It is said, “I will raise up the
tabernacle of David, which has fallen”;--which refers to that holy and
venerable body and temple of God, born of the Virgin; in which he that shall
believe and dwell as a companion of the flesh of the Lord. But every
unbeliever, because he has not believed in this corporeal kinship, that is, in
the tabernacle of God, will be plucked out and expelled as unworthy of a
dwelling place in this spiritual tabernacle. It is understood that this is what
the Lord means when He said, “I am the true vine; you are the branches; My Father
is the farmer. Every branch not remaining in Me nor bearing fruit will be
rooted out. And every branch remaining in Me, My father will cleanse so that it
can bear better fruit.” . . . The Son of God born of the Virgin did not first
become the Son of God when He became Son of Man; but already being the Son of
God, He then became the Son of Man, so that the Son of God might be also the
Son of Man. He took upon Himself the nature of all flesh and having in this way
become the true vine, He holds in Himself the racial strain of every branch. (Hilary
of Poitiers, Commentaries on the Psalms, On Ps 51 [52] §16, c. A.D. 365, in The
Faith of the Early Fathers, 3 vols. [trans. William A. Jurgens;
Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1970], 1:384-85)
