ived of a woman contract a
certain uncleanness: as it is written (Job 25:4): "Can man be
justified compared with God? Or he that is born of a woman appear
clean?" But it was unbecoming that any uncleanness should be in
Christ: for He is the Wisdom of God, of whom it is written (Wis.
7:25) that "no defiled thing cometh into her." Therefore it does not
seem right that He should have taken flesh from a woman.

_On the contrary,_ It is written (Gal. 4:4): "God sent His Son, made
of a woman."

_I answer that,_ Although the Son of God could have taken flesh from
whatever matter He willed, it was nevertheless most becoming that He
should take flesh from a woman. First because in this way the entire
human nature was ennobled. Hence Augustine says (QQ. lxxxiii, qu.
11): "It was suitable that man's liberation should be made manifest
in both sexes. Consequently, since it behooved a man, being of the
nobler sex, to assume, it was becoming that the liberation of the
female sex should be manifested in that man being born of a woman."

Secondly, because thus the truth of the Incarnation is made evident.
Wherefore Ambrose says (De Incarn. vi): "Thou shalt find in Christ
many things both natural, and supernatural. In accordance with nature
He was within the womb," viz. of a woman's body: "but it was above
nature that a virgin should conceive and give birth: that thou
mightest believe that He was God, who was renewing nature; and that
He was man who, according to nature, was being born of a man." And
Augustine says (Ep. ad Volus. cxxxvii): "If Almighty God had created
a man formed otherwise than in a mother's womb, and had suddenly
produced him to sight . . . would He not have strengthened an
erroneous opinion, and made it impossible for us to believe that He
had become a true man? And whilst He is doing all things wondrously,
would He have taken away that which He accomplished in mercy? But
now, He, the mediator between God and man, has so shown Himself,
that, uniting both natures in the unity of one Person, He has given a
dignity to ordinary by extraordinary things, and tempered the
extraordinary by the ordinary."

Thirdly, because in this fashion the begetting of man is accomplished
in every variety of manner. For the first man was made from the
"slime of the earth," without the concurrence of man or woman: Eve
was made of man but not of woman: and other men are made from both
man and woman. So that this fourth manner remained as