence it comes that Jesus has the interpretation Saviour. And when
she asked in her perplexity, How can this be, seeing I know not a
man? the angel again answered her, The Holy Spirit shall came upon
thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore
also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the
Son of God. And she said to him, Behold the handmaid of the
Lord: be it unto me according to Thy word.
So then, after the assent of the holy Virgin, the Holy Spirit
descended on her, according to the word of the Lord which the angel
spoke, purifying her, and granting her power to receive the divinity
of the Word, and likewise power to bring forth. And then was she
overshadowed by the enhypostatic Wisdom and Power of the most high
God, the Son of God Who is of like essence with the Father as of
Divine seed, and from her holy and most pure blood He formed flesh
animated with the spirit of reason and thought, the first-fruits of
our compound nature: not by procreation but by creation through the
Holy Spirit: not developing the fashion of the body by gradual
additions but perfecting it at once, He Himself, the very Word of
God, standing to the flesh in the relation of subsistence. For the
divine Word was not made one with flesh that had an independent
pre-existence, but taking up His abode in the womb of the holy
Virgin, He unreservedly in His own subsistence took upon Himself
through the pure blood of the eternal Virgin a body of flesh animated
with the spirit of reason and thought, thus assuming to Himself the
first-fruits of man's compound nature, Himself, the Word, having
become a subsistence in the flesh. So that He is at once flesh, and
at the same time flesh of God the Word, and likewise flesh animated,
possessing both reason and thought. Wherefore we speak not of man as
having become God, but of God as having become Man. For being by
nature perfect God, He naturally became likewise perfect Man: and
did not change His nature nor make the dispensation an empty show, but
became, without confusion or change or division, one in subsistence
with the flesh, which was conceived of the holy Virgin, and animated
with reason and thought, and had found existence in Him, while He
did not change the nature of His divinity into the essence of flesh,
nor the essence of flesh into the nature of His divinity, and did not
make one compound nature out of His divine nature and the human nature
He had assumed.
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