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Objection 1: It would seem that Christ's Mother was not a virgin
in His Birth. For Ambrose says on Lk. 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.
Objection 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 passage; 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.
Objection 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 passage pertains
to a glorified body. But Christ's body was not glorified in its
conception, but was passible, having "the likeness of sinful
flesh," as the Apostle says (Rm. 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 assert 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 God. 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 God, 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, God 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 God, 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 to Objection 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.
Reply to Objection 2: Christ wished so to show the reality of His
body, as to manifest His Godhead at the same time. For this reason
He mingled wondrous with lowly things. Wherefore, to show that His
body was real, He was born of a woman. But in order to manifest His
Godhead, He was born of a virgin, for "such a Birth befits a
God," as Ambrose says in the Christmas hymn.
Reply to Objection 3: Some have held that Christ, in His
Birth, assumed the gift of "subtlety," when He came forth from the
closed womb of a virgin; and that He assumed the gift of "agility"
when with dry feet He walked on the sea. But this is not consistent
with what has been decided above (Question 14). For these gifts
of a glorified body result from an overflow of the soul's glory on to
the body, as we shall explain further on, in treating of glorified
bodies (XP, Question 82): and it has been said above
(Question 13, Article 3, ad 1; Question 16, Article 1,
ad 2) that before His Passion Christ "allowed His flesh to do and
to suffer what was proper to it" (Damascene, De Fide Orth.
iii): nor was there such an overflow of glory from His soul on to
His body.
We must therefore say that all these things took place miraculously by
Divine power. Whence Augustine says (Sup. Joan. Tract.
121): "To the substance of a body in which was the Godhead
closed doors were no obstacle. For truly He had power to enter in by
doors not open, in Whose Birth His Mother's virginity remained
inviolate." And Dionysius says in an epistle (Ad Caium iv) that
"Christ excelled man in doing that which is proper to man: this is
shown in His supernatural conception, of a virgin, and in the
unstable waters bearing the weight of earthly feet."
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