Mary - Ever Virgin?

[colinlindsay]

I thought I'd got my Orthodox friends on this one.

After all Matthew 1:25 is quite clear isn't it? (if it means anything)

Surely now they have to say that some beliefs they have are not just extra-biblical but non-biblical.

But no.... read this...

and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son."
"Until" is another word that is used differently today than it was in ancient Greek. The Greek eos (until), like the Hebrew ad-ki and the Latin donec describes what has occurred up to a certain period but leaves the future entirely aside.

Another example:

Acts 8:40.
"Phillip.... traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until (eos) he reached Caesarea" Obviously, Philip continued preaching the Gospel after his arrival (elsewhere). The "boundary" historical event is Phillip's arrival in Caesarea and the word eos is used to denote the importance of this event. He preached before, until this significant event, and still after.

What do you think?


And did you know (I didn't!) that both Calvin and Luther didn't have a problem with this doctrine?

[Behe's Boy]

And did you know (I didn't!) that both Calvin and Luther didn't have a problem with this doctrine?

I knew this about Luther and Calvin - though I disagree with it - it doesn't bother me. I don't think this is an essential belief. Besides those guys had bigger fish to fry.

In regards to Mary - there are other verses that indicate she had other children as well. Not to mention James was Jesus's brother - in the genetic sense....

[BBAS 64]

Good Day, Colin

It has been a while I followed this whole thing with great interest. I will link to some stuff you may find helpful. I would suggest you get the book.

Here: http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=737450&netp_id=268967&event=ESRCN&item_code=WW

Here are some web resources:

http://www.ntrmin.org/sungenis_and_heos_hou.htm
http://www.ntrmin.org/sungenis_and_heos_hou_2.htm
http://www.ntrmin.org/sungenis_and_heos_hou_3.htm

http://www.ntrmin.org/where_have_all_the_critics_gone.htm


Here is a Real Audio file on the parts of this subject:

http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=696

That does not surprize me, the issue is did Luther or Calvin say this was a dogma that a believer must be bound to?

I have no problem that some one belives this, but is another story to require it as needed for salvation or that the "true Faith" requires it. Did you know that in the 4 th century Basil refered to many who held to the view that mary was not ever virgin, though it was not his view. He futher states that such view by others is not outside "orthodox" faith?


Enjoy....

In Him,

Bill

[heymikey80]

It isn't definitive, but it clearly implicates the alternative is expected and open. To demand the opposite is to demand something the Apostles didn't say anything about.

Plus the author is wasting expensive parchment. The author could've just said "they never came together." But the possible implications of that really aren't very nice either, if you get to thinking about it.

"The nature of God and the Virgin Birth — these are leaps of faith. But to believe a married couple never got down? That's just plain gullibility!" -- Chris Rock, "Dogma"

[SaintPhotios]

Yeah.... if anyone claims that references to brothers of Christ and other references to relationships within the Holy Family refutes the perpetual virginity of Mary, then they simply understand neither the Greek language of the age, nor the translation of that language. The word adelphos is very broad in meaning. All of the Church Fathers and the entire Church (East and West) all upheld the teaching of Mary's perpetual virginity throughout the first 5 centuries. And I'm not aware of anyone questioning it's validity until well after the Reformation. I think attacks on certain Marian beliefs are more about being anti-Rome/hyper-iconoclastic than pro-Biblical.

I would agree that Rome has a penchant for being innovative when it comes to their Marian dogmas, but perpetual virginity is something the Church has always held, and there's nothing Scriptural according to sober interpretation that should raise suspicions.

[heymikey80]

Likely you mean Mary's virginity wasn't openly questioned among surviving Christian theologians. I don't really see any motivation leading them to do so, though. I've no doubt the idea of Mary's perpetual virginity is early; but the idea doesn't seem derived from the recording of facts but devotional thought about what humans think should be the case.

As with the present, it's really not a big deal to Protestants. The issue is one of approaching the information realistically. If Mary had been a virgin entirely, it would be a miracle of important proportions to record for following generations, as sexual asceticism grew in succeeding centuries. But the pressure of asceticism on theology may also have built the tradition of Mary's perpetual virginity.

[Athanasias]

This is a paper I wrote on this subject 2 years ago for my Mariology class.

The Catholic Dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary has been challenged by Protestant Christians of every denomination. They claim that Mary could not be a per-petual virgin because Scripture indicates that Jesus had real brothers. They accuse Catholics of inventing the perpetual virginity of Mary, a doctrine they assume was a late development. However, looking at the context of both Scripture and the ancient apos-tolic tradition shows this dogma of the Catholic church to be true and consistent from every generation of the early Christian Fathers.

Renowned Patristic Scholar Johannes Quasten said, regarding the perpetual virginity of Mary, "the principal aim of the whole writing [Protoevangelium of James] is to prove the perpetual and inviolate virginity of Mary before, in, and after the birth of Christ". The apocryphal document referred to, the Protoevangelium of James, is dated as early as the year 120 A.D. and although it is not sacred Scripture it shows that this was a common belief among Christians that dated back to the time of the apostolic fathers. The ancient fathers of the Church also taught this doctrine. Consider Origen, an early and well respected Scripture scholar of the 3rd century. He not only taught the virginal conception and birth but also the perpetual virginity in his commentaries on Holy Scripture: "There is no child of Mary except Jesus, according to the opinion of those who think correctly about her."

Some of most important defenders of the dogma were also the same defenders of orthodox Christology. St. Athanasius, a Bishop of the Catholic Church known for his orthodoxy and defense of the deity of Christ, also proclaims the truth of the perpetual virginity of Mary: "Mary who gave birth to God remained a Virgin to the end". St. Epiphanius of Salamis, an early father who often wrote against the heresies of his time, defended the perpetual virginity of Mary in his work The Man Well-Anchored written in A.D. 374:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things, both visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God . . . who for us men and for our salvation came down and took flesh, that is, was born perfectly of the holy ever-virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit.

Cyril of Alexandria, in the year A.D. 430, said that Mary was kept a Virgin even after bearing Jesus. Another well-known bishop and theologian, St. Augustine, also preached the perpetual virginity of Mary in his work Heresies, written in A.D. 428: "Here-tics called Antidicomarites are those who contradict the perpetual virginity of Mary and affirm that after Christ was born she was joined as one with her husband".

The perpetual virginity of Mary was taught consistently by the vast majority of early Christians and only questioned by a very few. Tertullian, a early Christian writer of the 3rd century, was among the tiny minority of those who denied the perpetual virginity of Mary. It is important to realize that while Tertullian had many good things to say initially, he eventually left left Christianity to join the heresy of montanism. Two more people who denied the truth of this dogma were the heretics Helvidius and Jovinian. The most popular and well-known Scripture scholar of the 4th and 5th century, St. Jerome, debated the heretic Helvidius on the perpetual virginity of Mary. Jerome, as a solid bibli-cal scholar who had mastered the biblical languages of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, clearly saw implicit biblical evidence for Mary's perpetual virginity in both the old and new testaments . When confronted by quotes from Tertullian, Jerome amply refuted his accuser:

"[Helvidius] produces Tertullian as a witness [to his view] and quotes Victorinus, bishop of Petavium. "Of Tertullian, I say no more than that he did not belong to the Church. But as regards Victorinus, I assert what has already been proven from the gospel—that he [Victorinus] spoke of the brethren of the Lord not as being sons of Mary but brethren in the sense I have explained, that is to say, brethren in point of kinship, not by nature. [By discussing such things we] are... following the tiny streams of opinion. Might I not array against you the whole se-ries of ancient writers? Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men, who against [the heretics] Ebion, Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus, held these same views and wrote volumes replete with wisdom. If you had ever read what they wrote, you would be a wiser man".

Jerome listed a litany of old testament passages such as Ezekeil 44:1-12 and Jeremiah 2:32 in reference to Mary's perpetual virginity . Some Protestants argue that the term "Till" (Heos in greek) in Matthew 1:25 implies that Mary had other children after Jesus. Scripture scholar and convert to the Catholic faith Dr. Scott Hahn destroys that theory by showing the word "until" in the bible does not always imply that action did happen later. He gives examples as evidence, such as 2 Sam 6:23 and 1 Tim 4:13.


Protestants also ague that the term firstborn meant that there would be others. Dr. Hahn demonstrates that the term firstborn does not necessarily entail a second-borne: "Firstborn refers to a legal term linked to a sons social inheritance as found in (Deut 21:15-17)". New Testament Greek scholar Fr. Mateo demonstrates from both the biblical Greek and Protestant Greek sources how Jesus' brothers mentioned in Scripture are merely cousins and not uterine brothers. One of the most convincing arguments for Mary's perpetual virginity is given by Hilary of Poitiers, an early church father writing in the 4th century. Hilary uses Jn 19:26-27 to demonstrate the perpetual virginity. In this passage Jesus hands Mary over to John the apostle to be taken care of. This verse has caused much uproar in modern Protestant communities because in the culture Jesus lived in, if other uterine siblings existed Mary would have automatically gone to them. There would be no reason for Jesus to give Mary to John unless Jesus had no other siblings.
The Latern council of A.D. 649 reaffirmed the truth about the perpetual virginity of Mary. The perpetual virginity of Mary has been taught by Christian scholars since the birth of Christianity. One interesting and little recognized fact among sola Sciptura Protestants is that Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli all affirmed the perpetual virginity of Mary. With all the ancient patristic, biblical and even Protestant evidence for this Dogma it is a wonder why non-Catholics reject it so much.