Perpetual virginity of Mary

[12] The extant written tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary first appears in a late 2nd-century text called the Protoevangelium of James.

[21][22] The virgin birth of Jesus is found in the Gospel of Matthew and possibly in Luke, but it seems to have little theological importance before the middle of the 2nd century.

[28] According to Protestant scholar Richard Bauckham, these works "show no signs of literary relationship"[28] and probably "evidence of a well-established tradition in (probably early) second-century Syrian Christianity that Jesus' brothers and sisters were children of Joseph by a previous marriage".

[35][36] In the 3rd century, Hippolytus of Rome held that Mary was "ever-virgin",[37] while Clement of Alexandria, writing soon after the Protoevangelium appeared, appealed to its incident of a midwife who examined Mary immediately after the birth ("after giving birth, she was examined by a midwife, who found her to be a virgin") and asserted that this was to be found in the Gospels ("These things are attested to by the Scriptures of the Lord"), though he was referring to an apocryphal Gospel as a fact.

[23] Origen also mentioned that the gospel of Peter affirmed the perpetual virginity of Mary, saying that the "brothers" of Jesus were from a previous marriage of Joseph.

[38] Tertullian, however, is not entirely clear on the issue of Mary's virginity post partum, with some scholars denying his traditional association with the Helvidian position.

By the early 4th century the spread of monasticism had promoted celibacy as the ideal state,[49] and a moral hierarchy was established with marriage occupying the third rank below life-long virginity and widowhood.

Augustine goes on to say that the reason for Jovinian's denial of Mary's virginity in partu was that the doctrine was too close to the Manichean view that Christ was simply a phantom.

[57] The only important Christian intellectual to defend Mary's virginity in partu was Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, who was the chief target of the charge of Manicheism.

[35] Jovinian was condemned as a heretic at a Synod of Milan under Ambrose's presidency in 390 and Mary's perpetual virginity was established as the only orthodox view.

[14] Further developments were to follow when the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 formally gave her the title "Aeiparthenos", and at the Lateran Synod of 649 Pope Martin I emphasised the threefold character of the perpetual virginity, before, during, and after the birth of Christ.

[75] Mary's perpetual virginity was upheld by Martin Luther (who names her ever-virgin in the Smalcald Articles, a Lutheran confession of faith written in 1537),[15] Huldrych Zwingli, Thomas Cranmer, Wollebius, Bullinger, John Wycliffe and later Protestant leaders including John Wesley, the co-founder of Methodism.

[81][3] Theodore Beza, a prominent early Calvinist, included the perpetual virginity of Mary in a list of agreements between Calvinism and the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church has gone further than the Orthodox in making the Perpetual Virginity one of the four Marian dogmas, meaning that it is held to be a truth divinely revealed, the denial of which is heresy.

[11] It declares her virginity before, during and after the birth of Jesus,[88] or in the definition formulated by Pope Martin I at the Lateran Council of 649:[89]The blessed ever-virginal and immaculate Mary conceived, without seed, by the Holy Spirit, and without loss of integrity brought him forth, and after his birth preserved her virginity inviolate.Thomas Aquinas admitted that reason could not prove this, but argued that it must be accepted because it was "fitting",[90] for as Jesus was the only-begotten son of God, so he should also be the only-begotten son of Mary, as a second and purely human conception would disrespect the sacred state of her holy womb.

[92] It has been stated and argued repeatedly, most recently by the Second Vatican Council:[93] This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ's virginal conception [...] then also at the birth of Our Lord, who did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it...A problem facing theologians wishing to maintain Mary's life-long virginity is that the Pauline epistles, the four gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles all mention the brothers (adelphoi) of Jesus; both Matthew and Mark record their names and add unnamed sisters.

[17][94][b] The Gospel of James, followed a century later by Epiphanius, explained the adelphoi as Joseph's children by an earlier marriage,[95] which is still the view of the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches.

Two other 4th century Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, following "a certain apocryphal account", and Augustine, advanced a further argument by reading Luke 1:34[100] as a vow of perpetual virginity on Mary's part; this idea, first introduced in the Protoevangelium of James, has little scholarly support today,[101] but it and the arguments advanced by Jerome and Ambrose were put forward by Pope John Paul II in his catechesis of August 28, 1996, as the four facts supporting the Catholic Church's ongoing faith in Mary's perpetual virginity.