Finally, the angel too did not rebuke her for unbelief, as he did in the case of Zacharias, but instructed her concerning the newness of the divine working, saying: 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee' (Luke 1). Behold that seed of the woman, which was not to be poured into the womb through the succession of generative offices by the intermingling of the two sexes, but was to be found in the womb of an undeflowered virgin, her cloister remaining closed. And so the prophet, while promising in a new word a thing new and full of miracle, sets it forth: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son' (Isa. 7). Assuredly, day by day, in the necessity of begetting, we both see and hear; yet of none is it said, 'she conceived in the womb.'
For the substance of the man that is to be, poured forth through the man, grows together in the woman, and the womb of the woman is not the origin of the man about to be born, but the nourishment of that which is deposited there. But Mary conceived in the womb not so much as the first, but as the only one to do so; and the unimpaired state of her modesty brought forth a conception of the womb without loss of virginity — she who alone bore for us that which she did not receive from us, as the Lord says: 'Ye are from beneath, I am from above' (John 8). She who alone is a mother to her son, though she be a virgin to her husband; whose conceiving her virginity did not know, yet the birth acknowledged; who alone is called a woman not by conceiving, but by bearing.
From her, then, was promised the seed of the woman, who according to His manhood is the Lord our God, who was not poured into the womb but found there, as the evangelist confirms when he says of Mary: 'She was found with child in the womb' (Matt. 1). Behold, that which had been announced does not depart from the very word of the preceding prophet: 'A virgin shall conceive in the womb'; but even in the newness of the mystery it agrees with the like sense of the wording, and by that same style is the history of the deed set down by which it foretold what was to be done. And the prophet Isaiah says: 'A virgin shall conceive in the womb'; Matthew reports: 'She was found with child in the womb' (ibid.).
The effect answers to the very word of the promise, in that the evangelist speaks no otherwise than the seer, nor is he thrown into confusion by any difficulty of finding words to express the newness of the deed. Where are the grammarians? Where are the counsellors? What school produced these men, that they should speak beyond common usage? What master showed forth so openly the newness of a doctrine thus sealed? They do not declare by human sense that which they speak, because it is no human work. And yet a thing new and never before done they so note that thou mayest understand that, together with the marvellous deed, marvellous also was the word begotten. Let us then go back over the holy women of the patriarchs, and see whether it is so written of any of them. We read of Sarah: 'And the Lord visited Sarah, as He had said.'
'And God did unto Sarah as He had spoken to her, and she conceived and bore Abraham a son' (Gen. 21). In the case of Isaac, the divine favor is shown by these words: 'And God heard him, and Rebecca his wife conceived' (Gen. 25). Then likewise it is set down of the wives of Jacob: 'And Leah conceived, and bore Jacob a son' (Gen. 29), and so forth. Of none of these, assuredly, is it written 'she conceived in the womb,' though whatever they conceived they could not conceive outside the womb; but because they knew themselves to conceive from the embrace of a man, to whom conception did not come with virginity preserved; whereas Mary alone conceived in the womb, when, with the seminal entrance unopened and the womb closed, she conceived.
To the seed of this conception, if we reason rightly and handle the divine things inwardly, there went before in figure, for its time, that sentence which bound the firstborn with blessings or with obligations, the Lord saying: 'Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord' (Exod. 13). But what is this 'male that openeth the womb,' since it is not the necessity of childbearing that opens the wombs of all women, but the marital act of knowing? Indeed, no one is called a virgin after her husband — a name which seems fitting to the mysteries yet to come. And above we have shown that the Scripture says of Rachel: 'And God heard her, and opened her womb, and she conceived.' Certainly it did not first say 'she conceived,' and afterward 'He opened her womb';
but it first opened it: that is to say, so that the husband, the doors of the womb having been opened, might enter like one about to sow a ploughed field with seed. Then it adds, 'and she conceived.' And so it was not by the bringing forth, but by the conceiving; nay rather, the conception was disclosed; and it designated not the one to be born as he is being born, but him who was to sow the one about to be born. And if the womb was unbarred even before the conception — indeed, in order that she might conceive — assuredly he who was born could not for long unbar it, since he is said to be about to be born who could not even be conceived while she was closed: 'Every male,' it says, 'that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord' (Luke 2). What is this reasoning, which does not seem even according to the plain sense to be fulfilled?
Jacob fraudulently seizes the place of his firstborn brother, yet is neither hindered by the order of birth nor condemned for his craftiness. The sons of Joseph are marked by their grandfather with a blessing preposterous as to the degree of birth; yet it was not blindness in the one who foresaw, nor did the son who warned bend the right hand of his parent, which was watering the younger with the juice of a richer blessing. All of which things are surely contrary to reason, if we suppose that of these it was said, 'Every male that openeth the womb' — those who are born first from women by the seed of a man. But because that sentence holds another meaning within, therefore these firstfruits of this kind give way and lose their blessings.
Jesse's son David, neither first, nor second, nor third, but last of all, is anointed by the prophet, and though the most contemptible of them all, is chosen to be king. Nor does the sentence of the law promulgated concerning the firstfruits flatter that first or second son against David; for surely it would have judged the greatest of them, had it judged that by these the wombs of their mothers were opened: whereas, in whom or in what case do we say it was fulfilled — that which surely could not but be fulfilled? Who is she whose womb the offspring, not the husband, unbars? What virgin conceives who did not cease to be a virgin in order to conceive? Certainly not she of whom Scripture says: 'Adam knew his wife, and she bore him a son' (Gen. 4); but she of whom the evangelist marks:
'And Joseph knew her not, until she had brought forth a son' (Matt. 1). Therefore in Mary this was without doubt perfected: whose womb no deflowering of virginity unbarred, but the birth poured forth — she who as a virgin bore, who as a virgin conceived, who was made a mother before she was made a wife. From her went forth that male which was truly to be called holy; and he unbarred the womb as a birth brought out according to promise, not according to common custom and nature when it is conceived by the seed of a man. CHAP. VI. — But since we cannot swiftly unfold the rich meanings of God, so great being the movements of the Scriptures that array themselves against a single point, so that it is easier to be wearied than to escape:
since all Scripture is a single track of all its meanings, which who shall be strong enough to run along in human speech — no, not even if the Spirit should ascribe angelic wings to the tongues of mortals — it is fitting to return to our purpose, and with a little vessel not to spread sails toward the deep, lest daring should run into peril, but, for the solace of our weakness, to sail within sight of the shore, so that if any fear should arise, there may at least be hope that what is seen can easily be laid hold of. We were saying that the seed of the woman is the holy Lord, because according to the flesh He would have no man for a father, and that He is already hostile to the serpent, whom the Spirit of God, not a material moisture, had begotten in the virgin's womb. Then that which follows brings forth from the virgin an effect greater than from a man:
'She herself shall bruise thy head' (Gen. 3). Who doubts that, save our Lord, no one has trodden upon the head of the serpent? For He alone has walked upon dragons and scorpions; He Himself has led captivity captive: 'and thou shalt bruise His heel' — to what other do we believe this to pertain? The heel indeed is the extreme part of the footstep. And the Lord, after the baptism of John, after the fast of forty days, when He is tempted by the same serpent, as victor over that third piece of craft cries out: 'Get thee behind me, Satan' (Matt. 4). What else does He command but that Satan, being placed or cast behind, should watch His heel?
These things I said above, and the discourse itself has led us thence to this: that the inner man, when he thinks not of this world but above this very world, seems to live with that Maker of things as with his own, as David says, 'Blessed are they that search out His testimonies' (Ps. 118) — so that it is almost this, if it be lawful to say it, to become God: to meditate on divine things; and that He, our Lord, already then made known the mystery of our salvation; whence in the Psalms He says: 'In the head of the book it is written of me' (Ps. 39). The head of the book is the beginning of Genesis, since all Scripture is one book, and one is He of whom it is written, God; and thus we see the promise concerning Him to be even at the very head, and the head of our life is hope, and therefore in the head of the book was made, through God, the vital hope.
Him, I say — that Founder, as we have often said — now that the world grows old, He has bestowed what He had promised in the first age of the world. Whence the prophet says: 'Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me' (Ps. 22). The rod is the mother of the Lord, from which came forth that staff which should sustain the world now wearied with age. Him, therefore, having glided down into the virgin's womb — that we may weave anew the whole history of our redemption — He showed Himself made man by birth on behalf of man, and made His own creature out of the Creator. He took the form of a servant, but emptied Himself by the will of His power, not by the nature of His deity, whereby He could not but be what He had been. He earned curses in place of saving miracles.
Him it was who endured the spittle, the wounds, the crown of thorns, and at the last the cross; who penetrated the nether places, who on the third day rose again into that body which had been fixed to the cross; who, a man after death, God the living, sought heaven as victor, to sit at the right hand of God, to come in His own time to hold judgment; who is celebrated by the Spirit of God through the mouths of His saints. To have thought upon these things is to have lived; this thinking is the food of the soul; to slip back or run back into these things is to be joined with the Lord; and through these to be humbled with Him is to suffer with Him, to die with Him, and with Him also to be raised up. What shall I say of the resurrection itself, in which, though we be mocked by the heathen, we are not separated from Christ?
although even many who call themselves Christians exclude the resurrection of the flesh. But let those be without a body to whom perchance it is granted — if it be lawful to say so — to be presented to the Lord otherwise than the Lord Himself returned to the Father; but let us believe, and speak, as we do. CHAP. VII. — What, I ask, is more joyful than this thought? What could be more uplifting than this, or ought more firmly to cling and be fixed in our souls, than that we, one day, when we depart from here, shall return to our bodies; and that the separation of soul and body meanwhile does not so work that we should be nothing at all, but that we may be reformed into something better through the Spirit of God, since we have already received here that the Lord has promised us this pledge?
And this body, which in its own nature is perishable, and deservedly weighed down by reason of the former transgression, and is borne by the divine curse 'shall go to the earth' (Gen. 3); this same body again, after long ages — that is, in the end of the ages, when it shall be the smallest particle of ash, or perhaps none at all — shall be raised from that same earth which corrupts it into nothing (since the earth itself is to be delivered from the bondage of corruption), into the whole soundness of its members, and shall be renewed into a state of beauty and comeliness. Whom would such a thought not delight, together with wonder?
The remains, I say, of our bodies — whether none at all, or at most the smallest and least, yet foul, and never beheld by the mind without horror — shall be recompacted again into their own man: not that, as the lying and raving Pythagoras would have it believed, one should exist in a Euphorbus, but into one's own proper body and name, through bones and sinews, through veins, through all the vital parts, yea even joint by joint. And this is no narrow thing, since the seeds of all crops or plants return in the grass greater and fairer than they were sown in the earth by men, or fell of their own accord. Who would not rejoice, so to speak, to be sown in the earth, which gives us back better than it had received us, as the Apostle says:
'The resurrection of the dead: it is sown in corruption, but it shall rise in incorruption' (1 Cor. 15). What possession of present things could be compared to this hope? Or what else could there be that would lift a man to a contempt of death, than this meditation, unfolded by divine promises and by the voices of the prophets? What such thing had Cleombrotus of Ambracia learned in the book of Plato's disputing — he who did not fear to be his own murderer, and hurled himself from a very high wall, supposing both that there was no judgment after death, and that all souls, without any distinction of merits, were borne equally to heaven after they left the body?
This error so many held for truth, and one such cloud of this delusion enveloped all those wise men of the age, that even that so praiseworthy teacher (as they think), Socrates, killed himself privately as his own murderer, that he might not be publicly put to death. Far otherwise had the blessed Apostle premeditated and thought — he who had received what he taught 'not from men, but through the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ' (Gal. 1), being covered not by the dark shades of a leafy Academy, but illumined by heavenly light; nor imbued in some grammarian's school among gaping little boys, but in the third heaven among the flashing angels; and in contempt of the present life he cries out: 'For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain' (Phil. 1).
Assuredly he seeks not a wall from which to hurl himself to death, but Christ the Lord, through whom this mortal may be swallowed up by immortality. For he understands that it is gain for him to die, whose life to come is with Christ. But without the Lord nothing profits, even if a man should gain the whole world, but would suffer the loss of his own soul. He believed, therefore, manfully, that vessel of election, that through Christ our Lord he would be borne from this earth — which never returns what it receives without interest, but sometimes with a smaller, most often with a greater increase, as thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold, the Lord Himself in the Gospel so reading the seeds He had planted — from which earth also comes the truth which Pilate knew not, which none of the princes of this age saw:
'For had they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory' (1 Cor. 2). From this earth, I say, the Apostle declares that he, transformed, would return into shining members conformed to the body of the Lord's brightness; and Wisdom too promises this through Solomon, when it says: 'They shall shine forth, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds' (Wisd. 3). And therefore into this word — 'For me to live is Christ' (Phil. 1) — he securely burst out, in which assuredly what things had been merits shall be victors; but those who were far off, as they knew Him not, so also shall they not be known. Now, if it seem good, let us inquire what that Solomonic sentence promised: 'The just shall shine forth, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds.'
What means it, that to those to whom the brightness of flames is granted, so lowly and abject a place is offered wherein to run to and fro; so that they should seem to shrink by the meanness of the place, who had grown by the light of their bodies? What means it, I say, that likened to the stars they shall flit through the reeds, and in the form of a starry splendor shall pass through the most wretched stalks of the earth: when splendors and reed-beds are joined together far incongruously — either splendors to reed-beds, or reed-beds to splendors? Mark, I pray thee, the words of the divine mystery: for which, as He has no care for oxen, so neither has He care for a reed-bed. Or what do reed-beds do at the resurrection, save that He labors to show us through the forms of all things, whether of cattle or of plants; and through this, as the Apostle says, all things were written for our sakes (Rom. 4)?
Understand that through the images of the reed-bed are shown unfaithful and unbelieving men, and their bodies pleasing on the surface but inwardly empty of virtues; which, as soon as the spirit of vanity has inflated them, imitate the hissings of the serpent, and, instead of sound offspring, yield the brood of vipers. 'Sparks,' it says, 'among the reeds.' The saints, therefore, are among sinners, since not all flesh is the same flesh. 'Among the reeds,' it says — that is, bodies empty of light, and to be burned by another's brightness, for whom the coming brightness of the saints is as a punishment: for God is a consuming fire, and the just shall come into the image of the Deity. 'For God made man; He made him after His own image' (Gen. 1); and the Apostle testifies that he believes
that man shall of necessity be like unto Him. For if he was like unto God when he was made, he shall also be like unto Him when he rises again: since whatever now appears in us unlike our Author is all stamped by the fault of transgression; and the craftsman of lies, with his scrofulous needle, has deformed the living form of the truth, and has inscribed his own depravity even upon our members, while he has corrupted our minds; which things, ill added or diminished, shall through the glory of the resurrection be washed away, and that alone shall shine forth which renders back the Author of things as in a mirror: so that the falsifier may grieve that he has lost his work, and man may at last glory that he is made whole. Yet not all, as we have already said, but only the just, shall be in the light.
For 'we shall all indeed rise again, but we shall not all be changed' (1 Cor. 15); for the diversity of merits shall make a distinction of persons. For even if among the saints themselves there shall be some difference as to their working, the Apostle saying, 'star differeth from star in glory' (1 Cor. 15) — what diversity shall we feel concerning the impious or concerning sinners, of whom some rise in the judgment, others in the council of the saints? And if at the very time of the resurrection they are separated, what shall we say concerning their raiment and form? Which, as it seems to me, shall be found not in any woven garment, nor wrought by the spinning of women, but in their own merits and prayers: the blessed John showing this in the Revelation, who says he saw the saints clothed in fine linen (Rev.
(Rev. 19). And lest perchance under 'fine linen' we should seek warps and woofs and material, or should suppose that something corruptible and fleeting is wrought in the heavenly places, he added: 'the fine linen is the justifications of the saints.' Then, therefore, as I understand it, there shall come upon the surface of our body those things which now are covered beneath the body. Then to each one — wretched me! — his own conscience shall become a garment. Then those things which have been built up by each upon that foundation, than which no other can be laid (1 Cor. 3), shall stand forth pre-eminent, so that either he who has set up things that shall abide may receive a reward, or he who has built things that shall burn may suffer loss. Now why should I call to mind those things which follow, which wholly belong to the saints?
Flesh without earth, body without the sense of pain, soul without fear, life without end, an age without time, light without night, blessedness without end? I behold a man, and in the man God: 'For God shall be all in all' (1 Cor. 15). All that now is discerned as impossible to man, shall then be done through the bounty of the eternal King: to veil and to reveal, to melt away and to make solid again, and Himself to become such that both the disciples did not perceive Him, being solid and corporeal, entering through walls and doors, and yet they all beheld Him standing within before them. And all that the Spirit of God cherished without this body, the body together with the Spirit of God shall bring to pass. Christianity cannot be sated with the delight of these knowings.
This is that rest of theirs, this their delight, this their pleasure, these their delicacies: to go in mind into the seat of God, and there to claim for themselves a place and a portion of the seat, not by their own presumption, but by the promise of the Divinity. Nor does this seem hard to them, since already there, in Christ the Lord, one recognizes his own manhood. He claims for himself an equal right of kinship, through God, to the flesh that was assumed: since we are of His flesh and of His bones. For He is the head of the body, the Church; He is the beginning of all rule and of powers, as the Apostle preaches: 'from whom the whole body, thus compacted and produced through its connection, and knit together, groweth unto the increase of God' (Col. 2). What then shall I say of the judgment to come;
and of the day of the Lord, desirable to the godly, and to be fled by the impious; what shall I say of that fiery deluge — not of waters — the earth smoking, the sea fleeing, the heaven folded together into the likeness of a book? These things are grievous to the rich of this world, but to be awaited by the poor of Christ, on whose behalf the Lord sighs in the Psalm, saying: 'Because of the misery of the needy, and the groaning of the poor, now will I arise' (Ps. 11). What shall I say of that tribunal, immeasurable through the majesty of the Judge, and to be adored upon twelve thrones, and of so great a power given by the Son, that in judging they should have even the substances of angels, as though addicted to their creator, the Apostle saying: 'Know ye not that we shall judge even angels?' (1 Cor. 6)
And what shall there be that would not be believed to be delivered up to those to whom even that spiritual nature of wickednesses is to be made subject? What then shall they do, who now glory in honors, who through terrible prefectures and fasces and everlasting (as they think) consulships, strive to compare themselves to God by robbery, not by nature? What shall he do who joins house to house?
who, having thrown a city into confusion, and broken through all the boundaries by which it was hemmed in on every side, leaping over mountains, rivers, and seas, wishes — so far as in him lies — that there be one possession, which is the common earth of all; and, exceeding by insatiable greed the breadth of the immense world, is diffused into the anxiety of Alexander of Macedon and into the innumerable worlds of the Epicureans; and, the confines of this world having been acquired through avidity, believing there is another, is inflamed — the possibility of his own body not being reckoned — supposing that he shall suffer a loss of right if he lend no credence to his own frenzy?
What shall these do, who — as though correctors of morals — tear at and harass the Lord's household, which lives more attentively and more strictly, whether in garments of humble color, or in the dry frugality of its food, or in the not idle sobriety of its vigils, as though it were made delicate by softer clothing, or fattened by more abundant feastings, or drowsing upon warmer couches — not knowing that in the holy martyrs and confessors of God the very apple of His eye is struck? They shall perish without doubt; in that day all their thoughts shall perish; nor at that tribunal shall either Lucius Crassus defend them, or Mark Antony, or Tullius more eloquent than these:
since then every tongue of this age shall be struck dumb, and eloquent alone shall be justice in its own rustics — that justice which made the mouths of infants fluent, and loosed the tongues of the dumb into a new song, and acquired for itself, through its own mercy, a heavenly harmony from its own little sheep. To celebrate whose glory, even if the zeal of men should cease, the stones stand condemned to the confusion of the human race. But I have digressed from the matter proposed, as one about to rebuke the wickedness of mortals. And, as a public accuser of a uniform evil, against worldly vices, while I pity some, I have not spared them. And yet, even were it the time for judging, I would not dare to cast a stone upon the adulterer;
even if the authority of a purer conscience should arm me for the judgment of the innocent, yet I ought to await the time, the Apostle teaching, who did not take away judgment from the saints, but deferred it. For he says: 'Judge nothing before the time' (1 Cor. 4). He intimates that time of the resurrection is to be awaited, when through the glory of incorruption the revived flesh shall stand, worthy of judgment, its constancy already abiding from eternity, while the terror of the fall stands by: it shall not then tremble to bear sentence upon another, when it has deserved to be secure concerning itself. But now all things are doubtful, all things tottering, the Apostle saying: 'Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted' (Gal. 6) — thou who, ignorant of thine own state, wouldest easily judge another concerning his ruin.
What if thou shouldest give confidence to the wretched, as God gives to the blessed? Let us rather praise the rewards of the saints — that is, the true rewards — than be branded, whether for our conscience or for our timing, as improvident or unseasonable. CHAP. VIII. — Let us return, then, to those most noble and most joyful thoughts of the saints; for nothing is more joyful than for a mortal to meditate upon the inheritance promised to him. Let us set before our eyes that man of whom we have spoken, since it is safer to celebrate true things than to blame things pitiable — although things truly happy cannot be told without the unhappiness of sinners. Let us behold, then, as we have determined, the saints of God flitting everywhere with their torches, and with right hands flashing for vengeance, drawing their two-edged swords.
For this is the glory of the saints of God; this, in this world a despicable warfare; this, scattered abroad on the tongues of all in disparagements. This, then, shall be the fruit of our patience; this the reward of our endurance. These the rewards, in place of the name of blasphemers: to have subject to itself every proud soul, and every man that exalteth himself; the once most powerful kings of the world, adored throughout the whole earth, to be set with iron manacles and fetters, and their nobles bearing the weights of huge chains upon neck and shoulders before the splendor of that august tribunal, to be presented to those whom they once despised, looked down upon, and mocked. For the lot being changed, so that this age belongs to the sumptuous, one may believe the age to come belongs to the wretched.