Friday, May 31 : Tertullian
What previous reason was there for the Son of God’s being born of a Virgin? He who was going to consecrate a new order of birth, must himself be born after a novel fashion, concerning which Isaiah foretold how the Lord himself would give a sign. What, then, is the sign? “Behold, a virgin shall conceive a bear a son.” Accordingly, a virgin did conceive and bear Emmanuel, God with us (Is 7,14; Mt 1,23). This is the new nativity; a man is born in God because in this man God was born, taking flesh in order that he might reform it with the new seed of the Spirit and cleanse it by the removal of all its ancient stains. The whole of this new birth was prefigured in ancient type, the Lord being born as man by a dispensation in which a virgin was the medium. The earth was still in a virgin state, reduced as yet by no human labor, with no seed as yet cast into its furrows when, as we are told, God made man out of it into “a living soul” (Gn 2,5.7). As, the, the first Adam was formed of earth, it is a just inference that the second Adam likewise, as the apostle Paul has told us, was formed by God into “a life-giving spirit” (1Cor 15,45)… When he wanted to recover “his own image and likeness” (Gn 1,26), fallen into the power of the devil, God acted in the same way as he had done when first he created it. For it was while Eve was yet a virgin that she received the word which was to build the edifice of death. Therefore, in the same way, that Word of God which was to raise the fabric of life must be introduced into a virgin’s soul … As Eve had believed the serpent, so Mary believed Gabriel. The sin that Eve occasioned by believing, Mary by believing effaced… The devil’s word became as seed to Eve so that she should conceive in humiliation and bring forth in sorrow (Gn 3,16); indeed, she brought forth the one who would be his brother’s murderer (4,8). Mary, on the contrary, bore a son who would one day secure salvation to Israel, his own brother.
Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team
