The Word was God before all time, coeternal with the Father. But he wanted to become man for human beings. It was not through a change in the divine nature but by the miracle and will of God that he accepted birth as the beginning of his humanity. Thus, as a man he was born, but as God the Word, he preserved Mary’s virginity. Not even our own word corrupts the integrity of the mind in the moment it is conceived. It is the same with the Word of God. Being substantial and enhypostatic, when he chose to be born he nonetheless did not corrupt her virginity. What took place is beyond the logic of nature, and it consequently does not in any way descend to nature’s way of reasoning: I am talking about a miracle. This does not proceed according to reason: I am speaking of God who was born, who chose to be born and yet did not thereby start being God at that moment. Although being God, he was born. It was not the birth that made him God. He remained what he was and became what he was not. Because he wanted to become what he was not for the plan of salvation, he chose birth as the beginning of that plan. He became man without changing his nature and thereby upsetting the terms of the divine being. Sacred Scripture says, “You are always the same, and your years have no end.” And, “You who reign forever,” thus showing the immutability of the divine being. And he says further, “I, God, am always the same, and do not change.” He therefore became man without there being any change in the being of God or its being changed into another nature. What happened would not have been a miracle if he had manifested another nature through a change of nature. With us, many changes of this kind occur. But in this case God worked the miracle of becoming what he was not while remaining what he was. Referring to this event the great apostle said, “He, being in the form of God.” He says “being,” and not “he was at one time,” to show the perdurance of the nature. “Being in the form of God, he did not consider it robbery to be equal to God.” He says “to be equal to God,” not as though he had been so only at one time. And he goes on to say, “But he humbled himself, assuming the form of a servant.” See how he remained what he was and at the same time humbled himself in the form of a servant? Though being God, he became a servant.
