The following comes from Cyril of Alexandria, Scholia on the Incarnation of the Only Begotten (composed after 431)
32. Another instance.
The blessed Daniel tells us of his
dreadful vision: ‘I saw in a vision of the night, and behold there came one
like a Son of Man on the clouds of heaven, who came up to the Ancient of days,
and they brought him into his presence, and to him was given honour and dominion,
and every people, tribe, and tongue, shall serve him. His power is an
everlasting power which shall not pass away, and his Kingdom shall never be
destroyed’ (Dan.7.13-14). Hear how he does not simply mention that he
saw a man, so that Emmanuel might not simply be thought of as one of our number,
exactly like us, but he says rather that he was ‘like a Son of Man’. Since the
Word was God by nature, ‘he came in the likeness of man, and was found in
fashion as a man’ (Phil 2.7). This is so that both things might be
understood in the same one; that is he was neither a simple man, nor the Word
apart from the humanity and the flesh. But Daniel notes how honour and
dominion, which he always had, were given to him, for he says that ‘every
people, tribe, and tongue, shall serve him.’ And so, when the Only Begotten
Word of God has the whole creation serving him, and holds the dominion of the
Father as his very own, even when he is in the humanity, then how is it that
the holy Virgin, who gave birth to him according to the flesh, is not understood
to be the Mother of God? (John McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the
Christological controversy Crestwood, N.Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press,
2004], 326-27)
