Antiochus; Amphilochius; Ammonius

From bishop Antiochus: “For yesterday, in undefiled birth pangs, the life-bearer, the fair-bearer, the great-bearer, the light-bearer, the hope-bearer, the God-bearer, the strange-bearer, the virgin-mother Mary brought us a Savior.”

From Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, from the treatise on the birth according to the flesh: “The truth was made known, grace came, and life appeared. The Son of God, the Word from God, became flesh for us, so that he might raise mortals into eternal life and wake them from the dead. The maker of all things, who is before all creation, visible and invisible, coexisting immortal with the Father alone and the Spirit — see, today he is born to us from a virgin, without any sin, without a human father.”

From Ammonius, bishop of Adrianople: “For he too said somewhere about the Word of God: But if he himself is God by nature, as God’s Only-begotten Son, and in taking the slave’s form was also counted worthy to be called firstborn son of the holy virgin, he gave himself as a ransom for all.” He goes on: “I have already shown the impiety into which the Arians fall when they say the God-bearer Mary needed the sacrifices then offered under the law for women who give birth.”