The Divine Lamp

The Son of God, says the Apostle, was made of the seed of David according to the flesh: that is, as though of the mould of earth when there was no man to till the earth.  For no man wrought in the Virgin of whom Christ was orn.  But a spring rose out of the earth, watering all the face of the earth.  The face of the earth: that is, the dignity of the earth, whereby is most rightly understood the Mother of the Lord, the Virgin Mary, whom the Holy Spirit watered.  For He is signified under the name of a spring and of water in the Gospel: as thought Christ made of such mould, was to be the Man set in paradise to work and keep it, that is to say, to perfect and keep it by the Will of the Father.-St Augustine

As Adam, the first man made, had his substance from rude and still virgin earth-for God had not as yet rained upon the earth, and no man had worked it-and was fashioned by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God; so likewise the same Word-who has His existence [according to His human nature] from Mary ever a virgin-when recapitulating Adam in Himself, rightly received, by way of recapitulation, Adam’s mode of generation…But why then did He not take again the slime of the earth, instead of causing the formation to be from Mary? This was, that whilst the new formation to be made was not to be different from the first formation which should be saved, but the same was to be recapitulated , yet that it still should be by way of similitude.-St Irenaeus

He who deliverd lost man, who was formed of earth, and bound with the chains of death, from the lowest hell, the same was man’s helper, Himself like to him-the First-begotten Word visiting in the Virgin our first parent Adam; the Spiritual, in the womb, seeking the earthly; the Ever-living, him by disobedience dead; the Celestial calling  the terrestrial to things higher; the Noble wishing to grant liberty to the slavery by His  own obedience. -St Hippolytus

The word Eden signifies virgin land.  Now such was that region in which God planted paradise.  For it i written that God planted a paradise in Eden towards the East, that thou may understand that paradise was not  a work of human hands; since the earth was virgin, and had known no plow-share, nor was cut up by furrows; but without any tillage, at the command alone (of God) it put forth its vegetation and trees.  For this cause He called it Eden, which means virgin soil.  Now this virgin (earth) is a type of the Virgin.  For as that land, without having received any seed, lossomed forth for us paradise; so too Mary, without having conceived of man, blossomed forth for us Christ.  When then a Jew says to thee, How did a Virgin bring forth? say to him, How did the virgin earth put forth those marvellous trees?- St John Chrysostom

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