The Witness of Rufinus and Augustine

Rufinus too, a Christian philosopher who holds no small place among the teachers of the church, testifies as follows about the Lord’s birth in his Explanation of the Creed: “For the Son of God,” he says, “is born of a Virgin, not joined chiefly to the flesh alone, but begotten in the soul, which stands midway between the flesh and God.” Does he give an unclear witness that God was born of man? [a]

Augustine, the priest of Hippo Regius, says: “So that men might be born of God, God was first born of them, for Christ is God. And Christ, when born of men, needed only a mother on earth, because he always had a Father in heaven. He was born of God, through whom we are made, and also born of a woman, through whom we might be made anew.” And again in the same place: “‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us.’ Why, then, should you wonder that men are born of God? See how God himself was born of men.” Again, in his letter to Volusianus: “But Moses himself and the rest of the prophets prophesied most truly of Christ the Lord, and gave him great glory. They declared that he would come not as one like themselves, nor merely as greater in the same kind of power to work miracles, but plainly as the Lord God of all, made man for the sake of men. That is why he himself also chose to do things such as they did, so that it would not be absurd for him not to do himself the things he did through them. But still it was right for him also to do something of his own: to be born of a virgin, to rise from the dead, to ascend into heaven. If anyone thinks this is too little for God, I do not know what more he can look for.”