us, but one God, the three Persons subsisting quite as One in the unity of the
Godhead.”
3, 4
“It helps us to understand the terms first-born and only-begotten when the
Evangelist tells that Mary remained a virgin ‘until she brought forth her first-born
son’; for neither did Mary, who is to be honored and praised above all others,
marry anyone, nor did she ever become the Mother of anyone else, but even after
childbirth she remained always and forever an immaculate virgin.”
3, 12
“The saying, ‘I came down from heaven, not to do My will but that of the Father
who sent Me,’ is to be taken in this sense: ‘In the Incarnation I am not doing the
will of My humanity, but that of My Divinity.’ For the will of the Beloved Son is not
separate from the will of God the Father. In the Trinity there is one and the same
will.”
Against the Manicheans (Date Unknown):
8 & 9
“Hence the understanding about bodies begotten in marriage; and thus, since the
coming together of Adam and Eve came about after sin, the flesh is for that reason
called the flesh of sin…But when the Savior was sojourning here, just as there was
a taking away of sin from other things, so too from marriage…And in a different
way it may be said even more naturally that virginity is something divine, and is
accounted among the virtues. If, therefore, someone compares virginity to
marriage, the latter may be called sin; but it is not sin in the absolute sense.”
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