Psalms 87:5

Listen now to a deep mystery. Rahab is there through Him, through whom also is Babylon, now no longer Babylon, but beginning to be Jerusalem. The daughter is divided against her mother, and will be among the members of that queen to whom is said, "Forget your own people, and your father's house, so shall the king have pleasure in your beauty." For how could Babylon aspire to Jerusalem? How could Rahab reach those foundations? How could the Philistines, or Tyre, or the people of the Ethiopians? Listen to this verse, "Sion, my mother, a man shall say." There is then a man who says this: through whom all those I have mentioned make their approach. Who is this man? It tells if we hear, if we understand. It follows, as if a question had been raised, through whose aid Rahab, Babylon, the Philistines, Tyre, and the Morians, gained an entrance. Behold, through whom they come; "Sion, my mother, a man shall say; and a man was born in her, and Himself the Most High has founded her" [Psalm 87:5]. What, my brethren, can be clearer? Truly, because "very excellent things are spoken of you, thou city of God." Lo, "Sion, O mother, a man shall say." What man? "He who was born in her." It is then the man who was born in her, and He Himself has founded her. Yet how can He be born in the city which He Himself founded? It had already been founded, that therein He might be born. Understand it thus, if you can. "Mother Sion, he shall say;" but it is "a man" that "shall say, Mother Sion; yea, a man was born in her:" and yet "he has founded her" (not a man, but), "the Most High." As He created a mother of whom He would be born, so He founded a city in which He would be born. What hope is ours, brethren! On our behalf the Most High, who founded the city, addresses that city as a mother: and "He was born in her, and the Most High has founded her."

Will a man say to Zion, and a man is born in her? The Seventy translators rendered it thus: Will a man say to Zion? Many, then, expected, and did not understand what μήτη Σιὼν is: and they added a ρ, and they read μήτηρ Σιὼν ἐρεῖ ἄνθρωπος (mother Zion will a man say). And they say this because there follows, And a man is born in her: they expect that it also ought to be said in this way, Mother Zion will a man say. Because a son is said to be born, therefore they err in the word "mother." Let us then speak first according to what is commonly said (for neither ought we to dismiss that interpretation), let us then say also ourselves: Mother Zion will a man say, and a man is born in her. These are they who had been born in the Church, the foreigners, Tyre, and the people of the Ethiopians: these are they who are born in the Church. They believe in the Church, and are born in the Church. For unless they have been baptized, they will not be sons of the Church. But those who have been baptized in the Church, they call the Church mother. Let us also speak according to the Hebrew truth. Will a man say to Zion, and a man is born in her? What he says is this. Who will be able to announce to Zion, who will be able to announce to her of men, that a man will be born in her, and he himself will save her? That is, no man can announce to her that Zion will be saved in the man who will be born in her. And a man is born in her. Who is this man? He himself, the Most High, founded her. Let the Arians answer: for they say that the Father alone is the Most High. Behold, here it is said of the Son, And he himself, the Most High, founded her. He did not say, The Son of God who was in the beginning with the Father. But what did he say? A man is born in her, and he himself, the Most High, founded her. But if he is called the Most High, how much more the Word of God?