Ezekiel 44:2

Could it be possible that in that entrance there were both seven steps and eight? Just notice what he says: the east gate, the gate from which the light enters—our Lord and Savior. There is indeed a gate, and no one enters it except the high priest. And what does holy Scripture say about it? "This gate is to remain closed"; it is not opened, moreover, except to the priest. Even so the Covenant, both Old and New, has always been closed; it has not been opened except to the Savior.… One gate, then, has both seven steps and eight. In the Old Testament, for example, the divine mysteries point to the Gospels, and in the New Testament back to the law.

The word was made flesh without sexual intercourse, being conceived altogether without seed; then he was born without injury to her virginity.

(Chapter 44, verses 1 onwards) And he brought me back to the way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which faces eastward and was closed. And the Lord said to me: This gate shall be closed and shall not be opened, and no man shall enter through it, for the Lord God of Israel has entered (or will enter) by it; it shall be closed for the prince. The prince himself shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord.

Some quite emphatically understand this closed gate through which only the Lord God of Israel passes... as the Virgin Mary, who remains a Virgin before and after childbirth. In fact, she remains always a Virgin, in the moment in which the Angel speaks with her and when the Son of God is born.

Who is this gate, 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.

What is that gate of the sanctuary, that outer gate facing the east and remaining closed? Is not Mary the gate through whom the Redeemer entered this world?

What means this closed gate in the House of the Lord, except that Mary is to be ever inviolate? What does it mean that 'no man shall pass through it,' save that Joseph shall not know her? And what is this - 'The Lord alone enters in and goeth out by it' - except that the Holy Ghost shall impregnate her, and that the Lord of angels shall be born of her? And what means this—'it shall be shut for evermore' - but that Mary is a virgin before His Birth, a virgin in His Birth, and a virgin after His Birth?

On the contrary, It is written (Ezekiel 44:2): "This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it; because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it." Expounding these words, Augustine says in a sermon …

But just as He who was conceived kept her who conceived still virgin, in like manner also He who was born preserved her virginity intact, only passing through her and keeping her closed. [Ezekiel 44:2] The conception, indeed, was through the sense of hearing, but the birth through the usual path by which children come, although some tell tales of His birth through the side of the Mother of God. For it was not impossible for Him to have come by this gate, without injuring her seal in anyway. The ever-virgin One thus remains even after the birth still virgin, having never at any time up till death consorted with a man.

Then said the Lord unto me, this gate shall be shut,.... In time to come, as Jarchi interprets it, in the latter day; it was shut, and it should continue to be shut: it shall not be opened; any more; though it has been, yet hereafter no more: and no man shall enter in by it, into the house of the Lord, because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it; the same with the glory of the God of Israel, Eze 43:2, therefore it shall be shut; no one being to enter after him.

But such an account is given of this gate's being shut as puts honour, 1. It is for the honour of him that the gate of the inner court, at which his glory entered when he took possession of the house, was ever after kept shut, and no man was allowed to enter in by it,

This gate shall be shut - It was not to be opened on ordinary occasions, nor at all on the week days: but only on the Sabbaths and the new moons. See the account of the gates (4) in the explanation of the plan. This verse has been adduced by the Roman Catholics to prove the perpetual virginity of the mother of our Lord; and it may be allowed to be as much to the purpose as any other that has been brought to prove this very precarious point, on which no stress should ever be laid by any man.

shut . . . not be opened-- (Job 12:14; "Shut" to the people (Ex 19:21, 22), but open to "the prince" (Eze 44:3), he holding the place of God in political concerns, as the priests do in spiritual. As a mark of respect to an Eastern monarch, the gate by which he enters is thenceforth shut to all other persons (compare Ex 19:24).

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase+unbalanced-parens

The Lord hath entered in - See Eze 43:2.