Letter 3: Concerning an active life of good works.
On the saying of the Blessed Virgin, "And he did not know her," and so forth. Since you have said that it is thought to be a scandal to the Jews, what is stated in the divine oracles, "He did not know her until she bore her son," as though afterward, they say, there was union between the betrothed and the Virgin, let the blasphemous and ungrateful people know that the word "until" is frequently found used in the sense of "in perpetuity" in divine Scripture. "Until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet" — that is, perpetually. And "the dove did not return" — that is, continuously. On the saying, "The foxes have dens, and the birds of heaven have nests." "The foxes have dens, and the birds of heaven have nests" — the Lord replied to the one who asked to follow him, being a knower of hearts, as one who fashioned the hearts of human beings individually. And "individually" is said because he made them without needing the help of another. And seeing that the man was held captive by deceitful thoughts and inhabited by evil spirits, and was incorrigibly disposed toward wickedness, on this account he sent him away from his own company, so that the persistence of that man's wickedness would not become a cause of scandal for the believers, who were gazing upon him and would have condemned the Master's power as weakness, as though it had not been able to transform the disciple toward virtue.
Human translation — Roger Pearse (additional translations)
Latin / Greek Original
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