Theperpetual virginity of Mary is a Christian doctrine thatMary, the mother of Jesus, was avirgin "before, during and after" the birth of Christ.[2] InWestern Christianity, theCatholic Church adheres to the doctrine, as do manyLutherans, someAnglicans,Reformed, and otherProtestants.[3][4][5][6][7] InEastern Christianity, theOriental Orthodox Churches and theChurch of the East both adhere to this doctrine as part of their ongoing tradition,[8][9] andEastern Orthodox churches recognize Mary asAeiparthenos, meaning "ever-virgin".[10] It is one of the fourMarian dogmas of the Catholic Church.[11] Most modernnonconformist Protestants, such as thePlymouth Brethren, reject the doctrine.[12]
The extant written tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary first appears in a late 2nd-century text called theProtoevangelium of James.[13] TheSecond Council of Constantinople in 553 gave her the title "Aeiparthenos", meaning Perpetual Virgin, and at the Lateran Synod of 649Pope Martin I emphasized the threefold character of the perpetual virginity, before, during, and after the birth of Christ.[14] The LutheranSmalcald Articles (1537) and the ReformedSecond Helvetic Confession (1562) codified the doctrine of perpetual virginity of Mary as well.[15][3]
The doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity has been challenged on the basis that the New Testament explicitly affirms her virginity only until the birth of Jesus[16] and mentions thebrothers (adelphoi) of Jesus,[17][18] who may have been: (1) sons ofMary, the mother of Jesus, andJoseph; (2) sons of Joseph by a former marriage; or (3) sons of the Mary named in Mark 15:40 as "mother of James and Joses", who has been identified as either the wife ofClopas and sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus, or a sister-in-law to Joseph.[19][a]
TheOdes of Solomon have been interpreted as implying that Mary was a virgin even during childbirth as well as stating that Mary did not have pain during childbirth.[20][21] Similar statements exist in theAscension of Isaiah,[22] for example the passage "And after her astonishment had worn off her womb was found as (it was) at first, before she had conceived" is described by scholars as an "extraordinary process".[23]
The virgin birth of Jesus is found in theGospel of Matthew and possibly inLuke, but it seems to have little theological importance before the middle of the 2nd century.[25] The 2nd century Church fathersIrenaeus andJustin Martyr, though mentioning the virgin birth, nowhere affirmed explicitly the view that Mary was a perpetual virgin.[26] This idea, however, appears in at least three second-century works: theProtoevangelium of James,[13] theGospel of Peter[27][28] and theInfancy Gospel of Thomas.[29] All of these early sources independently assert that the so-called"brothers of the Lord" were children of Joseph's first marriage.[29] According toAnglican scholarRichard Bauckham, these works "show no signs of literary relationship"[29] and probably "evidence of a well-established tradition in (probably early) second-century Syrian Christianity that Jesus' brothers and sisters were children of Joseph by a previous marriage".[29] According toRichard Bauckham, Ignatius of Antioch also believed in the doctrine of Mary's virginityin partu.[29]
TheGospel of James states that Mary remained a life-long virgin, because Joseph was an old man who married her without physical desire, and the brothers of Jesus mentioned in the canonical gospels are explained as Joseph's sons by an earlier marriage.[30] The Protoevangelium seems to have been used to create the stories of Mary which are found in theQuran,[31] but while Muslims agree with Christians that Mary was a virgin at the moment of the conception of Jesus, the idea of her perpetual virginity thereafter is contrary to the Islamic ideal of women as wives and mothers.[32] TheSecond Apocalypse of James portraysJames, the Brother of the Lord, not as a child of Joseph but of a certain "Theudas", a relative of Jesus.[33]
The 8th book of the ChristianSibylline Oracles, which may have been composed in the late II or early III century, describe Mary as "always virgin" (αἰεὶ κούρῃ) and that she received God in her "intact bosom" (ἀχράντοισι ... κόλποις).[34]
Hegesippus's writings are not clear on this subject, with some authors arguing that he defended the doctrine,[35] while others arguing that he disputed the perpetual virginity of Mary.[36]
TheEbionites denied the virgin birth and Mary's perpetual virginity.[37][38]
In the 3rd century,Hippolytus of Rome held that Mary was "ever-virgin",[39] whileClement of Alexandria, writing soon after the Protoevangelium appeared, appealed to its incident of a midwife who examined Mary immediately after the birth ("after giving birth, she was examined by a midwife, who found her to be a virgin") and asserted that this was to be found in the Gospels ("These things are attested to by the Scriptures of the Lord"), though he was referring to an apocryphal Gospel as a fact. The 3rd century scholarOrigen used the Protoevangelium's explanation of the brothers to uphold the perpetual virginity of Mary ("There is no child of Mary except Jesus, according to those who think correctly about her").[24] Origen also mentioned that thegospel of Peter affirmed the perpetual virginity of Mary, saying that the "brothers" of Jesus were from a previous marriage of Joseph.[27][28]
Tertullian, who came between Clement and Origen, denied Mary's virginityin partu to refute thedocetist idea that the Son of God could not have assumed a human body ("although she was a virgin when she conceived, she was a wife when she brought forth her son").[40] Tertullian, however, is not entirely clear on the issue of Mary's virginitypost partum, with some scholars denying his traditional association with the Helvidian position.[41][42][43]
Helvidius also argued thatVictorinus believed that Mary had other children;[44] Jerome later claimed that Helvidius was misinterpreting Victorinus.[45]Epiphanius invented a name "Antidicomarians" for a group of people who denied the perpetual virginity of Mary, which Epiphanius attacked.[46] Their same views were also mentioned earlier byOrigen, although he too rejected them as heretical.[47] They were active from the 3rd to the 5th century.[48]
According toEpiphanius the Antidicomarians claimed thatApollinaris of Laodicea or his disciples denied the perpetual virginity of Mary, though Epiphanius doubted the claim.[49]
Early Christian theologians such asHippolytus[50] (170–235),Eusebius (260/265–339/340) andEpiphanius (c. 310/320–403) defended the perpetual virginity of Mary.
By the early 4th century the spread ofmonasticism had promoted celibacy as the ideal state,[51] and a moral hierarchy was established with marriage occupying the third rank below life-long virginity and widowhood.[52] Eastern theologians generally accepted Mary asAeiparthenos, but many in the Western church were less convinced.[53] The theologianHelvidius objected to the devaluation of marriage inherent in this view and argued that the two states, of virginity and marriage, were equal.[54] His contemporaryJerome, realising that this would lead to the Mother of God occupying a lower place in heaven than virgins and widows, defended her perpetual virginity in his immensely influentialAgainst Helvidius, issued c.383.[55]
In the 380s and 390s the monkJovinian denied Mary's virginityin partu (virgin during childbirth), writing that if Jesus did not undergo a normal human birth, then his body was something other than a truly human one.[57] As reported byAugustine, Jovinian "denied that the virginity of Mary, which existed when she conceived, remained while she gave birth." Augustine goes on to say that the reason for Jovinian's denial of Mary's virginityin partu was that the doctrine was too close to the Manichean view that Christ was simply a phantom.[58] According to Ambrose, Jovinian maintained that Mary had conceived as a virgin, but she had not given birth as a virgin.[57] Jerome wrote against Jovinian but failed to mention this aspect of his teaching, and most commentators believe that he did not find it offensive.[57] Jovinian also found two monks in Milan,Sarmatio andBarbatian, who held similar views as Jovinian.[59]
The only important Christian intellectual to defend Mary's virginityin partu wasAmbrose, Archbishop of Milan, who was the chief target of the charge of Manicheism.[58] In 391, he wroteConcerning Virginity[60] whose full title wasOn the Education of the Virgin and the Perpetual Virginity of Mary.[61] For Ambrose, both the physical birth of Jesus by Mary and the baptismal birthing of Christians by the church had to be totally virginal, evenin partu, in order to cancel the stain of original sin, of which the pains of labor are the physical sign.[62] It was due to Ambrose thatvirginitas in partu came to be included consistently in the thinking of subsequent theologians.[63]Bonosus of Sardica also denied the perpetual virginity of Mary, for which he was declared a heretic. His followers would survive for many centuries, especially among theGoths.[64][65][66] Additionally, the perpetual virginity of Mary was denied by someArians.[37]
Jovinian was condemned as a heretic at aSynod of Milan under Ambrose's presidency in 390 and Mary's perpetual virginity was established as the only orthodox view.[14] Further developments were to follow when the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 formally gave her the title "Aeiparthenos", and at the Lateran Synod of 649 Pope Martin I emphasised the threefold character of the perpetual virginity, before, during, and after the birth of Christ.[14]
Athanasius of Alexandria (d.393) declared MaryAeiparthenos, "ever-virgin", and the liturgy of James the brother of Jesus likewise required a declaration of Mary as ever-virgin.[67] This view was defended byAugustine,Hilary of Poitiers,Didymus the Blind,Cyril of Alexandria among others.[68][69][70]
TheApostles' Creed taught the doctrine ofvirginitas in partu.[71]
In the Middle Ages the perpetual virginity of Mary was commonly accepted,[72] however thePaulicians denied her perpetual virginity, even saying that Christ denied her to be blessed.[73][74]
TheProtestant Reformation saw a rejection of the special moral status of lifelong celibacy. As a result, marriage and parenthood were extolled, and Mary and Joseph were seen as a normal married couple.[75] It also affirmed the Bible alone as the fundamental source of authority regarding God's word (sola scriptura).[76]
Mary's perpetual virginity was upheld byMartin Luther (who names her ever-virgin in theSmalcald Articles, a Lutheranconfession of faith written in 1537),[15]Huldrych Zwingli,Thomas Cranmer,Wollebius,Bullinger,John Wycliffe and later Protestant leaders includingJohn Wesley, the co-founder ofMethodism.[77][12][78][79]
In theEvangelical Lutheran faith, in addition to being taught in the Smalcald Articles, theFormula of Concord upholds the perpetual virginity of Mary.[15][80][81][82] The Lutheran divineMelanchthon lambastedOsiander for his denial of the perpetual virginity of Mary.[83] As such, many Lutheran divines have taught the perpetual virginity of Mary.[5]
With respect to theReformed tradition (Continental Reformed,Presbyterian,Reformed Anglican andCongregationalist denominations),John Calvin's view was more ambiguous, believing that knowing what happened to Mary after the birth of Jesus is impossible.[78] However John Calvin argued thatMatthew 1:25, used by Helvidius to attack the perpetual virginity of Mary does not teach that Mary had other children.[84] OtherCalvinists affirmed Mary's perpetual virginity, including within theSecond Helvetic Confession—stating that Mary was the "ever virgin Mary"—and in the notes of theGeneva Bible.[85][3]Theodore Beza, a prominent early Calvinist, included the perpetual virginity of Mary in a list of agreements between Calvinism and the Catholic Church.[86] Some reformers upheld the doctrine to counter more radical reformers who questioned the divinity of Christ; Mary's perpetual virginity guaranteed theIncarnation of Christ despite the challenges to its scriptural foundations.[87] Modern nonconformist Protestants, such as thePlymouth Brethren, have largely rejected the perpetual virginity of Mary on the basis ofsola scriptura, and it has rarely appeared explicitly in confessions or doctrinal statements,[88][89] though the perpetual virginity of Mary remains a common belief inLutheranism andAnglicanism.[90]
Among theAnabaptists,Hubmaier never abandoned his belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary and continued to esteem Mary astheotokos ("mother of God"). These two doctrinal stances are addressed individually in Articles Nine and Ten, respectively, of Hubmaier's work,Apologia.[91]
The Second Council of Constantinople recognized Mary asAeiparthenos, meaning "ever-virgin".[10] It remains axiomatic for theEastern Orthodox Church that she remained virginal throughout her Earthly life, and Orthodoxy therefore understands the New Testament references to the brothers and sisters of Jesus as signifying his kin, but not the biological children of his mother.[93]
The Latin Church, known more commonly today as the Catholic Church, shared the Council of Constantinople with the theologians of the Greek or Orthodox communion, and therefore shares with them the titleAeiparthenos as accorded to Mary. The Catholic Church has gone further than the Orthodox in making the Perpetual Virginity one of the fourMarian dogmas, meaning that it is held to be a truthdivinely revealed, the denial of which isheresy.[11] It declares hervirginity before, during and after the birth ofJesus,[94] or in the definition formulated byPope Martin I at theLateran Council of 649:[95]
The blessed ever-virginal and immaculate Mary conceived, without seed, by the Holy Spirit, and without loss of integrity brought him forth, and after his birth preserved her virginity inviolate.
Thomas Aquinas admitted that reason could not prove this, but argued that it must be accepted because it was "fitting",[96] for as Jesus was the only-begotten son of God, so he should also be the only-begotten son of Mary, as a second and purely human conception would disrespect the sacred state of her holy womb.[97] Symbolically, the perpetual virginity of Mary signifies a new creation and a fresh start insalvation history.[98] It has been stated and argued repeatedly, most recently by theSecond Vatican Council:[99]
This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ's virginal conception [...] then also at the birth of Our Lord, who did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it...
— Lumen Gentium, No.57
A problem facing theologians wishing to maintain Mary's life-long virginity is that thePauline epistles, the four gospels, and theActs of the Apostles all mention the brothers (adelphoi) of Jesus; bothMatthew andMark record their names and add unnamed sisters.[17][100][b] TheGospel of James, followed a century later byEpiphanius, explained theadelphoi as Joseph's children by an earlier marriage,[101] which is still the view of the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches.[102] Jerome, believing that Joseph, like Mary, must be a life-long virgin,[103] argued that theseadelphoi were the sons of "Mary, the mother of James and Joses" (Mark 15:40), who he identified with the wife of Clopas and sister of the virgin Mary (John 19:25),[102] which remains popular in the Western church. A modern proposal considers theseadelphoi sons of "Mary, the mother of James and Joses" (not here identified with the Virgin Mary's sister), and Clopas, who according to Hegesippus was Joseph's brother.[102]
Further scriptural difficulties were added byLuke 2:7, which calls Jesus the "first-born" son of Mary,[104] andMatthew 1:25, which adds that Joseph "did not know her until she had brought forth her firstborn son." The phrase "did not know her" is a euphemism for sexual relations.[105] Most scholars argue the grammar of Matthew 1:25 neither confirms nor denies the perpetual virginity of Mary.[106] However, other scholars challenge this claim, especially in light of discoveries in modern linguistics.[107]
Helvidius argued that first-born implies later births, and that the word "until" left open the way to sexual relations after the birth; Jerome, replying that even an only son will be a first-born and that "until" did not have the meaning Helvidius construed for it, painted a repulsive word-portrait of Joseph having intercourse with a blood-stained and exhausted Mary immediately after she has given birth—the implication, in his view, of Helvidius's arguments.[55] Opinions on the quality of Jerome's rebuttal range from the view that it was masterful and well-argued to thin, rhetorical and sometimes tasteless.[14]
Two other 4th century Fathers,Gregory of Nyssa, following "a certain apocryphal account", andAugustine, advanced a further argument by reading Luke 1:34[108] as a vow of perpetual virginity on Mary's part; this idea, first introduced in the Protoevangelium of James, has little scholarly support today,[109] but it and the arguments advanced by Jerome and Ambrose were put forward by PopeJohn Paul II in his catechesis of August 28, 1996, as the four facts supporting the Catholic Church's ongoing faith in Mary's perpetual virginity.[110]
It has been argued fromJohn 19, where Jesus entrusts Mary to the disciple John instead of his brothers, to support the view that Jesus had no brothers[111], however Protestants have generally argued in two ways against this passage, one by claiming that the brothers of Jesus were unbelievers or that they were not present during the crucifixion.[112] This interpretation is generally rejected by Catholic and Orthodox writers, emphasising that even if if non believers, Jewish customs still required the eldest son to take responsibility for his mother.[111][113]
Some[who?] have argued that Mary and Joseph could not have had a normal marriage if Mary remained a perpetual virgin; however, it has been argued by some Catholics[example needed] that there is evidence that celibacy within marriage was already practiced by the Qumran community and other Jews at that time.[114]
Catholic priest and New Testament scholarJohn P. Meier argues that although the preponderance of scriptural evidence indicates that Jesus had siblings, the evidence is not conclusive enough to disprove the perpetual virginity of Mary.[115]
While the perpetual virginity of Mary is held as a pious opinion by many Lutheran confessors, it is not regarded as binding teaching of the Scriptures.
Partly because of these biblical problems, the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary has not been supported as unanimously as has the doctrine of the virginal conception or title mother of God. It achieved dogmatic status, however, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and is, therefore, binding upon Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic believers; in addition, it is maintained by many Anglican, some Lutheran, and a few other Protestant theologians.
The two inferences in Ode 19, namely, the one to the non-suffering aspect, and the other to the absence of a midwife, seem to have been also a common note in other apocryphal pieces of literature. They are also found in The Ascension of Isaiah and in The Acts of Peter. It could also be a reference to the fact that during their exile years in Egypt, Jewish women were known to be very quick and strong at childbirth. It is said that they did so in next to no time. Egyptian midwives continually complained to the Pharaoh that they did not succeed in making it fast enough to check whether the newly-born Jewish child was a male or a female, see: Ex 1,19.
As though they had a grudge against the Virgin and desired to cheapen her reputation, certain Antidicomarians, inspired by some envy or error and intending to sully men's minds, have dared to say that St. Mary had relations with a man after Christ's birth, I mean with Joseph himself. And as I have already mentioned, it is said that the claim has been made by the venerable Apollinarius himself, or some of his disciples. Indeed I doubt it but I have to speak about those who are saying this.
. He then betook himself to Milan, where the two monks Sarmatio and Barbatian held forth views like his own; but he was treated there in the same fashion by the bishop, Ambrose, who held a council against him. From this time he and his party disappear from history, and before the year 406 he died in exile.394
They denied her perpetual virginity, and taught that Christ expressly denied her to be blessed
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, art. 8.15ff. (Tappert, pp. 594ff.) Notice well the strong avowal of Mary's Mother-of-God title (and of her perpetual virginity) in Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, art. 8.24.
In the Smalcald Articles of 1537 Luther reaffirmed Mary's perpetual virginity, calling her "ever virgin" (semper virgo).
Isaias predicts the birth of the Messiah from the Virgin
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