(Exerpted a little)

For all the fathers considered, and examples could be multiplied easily, the Incarnation of the Word is not located in the birth of Jesus from Mary as a distinct event from the Passion and exaltation. ... it is essential to note, to describe this event as "the Incarnation of the Word" can only be done by reflecting on Christ in the light of the cross through the medium of Scripture. When this is done, when the Passion, the crucifixion, and exaltation, is taken as the central axis of theological reflection, then, this becomes determinative for contemplating the identity of Christ, and everything else is understood through this prism and in this pattern. Thus, the infancy narratives are not an attempt to preserve accurate historical information regarding the birth of Christ, but are, as Raymond Brown has so clearly pointed out, a retelling of the basic kerygma in a mode appropriate for the occasion. (Cf. R. E. Brown, "The Birth of the Messiah" and, more briefly, "An Adult Christ at Christmas" )

This point is equally evident from iconography, which depicts the Christ not in a stable, but wrapped in swaddling clothes and lain in a cave, the shape of which mirrors the posture of the virgin, just as he was lain in the virgin cave owned by the other Joseph to emerge as the exalted Lord. The same point is made even more dramatically in the hymnography for the pre-feast of the Nativity, which consciously uses the same imagery and phrases as the material for Holy Week, which itself culminates in the Paschal reading of the Prologue of John.

Many other examples from the tradition of the Church could be brought in to exemplify the point. For instance, one hymn which is particularly interesting when viewed in this perspective is the "Only-begotten Son" attributed to Justinian. Although it is easily heard (especially in English) in the theological perspective outlined earlier, that is, as Trinitarian theology-"Only begotten Son and Word of God"-followed by "Incarnation" and Christology- "who accepted to become flesh for our salvation"-nevertheless, the subject, the addressee, of the whole hymn is in fact "Christ God" (given in the vocative), who is positioned between being crucified and trampling down death by death , culminating in the acknowledgement that he is one of the Trinity and to be glorified with the Father and the Spirit. Rather than being read as a chronological narrative, which would ultimately temporalize God, the whole hymn is a reflection on the crucified and exalted Christ: it is confessional, rather than mythological. The same point is equally evident, though often overlooked, in the creeds and dogmatic definitions of the Councils. For instance, the Chalcedonian definition specifies that it is one and the same Jesus Christ who is both God and man, one hypostasis in two natures, and that it is he who is Lord, God, Son and Logos-in other words, "logos" is a title of Jesus Christ, rather than being the name of the eternal second person of the Trinity who "subsequently" (as if God is subject to time) becomes the man Jesus Christ. It is one and the same Jesus Christ, as St Cyril of Alexandria affirms so emphatically, who is from the Father as theWord of God and from the line of David as man-two births but one and the same subject, Jesus Christ.

Theological talk of "Incarnation" thus operates at an interpretative level, based on the paschal faith-it is the Crucified One who is the Incarnate Word. But one must also go further, as already indicated by Irenaeus and Hippolytus. If it is from the perspective of the cross that we speak of the Word becoming flesh, fashioning a body from the virgin to be the temple in which he dwells, as Athanasius puts it, then this body cannot be separated from the bodies of Christians in whom the Word now dwells. So, in Athanasius' work On the Incarnation, there is very little about Jesus' actual birth or his life before the Passion: the treatise is mainly concerned with what the Word has worked through the body, by dying in the body and so granting his disciples life in his body, and consequently the bulk of Athanasius' demonstration of the divinity of Christ argues from the divine works theWord effects in Christians now. The various levels in all of this reflection are summed up concisely in the second century Letter to Diognetus: "He was from the beginning, appeared new yet was found to be old, and is ever new [or "young"] being born in the hearts of the saints."

-------------------------------------------------------------FROM: "The Paschal Foundation of Christian Theology", by John Behr
www.svots.edu/Faculty/John-Behr/Articles/2001-06-svtq-behr.pdf

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The hypostasis of Christ, therefore, pre-existed in its divinity, but it acquired humanity by the Virgin Mary.

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The Inconceivable is conceived in the womb of a Virgin [writes Theodore the Studite]; the Unmeasurable becomes three cubits high, the Unqualifi-able acquires a quality; the Undcfinable stands up, sits down, and lies down; He who is everywhere is put into a crib; He who is above time gradually reaches the age of twelve; He who is formless appears with the shape of a man, and the Incorporeal enters into a body. . .

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