01/07/2026
Ⲡⲓⲭⲣⲓⲥⲧⲟⲥ ⲁⲩⲙⲁⲥϥ; Christ is Born.
Ⲛⲟϥⲣⲓ ϣⲁⲓ ⲙ̀ⲡ̀ϫⲓⲛⲙⲓⲥⲓ; Happy Feast of the Nativity
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son, today I have begotten You”? (Heb 1:1-5).
"So Paul is correct when he says that in the last days, God the Father has spoken to us 'by His Son.' He knew that Emmanuel was God and the Word of God came to exist in human nature with us. He recognized him who is free in the form of a slave. He confessed the fullness of him who emptied himself for our sakes. He gazed on the height of glory that belonged to him who lowered himself to humiliation for us, and who for that reason is said to be appointed as the 'heir of all things' (Heb 1:2), even though he rules over all things in that he is both considered to be and is God. Then he returns to his own riches even with his flesh. He certainly did not remain in our poverty. He did not become flesh so that he could throw away his own God-befitting riches and remain poor with us. No, he did it so that we who suffer from a lack of divine gifts may be made rich by his poverty (2 Cor 8:9). You see, even though he is Son by nature and coeternal with the Father, when he underwent birth according to the flesh for us through the holy virgin, he said through David, 'The Lord said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you"' (Ps 2:7). He said this because he was restoring the source of sonship to us. Now the word 'today' refers to the present time, which is when he became flesh, though he is by nature the Lord of all. You can see this because John has testified of him that he 'came to what was his own' (Jn 1:11), referring to his world as 'what was his own.' And the Son summoned the world to the glory of his kingdom, a glory that did not belong to it, when he said, 'I have been appointed king by him' (Ps 2:6), namely, by God the Father. he experienced these things so that he might be adopted as man (even though he is by nature God) and so open up a road through himself to participation in sonship for human nature. He also did this so that he might call those tyrannized by sin into the kingdom of heaven. Just as an inheritance passes from a father to all of his descendants, we possess calamity from Adam's transgression in that we bear the curse and death. And in the same way, Christ's glory will extend to the entire human race as well. After all, what the Only Begotten received was for our benefit, certainly not his own. He has fullness because he is God by nature, and he lacks absolutely nothing. Rather, he himself enriches the entire creation with blessings from above (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Hebrews 1:1).
