* From an unattributed source.❧

83 On the fortieth day there was a purification according to the law, because the development of
the male also takes forty days. This is a sign that the formation itself required cleansing from
God. In the case of Christ, the formation was holy: it was not from human seeds but from
divine power. What was born was also holy, but it was not so by being been made holy; he
was clean not by being cleansed. Similarly, he was baptised when he did not need cleansing
through water, but so that he should make the waters of baptism holy and so that he
should fulfil all righteousness, * in obedience to the prophet. In this way, then, for his
purification an offering was made for the one who did not require purification, doves and
pigeons, a sign of his simple and modest behaviour. Such things are shadows and types
for humans, but in the case of Christ they are the truth: for he is the power of true modesty,
and the state of being of true simplicity.❧     * From an unattributed source.❧

not copulation? What sort of purification? For, evangelist, there is no account of a bed, for
the God-bearer is not struck by the pains of Eve when she bears gods. The curse which was
in paradise does not hold sway there, for the virgin mother did not conceive and give birth
in the same way as other women. The purification of which you now read and write, Luke
hints to us by using the same word, purification: it is not of defiled or transient flesh in
the manner of those who give birth and are born. Away with you! For the offspring from the
one who had not experienced marriage was undefiled and absolute, since his origin was from
the Father without intermediary before eternity. But it reminds us of the formation of the
earthly Adam and Eve, which was holy and pure of any filth and blemish, stronger than any
disgrace, and how not one of these things was presupposed. Once they had been disobedient,
it was made subject to labour and, from their turning aside it was bound to a turn for the worse
instead of the better utterances: a curse instead of a blessing, and death instead of immortality. *