Part IV (Tertia Pars) Part 47 (1/2)

_I answer that,_ We must confess simply that the Mother of Christ was a virgin in conceiving for to deny this belongs to the heresy of the Ebionites and Cerinthus, who held Christ to be a mere man, and maintained that He was born of both s.e.xes.

It is fitting for four reasons that Christ should be born of a virgin. First, in order to maintain the dignity or the Father Who sent Him. For since Christ is the true and natural Son of G.o.d, it was not fitting that He should have another father than G.o.d: lest the dignity belonging to G.o.d be transferred to another.

Secondly, this was befitting to a property of the Son Himself, Who is sent. For He is the Word of G.o.d: and the word is conceived without any interior corruption: indeed, interior corruption is incompatible with perfect conception of the word. Since therefore flesh was so a.s.sumed by the Word of G.o.d, as to be the flesh of the Word of G.o.d, it was fitting that it also should be conceived without corruption of the mother.

Thirdly, this was befitting to the dignity of Christ's humanity in which there could be no sin, since by it the sin of the world was taken away, according to John 1:29: ”Behold the Lamb of G.o.d” (i.e.

the Lamb without stain) ”who taketh away the sin of the world.” Now it was not possible in a nature already corrupt, for flesh to be born from s.e.xual intercourse without incurring the infection of original sin. Whence Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. i): ”In that union,”

viz. the marriage of Mary and Joseph, ”the nuptial intercourse alone was lacking: because in sinful flesh this could not be without fleshly concupiscence which arises from sin, and without which He wished to be conceived, Who was to be without sin.”

Fourthly, on account of the very end of the Incarnation of Christ, which was that men might be born again as sons of G.o.d, ”not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of G.o.d” (John 1:13), i.e. of the power of G.o.d, of which fact the very conception of Christ was to appear as an exemplar. Whence Augustine says (De Sanct.

Virg.): ”It behooved that our Head, by a notable miracle, should be born, after the flesh, of a virgin, that He might thereby signify that His members would be born, after the Spirit, of a virgin Church.”

Reply Obj. 1: As Bede says on Luke 1:33: Joseph is called the father of the Saviour, not that he really was His father, as the Photinians pretended: but that he was considered by men to be so, for the safeguarding of Mary's good name. Wherefore Luke adds (Luke 3:23): ”Being, as it was supposed, the son of Joseph.”

Or, according to Augustine (De Cons. Evang. ii), Joseph is called the father of Christ just as ”he is called the husband of Mary, without fleshly mingling, by the mere bond of marriage: being thereby united to Him much more closely than if he were adopted from another family.

Consequently that Christ was not begotten of Joseph by fleshly union is no reason why Joseph should not be called His father; since he would be the father even of an adopted son not born of his wife.”

Reply Obj. 2: As Jerome says on Matt. 1:18: ”Though Joseph was not the father of our Lord and Saviour, the order of His genealogy is traced down to Joseph”--first, because ”the Scriptures are not wont to trace the female line in genealogies”: secondly, ”Mary and Joseph were of the same tribe”; wherefore by law he was bound to take her as being of his kin. Likewise, as Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. i), ”it was befitting to trace the genealogy down to Joseph, lest in that marriage any slight should be offered to the male s.e.x, which is indeed the stronger: for truth suffered nothing thereby, since both Joseph and Mary were of the family of David.”

Reply Obj. 3: As the gloss says on this pa.s.sage, the word ”_mulier_ is here used instead of _femina,_ according to the custom of the Hebrew tongue: which applies the term signifying woman to those of the female s.e.x who are virgins.”

Reply Obj. 4: This argument is true of those things which come into existence by the way of nature: since nature, just as it is fixed to one particular effect, so it is determinate to one mode of producing that effect. But as the supernatural power of G.o.d extends to the infinite: just as it is not determinate to one effect, so neither is it determinate to one mode of producing any effect whatever.

Consequently, just as it was possible for the first man to be produced, by the Divine power, ”from the slime of the earth,” so too was it possible for Christ's body to be made, by Divine power, from a virgin without the seed of the male.

Reply Obj. 5: According to the Philosopher (De Gener. Animal. i, ii, iv), in conception the seed of the male is not by way of matter, but by way of agent: and the female alone supplies the matter. Wherefore though the seed of the male was lacking in Christ's conception, it does not follow that due matter was lacking.

But if the seed of the male were the matter of the fetus in animal conception, it is nevertheless manifest that it is not a matter remaining under one form, but subject to transformation. And though the natural power cannot trans.m.u.te other than determinate matter to a determinate form; nevertheless the Divine power, which is infinite, can trans.m.u.te all matter to any form whatsoever. Consequently, just as it trans.m.u.ted the slime of the earth into Adam's body, so could it trans.m.u.te the matter supplied by His Mother into Christ's body, even though it were not the sufficient matter for a natural conception.

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SECOND ARTICLE [III, Q. 28, Art. 2]

Whether Christ's Mother Was a Virgin in His Birth?

Objection 1: It would seem that Christ's Mother was not a virgin in His Birth. For Ambrose says on Luke 2:23: ”He who sanctified a strange womb, for the birth of a prophet, He it is who opened His Mother's womb, that He might go forth unspotted.” But opening of the womb excludes virginity. Therefore Christ's Mother was not a virgin in His Birth.

Obj. 2: Further, nothing should have taken place in the mystery of Christ, which would make His body to seem unreal. Now it seems to pertain not to a true but to an unreal body, to be able to go through a closed pa.s.sage; since two bodies cannot be in one place at the same time. It was therefore unfitting that Christ's body should come forth from His Mother's closed womb: and consequently that she should remain a virgin in giving birth to Him.

Obj. 3: Further, as Gregory says in the Homily for the octave of Easter [*xxvi in Evang.], that by entering after His Resurrection where the disciples were gathered, the doors being shut, our Lord ”showed that His body was the same in nature but differed in glory”: so that it seems that to go through a closed pa.s.sage pertains to a glorified body. But Christ's body was not glorified in its conception, but was pa.s.sible, having ”the likeness of sinful flesh,”

as the Apostle says (Rom. 8:3). Therefore He did not come forth through the closed womb of the Virgin.

_On the contrary,_ In a sermon of the Council of Ephesus (P. III, Cap. ix) it is said: ”After giving birth, nature knows not a virgin: but grace enhances her fruitfulness, and effects her motherhood, while in no way does it injure her virginity.” Therefore Christ's Mother was a virgin also in giving birth to Him.

_I answer that,_ Without any doubt whatever we must a.s.sert that the Mother of Christ was a virgin even in His Birth: for the prophet says not only: ”Behold a virgin shall conceive,” but adds: ”and shall bear a son.” This indeed was befitting for three reasons. First, because this was in keeping with a property of Him whose Birth is in question, for He is the Word of G.o.d. For the word is not only conceived in the mind without corruption, but also proceeds from the mind without corruption. Wherefore in order to show that body to be the body of the very Word of G.o.d, it was fitting that it should be born of a virgin incorrupt. Whence in the sermon of the Council of Ephesus (quoted above) we read: ”Whosoever brings forth mere flesh, ceases to be a virgin. But since she gave birth to the Word made flesh, G.o.d safeguarded her virginity so as to manifest His Word, by which Word He thus manifested Himself: for neither does our word, when brought forth, corrupt the mind; nor does G.o.d, the substantial Word, deigning to be born, destroy virginity.”

Secondly, this is fitting as regards the effect of Christ's Incarnation: since He came for this purpose, that He might take away our corruption. Wherefore it is unfitting that in His Birth He should corrupt His Mother's virginity. Thus Augustine says in a sermon on the Nativity of Our Lord: ”It was not right that He who came to heal corruption, should by His advent violate integrity.”

Thirdly, it was fitting that He Who commanded us to honor our father and mother should not in His Birth lessen the honor due to His Mother.

Reply Obj. 1: Ambrose says this in expounding the evangelist's quotation from the Law: ”Every male opening the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.” This, says Bede, ”is said in regard to the wonted manner of birth; not that we are to believe that our Lord in coming forth violated the abode of her sacred womb, which His entrance therein had hallowed.” Wherefore the opening here spoken of does not imply the unlocking of the enclosure of virginal purity; but the mere coming forth of the infant from the maternal womb.