Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Maximus the Confessor on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary

  

For this was a conception pure of any seed, and a birth completely untouched by corruption, which is why the mother of the one born remained a virgin even after giving birth, and indeed suffered no pain while giving birth—which is a paradox that goes far beyond every law and principle of nature . . . (Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua to John: Ambiguum 31, in On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, 2 vols. [trans. Nicholas Constas; Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014], 2:41)