Whether the Mother of God Was a Virgin in Conceiving Christ?
Objection 1: It would seem that the Mother of God was not a virgin in
conceiving Christ. For no child having father and mother is conceived
by a virgin mother. But Christ is said to have had not only a mother,
but also a father, according to Luke 2:33: "His father and mother
were wondering at those things which were spoken concerning Him": and
further on (Luke 2:48) in the same chapter she says: "Behold I and
Thy father [Vulg.: 'Thy father and I'] have sought Thee sorrowing."
Therefore Christ was not conceived of a virgin mother.
Obj. 2: Further (Matt. 1) it is proved that Christ was the Son of
Abraham and David, through Joseph being descended from David. But
this proof would have availed nothing if Joseph were not the father
of Christ. Therefore it seems that Christ's Mother conceived Him of
the seed of Joseph; and consequently that she was not a virgin in
conceiving Him.
Obj. 3: Further, it is written (Gal. 4:4): "God sent His Son, made of
a woman." But according to the customary mode of speaking, the term
"woman" applies to one who is known of a man. Therefore Christ was
not conceived by a virgin mother.
Obj. 4: Further, things of the same species have the same mode of
generation: since generation is specified by its terminus just as are
other motions. But Christ belonged to the same species as other men,
according to Phil. 2:7: "Being made in the likeness of men, and in
habit found as a man." Since therefore other men are begotten of the
mingling of male and female, it seems that Christ was begotten in the
same manner; and that consequently He was not conceived of a virgin
mother.
Obj. 5: Further, every natural form has its determinate matter,
outside which it cannot be. But the matter of human form appears to
be the semen of male and female. If therefore Christ's body was not
conceived of the semen of male and female, it would not have been
truly a human body; which cannot be asserted. It seems therefore that
He was not conceived of a virgin mother.
_On the contrary,_ It is written (Isa. 7:14): "Behold a virgin shall
conceive."
_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 sexes.
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 God, it was
not fitting that He should have another father than God: lest the
dignity belonging to God be transferred to another.
Secondly, this was befitting to a property of the Son Himself, Who is
sent. For He is the Word of God: 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
assumed by the Word of God, as to be the flesh of the Word of God, 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 God" (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 sexual 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 God, "not of the
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13),
i.e. of the power of God, 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 sex, 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 passage, 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 sex 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 God 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 transmute other than determinate matter to a
determinate form; nevertheless the Divine power, which is infinite,
can transmute all matter to any form whatsoever. Consequently, just
as it transmuted the slime of the earth into Adam's body, so could it
transmute 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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