“Now it is evident to all, that in the race of Abraham according to the flesh no one has been born of a virgin, or is said to have been born [of a virgin], save this our Christ. But since you and your teachers venture to affirm that in the prophecy of Isaiah it is not said, ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive,’ but, ‘Behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son;’ and [since] you explain the prophecy as if [it referred] to Hezekiah, who was your king, I shall endeavour to discuss shortly this point in opposition to you, and to show that reference is made to Him who is acknowledged by us as Christ.”
— Justin Martyr (160)
Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 43
“But what Isaiah said, From the height above, or from the depth beneath, Isaiah 7:11 was meant to indicate, that He who descended was the same also who ascended. Ephesians 4:10 But in this that he said, The Lord Himself shall give you a sign, he declared an unlooked-for thing with regard to His generation, which could have been accomplished in no other way than by God the Lord of all, God Himself giving a sign in the house of David. For what great thing or what sign should have been in this, that a young woman conceiving by a man should bring forth—a thing which happens to all women that produce offspring? But since an unlooked-for salvation was to be provided for men through the help of God, so also was the unlooked-for birth from a virgin accomplished; God giving this sign, but man not working it out.”
— Irenaeus (180)
Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 21, Paragraph 6
“And deservedly so; for he bespoke credit for a thing incredible, by saying that it was to be a sign. Therefore, he says, shall a sign be given you. Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and bear a son. But a sign from God, unless it had consisted in some portentous novelty, would not have appeared a sign. In a word, if, when you are anxious to cast any down from (a belief in) this divine prediction, or to convert whoever are simple, you have the audacity to lie, as if the Scripture contained (the announcement), that not a virgin, but a young female, was to conceive and bring forth; you are refuted even by this fact, that a daily occurrence—the pregnancy and parturition of a young female, namely—cannot possibly seem anything of a sign. And the setting before us, then, of a virgin-mother is deservedly believed to be a sign;”
— Tertullian (197)
An Answer to the Jews, Chapter 9
“Now, if a Jew should split words, and say that the words are not, Lo, a virgin, but, Lo, a young woman, we reply that the word Olmah—which the Septuagint have rendered by a virgin, and others by a young woman—occurs, as they say, in Deuteronomy, as applied to a virgin, in the following connection: If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; then you shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and you shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he humbled his neighbour’s wife.”
— Origen (248)
Against Celsus, Book 1, Chapter 34
