…because it was by just the contrary operation that God recovered His own image and likeness, of which He had been robbed by the devil.
For it was while Eve was yet a virgin,
that the ensnaring word had crept into her ear which was to build the edifice of death.
Into a virgin’s soul, in like manner,
must be introduced that Word of God which was to raise the fabric of life;
so that what had been reduced to ruin by this sex,
might by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation.
As Eve had believed the serpent,
so Mary believed the angel.
The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing,
the other by believing effaced.
But (it will be said) Eve did not at the devil’s word conceive in her womb.
Well, she at all events conceived;
for the devil’s word afterwards became as seed to her that she should conceive as an outcast,
and bring forth in sorrow.
Indeed she gave birth to a fratricidal devil;
whilst Mary, on the contrary,
bare one who was one day to secure salvation to Israel,
His own brother after the flesh, and the murderer of Himself.
God therefore sent down into the virgin’s womb His Word,
as the good Brother,
who should blot out the memory of the evil brother.
Hence it was necessary that Christ should come forth for the salvation of man,
in that condition of flesh into which man had entered ever since his condemnation.
Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ , 17
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