But it was, as the prophets also predicted, from a virgin that there was
to be born, according to the promised sign, one who was to give His name
to the fact, showing that at His birth God was to be with man. Now it
seems to me appropriate to the character of a Jew to have quoted the
prophecy of Isaiah, which says that Emmanuel was to be born of a virgin.
This, however, Celsus, who professes to know everything, has not done,
either from ignorance or from an unwillingness (if he had read it and
voluntarily passed it by in silence) to furnish an argument which might
defeat his purpose. And the prediction runs thus: “And the Lord spake
again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it
either in the depth or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not
ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. And he said, Hear ye now, O house of
David; is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my
God also? Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a
virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel,
which is, being interpreted, God with us.”[1173] And that it was from
intentional malice that Celsus did not quote this prophecy, is clear to
me from this, that although he makes numerous quotations from the Gospel
according to Matthew, as of the star that appeared at the birth of
Christ, and other miraculous occurrences, he has made no mention at all
of this. Now, if a Jew should split words, and say that the words are
not, “Lo, a virgin,” but, “Lo, a young woman,”[1174] we reply that the
word “Olmah”—which the Septuagint have rendered by “a virgin,” and
others by “a young woman”—occurs, as they say, in Deuteronomy, as
applied to a “virgin,” in the following connection: “If a damsel that is
a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city,
and lie with her; then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of
that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the
damsel,[1175] because she cried not, being in the city; and the man,
because he humbled his neighbour’s wife.”[1176] And again: “But if a man
find a betrothed damsel in a field, and the man force her, and lie with
her: then the man only that lay with her shall die: but unto the
damsel[1177] ye shall do nothing; there is in her no sin worthy of
death.”
Footnote 1173:
Cf. Isa. vii. 10-14 with Matt. i. 23.
Footnote 1174:
νεᾶνις.
Footnote 1175:
νεᾶνιν.
Footnote 1176:
Cf. Deut. xxii. 23, 24.
Footnote 1177:
τῇ νεάνιδι.