9. For often by means of these members of our bodies, God illustrates for us the method of His own operations, enlightening our intelligence by using terms commonly understood: as when He says, Whose hands created all the host of heaven806    Hos. xiii. 4, according to LXX.; or again, The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous807    Ps. xxxiv. 15.; or again, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart808    Acts xiii. 22; cf. Ps. lxxxix. 20.. Now by the heart is denoted the desire, to which David was well-pleasing through the uprightness of his character; and knowledge of the whole universe, whereby nothing is beyond God’s ken, is expressed under the term ‘eyes;’ and His creative activity, whereby nothing exists which is not of God, is understood by the name of ‘hands.’ Therefore as God wills and foresees and does everything, and even in the use of terms denoting bodily action must be understood to have no need of the assistance of a body; surely, now, in the statement that He begat from the womb, the idea is brought forward not of a human origin produced by a bodily act, but of a birth which must be understood as spiritual, since in the other cases where members are spoken of, this is done to represent to us other active powers in God.

9. Per membra nostri corporis significantur operationes Dei.---Plerumque enim per haec nostrorum corporum membra, operationum suarum nobis Deus momenta significans, sensum nostrum usu intelligentiae communis edocuit, cum ait: Cujus manus creaverunt omnem militiam coeli (Oseae, XIII, 4); vel iterum, Oculi Domini super justos (Psal. XXXIII, 16); vel rursum, Inveni David filium Jesse virum secundum cor meum (Act. XIII, 22). Cum enim et voluntas significetur in corde, per quam David morum probitate complacuit, et cognitio universitatis qua extra scientiam Dei nihil sit, sub oculorum vocabulo enuntietur, et operum efficientia, quia nihil non ex Deo 0439B sit, per nomen manuum intelligatur: volens et providens et agens Deus cuncta, sub significatione causarum corporalium intelligendus sine ministerio corporali, quomodo 414 jam in eo, quod ex utero genuit, non per causam corporalem humanae originis; intelligendae etiam spiritalis nativitatis sensus affertur; cum per caeteras membrorum significationes, caeterarum quoque in Deo efficientiarum demonstretur effectus?