Mary: A Perpetual Virgin?

 


Introduction

When it comes to the issue of biblical interpretation, or the interpretation of any source really, there is a tendency to see what we want to see in the text.


But as much of my energy has become focused on exegeting the text in a more pastoral context, I have realized that this is a problem. Undertaking the effort of exegeting the text, not just in its linguistic but also its historical and cultural context, has meant that I have to consider how the text itself wants to be seen.


That may seem like something strange to say…unless you believe in the inspiration of the biblical text. That it was given so that we could know who God is and what he has done. In fact, my own view of inspiration has changed over time somewhat due to the fact that I have come to see it as not merely a record but also as a relic. I say that not to diminish the text; instead, I say that so that the text can be properly situated as a historical record.


That being said, I have also come to see that there are certain ways of reading the Bible–and they may be very old and well-established ways–that are nonetheless in error.


Common Fallacies


One accusation that will be leveled without a doubt is that I am fundamentally unqualified to make such a judgement. That’s simply ad hominem and unless you can demonstrate any error on my part, well—I can just equally dismiss you.


A piece of paper on the wall from a specific school doesn’t negate any observations or arguments that may be made any more than that same piece of paper makes the same valid.


Another charge that will likely be labeled is of a similar vein: “that’s just my particular interpretation.” Fair enough, I’ll admit it but then what I am challenging is itself a “particular interpretation” that was, at one time, singularly held that was perpetuated either by ignorance or intention through the church and eventually enforced as a dogma. To suggest otherwise is to deny the reality of history and the process of doctrinal development. I believe that there are additional fallacies that should be recognized and considered. 


The fallacy ignored in such a reality is the consensus fallacy: that such is true simply because it is held by a majority. Another fallacy is the fallacy of tradition: simply because something has been believed or practiced for a long time that it is true or valid. 


One of the most important, relevant, and authoritative principles that arose from the Reformation is that every matter, every point of belief held by believers should be tested and measured—not by tradition—but by Scripture. I say that in recognition of the fact that the first Reformers themselves held some beliefs and traditions as definitional and necessary that subsequently generations of Reformers began to test according to the principles that they espoused and found them lacking. 


So, there’s a great deal of humility that goes into what I am going to say next rather that one grants the assertion or not: the Reformers were human, the Fathers were human, I am human and because that is true, I necessarily recognize that I could be wrong. But I will not be wrong because I disagree with or reject tradition but because I misread or misrepresent the revelation God has made in and by Scripture. 


My challenge, my assertion is that Mary—the blessed mother of Christ Jesus, the portal through which the Immortal God entered into mortal existence—was not, nor ever, a perpetual virgin. 


Background

My denial is not unique, but it is nonetheless one that comes in and through history. But that history is worth mentioning.


Paul Senz, writing at Catholic Answers points out that, “Mary’s perpetual virginity was rarely challenged in Christian history.” He adds,


Such heavyweights St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine made arguments based in Scripture that she remained a virgin her entire life. This was true of Christians throughout the known world, Latin and Greek, east and west. Origen of Alexandria, for example, wrote that “There is no child of Mary except Jesus, according to the opinion of those who think correctly about her” (Commentary on John, 1.4). St. Jerome, the magnificent Biblical translator and scholar, stated clearly that we believe Mary remained a virgin her whole life because we read it in Scripture (see Against Helvidius 21).


However, he makes an interesting admission,


The Protoevangelium of James, while not canonical Scripture, is an important historical document that tells us a lot about what the early Church believed. Written in the second century A.D., not long after the end of Mary’s earthly life, this document goes to great lengths to defend the perpetual virginity of Mary. In fact, some scholars—including Johannes Quasten, the great patristics scholar of the twentieth century—thought that this was its primary purpose for being written. Among other things, the Protoevangelium is where we get the tradition that Mary was consecrated for service in the temple as a young girl, which would mean a life of perpetual virginity. Indeed, the classic text indicates that Mary’s being entrusted to Joseph was for the purpose of protecting her virginity. (link removed)


What’s important about this is that it’s an admission that the belief doesn’t come from Scripture, but from a second century, pseudepigraphal work written long after the death of its self-described author. The work is attributed to James, Jesus’ step-brother by the text, who was martyred before the fall of Jerusalem. [1]


The Protoevangelium has been referred to as an “early Christian novel”, and while the author claims to be a Jew, he demonstrates considerable ignorance of a number of factors about both the geography of the area as well as Jewish tradition.[2] It should be noted that while a Catholic tract considers it to be an “important historical document which supports the teaching of Mary’s perpetual virginity”, it is really a pious fiction that contradicts both canonical Gospels in their reports on multiple aspects. And if it gets basic facts wrong, should it be considered as an authoritative source upon which one is to base a belief?


Chief Defense

One of the problems with settling the debate in the early church period is that the best defender of the position that Mary was not a perpetual virgin was a presbyter named Helvidius who among other anti-ascetics in the 4th and 5th centuries, all of whom’s writing have been lost except for fragments or allusions in response to their arguments. What has been preserved is a defense of the belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity as articulated by Jerome, titled “The Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Mary”, sometimes referred to as “Against Helvidius”.


While Jerome is known for his grasp of the Hebrew language, his grasp of Hebrew culture and circumstance is severely lacking, and he has to play with the language to get his result, writing,


Must we not rather understand that the preposition before, although it frequently denotes order in time, yet sometimes refers only to order in thought? So that there is no necessity, if sufficient cause intervened to prevent it, for our thoughts to be realized. When, then, the Evangelist says before they came together, he indicates the time immediately preceding marriage, and shows that matters were so far advanced that she who had been betrothed was on the point of becoming a wife. As though he said, before they kissed and embraced, before the consummation of marriage, she was found to be with child. And she was found to be so by none other than Joseph, who watched the swelling womb of his betrothed with the anxious glances, and, at this time, almost the privilege, of a husband.[3](emphasis original)


Here, Jerome is clearly deriving his argument from Matthew 1:18-25 because this is where Helvidius appears to make his argument from. To this Jerome adds,


But if anyone feels a doubt as to why the Virgin conceived after she was betrothed rather than when she had no one betrothed to her, or, to use the Scripture phrase, no husband, let me explain that there were three reasons. First, that by the genealogy of Joseph, whose kinswoman Mary was, Mary's origin might also be shown. Secondly, that she might not in accordance with the law of Moses be stoned as an adulteress.[4]


The question is does Jerome attempt to harmonize Matthew’s gospel with Luke’s? He tries when he appeals to Mary’s response to Gabriel’s statement that she has “not known a man”(Lk1:34).[5] However, he fails to mention that Mary travels to her cousin Elizabeth’s house and it is there that the secret of her pregnancy is exposed by John the Baptist in utero (Lk1:39-41).


Helvidius, from what can be determined from Jerome’s presentation of his argument, appears to be drawing evidence from all four Gospels:


What a poor and impious view we take of Mary, if we hold that when other women were concerned about the burial of Jesus, she His mother was absent; or if we invent some kind of a second Mary; and all the more because the Gospel of S. John testifies that she was there present, when the Lord upon the cross commended her, as His mother and now a widow, to the care of John. Or must we suppose that the Evangelists were so far mistaken and so far mislead us as to call Mary the mother of those who were known to the Jews as brethren of Jesus?[6]


Jerome’s retort is rather brutal:


What darkness, what raging madness rushing to its own destruction! You say that the mother of the Lord was present at the cross, you say that she was entrusted to the disciple John on account of her widowhood and solitary condition: as if upon your own showing, she had not four sons, and numerous daughters, with whose solace she might comfort herself?[7]


Here is where Jerome’s ignorance is displayed as John has already given his readers a reason for Jesus’ assignment of his mother to the disciple’s care in some of Jesus’ last words directed to them in John 21:20-23. But setting that aside, there is actually a cultural reason for this that goes beyond some statement that the disciple himself admits that there was misunderstanding about (Jn21:23).


Cultural Considerations


As Bruce Malina has noted, in the context of the Palestinian Ancient Near East, a marriage was one undertaken for both political and economic advantage of the respective families.[8] In the Jewish culture, the betrothal was began by either the father of the groom or similar representative to make preludes and to enter into the process of negotiation for the marriage.[9] Moreover, both of the potential spouses are set apart from and for one another in expectation of the eventual fulfilment of the marriage contract.[10]  Even though these steps are not mentioned in the gospel texts, they must necessarily be assumed.


Furthermore, one of the aspects that is missed is that while there is a social unity that is perceived of the couple, there is an inherent division, as Malina notes,


The bride does not look to him for companionship or comfort. Instead, as in all societies that exalt bonds between males and masculine lines of rights, the new wife will not be integrated into her husband's family, but will remain for the most part of her life on the periphery of the husband's family. As a rule, she is like a "stranger" in the house, a sort of long-lost relative of unknown quality.[11]


A woman, especially a wife or daughter, was seen essentially an unknown quantity to a man (either a husband or a father) and a constant threat to his honor.[12] As such a woman’s position is always at risk, with her only security being a son with whom she can foster a lasting relationship to secure her rights.[13]


Jerome’s ignorance of these considerations is due to a shift undertaken in the larger Christian community in light of Paul’s missionary work and his negotiation of applying the principles of the Mosaic code to the experience of non-Jews in the greater Greco-Roman context.[14]

The Problem of Idealism

One thing that needs to be clarified before going forward is the distinction between a belief in Mary’s conceptual virginity and her perpetual virginity.


Conceptual virginity affirms Mary’s virginity in the conception of Christ. It denies the pious fiction of the Protoevangelium of James and asserts the primacy of the Gospels as the sole, infallible, and authoritative narration of events. Belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity stems from that which is historically ignorant of events and circumstances.


There is no doubt that the belief grew out of good intentions, after all by the second century Christianity had become unmoored from its Jewish roots and was looking for a place to stand. The destruction of the Jerusalem temple and the disconnection of the larger Gentile church from its Jewish heritage resulted in Jewish Christianity being seen as heresy by the church fathers.[15] This loss of heritage resulted in a loss of much of the background necessary to accurately understand not only the cultural context but also the theological concepts that undergirded much of Christian belief, though they found new ways of propping them up.[16]


One of the unfortunate aspects of Gentile Christianity is that there was a move toward asceticism given the overall hedonistic flavor of the general Gentile experience both in life and worship. If paganism was a life wrought with debauchery, then it followed that life in Christ was one of chastity. Interestingly, one of the aspects of early Christianity was its similarity to rabbinic Judaism, which was based around the synagogue, and this is seen by the adoption of terms and practices early on that survive into the early patristic period.[17] However, as Christianity moves away from its Jewish roots it begins to move in retrograde aspect that effectively crippled the church until the Reformation.[18]


It’s this period of idealism, grounded in something of a reconstructionist/replacement ecclesiology, that asceticism takes root and begins to elevate fiction over fact. Mary becomes idealized and begins to overtake her Son as the ideal, as Senz illustrates when he writes, “...Mary’s perpetual virginity is one of many of her attributes that make her a beautiful symbol of the Church, as the virgin bride of Christ and the fruitful mother of Christians.”



The Case Against Perpetual Virginity


The case for Mary’s perpetual virginity is generally defined by a number of points. Most Catholics will generally present the case by citing seven points. They are generally presented as such:


  1. That Mary had taken a vow of virginity. 

  2. The universal acceptance of the position by the Church Fathers.

  3. Jesus’ entrusting his mother to his disciple John. 

  4. An assertion that the Greek word ἀδελφός is used to refer to a variety of relationships. 

  5. The Protoevangelium of James

  6. An appeal to Ezekiel 44:2 and an alleged relationship to Mary’s pregnancy. 

  7. That no text specifically says that Mary had other children. 


The Catechism of the Catholic Church has an entire section (484-511) dedicated to the discussion of Mary’s virginity, not just in her conception of the Incarnate One, but wholly throughout her life.


A Vow


It asserts that, “in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she  be wholly borne by God’s grace.(CCC490)”[19] It goes on to assert that Mary was blessed by God, “more than any other created person ‘in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ and chose her ‘in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love’.(CCC492)”[20]


If you are paying attention then you notice that the authors of the Catholic Catechism are taking a section of Ephesians 1:3-4, which is about ALL believers and twisting it to be applied to a single individual. That should be the first warning that something foul is afoot.


As I have dealt with the issue of the fictional work known as the Protoevangelium of James and the cultural issue of Mary’s assignment to a disciple, I do not see a need to address these issues here. However, that leaves FIVE point to address.


First, is this allegation of a “vow of virginity”. About this Tim Staples writes, “In Luke 1:34, when Mary was told by the angel Gabriel that she was chosen to be the Mother of the Messiah, she asked the question, literally translated from the Greek, “How shall this be since I know not man?” This question makes no sense unless Mary had a vow of virginity. (emphasis added).”


Notice that this “vow” is simply asserted. But Staples attempts to justify it by writing, “When we consider that Mary and Joseph were already ‘espoused,’ according to [Luke 1:27] …, we understand Mary and Joseph already have what would be akin to a ratified marriage in the New Covenant.(emphasis added)”


There is a tremendous amount of anachronism in such a statement because it ignores the fact that the “New Covenant” has not been put forward, much less “ratified”. Further it ignores the fact that Jewish marriages at the time involved  a two-step process of engagement followed by consummation.[21] Such a process could be lengthy and could only be broken by formal divorce procedings.[22] This is because during the “betrothal” (Heb. kiddushin) which was always initiated by the man, was perceived as an informal state of marriage under which the woman was subject to adultery laws until the “nuptials” (Heb. nissuin) occurred.[23] While Staples may be understood to allude to this by his statement of “akin to a ratified marriage”, most Catholic sources will fail to positively identify the exact conditions under which Mary–as a “betrothed” woman–would be expected to conduct herself. Instead, notice the circularity of his reasoning:


This background is significant because a newly married woman would not ask the question “How shall this be?” She would know—unless, of course, that woman had taken a vow of virginity. Mary believed the message, but wanted to know how this was going to be accomplished. This indicates she was not planning on the normal course of events for her future with Joseph.(emphasis added)


As James White has noted three points on this subject,


…(1) Nothing about a vow is mentioned in Scripture. Mary’s response to the angel was based upon the fact that it was obvious that the angel was speaking about an immediate conception, and since Mary was at that time only engaged to Joseph, but not married, at that time she could not possibly conceive in a natural manner, since she did not “know a man”; (2) There is nothing in the words “I do not know a man” that suggests a vow. The verb is present tense, “I do not know a man.” The passage does not say “I have pledged never to know a man” or “I will never know a man”; and (3) Even Roman Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott recognizes that the idea of a vow of virginity, made popular by Augustine (four centuries after the time of Christ), cannot be made to fit the context.[24]


Universality of Belief 


Referring again to a Catholic tract and the claim of universality of belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity notes,


…most Protestants are unaware of these early beliefs regarding Mary’s virginity and the proper interpretation of “the brethren of the Lord.” And yet, the Protestant Reformers themselves—Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli—honored the perpetual virginity of Mary and recognized it as the teaching of the Bible, as have other, more modern Protestants.


The author precedes to list a number of citations, first from Origen’s commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, which is dated to the middle of the 3rd century, reporting


“The Book [the Protoevangelium] of James [records] that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end, so that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word . . . might not know intercourse with a man after the Holy Spirit came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the first fruit among men of the purity which consists in [perpetual] chastity, and Mary was among women. For it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the first fruit of virginity” (Commentary on Matthew 2:17)


First, there’s the issue of the mis-citation, which is forgivable (it’s Book 10, not Book 2), the issue though is the presentation.


Origen is commenting on Matthew 13:53-58 and what he considers to be a deprecating remark, he cites not one but TWO sources, writing,


But some say, basing it on a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled, or "The Book of James,”…[25]


Odd that the author of the tract ignores the fact that Origen mentions the docetic Gospel of Peter. Moreover, it’s interesting that Origen says that “they” do so “to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end”.


Origen, by reporting these heretical and fictional texts as sources, doesn’t dismiss the belief as such, however Origen goes on to report Josephus’ report of James, the brother of the Lord alongside Paul’s mention in Galatians 1:19. [26] In fact, Origen’s point seems to be, in mentioning those texts to argue against them as being used to defend Christ’s deity by denying the relationship between Jesus and his kin that, he writes,


…seems …to signify something of this nature-they mind our things, not those of Jesus, and have no unusual portion of surpassing wisdom as Jesus has. And perhaps by these things is indicated a new doubt concerning Him, that Jesus was not a man but something diviner, inasmuch as He was, as they supposed, the son of Joseph and Mary, and the brother of four, and of the others-the women-as well, and yet had nothing like to any one of His kindred,…[27]


The next evidence mustered to this defense comes from the 4th century French Bishop of Poitier by the name of Hilary. The specific citation comes from Hilary’s Commentary on Matthew, which reads,


If they [the brethren of the Lord] had been Mary’s sons and not those taken from Joseph’s former marriage, she would never have been given over in the moment of the passion [crucifixion] to the apostle John as his mother, the Lord saying to each, ‘Woman, behold your son,’ and to John, ‘Behold your mother’ [John 19:26–27), as he bequeathed filial love to a disciple as a consolation to the one desolate” (Commentary on Matthew 1:4 [A.D. 354])


Here again we see how being disconnected from the cultural context of the world that you’re interacting with can lead to false conclusions. As noted above, a woman’s chief ally in life wasn’t her husband, it was her firstborn son. 


It’s true that in the section quoted appears to assume that Mary didn’t have other children and denies it. But where does such a belief come from? Again, it is not the Scriptures, but as Origen has noted it arises from a FICTION. Hilary is attempting to defend a belief that doesn’t arise from the text that we have. 


The tract names off a number of similar sources, all 4th century and later (Athanasius, Epiphanius of Salamis, and Jerome) that are dependent upon beliefs that arise from a pseudepigraphic text that is influenced by docetic Gnosticism. 


About Jerome


Jerome’s defense of the perpetual virginity of Mary is the strongest because he actually interacts with an opponent, and I have noted earlier in this essay that point. 


In saying it is the “strongest” I do not mean in terms of the logic of his arguments but in terms of presentation: Jerome is committed and fully intends to defend his beliefs. 


As I noted earlier, Jerome makes a number of assumptions that, when examined in light of the facts they become suspect.


One of the quotations of Jerome cited in the tract has to specifically denounce one of the greatest defenders of the deity of Christ—Tertullian—by saying he “does not belong to the Church”.[28] That’s an awfully convenient way of dealing with an argument. 


Moreover, Jerome has to attack a strawman, writing,


We believe that God was born of a virgin, because we read it. We do not believe that Mary was married after she brought forth her Son, because we do not read it. . . . You [Helvidius] say that Mary did not remain a virgin.[29]


I call this a “strawman” because Helvidius never denies the conceptual virginity of Mary—as far as we can tell. Notice how Jerome shifts from Jesus’ birth to what happened after he was born. 


Later in chapter 21, Jerome writes,


I claim still more, that Joseph himself on account of Mary was a virgin, so that from a virgin wedlock a virgin son was born.


Moreover, he claims that Joseph, “was the guardian of Mary whom he was supposed to have to wife rather than her husband, the conclusion is that he who was thought worthy to be called father of the Lord, remained a virgin.


Where’s the evidence for this claim?


Oh…right..the Protoevangelium of James.


Notice the problem?


Jerome’s argument comes from a fictitious source. In Jerome’s defense, he didn’t know that, however Helvidius and others clearly recognized the fraudulent nature of the Protoevangelium and wisely rejected it. 


In the Family Way


A chief argument against the perpetual virginity of Mary is generally presented from two passages: Matthew 1:24-25 and Matthew 13:55


The argument from the former is based on the statement in v25 that Joseph, “knew [Mary] not until she had given birth to a son.”[30] The argument notes that the preposition translated as “until” being a euphemism for a change of state.. 


On this point, Tim Staples argues,


 …[Some] have argued that because Matthew 1:25 uses the Greek words heos hou for “until” whereas the texts I mentioned above from the New Testament use heos alone, there is a difference in meaning. The argument goes that Heos hou indicates the action of the first clause does not continue. Thus, Mary and Joseph “not having come together” would have ended after Jesus was born.


It’s not just the issue of the preposition, it’s also the use of the verb that gets translated as “know”.


This is well established in Old Testament (LXX) texts such as in Genesis 4:1, 4:17, and 4:25 also in 19:5; as well as 1 Samuel 1:19. It is also used negatively to signal virginity as in Genesis 19:8 and Numbers 31:17 (cf Luke 1:28).[31]


The primary issue with Matthew’s statement in 1:25 is that it is something of a hapax legomena in Matthew, and syntactically gives credence to the tradition of Mary’s perpetual virginity due to the use of the preposition heōs which, “occurs with a negative main verb and the genitive relative pronoun. This type of construction occurs nowhere else in Matthew. The closest parallel is 17:9, but there the negative verb is an imperative, not an indicative as here.”[32] The point, however, is to stress Jesus’ supernatural origin and not Mary’s virginity afterward.[33] This leads us into the question of those identified as Jesus’ “brothers and sisters”, in Matthew 13:55, which makes the “until” have a sense of natural course rather that exception.[34]


Oh Brother(s) (and Sisters)

In Matthew 13:55 we are introduced to a new set of characters in the form of Jesus’ “brothers” and “sisters”. Rarely in such circumstances that Matthew’s gospel is placed parallel to Mark’s in this instance, as Mark writes,


“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:3, ESV)


Mark is important because he dares to name three of Jesus’ brothers, which becomes important later.


Staples writes, 


…[We] must understand that the term brother has a wide semantic range in Scripture. It can mean a uterine brother, an extended relative, or even a spiritual brother. In Genesis 13:8 and 14:12, we read of one example of brother being used to describe an extended relationship: Abraham and Lot. Though they were actually uncle and nephew, they called one another “brother.” (emphasis original)


That’s all true: in the Hebrew context, given the fact that the culture was patrilineal, most family relationships would be defined along the lines of speaking of someone as “brother”. The question is, what does this have to do with Jesus’ familial relationship, unless it’s being positioned as a pretext, like this:


…in the New Testament, Jesus told us to call one another “brothers” in Matthew 23:8. The passage obviously does not mean to suggest that all Christians have the same physical mother.


Here again, it helps to review the cited text:


“But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.” (Matthew 23:8, ESV, emphasis added)


Notice that there is no instruction there to call anyone “brother” rather there is the statement that believers are brothers. This grows out of what is known as a “fictive kinship” where believers are aligned to God as Father through Jesus.[35]


But what’s important about Matthew 13:55? Staples writes,


…if we examine more closely the example of James, one of these four “brothers of the Lord” mentioned in Matthew 13:55, we discover him to be a cousin or some other relative of Jesus rather than a uterine brother. For example, Galatians 1:18-19 informs us: “Then after three years I [Paul] went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother.”


Now, koine Greek has a specific word for “cousin”, the word anepsios. This word is used only in Colossians 4:10 in reference to John Mark, the cousin of Paul’s associate Barnabas. John Mark is mentioned in Acts 12 in regard to Peter’s escape from prison, remember that reference because it will become important. 


Now, Staples mentions Galatians 1:18-19, and Paul’s mention of “James the Lord’s brother”. Why is this important? Because of what Staples writes next, as he notes that there are two Jameses listed in the list of disciples by Luke in 6:15-16 and insists that this second James of whom Paul says is that James, who is listed as “the son of Alphaeus”.


This James, son of Alphaeus, appears again in the list of disciples in Acts 1 along with a mention of Jesus’s brothers, in distinction. Now, a point that I’ve noted here is that when the disciple lists are compared between the four Gospels–especially when it comes to reconciling the identity of the tax collector called by Jesus–that the “son of Alpheus” is always present in those lists and is never referred to as “brother” of anyone. In fact, as I’ve noted here, the use of the Patronym is used to distinguish between two different Jameses present in the list. This means that when Paul identifies “James the Lord’s brother”, he is referring to someone other than James bar Alphaeus.


Moreover, the James who is mentioned from Acts 12:17 onward is never referred to by any associative title, unlike the James in Acts 12 who is referred to as “brother of John” or “James son of Alphaeus” in 1:13. The only associating of a James as a brother of Jesus is found in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3, and neither of these in association with Alphaeus, who has already been distinguished.[36] The fact that this James is never disambiguated implies that he is well known and unique among the apostolic band so as to not need to be identified by any other means. Which is why I mentioned the need to pay attention to Acts 12. The only time that a disambiguation is used to distinguish a particular James other than Zebbedee or Alphaeus is in Mark 15:40 when women are identified at the crucifixion, namely on “Mary mother of James the younger”, which begs the question of “younger than who?”[37]


Another problem for this seeing the one who Paul identifies as “James the Lord’s brother”, aside from Luke’s association of the brothers of Jesus as a group with the apostolic band (Acts 1:14) is the fact that Paul similarly identifies a unique group in his first epistle to the Corinthians:


Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? (1 Corinthians 9:5, ESV emphasis added)


Here again we need to notice the plural “brothers” in distinction from “apostles” and even Cephas (SImon Peter). This causes further problems for Staples’ association of "James the Lord’s brother” with “James son of Alphaeus” as it pushes the identification of these brothers into a discrete group. Add this to Josephus’ identification of James (sometimes called “the Just”) as Christ’s brother, not in some strained sense but in the normative sense, then the argument becomes that much more untenable.[38]


Referring to the Catechism, Staples argues that, without mentioning a citation (Mark 15:40), “we find ‘James and Joseph’ mentioned again, but this time their mother is revealed as being named Mary, but not Mary, the Mother of Jesus. We can conclude that ‘James and Joseph’ are ‘brothers’ of Jesus, but they are not uterine brothers.


The question is, aside from motivated reasoning, should we assume that Mark would introduce a new and unrelated character into his narrative at this late stage in his narrative? Staples’ reading forces a disjunction between the identification established in Mark 6:3 and Mark 15:40. Moreover, this affects John’s presentation in his gospel, when he presents Jesus’ mother as being present at the crucifixion.


If “Mary the mother of James and Joseph” in Mark 15:40 is the same Mary identified in Mark 6:3, as the text—naturally read—seems to suggest, then we have a positive identification of uterine brothers of Jesus. 


This then places Mark in unity with Luke and Paul who both assert that there were those who are identified within the apostolic cohort as “brothers of the Lord”, not as some distant kin but as fully related. 


First-Born vs Only-Born

Another evidence that is mustered in order to support the contention that Mary had other children is the fact that Jesus is referred to as the “first-born” of Mary (Luke 2:7). Does the title of “first-born” imply that there were others born to Mary? Staples doesn’t think so, writing,


But what about Matthew 1:24-25, and the claim Jesus was Mary’s “firstborn son” and that Joseph “knew her not until” Christ was born? Does Matthew here teach that Mary had other children?


Exodus 13:1-2 reveals something very important about the firstborn in Israel: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Consecrate to me all the firstborn; whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and beast, is mine.’”


The “firstborn” were not given the title because there was a “second-born.” They were called “firstborn” at birth. Jesus being “firstborn” does not require that more siblings be born after him.


While it is true that “firstborn” doesn’t necessarily imply that others are born, it necessarily assumes that others are born as the title “firstborn” reckons that others are associated. This makes the appeal to Exodus 13:1-2 extraneous. Luke, by specifically calling Jesus Mary’s “firstborn” (prototokos) and avoiding the title of “only son” (monogenēs), is necessarily implying that other children were born to Mary. How do we know this? By Luke’s three uses of the term monogenēs.


In Luke 7, we are introduced to the widow of Nain at the death of her monogenēs, “only son” (7:12). Similarly in Luke 8, we are introduced to an official named Jairus who comes seeking out Jesus to heal his thygatēr monogenēs, “only daughter” (8:42). Lastly, in Luke 9 we meet a desperate father who needs Jesus to heal his monogenēs, “only child” (9:38). In each circumstance the implication–especially in the incident at Nain–the implication that these are the only children of these people. 


A response might be that these people had not had any more children yet, especially in the case of the last two in that they are children. However, in the circumstance of the widow the implication is that the son of the widow was an adult and the widow was of significant age to not be able to bear any more children. Taking into account the various circumstances one is left  to consider that in each of these circumstances, these were the sole offspring of the parent, hence their desperation in seeking the help of Jesus.


Interestingly the only time that monogenēs is used of Jesus is in discussion of his relation to God (John 1:14, 18; John 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9) and never in relation to Mary. In fact, we have an instance where monogenēs is used in relation to someone who has seven brothers: Isaac, the son of Abraham (Hebrews 11:17; cf Genesis 25:1-11).


If any gospel writer desired to express that Jesus was Mary’s only child then they certainly had the ability to make that point clear. Instead, we have multiple instances not only do the writers avoid making such a claim but they add to Jesus having multiple siblings.


Why So Long?

One of the problems with the ministry of Jesus is, why does he wait so long?


Luke presents us with an incident early in the life of Jesus where the situation can only be explained meaningfully by the presence of other children in the life of Mary and Joseph: when Jesus disappears from the familial caravan and is found in the temple, an incident described in Luke 2:41-51.


In this particular pericope, the holy family has returned to Jerusalem for a festival and are preparing to return home, and when they reach the first stop of the day, they realize that Jesus is not among the caravan of “relatives and acquaintances” (Luke 2:44). They return to Jerusalem and eventually find him in the temple.


The question is, why did his parents not miss him until the end of the day?


Jesus is said to have been about twelve at the time (Luke 2:42) and a twelve year old male, while likely considered to be ritually an adult would still have been under the authority of his parents. If Jesus was an only child, why do his parents only miss him at some distance from Jerusalem? Craig Keener sheds some insight on this question:


Traveling with a caravan, in which neighbors from their town would watch the community children together, Mary and Joseph might assume that the near-adult Jesus was with companions, especially if by now they had younger children to attend to.[39]


We can further the assumption as to why Jesus waited until he was 30 years of age (Luke 3:23) by recognizing that if Joseph had died in the interim between the temple visit at age 12 and then–a period of 18 years–it would have allowed his next sibling to reach a sufficient age and ability where Jesus could leave home and have someone available to provide for his mother and look after her interests in his absence.[40]


Old Testament Claims 

A further point in the alleged evidence has to do with fifth century interpretations of Ezekiel 44:2, as Taylor Marshall explains,


The Prophet Ezekiel who foretold Mary’s perpetual virginity.

Many ancient theologians such as Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine (and most of the Eastern Fathers) interpreted Ezekiel’s prophecy about the Temple’s closed eastern gate as a prophecy of the virgin birth of Christ. According to Ezekiel, only the Messianic lord/king/priest could enter through this eastern gate of the Temple.


My only response is, “Ancient theologians interpreted Ezekiel’s prophecy that way. Okay, so do any authors of Scripture or any second temple writer interpret it that way?” 


Why is that important?


Let me begin with the second group first: the second temple period, especially the apocryphal and pseudepigrapha (1 Enoch, Book of Jubilees, Testament of Moses, etc) which informs us of interpretation of key messianic texts prior to the Incarnation inform us of some of the expectations and, as some have argued, provide the ground for Jesus’ earthly ministry to be understood.[41]

Are there any expressed or implied references to the coming of the Messiah in relation to Ezekiel 44?


The inherent problem with the appeal to the single eastern gate as being a reference to Mary or her virginity is that the temple in Ezekiel’s vision is God’s residence on earth, and not the earth.

As Michael Heiser notes,


In Israel’s theology, Eden, the tabernacle, Sinai, and the temple were equally the abode of Yahweh and his council. The Israelites who had the tabernacle and the temple were constantly reminded of the fact that they had the God of the cosmic mountain and the cosmic garden living in their midst, and if they obeyed him, Zion would become the kingdom domain of Yahweh, which would serve as the place to which he would regather the disinherited nations cast aside at Babel to himself.[42]


Aside from a lack of reference in second temple sources, do the apostolic witnesses cite this as evidence of Mary’s virginity? This is simple enough to test in that we only have two sources: Matthew and Luke. 


Matthew is the only writer who provides a scriptural evidence for Mary’s virginity—at least at conception—in his citation of Isaiah 7:14 (Matthew 1:22-25) while Luke provides such a basis through Mary’s personal testimony that she does not “know not a man” (1:34, KJV). Neither of these texts either assume allude to Ezekiel as a basis. This makes such a contention post hoc.


Conclusion


In this essay, I have set out to demonstrate that claims related to the perpetual virginity of Mary are suspect and that they are argued on fundamentally fallacious grounds of alleged “tradition” and “consensus”. While both are true statements–there is both an old tradition and general consensus–both appeals fall flat due to the fact that neither tradition nor consensus make a belief true. Instead we must look at the evidence presented in order to validate such belief. This is not to say that a particular tradition or consensus can be wrong, but there is no obligation to assent to matters simply upon such a basis.


Appeals to the church fathers are dependent, not on multiple sources, but usually upon a single source: namely Jerome’s text titled “Against Helvidius”, where Jerome seeks to defend an unjustified belief that stems from a suspect and late document with no apostolic connection. This document, the Protoevangelium of James, is a fictitious work created to defend the beliefs it purports to convey. Origen, who is the first to reference it, speaks of it suspiciously and references it in relation to a related gnostic work, the Gospel of Peter. The reasons for such beliefs stem from an honorable place (the desire to defend the deity of Christ) but when built on a faulty foundation such an edifice cannot stand.


Furthermore, we examined claims related to this allegation in reference to gospel witnessed family relations and demonstrated, from both the text and the cultural expectations that to maintain the belief one has to engage in reading their beliefs into the text, rather than deriving them from the text. This practice is called eisegesis.


Lastly, we looked briefly at an Old Testament claim about the prophet Ezekiel that is strained and makes no sense, especially since no New Testament author and no second or third generation author makes use of the text in that manner. When an interpretation arises late and has to find a prooftext that turns the text into hash, that is proof texting in the extreme as a pretext.


In the final analysis, the argument for Mary's perpetual virginity is suspect in that it is not derived from our original sources, violates a number of necessary cultural conceptions, and is often read backward into the text.


Notes


  1. Flavius Josephus. Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1

  2. Kenneth E. Bailey. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels. InterVarsity Press. 2008. p.25 (ePub)

  3. Jerome. “Against Helvidius”. Ch.4

  4. Ibid.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Ibid, ch.14

  7. Ibid, ch.15

  8. Bruce J. Malina. The New Testament World: Insights From Cultural Anthropology, Revised Edition. Westminster/John Knox Press. 1993. p.126-7

  9. Ibid, p.127

  10. Ibid.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Ibid, p.128 (cf p.137)

  13. Ibid.

  14. Ibid, p.139-41

  15. James D.G. Dunn. The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and their Significance for the Character of Christianity, Second Edition. SCM Press. 2006. p.305

  16. The Faith that is Catholic: Unity or Trinity, Part 2: Theological Groundwork

  17. Dunn, p.335-6

  18. Ibid, p.336-7

  19. Catechism of the Catholic Church. United States Catholic Conference/DoubleDay Publishing. 1994. 

  20. Emphasis added

  21. E. Randolph Richards and Richard James. Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage Honor and Shame in the Biblical World. InterVarsity Press. 2020. P.71

  22. David de Silva. Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. InterVarsity Press. 2000. p.99 (ePub)

  23. Gail Labovitz. “Marriage and Marriage Customs”. The Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture, ed by Judith R. Gaskin. Cambridge University Press. 2011.

  24. James R. White. Mary: Another Redeemer?. Bethany House Publishing. 1998. p.48 (ePub)

  25. Origen. Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Robert’s-Donaldson Translation. Red Pill Press. 2006. p.38 (emphasis added)

  26. Ibid, p.39

  27. Ibid. 

  28. Jerome, 19

  29. Ibid, 21

  30. English Standard Version, emphasis added

  31. David L. Turner. Matthew. Baker Academic Publishing. 2008. p.73

  32. Ibid, p.74

  33. Ibid, p.74-5 

  34. R.T. France. The Gospel of Matthew. William B. Eerdmans Publishing. 2007. p.110 (ePub)

  35. deSilva, p.421-22

  36. An unnamed mention occurs in Mark 3:31-35, where Jesus’ family comes to seek him out and take him home. This exchange only makes sense if Jesus’ mother was in the custody of uterine brothers. If Mary was a widow and alone with Jesus as her sole provider out in the midst of his itinerant ministry, no one would have given him an audience, and this likely provides the background for the attempted execution of Jesus in Luke 4:28-30. (see Richards and James, 384n14:1)

  37. See “One Mary, Two Mary, Seven-Mary-Three” for a discussion on disambiguation of the various women named “Mary” in the gospels.

  38. See Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church: Complete Eight Volumes in One (ePub), 1:538-9 and also 2:2191, where Schaff writes about this mention of wives among the apostolic band and the brothers of the Lord: “It is also self-evident that, if marriage did not detract from the authority and dignity of an apostle, it cannot be inconsistent with the dignity and purity of any minister of Christ. The marriage relation implies duties and privileges, and it is a strange perversion of truth if some writers under the influence of dogmatic prejudice have turned the apostolic marriages, and that between Joseph and Mary into empty forms. Paul would have expressed himself very differently if he had meant to deny to the clergy the conjugal intercourse after ordination, as was done by the fathers and councils in the fourth century.” (p.2191)

  39. Craig S. Keener. The IVP Bible Background Commentary, Second Edition. InterVarsity Press. 2014. p.186

  40. Referring again to Keener’s Background Commentary: “In Greek society, men often entered public service at the age of thirty; Levites’ service in the temple also began at thirty (cf. Num 4:3-47 et passim). Like a good Greek historian, Luke says “about thirty” (3:23) rather than stating an estimate as a definite number, as was more common in traditional Jewish historiography.”(p.189) See also Malina, p.50

  41. Michael Heiser is the best source on this, especially his discussions in The Unseen Real (Lexham, 2015) and Reversing Hermon (Defender, 2017) provide excellent source.

  42. Michael S. Heiser. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, First Edition. Lexham Press. 2017. p.228

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