The Mediaeval Mind (Volume 2 of 2) / A History of the Development of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages

by Henry Osborn Taylor

[271] Op. maj. ii. 14.

[272] For translation see post, Chapter XXXIV.

[273] Post, Chapter XXXVIII.

[274] Itinerarium mentis in Deum, Prologus, 2.

[275] Ibid. cap. vii. 6. For translations see post, Chapter XXXVIII.

[276] Vita prima, cap. xi. Translated ante, Vol. I., p. 427, note 1.

[277] Spec. perfectionis, ed. Sabatier, cap. 53. Translated ante, Vol. I., p. 427.

[278] Ibid. cap. 93. Translated ante, Vol. I., p. 432.

[279] Cap. li., ed. Graesse.

“Annunciation Sunday (Advent) is so called, because on that day by an angel the advent of the Son of God in the flesh was announced, for it was fitting that the angelical annunciation should precede the incarnation, for a threefold reason. For the first reason, of betokening the order, that to wit the order of reparation should answer to the order of transgression. Accordingly as the devil tempted the woman, that he should draw her to doubt and through doubt to consent and through consent to fall, so the angel announced to the Virgin, that by announcing he should arouse her to faith and through faith to consent and through consent to conceiving God’s son. For the second reason, of the angelic ministry, because since the angel is God’s minister and servant, and the blessed Virgin was chosen in order that she might be God’s mother, and it is fitting that the minister should serve the mistress, so it was proper that the annunciation to the blessed Virgin should take place through an angel. For the third reason, of repairing the angelical fall. Because since the incarnation was made not only for the reparation of the human fall, but also for the reparation of the angelical catastrophe, therefore the angels ought not to be excluded. Accordingly as the sex of the woman does not exclude her from knowledge of the mystery of the incarnation and resurrection, so also neither the angelical messenger. Behold, God twice announces to a woman by a mediating angel, to wit the incarnation to the Virgin Mary and the resurrection to the Magdalene.” The order of the Latin words is scarcely changed in the translation.