Ever-Virginity
One of the more puzzling traditions regarding the Theotokos for modern Christians is the teaching that she is
Ever-Virgin, that is, that she remained a virgin before, during, and eternally after the birth of Jesus Christ.
That the Holy Virgin Mary is Ever-Virgin (
Aeiparthenos) is not to elevate her to some special status or to incite us to worship the creature rather than the Creator. Rather, it is an affirmation of who Christ Jesus is. Because He has chosen her to be his mother, to conceive Him, to give flesh to Him, to give birth to Him, we understand her as a finite dwelling place of the infinite God. Thus, because she is in this sense this new Holy of Holies, her ever-virginity is a natural characteristic of such an awesome reality.
The whole tradition of the Orthodox Christian Church has always held her to be in truth Ever-Virgin,
[3][4] knowing her personally from the beginning and then passing the truths on from one generation to the next, never expanding nor subtracting from what was known in the beginning. Except for a few instances here and there in history, never have Christians regarded her in any other fashion until relatively late in the Protestant traditions. There are many testimonies to her ever-virginity, so let's consider a few:
Testimony from Scripture
The principal understanding of the Virgin Mary as Ever-Virgin in
Scripture is expressed in terms of her being a new
Ark of the Covenant, a created thing which somehow contained the uncontainable God. The reason that St. Joseph the Betrothed (as tradition names him) did not enter into marital relations with her is that he understood her as one would understand the Ark, that she had been set aside for use by God, and that her womb had in some sense been made into a temple. The language used for the Virgin in the
New Testament parallels that used for the Ark in the
Old:
From a
Roman Catholic source:
[5]
For the first time God's presence has descended upon a person as the new ark of the Covenant. . . . Rene Laurentin speaks of the subtle use of ark imagery [early in Luke]. For instance, he shows how in
II Samuel 6, there was a journey to the hill country of Judah that the ark of the covenant took. Likewise, the same phrase is used to describe Mary's journey to the hill country. . . . Both David and Mary "arose and made the journey." In II Samuel 6:2 and Luke 1:39. Laurent goes on to describe how when the Ark arrived and when Mary arrived, they were both greeted with "shouts of joy." And the word for shout or the word for Elizabeth's greeting,
anafametezein, is very rare. It's only used in connection with the OT liturgical ceremonies that were centered around the Ark. It literally means to "cry aloud, to proclaim or intone." Elizabeth greets Mary the same way the Ark of the Covenant was greeted. The entrance of the Ark and the entrance of Mary are seen then as blessing an entire household. Like Obededom's household was blessed, so Elizabeth sees her household as blessed. Laurentin goes on to talk about how both David and Elizabeth react with awe. "How shall the Ark of the Lord come to me?" David says in II Samuel 6:9. And likewise Elizabeth says, "Why should the mother of the Lord come to me?" The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of our Lord are in a sense two ways of looking at the same reality which is becoming clearer and more personal with Our Lady. Then finally, the Ark of the Covenant and Mary both remain in the respective houses for three months, II Samuel 6:11 and Luke 1:56. In Luke 1 and 2 we have the annunciation of Gabriel to
Zachariah and six months later the annunciation by Gabriel to Mary, then nine months later Jesus is born, and thirty days later He is
presented in the temple. You add up 180 days in the six months, 270 days in the nine months, and the 40 days in the presentation and it adds up to 490, which is a very rare number that is found in one of the most memorable prophecies in the OT,
Daniel 9. . . . Luke is once again giving a surplus value, a surplus meaning to those who are really willing to dig deep into the text to see all of the inspired meanings behind what God has done to inaugurate the New Covenant salvation in Christ and in His Blessed Mother. This is the Ark of the Covenant. Now let's go back and conclude our time in
Revelation 11 and 12. We have Mary the Ark of the Covenant. We have Mary the true tabernacle. We have in Mary a figure for the New Jerusalem because at the end of Revelation, how is the New Jerusalem described? As being a bride that is pure and yet also being a mother of God's children Well, how is it that you could be at the same time virginally pure and maternally fruitful? It seems impossible in human nature, but not for Mary, not only in mothering Jesus, but in
John 19 at the
cross and also in Revelation 12 where we read at the very end of the chapter, verse 17, we discover that Mary becomes by grace the mother of all God's children. How is it that our Lord would have brothers? Many look at the story of Ss. Mary and Joseph and see a young couple about to embark on their married life together, but Church tradition holds differently. St. Joseph was a much older man, a widower, and had children by his previous marriage, thus his sons were in some sense Christ's step-brothers, and their being older than Jesus can also account for some of the way he is treated by them as being the baby of the family, somewhat out of his mind. Joseph takes in Mary as something like his ward, because in leaving her life as a Temple virgin, she could not go out into the world alone (cf.
Protevangelion of James). That is why Joseph, a righteous, respected man, was chosen to take her in. His being much older than she also accounts for the notion that they
should have had relationsshe had already dedicated herself to a life of virginity, whereas he was a much older man who had already had his children and whose wife had died. Another possible understanding is that these "brothers" of our Lord were his cousinsSt.
Jerome holds this view, that these were the children of St. Joseph's brother Cleopas, who had died and left his children and widow in Joseph's care, according to Jewish custom.
Additionally, both the Hebrew and Greek terms for "brother" are often used to refer to relatives who are not necessarily what we in English would term "brothers," i.e., perhaps a cousin or an uncle, or some other relative. For example, Abraham and Lot are called
adelphoi in
Gen. 14:14 in the
Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT used by the
Apostles), though they are certainly not what we would call "brothers." Jacob and Laban are also called "brothers" (Gen. 29:15), though Laban would have been Jacob's uncle. In any event, the words do not mean the precise thing that the modern English "brother" does.
Beyond that, it is nowhere to be found in Scripture that any man other than the God-man Jesus Christ is called the child of Mary.
Some would cite the use of the "until" in Scripture ("...and he knew her not until (Greek
eos) her having brought forth her firstborn son..." (
Matthew 1:25; Luke 2:7)) to indicate that after she gave birth to the God-man, that St. Joseph then "knew" her maritally. Again, this is a translation problem.
From
this webpage:
This verse seems to be often translated as "he knew her not until after..." This is not, however, what is meant. The Greek original, eos
, indicates the true meaning, of "he had no sexual relations with her prior to her giving birth." The Evangelist makes this statement in order to assure us that Joseph had no part in the conception of Jesus. The term eos ou
does not require the understanding that he had relations with her after Christ was born. It merely indicates that, as regards the birth of Jesus, Joseph had not had relations with Mary prior to the birth, thus, he was not the father of Jesus. This is merely a usual turn of phrase, the use of a standard and familiar form of expression. This same term and meaning is used elsewhere in the Bible as a standard expression, and it clearly does not indicate what the heterodox (non-Orthodox) claim it does. At 2 Samuel 6:23, for instance, we read, "And Milchal, the daughter of Saul, had no child until [eos
] her death. Did she, then, have children after her death? Of course not!, and neither did Joseph "know" Mary after the birth of Jesus. At Genesis 8:7, we read that Noah "sent forth a raven; and it went forth and did not return till [eos
] after the water had gone from off the face of the earth." We know from Scripture that in fact, the raven never returned to the ark. It says that it did not return "until after," but in fact, it never returned at all. The Scripture says that "Joseph knew her not till after...", but in fact, he never "knew" her at all. In another example, the Bible says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until [eos
] I make Thine enemies Thy footstool" (Mark 12:36). Does this mean that Christ will cease to sit at the right hand of the glory of the Father once His enemies have been overcome? Of course not! Hence, the Bible does not say that "Joseph knew her not until after she brought forth her first born, but then he did." The Bible says, "He did not know her before (up until) she had brought forth her firstborn," meaning simply and clearly, "Joseph was not the father. He had not come together with her before her pregnancy, thus he was not involved in the conception of Jesus." Another testimony from Scripture is that on the cross, our Lord gave his holy mother into the care of the
Apostle John (
John 19:26). This might seem a merely practical thing to do, but if we recall the Mosaic Law would have dictated that she be given into the care of other natural children, since her firstborn son was dying. Christ, who kept the Law perfectly, would not have violated it in any detail, and so when he gave his mother to the apostle to look after, he did so only because she had no other children who could take her in, St. Joseph having long since passed away.
Theotokos - OrthodoxWiki
