The Perpetual Virginity of Mary? – Greg Albrecht
Question:
A friend of mine who is a Catholic Christian differs with me on many topics about our common faith. In a recent conversation he told me the Virgin Mary was not only a virgin when she conceived and gave birth to Jesus but she remained a virgin until her death. I mentioned Matthew 13:55 which seems to say that Jesus had brothers (half-brothers at least) but he says that the verse does not prove Jesus had brothers and that brothers in his verse means what we call cousins. Can you explain further?
Response:
It seems the difference in opinion you and your friend have about the meaning of “brothers” in Matthew 13:55 concerns the a priori assumption he brings to the text. Your friend and the beliefs unique to his faith are not the only example of interpreting the Bible according to cherished religious beliefs and traditions – but your explanation certainly leads me to suspect that he is doing precisely that.
Within the art and science of what is called biblical hermeneutics two opposing practices are often noted: 1) eisegesis – “reading into” the text what the reader wants to find or thinks he/she should find, according to their past religious teachings. 2) exegesis – “reading out of” the text what the original author, given the historical and literary context, was saying to the original author.
Instead of reading the Bible for teaching, inspiration and direction, many search for ways in which the Bible will agree with the dogmas and commands of their religious traditions. There is no doubt that much Bible “study” over the years has been an exercise in attempting to find results and conclusions and “proofs” of what folks already believe to be true. In the topic you raise, it seems to me many make “a big deal” out of tying themselves in knots trying to prove that Jesus had no brothers or sisters because of what their church has taught for centuries upon centuries, and they will not accept any idea their church might be wrong.
The Greek word used in Matthew 13:55 is not the word for cousin or nephew or some other relationship in a larger family circle. I understand the Greek language has precise words for those relationships, but they are not used by Matthew in this passage. Whether or not the literal meaning of brother is intended here (as opposed to spiritual brother, for example) is a point of discussion.
Some who believe the Virgin Mary was always a virgin until she died will say that the Greek word in Matthew 13:55 means “sibling” – but that the world doesn’t always mean a literal genetic, blood brother, but someone whom one might call a “brother” in terms of their affiliation of friendship or some other common bond, other than bloodline.
Why would someone insist that the Virgin Mary was a virgin all her life?
The official teaching of both the Catholic and Orthodox churches, the two oldest churches within Christendom is of the perpetual virginity – the ever-virginity – of Mary. Most other denominations, particularly after the Protestant Reformation, officially believe that Mary was a virgin, as the Gospels say, when she conceived and gave birth to Jesus.
But most Protestants do not believe Mary was without sin. The Catholic view, as I understand it, insists that Mary had been miraculously exempted at her own birth from any sinful human nature—the so-called “immaculate conception” of Mary [not Jesus], a late-coming dogma only affirmed by Pope Pius IX in 1854. This was an attempt to exempt Mary from Augustine’s doctrine of “original sin” that claims all humanity inherits the guilt of Adam and is therefore damned from birth. Note: Protestant Evangelicals tend to affirm “original sin” as well.
Catholics would add that Mary never consented to sin, and therefore, lived a perfect and sinless life. In my view, here is the real crux of the problem: between the early Gnostic heretics and Augustine’s personal sexual struggles, an aberrant view of sexual relations got a foothold within broader Christendom, so that even marital sex carried some sense of illicit and lustful, certainly less than divine, human behavior. Those infected with this form of “purity culture” would therefore worry that if Mary had children other than Jesus, her purity would have been defiled by sexual intercourse. For many centuries the teaching of the Catholic church (and others) was that a married couple could only be free from sin if they were having sex for the purpose of having children.
That is not, as I understand it, the contemporary teaching of either the Catholic or Orthodox church. But, given many centuries of such teaching, we can see that Christ-less religion can cast an ominous shadow of guilt and shame on sexual relations within marriage. As one country singer once said, “I grew up believing sex was sinful and dirty and that I should save it for the one I came to love.”
Many extremes of asceticism and “harsh treatments” of the body (Colossians 2:23) plagued church teaching and practice in the early centuries and caused untold misery as such beliefs held so many in the bondage of legalism. By the Middle Ages teaching on sex had reached ridiculous and unbiblical extremes. Married couples were warned that the Holy Spirit left the room when they engaged in sexual intercourse – even if it were for the purpose of conceiving a child!
During this era, up until and including and for some time after the Protestant Reformation, some religious authorities insisted that couples refrain from sexual relations during all holy days and seasons. Couples were advised to avoid sexual relations on Thursdays in honor of Christ’s arrest, on Fridays in honor of his crucifixion, on Saturdays in honor of the Virgin Mary, on Sundays in honor of Christ’s resurrection and on Mondays in respect for those who had died in Christ. If you are counting, that left Monday and Tuesday.
Such attempts by religion at regulating every aspect of life are nothing short of a perversion of the gospel. Here, one can see how religious prurience (obsession with other’s sexual behavior) becomes another excuse to exert control over its adherents, following them all the way into the bedroom. The culprit here is Christ-less religion, and there are certainly many iterations of overbearing religious control within Protestantism – one need only study the Puritan movement for example, and its ongoing legacy within the fundamentalist/evangelical movement today. Christ-less religion has ruined the lives of so many in so many ways!
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