Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

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 , 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."

Articulus 2

Argumentum 1

Ad secundum sic proceditur. Videtur quod mater christi non fuerit virgo in partu.

Dicit enim Ambrosius, super Luc., qui vulvam sanctificavit alienam ut nasceretur propheta, hic est qui aperuit matris suae vulvam ut immaculatus exiret.

Sed apertio vulvae virginitatem excludit. Ergo mater christi non fuit virgo in partu.

Argumentum 2

Praeterea, nihil in mysterio christi esse debuit per quod corpus eius phantasticum appareret. Sed hoc non videtur vero corpori, sed phantastico convenire, ut possit per clausa transire, eo quod duo corpora simul esse non possunt.

Non igitur debuit ex matris utero clauso corpus christi prodire. Et ita non decuit quod esset virgo in partu.

Argumentum 3

Praeterea, sicut Gregorius dicit, in homilia octavarum Paschae, per hoc quod, ianuis clausis, ad discipulos post resurrectionem intravit dominus, ostendit corpus suum esse eiusdem naturae et alterius gloriae, et sic per clausa transire videtur ad gloriam corporis pertinere. Sed corpus christi in sua conceptione non fuit gloriosum, sed passibile, habens similitudinem carnis peccati, ut apostolus dicit, Rom. VIII.

Non ergo exivit per virginis uterum clausum.

Sed Contra

Sed contra est quod in quodam sermone ephesini Concilii dicitur, natura post partum nescit ulterius virginem. Gratia vero et parientem ostendit, et matrem fecit, et virginitati non nocuit.

Fuit ergo mater christi virgo etiam in partu.

Corpus

Respondeo dicendum quod absque omni dubio asserendum est matrem christi etiam in partu virginem fuisse, nam propheta non solum dicit, ecce, virgo concipiet; sed addit, et pariet filium.

Et hoc quidem conveniens fuit propter tria. Primo quidem, quia hoc competebat proprietati eius qui nascebatur, quod est verbum dei. Nam verbum non solum in corde absque corruptione concipitur, sed etiam absque corruptione ex corde procedit. Unde, ut ostenderetur quod illud corpus esset ipsius verbi dei, conveniens fuit ut de incorrupto virginis utero nasceretur.

Unde in sermone quodam ephesini Concilii legitur, quae parit carnem puram, a virginitate cessat. Sed quia natum est carne verbum, deus custodit virginitatem, seipsum ostendens per hoc verbum. Neque enim nostrum verbum, cum paritur, corrumpit mentem, neque deus verbum substantiale, partum eligens, peremit virginitatem.

Secundo, hoc est conveniens quantum ad effectum incarnationis christi. Nam ad hoc venit ut nostram corruptionem tolleret. Unde non fuit conveniens ut virginitatem matris nascendo corrumperet. Unde Augustinus dicit, in quodam sermone de nativitate domini, fas non erat ut per eius adventum violaretur integritas, qui venerat sanare corrupta.

Tertio fuit conveniens, ne matris honorem nascendo diminueret qui parentes praeceperat honorandos.

Ad 1

Ad primum ergo dicendum quod Ambrosius dicit hoc exponens illud quod evangelista de lege induxit, omne masculinum adaperiens vulvam sanctum domino vocabitur.

Quod quidem, ut beda dicit, consuetae nativitatis more loquitur, non quod dominus sacri ventris hospitium, quod ingressus sanctificaverat, egressus devirginasse credendus sit.

Unde illa aperitio non significat reserationem claustri pudoris virginei, sed solum exitum prolis de utero matris.

Ad 2

Ad secundum dicendum quod ita christus voluit veritatem sui corporis demonstrare quod etiam simul eius divinitas declararetur. Et ideo permiscuit mira humilibus. Unde, ut corpus eius verum ostenderetur, nascitur ex femina. Sed ut ostenderetur eius divinitas, nascitur ex virgine, talis enim partus decet deum, ut Ambrosius dicit, in hymno nativitatis.

Ad 3

Ad tertium dicendum quod quidam dixerunt christum in sua nativitate dotem subtilitatis assumpsisse, quando exivit de clauso virginis utero; et quando ambulavit siccis pedibus super mare, dicunt eum assumpsisse dotem agilitatis.

Sed hoc non convenit his quae supra determinata sunt.

Huiusmodi enim dotes corporis gloriosi proveniunt ex redundantia gloriae animae ad corpus, ut infra dicetur, cum tractabitur de corporibus gloriosis.

Dictum est autem supra quod christus ante passionem permittebat carni suae agere et pati quae propria, nec fiebat talis redundantia gloriae ab anima ad corpus.

Et ideo dicendum est quod omnia ista facta sunt miraculose per virtutem divinam.

Unde Augustinus, super Ioan., moli corporis ubi divinitas erat, Ostia clausa non obstiterunt.

Ille quippe, non eis apertis, intrare potuit, quo nascente virginitas matris inviolata permansit.

Et dionysius dicit, in quadam epistola, quod christus super hominem operabatur ea quae sunt hominis, et hoc monstrat virgo supernaturaliter concipiens, et aqua instabilis terrenorum pedum sustinens gravitatem.