Here is a lovely quote from St Hippolytus, Early Church Father, which I included in a few Christmas cards I sent this year. Now this is the true meaning of Christmas:
God was all alone and nothing existed but Himself when He determined to create the World. He thought of it, willed it, spoke the word and so made it. It came into being instantaneously, exactly as He had willed. It is enough then for us to be aware of a single fact: nothing is co-eternal with God. Apart from God there was simply nothing else. Yet, although He was alone, He was manifold because He lacked neither reason, wisdom, power nor counsel. All things were in Him and He Himself was all. At a moment of his own choosing and in a manner determined by Himself, God manifested his Word, and through Him he made the whole Universe.
When the Word was hidden within God Himself He was invisible to the created World, but God made Him visible. First God gave utterance to His voice, engendering light from light, and then He sent His own mind into the World as its Lord. Visible before to God alone and not to the world, God made Him visible so that the World could be saved by seeing Him. This mind that entered our World was made known as the Son of God. All things came into being through Him; but He alone is begotten by the Father.
St Hippolytus, Early Church Father
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