Perpetual virginity of Mary

The perpetual virginity of Mary, Mary's "real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made Man", is part of the teaching of Roman Catholicism,Catechism of the Catholic Church §499 Eastern, and Oriental Orthodoxy, as expressed in their liturgies, in which they repeatedly refer to Mary as "ever virgin".Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, Coptic Liturgy of St Basil, Liturgy of St Cyril, Liturgy of St James, Understanding the Orthodox Liturgy etc. In Lutheranism, the perpetual virginity of Mary is an open question, although some Lutherans would opine that it is true.http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=2195 Thus, according to this teaching, Mary was ever-virgin (Greek , aeiparthenos) for the whole of her life, making Jesus her only biological son, whose conception and birth are held to be miraculous.
The doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, which is believed as de fide, i.e. as a doctrine that is an essential part of the faith and thus has the highest degree of certainty, states that Mary was a virgin before, during and after giving birth, and so covers much more than the doctrine of her virginal conception of Jesus, often referred to as the virgin birth of Jesus. It is also distinct from the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which relates to the conception of the Virgin Mary herself without any stain ("macula" in Latin) of original sin.
This common tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary is one element in the well-established theology regarding the Theotokos in both East and West, a field of study known as Mariology.
The virginity of Mary at the time of her conception of Jesus is a key topic in Roman Catholic Marian art, usually represented as the annunciation to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel that she would virginally conceive a child to be born the Son of God. Frescos depicting this scene have appeared in Roman Catholic Marian churches for centuries.Annunciation Art, Phaidon Press, 2004, ISBN 0714844470 Mary's virginity even after her conception of Jesus is regularly represented in the art of both the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox (as well as in early Western religious art) by including in Nativity scenes the figure of Salome, whom the Gospel of James presents as finding that Mary had preserved her virginity even in giving birth to her son.
== History ==
===Antiquity===
The second-century work originally known as the Nativity of Mary,L. Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church trans. T. Buffer (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1991), p. 35. but later known as the Protoevangelium of James, pays special attention to Mary's virginity. In the opinion of Johannes Quasten, "The principal aim of the whole writing is to prove the perpetual and inviolate virginity of Mary before, during, and after to birth of Christ."Quasten, Patrology 1:120-1. In the text, a test confirms Mary's virginity before birth, and the absence of labour pains, and a midwife's examination, demonstrates Mary's virginity during birth.L. Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church trans. T. Buffer (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1991), p. 40. The work also claims that Jesus' "brothers" and "sisters" and are Joseph's children from a marriage previous to his union with Mary.Protoevangelium chapters 7–8. It asserts that Mary's mother, Anne, gave Mary as a "virgin of the Lord" in service in the Temple, and that Joseph, a widower, was to serve as her guardian (legal protections for women depended on their having a male protector: father, brother, or, failing that, a husband).Protoevangelium of James 4, 7, 8-9, 15 This may correlate to the Bible's presentation that women devoted to perpetual service at the temple was a centuries-old practice contemporary to Mary's lifetime.e.g. , , This text does not explicitly assert Mary's perpetual virginity after the birth of Jesus. But another book, "The History of Joseph the Carpenter", presents Jesus as speaking, at the death of Joseph, of Mary as "my mother, virgin undefiled".
Origen, in his Commentary on Matthew (c. 248), expressly states belief in Mary's perpetual virginity. In the words of Luigi Gambero, “Origen not only has no doubts but seems directly to imply that this is a truth already recognised as an integral part of the deposit of faith.”L. Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church trans. T. Buffer (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1991), p. 75. In this context, Origen interpreted the comments of Ignatius of Antioch (d. c 108) as significant:
:On this subject, I have found a fine observation in a letter of the martyr Ignatius, second bishop of Antioch after Peter,Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians, 19, 1. who fought with the wild beasts during the persecution in Rome. Mary’s virginity was hidden from the prince of this world, hidden thanks to Joseph and her marriage to him. Her virginity was kept hidden because she was thought to be married. Origen, Homilies on Luke, 6, 3-4. 
By the fourth century, the doctrine is well attested.L. Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church trans. T. Buffer (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1991) pp. 97-98; and also for an overview of each source. For example, references can be found in the writings of Athanasius,Athanasius, Orations against the Arians 2.70 Epiphanius,Epiphanius of Salamis, The Man Well-Anchored 120, c.f. Medicine Chest Against All Heresies 78:6 Hilary,Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Matthew §1:4 Didymus,Didymus the Blind, The Trinity 3:4 Ambrose,Ambrose of Milan, Letters 63:111 Jerome,Jerome, Against Helvetius, 21 Siricius,Denziger §91 and others.
However, Tertullian (155-220), while holding that Mary conceived Jesus as a virgin, denied that her virginity was preserved in his birth, thus emphasizing the reality of her son's body,Jurgens §359, §277 and the unorthodox monk Jovinian (who died in about 405), who denied that virginity as such was a higher state than marriage, and that abstinence as such was better than thankful eating, also denied the perpetual virginity of Mary and was condemned by synods at Rome and Milan.Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3): Jovinian These views were shared by his contemporary Helvidius, but were not repeated in the following centuries.
===Protestant Reformation===
From the fifth century on no opposition whatever to the doctrine was expressed in either East or West until modern times. Several leaders of the Protestant Reformation believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary.
Martin Luther believed that Mary did not have other children, and did not have any marital relations with Joseph,Bäumer, 190 maintaining, that the brothers mentioned were cousins.Luther's Works, 22:23; Martin Luther on Mary's Perpetual Virginity This is consistent with his lifelong acceptance of the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Jaroslav Pelikan noted that the perpetual virginity of Mary was Luther's lifelong belief,Luther's Works, 22:214-215 and Hartmann Grisar, a Roman Catholic biographer of Luther, concurs that "Luther always believed in the virginity of Mary, even after his excommunication, though afterwards he denied her power of intercession, as well as that of the saints in general, ... and combated, as extreme and pagan, the extraordinary veneration which the [Roman] Catholic Church showed towards Mary."Grisar, 210. For this reason even a rigorously conservative Lutheran scholar like Franz Pieper (1852-1931) refuses to follow the tendency among Protestants to insist that Mary and Joseph had marital relations and children after the birth of Jesus. It is implicit in his Christian Dogmatics that belief in Mary's perpetual virginity is the older and traditional view among Lutherans.Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 4 vols., (St. Louis: CPH, 1950-53), 2:308-09.
He stated, that "we should simply hold that (Mary) remained a virgin after the birth of Christ because Scripture does not state or indicate that she later lost her virginity"."Scripture does not quibble or speak about the virginity of Mary after the birth of Christ, a matter about which the hypocrites are greatly concerned, as if it were something of the utmost importance on which our whole salvation depended. Actually, we should be satisfied simply to hold that she remained a virgin after the birth of Christ because Scripture does not state or indicate that she later lost her virginity... But the Scripture stops with this, that she was a virgin before and at the birth of Christ; for up to this point God had need of her virginity in order to give us the promised blessed seed without sin" (That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew (1523), in Luther’s Works, American Edition, Walther I. Brandt, ed., Philadelphia, Augsburg Fortress; St. Louis, Concordia Publishing House, 1962, ISBN 0-8006-0345-1 pp. 205-206; cf. James Swam (Martin Luther's Theology of Mary). He taught that "Christ, our Saviour, was the real and natural fruit of Mary's virginal womb . . . This was without the cooperation of a man, and she remained a virgin after that"; and that " Christ . . . was the only Son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides Him . . . I am inclined to agree with those who declare that 'brothers' really mean 'cousins' here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers".Luther's Works, eds. Jaroslav Pelikan (vols. 1-30) & Helmut T. Lehmann (vols. 31-55), St. Louis: Concordia Pub. House (vols. 1-30); Philadelphia: Fortress Press (vols. 31-55), 1955, v.22:23 / Sermons on John, chaps. 1-4 (1539), quoted in Martin Luther on Mary's Perpetual Virginity In fact Luther held throughout his career that, "in childbirth and after childbirth, as she was a virgin before childbirth, so she remained"."Sermon on the Presentation of Christ in the Temple", Luthers Werke 52:688- 99,quoted in Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary through the Ages, 158, and Martin Luther's Theology of Mary
Huldrych Zwingli wrote: "I firmly believe that [Mary], according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin." John Calvin rejected arguments, based on the mention in Scripture of brothers of Jesus, that Mary had other children.Harmony of Matthew, Mark & Luke, sec. 39 (Geneva, 1562), / From Calvin's Commentaries, tr. William Pringle, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1949: “Helvidius displayed excessive ignorance in concluding that Mary must have had many sons, because Christ's 'brothers' are sometimes mentioned” (vol. 2, p. 215); “[On Matt 1:25:] The inference he [Helvidius] drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband . . . No just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words . . . as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called 'first-born'; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin . . . What took place afterwards the historian does not inform us . . . No man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.“ (vol. I, p. 107) John Wesley wrote to a Roman Catholic, as regarding what a Protestant may declare: "I believe that He was made man, joining the human nature with the divine in one person; being conceived by the singular operation of the Holy Ghost, and born of the blessed Virgin Mary, who, as well after as before she brought Him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin."Letter to a Roman Catholic, July 18, 1749 
Diarmaid MacCulloch, a historian of the Reformation, wrote that the reason why the magisterial reformers upheld Mary's perpetual virginity, and why they had a "genuinely deep reverence and affection" toward Mary, was that she was "the guarantee of the Incarnation of Christ", a teaching that was being denied by the same radicals that were denying Mary's perpetual virginity.D. MacCulloch, The Reformation: a History (Penguin Books, 2003) pp. 613-614; cf. Robert Schihl, The Perpetual Virginity of Mary for an extended list and quotations. However, the absence of clear Biblical statements expressing the doctrine, in combination with the principle of sola scriptura, kept references to the doctrine out of the Reformation creeds and, together with the tendency to associate veneration of Mary with idolatryD. MacCulloch, The Reformation: a History (Penguin Books, 2003) pp. 558-63 and the rejection of clerical celibacysee John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion IV,12,27-28 led to the eventual denial of this doctrine among Protestants, who, thus uncommitted to a doctrine the perpetual virginity, take the "brothers" (ἀδελφοί) οf Jesus mentioned in the New Testament most naturally (but not certainly) to be children of Mary and thus Jesus' half brothers, rather than his cousins or stepbrothers from a postulated previous marriage of Joseph.See, e.g., 
== Biblical passages and their interpretations==
Mary's virginity before and in regard to her conception of Jesus is stated in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. It is disputed whether elements in the New Testament favour or contradict belief that she remained a virgin afterwards.
With regard to the identification of the "brothers and sisters" of Jesus mentioned in the New Testament,, , , , , , , , , , , and the 1978 book Mary in the New Testament: A Collaborative Assessment by Protestant and Roman Catholic ScholarsRaymond E. Brown, Karl P. Donfried, Joseph Fitzmyer and John Reumann ed., Philadelphia: Fortress Press, and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1978 reached the following agreed conclusions:
# The continued virginity of Mary after the birth of Jesus is not a question directly raised by the New Testament. 
#Once it was raised in subsequent church history, it was that question which focused attention on the exact relationship of the "brothers" (and "sisters") to Jesus. 
#Once that attention has been focused, it cannot be said that the New Testament identifies them without doubt as blood brothers and sisters and hence as children of Mary. 
#The solution favoured by scholars will in part depend on the authority they allot to later Church insights and dogmatic definitions, such as that at the Council of Chalcedon.François Rossier: The "Brothers and Sisters" of Jesus: Anything New?
It acknowledged as consonant with Scripture the two opposing interpretations of the texts that mention Jesus' brothers and sisters: either as referring to actual siblings, or as meaning close relatives. Catholics and Orthodox usually prefer the latter interpretation, Protestants the former.
Scholars of each tradition, not having made advances since then in demonstrating the superiority of either interpretation, have become more open to acknowledging the scriptural acceptability of the opposite tradition.
thumb|left|215px|The Annunciation, by Caravaggio. "How can this be, for I know not man?"
At the Annunciation () Mary, told by an angel that she will conceive, responds: "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" Gregory of Nyssa understood this in support of the view that Mary had taken a lifelong vow of virginity, even in marriage:
: For if Joseph had taken her to be his wife, for the purpose of having children, why would she have wondered at the announcement of maternity, since she herself would have accepted becoming a mother according to the law of nature?Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Generation of Christ, 5. This view is generally followed by Orthodox and Roman Catholic scholars.
In the opinion of the writer Howard Marshall "it is impossible to see how the text can yield this meaning."Howard Marshall, I., The Gospel of Luke (1978), p68. Paternoster Press, Exeter. He quotes the view of a certain Easton that "no writer with a knowledge of Jewish psychology could have thought of a vow of virginity on the part of a betrothed Palestinian maiden", and says that to hold that Mary constitutes a special case "will convince only those who have other reasons for adopting this interpretation of the text". However, it is known that the practice of celibacy was not unknown in Jewish society of the time, being witnessed to in particular among the Essenes.Josephus' Description of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls p. 39The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 38]Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. Essenes p. 426Treasures of the Holy Land: A Visit to the Places of Christian Origins p. 88
The New Testament mentions Jesus' adelphoi (ἀδελφοί),, , , , , , , , , , and which can mean either literally "brothers" or metaphorically refer to countrymen, people or believers.The New Testament Greek Lexicon The Protoevangelium of James, as shown above, presented these adelphoi as Joseph's children from a previous marriage, stating that Joseph married Mary after he had become a widower; that would make these adelphoi Jesus’ stepbrothers. Victorinus argued that the adelphoi were merely close kinsfolk, a view repeated by Jerome.Jerome, Against Helvidius: The Perpetual Virginity of Mary 19. Tertullian interpreted these passages as referring to Jesus’ siblings from both Joseph and Mary, thus excluding the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem 4, 19, 11. Furthermore, though in the New Testament outside the Gospels the word adelphoi is frequently used in a very broad sense, the only cases within the four Gospels in which it is argued that the word refers to first cousins is in relation to Jesus, whilst in the other cases, e.g., with James and John, Andrew and Peter, it is always assumed to refer to actual brothers. (The vague word συγγενίς (kinswoman) is used of Elizabeth in relation to Mary, giving rise to the conclusion that they were cousins of some kind.) This raises the question whether the interpretation of adelphoi as brothers rests primarily from a theological rather than a linguistic basis.
, states that Jesus was Mary's "firstborn son" (although Tasker says that there is strong evidence for omitting the word firstborn)Tasker, R.V., The Gospel according to Saint Matthew, p36 (1961) Inter Varsity Press, Leicester and that Joseph "had no marital relations with her until () she had borne a son." Taskeribid and HillHill D., The Gospel of Matthew, p80 (1972) Marshall, Morgan and Scott:London argue that this passage implies that Mary and Joseph had customary marital relations after the birth of Jesus, with Tasker quoting McNeile as saying that the Greek construction "always implies in the New Testament that the negatived action did, or will, take place after the point of time indicated".ibid Hill comments that "if the notion of Mary's perpetual virginity had been familiar to the evangelist or to the milieu in which he wrote, he would surely have been more explicit".ibid Debate on this point is sometimes obscured by the fact that the Greek preposition could either occur with a clausal complement in its temporal sense or with a nominal complement in a spatial sense, where it meant something like up to.An example of such use is in , which says, "I am with you always, [even] unto () the end of the world" (compare also ). There are several other passages in the Greek text of the New Testament where the word is used: ) and . In the latter passage, is combined with , in combination with a non-negative imperative, and does not necessarily mean, for instance, that Jesus will at some point stop sitting at the right hand of the Father. John Hainsworth remarks: "'The use of 'until' in Matthew 1:25, then, is purely to indicate that Christ was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, not conceived by Joseph and Mary, since they did not 'know' each other 'until' the birth. In this context 'until' is really synonymous with 'before'. If on the contrary it were meant in its full contemporary English sense—that is, if it really meant that Joseph and Mary's chaste relationship changed after the birth—then the stylistics present another big problem: the reader would have to believe that Matthew was actually inviting contemplation of the couple's later sexual activity. This is doubtful to say the least."The Ever-Virginity of the Mother of God Such argumentation is linguistically naive, however; as Giannakidou points out, English 'until' is ambiguous between a use occurring with negatives and one without; but Greek lexicalizes this difference, leading to much less ambiguity in the Greek than in the English translations.Anastasia Giannakidou. 2002. 'UNTIL, aspect and negation: a novel argument for two untils.' In Brendan Jackson (ed.), Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 12, CLC Publications, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. 84-103.
One of the "brothers" of Jesus is called "Joses" in and "Joseph" in the corresponding . In present-day Judaism, children are rarely named after the father.The Jewish Baby On this basis, some scholars argue that it is unlikely that Jesus' "brothers" were biological children of Joseph. They also state that, in addition to this reference, the only other mention of Joses in Mark (and the whole New Testament) is in , which (like ) pairs Joses with a James, and in addition says that their mother, a woman called Mary, was present at the Crucifixion and so was then still alive. However, it is not altogether unknown for Jewish children to be named after their fathers - a prominent example is, interestingly enough, named 'Joseph ben Joseph (José) Nahmias' of 14th-century Toledo, Spain.Joseph ben Joseph (Jose) Nahmias (In Hebrew, "ben" means "son of".Reading Hebrew Tombstones) And the account in of the intention expressed, on the occasion of the circumcision of the future John the Baptist, to name the child Zechariah after his father indicates that first-century Jewish custom by no means excluded giving a child his father's name. 
Joseph Blinzler, in his study Die Brüder und Schwestern Jesu, concluded that the "brothers" and "sisters" of Jesus were cousins of his. For Simon and Jude, their relationship with Jesus came from their father Cleophas/Clopas, a brother of Joseph and thus a descendant of David. Their mother's name is unknown. The mother of James and Joses was a Mary, distinct from Jesus’ mother; she (or her husband) was related in some unspecifiable way to Jesus' family. There are indications that the father of James (and Joses) was of sacerdotal or Levitical origin and was a brother of Mary. The silence of the Gospels about Joseph after Luke 2 indicates that the putative father of Jesus died soon, after which Mary and her son joined the family of her (their?) closest relative. The children of this family (these families?), grew up with Jesus and were called his brothers and sisters, since in Aramaic there was no other term for them. The early Church kept this term even in Greek to honour in this way these relatives who had meanwhile become eminent members of the Church, and as a way of distinguishing them from the many others in the early Church that had the same names.J. Blinzler, I fratelli e le sorelle di Gesù (Italian translation of Die Bruder und Schwestern Jesu), Paideia, Brescia, 1974, quoted in Giuseppe De Rosa, Gli Anni «Oscuri» di Gesù a Nazaret in La Civiltà Cattolica, 7 June 2008, p. 435
For more on this matter and on the quotation of by in relation to Mary's virginity, at least at the time of her conception of Jesus, see Virgin birth of Jesus.
== Spiritual significance ==
Many Catholic and Orthodox hymns and prayers mention Mary's perpetual virginity. 
In some modern spiritual writings, Mary's virginity is cited as a counter-example to current sexual mores. In spiritual writings more generally, her virginity is cited as an expression of holiness, devotion and loving self-denial. In some of St. Augustine's writings, he gives her virginity as an example of the mystery of God. Other spiritual writings have mentioned Mary's great humility, which is connected with the sparse mention of her in Scripture and with her willingness to be virginal in order to carry out a part of God's plan. Some writers give Mary as an example of spiritual integrity, of which her virginal integrity is a sign. Over the centuries, it has been a tradition for some of the faithful to consecrate themselves to God, partly by remaining virgins, which is called the "charism of virginity" (or "gift of virginity").
In many icons, Mary's perpetual virginity is signified by three stars that appear on her left, her right, and above her or on her head, which represent her virginity before, during and after giving birth.
===Islam ===
While, in Sura 19,The Holy Qur'an: Maryam (Mary), Sura 19 (Translation by A. Yusuf Ali) the Qur'an declares that Jesus was the result of a virgin conception (verses 20-22), it does not say that Mary would remain a virgin perpetually: in speaking of her suffering "the pains of childbirth" (verse 23) it seems to deny her virginity in partu (in giving birth).
== See also ==
*Assumption of Mary
*Blessed Virgin Mary
*Immaculate Conception
*Theotokos
*Panagia
*Acts of Reparation to the Virgin Mary
*Roman Catholic Marian art
==References==
== Bibliography ==
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== External links ==
====Pro====
*Ancient Church: Mary Ever Virgin
*Why is Mary Considered Ever-Virgin?
*Catholic Encyclopedia: Mary, the Blessed Virgin, section on Perpetual Virginity of Mary
*St. Jerome on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary
*Church Fathers and Perpetual Virgin
*A Defense of Marian Doctrines
====Contra====
*The Alleged Perpetual Virginity of Mary
*Is it Mary of the Bible or the Lady of Roman Catholic Mariology?
*A Biblical Basis for the "Immaculate Conception"?, A Review and Rebuttal of Patrick Madrid's Article "Ark of the New Covenant" in "This Rock" magazine, James White, December 1991
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