God promised that from David's line the eternal King would come forth, who sums up all things in himself, (Ps 132[131],11; Eph 1,10) and has recapitulated in himself the work he formed in the beginning... And as the first-formed man, Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil... and was fashioned by the Hand of God, that is, by the Word of God, for “all things were made by Him” (Jb 10,8; Jn 1,3)..., so did he who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in himself, rightly receive a birth from Mary, who was as yet a virgin... Why, then, did God not take up dust again? Why bring forth from Mary the work he was forming? It was that the work thus formed should not be different from the first but the same, that it would not be another who would be saved but the same and that the same might be recapitulated, the analogy having been preserved.
Those, therefore, who allege that he took nothing from the Virgin are mistaken. They want to cast out the inheritance of the flesh but they are also rejecting the analogy...; it can no longer be said that Christ was like man made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1,27). But this is to say that Christ only appeared to manifest himself, seeming to be man when he was not man or that he was made man while taking nothing from man. For if he has not received the substance of flesh from man he has neither been made man nor the Son of man, and if he was not made what man is he did no great thing in what He suffered and endured... Therefore, the Word of God became true man, recapitulating in himself his own handiwork... The apostle Paul, moreover, in the letter to the Galatians, declares plainly: "God sent His Son, born of a woman” (4,4).
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