Chapter Xviii
gation, and (2) that God should freely create an unjust rational nature or that He should make a rational nature wretched when there is no injustice in it which merits wretchedness.
CHAPTER XVIII
That God Was Hot Conceived from a Just Virgin by Necessity--as If He Could Not Have Been Conceived from a Sinful Virgin -But He Was Conceived in This Way Because It Was Fitting
Although the Son of God was really conceived from the sinless Virgin, nevertheless it was not done by necessity--as if just offspring could not be begotten from a sinful virgin. But it was done because it was fitting that this man should be conceived from a sinless mother. For since God the Father was disposed to give the Virgin His only Son (whom from His own heart He begot as equal to Himself and loved as much as Himself) so that He would naturally be the common son of God the Father and the Virgin, and since the Son Himself chose to make her substantially His mother, and since the Holy Spirit willed and was going to cause the Son from whom He proceeded to be conceived and born from her, then it was fitting that the Virgin should be radiant with the greatest purity a creature can have. And I have already discussed /In the Cur
Deus Homo/ how the Virgin was made sinless by means of faith before that con ception; however, in that writing I presented another argument concerning this point.
CHAPTER XIX
How This Argument and the One in the Cur Deus Homo Are Alike, and How They Are Different
Either of these two arguments seems to be sufficient in itself to handle this one question; but jointly they fully satisfy a mind which is seeking both an argument which is sound and an event which is fitting. For although the