Sermo in annuntiationem deiparae

Of Our Holy Father Athanasius, a Sermon on the Annunciation of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos. The divine sacred preachers must not look to the weakness of the audience, but to the required power, subject, and cause, which, when they consider, it is fitting to aim at the proclamation. Therefore, now that we have come to the proclamation of the divine Gospel of the Theotokos and Mother of God, and are about to proclaim it for the gathering of the feast, it is necessary, according to the subject and cause of the incorporeal and super-divine Trinity, to set forth the incarnation of the one of the Holy Trinity. For if matters concerning the Trinity are not first distinguished, how shall we proceed to those concerning the one who became incarnate? Therefore, it is necessary to lead the discourse back from there, to pass over to the matters concerning the incarnation, and thus to hear the matters concerning the Annunciation. And first, marking it, we recall that one of the Lord’s first and most venerable feasts, according to the order and arrangement of the subjects in the proclamations concerning Christ, is the holy day called the divine Annunciation, which prepares the proclamation of the descent of the Son of God from heaven. For we believe that he came down from the heavens, just as we also confess that he ascended. Therefore, it is necessary, having taken up the divine proclamation, to begin from where what is said can be distinguished. We believe, then, in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a Trinity of hypostases, having an indivisible division and an unconfused union.

For we do not profess the division of the three divine archic hypostases according to a local separation, nor a confused union; but a division without distance, and a union without confusion, one name, God, having them according to a single unit of constitution. Since we also confess one God in a Trinity of persons, ascribing the beginningless and timeless to each of the three holy divine archic hypostases according to their characteristic property: in the Father the unbegotten, in the Son the begotten, in the Spirit the processional; glorifying the Father as beginningless and timeless, proclaiming the Son as beginningless and timeless, confessing the Holy Spirit as beginningless and timeless; not the Father first, and then the Son and the Spirit, but venerating Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, according to one beginningless and timeless superessential unit of existence, believing and truly glorifying one God in three properties, not as another God the Father pre-existing, and another God the Son later introduced, and another God the Holy Spirit conceived, as the heretics blaspheme; but theologizing one God in three hypostases, having one essence, and power, and energy, and all else that is contemplated, theologized, and hymned concerning the essence. And in order to give a pattern to the discourse, and to have a collection or plenitude of the things pertaining to theology, let us hear in order what these are and about what they are.

that the uncreated, the incorporeal, the timeless, the beginningless, the eternal, the endless, the infinite, the everlasting, the unknowable, the ineffable, the formless, the inscrutable, that he is called God of gods, Lord of lords, King of kings, the Pantocrator, the Maker, the Creator, light, life, the holy, the good, the immortal, the mighty, the all-powerful, and all such things according to both preeminence and causality, each is not called essence, but pertains to essence; as we have learned from two or more having reference to one according to the distributed, which are also called a collection and fullness of divinity according to Scripture: not referring to a single hypostasis alone, but equally contemplated and theologized in each of the holy three. Therefore also the only-begotten God himself says: "All that the Father has are mine;" and speaking to the Father: "All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them." For in all things by which the Father is glorified when theologized, in these also the Son is glorified, and the Holy Spirit. And hence the Father is called perfect God, and the Son perfect God, and the Holy Spirit perfect God. Since each lacks nothing of the fullness concerning divinity; but has the same essence of all the properties, in which equally the fullness of divinity is contemplated. For from the derivation of the equal, essence is called in the feminine form the constitutive summary of the equality of the many. For those things of which there is some equal essence, with differing properties, are called essence, just as also holiness and one.

And since "isia" is said according to etymology, by change of the epsilon into iota and by addition of the element, it is interpreted as "ousia," as being a certain constitutive existence of the aggregate of things that have their sum from many to one monad. And thus, looking to the man made in the image of God, we determine that the constitution of the properties concerning him, according to his existence, is called "ousia," as being a comprehension and circumscription of the many that have their sum to one. For that man is created, intellectual, rational, animate, corporeal, passible, fluid, temporal, mortal, generable, corruptible, augmentative, changeable, alterable, sorrowful, and whatever other such things, taken equally according to analogy and calculation upon man, is called "isia," and by change and addition of the elements is named "ousia," and from this is interpreted as the fullness of humanity, which completes its aggregate according to its monadic system. In these things we note that none of these properties gathered together concerning man is called "ousia" by itself. Nor is any of these called "hypostasis"; but commonly, as it were absolutely, when gathered together over all, the aggregate of the properties concerning man is called "ousia"; but particularly and in the case of one, it is "hypostasis." When, therefore, these are considered commonly over many, it is named "ousia"; but when they are gathered together particularly to one, it is called "hypostasis.

And just as, looking again at the human being made according to the image and likeness of God, we simultaneously behold in him mind, reason, and spirit, and none of these is prior or posterior, but they are constituted at the same time, and he is called one but understood as a triad—just as the mind is unbegotten, but reason is begotten, and this is at the proper time darkened, inscribed, and sent forth—so also in the case of the God of all, the Father is as unbegotten mind, the Son as begotten Word, and this one is sent forth at the time of the good pleasure of the paternal will, not as a prophoric word begotten at a time and occasion for need, but as a hypostatic word, being precisely this in itself, just as he has been begotten. For having been once begotten from the Father, he is a hypostasis, having an indissoluble standing, by which he also naturally exists. For "hypostasis" is interpreted by etymology as "under-standing." For as the Father is mind, by way of causality of the begotten, he has the Son as begotten upon himself. Hence the evangelist also wrote "with" instead of "by," saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the

God, and the Word was God. Therefore, the phrases "by" and "toward," when attached to the name, are equivalent in force and revolve around a single meaning. The Son is thus a hypostasis, as having his standing from the Father, and not being without the Father, but always being toward the Father; and he has neither a will different from that of the Father, nor another power, nor another energy, just as he has no other essence, but the Son himself possesses all that the Father possesses, and is consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit. This one, according to an ancient and true paternal counsel, as an angel of the great counsel of the Father, a marvelous counselor, and long ago, as the Word of the Father, having spoken in manifold and various ways to the fathers among the prophets, in these last days spoke to us, having become flesh and been incarnate, who, it is said, also made the ages; not entrusting his providence to some monstrous gods, as the Greeks say, but the Son himself, by the good will of the Father and the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, has undertaken all providence for beings. Since also, indicating the commonality of the same and one providence and energy, he says: "My Father works even until now, and I work." For the Father and Son do not work according to one providence and another, but according to one and the same essential energy of the divinity.

Who is," (as the herald again says) "the radiance of the glory, and the character of his hypostasis" (clearly also of the Father), bearing "all things by the word of his power, having made a cleansing of our sins, he sat at the right hand of majesty in the heights." And the discourse, turning back again, is gathered into the same meaning, observing that the radiance, like a sunbeam from the sun, has its illumination inseparable from the solar disk, and the character is a certain indication of the hypostasis, through which it is also characterized. For just as the character of a signet ring, when impressed, produces the same imprint, which is also interpreted as a seal, having nothing lacking in terms of essence; so the Son bears the same character of the Father. For the impressed character does not differ, but remains unaltered, according to the same character in the signet ring, whether impressed in wax or gold according to the imperial denarius; and thus the divine character of the Son is an unaltered seal of the hypostasis of the Father, and bearing all things by the word of his power, according to his own proper character, he received the wax-like flesh into himself, imprinting it in himself (for this is neither impossible nor incredible); so that at the time of paternal good will, as a character (since he is also a character) he might imprint the incarnation in himself, bearing this as a waxing or a gilding; since the whole mystery of such ineffable and inexplicable incarnation is intimated. For it remains ineffable and inexplicable because of its augmentative nature.

since we also define by increase, and not by the simultaneity of the seal. For in the case of the seal, the impression can be borne at once upon many waxes before and among them; but in the case of the divine incarnation, the perfection is defined not simultaneously, but by increase. This could again be conceived, as if one had subtlety of mind and could penetrate into the depth of the ensouled body being sown, and see ineffably and unspeakably how, when the fertile seed falls there, it immediately runs together to some part, and little by little and by progression takes its increase. For not even this is spoken of in our own case, except that by imagination a kind of faint indication occurs unspeakably and ineffably; but by increase, then, the divine incarnation of the Word occurs, not because the divine character increases, nor indeed co-increases, but because the animate flesh increases throughout the whole fullness, according to which a human being is individualized and gestated. Therefore

a nine-month term according to the law of human pregnancy, and from this the incarnation of Christ is defined as theopostatic, and in no way anthropopostatic; since according to the divine character the human form received its own stability, as in the union of spirit with soul. For thus Christ is both two and not one, and one and not two; and he is two and not one according to the two natures, and one and not two according to the one hypostasis. Therefore we also speak of two wills, and not two who will, and two energies, and not two who energize. But one who wills according to the one hypostasis, and two wills and two energies according to the peculiarity of the natures. In these matters, then, proclaiming the divine mystery of the incarnation and enanthropesis, we reject the blasphemies of the heretics, by which they are sunk, and leaving them behind, we proceed to what is historically recorded by the evangelist concerning the annunciation of the Theotokos and Mother of God; and as the composition has it, we shall hear more fully. We note, then, that at the time of the good pleasure of the paternal will, at the completion of the seventy weeks of Daniel the prophet, after Jerusalem was built, when the captivity of Judah from Babylon was ended through Salathiel and Jesus the son of Josedech, who were then high priests at the completion of the four hundred and ninety years, according to the daily order of his priesthood, Zacharias entered the temple of God to offer incense.

And an angel of the Lord appeared to him on the right side of the altar, and announces to him concerning John his son, that Elizabeth his wife would conceive and bear the Baptist and forerunner of Christ. And indeed, when the conception took place, in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the archangel Gabriel was sent from God to Nazareth, a city of Galilee, to the Virgin Mary. And entering in to her, the angel greeted her, saying: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” And here again we observe that the voice of the angel, interpreted as the utterance of breath sounding from him, was not itself the hypostasis of the Son, nor did it itself become flesh; but according to that voice, being other in hypostasis, a property of the Word and God at once visited the womb of the Virgin. And those who say that this voice of the archangel was the hypostasis of God the Word blaspheme. Wherefore we have marked the passage, rejecting the condemnation of the blasphemy. Therefore, the hypostasis of the Word and Son of God, being other than the voice of the archangel, at once, as the hearing of the Virgin was opened beforehand through the archangelic voice, entered into her, the divine hypostasis of the Son. As the Virgin herself does not know; but the one who entered knows how he entered. Wherefore also, as not knowing the outcome of the mystery, she was at once disturbed at the word of the angel saying, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you,” and she reasoned what sort of greeting this might be; whence the archangel, taking up, said to her: “Do not fear, Mary;

You have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom. But even at these words the Virgin stood perplexed, and looking to nature and reasoning about Joseph, to whom she was betrothed, she answers the angel and says: How will this be for me, since I do not know a man? And since, she says, O angel, I do not know a man, but you, through the demonstrative expression behold, say, Behold you will conceive, as in the present tense, how will it be, I do not know. But tell me, O angel, and explain, how will this be? The angel answered and said to her: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. This, he says, is the manner of the conception; thus you will conceive in your womb, the Holy Spirit coming upon you and the power of the Most High overshadowing you. Therefore, he says, the child born will be called holy Son of the Most High. She, still perplexed, but praying to herself, says: May it be for me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. For the evangelist notes this, that the angel departed from her, so as not to leave an occasion for those who wish to say that the angel himself dwelt in the Virgin and became incarnate, nor that his word, by the utterance of sound, effected the incarnation.

But after the angel departed, the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her; and thus later the saving conception was accomplished. Concerning these matters, it is necessary again, as required, to examine and consider how it was said to the Virgin: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." For just as Christ said to the apostles, "But you sit in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high," when the Holy Spirit came upon you? For the promise is similar, and can be understood in the same manner, since here too power from the Most High and the presence of the Holy Spirit were to come upon the apostles. What then? Is the Spirit and the power of the Most High promised to the Virgin in the same way as to the apostles? And if it happened just as with the apostles, both the power of the Most High and the coming of the Spirit occurred, and in the apostles no incarnation followed, it is clear that neither in the Virgin was the power incarnated, nor did the Spirit become man, even if the Son himself is called, in common theological language, the power of the Most High. But just as in the apostles the power was for the ability to overcome every opposing power, and the coming of the Spirit, with all its essential attributes, was active in all signs, wonders, and powers, for the confirmation and assurance of Christ's promise.

Thus also upon the Virgin the coming of the Spirit occurred, with all that substantially accompany it according to the divine principality, instilling grace, so that she might rejoice in all things. Indeed, for this reason she was named “full of grace,” because she was filled with all the graces through the Spirit. And the power of the Most High overshadowed her, and she had it at every time according to the conception; I believe also after the conception. For this did not happen in the Virgin for a time only, as I am persuaded, but at every time—then, now, and perpetually—the Virgin has the power of the Most High overshadowing her, and the coming of the Holy Spirit approaching her, so that she may remain full of grace. For thus we think concerning this: all things were full of grace for her through the Spirit and the power of the Most High. And not, as the heretics say, that some energy from the Spirit occurred in the Virgin to accomplish the incarnation. For even if it was without seed, we do not say that, according to the division of the Spirit’s gifts, the Spirit dividing individually as it wills, the flesh was formed apart from the hypostasis that is proper to the Son of God—far from it! For this way of thinking is that of Paul of Samosata and the other heretics. But we say thus, according to the orthodoxy of the orthodox doctrines, that the Virgin was filled with power and Spirit. For the sanctification of her flesh, and so that she might be able to bear the saving offspring, thus accordingly the divine hypostasis of the Word, having taken up dwelling in her, was made flesh and became man. Not

power and energy, but in hypostasis, according to the whole plenitude of divinity, the very archetheic and superarchaic hypostasis of the Son of God became flesh and was made man. For it was demonstrated beforehand that, just as essence and authority and kingdom and all the other things set forth according to theology are not each said to be a hypostasis, but are interpreted as pertaining to the hypostasis according to its own essence, so also energy and power are substantially referred to the hypostasis; and this holds commonly for each of the three holy thearchic hypostases, and particularly for the one hypostasis of the Son of God itself, which became flesh and was made man. The Holy Spirit, then, came upon the Virgin and sanctified her, as the Spirit says also in the Psalms: "The Most High sanctified his tabernacle," and the power of the Most High overshadowed her, strengthening her and producing a divine shadow-manifestation, so that, being thus formed, she might be able to see, insofar as she is able to see, the formless God being carried in her womb. For one must not suppose that the Virgin was able to see the God dwelling within her by a simple property of nature (for not even the animate, rational, and intelligent incarnation itself was able to see him); but according to what is possible, as the power of the Most High itself overshadowed her and, as it were, produced shadows for seeing the God dwelling within. And just as we ourselves have a soul dwelling in our flesh, but are not able to see it as it is, but only its shadows and impressions from its powers and energies—

Such was what the Virgin, and indeed the rational and intellectual soul, was able to see, and even now is able, from the powers and energies supplied to her. And it is according to this reasoning especially that God made man, and made him in the image of God. For God made man in the image and likeness of such incarnation and enanthropesis, so that, bearing within himself the image and likeness, he might have no ambiguity concerning such incarnation and enanthropesis. For we proclaim both incarnation and enanthropesis by the appellation we utter, and we announce not only incarnation but also enanthropesis, lest the godless heretics think we are dogmatizing a soulless, mindless, and irrational incarnation, but by saying incarnation and enanthropesis we signify that we believe both in the flesh and in the rational and intellectual soul. Hence we do not entirely accept those who speak of one nature of the Word of God incarnate and do not add "ensouled, rational, and intellectual," unless they resolve and interpret the phrase in their doctrines. For what was formerly spoken guilelessly by some was later misused, as the heretics maliciously twisted the expression. Thus the Virgin, sanctified by the coming of the Holy Spirit and empowered by the power of the Most High, conceives the Son of God according to his own particular hypostasis, according to the one nature of his divinity, and gives birth to him incarnate and enanthropesis according to the property of the two natures.

from two and in two natures, defined without confusion, without change, without division: not a God-bearing man, but a flesh-bearing God. For let not the heretics, as we said again, understand these things in that way, but as it has been stated, according to the energy of the Spirit and the power of the Most High, the conception in the Virgin having taken place, they defined the one from the Virgin as a God-bearing man, bearing a divine power and energy of the Spirit, which acted against Pharaoh and all the sons of Israel. Hence they also adopt the words of the chief apostle, speaking in the Acts concerning Christ, and while he speaks correctly, they twist and pervert them, as when he says: "Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit;" saying such things, that in the womb of the Virgin God fashioned a man without seed, by the energy of the Spirit, and anointed him with the power of the Most High, as also with the oil of gladness beyond his fellows, it is written. And this one Scripture called Son of the Most High, as it is said in the Psalms, when God says to many: "I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High." So, refuting the meaning of the heretical doctrines and desiring to correct it through the present proclamation, we say that Christ is not a God-bearing man, but a flesh-bearing God, because being God, he bore man in the full measure of humanity: perfect God and perfect man, being one according to one hypostasis, and from two and in two natures.

This man, whom we say he wore, God the Father, by his good will and the cooperation of the Holy Spirit according to the sole self-activity of the Son, anointed with the Holy Spirit, granting him every energy and girding him with the power of the Most High, so that he might be able to bear the assault of every opposing power and work every healing among the people; since he also submitted to being tempted by Satan, and endured every humiliation and poverty in his flesh; as also the great herald cries out concerning this: "For the impossibility of the law, in which it was weak through the flesh, God, having sent his own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Therefore the Son of God, having become in flesh, is said to have become incarnate, just as he says elsewhere: "But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, having become from a woman, having become under the law, that he might redeem those under the law." And from this it must be noted that first the Son is sent by the Father, and then he becomes from a woman; he does not first become, and then from that time be sent; but first he is sent, and then he becomes from a woman. And the prophets agree with these apostolic statements, calling him the Son who was sent. And earlier in Isaiah, hear him who was sent saying: "I am the first, and I am for eternity, and my hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand made the heaven firm;" and going forth, he connects the timely activities, saying:

And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit;” through these words he clearly demonstrated himself, that it is the same God who made the heaven and the earth who says: “And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.” And through Zechariah, saying: “Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Zion, for I am coming and will dwell in your midst, and many nations will flee to the Lord on that day; and you will know that the Lord has sent me to you.” Hence also the one who became flesh and was incarnate himself confesses, saying: I was sent by the Father; and, The Father sent me, bearing witness to the same in many passages. Therefore he was not sent as a man, but as God, and Lord, Son from the Lord Father, just as also the phrase, “The Lord rained from the Lord,” is set down as from the Lord; and the phrase, “The Lord said to my Lord.” And in these matters he also receives the throne of David, his father who is genealogically traced in a bodily sense: “And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And consider the word and doctrine coexisting with this interpretation. For the heretics, shaking everything, seek and ask, pretending: Whether this followed upon the incarnation of Christ—that is, his receiving the throne of David his father and reigning over the house of Jacob forever. To whom, in reply, we say that one must attend with careful observation, that, when the angel said, “And the Lord will give him the throne of David,” he did not indicate upon which

to establish or confirm; but he says absolutely, "and he will give." And from this it is necessary to resolve the difficulty from the things accomplished in actuality: that the phrase "he will give" was spoken with a view to transferring this throne, as Christ himself, interpreting, said to the Jews: "For this reason the kingdom will be taken from you and given to a nation that produces its fruits." Therefore, having taken the throne of David, Christ transferred it and gave it to the holy emperors of the Christians, to restore them to the house of Jacob; and having handed it over to reproach and plunder, he reigns among Christians for the ages, and there will be no end to his kingdom; nor will it be left to another people, according to the visions of Daniel the prophet; but they proclaim him to be Christ the king, him enduring until his second coming, at which, when he arrives, he remains king for the ages, and there will be no end to his kingdom. For if, having been born from the Virgin and having accomplished all things according to the economy of death and the cross, he says after the resurrection: "All authority was given to me in heaven and on earth," then from that point he reigned and is proclaimed king of the Christians; as also at the beginning of the prayers, calling one another together, they cry out, saying: "Come, let us worship and fall down before him, Christ our king." And coming at his great and glorious second coming, he himself remains king for the ages, and there will be no end to his kingdom. And since he himself is the king who was born from the Virgin, he himself is also the Lord God.

For his sake, the one who bore him is also proclaimed queen, lady, and mother of God, in the proper and true sense. And from this it is fitting for us to say, looking toward her and toward her son, who was born from her as flesh-bearing: "Now she stands at your right hand, clothed in a gold-woven garment, adorned, variegated." For just as she was queen, lady, and mother of God in her female form, so now, as queen standing at the right hand of her all-king son, she is celebrated in sacred speech, clothed in the gold-woven garment of incorruption, adorned, variegated. She does not stand in mere spiritual simplicity, as if without flesh and without body, but she is clothed, according to her most holy flesh, in incorruption and immortality, and variegated according to the most holy bones that support her flesh. For from her flesh and from her bones, as from the ancient Adam, the new Adam, having formed for himself, in a corresponding manner, the incarnation as a rib, bears her perpetually. And from this, the new Eve, called mother of life, remains clothed, variegated, as the firstfruits of immortal life for all the living. Let us say, therefore, again and again and always and continually, looking toward the king, lord, and God himself, and toward the queen, lady, and mother of God, with the movement of the contemplative eye of our mind.

The queen stood at your right hand, clothed in a garment interwoven with gold, arrayed, adorned. And now hear, daughter of David and Abraham, and incline your ear to our supplication, and do not forget your people, nor us of the house of your Father. For we are your fathers according to analogy, and you are our daughter according to your birth from us, and it is fitting for you, having become Mother of God, queen and lady and mistress, by reason of him who was born from you, the king and lord and God and master, to remember, standing at the one who is fearful to us but delightful to you, and who provides all graces; on account of which you were also named full of grace, as having been shown to be filled with all joy through the coming of the Holy Spirit upon you. Therefore, as we of the people, rich in such beautiful and spiritual contemplations, beseech your face, we cry out concerning you: Remember us, all-holy Virgin, who remained a virgin even after giving birth, and grant us in return for these small discourses great gifts from the wealth of your graces, O full of grace; on behalf of which, and as subjects and harmonious voices, especially for your praise, if there is any virtue and any praise, a hymn is offered to you by us and by all creation, to the full of grace, the lady, the Mother of God, and the ark of sanctification. Behold, then, from now and from the beginning of the day, as a first offering of praise, the archangel has woven for you a praise according to your name, crying out:

Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” All generations bless you, and first all the tetrarchies of angels in heaven, and on earth, those who raise hierarchic hands, bless you, who are blessed in the heavens and called blessed on earth. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Such things the first hierarchy of thrones, cherubim and seraphim, of fiery ones called forth, or a multitude of knowledge to become of God and king, blessing, say: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is your womb that bore God, and your breasts, which he, when an infant, suckled. The second hierarchy of lordships, powers, and authorities, looking up to you, cry out, having learned from the higher and more advanced hierarchy: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is your womb that contained God, and your breasts that nurtured God become a child. Such things also the third hierarchy of principalities, angels, and archangels, commanded and entrusted by the sending God, as through one archangel, Gabriel, to proclaim the most manifest and comprehensive hymn, ever cries out: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” From these, we who on earth bear the exaltations of God in our throat, having learned or borrowed the voices, raise up with a great and far-sounding voice, saying: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” Intercede, Lady, and mistress, queen and Mother of God, for us; for you are from us, and he who was born from you is our flesh-bearing God.

to whom glory and majesty are fitting, and all honor and adoration and thanksgiving, together with his beginningless Father, and the holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.