Cornelius a Lapide

As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord (Exod. xiii. 12) — that is, shall be offered and consecrated to God as a thing dedicated and holy. Christ was not bound by this law, both because He subsisted in the Person of the Word, which is bound by no laws, and also because He did not open His mother's womb, but came forth while it remained closed. So Cyril ( Horn. De Occurs . Dom. Pope Hormisdas (Ep. i. ch. iii.), Bede, and others. Rupertus, John of Avila, Jansenius, and Maldonatus, therefore, who take the phrase " that openeth the womb ” as merely equivalent to " first born ,” and suppose, on this ground, that Christ was included by these words, but otherwise excepted from the law as being God and the Son of God, are incorrect in their view. Lastly, I quote the following from S. Bernard’s “Sermon on the Purification” — “Veiy slight, brethren, does this oblation seem, in which He is but presented to the Lord, redeemed with birds, and straightway taken back. The time shall come when He shall be offered up not in the temple, nor within the arms of Simeon, but outside the Digitized by Google The purification of the blessed virgin. 107 city in the arms of the Cross. The time shall come when He shall not be redeemed with blood not his own, but with His own blood shall redeem others, because God the Father hath sent him to be the redemption of His people. That shall be an evening sacrifice, this is a morning sacrifice — this is the more joyous, that shall be the fuller.”