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| The Word of God Did Not Become Flesh Except in the Virgin's Womb and of Her Substance. Through His Mother He is Descended from Her Great Ancestor David. He is Described Both in the Old and in the New Testament as “The Fruit of David's Loins.”
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Chapter
XXI.—The Word of God Did Not Become Flesh Except in the
Virgin’s Womb and of Her Substance. Through His Mother He is
Descended from Her Great Ancestor David. He is Described Both in the
Old and in the New Testament as “The Fruit of David’s
Loins.”
Whereas, then, they contend that the novelty (of
Christ’s birth) consisted in this, that as the Word of God became
flesh without the seed of a human father, so there should be no flesh
of the virgin mother (assisting in the transaction), why should not the
novelty rather be confined to this, that His flesh, although not born
of seed, should yet have proceeded from flesh? I should like to go more
closely into this discussion. “Behold,” says he,
“a virgin shall conceive in the womb.”7228
Conceive what? I ask. The Word of
God, of course, and not the seed of man, and in order, certainly, to
bring forth a son. “For,” says he, “she shall bring
forth a son.”7229
| 7229 See the same
passages. | Therefore, as the
act of conception was her own,7230
so also what she
brought forth was her own, also, although the cause of
conception7231
| 7231 Quod concepit: or,
“what she conceived.” | was not. If, on the
other hand, the Word became flesh of Himself, then He both conceived
and brought forth Himself, and the prophecy is stultified. For in that
case a virgin did not conceive, and did not bring forth;
since whatever she brought forth from the conception of the Word, is
not her own flesh. But is this the only statement of prophecy which
will be frustrated?7232
Will not the
angel’s announcement also be subverted, that the virgin should
“conceive in her womb and bring forth a son?”7233
And will not in fact every scripture which
declares that Christ had a mother? For how could she have been His
mother, unless He had been in her womb? But then He received nothing
from her womb which could make her a mother in whose womb He had
been.7234
Such a name as this7235
a
strange flesh ought not to assume. No flesh can speak of a
mother’s womb but that which is itself the offspring of that
womb; nor can any be the offspring of the said womb if it owe
its birth solely to
itself. Therefore even Elisabeth must be silent although she is
carrying in her womb the prophetic babe, which was already conscious of
his Lord, and is, moreover, filled with the Holy Ghost.7236
For without reason does she say, “and
whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to
me?”7237
If it was not as
her son, but only as a stranger that Mary carried Jesus in her womb,
how is it she says, “Blessed is the fruit of thy
womb”?7238
What is this fruit
of the womb, which received not its germ from the womb, which had not
its root in the womb, which belongs not to her whose is the womb, and
which is no doubt the real fruit of the womb—even Christ? Now,
since He is the blossom of the stem which sprouts from the root of
Jesse; since, moreover, the root of Jesse is the family of David, and
the stem of the root is Mary descended from David, and the blossom of
the stem is Mary’s son, who is called Jesus Christ, will not He
also be the fruit? For the blossom is the fruit, because through
the blossom and from the blossom every product advances from its
rudimental condition7239
to perfect fruit.
What then? They, deny to the fruit its blossom, and to the
blossom its stem, and to the stem its root; so that the root fails to
secure7240
for itself, by
means of the stem, that special product which comes from the stem, even
the blossom and the fruit; for every step indeed in a genealogy is
traced from the latest up to the first, so that it is now a well-known
fact that the flesh of Christ is inseparable,7241
not merely from Mary, but also from David through Mary, and from Jesse
through David. “This fruit,” therefore, “of
David’s loins,” that is to say, of his posterity in the
flesh, God swears to him that “He will raise up to sit upon his
throne.”7242
| 7242 Ps.
cxxxii. 11; also Acts ii. 30. | If “of
David’s loins,” how much rather is He of Mary’s
loins, by virtue of whom He is in “the loins of
David?”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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