11. But concerning
the speech of the holy Virgin to the archangel, ‘How will this happen to me,
since I Do not know a man?’, this has another meaning (as we have already said)
that is not inconsistent with our earlier discussion, which is to say, ‘I do
not desire a man, nor do I possess any desire for a man, nor do I know the will
of the fleshly desire for a man.’ For she did not have her virginity on account
of self-control and struggle, as in the case of those women who are more
disciplined and who care for their modesty; rather, she [possessed it] by
nature—in a way that was distinct from all women and foreign to human nature.
And this is what was spoken of by the prophet Ezekiel: ‘There will be a gate,
facing east, which has been closed, and no one may pass through it except for
the Lord alone, the God of Israel. He alone will enter and go out through it,
and the gate will remain closed.’ (Epiphanios the Monk, Life of Mary, the Theotokos,
11, in Life of Mary, the Theotokos and Life and Acts of St Andrew the Apostle
[trans. Mary B. Cunningham; Translated Texts for Byzantinists 13; Liverpool:
Liverpool University Press, 2023], 85)
The translator, Mary B. Cunningham, offered the
following commentary on the above:
In addition to
emphasising Mary’s ascetic qualities, Epiphanios suggests here that she lacked
normal human passions including desire or lust. This comes close to Western
ideas concerning her ‘immaculate conception’, which would cause controversy
during the high Middle Ages and beyond. It is unlikely that our monastic author
approached the topic in a systematic way; however, he built his ideas about the
Virgin on a liturgical tradition that consistently stressed her purity and
perpetual virginity. (Ibid., 85 n. 56)