Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Against Nestorius/Book VII/Chapter 27

Chapter XXVII.

To the foregoing he adds Rufinus and the blessed Augustine.

also, a Christian philosopher, with no mean place among Ecclesiastical Doctors testifies as follows of the Lord&#8217;s Nativity in his Exposition of the Creed. &#8220;For the Son of God,&#8221; he says, &#8220;is born of a Virgin, not chiefly allied to the flesh alone, but generated in the soul which is the medium between the flesh and God.&#8221; Does he witness obscurely that God was born of man? Augustine the priest of Hippo Regiensis says: &#8220;That men might be born of God, God was first born of them: for Christ is God. And Christ when born of men only required a mother on earth, because He always had a Father in heaven, being born of God through whom we are made, and also born of a woman, through whom we might be re-created.&#8221; Again, in this place: &#8220;And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Why then need you wonder that men are born of God? Notice how God Himself was born of men.&#8221; Again in his Epistle to Volusianus: &#8220;But Moses himself and the rest of the prophets most truly prophesied of Christ the Lord, and gave Him great glory: they declared that He would come not as one like themselves, nor merely greater in the same sort of power of working miracles, but clearly as the Lord God of all, and as made man for men. Who therefore Himself also willed to do such things as they

did to prevent the absurdity of His not doing Himself those things which He did through them. But still it was right also for Him to do something special; viz., to be born of a Virgin, to rise from the dead, to ascend into heaven. And if anyone thinks that this is too little for God, I know not what more he can look for.