So then, after the assent of the holy Virgin, the Holy Spirit descended on her, according to the word of the Lord which the angel spoke, purifying her Ibid. 27, 28., and granting her power to receive the divinity of the Word, and likewise power to bring forth Greg. Naz., Orat. 38 and 42.. And then was she overshadowed Cf. Athan., Ep. ad Serap., De Spiritu Sancto; Greg. Nyss., Contr. Apoll. 6, 25; Rufinus, Exp. Symb.; Tertullian, De Carne Christi and Contr. Prax.; Hilary, De Trin. II. 26. by the enhypostatic Wisdom and Power of the most high God, the Son of God Who is of like essence with the Father as of Divine seed, and from her holy and most pure blood He formed flesh animated with the spirit of reason and thought, the first-fruits of our compound nature Basil, Christi Nativ.: not by procreation but by creation through the Holy Spirit: not developing the fashion of the body by gradual additions but perfecting it at once, He Himself, the very Word of God, standing to the flesh in the relation of subsistence. For the divine Word was not made one with flesh that had an independent pre-existence Cyril, Apolog. 5 and 8 anathem., but taking up His abode in the womb of the holy Virgin, He unreservedly in His own subsistence took upon Himself through the pure blood of the eternal Virgin a body of flesh animated with the spirit of reason and thought, thus assuming to Himself the first-fruits of man’s compound nature, Himself, the Word, having become a subsistence in the flesh. So that Cf. Greg. Naz., 1 Ep. ad Cledon; Cyril, 1 Ep. ad Nestor.; Theodor., Ep. ad Joan. Antioch., &c. He is at once flesh, and at the same time flesh of God the Word, and likewise flesh animated, possessing both reason and thought Cyril., Epist. ad Monach.. Wherefore we speak not of man as having become God, but of God as having become Man Procl., Epist. 2 ad Arm.. For being by nature perfect God, He naturally became likewise perfect Man: and did not change His nature nor make the dispensation τῆν οἰκονομίαν, the œconomy, the Incarnation. an empty show, but became, without confusion or change or division, one in subsistence with the flesh, which was conceived of the holy Virgin, and animated with reason and thought, and had found existence in Him, while He did not change the nature of His divinity into the essence of flesh, nor the essence of flesh into the nature of His divinity, and did not make one compound nature out of His divine nature and the human nature He had assumed Cod. R. 2428 adds here some statements taken from the Dissertation against the Nestorians..