A Man in the Womb of a Woman

Let us now listen to Jeremiah, who added new prophecies to the old ones, and the One whom he couldn't show as being there yet, he pointed to his coming with the most ardent desire, and promised with confidence. The Lord, he said, just created a new miracle on earth: a woman will surround a man (Jr 31: 22). Who, then, is this woman? And who is this man? And if he is truly a man, how could a woman surround him? And if a woman can surround him, how can he still be a man? And to speak more bluntly, how can he be at the same time a grown man and still be in the maternal womb? (For this is the meaning of the expression "a woman will surround a man.") We call men those who have passed infancy, childhood, adolescence, middle age, and have reached the age of retirement. Yet can someone who has already reached that size be enveloped by a woman? If the prophet had said: a woman will surround a child or infant, we would see neither a novelty nor a prodigy in this. But he didn't say anything of the sort. He said a man. So we ask ourselves, what is this novelty that God has accomplished on the earth, that a woman might envelop a man and a man contract himself inside the frail body of a woman? What sort of miracle is this? Can a man, Nicodemus once asked, re-enter his mother's body and be born again? (Jn 3: 4).