{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030575.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030575.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030575.htm","text":"Chapter XX.\u2014Christ Born of a Virgin, of Her Substance. The Physiological Facts of His Real and Exact Birth of a Human Mother, as Suggested by Certain Passages of Scripture.\nBut to what shifts you resort, in your attempt to rob the syllable ex (of) 7211 of its proper force as a preposition, and to substitute another for it in a sense not found throughout the Holy Scriptures! You say that He was born through 7212 a virgin, not of 7213 a virgin, and in a womb, not of a womb, because the angel in the dream said to Joseph, \u201cThat which is born in her\u201d (not of her) \u201cis of the Holy Ghost.\u201d 7214 But the fact is, if he had meant \u201cof her,\u201d he must have said \u201cin her;\u201d for that which was of her, was also in her. The angel\u2019s expression, therefore, \u201cin her,\u201d has precisely the same meaning as the phrase \u201cof her.\u201d It is, however, a fortunate circumstance that Matthew also, when tracing down the Lord\u2019s descent from Abraham to Mary, says, \u201cJacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Christ.\u201d 7215 But Paul, too, silences these critics 7216 when he says, \u201cGod sent forth His Son, made of a woman.\u201d 7217 Does he mean through a woman, or in a woman? Nay more, for the sake of greater emphasis, he uses the word \u201cmade\u201d rather than born, although the use of the latter expression would have been simpler. But by saying \u201cmade,\u201d he not only confirmed the statement, \u201cThe Word was made flesh,\u201d 7218 but he also asserted the reality of the flesh which was made of a virgin. We shall have also the support of the Psalms on this point, not the \u201cPsalms\u201d indeed of Valentinus the apostate, and heretic, and Platonist, but the Psalms of David, the most illustrious saint and well-known prophet. He sings to us of Christ, and through his voice Christ indeed also sang concerning Himself. Hear, then, Christ the Lord speaking to God the Father: \u201cThou art He that didst draw 7219 me out of my p. 539 mother\u2019s womb.\u201d 7220 Here is the first point. \u201cThou art my hope from my mother\u2019s breasts; upon Thee have I been cast from the womb.\u201d 7221 Here is another point. \u201cThou art my God from my mother\u2019s belly.\u201d 7222 Here is a third point. Now let us carefully attend to the sense of these passages. \u201cThou didst draw me,\u201d He says, \u201cout of the womb.\u201d Now what is it which is drawn, if it be not that which adheres, that which is firmly fastened to anything from which it is drawn in order to be sundered? If He clove not to the womb, how could He have been drawn from it? If He who clove thereto was drawn from it, how could He have adhered to it, if it were not that, all the while He was in the womb, He was tied to it, as to His origin, 7223 by the umbilical cord, which communicated growth to Him from the matrix? Even when one strange matter amalgamates with another, it becomes so entirely incorporated 7224 with that with which it amalgamates, that when it is drawn off from it, it carries with it some part of the body from which it is torn, as if in consequence of the severance of the union and growth which the constituent pieces had communicated to each other. But what were His \u201cmother\u2019s breasts\u201d which He mentions? No doubt they were those which He sucked. Midwives, and doctors, and naturalists, can tell us, from the nature of women\u2019s breasts, whether they usually flow at any other time than when the womb is affected with pregnancy, when the veins convey therefrom the blood of the lower parts 7225 to the mamilla, and in the act of transference convert the secretion into the nutritious 7226 substance of milk. Whence it comes to pass that during the period of lactation the monthly issues are suspended. But if the Word was made flesh of Himself without any communication with a womb, no mother\u2019s womb operating upon Him with its usual function and support, how could the lacteal fountain have been conveyed (from the womb) to the breasts, since (the womb) can only effect the change by actual possession of the proper substance? But it could not possibly have had blood for transformation into milk, unless it possessed the causes of blood also, that is to say, the severance (by birth) 7227 of its own flesh from the mother\u2019s womb. Now it is easy to see what was the novelty of Christ\u2019s being born of a virgin. It was simply this, that (He was born) of a virgin in the real manner which we have indicated, in order that our regeneration might have virginal purity,\u2014spiritually cleansed from all pollutions through Christ, who was Himself a virgin, even in the flesh, in that He was born of a virgin\u2019s flesh.\nIndicating the material or ingredient, \u201cout of.\u201d\n538:7212 538:7213 538:7214 538:7215 538:7216 538:7217 538:7218 538:7219 539:7220 539:7221 539:7222 539:7223 539:7224\nConcarnatus et convisceratus: \u201cunited in flesh and internal structure.\u201d\n539:7225\nSentinam illam inferni sanguinis.\n539:7226 539:7227","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: Christ...","type":"page"}