The following comes from Cyril of Alexandria, Scholia on the Incarnation of the Only Begotten (composed after 431)
13. . . . So, if Jesus is said ‘to
have advanced in wisdom and grace’ (Lk.2.52)., it refers to the economy.
For the Word of God allowed the humanity to exist in the manner of its own
nature, but wished to provide a gradual revelation of the of the nature of his
own deity, so that as the body grew, so also he would extend with it his own proper
qualities, and then nothing alien would be seen which might terrify the
onlookers because of its great strangeness. And remember how they had even said:
‘But how does this man know his letters when he has never studied’ (Jn.7.15)?
This is why the ‘advance’ is a bodily matter and his progress in wisdom ad
grace befits the measures of the manhood. But we say that in his own nature he
is the Word of God who has no need for any advancement, or any wisdom or grace,
but on the contrary bestows wisdom and grace and every benefit on the creation.
(John McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological controversy
Crestwood, N.Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004], 308)
