Chrysostom; Severianus; Vitalis

From John, bishop of Constantinople, on the divine birth. He says of the holy virgin: “Instead of a sun, he says, she contains without limit the sun of righteousness. Nature’s order is overcome; for he willed, he was able, he came down, he saved — all things run together for God. Today the One who is is born, and the One who is becomes what he was not. Being God, he becomes human without leaving off being God. He did not become human by departing from deity, nor become God by climbing up from humanity. Being Word, he became flesh without suffering change; his nature remained unchanged.” He adds: “He who sits on a high and lifted throne is laid in a manger. The untouchable, simple, bodiless one is wrapped by human hands. He who breaks the bonds of sin is tangled in swaddling cloths.”

From bishop Severianus: “For the Word begotten from above from the Father — beyond speech, beyond telling, beyond grasp, eternally — is himself begotten in time from below from the virgin Mary, so that those first born from below may be born from above from a second birth, that is, from God.”

From bishop Vitalis, from the treatise on the faith: “And we also believe this about the Savior’s plan according to the flesh: while the