(103) But if nature led them, like the irrational animals, to procreation, yet they were impelled to do it more quickly than. was proper because they were still young and had been led away by deceit. Thus God's judgment against them was just, because they did not wait for his will. But birth is holy. By it were made the world, the existences, the natures, the angels, powers, souls, the commandments, the law, the gospel, the knowledge of God. And "all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls; but the word of the Lord abides" which anoints the soul and unites it with the spirit. Without the body how could the divine plan for us in the Church achieve its end? Surely the Lord himself, the head of the Church, came in the flesh, though without form and beauty, to teach us to look upon the formless and incorporeal nature of the divine Cause. "For a tree of life" says the prophet, "grows by a good desire," teaching that desires which are in the living Lord are good and pure.

(74) She became not pregnant save after sexual pleasure, Can a garden bloom without the spring? Pregnant women and their teeming wombs So every tree which nurtures its fruits Has been, like Mary, impregnated by the Unseen King. Though fire's heat be hidden in the midst of water, Though the heat of the fire be working unseen, In like manner, the members of those enjoying "union" Become big with child, viz., with forms of "states" and "words." Gazing on the beauty of these forms they stand agape,

(2) I affirm that had the Virgin not first borne God spiritually He would never have been born from her in bodily fashion. A certain woman said to Christ, "Blessed is the womb that bear Thee." To which Christ answered, "Nay, rather blessed are they that hear the Word of God and keep it." It is more worthy of God that He be born spiritually of every pure and virgin soul, than that He be born of Mary.

Hereby we should understand that humanity is, so to speak, the Son of God born from all eternity. The Father produced all creatures, and me among them, and I issued forth from Him with all creatures, and yet I abide in the Father. Just as the word which I now speak is conceived and spoken forth by me, and you all receive it, yet none the less it abides in me. Thus I and all creatures abide in the Father.

(41) Yet I do not say this, as if every Man was holy as he comes from his Mother's Womb, but as the Tree is, so is its Fruit. Yet the Fault is not God's, if a Mother bears or brings forth a Child of the Devil, but the Parent's Wickedness.

(4) But, as appears, many even down to our own time regard Mary, on account of the birth of her child, as having been in the puerperal state, although she was not. For some say that, after she brought forth, she was found, when examined, to be a virgin.

(30) Also the new Birth blossomed in the Time of the Creation, when Man had not spoiled or corrupted it; but by him Nature was full more corrupted, and so God cursed the Ground. But seeing Man took hold of the Fruit of the old Body, thereupon the Fruit of the new Body was hidden in its Heaven, and Man must now behold it with the new Body, and cannot partake of it with the natural Body.