The Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary:  

A Comprehensive Scriptural, Linguistic, Patristic, Historical, and Theological Defense  

 Introduction  

The dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary (virginitas ante partum, in partu, et post partum) is not a late medieval “Roman” accretion, nor a pious exaggeration tolerated only by the ignorant. It is an apostolic doctrine witnessed in Scripture, sealed by the unanimous consent of the Fathers, defined by ecumenical and local councils, confessed in every ancient liturgy of East and West, and defended without ambiguity by the three great founders of Protestantism: Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin, as well as by their immediate successors. Only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, under the influence of rationalism, liberalism, and anti-Catholic polemics, did large segments of Protestantism abandon this truth. The present study will demonstrate its certainty from five converging lines of evidence:

1. Old and New Testament typology and explicit texts  

2. The precise semantic range of the Hebrew and Greek vocabulary  

3. The unbroken witness of the Church from the first to the eighth century  

4. The explicit adherence of the Magisterial Reformers and early Protestant confessions  

5. The grave Christological and ecclesiological consequences of its denial  

 I. Scriptural Testimony in Depth  

1. Ezekiel 44:1–3 – The Shut Gate  

“Then he brought me back by the way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which looketh toward the east; and it was shut. And the Lord said to me: This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it: because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it, and it shall be shut for the prince…” (Ezek 44:1–3, Douay-Rheims).

This text is not an isolated curiosity. From the second century onward it became the standard prophetic proof-text for Mary’s perpetual virginity. St. Justin Martyr (ca. 155), St. Irenaeus (ca. 180), St. Ephrem (d. 373), St. Ambrose (d. 397), St. Augustine (d. 430), St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444), and St. Jerome (d. 420) all apply it directly to the Virgin Birth and to Mary’s continuing state. The literal sense of Ezekiel concerns the temple restored after the exile; the typical sense, universally received in the Church, sees the inviolate gate as the womb through which the Lord entered and exited without violating its integrity. The prince (נָשִׂיא, nāśîʾ) who alone may sit in it is Christ, who alone was conceived and born of the Virgin.

2. Isaiah 7:14 – עַלְמָה (ʿalmâ) and παρθένος (parthenos)  

The Hebrew noun עַלְמָה occurs only seven times in the entire Old Testament (Gen 24:43; Ex 2:8; Ps 68:26; Prov 30:19; Song 1:3; 6:8; Isa 7:14). In every narrative context where the woman’s state is known, she is unambiguously virginal. The root ʿ-l-m connotes “hidden, concealed,” especially sexual concealment. When the Septuagint translators – Jewish scholars working 200–150 years before Christ – rendered עַלְמָה as παρθένος in Isaiah 7:14, they were not guessing; they were transmitting the living Jewish tradition that the sign promised to Ahaz required a conception wholly outside the order of nature. The later Jewish polemical translations (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) substitute νεᾶνις (“young woman”) precisely because they understood that παρθένος excluded normal marital conception.

Matthew’s use of παρθένος (Mt 1:23) is therefore not a mistranslation but the divinely inspired confirmation of the true meaning of Isaiah’s prophecy.

3. Luke 1:34 – The Virgin’s Vow  

Mary’s question to Gabriel, πῶς ἔσται τοῦτο, ἐπεὶ ἄνδρα οὐ γινώσκω; (“How shall this be, since I do not know man?”) is decisive. The verb γινώσκω is present tense, not aorist. Mary is not saying “I have not known man up to now” (which would be natural for any betrothed virgin); she is stating a continuing state: “I do not know man” – implying a deliberate resolution of perpetual virginity already made, even though she was betrothed. St. Augustine (De sancta virginitate 4), St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae III, q. 28, a. 4), and countless others see here an implicit vow, ratified by God when the angel does not correct her but instead confirms that the child will be conceived by the Holy Spirit.

4. The “Brethren of the Lord” – Linguistic and Narrative Resolution  

The New Testament uses ἀδελφός / ἀδελφή more than 250 times. In the vast majority of cases the word does not mean uterine brother or sister. Examples abound:

- Gen 13:8 (LXX): Abraham calls Lot his ἀδελφός though Lot is his nephew.  

- Gen 14:14: Lot is again ἀδελφός.  

- Lev 10:4: Mishael and Elzaphan are “brothers” of Nadab and Abihu though they are first cousins.  

- 1 Chron 23:21–22: the daughters of Eleazar marry their “brethren” (אֲחֵיהֶם), who are actually cousins.

In the Gospels themselves:

- Matthew 27:56 and Mark 15:40 identify James and Joseph (two of the four “brethren” named in Mt 13:55) as sons of a different Mary, the wife of Clopas.  

- John 19:25 distinguishes “Mary the mother of Jesus” from “his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas.” Early tradition (Hegesippus, Eusebius, Epiphanius) identifies Clopas as Joseph’s brother, making these “brethren” first cousins of Jesus.  

- None of the “brethren” are ever called υἱοὶ τῆς Μαρίας (“sons of Mary”).  

- At the cross, Jesus entrusts his mother to John (Jn 19:26–27). Palestinian Jewish custom made this unthinkable if Mary had other natural sons alive.

5. Matthew 1:25 – ἕως οὗ (heōs hou)  

The construction ἕως οὗ (or simple ἕως) is used scores of times in Scripture without implying termination after the specified point:

- 2 Sam 6:23 (LXX): “Michal the daughter of Saul had no child until (ἕως) the day of her death.”  

- Ps 110:1 (LXX 109:1): “Sit at my right hand until (ἕως) I make your enemies your footstool.”  

- Mt 28:20: “I am with you all days until (ἕως) the end of the age.”  

- 1 Cor 15:25: “He must reign until (ἕως) he has put all enemies under his feet.”

St. Jerome’s treatise Against Helvidius (383) devotes an entire chapter to refuting the Helvidian misuse of ἕως οὗ with more than twenty examples. The construction simply fixes the terminus ad quem; it says nothing about what follows.

 II. Patristic Consensus Century by Century  

Second century  

- Protoevangelium of James (ca. 140–170): the earliest extra-canonical witness. Describes Joseph as an elderly widower with grown children from a previous marriage, the miraculous birth with a midwife confirming Mary’s physical integrity post partum, and Mary’s presentation in the Temple as a consecrated virgin.  

- St. Ignatius of Antioch (Ephesians 19:1, ca. 107): the virginity of Mary and her childbirth were “hidden from the prince of this world… a virgin conceived, a virgin bore.”  

- St. Justin Martyr (Dialogue 63, 78): applies Ezekiel’s gate to Mary.  

- St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies III.21.10; V.19.1): Mary is the New Eve who remained virgin.

Third century  

- Origen (Homily on Luke 6–7; Commentary on Matthew 10:17): explicitly teaches perpetual virginity and rejects the idea that the “brethren” are uterine brothers.  

- Hippolytus (Treatise on Christ and Antichrist 61).  

- Clement of Alexandria (Stromata VII.16).

Fourth century – the golden age of explicit defense  

- St. Athanasius (Discourse Against the Arians 2.70): “She remained a virgin to the end.”  

- St. Hilary of Poitiers (Commentary on Matthew 1:4).  

- St. Ephrem the Syrian (Commentary on the Diatessaron; Hymns on the Nativity 2, 4, 11): “Though still a virgin she carried… after having borne her Son she was sealed.”  

- St. Ambrose (De institutione virginis 8.52–54): Ezekiel’s gate.  

- St. Jerome, Against Helvidius (383) – the most detailed patristic monograph on the subject.  

- St. Augustine (De sancta virginitate; Sermo 191; Tractates on John 10): “Mary was that only one who was both mother and virgin, not only in spirit but also in body… she remained inviolate after childbirth.”

Fifth–eighth centuries  

- Council of Ephesus (431): anathematizes any who deny the implications of Theotokos, including the integrity of her virginity.  

- Second Council of Constantinople (553): in its anathemas against certain Origenist errors, reaffirms Mary’s perpetual virginity.  

- Lateran Synod of 649 (Pope St. Martin I): Canon 3 dogmatically defines that the Virgin Mary “gave birth without corruption… and her virginity remained inviolable even after the birth.”  

- Third Council of Constantinople (680–681): repeats the formula.  

- The Tome to the Armenians (Pope St. Leo I, 649) and the profession of faith of Pope Pelagius I (557) contain the same doctrine.

There is no dissenting Father in any century. Helvidius (ca. 380) and Bonosus (ca. 390) were isolated heretics condemned almost immediately.

 III. The Magisterial Reformers and Early Protestant Confessions  

Martin Luther (1483–1546)  

- House Postil on the Gospel for Christmas Day (1544): “She was a virgin before the birth, she remained a virgin in the birth, and after the birth she continued a most chaste virgin until the end of her life.”  

- Sermon on John 2 (1537): “It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a virgin… Christ, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact.”  

- Last sermon at Wittenberg, 17 January 1546: “God did not derogate from the honor of Mary when He gave her in marriage… she remained a virgin after the birth.”

John Calvin (1509–1564)  

- Commentary on Matthew 1:25: Calvin does not accept Helvidius’s interpretation and says the text leaves the question open, but in the Commentary on Luke 1:34 and in the Harmony of the Evangelists he strongly inclines toward perpetual virginity.  

- Sermon on Matthew 1:22–25 (1558, published posthumously): “There is no reason for us to doubt that Mary kept her virginity intact to the end.”

Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531)  

- Corpus Reformatorum 90:227 (1528): “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 (semper virgo).”

Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575), Zwingli’s successor  

- In the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), chapter 11: “We believe… that the same everlasting God and Son of God was born of the blessed and ever-virgin Mary (beata et semper virgine Maria).”

Martin Chemnitz, principal author of the Formula of Concord  

- In his 1578 Examination of the Council of Trent repeatedly defends Mary’s perpetual virginity against later Catholic exaggerations but never denies the substance.

John Wesley  

- Letter to a Roman Catholic (1749): “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.”

Only with the rise of liberal theology in the nineteenth century (D. F. Strauss, F. C. Baur) and the fundamentalist reaction against anything perceived as “Catholic” did the doctrine fall into disfavor among many Protestants.

 IV. Why the Denial of Perpetual Virginity Is Fatal to Christianity  

1. It collapses the typology of the New Eve  

   St. Irenaeus and the entire patristic tradition saw Mary as the New Eve. Just as the first Eve was created virgin from the side of the sleeping Adam, so the New Eve remained virgin while bringing forth the New Adam.

2. It destroys the uniqueness of the Incarnation  

   If Mary had other children by ordinary generation, the absolute singularity of the hypostatic union is blurred. Jesus becomes merely the first of several children of Mary rather than her only Son in an absolute sense.

3. It renders the universal witness of the early Church unintelligible  

   To claim that the entire Church for fifteen centuries was mistaken on a point so constantly and solemnly affirmed is to accuse the Holy Spirit of failing in His promise to guide the Church “into all truth” (Jn 16:13).

4. It undermines the doctrine of the Theotokos  

   The Council of Ephesus (431) defined Mary as Theotokos precisely because the one born of her is the divine Person. Her perpetual virginity is the fitting and necessary sign that the womb which bore God was consecrated wholly and forever to that unique purpose.

5. It destroys the eschatological sign-value of virginity  

   In the Kingdom, Jesus teaches, “they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Mt 22:30). Mary’s perpetual virginity is the inaugurated eschatological reality breaking into history: the firstfruits of the virginal bridal Church (Rev 14:4).

 Conclusion  

The perpetual virginity of Mary is not a quaint medieval legend; it is revealed in Scripture, confessed by the undivided Church of the first millennium, defined by councils, celebrated in every ancient liturgy, and defended by the very architects of the Reformation. To reject it is not merely to adopt a different “interpretation”; it is to break with the apostolic tradition itself and to diminish the radical newness of the Incarnation. Mary was, is, and ever shall be the Aeiparthenos – the Ever-Virgin – the sealed fountain, the enclosed garden, the inviolate gate through which the King of Glory entered and departed, leaving the seal intact.

Soli Deo gloria per Iesum Christum, natum ex Maria Virgine semper Virgine.

 References (expanded)  

Scripture  

- Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia  

- Septuaginta (Rahlfs-Hanhart)  

- Novum Testamentum Graece (Nestle-Aland 28)  

Patristic Sources  

- Protoevangelium of James (ed. É. de Strycker, 1961)  

- Ignatius of Antioch, Epistles (SC 10)  

- Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho (PG 6)  

- Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses (SC 211, 153)  

- Origen, Homiliae in Lucam (SC 87)  

- Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on the Nativity (CSCO 186–187)  

- Jerome, Adversus Helvidium (PL 23)  

- Augustine, De sancta virginitate (CSEL 41)  

- Council of Ephesus, Acta (ACO I.1.2)  

- Lateran Synod 649, Acta (ACO ser. 2, vol. 1)  

Reformation Sources  

- Luther, Weimar Ausgabe (WA) 17²:283–288; 36:307; 49:189; 52:680  

- Calvin, Commentarius in Harmoniam Evangelicam (CO 45)  

- Zwingli, Corpus Reformatorum 90:227; 93:258  

- Bullinger, Decades II.5; Second Helvetic Confession, ch. 11  

- Wesley, Letter to a Roman Catholic (Works, vol. 10, Baker ed.)  

Modern Scholarship  

- J. McHugh, The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament (1975)  

- M. Hauke, God or Goddess? (1995), appendix on perpetual virginity  

- R. Laurentin, Structure et théologie de Luc I–II (1957)  

- H. Graef, Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion (1963–65)  

- J. B. Carol (ed.), Mariology, 3 vols. (1955–61)  

- S. Benko, Protestants, Catholics and Mary (1969) – documents Reformation sources