Aquinas on the Betrothal of the Virgin: Why Christ Was Born of a Betrothed Virgin

Orientation #

He opens not with the article but with something he had been reading in the Compendium of Theology, and he refers back to “what we studied” on generation and ensoulment, and to a question raised “just now” about Our Lady (prev. lecture, on her perpetual virginity). The next class takes up whether Mary and Joseph’s was a true matrimony and then the Annunciation question.

The class, in order #

1. Contracted vs. assumed defects (“he should be said to assume them”) #

From the Compendium of Theology, on Christ’s bodily defects (mortality, hunger, thirst).

• We contract these defects — contract means “drawn with,” along with original sin, so we had no choice about them.
• Christ assumed them — took them on voluntarily, to redeem us and make satisfaction for Adam’s sin. He stresses the vocabulary itself: “the way he’s speaking even about it.”

Student question: if Our Lady was free of original sin, how did she suffer these things — it seems she would not contract the defects either. His answer: Mariologists handle this under the debitum, what is owed to the state of the fall (mortality and the rest), and say it was not owed to her; but he does not know exactly what the trustworthy Mariologists say, and notes it is a real issue, including whether she died — “still sort of up in the air.”

2. The article’s objections (“it seems that Christ ought not to be born of a virgin who was betrothed”) #

Read in order:

1. Betrothal is ordered to carnal union; the Mother of God never willed carnal union, since it would take from the virginity of her mind.
2. The virgin birth was a miracle — Augustine, To Volusianus: the power of God brought forth the infant’s members through the unviolated womb, as he later brought his members in through closed doors; “if one seeks a reason for this, it will not be marvelous; if one demands an example, it will not be unique.” But miracles made for confirmation of faith ought to be manifest, and betrothal overshadows this one. His gloss: “you’re hiding the miracle.”
3. Ignatius the martyr (via Jerome on Matthew): the betrothal hid the birth from the devil, who would think it a wife, not a virgin, that generated. But the devil knows bodily things by the perspicacity of his sense-knowledge, and the demons afterwards knew Christ in some way — Mark 1, the unclean spirit: “What is it to you and us, Jesus of Nazareth? … I know that you are the Holy One of God.”
4. Jerome’s other reason, lest she be stoned by the Jews as an adulteress — which seems nothing, since if she were not betrothed she could not be condemned of adultery.

Sed contra: Matthew 1:18, “when his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,” and Luke 1, Gabriel sent to “a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph” — he notes these are the two gospels that have the infancy narrative.

3. Digression: original sin, the male, and the Immaculate Conception (“saved from mortal sin by being preserved”) #

Prompted by a student on ensoulment: you would not have original sin until you have a rational soul, so original sin is contracted at infusion, and purgation in the womb comes after.

• From the Compendium: why Christ willed to be born of a virgin — first, because born of the union of male and female he would contract original sin. He adds his own view that the male is the more important in transmitting it: had Adam not gone along with Eve’s suggestion, original sin would not have been passed down through Eve.
• Mary did contract original sin (as a result of that union) — but the second reason is Christ’s universal causality: it would take from his dignity if Mary were not redeemed by him too; hence the definition’s “in view of his merits.”
• Parallel he finds striking: Thomas says all are saved from mortal sin by Christ, most by being forgiven after committing it, a few by being preserved from falling into it. The Church says something like that of Mary and original sin — saved from it, though she never contracted it.

4. “Unfold yourself” (“the Latin form of that is explicate”) #

Thomas answers: it was suitable on account of Christ himself, of his mother, and of us — “that’s pretty complete” — and on Christ’s side for a fourfold reason. Aside: he did not expect it “unfolded this much”; unfold yourself is Shakespearean, and Charles De Koninck used to say “unfold yourself to the student.” Latin plicare, to fold; explicare, to unfold.

5. Four reasons on Christ’s side (“that he might be nourished by Joseph”) #

1. Lest he be rejected by the faithless as unlawfully born — Ambrose on Luke: what would the Jews, what would Herod have ascribed to one seen to be born of persecution [unclear in recording]. Asides: “illegitimate child” versus the older “love child”; his mother’s use of “premature”; the joke that the first child can come any time, after that it takes nine months.
2. That his genealogy might be described in the customary way, through the man — Ambrose on Luke: one who came into the age ought to be described by the custom of the age; it is the person of the male who in the senate and the city’s offices takes on the family; scripture’s custom always seeks the origin of the male. Asides: the Matthew genealogy read at Mass that morning and losing the audience unless it is unfolded (“Abraham begot Isaac…”); the long amendment read into the Congressional record over its author’s objection; modern wives not taking the husband’s name — “if you’re two in one flesh” — which he thinks makes divorce easier.
3. For the tutelage of the boy born, lest the devil procure arms vehemently against him — hence Ignatius, that the birth would be hidden from the devil.
4. That he might be nourished by Joseph, called his father as the one who nourished him. Aside: the painting of the flight into Egypt, Joseph knocking fruit from a tree for them.

6. Three reasons on the Virgin’s side (“lest she be wounded by the ill fame of violated virginity”) #

1. She is rendered immune from punishment, lest she be stoned by the Jews as an adulteress.
2. She is freed from infamy — Ambrose on Luke, re-read at a student’s request: “she was betrothed lest she be wounded by the ill fame of violated virginity, in whom the pregnant womb would betoken corruption.”
3. That service might be shown her by Joseph, as Jerome says — Joseph to take care of her, minister to her. He counts aloud with the class: “that’s seven reasons so far.”

7. Reasons on our side, four and a possible fifth (“both virginity and matrimony are honored”) #

1. By Joseph’s testimony it might be proved that Christ was born of a virgin — Ambrose on Luke: a husband brings forth the fuller witness of her chastity, being one who could grieve an injury and vindicate the reproach, had he not known the mystery.
2. Mary’s own words asserting her virginity are made more believable — Ambrose: the cause of lying is removed, since an unmarried pregnant woman seems to wish to hide guilt by a lie, but a betrothed woman has no such motive, since the reward of conjugal union and the grace of marriage is childbearing. Both testimonies pertain to the firmness of our faith.
3. That the excuse be taken away from virgins who by their incaution do not avoid infamy — Ambrose: they should not be left a veil of excuse for their crimes, alleging the infamy of the Lord’s mother. He glosses: “she did it, so…” Aside: this reminds him of the parable of the foolish virgins.
4. By this is signified the universal Church, which being a virgin is betrothed to one man, Christ — Augustine, On Holy Virginity.
5. A possible fifth: since she was both betrothed and virgin, in her person both virginity and matrimony are honored, against heretics detracting from either.

He adds Augustine’s and Thomas’s ordering of the states Christ blessed: born of a virgin, blessed by the widow (Anna, in the temple), then Cana for matrimony — virginity highest, widowhood above marriage, all three lawful. Examples: Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal; Elizabeth. A student adds: “he turned the water into wine, don’t forget that part.”

8. Reply 1: she committed it to the divine judgment (“from a familiar instinct of the Holy Spirit”) #

The Blessed Virgin, by a familiar instinct of the Holy Spirit, is believed to have willed to be espoused, trusting in divine help that she would never come to carnal union — but she committed this to the divine judgment. So in no way did she undergo anything detrimental to her virginity. His gloss: she stands on a border, as John the Baptist stands between prophet and apostle — she is between the Old and New Testament, and in the Old Testament marrying was the thing to do; that must be taken into account in this reply.

9. Reply 2: two kinds of miracle (“some are that about which there is faith”) #

• Ambrose on Luke: the Lord preferred that some doubt his origin rather than doubt his mother’s purity; he knew tender is the shame of a virgin and lubricum — slippery, inconstant — the fair name, and did not think the faith of his origin ought to be strewn with injuries to his mother. (They work the word from “lubricate.”)
• The distinction Thomas “sees” here: some miracles are those about which there is faith (de quibus est fides) — the virgin birth, the resurrection, the sacrament of the altar; the Lord willed these to be more hidden, that belief in them be more meritorious. Other miracles are for the confirmation of faith — Lazarus four days in the tomb, “come forth,” the blind man cured — and these ought to be manifest. He first skipped the sentence about the hiddenness of the first kind and goes back for it on a student’s prompting.

10. Reply 3: the devil prevented, not ignorant (“prevented by the power of God”) #

• Augustine, De Trinitate III: the devil can do many things by the power of his nature from which he is prevented by God’s power. So by his nature he could know the Mother of God was uncorrupted, a virgin; but he was prevented from knowing the manner of the divine birth.
• That the devil later knew him in some way does not tell against this: by then it was time for Christ to show his power against the devil and to undergo the persecution stirred by him. In infancy the devil’s malice had to be forestalled, lest he persecute him more bitterly, when Christ was disposed neither to suffer nor to show his power, but in all else to show himself like us — Leo the Great, on the Epiphany: the Magi found the boy small in size, impotens, in need of another’s help, in no way separated from the generality of human infancy. “He acted like a baby.”
• Ambrose on Luke seems rather to refer this to the members of the devil, the princes of this world, who are more easily deceived: the malice of the devils easily grasps hidden things, but those occupied with secular vanities cannot know divine things. A student recalls the scriptural line that they would not have crucified him had they known he was the King of Glory; the locus is not settled — “maybe it’s in his commentary.”
• Asides on worldly princes: Stalin’s “How many legions does the Pope have?”; the story of Stalin’s toasts naming men who would be hanged if they failed, everyone watching him, and Stalin pouring water instead of vodka to stay sober; “Uncle Joe” until Churchill and Roosevelt saw the promises unkept and called him the bear.

11. Reply 4: stoning was not only for the betrothed (“in the house of her father”) #

• By the law one was stoned on judgment of adultery not only if betrothed or married, but also if kept as a virgin in her father’s house who was one day to be espoused — Deuteronomy 22: if virginity is not found in the girl, the men of the city shall bruise her with stones and let her die, because it is not lawful in Israel that one fornicate in her father’s house.
• Or, according to some, the Blessed Virgin was of the priestly line (cognate of Elizabeth), and a virgin of the priestly stock deflowered is put to death — Leviticus 21: the daughter of a priest, if apprehended in stupro, violating her father’s name, shall be burned with flames. “Those were the days.”
• Others refer Jerome’s word not to stoning proper but to the stoning of infamy. He notes the first part answers the objection more directly.

His words #

• contract — “drawn with”; what we take along with original sin, having no choice; opposed to assume, taken on voluntarily (of Christ’s bodily defects).
• debitum — what is owed to the state of the fall (mortality, etc.), the Mariologists’ term for the problem about Our Lady.
• preserved from falling — his formula for being saved from a sin never committed; applied analogously to Mary and original sin, “in view of his merits.”
• unfold yourself — his demand of an author; Latin explicare, from plicare, to fold.
• tutelage — his rendering of the safekeeping of the boy born.
• de quibus est fides — miracles about which there is faith (virgin birth, resurrection, the sacrament of the altar), as against miracles for the confirmation of faith.
• lubricum — “slippery, inconstant,” of a virgin’s fair name (Ambrose).
• impotens — “not powerful,” in need of help, of the infant Christ found by the Magi (Leo).
• stuprum — “deflowering” (Leviticus 21).
• the stoning of infamy — a reading of Jerome’s reason as figurative.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 29, a. 1, in full: objections 1–4, sed contra, body, replies 1–4 (probably; inferred from surrounding passages)
• Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology, on Christ’s assumed bodily defects; on the Virgin’s freedom from all actual sin; on why Christ was born of a virgin
• Augustine, Letter to Volusianus; De Trinitate III; On Holy Virginity
• Ambrose, On Luke (five distinct citations)
• Jerome, On Matthew (Ignatius; the stoning)
• Leo the Great, Sermon on the Epiphany
• Matthew 1:18; Luke 1; Mark 1; Deuteronomy 22; Leviticus 21

Mentioned

• The genealogy of Matthew 1, read at Mass that morning
• The parable of the foolish virgins; Anna the widow in the temple; the wedding at Cana
• The scriptural line on the princes of this world and the King of Glory (locus not identified)

His questions #

• How do we understand Our Lady suffering these things if, being free of original sin, she would not contract the defects? (student) — The Mariologists treat it under the debitum; he does not know exactly what the trustworthy ones say; whether she died is still up in the air.
• Ought Christ to have been born of a virgin who was betrothed? — Yes: suitably on account of himself (four reasons), his mother (three), and us (four, and possibly a fifth).
• How many reasons so far? — Seven, by his count with the class, before the reasons on our side.
• Is it sinful to pass over the genealogy when reading scripture? — Left open; but it has to be unfolded, as Thomas unfolds it.
• Does not betrothal aim at carnal union, which she never willed? — She willed espousal by a familiar instinct of the Holy Spirit, trusting divine help, and committed the matter to divine judgment; nothing detrimental to virginity.
• Ought not a miracle to be manifest? — Only miracles that confirm faith; miracles that are themselves objects of faith the Lord willed more hidden, that belief be more meritorious.
• Could the devil not know the birth anyway by his natural perspicacity? — By nature yes, but he was prevented by God’s power from knowing the manner of the divine birth in the infancy.
• If she were not betrothed, could she even be condemned of adultery? — Yes: the law stoned also the virgin in her father’s house; or, if of priestly stock, she would be burned (Lev. 21); or Jerome means the stoning of infamy.