[TomSmedley]

This is shown by the words which Mary spake in answer to the Angel announcing to her her conception; How,' saith she, shall this be, seeing I know not a man?' Which assuredly she would not say, unless she had before vowed herself unto God as a virgin. But, because the habits of the Israelites as yet refused this, she was espoused to a just man,

As much as I love Augustine, and look forward to shaking his hand in the life to come, this observation strongly illustrates the extent to which his grasp of the earthy realism that permeates the Bible was corrupted by the more ethereal helenistic disdain for the created order. In Augustine's view, those poor benighted Jews were so stupid that they considered marriage to be normative, and singleness as a lamentable condition.

[bornacatholic]

this observation strongly illustrates the extent to which his grasp of the earthy realism that permeates the Bible was corrupted by the more ethereal helenistic disdain for the created order

*Please quote Augustine on his disdain for Creation.