|
T h e F a t h e r s K n o w B e s t
Mary’s Perpetual Virginity
|
This Rock
Volume 2, Number 7
 December 1991 
|
|
|
Most "Bible Christians" claim Mary had children other than Jesus--all those people known as the "brethren of the Lord." As explained in Catholic Answers’ tract The Brethren of the Lord, that’s not what the early Christians thought. They knew Jesus was Mary’s only child and that she remained a lifelong virgin.
Athanasius
"Let those, therefore, who deny that the Son is by nature from the Father and proper to his essence deny also that he took true human flesh from the ever-virgin Mary" (Discourses Against the Arians 2:70 [inter A.D. 358-362]).
Epiphanius
"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, begotten of God the Father, only- begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father; . . . 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." (The Man Well-Anchored 120 [A.D. 374]).
Epiphanius
"And to holy Mary 'Virgin' is invariably added, for that holy woman remains undefiled" (Panacea Against All Heresies 78:6 [A.D. 374/377]).
Didymus the Blind
"It helps us to understand the terms 'first-born' and 'only-begotten' when the Evangelist tells that Mary remained a virgin 'until she brought forth her first-born son' [Matt. 1:25]; for neither did Mary, who is to be honored and praised above all others, marry anyone else, nor did she ever become the Mother of anyone else, but even after childbirth she remained always and forever an immaculate virgin" (The Trinity 3:4 [A.D. 381-392]).
Jerome
"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. Nor do we say this in order to condemn marriage: for virginity itself is the fruit of marriage. . . . You say that Mary did not remain a virgin. As for myself, I claim that Joseph himself was a virgin, through Mary, so that a Virgin Son might be born of a virginal wedlock" (Against Helvidius: The Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary 19 {al. 21} [A.D. 383]).
Augustine
"It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?" (Sermons 186:1 [inter A.D. 391-430]).
Augustine
"In being born of a Virgin who chose to remain a Virgin even before she knew who was to be born of her, Christ wanted to approve virginity rather than to impose it. And he wanted virginity to be of free choice even in that woman in whom he took upon himself the form of a slave." (Holy Virginity 4:4 [A.D. 401]).
Augustine
"Heretics 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" (Heresies 56 [A.D. 428]).
Leporius
"We confess, therefore, that our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, born of the Father before the ages, and in times most recent, made man of the Holy Spirit and the ever-virgin Mary, was born God; and confessing each substance, we accept, in the light of pious faith, that his humanity and his divinity are united inseparably." (Document of Amendment 3 [ca. A.D. 426]).
Cyril of Alexandria
"Jesus did not first come into being as a simple man, before the union and communion of God in him; but the Word himself, coming into the Blessed Virgin herself, assumed for himself his own temple from the substance of the Virgin and came forth from her a man in all that could be externally discerned, while interiorly he was true God. Therefore he kept his Mother a virgin even after her child-bearing." (Against Those Who Do Not Wish to Confess That the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God 4 [ca. A.D. 430]).
Peter Chrysologus
"Where are they who think that the Virgin’s conceiving and the Virgin’s giving birth are just like those of other women? Theirs is of the earth, hers is of heaven. Hers is by divine power, theirs by human weakness. . . . A Virgin conceived, a Virgin bore, and a Virgin she remains." (Sermons 117 [A.D. 432]).
Leo I
"Christ was begotten in a new kind of nativity, conceived by a Virgin, born of a Virgin, without concupiscence of paternal flesh, without injury to maternal integrity. . . . His origin is different but his nature is the same. Human usage and custom were lacking, but by divine power a Virgin conceived, a Virgin bore, and Virgin she remained." (Sermons 22:2 [A.D. 461]).
Sophronius
"At the same time, however, there were the sublime and preeminent indications of his divinity . . . such as his being conceived without seed, the exultation of John in the womb, the undespoiling birth, the immaculate virginity which was unblemished before the birth, during the birth, and after the birth . . . all of which, accomplished on a level above human reason and nature, were indications proclamatory of the divine essence and soul" (Synodal Letter Migne, PG 87/3, 3172 [A.D. 634]).
John Damascene
"For how were it possible that she, who had borne God and had come to know that miracle from her experience of subsequent events, should receive the embrace of a man? Perish the thought!" (The Source of Knowledge 3:4:14 [A.D. 743]).
John Damascene
"In the plan of the Incarnation of one Person of the Holy Trinity, that is, of our Lord Jesus Christ, there are two natures involved, the divine and the human, two wills likewise and two operations, but only one Hypostasis or only one Person, because he is the one and the same who before the ages was begotten incorporeally and not as effluence and who in these recent times was conceived of the holy ever-virgin Mary, Mother of God, in an indescribable manner and inviolately" (The Holy Trinity 1 [A.D. 730]).
John Damascene
"Struck by the wonder of the mystery, they could only think that he who had been pleased to become incarnate from her in his own Person and to become Man and to be born in the flesh, God the Word, the Lord of glory, who preserved her virginity intact after her parturition, he was pleased even after her departure from life to honor her immaculate and undefiled body with incorruption and with translation prior to the common and universal resurrection" (Homilies 10:18 [ca. A.D. 730]).
|
C A T H O L I C A N S W E R S :
[TOP]
