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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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?"