An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 87

1 BOOK IV — CHAPTER 14: Concerning our Lord's genealogy and concerning the holy Mother of God.

2 Concerning the holy and much-lauded ever-virgin one, Mary, the Mother of God: she being pre-ordained by the eternal prescient counsel of God, sprang at the pre-determined time from the root of David. Joachim then took to wife that revered and praiseworthy woman, Anna. But just as the earlier Anna, who was barren, bore Samuel by prayer and by promise, so also this Anna by supplication and promise from God bare the Mother of God. Accordingly it was grace (for this is the interpretation of Anna) that bore the lady: for she became truly the Lady of all created things in becoming the Mother of the Creator.

3 Then planted in the House of God and increased by the Spirit, like a fruitful olive tree, she became the home of every virtue, turning her mind away from every secular and carnal desire, and thus keeping her soul as well as her body virginal, as was meet for her who was to receive God into her bosom: for as He is holy, He finds rest among the holy. And thus she conceived the Son of God, the hypostatic power of the Father, not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, that is to say, by connection and seed, but by the good pleasure of the Father and co-operation of the Holy Spirit.

4 But just as He who was conceived kept her who conceived still virgin, in like manner also He who was born preserved her virginity intact, only passing through her and keeping her closed. The ever-virgin One thus remains even after the birth still virgin, having never at any time up till death consorted with a man. But the joy of the resurrection transforms the pain, proclaiming Him, Who died in the flesh, to be God.