We should therefore hold it for certain, that the incarnate Word selected for himself a befitting mother, and one of whom he need not be ashamed, as St. Peter Damian expresses it.[918] And also St. Proculus: He inhabited those bowels which he had created, so as to be free from any mark of infamy.[919] Jesus felt it no reproach to hear himself called by the Jews the son of a poor woman: “Is not his mother called Mary?”[920] for he came on earth to give an example of humility and patience. But on the other hand, it would doubtless have been a reproach to him if it could have been said by the demons: Was he not born from a mother who was a sinner, and once our slave?[921] It would be considered most unfit that Jesus Christ should have been born of a woman deformed and maimed in body, or possessed by evil spirits; but how much more unseemly that he should be born of a woman once deformed in soul, and possessed by Lucifer! Ah, that God who is wisdom itself well knew how to prepare upon the earth a fit dwelling for him to inhabit: “Wisdom hath built herself a house.”[922] “The Most High hath sanctified his own tabernacle.” “God will help it in the morning early.”[923] The Lord, says David, sanctified this his habitation _in the morning early_; that is, from the beginning of her life, to render her worthy of himself; for it was not befitting a God who is holy to select a house that was not holy: Holiness becometh thy house: “Domum tuum decet sanctitudo.”[924] And if he himself declares that he will never enter into a malicious soul, and into a body subject to sins.[925] How can we think that the Son of God would have chosen to inhabit the soul and body of Mary without first sanctifying her and preserving her from every stain of sin? for, as St. Thomas teaches us, the eternal Word inhabited not only the soul, but the body of Mary.[926] The Church also sings: Oh Lord, thou didst not shrink from the Virgin’s womb: “Non horruisti Virginis uterum.” Indeed, a God would have shrunk from incarnating himself in the womb of an Agnes, of a Gertrude, of a Theresa, since those virgins, although holy, were for a time stained with original sin; but he did not shrink from becoming man in the womb of Mary, because this chosen Virgin was always pure from every guilt, and never possessed by the infernal serpent. Hence St. Augustine wrote: The Son of God has built himself no house more worthy than Mary, who was never taken by the enemy, nor robbed of her ornaments.[927] On the other hand, St. Cyril of Alexandria says: Who has ever heard of an architect building a house for his own use and then giving the first possession of it to his greatest enemy?[928]