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Philippians 2:7

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
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Ambrosiaster

AD 400
“Taking the form of a slave.” He indeed was taken captive, bound and driven with blows. His obedience to the Father took him even as far as the cross. Yet throughout he knew himself to be the Father’s Son, equal in divine dignity. Yet he did not make a display of this equality. Rather he willingly subjected himself. This patience and humility he teaches us to imitate. We are to refrain from making a display of our claims to equal dignity, but even more so we are called to lower ourselves into service as we follow the example of our Maker. –.
1 min1/41
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Ambrosiaster

AD 400
He is said not to have taken the form of God but to have been in the form of God. What he is said to have taken is the form of a slave when he was humbled like a sinner. People become slaves through sin, like Ham the son of Noah, who first received the title of slave through his own actions. His “taking the form of a slave” was not simply his becoming human but his profound identification with sinners, voluntarily “taking the form of a slave.” .
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Ambrosiaster

AD 400
Christ, therefore, knowing himself to be “in the form of God,” showed himself equal to God. But in order to teach the law of humility when the Jews were binding him, he not only refrained from resistance but “emptied himself,” that is, withheld his power from taking effect, so that in his humiliation he seemed to be weakened as his power lay idle. .
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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
He did not take on his humanity in the simple way that a person puts on clothes, as something exterior to him. Rather he took on human form in a manner inexpressibly more excellent and more intimate than that. The apostle has made it sufficiently clear what he meant “He was made to appear in human likeness.” He was not exhaustively reduced to being a man. He rather assumed the true human estate when he put on the man.
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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
The Lord Jesus Christ came in flesh and, having “accepted the form of a slave, became obedient even to death on the cross.” He has no other purpose than that by this dispensation of his most merciful grace he might give life to those who have become, as it were, members of his body. He is their head in order to obtain for them the kingdom of heaven. This he did to save and set free. He redeemed and enlightened those who had formerly been consigned to the death of sin. They had been languishing in slavery, captivity and darkness under the power of the devil, the prince of sinners.
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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
The Son humbled himself, taking the form of a slave. But meanwhile he remained above any slavery because he had no stain of sin.
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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
He “emptied himself,” not because as eternal Wisdom he underwent change. For as eternal Wisdom he is absolutely changeless. Rather without changing he chose to become known to humanity in such a humble form.
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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
He is said to have “emptied himself” in no other way than by taking the form of a servant, not by losing the form of God. For that nature by which he is equal to the Father in the form of God remained immutable while he took our mutable nature, through which he was born of the Virgin.
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Clement Of Alexandria

AD 215
God did all things through him. Therefore he is also said to have “taken the form of a slave.” It is not only the flesh of the slave that he assumed but the very nature of a slave that he assumed. He became a slave so that he could share human suffering in the flesh. –.
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Clement Of Alexandria

AD 215
And the flesh being a slave, as Paul testifies, how can one with any reason adorn the handmaid like a pimp? For that which is of flesh has the form of a servant. Paul says, speaking of the Lord, "Because He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant"
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Cyril of Alexandria

AD 444
If we take him simply and solely to be a man made from a woman, how could he be said to be in the form equal to the Father? If only a man, how could he have the fullness that would make sense of his being emptied? What height could he have occupied before that he might be said to have “humbled himself?” How did he “come to be in the likeness of men” if he was already so by nature? Scholium on the Incarnation of the Only Begotten.
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Cyril of Alexandria

AD 444
By this alone let the difference between the divinity and humanity in him be perceived. For Godhead and humanity are not the same in natural quality. Otherwise how has the Word, being God, been “emptied,” having let himself fall among lesser beings such as ourselves? But when we speculate on the mode of incarnation the human mind inevitably sees two things commingled by an inexpressible and unconfused union yet in no way divides the united elements but believes and firmly accepts that there is one from both, who is God, Son, Christ and Lord.
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Cyril of Alexandria

AD 444
What sort of emptying is this? To assume the flesh, even in the form of a slave, a likeness to ourselves while not being like us in his own nature but superior to the whole creation. Thus he humbled himself, descending by his economy into mortal bounds. .
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Cyril of Alexandria

AD 444
He let himself be “emptied.” It was not through any compulsion by the Father. He complied of his own accord with the Father’s good pleasure.
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Eusebius of Caesarea

AD 339
Read the record of his compassion. It pleased him, being the Word of God, to “take the form of a slave.” So he willed to be joined to our common human condition. He took to himself the toils of the members who suffer. He made our human maladies his own. He suffered and toiled on our behalf. This is in accord with his great love of humankind. .
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Eusebius of Vercelli

AD 371
How then did he “empty himself”? When the “form of God accepted the form of a slave,” when he who is preeminently the Lord deigned to take on himself what belongs to a slave. The Word was made flesh by bearing and doing what was beneath him in his indulgence and compassion toward us. All that he possessed by nature is emptied into this his person. Having been made obedient as a man in the true “fashion of humanity,” he has restored to our nature by his own humility and obedience what had perished through disobedience in Adam. ()..
1 min16/41
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Faustinus of Lyon

AD 300
If he “therefore emptied himself, assuming the form of a slave,” he was not coerced but was of his own accord made the Son of Man, existing as God’s equal in the form of God. Therefore you have the Son expressing in himself the faith proper to humans.
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Gaius Marius Victorinus

AD 400
We must understand this “emptying himself” to consist not in any loss or privation of his power but in the fact that he lowered himself to the basest level and condescended to the meanest tasks. By fulfilling these he momentarily emptied himself of his power. Assuming flesh and human form and likeness, he suffered, died and fulfilled all the things that belong to humanity.
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Gaius Marius Victorinus

AD 400
It is not as though Paul was in the slightest uncertain about Christ’s identity that he said Christ was “found in human likeness.” He did not say “in human likeness” as though our Lord maybe was not truly a man but a phantom. Rather he was found in human likeness while still being God yet at the same time being truly a man in the flesh, with a physical human body that he had assumed.
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Gaius Marius Victorinus

AD 400
The Son was sent by the Father and fulfills the Father’s will. The mystery stated here is that it was by his own will that he came and assumed the form and image of a slave…. The Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father…. So what the Father willed the Son also willed, and what the Son willed the Father willed.
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Gaius Marius Victorinus

AD 400
How could he possibly have taken only human form and not human substance? For he put on the flesh and was in the flesh and suffered in the flesh. This is the mystery and the means of our salvation…. What therefore does it mean, “he emptied himself?” That the universal Logos was not universal in his actual being as the logos of the flesh and becoming flesh. Therefore he did not merely pretend to become a man but became a man.
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George Leo Haydock

AD 1849
But debased himself: divested himself of all the marks of greatness, for the love of mankind. The Greek text signifies, he made himself void; on which account Dr. Wells, instead of made himself of no reputation, as in the Protestant translation, has changed it into emptied himself; not but that the true Son of God must always remain truly God, as well as by his incarnation truly man, but that in him as man appeared no marks of his divine power and greatness. Made to the likeness of men, not only as to an exterior likeness and appearance, but at the same time truly man by uniting his divine person to the nature of man. In shape (or habit) found as a man: not clothed exteriorly only, as a man is clothed with a garment or coat, but found both as to shape and nature a man; and, as St. Chrysostom says, with the appearance of a sinful man, if we consider him persecuted by the Jews, and nailed to an infamous cross. (Witham)
1 min22/41
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Gregory of Elvira

AD 392
We do not believe that he was so emptied that he himself as Spirit became something else. Rather he, having put aside for this time the honor of his majesty, put on a human body. Only by assuming human form could he become the Savior of humanity. Note that when the sun is covered by a cloud its brilliance is suppressed but not darkened. The sun’s light, which is suffused throughout the whole earth, penetrating all with its brilliant splendor, is presently obscured by a small obstruction of cloud but not taken away. So too that man, whom our Lord Jesus Christ put on, being our Savior, which means God and the Son of God, does not lessen but momentarily hides the divinity in him. –.
1 min23/41
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Gregory of Nyssa

AD 394
He says of the Son that he has “come to be in the likeness and form of men.” If he “came to be” in this likeness, this obviously implies that he was not invested with it from the beginning. Before coming to be in that likeness he was not fashioned according to some corporeal pattern. For no embodied form could become the pattern for what is previously not embodied. .
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Gregory of Nyssa

AD 394
The Word who appeared in the flesh was the same as the Word that was with God. But the earthly flesh he assumed was not the same as the Godhead until this too was changed into Godhead, so that necessarily some attributes belonged to God the Word, others to the form of a slave. .
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Gregory of Nyssa

AD 394
The one who says that he “took the form of a slave”—and this form is flesh—is saying that, being himself something else according to his divine form, something else in his nature, he assumed the servile form. .
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Gregory of Nyssa

AD 394
The Godhead is emptied so that the human nature may accommodate it. What is human, on the other hand, is made new, becoming divine through mingling with the divine. .
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Gregory of Nyssa

AD 394
He “emptied himself,” as the Scripture says, so that as much as nature could hold it might receive.
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Gregory of Nyssa

AD 394
And even the word emptied clearly affirms that he was not always as he appeared to us in history…. He “emptied himself,” as the apostle says, by contracting the ineffable glory of his Godhead within our small compass. In this way “what he was” remained great and perfect and incomprehensible, but “what he assumed” was commensurate with the measure of our own nature. .
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Gregory the Theologian

AD 390
Since he is emptied on our account when he came down (and by emptying I mean as it were the reduction and lessening of his glory), he is for this reason able to be received.
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Hilary of Poitiers

AD 368
Note well the breathtaking economy by which the Son assumed flesh: Through the obedience of the one who was in the form of God [and] was emptying himself of the form of God, [he] was born as a man. In doing so, he took a new nature upon himself! This occurred not by a loss of his power and nature but by an assumption of a new condition…. Though he retained the power of his nature as God, he was in much of his earthly ministry temporarily relinquishing his exercise of the power of his nature as God as he walked as a man. The effect of this economy of order was this: The Son in his entirety, namely, as both man and God, was now, through the indulgence of the Father’s will, in union with the nature of the Father. This is what occurred to God the Son: that he became a man.
1 min31/41
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Hilary of Poitiers

AD 368
Remaining “in the form of God,” he “took the form of a slave,” not being changed but “emptying himself” and hiding within himself and being made empty within his own power. He tempered himself to the form of the human state as far as was necessary to ensure that the weakness of the assumed humility would not fail to bear his immeasurable power. He went even so far as to tolerate conjunction with a human body. Just this far did his goodness moderate itself with an appropriate degree of obedience. But in making himself empty and restraining himself within himself, he did nothing detrimental to his own power, since even within this lowliness of his selfemptying he nonetheless used the resources of the evacuated power within him.
1 min32/41
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Hilary of Poitiers

AD 368
To assume “the form of a slave,” he “emptied himself” through obedience. He emptied himself, that is, from the “form of God,” which means “equality with God.”
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Hippolytus of Rome

AD 235
This, he says, is the form of the servant. In the "form of a servant "and "became obedient to God the Father, even unto death "so hereafter He is said to be "highly exalted; "and as if well-nigh He had it not by reason of His humanity, and as if it were in the way of grace, He "receives the name which is above every name". As man; being, however, true God. But, as I have already said, it was the "form of the servant". And they in reply said, We have seen the Creator of all things in the "form of a servant"
1 min34/41
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John Chrysostom

AD 407
What does it mean to be “in a human likeness”? Does it mean that his appearance was merely a fantasy? This would be something merely similar to a human and not made in the “likeness of a man.” For to be made in “the likeness of a man” is to be a man…. So what does it mean, “in a human likeness”? With few exceptions he had all our common human properties. The exceptions: He was not born from sexual intercourse. He committed no sin. These properties he had which no human being has. He was not only human, which is what he appeared to be, but also God…. We are soul and body, but he is God, soul and body. For this reason Paul says “in the form”—and so that when you hear of his emptying you may not suppose that he underwent change, degradation and some sort of annihilation of his divinity. Rather remaining what he was he assumed what he was not. Becoming flesh, he remained the Word of God. So it is in this respect that he is “in the likeness of men,” and for this reason he says “and in form....
1 min35/41
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John Chrysostom

AD 407
He carefully uses the phrase “in human likeness.” For Christ was not one of the many but as one of the many. God the Word did not degenerate into a man. His essence as God did not change. Rather he appeared like a man, not deluding us with a phantom but instructing us in humility. .
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John Chrysostom

AD 407
If it were through a natural inferiority that he undertook to bear “the form of a slave,” this would not be an instance of humility. Yet Paul makes excellent use of this example as an exhortation precisely to humility. On the Equality of the Father and the Son, Homily
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John Chrysostom

AD 407
This equality with God He had not by seizure, but as his own by nature. Wherefore He emptied Himself. Where be they who affirm, that He underwent constraint, that He was subjected? Scripture says, He emptied Himself, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death. How did He empty Himself? By taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man. It is written, He emptied Himself in reference to the text, each counting other better than himself. Since had He been subjected, had He not chosen it of His own accord, and of His own free will, it would not have been an act of humility. For if He knew not that so it must be, He would have been imperfect. If, not knowing it, He had waited for the time of action, then would He not have known the season. But if He both knew that so it must be, and when it must be, wherefore should He submit to be subjected? To show, they say, the superiority of the Father. But this shows not the superiority of ...
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Leo of Rome

AD 461
He “assumed the form of a slave” without the stain of sin, enhancing the human without diminishing the divine. That emptying by which the invisible One offered himself to be seen and the Creator and Lord of all things elected to be one among mortals was a sovereign act of stooping in majestic pity, not a defect of power.
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Methodius of Olympus

AD 311
Now the numbers into which it is divided, when put together, make seven, and one is wanting to its completion, not being in all points harmonious with itself, like six, which has reference to the Son of God, who came from tile fulness of the Godhead into a human life. For having emptied Himself,
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Shepherd of Hermas

AD 150
"Hear "he answered: "the Son of God is not in the form
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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20

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