Patristic A.D. 430
“Wherefore it pleased Him to take flesh of the womb of a woman, is known in His own secret counsels; whether that He might confer honour on both sexes alike, by taking the form of a man, and being born of a woman, or from some other reason which I would not hastily pronounce on.”
Catena Aurea: Gospel of Matthew, as excerpted in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 1:16
PD · J. H. Newman (Oxford, 1841) ↗