18.

Now in the first place for the instruction of the women, our sisters, such saintly modesty of the Virgin Mary must not be passed over, brethren. She had given birth to Christ--the Angel had come to her, and said, "Behold, thou shall conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son, and shalt call His name Jesus. ¹ He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest." ² She ³ had been thought worthy to give birth to the Son of the Highest, yet was she most humble; nor did she put herself before her husband, even in the order of naming him, so as to say, "I and Thy father," but she saith, "Thy father and I." She regarded not the high honour ⁴ of her womb, but the order of wedlock did she regard, for Christ the humble would not have taught His mother to be proud. "Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing." Thy father and I, she saith, "for the husband is the head of the woman." ⁵ How much less then ought other women to be proud! for Mary herself also is called a woman, not from the loss of virginity, but by a form of expression peculiar to her country; for of the Lord Jesus the Apostle also said, "made of a woman," ⁶ yet there is no interruption hence to the order and connection of our Creed ⁷ wherein we confess "that He was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary." For as a virgin she conceived Him, as a virgin brought Him forth, and a virgin she continued; but all females they called "women," ⁸ by a peculiarity of the Hebrew tongue. Hear a most plain example of this. The first woman whom God made, having taken her out of the side of a man, was called a woman before she "knew" her husband, which we are told was not till after they went out of Paradise, for the Scripture saith, "He made her a woman." ⁹