“The story of the Annunciation and the Incarnation of the Lord is represented in some places with a sort of small human body descending towards the Holy Virgin’s abdomen, amidst the rays that the Holy Spirit is spreading. Now it seems that this painting gives rise to an error that is not only dangerous but even heretical. In fact, since antiquity, Valentin has been considered a heretic by the Church for having taught that Christ brought his body from heaven and entered Mary’s body as if through a tube or a fistula. This is why Saint Anthony severely censured this painting. He says that painters are reprehensible when they represent what goes against the faith when they make of the image of the Trinity a single person with three heads, which is a monster in the order of nature, or again when they make the Annunciation of the Virgin into an already formed child, Jesus, introduced into the womb of the Virgin as if he had not taken flesh from the substance of the Virgin, or Jesus as a child with a writing tablet when he has not been instructed by man.”

“Pingitur enim quibusdam locis, in historia Annunciationis et Incarnationis Dominicae, corpusculum quoddam humanum inter radios quos Spiritus Sanctus diffundit descendens ad uterum beatissime Virginis: quae pictura videtur praebere occasione erroris non solum periculosi, sed etiam haeretici. Valentinus enim ab antiquo haereticus est habitus ab Ecclesia, quia docuit Christus corpus de coelo attulisse et per Mariam iantum tanquam per fistulam transiisse. Unde sanctus Antonius, hanc picturam acriter reprehendit. Reprehensibiles, inquit, sunt etiam pictores, cum pingunt ea quae sunt contra fidem: cum faciunt Trinitatis Imaginem unam personam cum tribus capitibus, quod monstrum est in rerum natura: vel in annunciatione Virginis paruulum puerum formatum scilicet Iseum, mitti in uteru, Verginis, quasi non esset de substantia Virginis, corpus eius assumptum vel paruulum Iesum cum tabula litterarum, cum non didicerit ab homine.”