If you will bear the
tree of this teaching and pluck its fruit, you will always be gathering in the
things that are desirable in the sight of God, things that the serpent cannot
touch and deceit cannot defile. Then Eve is not seduced, but a Virgin is
found trustworthy (οὐδὲ Εὔα φθείρεται, ἀλλὰ παρθένος πιστεύεται). (Letter
to Diognetus 12:8, in Early Christian Fathers [trans. Cyril C. Richardson;
New York: Collier Books, 1970], 224)
It is fairly clear that the author intends to state the
common Patristic contrast (cf. Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 100; Irenaeus,
Adv. haer. III. 22:4; V. 19:1; Tertullian, De carne Christi, 17)
between Eve, the disobedient mother of death, and Mary, the obedient mother of
life, in which case the parthenos of the text will be the blessed Virgin
Mary. (Ibid., 224 n. 23)
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