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| Christ Born of a Virgin, of Her Substance. The Physiological Facts of His Real and Exact Birth of a Human Mother, as Suggested by Certain Passages of Scripture. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XX.—Christ
Born of a Virgin, of Her Substance. The Physiological Facts of His Real
and Exact Birth of a Human Mother, as Suggested by Certain Passages of
Scripture.
But to what shifts you resort, in your attempt to
rob the syllable ex (of)7211
7211 Indicating the
material or ingredient, “out of.” | of
its proper force as a preposition, and to substitute another for it in
a sense not found throughout the Holy Scriptures! You say that He
was born through7212 a virgin, not
of7213 a virgin, and
in a womb, not of a womb, because the angel in the dream
said to Joseph, “That which is born in her” (not of her)
“is of the Holy Ghost.”7214 But the fact
is, if he had meant “of her,” he must have said “in
her;” for that which was of her, was also in her. The
angel’s expression, therefore, “in her,” has
precisely the same meaning as the phrase “of her.” It is,
however, a fortunate circumstance that Matthew also, when tracing down
the Lord’s descent from Abraham to Mary, says, “Jacob begat
Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born
Christ.”7215 But Paul, too,
silences these critics7216 when he says,
“God sent forth His Son, made of a woman.”7217 Does he mean through a woman, or
in a woman? Nay more, for the sake of greater emphasis, he uses
the word “made” rather than born, although
the use of the latter expression would have been simpler. But by
saying “made,” he not only confirmed the statement,
“The Word was made flesh,”7218
but he also asserted the reality of the flesh which was made of a
virgin. We shall have also the support of the Psalms on this point, not
the “Psalms” indeed of Valentinus the apostate, and
heretic, and Platonist, but the Psalms of David, the most illustrious
saint and well-known prophet. He sings to us of Christ, and through his
voice Christ indeed also sang concerning Himself. Hear, then, Christ
the Lord speaking to God the Father: “Thou art He that didst
draw7219 me out of my mother’s womb.”7220 Here is the first point. “Thou art my
hope from my mother’s breasts; upon Thee have I been cast from
the womb.”7221 Here is another
point. “Thou art my God from my mother’s
belly.”7222 Here is a third
point. Now let us carefully attend to the sense of these passages.
“Thou didst draw me,” He says, “out of the
womb.” Now what is it which is drawn, if it be not that
which adheres, that which is firmly fastened to anything from which it
is drawn in order to be sundered? If He clove not to the womb, how
could He have been drawn from it? If He who clove thereto was drawn
from it, how could He have adhered to it, if it were not that, all the
while He was in the womb, He was tied to it, as to His origin,7223 by the umbilical cord, which communicated
growth to Him from the matrix? Even when one strange matter amalgamates
with another, it becomes so entirely incorporated7224
7224 Concarnatus et
convisceratus: “united in flesh and internal
structure.” | with that with which it amalgamates, that
when it is drawn off from it, it carries with it some part of the body
from which it is torn, as if in consequence of the severance of the
union and growth which the constituent pieces had communicated to each
other. But what were His “mother’s breasts”
which He mentions? No doubt they were those which He sucked. Midwives,
and doctors, and naturalists, can tell us, from the nature of
women’s breasts, whether they usually flow at any other time than
when the womb is affected with pregnancy, when the veins convey
therefrom the blood of the lower parts7225
7225 Sentinam illam inferni
sanguinis. | to
the mamilla, and in the act of transference convert the
secretion into the nutritious7226 substance of milk.
Whence it comes to pass that during the period of lactation the monthly
issues are suspended. But if the Word was made flesh of Himself without
any communication with a womb, no mother’s womb operating upon
Him with its usual function and support, how could the lacteal fountain
have been conveyed (from the womb) to the breasts, since (the womb) can
only effect the change by actual possession of the proper
substance? But it could not possibly have had blood for
transformation into milk, unless it possessed the causes of blood also,
that is to say, the severance (by birth)7227 of
its own flesh from the mother’s womb. Now it is easy to
see what was the novelty of Christ’s being born of a virgin. It
was simply this, that (He was born) of a virgin in the real manner
which we have indicated, in order that our regeneration might have
virginal purity,—spiritually cleansed from all pollutions through
Christ, who was Himself a virgin, even in the flesh, in that He was
born of a virgin’s flesh.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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