Sect. 180Supernatural Origin of the Humanity of Christ Through the Holy Ghost from the Virgin MarySupernatural Origin of the Humanity of Christ Through the Holy Ghost from the Virgin Mary
I. The Creeds attribute the origin of Christ’s humanity to the combined Divine action of the Holy Ghost and the maternal action of Mary: “The Son of God, conceived of or by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary; or born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.” Mary, then, is, in subordination to and in co-operation with the Holy Ghost, the principle of Christ as man.
II. The Nicene (Constantinople) formula, Incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine (Σαρκωθέντα Πνεύματος Ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου), implies first of all that the body of Christ was not sent down from heaven, or taken from the earth like that of Adam, but that its matter was supplied by Mary. This alone, however, does not constitute Mary the mother of Christ—otherwise Adam, for the same reason, would be the mother of Eve. It is further required that the Virgin did co-operate, like every other mother, in the formation of the body. That co-operation consists in the preparation of a germ, which being fecundated from without, will develop into a human body. After the fecundation, the work of the mother is to minister of her own substance to the growth of the germ until it is able to live a separate life. Hence, in contradistinction to the paternal generation, the maternal is essentially only a co-operation with another principle, on which latter the existence of the progeny is in the first instance dependent. The mother bears the same relation to the person of her progeny as she does to the fecundating principle, viz. a relation of subserviency, consisting in preparing and forming the progeny’s body: she has no direct influence on her child’s existence as a person, but merely contributes to its material or substantial part. For these reasons the Divine generation is paternal, not maternal. The same reasons make it clear that maternal generation may, without difficulty, concur in giving a second bodily existence to a person already subsisting in Himself. If the specific notion of “maternal” generation be well kept in mind, all the difficulties besetting the maternity of Mary find an easy solution.
III. The dogma that Christ “was conceived by the Holy Ghost,” excludes the natural fecundating principle and replaces it by a spiritual principle and a purely spiritual power. From this cause the generation of Christ enjoys the same advantages which the prologue of St. John’s Gospel attributes to the generation of the Children of God: it is not of the will of man, but directly of the will of God; it is not of the will of the flesh—not even on the part of the mother, because the concupiscence of the flesh is only excited by the intervention of man—but of the will of God; it is not of blood, that is, of the commingling of blood as in natural generation, but of a germ animated by Divine influence. On this account the origin of Christ bears a resemblance to the origin “directly from God” of the first Adam, the difference, however, remaining that Christ is also by generation the Son of man.
The fact that the generation of Christ was supernatural in the manner described, also proves that this manner was congruous to such a degree as to render natural generation entirely incongruous. The reasons for this incongruity are many: the honour of the Mother of God is incompatible with the loss of her virginal purity in the very act which raised her to the highest dignity; the Mother of God cannot be made subject to the will of man, and the temple of the Holy Ghost must not be violated. Deeper reasons are found in the sublimity of the product of this generation, and of the generation itself. The product is God, and the generation is an expansion of the eternal generation by the Father; but the existence in time of a Divine Person cannot be made dependent on the will of man; the temporal generation must be the exact image of the eternal, and therefore proceed from a purely spiritual principle, etc. Cf. St. Thomas, 3, q. 28, a. I; Thomassin, 1. ii. c. 3, 4.
IV. The fecundating influence of the Holy Ghost is described as a descent on the Virgin, and as an overshadowing with the power of the Most High: Πνεῦμα Ἁγίον ἐπελεύσεται ἐπὶ σέ καὶ δύναμις ὑψίστου ἐπισκιάσει σοι (Luke 1:35). These images establish a parallel between this supernatural generation and natural generation in general, on the strength of which the Fathers sometimes call the Holy Ghost semen divinum. As the semen materiale points to a human father, so the semen divinum points to the Divine Father. Yet the Holy Ghost Himself is not that Divine Father. For He does not through His substance constitute the flesh of Christ; He does not form in Christ a nature consubstantial to His own; and lastly, as Divine Person distinct from Father and Son, He has no peculiar relation of principle to the flesh of Christ, but acts in union with the other Persons, and especially in the power of the Father.
V. The older form of the Apostles’ Creed says that Christ “was born of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary.” These words directly apply to the first conception, but, according to universal tradition, they also imply a supernatural influence of the Holy Ghost on the actual birth of the Saviour. The object of this influence was not merely to preserve the integrity of Mary’s virginity in the birth, as it had been preserved in the conception of the Saviour. In the sense of the Creed, it is, moreover, a singular privilege of the origin of Christ, the complement of His supernatural conception: the Eternal Father, having formed and generated Christ in the womb of the Virgin, completed His work by introducing His Son into the world in a manner becoming His Son’s dignity and eternal origin. Thus the birth or external generation of Christ reflected His eternal birth from the Father in this, that “the Light from Light” proceeded from His mother’s womb as a Light shed on the world; that “the Power of the Most High” passed through the barriers of nature unhindered and without injuring them, and that “the body of the Logos” formed by the Holy Ghost passed through another body after the manner of spirits. These privileges constitute what the Fathers call the supernatural, celestial, divine, and spiritual birth of the Redeemer.
The most essential feature in the supernatural birth is that Christ was brought forth utero clauso vel obsignato, the womb remaining closed or sealed, like the sepulchre from which He rose after His death. This privilege naturally includes, on the part of the Mother, exemption from all pain; and on the part of both Mother and Child the absence of all impurities connected with natural birth (Sordes nativitatis naturalis). For these two latter immunities special reasons are to be found in the dignity of Mother and Child. The supernatural character of the birth of Christ does not exclude the natural co-operation of the Mother in the actual parturition (nisus edendi prolem), nor does it require that the child should issue from the mother by any other than the natural way.
The birth of Christ from a womb closed or sealed is an article of faith. It was always considered as such, and based upon the Apostles’ Creed and Isa. 7:14 (“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son”). When Jovinian denied it, he was strenuously opposed, and it is noteworthy that the reason for the denial was not the want of traditional evidence for the miraculous birth, but its miraculous character itself; in other words, Jovinian founded his objections on rationalism (see St. Ambrose, Ep. xlii., n. 4, 5, addressed to Pope Siricius in the name of the Council of Milan; St. Aug., Enchiridion, c. xxxiv.; Ep. Dogm. Leonis I. ad Flavianum; defined under anathema in the third canon of the Lateran Council under Pope Martin I.). The presentation in the Temple (Luke 2:23), in compliance with the laws of Moses (Exod. 13:1, and Levit. 12:2), is no proof that Mary either conceived or gave birth in the same way as the women for whom these laws were made.
The miraculous conception and birth of Christ compel us to admit that during the time of gestation, Mary was likewise under the special influence of the Holy Ghost, although particulars are nowhere exactly defined.
We shall further deal with the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin in Part IV.
I. The Creeds attribute the origin of Christ’s humanity to the combined Divine action of the Holy Ghost and the maternal action of Mary: “The Son of God, conceived of or by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary; or born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.” Mary, then, is, in subordination to and in co-operation with the Holy Ghost, the principle of Christ as man.
II. The Nicene (Constantinople) formula, Incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine (Σαρκωθέντα Πνεύματος Ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου), implies first of all that the body of Christ was not sent down from heaven, or taken from the earth like that of Adam, but that its matter was supplied by Mary. This alone, however, does not constitute Mary the mother of Christ—otherwise Adam, for the same reason, would be the mother of Eve. It is further required that the Virgin did co-operate, like every other mother, in the formation of the body. That co-operation consists in the preparation of a germ, which being fecundated from without, will develop into a human body. After the fecundation, the work of the mother is to minister of her own substance to the growth of the germ until it is able to live a separate life. Hence, in contradistinction to the paternal generation, the maternal is essentially only a co-operation with another principle, on which latter the existence of the progeny is in the first instance dependent. The mother bears the same relation to the person of her progeny as she does to the fecundating principle, viz. a relation of subserviency, consisting in preparing and forming the progeny’s body: she has no direct influence on her child’s existence as a person, but merely contributes to its material or substantial part. For these reasons the Divine generation is paternal, not maternal. The same reasons make it clear that maternal generation may, without difficulty, concur in giving a second bodily existence to a person already subsisting in Himself. If the specific notion of “maternal” generation be well kept in mind, all the difficulties besetting the maternity of Mary find an easy solution.
III. The dogma that Christ “was conceived by the Holy Ghost,” excludes the natural fecundating principle and replaces it by a spiritual principle and a purely spiritual power. From this cause the generation of Christ enjoys the same advantages which the prologue of St. John’s Gospel attributes to the generation of the Children of God: it is not of the will of man, but directly of the will of God; it is not of the will of the flesh—not even on the part of the mother, because the concupiscence of the flesh is only excited by the intervention of man—but of the will of God; it is not of blood, that is, of the commingling of blood as in natural generation, but of a germ animated by Divine influence. On this account the origin of Christ bears a resemblance to the origin “directly from God” of the first Adam, the difference, however, remaining that Christ is also by generation the Son of man.
The fact that the generation of Christ was supernatural in the manner described, also proves that this manner was congruous to such a degree as to render natural generation entirely incongruous. The reasons for this incongruity are many: the honour of the Mother of God is incompatible with the loss of her virginal purity in the very act which raised her to the highest dignity; the Mother of God cannot be made subject to the will of man, and the temple of the Holy Ghost must not be violated. Deeper reasons are found in the sublimity of the product of this generation, and of the generation itself. The product is God, and the generation is an expansion of the eternal generation by the Father; but the existence in time of a Divine Person cannot be made dependent on the will of man; the temporal generation must be the exact image of the eternal, and therefore proceed from a purely spiritual principle, etc. Cf. St. Thomas, 3, q. 28, a. I; Thomassin, 1. ii. c. 3, 4.
IV. The fecundating influence of the Holy Ghost is described as a descent on the Virgin, and as an overshadowing with the power of the Most High: Πνεῦμα Ἁγίον ἐπελεύσεται ἐπὶ σέ καὶ δύναμις ὑψίστου ἐπισκιάσει σοι (Luke 1:35). These images establish a parallel between this supernatural generation and natural generation in general, on the strength of which the Fathers sometimes call the Holy Ghost semen divinum. As the semen materiale points to a human father, so the semen divinum points to the Divine Father. Yet the Holy Ghost Himself is not that Divine Father. For He does not through His substance constitute the flesh of Christ; He does not form in Christ a nature consubstantial to His own; and lastly, as Divine Person distinct from Father and Son, He has no peculiar relation of principle to the flesh of Christ, but acts in union with the other Persons, and especially in the power of the Father.
V. The older form of the Apostles’ Creed says that Christ “was born of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary.” These words directly apply to the first conception, but, according to universal tradition, they also imply a supernatural influence of the Holy Ghost on the actual birth of the Saviour. The object of this influence was not merely to preserve the integrity of Mary’s virginity in the birth, as it had been preserved in the conception of the Saviour. In the sense of the Creed, it is, moreover, a singular privilege of the origin of Christ, the complement of His supernatural conception: the Eternal Father, having formed and generated Christ in the womb of the Virgin, completed His work by introducing His Son into the world in a manner becoming His Son’s dignity and eternal origin. Thus the birth or external generation of Christ reflected His eternal birth from the Father in this, that “the Light from Light” proceeded from His mother’s womb as a Light shed on the world; that “the Power of the Most High” passed through the barriers of nature unhindered and without injuring them, and that “the body of the Logos” formed by the Holy Ghost passed through another body after the manner of spirits. These privileges constitute what the Fathers call the supernatural, celestial, divine, and spiritual birth of the Redeemer.
The most essential feature in the supernatural birth is that Christ was brought forth utero clauso vel obsignato, the womb remaining closed or sealed, like the sepulchre from which He rose after His death. This privilege naturally includes, on the part of the Mother, exemption from all pain; and on the part of both Mother and Child the absence of all impurities connected with natural birth (Sordes nativitatis naturalis). For these two latter immunities special reasons are to be found in the dignity of Mother and Child. The supernatural character of the birth of Christ does not exclude the natural co-operation of the Mother in the actual parturition (nisus edendi prolem), nor does it require that the child should issue from the mother by any other than the natural way.
The birth of Christ from a womb closed or sealed is an article of faith. It was always considered as such, and based upon the Apostles’ Creed and Isa. 7:14 (“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son”). When Jovinian denied it, he was strenuously opposed, and it is noteworthy that the reason for the denial was not the want of traditional evidence for the miraculous birth, but its miraculous character itself; in other words, Jovinian founded his objections on rationalism (see St. Ambrose, Ep. xlii., n. 4, 5, addressed to Pope Siricius in the name of the Council of Milan; St. Aug., Enchiridion, c. xxxiv.; Ep. Dogm. Leonis I. ad Flavianum; defined under anathema in the third canon of the Lateran Council under Pope Martin I.). The presentation in the Temple (Luke 2:23), in compliance with the laws of Moses (Exod. 13:1, and Levit. 12:2), is no proof that Mary either conceived or gave birth in the same way as the women for whom these laws were made.
The miraculous conception and birth of Christ compel us to admit that during the time of gestation, Mary was likewise under the special influence of the Holy Ghost, although particulars are nowhere exactly defined.
We shall further deal with the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin in Part IV.
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