Forms And Nature

Tenet autem in se eum confessionis modum, quem in nobis esse oportet fidei, ut in eo tam natura hominis quam natura Dei cognita sit. In forma enim servi veniens, evacuavit se a Dei forma. Nam in forma hominis existere, manens in Dei forma qui potuit? Aboleri autem Dei forma, ut tantum servi esset forma, non potuit. Ipse enim est et se ex forma Dei inaniens, et formam hominis assumens: quia neque evacuatio illa ex Dei forma naturae coelestis interitus est, neque formae servilis assumptio tamquam genuinae originis conditionisque natura est; cum id quod assumptum est, non proprietas interior sit, sed exterior accessio: quod ipsum consequentibus docet, dicens, Pauper et dolens sum ego; et salus vultis tui Deus suscepit me. Pauper est qui, secundum Apostolum, cum esset omnium dives, seipsum ut nos ditesceremus paupertavit: dolens est, qui secundum prophetam pro nobis dolet. Sed hunc pauperem ac dolentem salus ea, quae vultus Dei est, suscepit. Forma et vultus et facies et imago non differunt. Idipsum enim in utro horum significari communis est sensus. Hunc igitur pauperem in salutem vultus Dei, qui forma Dei est, suscepit, id est, assumptum, ab se hominem unigenitus Dei, qui imago invisibilis Dei est, in aeternitatis sua vita, quae in Deo salus esse intelligitur, collocavit. Omnis enim lingua confitebitur, quia Dominus Jesus in gloria Dei Patris est, id est, susceptus homo in naturam divinitatis acceptus. Sanctus Hilarius Pictaviensis, Tractatus super Psalmos, Tractatus in Psalmum LXVIII Source: Migne PL 9.485c-486b

He holds within in Himself that way of confession of faith that should be in us, that in Him is the nature of man so that the nature of God might be known. Coming in the form of a servant, He emptied Himself of the form of God. 1 For being in the form of man, who is able to remain in the form of God? Yet it was not possible that the form of God should be destroyed so that He would only be the form of a servant. For He empties Himself of the form of God, and takes up the form of man in such a way that the emptying of the form of God is not the ruin of the form of the heavenly nature, nor is the taking up of the servile form the nature of His true origin and state, since that which is taken up is not proper to the interior but an exterior addition, which he consequently teaches, saying, 'I am poor and sorrowful, and the salvation of your face, O God, took me up.' 2 He is poor who according to the Apostle: 'when He was rich in all things impoverished Himself that we might be rich.' 3 Sorrowful is He who according to the prophet is sorrowful for us. 4 But that salvation that is the face of God took up this poor and sorrowful one. The form and the face, and the appearance and image, do not differ. For the signification of their sense is common for both. Therefore this poor man was taken up in the salvation of the face of God, He who is the form of God, that is, man was taken up by the only begotten of God, who is the image of the invisible God, and gathered up into His eternal life, which is understood to be the salvation in God. For every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father, that is, that man was taken up and received into the Divine nature. Saint Hilary of Poitiers, Homilies on the Psalms, from Psalm 68 1 Phil 2.7 2 Ps 68.30 3 2 Cor 8.9 4 Isaiah 53.4