On His Becoming Poor

"As it is said: 'If we have been conjoined with him in the likeness of his death, so also shall we be in the likeness of his resurrection' (Rom. 6.5). It follows, therefore, that He Who Is, The One Who Exists, is necessarily born of the flesh, taking all that is ours into himself so that all that is born of the flesh, that is us corruptible and perishing beings, might rest in him. In short, he took what was ours to be his very own so that we might have all that was his. 'He was rich but he became poor for our sake, so that we might be enriched by his poverty' (II Cor. 8.9). When they say that the Word of God did not become flesh, or rather did not undergo birth from a woman according to the flesh, they bankrupt the economy of salvation, for if he who was rich did not impoverish himself, abasing himself to our condition out of tender love, then we have not gained his riches but are still in our poverty, still enslaved by sin and death, because the Word becoming flesh is the undoing and the abolition of all that fell upon human nature as our curse and punishment."

St. Cyril of Alexandria, On The Unity of Christ