Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fourth Sunday in Advent

And the Lord continued to speak to Ahaz, saying, “Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, up to a depth or up to a height.” And Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not test the Lord.” And he said, “Hear now, house of David! Is it not a small thing for you to put up a fight with human? And how do you put up a fight with the Lord? Because of this, the Lord himself will give you a sign: Look, the virgin will conceive in the womb and will bear a son, and you will call his name Immanuel. He will eat butter and honey before he knows either to prefer evil or choose the good.” Because before the child knows good or bad, he resists wickedness to choose good; and the land that you fear because of the face of the two kings will be forsaken. But God will bring upon you and upon your people and upon the house of your father days that have not yet come since the day when Ephraim took away the king of the Assyrians from Judah. (Isaiah 7:10–17 LXX)

When will you stop contending with the men of God? For I say that the prophets of God are surrounded by filth and hardship and strife for the sake of your salvation. But then you even vex and provoke a fight with my God, whom you do not know and whose promises you refuse to believe. For indeed, because of his abounding benevolence, God commands you to ask for a sign of salvation from him, through which it is to be proved that you will be saved and delivered from the two kings who are waging war against you. And you remain in your wickedness and provoke a fight with him and likewise cause trouble for his prophets as well as for him, and in your disbelief you repeatedly contrived schemes against them.

But although you are such sinners, God again proves himself to be so merciful and does not let you fall to the side and perish, and even though you do not wish it, he will offer you a sign of salvation. And what is this sign? A certain paradoxical wonder will appear among humanity, such a sign as never before has been heard of from the beginning of time. A virgin will conceive, apart from relations with a man, and she will give birth to God, the Savior of the human race. Therefore, God is about to allow himself to undergo such a birth, and this is the sign of salvation that he offers you. Then what was in the depths will reach even to the heights. He says in the depths because he will go down to Hades, and to the heights because he will ascend to heaven.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Commentary on Isaiah 7