Perpetual virginity (not a hate thread)

[LittleLambofJesus]

That is true Josiah.


You got a point there too LLOJ

What excitement Moe?

I do thank you for your input.

Are you a type of "Referee" on this thread

 

[Sierra162]

Are you a type of "Referee" on this thread

I only meant I thank him for his imput in helping me personally sift through this.


LOL at you putting all my posts in there like that, does sound like it though

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

I only meant I thank him for his imput in helping me personally sift through this.


LOL at you putting all my posts in there like that, does sound like it though

No worries, as I am still learning myself.........

 

[Thekla]

Couldn't PV co-exist with marital consumation?
It co-existed with birth.

I think the two (the relationship with spouse vs. relationship with child before birth) are quite different.

Per the relationship between the mother and child, and its effect on the mother, I can only answer experientially (not "theologically").
The "character" of the pregnancy and labor for each of our six children has been remarkably different and - interestingly- informative. After the first two, I thought this was a matter of "chance", but came to discard that explanation. I can only say that the personality of each child was somehow in evidence in the pregnancy and manner of birth. In one case, the birth was "induced" ( to preserve a manually turned breech); it took me the longest to get a "fuller sense" of this child (though his 'breech' is still delightfully in evidence ten years later ).

This was especially apparent with two children in a more "measurable" way -- in these cases, I developed an inexplicable and overwhelming repulsion to certain foods that I otherwise liked (and was able to resume eating some time after delivery).Each child was later diagnosed (one with an 'intolerance, the other with an 'anaphylactic' response) with a problematic reaction to these foods.

This is a regrettably round about way to explain that the "identity" of Christ being evidenced in His birth is not surprising (intuitively). In fact, based on my "grand multi-para" experience, I would be surprised if it were otherwise.

To add: the cells of male children (long after birth, by many years) have been found contained in women's thyroid tumors. To wit: there is, in pregnancy and residually, a "sharing effect" on the mother.

The relationship child to mother is not the same as the relationship wife to spouse.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

The "character" of the pregnancy and labor for each of our six children has been remarkably different and - interestingly- informative.

Ah, nice to hear the perspective from a mother's point of view.
With 6 children, how do you find time to post on GT?
We intended only having 1 child but 7yrs later the 2nd one was born and they were as different as night and day.
The 1st born took more after her mother and the 2nd one took more after me, which I found fairly interesting.

 

[Thekla]

Ah, nice to hear the perspective from a mother's point of view.
With 6 children, how do you find time to post on GT?
We intended only having 1 child but 7yrs later the 2nd one was born and they were as different as night and day.
The 1st born took more after her mother and the 2nd one took more after me, which I found fairly interesting.

I'm old three are self-sufficient (one in College) and one thinks she is
(GT is my laundry dishes cooking errands sanity break)

Thats pretty neat actually - there's definitely a "swapping" with our kids too - between my husband and me (though they mostly look like him).

And I'm fascinated by how remarkably different children can be within a family; you are certainly blessed -- I'm looking forward to grandchildren someday !

 

[Philothei]

haha... and to think that having one would take after one or the other? Mine is a "mixture" of both... She has her daddy moments and her mommy moments.. Mother's perspective on Theotokos' EV hmmm interesting view...I have no idea how it would be to the be the mother of Christ..

I think it would have been and experience 'out of this world' for sure ....

 

[JacktheCatholic]

Would you mind quoting, verbatim, from a document that we can certainly date as 99 AD or earlier that specifically states that Mary never once had sex?

Thanks!


PS Glad to get around to the topic of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary! Although, I confess, I think the issue of whether Jesus had sibs has far more relevance than whether Mary ever had sex. I've never understood why anyone cares how often she had sex.




.

Josiah your plate is already over flowing with other sources that were quoted and for yet we have not seen you reading. Please read the first sources you asked for and then I will know your requests are not hollow and maybe we can have a mutually respectful conversation?

 

[JacktheCatholic]

Thank you Jack.



When I think of Mary being ever virgin, I always think of it in terms of Jesus having no other siblings. I didn't ever think of it in terms of her not having sex. I think if she did, she would of had other children.

I know the whole brothers and sisters deal can mean cousins, or other relatives. But what makes me think that Jesus did not have other siblings is because on the cross, he gave his mother to the beloved disciple John.
He would not have done that if he had brothers to care for her.

I think you would learn a lot from the writings that Christians used in the first 400 years and even ongoing. I have already posted some links to these writings. Up until the creation of the Bible in the 4th century there were over 200 writings used through out Christianity and used for teaching the Word.

We find writings that tell of Mary and her womb being unbroken like a virgin's even after Jesus' birth. We also hear of Joseph being an eldering man in his 80s when he married Mary at age 12 or 14 and that he had children from before which would be considered siblings to Jesus even though Joseph was not biilogically Jesus' father and Mary was not their mother. We also have writngs later from Thomas Aquinas that go into greater detail about Mary and Joseph and siblings.

What we never hear of in all of Christianity as accepted is that Mary gave birth to any other child or that Mary had sexual relations with any man. These two things are only found in the last 100 or 200 years and NEVER existed previously.

 

[JacktheCatholic]

No prob...


Actually, like you, I think the issue of whether Jesus had sibs is more interesting and far more relevant. I don't even care how often my parents have sex, I care a whole lot less how often Mary and Joseph did - if at all. But there is no doctrine about his sibs - never has been, anywhere. The dogma (and the topic of this thread) is quite different: NOT whether Jesus had sibs but whether Mary had sex.



.

You would first need to read the sources that others have provided you before you would know of these doctrines.

I guess it is acceptable to ask for the sorces and then claim ignorance even when provided?

 

[Tu Es Petrus]

....I guess it is acceptable to ask for the sorces and then claim ignorance even when provided?

Acceptable? No.
A common occurance? Yes

 

[Tu Es Petrus]

Origen

"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 firstfruit 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 firstfruit of virginity" (Commentary on Matthew 2:17 [A.D. 248]).


Hilary of Poitiers

"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]).


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 [A.D. 360]).


Epiphanius of Salamis

"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 . . . 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]).

"And to holy Mary, [the title] ‘Virgin’ is invariably added, for that holy woman remains undefiled" (Medicine Chest Against All Heresies 78:6 [A.D. 375]).


Jerome

"[Helvidius] produces Tertullian as a witness [to his view] and quotes Victorinus, bishop of Petavium. Of Tertullian, I say no more than that he did not belong to the Church. But as regards Victorinus, I assert what has already been proven from the gospel—that he [Victorinus] spoke of the brethren of the Lord not as being sons of Mary but brethren in the sense I have explained, that is to say, brethren in point of kinship, not by nature. [By discussing such things we] are . . . following the tiny streams of opinion. Might I not array against you the whole series of ancient writers? Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men, who against [the heretics] Ebion, Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus, held these same views and wrote volumes replete with wisdom. If you had ever read what they wrote, you would be a wiser man" (Against Helvidius: The Perpetual Virginity of Mary 19 [A.D. 383]).

"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. 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" (ibid., 21).


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. 386]).


Ambrose of Milan

"Imitate her [Mary], holy mothers, who in her only dearly beloved Son set forth so great an example of material virtue; for neither have you sweeter children [than Jesus], nor did the Virgin seek the consolation of being able to bear another son" (Letters 63:111 [A.D. 388]).



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]).

"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 [A.D. 411]).

"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" (Document of Amendment 3 [A.D. 426]).


Cyril of Alexandria

"[T]he 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 childbearing" (Against Those Who Do Not Wish to Confess That the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God 4 [A.D. 430]).

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

Origen [A.D. 248]).

Hilary of Poitiers [A.D. 354]).

Athanasius [A.D. 360]).

Epiphanius of Salamis [A.D. 374]).

Jerome [A.D. 383]).

Didymus the Blind [A.D. 386]).

Ambrose of Milan [A.D. 388]).

Augustine [A.D. 428]).

Leporius [A.D. 426]).

Cyril of Alexandria [A.D. 430]).

Wow!

Historical PROOF if I've ever seen it!!!

So, all the siblings of Jesus would have been died by 100 AD, if such ever existed. So, OF COURSE, someone living in the year 430 would be an absolutely credible witness. I wonder, my unseparated brother, if someone posted in the year 2105 that George Washington had a pet rabbit, 330 years after George and any rabbit known to him would be dead, would that be credible historic evidence to you? You'd not ask, "How does this person know George had a pet rabbit?"


And, again, there is no dogma of Jesus Had No Sibs.
Not in the RCC. Not in ANY denomination.
Not now. Not ever.

The topic of this thread is not Jesus and sibs.
The topic of this thread is Mary and sex.





.

 

[prodromos]

Attention EO's:

I found this webpage. See what you think:
http://www.cin.org/imconcep.html

It does not address the fact that the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception is grounded in the Catholic understanding of Original Sin. Thus when the eastern fathers refer to the purity and immaculateness of Mary the Theotokos, the terms do not have the same underlying theology and so are not comparable. Even if we were using the same terms we would mean different things by them.

John

 

[Philothei]

Two things about Immaculata:

(as John above metioned) same terminology different things...Aspile, spotless etc. names that are attributed to Theotokos


from the above mentioned article:

Also, from end to end of the Byzantine world, both Catholic
and Orthodox greet the Mother of God as _archrantos_, "the
immaculate, spotless one," no less than eight times in the
Divine Liturgy alone. But especially on the feast of her
conception (December 9 in the Byzantine Church) is her
immaculateness stressed: "This day, O faithful, from saintly
parents begins to take being the spotless lamb, the most pure
tabernacle, Mary..."; "She is conceived...the only immaculate
one"; "or "Having conceived the most pure dove, Anne
filled...." [References: From the Office of Matins, the Third
Ode of the Canon for the feast; From the Office of Matins,
the Stanzas during the Seating, for the same feast; From the
Office of Matins, the Sixth Ode of the Canon for the same
feast.]

they are very true we do attribute epithets to Theotokos as such as all pure etc. But she does not have to be convieved immaculately to be all that...

And second the immaculata can and always was a "theologoumenon" and never an established dogma. That would mean a belief that "needs caution" and the church has not "decide" officially on it. Such "theologoumena" would be discussed in a future coucil of the church to determine their validity. The EO church neither accepts them nor rejects them, but cautions that they are not "accepted" officially. Hope that explains. We do not go by some quote mines on the subject and different church fathers said on this or that... rather the councils are the determining bodies of our establised dogma.

 

[Tu Es Petrus]

....And second the immaculata can and always was a "theologoumenon" and never an established dogma. That would mean a belief that "needs caution" and the church has not "decide" officially on it......

Well, no doctrine is ever an established dogma until it has been established. And I'm sure you know that from our POV, the Churc has decided officially on it.

 

[Rick Otto]

Originally Posted by Rick Otto

Couldn't PV co-exist with marital consumation?
It co-existed with birth.
​

I think the two (the relationship with spouse vs. relationship with child before birth) are quite different.

Per the relationship between the mother and child, and its effect on the mother, I can only answer experientially (not "theologically").
The "character" of the pregnancy and labor for each of our six children has been remarkably different and - interestingly- informative. After the first two, I thought this was a matter of "chance", but came to discard that explanation. I can only say that the personality of each child was somehow in evidence in the pregnancy and manner of birth. In one case, the birth was "induced" ( to preserve a manually turned breech); it took me the longest to get a "fuller sense" of this child (though his 'breech' is still delightfully in evidence ten years later ).

This was especially apparent with two children in a more "measurable" way -- in these cases, I developed an inexplicable and overwhelming repulsion to certain foods that I otherwise liked (and was able to resume eating some time after delivery).Each child was later diagnosed (one with an 'intolerance, the other with an 'anaphylactic' response) with a problematic reaction to these foods.

This is a regrettably round about way to explain that the "identity" of Christ being evidenced in His birth is not surprising (intuitively). In fact, based on my "grand multi-para" experience, I would be surprised if it were otherwise.

To add: the cells of male children (long after birth, by many years) have been found contained in women's thyroid tumors. To wit: there is, in pregnancy and residually, a "sharing effect" on the mother.

The relationship child to mother is not the same as the relationship wife to spouse.

I don't get it. What is there about Jesus' personality that would forego Mary consummating her marriage to Joseph?
It makes PV sound sort of like a male territrial dominance thing.

 

[Thekla]

Originally Posted by Rick Otto

Couldn't PV co-exist with marital consumation?
It co-existed with birth.
​

I don't get it. What is there about Jesus' personality that would forego Mary consummating her marriage to Joseph?
It makes PV sound sort of like a male territrial dominance thing.

IIRC, the question was if virginity is maintained in pregnancy and birth, then why not in marriage ?

I intended to point out that the relationship between mother and child (pre-birth specifically illustrated) is not the same as the relationship between a woman and spouse.

Further, the actual "character" of the pregnancy and birth is in some sense indicative of the "character" of the child (regardless of the gender of the child, in my experience). Hence, the maintenance of virginity in pregnancy and the bearing of Christ is not surprising on an intuitive level.

The continuing presence of the male fetus's cells in the mother (especially where subsequent tumor formation in the mother is concerned) may be a "male dominance thing"

 

[Rick Otto]

That makes the whole PV idea counter-intuitive. Christ's dominance was in His submission to His Father's will, just like Mary's hyper-blessedness was in her submission to the Father's will.
Nothin' physical about it, excepting of course, it's expression. The non-physical motive was present previous to the physical act, but bears more significance as illustrated in Jesus' remark that the sin of lust is committed in the heart.
My paraphrase is "if one looks upon bacon & eggs with lust in his heart, he has already committed breakfast".
You get the idea.
I think East & West meet in you & me agreeing the spiritual dimension, the eternal dimension, is the "greater" reality where significance is grasped with greater speed, depth & clarity I imagine. It's as if we've been made to run this gauntlet with a stone tied to one ankle. Some drag it. Some pick it up & run with it.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Wow!

Historical PROOF if I've ever seen it!!!

So, all the siblings of Jesus would have been died by 100 AD, if such ever existed. So, OF COURSE, someone living in the year 430 would be an absolutely credible witness. I wonder, my unseparated brother, if someone posted in the year 2105 that George Washington had a pet rabbit, 330 years after George and any rabbit known to him would be dead, would that be credible historic evidence to you? You'd not ask, "How does this person know George had a pet rabbit?"


And, again, there is no dogma of Jesus Had No Sibs.
Not in the RCC. Not in ANY denomination.
Not now. Not ever.

The topic of this thread is not Jesus and sibs.
The topic of this thread is Mary and sex.





.

Perhaps a more apt analogy might lie in the fact that, although George Washington was legally married to Mary Custis, they did not have any children. In fact, GW himself never had any children, although Mary did in her first marriage. Thus, in approximately 2200 or somewhere thereafter someone in Rome will make the assertion that Saint GW (which he was proclaimed in 2158) was a perpetual virgin, thus elevating him to an even higher status in heaven. Ever afterward the faithful and true believers will accept this dogma with utmost docitility as gospel truth.