Chapter 19. Eve’s Disobedience Is Remedied by Mary’s Obedience.
Chapter 19
1. The Lord, therefore, came manifestly into his own possessions. Thus his own creation, which was borne by him, bears him; and he recapitulated the disobedience that was by means of a tree, through the obedience that was by means of a tree. Thus the deception by which the virgin Eve, who was already wedded to a man, was wickedly deceived, was destroyed through the truth, by which the Virgin Mary, who was already wedded to a man, was brought the good news by the angel. For just as the former was deceived by an angel’s word, so that she fled from God upon having transgressed his word, so the latter, too, was brought the good news by an angel’s word, that she might bear God upon being obedient to his word. And as the former was deceived to disobey God, so the latter, too, was persuaded to obey God, in order that the Virgin Mary might become the advocate of the virgin Eve. And just as the human race was put in bonds to death through a virgin, it was loosed through a virgin. Thus the virginal disobedience was balanced by the virginal obedience. Moreover, the sin of the First-fashioned man was rectified by the correction of the First-born. Thus the Serpent’s cunning was overcome by the dove’s simplicity; and the bonds by which we were bound to death were loosed.
2. All the heretics are uninstructed and ignorant of God’s arrangements and unaware of his economy in human nature. Of course, since they are blind in regard to the Truth, they speak against their own salvation. Some introduce another Father besides the Creator. Some assert that the world and its matter was made by certain angels. Some say that the matter was far distant from him who, according to them, is Father and blossomed of itself and was born spontaneously. Some claim that the world had its matter from among the things contained by Father, because of degeneracy and ignorance. Some hold the Lord’s visible coming in contempt by not accepting his incarnation. Some, again, are ignorant of the economy about the Virgin, and assert that Christ was begotten of Joseph. And some certain ones assert that neither man’s soul nor his body can receive eternal life, but only the inner man can. This, they claim, is the mind that is in themselves, which alone, they decree, ascends to the Perfect. Some assert that, though the soul has been saved, yet their body will not partake of the salvation which is from God, as we have explained in the First Book. In that book we have also exposed the tenets of all of them, while in the Second Book we showed their weakness.