Today is the feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Doctor of the Church. From the Scholia on the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten, ch. 28:
The Word out of God the Father was begotten in some ineffable way (for beyond all understanding is His Generation, and as befits the Unembodied Nature): yet is That which is begotten conceived of as the Own Offspring of the Generator and Consubstantial with Him, for therefore is It called also Son: the Name indicating to us the Verity of the (so to say) Birth and Parturition. And since the Father ever liveth and hath being, it must needs be that He on account of Whom He is Father co-live and have co-Being Eternally with Him. The Word therefore was in the beginning and was God and, was with God (as saith the most wise Evangelist), but in the last times of the world for us men and for our salvation was made flesh and was made Man: and not at all letting go what He was, but having His own Nature unchanged and existing ever in the excellences of Godhead, yet undergoing for us economically the emptiness and not despising the poverty that belongs to the human measures. For being Rich He became poor (as it is written), that we by His poverty might become rich. He was made therefore Man and is said to have endured Generation after the flesh of a woman, because of His taking of the holy Virgin the Body that was united to Him of a truth: whence we say that the holy Virgin is Mother of God, as having borne Him in fleshly or human wise, albeit that He hath His Generation before the ages out of the Father.
