Commentaria in Isaiam
Thirdly, that the Blessed Virgin should bring forth Christ was foretold by Jeremias, chap. 31, verse 22: “The Lord hath created a new thing upon the earth: A woman shall compass a man.” See what is said there.
The Jews object: in Proverbs, chap. 30, verse 19, it is said: “The fourth I am utterly ignorant of, namely, the way of a man in a young woman.” For in Hebrew it is baalma; therefore alma signifies a young woman known to a man, though that she is known, if she herself denies it, is hard to prove, since scarcely any trace of past intercourse remains.
Sanchez answers that the sense is: I do not know the way of a man to baalma, that is, to a hidden virgin, who flees the eyes of men and hides herself at home, as if to say: You will find more easily in the air the way of an eagle, and in the sea the way of a ship, than the footsteps of men to the door of that virgin, who never offers herself to be seen by men, nay shuns and flees them, and therefore is alma, that is, hidden.
Secondly, R. Haccados and the ancient Rabbis, in Galatinus, explain it so that there is the same prophecy as here, of Christ to be born of a Virgin, as if to say: It is most difficult to know the conception and birth of Christ (who was a man from the beginning of his conception, perfect in all faculties of the soul and members of the body) in a Virgin.
Thirdly, most simply, “the way of a man in a young woman” cannot be known, because after intercourse and carnal union no trace of it remains: for the belief of some that in intercourse with a virgin a little membrane is broken, which is the sign of virginity, Franciscus Valesius and other physicians teach is false: alma therefore here also signifies a virgin, not one who is now a virgin, but one who was a virgin before the intercourse, or rather who in the very intercourse was found by the man to be a virgin.
Fourthly, and best, we must read with the Latins and the Septuagint, the way of a man in youth (in adolescentia), not “in a young woman:” baalma is therefore wrongly read in the Hebrew for baalmut. The sense, then, is, as if to say: It is most difficult to know what a young man has done, or will do, who by the fervour of blood and spirit is at once carried off to ever new pursuits, thoughts, works, and places.
Calvin objects secondly (he who denies that the penetration of bodies, so that two are in the same place, is possible to God; and therefore denies that the Virgin remaining a virgin brought forth, as he denies that Christ after the resurrection entered to the disciples through closed doors) that it is not proved that the Blessed Virgin conceived and brought forth Christ remaining a virgin, because these words, “Behold a virgin shall conceive,” can be taken in the divided sense, not in the composite, as if to say: She who had been a virgin before, now after intercourse, not a virgin but corrupted, conceived. But St. Matthew clearly refutes this invention, chap. 1, verses 20 and 23, where, to remove every doubt, he says: “That which is conceived in her (not of the man Joseph, but) of the Holy Ghost.” Therefore the Virgin, remaining a virgin, conceived of the Holy Ghost. Then he adds: “Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord by the prophet, saying: Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son; and his name shall be called Emmanuel.” All the Fathers refute the same, and the whole Church, which so takes these words of Isaias and of Matthew in the composite sense, and therefore firmly believes that the Blessed Virgin was a virgin in the birth and after the birth, as well as before the birth. Our Father Canisius cites them, book 2 On Mary, chaps. 14 and 15. And what kind of sign, I ask, would this be, that a virgin already corrupted should conceive? for this is daily and natural: whence in the Hebrew it is here signified that this sign will be unusual and wonderful, when it is said: hinneh haalma harah, that is, behold that virgin (to be wondered at) shall be great with child and pregnant. Hence, therefore, against Calvin it is clear that a virgin in the composite sense brought forth Christ, and consequently that the penetration of bodies is possible to God. Further, that the mystery of the Eucharist is possible, which Calvin with like blasphemy denies. For if God can make two bodies, e.g. the body of the Virgin and the body of Christ, to be in the same place, why can he not make one and the same body of Christ to be in many places and on many altars? Again, why can he not make the whole body of Christ to be in a small host? For if he can place several whole bodies in the same place, why can he not place the parts of the same body in the same place, e.g. in a small host, indeed in a point? For these three are plainly equal, namely equally difficult and repugnant to nature, and require equal virtue and power to be done. For it is as impossible for one place to be filled by several bodies as for one body to fill several places. Finally, God has confirmed the very thing by miracle more than once. Illustrious is what St. Augustine relates, City of God, book 22, chap. 8, of Petronia, a most distinguished woman, who, going miraculously to the memorial of St. Stephen from a desperate illness, was healed. For when, for a remedy, she had received a superstitious ring from a Jew, which she put into a hair-cloth girdle, with which she was girt under all her clothing next the bare body; as she went to St. Stephen, the ring leapt out whole at her feet, the girdle whole and unhurt; which miracle she took as a pledge of future salvation: “They do not believe this,” says St. Augustine, “who also do not believe that the Lord Jesus was born through the unbroken virginity of his mother, and entered to his disciples with the doors shut. But let them at least inquire into this: and if they find it true, let them believe those things. The woman is most distinguished, nobly born, nobly married, living at Carthage: a large city, a distinguished person, those who inquire into the matter will not let it lie hid. The martyr himself, certainly, by whose obtaining she was healed, believed in the son of the ever-virgin, in him who entered to his disciples with the doors shut.” St. Stephen believes, St. Augustine believes; dost thou not believe, Calvin? She first vowed continence and virginity to God, and raised its standard for all posterity, to which after her so many thousands of holy virgins, women as well as men, have flocked. Excellently St. Jerome to Eustochium, On the Keeping of Virginity: “In the Old Testament,” he says, “this good of continence was found in men only (in Elias, Eliseus, Jeremias and the sons of the Prophets), and Eve was continually bringing forth in sorrows. But after the Virgin conceived in the womb, etc., the curse was dissolved. Death through Eve, life through Mary. And therefore the gift of virginity flowed more richly to women, because it began from a woman. As soon as the Son of God entered upon the earth, he instituted for himself a new family, that he who was adored by Angels in heaven might have angels on earth.” Hear also the Poet in the hymn of the Church:
Having the joys of a mother with the honour of virginity, she was seen to have no like before her, and none to follow.
Child-bearing and integrity, long at variance, have a pact of peace in the Virgin’s bosom.
For what Gellius, book 9, chap. 4, and Pliny, book 7, write, that in the consulship of P. Licinius Crassus and C. Cassius (it was 172 years before the Christian era) a virgin brought forth, is to be held a fiction, not a fact, as also what Genebrard writes happened in our age under Henry II, King of France, at Amiens in France, that a virgin bore.
Hence St. Chrysostom, Basil, Jerome, Prudentius, Bernard, and from them Canisius, book 2, chap. 16, teach that the Blessed Virgin by her angelic virginity, and purity of mind and body, merited de congruo to become the Mother of God. Wherefore Venantius Fortunatus sings:
Happy virginity, which was worthy to bear the Thunderer.
And Prudentius in the Cathemerinon: “For she merited to bring forth God,” namely the Virgin by her virginity; “The Virgin tames all poisons.” See more in Canisius, the whole of book 2, and Suarez, part 3, vol. 2, Question 27, disputation 5.
Finally, God confirmed this mystery of the virginity of the Mother of God by miracles. Spanish historians relate, and from them Baronius in the year of the Lord 637, that St. Ildephonsus, Archbishop of Toledo, against the reviving Helvidians, defended in a published book the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God. Wherefore when, on the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, he was going to the church at night, the church began to shine with heavenly brightness. The rest having slipped away, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him, saying: “Thou cultivator in thy body of virginity, joined with purity of mind and ardour of faith, the reward of thy defence of our virginity shall be a gift brought from the heavenly theatre.” With these words she put a garment on his head with her own hands: “These,” she said, “celebrate, the feasts of my Son and mine which recur through the year.”