From Theodotus of Ancyra (+ before 446 A.D.), bishop of Ancyra (modern Ankara) and one of Nestorius' most tenacious and fierce opponents. He was the quasi-official theologian of the Council of Ephesus.
The fruit of your womb is not autumnal; rather, it is a shoot of immortality. It is not a harvest that came as a gift of nature but a flower sprung from a divine seed. For you gave birth to the Beginning who has no beginning, a child who is before all ages, the Virgin's Son, the Eternal who is nurtured in your womb, to him who is older than his mother yet is nursed by her, to him who nourishes all creatures and who clothes himself in human form, to the Splendor of God who presents himself as a pauper, to the King who will have no successor. Therefore I salute you, O Virgin full of grace, Mother among virgins and Virgin among mothers, archetype of both mothers and virgins, but superior to both.
--Homily 6, 12; Patrologia orientalis 19, 331. Quoted in Mary and the Fathers of the Church, Luigi Gambero, page 261.
