messenger of the queen of arts 88 You boast to me here, sons and daughters, of your lineage from princes, kings, emperors, and since the most excellent Virgin was created before the turning of the centuries, it is appropriate therefore to call her the Daughter of God. Even more, because before all others, she was brought forth completely by the Holy Spirit, and St. Paul states: “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” (Rom 8:14). Is she not on account of this reason the Daughter of God? For the orthodox Church recognizes her as such, when it greets her: “Hail Mary, Daughter of God the Father.” Here let those vicious monsters depart, those women whom antiquity (deceived by great error) venerated as the daughters of the gods. Only the Most Blessed Virgin Mary can we call the Daughter of God, although not born from Him according to flesh and blood, but adopted. If, therefore, the children of the princes ought to be educated more diligently than people in general, then what kind of divine education — do you think — did the Daughter of God receive? For since she in the future was to become the temple of God, they brought her when she was three years old to the Parthenon2 of the Jerusalem Temple, so that there, together with the pure and devout girls, she would be educated in the divine laws, imbued with piety and strengthened in holiness. St. John Damascene, the enthusiastic admirer of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, gives witness to the same. He writes thus: “Planted in the house of God and fed by the Holy Spirit, she became like a fruitful olive, the dwelling place of all virtues.” Not being subject to the weaknesses of her young age, she did not chase after girlish trifles, but had in her as yet immature face the maturity of a grown woman, and she herself encouraged her companions — by her gaze — to the practice of virtues. She did not place any opposition nor did she reject the recommendations and commands of her formators, but filled with the Spirit of God, she zealously fulfilled even the smallest of their commands and she most perfectly kept them. She never gave herself over to the fickle amusements proper to her young 2 The Parthenon was the sanctuary of the virgin Athena.
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