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IV. To the Principal Arguments
62. To the arguments.
To the first [n.2] I say that ‘virgin’ and ‘mother’ are not opposed by any formal opposition, neither as privatives nor as contraries; for ‘virginity’ only takes away the action of a natural cause superior to the active cause of the mother; but ‘maternity’ does not necessarily posit the action of that superior cause, but this action is only commonly a concomitant; but if another supply the action of the natural cause, maternity can exist according to its whole idea and nevetheless along with privation of the action of a superior cause and so along with virginity. And so it was here.
63. An example: a created object is of a nature to be, along with my intellect, a co-cause of intellection; so the intellect’s conceiving knowledge commonly requires a created object moving the intellect; but it does not require this of its per se idea; for if God, by moving the intellect, supply the action of the object, the intellect can conceive the same knowledge as it would conceive with the object moving it; and so, if the intellect - with God moving the term of it - were not moved by the created object and were designated by the name of ‘virginity’ or ‘incorruptibility’ or ‘non-subjected’, there would in no way be any formal repugnance in the intellect conceiving and being a virgin. So it is here.
64. But if you object about the verb ‘to give birth’ that a woman with unbroken hymen cannot give birth, my reply is that there was a miracle there, because one body existed together with another body [sc. the body of the babe and the hymen both existed together in the same place during birth] - and perhaps it was a new miracle different from that by which the Virgin conceived without the action of a superior natural cause.
65. But it is sufficiently commonly conceded about the birth, as something not difficult, that Mary did there whatever other mothers do, just as she did by fostering and preserving and nourishing the fetus in her womb. And yet there could perhaps be a special difficulty there [sc. if a miracle is denied], because there was no active force in Mary able to move the body of her offspring locally so as to come out of her, and especially so as to exist together with another body, because no created virtue can move a body locally to some ‘where’ without expelling the other body; yet it is at all events true (not speaking of a glorious body).
66. To the second [n.3] I say that Damascene did not deny absolutely that Mary was Mother of Christ, but denied it only against Nestorius who wished to deny, under that title, that Mary was Mother of God by positing that she gave birth to a pure man.49 Hence after the authority quoted he adds, “To destroy too the name of ‘God-bearer’, the wicked Nestorius, to the dishonor of the only God-bearer, the truly honored above every creature (although he himself is broken to pieces along with the impious Satan), made it [sc. the name ‘Christ-bearer’] to be reprobate;”a therefore I do not deny it [sc. that Damascene denied ‘Mother of Christ’], but he refused to share the name with a heretic who was hiding his poison under that name.
a.a [Interpolation] Damascene: “Since it was for the destruction of the name ‘Theotokos’, that is ‘God-bearer’, that the wicked and sinful and Jew-thinking Nestorius, who is also a vessel of dishonor, for the dishonor of the only Theotokos, that is God-bearer, truly honored above every creature, although he himself is cut off with his father the devil, made it up [sc. the name ‘Mother of Christ’]. For David too and those like him can be called Christ, and every man who carries God can in this respect be called Christ, but not called God by nature.”
67. To the next [n.4] I say that all active and passive terms in general are necessarily relative to each other, but this is not necessarily so of ‘this active’ or ‘this passive’, because some other active can supply the place of ‘this active’. So, in the matter at hand, ‘father’ states such a particular active, and his action was supplied here by another agent.
68. To the final one [n.5]50, it is conceded that, if other mothers act, then Mary too acted in this generation. When argument is made about [the generation happening in] an instant [n.5], the response is plain from the solution of the question [supra nn.37, 48-51], because if she had cooperated in the whole of the preceding time, it may well be conceded that she was able in the last instant to cooperate for the form that was inducible in that instant; but she would not then have cooperated in an instant through operation in time, because the operation [in time] would not then have existed; therefore only through the active power that she would have had did she have the same operation, although she did not act on the intermediate stages that would be caused in time.