Tertullian offers this typological explanation for Jesus’ conception and birth from a virgin: “Since he came to give us a new life it was fitting that he himself should be born in a new manner. But this newness, as always, is prefigured in the Old Testament, the Lord’s birth of a Virgin being of a fore-ordained plan. The soil was still virgin, neither harrowed by the laborer, nor sown by the sower when the Lord formed from it a living soul. Therefore since tradition teaches that the first Adam is of the earth, then the last Adam must, as the Apostle says, be formed from the earth, to be a life-giving spirit. And further . . . why is Christ called Adam by the Apostle if his human nature has no earthly origin? But the divine plan shows that God has restored his image and likeness, held captive by the devil, by an inverse operation.”
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