The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. Luke
Ver. 31. — Behold, thou shalt conceive. The angel shows that Mary found favour with God because she is about to conceive and bring forth Jesus, that is, God and man. He alludes to and also quotes the prophecy, Isa. vii. 14.
Hence then is refuted, first, the Manichaean, who says that Christ did not take real flesh of the Virgin, but only the appearance of flesh; for a son who is conceived in the womb and brought forth is a real son, and not one in appearance only: secondly, Valentinus, who teaches that Christ brought flesh from heaven, and merely passed through the Blessed Virgin, as water passes through a channel; thirdly, Nestorius, who asserts that the Blessed Virgin was not the Mother of God because she was not the Mother of the Divinity; to whom Cyril well replies that she is truly the Mother of God although she did not bring forth His Divinity, but His humanity only, because she brought forth the Man, namely Jesus, Who is truly God: as a father is truly called the father of his son, although he does not beget his soul, but only his flesh, because he begets a man who consists of soul and flesh.
Ver. 32. — He shall be great, &c. Great both as God and as man. And He shall be called the Son of the Highest; that is through the hypostatic union. He can and ought of right to be called the Son of God.
Ver. 33. — And He shall reign over the house of Jacob. That is over the Church, as Bede and others say. This kingdom in David was a temporal one, but in Christ a spiritual and eternal one, because He reigns over His saints here by grace, and in heaven He will reign over them in glory. See what I have said on the kingdom of Christ, Matt. xxvii. 11.
Ver. 34. — And Mary said to the angel, &c. The Virgin had no doubt concerning the truth of the prophecy and promise of the angel, as Calvin blasphemously asserts, but she was anxious as to the manner of its fulfilment, lest the conception of a son should involve a loss of virginity, and a breaking of the vow which she had made concerning it. So S. Ambrose, Augustine, &c.
We may learn here how great was the zeal and love for virginity which the Blessed Virgin had, because, as Nyssen says, “she preferred chastity to the angelic tidings; and preferred being a virgin to being absolutely the Mother of God, as S. Anselm says. For virginity is in itself a virtue most pleasing to God, while maternity is not so absolutely. I say absolutely; for in other respects maternity is an incomprehensible dignity bestowed by God (as God Himself is incomprehensible) and an abyss of all graces. For on account of this the Blessed Virgin was endowed with more than angelic virginity, humility, charity, and other virtues, that she might be worthy to become the Mother of God. So S. Augustine, S. Thomas, &c.
Wherefore Bede says, that by a divine gift it was granted to her first among women to make an offering of her virginity to God. And Albertus Magnus (super Missus Est, c. 82) says, “The Blessed Virgin is the mother of all who are in virginity, since she was the first to make an offering of her virginity to God, through which offering she became the mother of all virgins.” Wherefore the Blessed Virgin, being most anxious concerning her virginity and the vow she had made with respect to it, makes mention of it as it were by way of objection to the angel. For there was a conflict in her between the desire of conceiving the Son of God and the fear of losing her virginity: and therefore she obtained both. The sense therefore is: “I surely believe that I shall conceive and bring forth Jesus, the Son of God, but I am doubtful as to the way in which this will be. I know not a man, because I have made a vow of virginity: if God wishes to dispense with this vow, though it be hard, yet I will obey the will of God: but if He seeks to know my desire, I certainly declare that I earnestly desire to preserve the virginity that I have vowed to Him: for He who is a most pure spirit, and therefore the first virgin, has Himself put it into my mind; and it will be honourable to my Son Jesus if He is born of a virgin. For I know what has been foretold by Isaiah, Behold a virgin shall conceive, and shall bring forth Emmanuel; and it may be the will of God that I should be that virgin. If it is so, be it so.” Whence on hearing immediately from Gabriel that she would conceive not by a man, but by the Holy Spirit, she immediately breaks forth with great joy of heart, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And it was this word that God wished to hear, so that through the profession of her virginity she might merit to become the Mother of the Son of God.
Ver. 35. — And the Angel answered ... the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, &c. Mark here that the Incarnation is limited only to the Person of the Word, or Son of God: for He alone was incarnate and made man, and not the Father nor the Holy Spirit: and yet the incarnation was the work of the whole Trinity, as its efficient cause and not only of the Son. Yet this work of the Incarnation is appropriated to the Holy Spirit, first, because it was a most holy work; secondly, because the works relating to our redemption, and those which most display God’s goodness are appropriated to the Holy Spirit, because He proceeds forth as the ideal love of the Father and the Son: in the same way wisdom is appropriated to the Son as the Word, and omnipotence to the Father as the first principle and origin. Moreover, the Holy Spirit was the framer of the humanity of Christ, because He fashioned and animated it, but He cannot be called its Father, because He did not contribute or communicate anything to it of His own substance. S. Augustine (Enchirid. c. 28).
Further S. Cyril (Catech. 12) shows that a virgin by the power of God could conceive and bring forth; and first, in arguing with the Gentiles, he says, “How is it that ye, who say that stones when thrown were changed into men, maintain that a virgin cannot bring forth? How is it that ye, who fable that a daughter was born out of the head of Jupiter, maintain that it is impossible that one can be born of a virgin’s womb?” And then, arguing with the Jews, he says, “Sara was barren, and she brought forth a child beyond the way of nature at an age when women have lost the power (to do so): either then deny both, or grant both, for the same God was the worker of both.” He further says, that God out of the virgin Adam formed a virgin woman, namely Eve; why could He not then in like manner form a virgin man out of a virgin woman?
Shall come upon thee. In order that the conception of Christ, and Christ Himself, might be holy, not only by reason of the hypostatic union with the Word, but also by reason of so divine a conception, for He was conceived not by a man or an angel, but by the Holy Ghost. Wherefore Christ, by virtue of this conception, was not the son of Adam, so as to derive original sin from him, and be born a sinner, as we all are born, but He was most pure and most holy.
Again Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost, because it was fitting, since He was both God and man, that both should be recognised in the conception. For the conception itself declares that He was Man; for He would not have been conceived unless He had been man; and the manner of the conception shows that He was also God; for to be conceived by a virgin without a husband, shows that He who was conceived was more than man. Mystically, S. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. 12) says, the Lord willed to be born of a virgin, to signify that His members would be born according to the Spirit of the Church, which is a virgin.
Lactantius gives another reason, which is that Christ, Who in heaven is without a mother, might be on earth ἀπάτωρ without a father. But the first reason is the chief one, namely, that Christ might be born without original sin.
Proclus (Hom. de Nativ.) says, “Mary is both handmaid and mother, both virgin and heaven itself. She is the one bridge by which God comes down to man. She is the wonderful web of that economy, of whom and in whom, in a certain ineffable manner, the admirable fabric of that union was wrought, of which the Holy Spirit was the weaver, the power overshadowing from on high was the spinner; the wool was the old and rough garment of Adam; the woof was the pure flesh of the Virgin; the weaver’s shuttle was the immeasurable grace of her who was with child; the artificer was the Word which passed in through the hearing.”
The power of the Highest, &c. According to Euthymius and Maldonatus, the power of the Highest is the Holy Spirit, Who with power brings the holy works of God to perfection, so that these words are an explanation of what the angel had said, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee. So Christ (cap. xxiv. 49) says to the Apostles, Tarry in this city (Jerusalem) until ye be endued with power from on high, i.e. with the Holy Spirit. This it is of which the Church speaks, “Almighty and everlasting God, Who by the co-operation of the Holy Spirit didst prepare the body and soul of the glorious Virgin Mother Mary that she might be worthy to be made a fit habitation for thy Son.”