"No crying he makes"

"Away in a Manger" is a favorite Christmas carol. (I prefer the Kirkpatrick tune.) The line "no crying he makes" is often chided as Gnostic or Docetic. It's true that the sentiment may be unrealistic, although babies don't cry all the time. 

However, I think the criticism is overly censorious. The problem is that hymnodists must function within a very restrictive scheme of rhythm and rhyme. That severely limits the choice of words, since stanzas must be metrical with rhyming couplets. If one line ends with "awakes," then the next line must end with a rhyming word–preferably with the same number of syllables. The challenge is finding two rhyming words that can be used to form meaningful, contextual sentences. Once you write a sentence with "awakes" as the end rhyme of the first line, that commits you to whatever is available for the next line.  

Of course, if you can't compose a good matching sentence, then you should choose a different pair of words. However, the carol wasn't written by a master lyricist like Charles Wesley, so it's less rhetorically resourceful or theologically alert. In addition, the general theme of the carol limits the topical range of sentences at the disposal of a lyricist.

To chide the implicit Christology expressed in one line over-interprets the sentiment. It's just a way to round out the first line, consistent with poetic meter and rhyming couplets. There's no sinister theological agenda lurking behind the phrase.