ceived as a virgin; but he does not say that she brought forth her son as a virgin. But what sort of argument is this? Because the text does not say that she was a virgin in the birth of her son, therefore, it is a proof that she did not bring him forth a virgin; whereas, the universal tradition of the Church, as we have seen, explains the text in its true sense, that she conceived a virgin, and brought forth our Lord a virgin. Basnage brings forth another argument, which he deems unanswerable. We read in St. Luke, he says: "After the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses, were accomplished, they carried him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord: as it is written in the law of the Lord, every male opening the womb shall be called holy to the Lord" (Luke, ii. 22). Now, says Basnage (and it is worthy of remark, with what temerity he threw overboard the doctrine of the Fathers, as opposed to Scripture, and the opinion of the learned), the opinion of the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God is generally held, and still it is opposed, both to Scripture and the opinions of the ancients. The narrative of St. Luke is quite plain: "When the days of her purification, &c." Mary was then subjected to the usual law of women after birth, not alone to avoid scandal, but as a matter of duty; and she was compelled, by the general discipline of the law, to offer a sacrifice for her purification. The days of her purification could not be accomplished if she had no necessity of purification. All his argument, then, is reduced to this, that Mary ought not to fulfil the days of her purification, if there was no necessity of purification; and, for all that, she was obliged (coacta sit) to fulfil the rite. This argument he took from Origen[1]; but, as the Fathers of St. Maur say, truly, this was a blasphemy uttered by that Father[2]; and justly, for all the Fathers have said with St. Basil[3], this virgin never was obliged to the law of purification; and this is clear, says the Saint, from the Scriptures; for in Leviticus, xii. 2, it is clearly proved that this law applies to ordinary mothers, but not to one who conceived by the Holy Ghost. "Scriptum est enim," says the holy Father, "mulier quæ conceperit semen, et peperit masculum, immunda erit septem diebus; hæc autem cum facta sit Emmanuelis Mater sine semine, pura, et intemerata est; imo postquam effecta est Mater, adhuc virgo permansit." Even Melancthon, Agricola, and the other Lutherans, as we read in Canisius[4], all say Mary had no necessity of purification. St. Cyril of Alexandria, the same author states, teaches that to assert the contrary is rank heresy. With all that, Basnage is not convinced, and he quotes a passage of St. Fulgentius, where he says: "Vulvam Matris Omnipotentia Filii nascentis aperuit." But we have another passage, in St. Fulgentius himself, in which he declares that the Mother of
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AND THEIR REFUTATION.
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