Now let us hear with astonished
minds what the Lord responded to her. Jesus says to her: What is that to me
and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come. According to the meaning of
simple understanding we are able to show that the blessed virgin Mary is called
woman by reason of sex, just as it is written of Eve in Genesis: And God put
a drowsiness upon Adam and he slept; and He took one of his ribs and He
restored flesh in its place. And the Lord God built the rib which He had taken
from Adam into woman, and certainly He fashioned her a virgin, and brought
her to Adam. And Adam said: This now is bone from my bones and flesh from my
flesh; she shall be called woman, because she has been taken from her man. (Gaudentius
of Brescia, “Tract Number Nine: Second Sermon on the Gospel Lesson,” in Gaudentius
of Brescia: Sermons and Letters [trans. Stephen L. Boehrer; The Catholic University
of America Studies in Sacred Theology (Second Series) 165; PhD Dissertation,
1965], 115)
