Growth and wisdom as kenosis measures; Word remains God

…maturing little by little; and even seeming to be filled with wisdom is because the manifestation of the wisdom that was in him rises, as it were, in a way most fitting to the advance of the body’s age. And these things, as I said, would fit the economy with flesh and the measures of the lowering; but what fits the nature of the Word again is always to be perfect and to be wisdom. So what is somehow lowered as in emptying is his in a human way, and likewise the God-befitting things are his in a divine way. For the manner and account of the economy with flesh knows him to be both according to us and above us: excelling the measure of creation as God, and somehow all but lesser than himself insofar as he has appeared as human. For where was the humility he willingly endured, if he refused the human things? Yet the nature of the Word is not thought to be in those things; rather he appropriates them with his own flesh, just as also hunger and thirst and being said to grow weary from the journey.

So when you hear “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom,” receive the mystery as an account of the economy with flesh. That he was God in flesh the blessed evangelist himself will confirm, saying that “the grace of God was upon him.” For he is not said to have God’s grace as one who has grace from another god, but because the child had the grace that would befit God. For the Word both was and is God even when he has appeared in flesh, that is, as a human according to us. And if he is said to have grace, or to advance…