The Painless Delivery

I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children
Genesis 3:16

Part of the dogma surrounding the person of Mary connotates that not only before and after, but also during the birth of Christ, the Mother of God retained her virginity.

The common verse to which all Christians turn in affirmation of the virgin birth is Isaiah 7:14. In the famous rendering of the King James Version, it reads:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Theotokos of the Sign;
icon named after the
"sign" of Isaiah 7:14

The prophecy firstly iterates "the virgin shall conceive" -- but it does not stop there -- and immediately continues "and bear a son." Neither her conception, nor her birthing, compromises her virginity. This comes out even more clearly when the text is rendered in a literal translation from the Hebrew, which reads "Lo, the Virgin is conceiving, And is bringing forth a son" (Is. 7:14 YLT) She is virgin as she conceives, she is virgin as she brings forth; in other words, the whole pregnancy is virginal, from start to finish.

This is not the only inference from Sacred Scripture. The Prophet Isaiah further furnishes us with one more indication that the Messiah's birth is painless. In it's final chapter, we find another prophecy which describes the miraculous phenomenon with even more precision -- it is rather direct and straightforward:

Before she was in labor
    she gave birth;
before her pain came upon her
    she delivered a son.
(Isaiah 66:7)

So it is not only the virgin conception, but the virgin birth, which constitutes the fulfillment of prophecy, and this has been a general conviction of the historic church. Testimony to this course of events is found remarkably early in church history. Mary's painless delivery is found in Christian literature. The early Christian work, the Ascension of Isaiah, which historian Richard Carrien (an atheist) dates to the late first-early second century, says thus:

Some said: "The Virgin Mary hath borne a child, before she was married two months." And many said: "She has not borne a child, nor has a midwife gone up (to her), nor have we heard the cries of (labour) pains." And they were all blinded respecting Him and they all knew regarding Him, though they knew not whence He was.
(Ascension of Isaiah 11:13-14, c. 100)

And in the Odes of Solomon, a Christian work from the middle of the second century, says this of the birth of Christ:

So the Virgin became a mother with great mercies.
And she labored and bore the Son but without pain, because it did not occur without purpose.
And she did not require a midwife, because He caused her to give life.
(Odes 19:7-9, c. 150)

The most detailed reference to the event comes from the Protogospel of St. James, from roughly the year 145. It describes the passage of the Lord through her virginal womb in much the same way as the twentieth chapter of St. John's Gospel describes the Risen Lord passing through the locked door.

As far as the actual testimony of saints are concerned, we have the following:

St. Gregory of Nyssa

“Though coming in the form of man, yet not in every thing is He subject to the laws of man’s nature; for while His being born of a woman tells of human nature; virginity becoming capable of childbirth betokens something above man. Of Him then His mother’s burden was light, the birth immaculate, the delivery without pain, the nativity without defilement, neither beginning from wanton desire, nor brought to pass with sorrow. For as she who by her guilt engrafted death into our nature, was condemned to bring forth in trouble, it was meet that she who brought life into the world should accomplish her delivery with joy.” (St Gregory of Nyssa, Homily on the Nativity, AD ca. 388)

St. Ambrose of Milan

“Who is this gate (Ezekiel 44:1-4, see above), if not Mary? Is it not closed because she is a virgin? Mary is the gate through which Christ entered this world, when He was brought forth in the virginal birth and the manner of His birth did not break the seals of virginity…There is a gate of the womb, although it is not always closed; indeed only one was able to remain closed, that through which the One born of the Virgin came forth without the loss of genital intactness” (The Consecration of a Virgin and the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, 8:52; ca. AD 391).

St. Augustine of Hippo

“Christ transcends, indeed, the miracles of all besides, in being born of a virgin, and in possessing alone the power, both in His conception and birth, to preserve inviolate the integrity of His mother: but that was done neither before their eyes nor in them. For the knowledge of the truth of such a miracle was reached by the apostles, not through any onlooking that they had in common with others, but in the course of their separate discipleship.” (Tractate 91:3).

St. John Damascene

How can death claim as its prey this truly blessed one, who listened to God’s word in humility, and was filled with the Spirit, conceiving the Father’s gift through the archangel, bearing without concupiscence or the co-operation of man the Person of the Divine Word, who fills all things, bringing Him forth without the pains of childbirth, being wholly united to God? (Second Homily on the Dormition of the Mother of God)

Inevitably, there might be some hesitation against this notion from certain believers. They might object that belief in a painless birth, and the maintenance of Our Lady's virginal seal, effectively undermines and deemphasizes the reality of Christ's fully human nature. But those who hold such a concern need not be scandalized in admitting this belief, for they also acknowledge and believe that the fully human Christ, among other things:

• was conceived of a virgin, and had no human father.
• Fasted in the desert for forty days, and survived. 
• Walked upon water
• RESURRECTED FROM THE DEAD of His own accord
• Passed through locked doors

It is important to remember that this man Jesus is the very Son of God, true offspring of the true Heavenly Father, and Lord over all creation. Just as he was able to do all these other things while He lived upon the earth, and all with no dilution of his fully human nature, he was certainly able to pass through His mother's virginal seal and not inflict any pain upon her through His birth.

I would lastly like to leave a few choice reflections from two of the Church Fathers as to why God have deigned to have His Son's birth be free of all labor pains, and explore the substance of their commentaries..

For, as pleasure did not precede it, pain did not follow it
(St. John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith IV, 14) 

"In conceiving thou wast all pure, in giving birth thou wast without pain"
(St. Augustine, Sermon on Nativity).

"It is not right that He who came to heal corruption should by His advent violate integrity (St. Augustine, Sermon 189:2)

To "theologize" along with them for a moment: why was the Virgin spared of labor pains? It says some remarkable things, both about Mary and about Christ Himself. On the one hand, given that labor pains constituted part of the curse of the original, ancestral sin, it is thus a testament to Mary's own purity of soul and body that she should not feel the pains of labor. She who became a tabernacle for the Holy One of Israel was so thoroughly sanctified by God on this account, so fully prepared for the task, that she did not even experience the pains of labor which were associated with sin.

On the other hand, it also ornaments the advent of Christ and glorifies His Gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ is healer, not destroyer; bringing restoration and not corruption. In Him, man finds the reintegration of his humanity, not its disintegration. In the deeper, spiritual sense of the event, should He have violated the integrity of His Mother as she birthed Him, and caused her pain, it would seem wholly contrary to the very purpose for which He came into the world: the restoration of mankind to (and beyond) his original Edenic glory.

Nothing accursed will be found there any more.

Revelation 22:3a