Commentaria in Isaiam
In the Life of St. Giles, companion of St. Francis, April 23, it is told that a Doctor of the Order of St. Dominic, doubting the virginity of the Mother of God, thought of consulting St. Giles about this matter; and when St. Giles saw him from afar he anticipated him, and striking the ground said: “Brother Preacher, St. Mary the Mother of God is a virgin before the birth;” and as soon as he said this, a most beautiful lily sprang up there. Striking the ground again he repeated: “Brother Preacher, St. Mary is a virgin in the birth;” and at once a second lily sprang up. Third, striking the ground with his staff: “Brother Preacher,” he said, “St. Mary is a virgin after the birth,” and at the same time a third lily stood forth of admirable whiteness and beauty. So he removed every scruple.
Now the reasons why God willed to be born of a Virgin are these. The first, because, as St. Bernard says, a new, unwonted, proper and sublime generation befitted God; and such is that from a virgin. The second, because, as Theodorus, Bishop of Ancyra, says in the Council of Ephesus, oration 2: “The giver of incorruption does not bring in corruption, and the author of incorruption corrupts nothing.” The third, because God and the Most Holy Trinity is the first virgin, as St. Nazianzen says in his poem. Hence the Father, a virgin in mind, begets the Word, that is, his Son, and with the Son similarly breathes forth the Holy Spirit, by an act of love or spiration. It was fitting, therefore, that Christ, like our Melchisedech, should be on earth apator, that is, without a father; as in heaven, according to the divine generation, he is ametor, that is, without a mother, so that in both places a virgin should be born of a virgin. The fourth cause is, that by the force of his origin he might exclude original sin: for all who are carnally born of Adam contract this, but not one born of a virgin. Again, that the conqueror of concupiscence and sin might be conceived without concupiscence and sin. Finally, that his conception might be most pure, who was to purify all men and from men make Angels. The fifth, that he might show how great and how dear to himself and to God is virginity.
Note: As in Hebrew, so in Latin the Mother of God is called alma, as when we say: “Alma parens; alma Dei genetrix, Hail star of the sea, alma mother of God.” And this first, because alma among the Latins is sometimes the same as virgin. Thus “alma Ceres” is called, and the Sibyl by Virgil, Aeneid 6, is called “alma,” because she was a virgin. Secondly, because alma is the same as holy or beautiful, says Festus. Hence goddesses, like the Muses, are called alma; thus by Lucretius, book 6, Pallas is named alma. But properly the mother of the gods was called alma. Whence Virgil, Aeneid 10: “Alma parens Idaea deum;” and Aeneid 1: “Venus alma.” Thirdly, because almus also signifies most bright. Whence the sun is called “Kindly Sun, who in thy shining chariot bringest forth the day and hidest it.”
Hence both the happy and the bright day is called alma. Now what is brighter, what happier than the Blessed Virgin? Fourthly, almus is derived from alere (to nourish), as if nourishing, says Festus; whence Lucretius, book 2: “The nourishing liquor of the waters.” And light is called alma because it nourishes all things; for through light and day all things grow, the Physicists teach, says Servius, who also adds, Aeneid 2: “Alma is properly the earth, because it nourishes us: abusively this epithet is given to other deities.” And Columella, book 3, chap. 21: “To whom, he says, the nourishing earth, in annual course as if by a kind of eternal child-bearing, sends forth joyfully to mortals her udders distended with new wine.” Such is the Mother of God, who nourished Christ, and continually nourishes and cherishes Christians. Let us now weigh the single words more closely.
BEHOLD,—as if to say: Be present, nobles; be present, Jews; hear, all nations, see and wonder, behold a marvellous thing, unheard of in every age, behold the portent of the ages, behold a new thing never seen, which the Lord will create, Jeremias 31:22. Behold a thing to come after many ages, which I behold as if certain and present before me. Behold, after 730 years a virgin shall conceive and bring forth. This, O unbelieving Achaz, thou dost not deserve to see; thy posterity shall see it and enjoy it, and shall say: Behold, Isaias foretold this portent so many ages ago, now we see it fulfilled, now we believe, indeed we know, that the Virgin has borne the Saviour of the world.
VIRGIN.—In Hebrew haalma, that virgin, to be looked up to by Angels, even by Seraphim: She is the ladder of heaven, Lady of the world, Queen of Angels, Mother of God; “Who is at once mother, daughter, spouse of God:” who joined and coupled God to man, heaven to earth, maternity to virginity, sinners to the holiness of God, and who therefore is to be honoured by men and Angels not with dulia but with hyperdulia. For in this work of the virginal conception and incarnation of the Word, three things above the rest are stupendous, which St. Bernard thus describes, sermon 3 in the Vigil of the Nativity: “Three works,” he says, “three mixtures that omnipotent majesty made in the assumption of flesh, so singular, and singularly wonderful, that such were neither done nor are to be done again upon earth. For joined together are God and man, mother and virgin, faith and the human heart. For the Word, soul and flesh came together into one person, and these three are one, and this one is three, not in confusion of substance, but in unity of person. This is the first and supereminent mixture. The second is virgin and mother, indeed both admirable and singular. “It has not been heard from the ages that she who bore was a virgin, and that she who was a mother remained a virgin. The third is faith and the human heart, and this indeed lower, but perhaps not less strong: for it is marvellous how the human heart gave faith to these two: how could it be believed that God was man, that she who bore had remained a virgin?”
Hegesippus relates something wonderful, in the book On the Virginity of the Blessed Mary, chap. 14, namely that Simeon, who in Luke 2 took Christ in his arms, was eminent among the Rabbis of his age, and once expounded in the schools this oracle of Isaias about the Virgin to bring forth. But in place of what he had found written, haalma, by which a Virgin to bring forth was certainly signified, he blotted out the first letter and read alma, as if she who had been a virgin should bring forth in the divided sense, but was now a corrupted woman: but when he read the Scriptures again, he found haalma with the article prefixed, as before: and so he blotted out the article a second time, and it was again restored by divine power: and he did this a third time: whence he recognised the force of the divinity, and understood that a virgin would truly bring forth, and therefore humbly asked God to keep him alive until he should see and adore Emmanuel born of her: and he then received the answer that he should not see death until he saw the Christ of the Lord. But let the credit of this story rest with Hegesippus: for it smacks of the Cabala, that is, of a fable of some Rabbi. And how would St. Simeon have dared to blot out from sacred Scripture the letter he? Who would believe this of a Rabbi, and a holy one, when we see even now other perfidious Rabbis scrupulous, indeed superstitious, in guarding the Hebrew Scripture? Add that alma as well as haalma properly and truly signifies a virgin.
More truly St. Basil, homily On the human generation of Christ, thinks that the devil expected from this oracle a virgin who would bring forth, that he might thence recognise the Saviour of the world and lay snares for him, and that therefore the Blessed Virgin was married to Joseph, so that the devil might think she had conceived of Joseph: “For he observed,” he says, “virgins above all, one of whom he had learned from the Prophet would bring forth, who said: Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son: the lier-in-wait and watcher of virginity, therefore, being made ignorant under the appearance of marriage, abstained from malice. For he knew that his empire would be destroyed because of the Lord’s generation in the flesh.” And St. Jerome on chap. 1 of Matthew: “The martyr Ignatius,” he says, “also added the reason why he was conceived of a betrothed: that his birth might be hidden from the devil, while he thinks that he was begotten not of the Virgin but of a wife.” Although the demon could naturally know that the Blessed Virgin was untouched by Joseph, yet he was prevented by God from knowing what passed between the Blessed Virgin and Joseph. Finally, this prophecy of the virgin about to bring forth Christ Isaias uttered after the beginning of the reign of Achaz, namely when he himself, afflicted by the slaughters received from Rasin and Phacee, fearing siege and destruction from them, was thinking to implore not the help of God but of the Assyrians, namely in the 3rd year of Achaz; for in the 4th year of Achaz were fulfilled the things which Isaias foretells about the overthrow of Rasin and Phacee, as I shall show in chap. 8, verse 4. Wherefore Beza and Vatablus greatly err, who think this prophecy was uttered by Isaias in the tenth year of Achaz. Others also err, who count 24 years from the day of this prophecy to the sixth year of Ezechias. For hence it follows that it was uttered before the reign of Achaz. Sixtus of Siena also errs, Bibliotheca, book 2, letter G, when he thinks that this oracle had its outcome as to the destruction of Phacee and Rasin.