“[T]he Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”
(St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, Book V)
“Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us.”
(St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Against the Arians, Discourse I, P. 39)
“For as the Lord, putting on the body, became man, so we men are deified by the Word as being taken to Him through His flesh.”
(St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Against the Arians, Discourse III, P. 34)
“For He was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”
(St. Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation, Section 54)
“It follows, therefore, that He Who Is, The One Who Exists, is necessarily born of the flesh, taking all that is ours into himself so that all that is born of the flesh, that is us corruptible and perishing human beings, might rest in him. In short, he took what was ours to be his very own so that we might have all that was his.”
(St. Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ, p. 59)
“[H]e came down into our condition solely in order to lead us to his own divine state.”
(St. Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ, p. 63)
“For we too are sons and gods by grace, and we have surely been brought to this wonderful and supernatural dignity since we have the Only Begotten Word of God dwelling within us.”
(St. Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ, p. 80)