{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/211/2111159.htm","path":"chr/ecf/211/2111159.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/211/2111159.htm","text":"How it can be said that Christ came and was born of a Virgin.\nBut let us look at the remainder which follows. As then the Creed says: \u201cThe Lord Jesus Christ, Very God of Very God, Being of one substance with the Father; By whom both the worlds were framed, and all things were made,\u201d it immediately subjoins in closest connexion the following, and says: \u201cWho for us came and was born of the Virgin Mary.\u201d He then, who is Very God, who is of one substance with the Father, who is the Maker of all things, He, I repeat, came into the world and was born of the Virgin Mary; as the Apostle Paul says: \u201cBut when the fulness of the times was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law.\u201d 2553 You see how the mysteries of the Creed correspond with the Holy Scriptures. The Apostle declares that the Son of God was \u201csent from the Father:\u201d The Creed affirms that He \u201ccame.\u201d For it certainly follows that our faith should confess that He has \u201ccome,\u201d whom the Apostle had taught us to be sent. Then the Apostle says: \u201cMade of a woman:\u201d The Creed, \u201cborn of Mary.\u201d And so you see that there speaks through the Creed the Scripture itself, from which the Creed acknowledges that it is itself derived. But when the Apostle says, \u201cmade of a woman,\u201d he rightly enough uses \u201cmade\u201d for \u201cborn,\u201d after the manner of Holy Scripture in which \u201cmade\u201d stands for \u201cborn:\u201d as in this passage: \u201cInstead of thy fathers there are made to thee sons:\u201d 2554 or this: \u201cBefore Abraham was made, I am;\u201d 2555 where we certainly see clearly that He meant \u201cBefore he was born, I am:\u201d alluding to the fact of his birth under the term \u201cwas made,\u201d because whatever does not need to be made has the very reality of creation. \u201cWho,\u201d it then says, \u201cfor us came and was born of the Virgin Mary.\u201d If a mere man was born of Mary, how can it be said that He \u201ccame\u201d? For no one \u201ccomes\u201d but He who has it in Him to be able to come. But in the case of one who had not yet received His existence, how could He have it in Him to come. You see then how by the word \u201ccoming\u201d it is shown that He who came was already in existence: for He only had the power to come, to whom there could be the opportunity of coming, from the fact that He was already existing. But a mere man was certainly not in existence before he was conceived, and so had not in himself the power p. 596 to come. It is clear then that it was God who came: to whom it belongs in each case both to be, and to come. For certainly He came because He was, and He ever was, because He could ever come.\nS. John viii. 58.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XI: The Works of John Cassian.: Chapter VIII. How it can be said that Christ came and was born of a Virgin.","type":"page"}