Chapter XX.
They say that vultures, which are said to reproduce without mating with a male, confirm the possibility of virgin births.
We have spoken about the widowhood of birds, and how it first arose from them: now let us discuss integrity, which is said to exist in many birds in such a way that it can also be found in vultures. It is denied that vultures engage in sexual intercourse, and that they mix in a conjugal manner with a marital connection, and thus conceive without any male seed, and generate without union, and their offspring proceed into old age with a long life; so that their series of life is extended until a hundred years, and the end of a narrow life does not easily come upon them.
65. What do those say, who are accustomed to ridicule our mysteries, when they hear that a virgin gave birth, and they think the birth of an unmarried woman, whose modesty no man's custom had violated, is impossible? Is what is impossible in the Mother of God not denied in birds? A bird gives birth without a male, and no one refutes it; and because Mary, a virgin betrothed to a man, gave birth, they question her modesty. Do we not notice that the Lord, from the very nature itself, put forth many examples before, by which He would prove the beauty of the accepted incarnation and establish the truth?