Our Lady and more especially her types of our virginity are understood by the Fathers to be typified exclusively by—amongst other types:
I. The Paradise of Eden, the virginal soil, the earth that produced Adam, the untilled ground. ( Cf. Gen. ii.)
Mary is symbolised in the Paradise, where for a short time sin was yet unknown, by the virgin earth from which God formed the body of the first Adam.
For example St. John Chrysostom writes :
"The word Eden signifies virgin land. Now, such was the region in which God planted Paradise. For it is written that God planted a Paradise in Eden towards the East, Gen. ii. 8 (according to the Septuagint). that thou mayest under stand that Paradise was not a work of human hands; since the earth was virgin, and had known no ploughshare, nor was it cut up by furrows ; but with out tillage—at the Divine command alone it put forth its vegetation and trees. For this cause He called it Eden, which means virgin soil. This virgin earth is a type of the Virgin. For as that land, without having received any seed, blossomed forth for us Paradise; so too Mary, without having conceived of man, blossomed forth for us Christ. When then a Jew says to thee : How did a Virgin bring forth ? say to him : How did the virgin earth put forth those marvellous trees ?"
And on the words: " A spring rose out of the earth, watering all the face of the earth," St. Augustine writes: "The face of the earth, that is the dignity of the earth, whereby is most rightly understood the Mother of the Lord, Mary the Virgin, whom the Holy Spirit watered."
