Where are they who deny that Christ proclaimed in the Gospel the law to be of God, or can it be supposed that the righteous God made His own Son under a hostile law which He Himself had not given? It is written in the law of Moses as follows, Every male which openeth the womb shall be called holy unto the Lord. (Ex. 13:2, 12.)
If thou wilt touch Jesus and grasp Him in thy hands, strive with all thy strength to have the Spirit for thy guide, and come to the temple of God. For it follows, And when his parents brought in the child Jesus, (i. e. Mary His mother, and Joseph His reputed father,) to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms.
For this reason it seems wonderful that the sacrifice of Mary was not the first offering, that is, “a lamb a year old,” but the second, since “she could not afford” the first. For as it was written about her, Jesus’ parents came “to offer a sacrifice” for him, “according to what is said in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.’ ” But this also shows the truth of what was written, that Jesus Christ “although he was rich, became a poor man.” Therefore, for this reason, he chose both a poor mother, from whom he was born, and a poor homeland, about which it is said, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephratha, who are little to be among the clans of Judah,” and the rest.
But when was the Lord hid from His Father's eye, that He should not be seen by Him, or what place is excepted from His dominion, that by remaining there He should be separate from His Father, unless brought to Jerusalem and introduced into the temple? But for us perhaps these things were written. For as not to confer grace on Himself was He made man and circumcised in the flesh, but to make us Gods through grace, and that we might be circumcised in the Spirit, so for our sakes is He presented to the Lord, that we also might learn to present ourselves to the Lord.
(ubi sup.) He ordered two things to be offered, because as man consists of both body and soul, the Lord requires a double return from us, chastity and meekness, not only of the body, but also of the soul. Otherwise, man will be a dissembler and hypocrite, wearing the face of innocence to mask his hidden malice.
Therefore the Evangelist has well observed, that the days of her purification were come according to the law, who since she had conceived of the Holy Spirit, was free from all uncleanness. It follows, They brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.
(in Hom. de occursu Domini.) Now this commandment of the law seems to have had its fulfilment in the incarnate God, in a very remarkable and peculiar manner. For He alone, ineffably conceived and incomprehensibly brought forth, opened the virgin's womb, till then unopened by marriage, and after this birth miraculously retaining the seal of chastity.
(ubi sup.) But the offspring of this birth is alone seen to be spiritually male, as contracting no guilt from being born of a woman. Hence He is truly called holy, and therefore Gabriel, as if announcing that this commandment belonged to Him only, said, That Holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Now of other first-borns the wisdom of the Gospel has declared that they are called holy from their being offered to God. But the first-born of every creature, That holy thing which is born, &c. the Angel pronounces to be in the nature of its very being holy.
(ubi sup.) It was not surely worldly happiness that the prudent Simeon was waiting for as the consolation of Israel, but a real happiness, that is, a passing over to the beauty of truth from the shadow of the law. For he had learnt from the sacred oracles that he would see the Lord's Christ before he should depart out of this present life. Hence it follows, And the Holy Spirit was in him, (by which indeed he was justified,) and he received an answer from the Holy Spirit.
(ubi sup.) How blessed was that holy entrance to holy things through which he hastened on to the end of life, blessed those hands which handled the word of life, and the arms which were held out to receive Him!
For no union with man disclosed the secrets of the virgin's womb, but the Holy Spirit infused the immaculate seed into an inviolate womb. He then who sanctified another womb in order that a prophet should be born, He it is who has opened the womb of His own mother, that the Immaculate should come forth. By the words opening the womb, he speaks of birth after the usual manner, not that the sacred abode of the virgin's womb, which our Lord in entering sanctified, should now be thought by His proceeding forth from it to be deprived of its virginity.
For among those that are born of a woman, the Lord Jesus alone is in every thing holy, who in the newness of His immaculate birth experienced not the contagion of earthly defilement, but by His Heavenly Majesty dispelled it. For if we follow the letter, how can every male be holy, since it is undoubted that many have been most wicked? But He is holy whom in the figure of a future mystery the pious ordinances of the divine law prefigured, because He alone was to open the hidden womb of the holy virgin Church for the begetting of nations.
Not only did Angels and Prophets, the shepherds and his parents, bear witness to the birth of the Lord, but the old men and the righteous. As it is said, And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and he was a just man, and one who feared God. For scarcely is righteousness preserved without fear, I mean not that fear which dreads the loss of worldly goods, (which perfect love casteth out,) (1 John 4:18) but that holy fear of the Lord which abideth for ever, (Ps. 19:9.) by which the righteous man, the more ardent his love to God, is so much the more careful not to offend Him.
Well is he called righteous who sought not his own good, but the good of his nation, as it follows, Waiting for the consolation of Israel.
He desired indeed to be loosed from the chains of bodily infirmity, but he waits to see the promise, for he knew, Happy are those eyes which shall see it. (Job 6.)
Let us come now to the turtledove, chosen as a chaste victim by the law of God. Hence, when the Lord was circumcised, the dove was offered, because it is written in the law that there should be a presentation of “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” For this is the true sacrifice of Christ: chastity of body and grace of the spirit. Chastity belongs to the turtledove; grace, to the pigeon.
All heretics have gone astray by not understanding the mystery of his nativity. The statement “he who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord” is more applicable to the special nativity of the Savior than to that of all men, for Christ alone opened the closed doors of the womb of virginity, which nevertheless remained permanently closed. This is the closed east door, through which only the high priest enters and leaves, and nevertheless it is always closed.
Next after the circumcision they wait for the time of purification, as it is said, And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were come.
(Hom. xi.) Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! (Rom. 11:33.) He offers victims, Who in each victim is honoured equally with the Father. The Truth preserves the figures of the law. He who as God is the Maker of the law, as man has kept the law. Hence it follows, And that they should give a victim as it was ordered in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. (Lev. 12:8.)
(ubi sup.) But let us see what these offerings mean. The turtle dove is the most vocal of birds, and the pigeon the gentlest. And such was the Saviour made unto us; He was endowed with perfect meekness, and like the turtle dove entranced the world, fillinga His garden with His own melodies. There was killed then either a turtle dove or a pigeon, that by a figure He might be shown forth unto us as about to suffer in the flesh for the life of the world.
Of this name the elect also in their spiritual circumcision rejoice to be partakers, that as from Christ they are called Christians, so also from the Saviour they may be called saved, which title was given them of God not only before they were conceived through faith in the womb of the Church, but even before the world began.
24 And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.
If you diligently examine the words of the law, you will find indeed that the mother of God as she is free from all connection with man, so is she exempt from any obligation of the law. For not every woman who brings forth, but she who has received seed and brought forth, is pronounced unclean, and by the ordinances of the law is taught that she must be cleansed, in order to distinguish probably from her who though a virgin has conceived and brought forth. But that we might be loosed from the bonds of the law, as did Christ, so also Mary submitted herself of her own will to the law.
On the thirty-third day after His circumcision He is presented to the Lord, signifying in a mystery that no one but he who is circumcised from his sins is worthy to come into the Lord's sight, that no one who has not severed himself from all human ties can perfectly enter into the joys of the heavenly city. It follows, As it is written in the law of the Lord.
By the words, opening the womb, he signifies the first-born both of man and beast, and each one of which was, according to the commandment, to be called holy to the Lord, and therefore to become the property of the priest, that is, so far that he was to receive a price for every first-born of man, and oblige every unclean animal to be ransomed.
(Hom. Purif.) Now this was the victim of the poor. For the Lord commanded in the law that they who were able should offer a lamb for a son or a daughter as well as a turtle dove or pigeon; but they who were not able to offer a lamb should give two turtle doves or two young pigeons. Therefore the Lord, though he was rich, deigned to become poor, that by his poverty He might make us partakers of His riches.
(ubi sup.) Or the pigeon denotes simplicity, the turtle dove chastity, for the pigeon is a lover of simplicity, and the turtle dove of chastity, so that if by chance she has lost her mate, she heeds not to find another. Rightly then are the pigeon and turtle dove offered as victims to the Lord, because the simple and chaste conversation of the faithful is a sacrifice of righteousness well pleasing to Him.
(ubi sup.) But while each bird, from its habit of wailing, represents the present sorrows of the saints, in this they differ, that the turtle is solitary, but the pigeon flies about in flocks, and hence the one points to the secret tears of confession, the other to the public assembling of the Church.
Or the pigeon which flies in flocks sets forth the busy intercourse of active life. The turtle, which delights in solitariness, tells of the lofty heights of the contemplative life. But because each victim is equally accepted by the Creator, St. Luke has purposely omitted whether the turtles or young pigeons were offered for the Lord, that he might not prefer one mode of life before another, but teach that both ought to be followed.
To see death means to undergo it, and happy will he be to see the death of the flesh who has first been enabled to see with the eyes of his heart the Lord Christ, having his conversation in the heavenly Jerusalem, and frequently entering the doors of God's temple, that is, following the examples of the saints in whom God dwells as in His temple. By the same grace of the Spirit whereby he foreknew Christ would come, he now acknowledges Him come, as it follows, And he came by the Spirit into the temple.
Now the righteous man, according to the law, received the Child Jesus in his arms, that he might signify that the legal righteousness of works under the figure of the hands and arms was to be changed for the lowly indeed but saving grace of Gospel faith. The old man received the infant Christ, to convey thereby that this world, now worn out as it were with old age, should return to the childlike innocence of the Christian life.
Mary, God’s blessed mother and a perpetual virgin, was, along with the Son she bore, most free from all subjection to the law. The law says that a woman who “had received seed” and given birth was to be judged unclean and that after a long period she, along with the offspring she had borne, were to be cleansed by victims offered to God. So it is evident that the law does not describe as unclean that woman who, without receiving man’s seed, gave birth as a virgin. Nor does it so describe the son who was born to her. Nor does it teach that she had to be cleansed by saving sacrificial offerings. But as our Lord and Savior, who in his divinity was the one who gave the law, when he appeared as a human being, willed to be under the law.… So too his blessed mother, who by a singular privilege was above the law, nevertheless did not shun being made subject to the principles of the law for the sake of showing us an example of humility.
They [heretics - disciples of Valentinus] moreover affirm that the Saviour is shown to be derived from all the Æons, and to be in Himself everything by the following passage: "Every male that opens the womb." [Exodus 13:2; Luke 2:23] For He, being everything, opened the womb of the enthymesis of the suffering Æon, when it had been expelled from the Pleroma.
Indeed, hers is the womb on account of which it is written of others also: "Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord." For who is really holy but the Son of God? Who properly opened the womb but He who opened a closed one? But it is marriage which opens the womb in all cases.
But as, in accordance with the train of our discussion, we have been constrained to come to the matter of the days of the dominion of the adversary, it is necessary to state in the first place what concerns his nativity and growth; and then we must turn our discourse, as we have said before, to the expounding of this matter, viz., that in all respects the accuser and son of lawlessness is to make himself like our Saviour. Thus also the demonstration makes the matter clear to us. Since the Saviour of the world, with the purpose of saving the race of men, was born of the immaculate and virgin Mary, and in the form of the flesh trod the enemy trader foot, in the exercise of the power of His own proper divinity; in the same manner also will the accuser come forth from an impure woman upon the earth, but shall be born of a virgin spuriously. For our God sojourned with us in the flesh, after that very flesh of ours which He made for Adam and all Adam's posterity, yet without sin. But the accuser, though he take up the flesh, will do it only in appearance; for how should we wear that flesh which he did not make himself, but against which he warreth daily? And it is my opinion, beloved, that he will assume this phenomenal kind of flesh as an instrument. For this reason also is he to be born of a virgin, as if a spirit, and then to the rest he will be manifested as flesh. For as to a virgin bearing, this we have known only in the case of the all-holy Virgin, who bore the Saviour verily clothed in flesh. For Moses says, "Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy unto the Lord." This is by no means the case with him; but as the adversary will not open the womb, so neither will he take to himself real flesh, and be circumcised as Christ was circumcised. And even as Christ chose His apostles, so will he too assume a whole people of disciples like himself in wickedness.
As it is written in the law of the Lord: Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. Which means: Every male that opens the womb, including the firstborn of both man and beast, because both are called holy to the Lord, and therefore it is commanded that they belong to the priest. Specifically, he should take a redemption price for the firstborn of man, and redeem every unclean animal. Its redemption, he says, shall be one month old for five shekels of silver (Leviticus 27). Here, without delving into a more detailed discussion, it should be briefly indicated that all those firstborn were either a figure of Him, who, though He was the only-begotten Son of God, deigned to become the firstborn of all creation, truly and singularly holy to the Lord, because He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth (Isaiah 53), or they were surely a sign of our devotion, who ought to attribute all beginnings of good action, which we as if give birth in our hearts, to the grace of the Lord, and redeem those actions done ill, offering worthy fruits of repentance for each of the five senses of body or soul. Therefore, the phrase "that opens the womb" follows the usual manner of speaking of birth. It does not imply that our Lord, who sanctified the sacred womb He entered, should be believed to have despoiled it when He exited, as heretics claim, who say that blessed Mary was a virgin until childbirth but not after childbirth, but rather, according to the catholic faith, that He emerged from the closed womb of the virgin as a bridegroom proceeding from his chamber. Concerning which the Prophet beautifully says: And He turned me towards the way of the sanctuary’s outer gate, which looked to the east, and it was closed, and the Lord said to me: This gate will be closed, it will not be opened, and no man will pass through it, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered through it; and it will be closed for the prince, the prince shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord (Ezekiel 44). Although it can also be mystically understood that no one besides the Lord can open the virgin womb of the Church through water and the Holy Spirit for generating children to God, and hence this male is called holy to the Lord with incomparable dignity.
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Luke 2:22-25
If thou wilt touch Jesus and grasp Him in thy hands, strive with all thy strength to have the Spirit for thy guide, and come to the temple of God. For it follows, And when his parents brought in the child Jesus, (i. e. Mary His mother, and Joseph His reputed father,) to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms.