Nativity I

 An ad hominem reaction is an argument directed against a person rather than the position he or she is maintaining. It’s a logical fallacy.

It was an argument that, on one occasion, was used against Jesus by the Pharisees, who, bested in a debate with him, turned and attacked his reputation: “Well at least we’re not born of fornication,” they sneered, with the implication: “As you were!” (John 8:41).

Jesus’ contemporaries never understood his miraculous conception, nor, to be honest, do we.

John Donne tried very hard to express the mystery and the wonder of it: 

Ere by the spheres time was created thou [Mary]Wast in his mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art nowThy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother,Thou wast light in dark and shut’st in little roomImmensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb. 

No, we’ll never understand Jesus’ unique conception. All we can say is that once for a very specific purpose, Immensity was cloistered in a young woman’s womb.

We can only hallow the day when, nine months later, ”the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward us appeared" (Titus 3:4).

David Roper
12.12.21