it were proper
to Christ, that He should be made of a woman without the concurrence
of a man.

Reply Obj. 1: The male sex is more noble than the female, and for
this reason He took human nature in the male sex. But lest the female
sex should be despised, it was fitting that He should take flesh of a
woman. Hence Augustine says (De Agone Christ. xi): "Men, despise not
yourselves: the Son of God became a man: despise not yourselves,
women; the Son of God was born of a woman."

Reply Obj. 2: Augustine thus (Contra Faust. xxiii) replies to
Faustus, who urged this objection; "By no means," says he, "does the
Catholic Faith, which believes that Christ the Son of God was born of
a virgin, according to the flesh, suppose that the same Son of God
was so shut up in His Mother's womb, as to cease to be elsewhere, as
though He no longer continued to govern heaven and earth, and as
though He had withdrawn Himself from the Father. But you, Manicheans,
being of a mind that admits of nought but material images, are
utterly unable to grasp these things." For, as he again says (Ep. ad
Volus. cxxxvii), "it belongs to the sense of man to form conceptions
only through tangible bodies, none of which can be entire everywhere,
because they must of necessity be diffused through their innumerable
parts in various places . . . Far otherwise is the nature of the soul
from that of the body: how much more the nature of God, the Creator
of soul and body! . . . He is able to be entire everywhere, and to be
contained in no place. He is able to come without moving from the
place where He was; and to go without leaving the spot whence He
came."

Reply Obj. 3: There is no uncleanness in the conception of man from a
woman, as far as this is the work of God: wherefore it is written
(Acts 10:15): "That which God hath cleansed do not thou call common,"
i.e. unclean. There is, however, a certain uncleanness therein,
resulting from sin, as far as lustful desire accompanies conception
by sexual union. But this was not the case with Christ, as shown
above (Q. 28, A. 1). But if there were any uncleanness therein, the
Word of God would not have been sullied thereby, for He is utterly
unchangeable. Wherefore Augustine says (Contra Quinque Haereses v):
"God saith, the Creator of man: What is it that troubles thee in My
Birth? I was not conceived by lustful desire. I made Myself a mother
of whom to be born. If the sun's rays can dry up the filth in the
drain, an