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Originally posted by loggats:
I'd be interested to hear your views on this subject.

When I was young we'd be sent off to catechism lessons (dreary weekday evenings spent in an old house, being poorly catechised by a frazzled lay woman) and I remember the virgin birth was described as something like "light passing through a glass."

It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

What different ideas do all of you have?

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Originally posted by Gextvedde:

More interesting for me is what this doctrine is for, how it came about and how necessary do people consider it to be?

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Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
I think I can sum up my congregations stance

"You do not talk about lady in this way and Our Lady is definitely a lady!"

It seems to me a prurient interest. What on earth does it matter what the relationships between Joseph and Mary were after Jesus' birth.

Jengie

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Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
I think I can sum up my congregations stance

"You do not talk about lady in this way and Our Lady is definitely a lady!"

It seems to me a prurient interest. What on earth does it matter what the relationships between Joseph and Mary were after Jesus' birth.

Jengie

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Originally posted by Custard
It also raises questions about Mary as being a role model for us - the Bible's picture of marriage tends to see sex as an important part of it. The idea smacks more of the later corruption of Christianity by neoPlatonism that saw the body, especially sex, as bad.

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Originally posted by loggats
To me this teaching reminds us of Mary's unique role in salvation history as the spouse of the Holy Spirit (Jesus is conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit after all) and the fact she is pure and undefiled - her virginity is a sign of that.

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posted by loggats
It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

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Originally posted by Custard
It also raises questions about Mary as being a role model for us - the Bible's picture of marriage tends to see sex as an important part of it. The idea smacks more of the later corruption of Christianity by neoPlatonism that saw the body, especially sex, as bad.

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Good point.

If Mary was perpetually a virgin, then it makes a mockery of Catholic teaching about the family. The "holy family" becomes a terrible example of marital and procreative irresponsibility.

Your point about neoPlatonism is spot on. So much Christian theology has been infected by Greek philosophy, instead of drawing on its Jewish roots. This is one example.

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Originally posted by loggats
To me this teaching reminds us of Mary's unique role in salvation history as the spouse of the Holy Spirit (Jesus is conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit after all) and the fact she is pure and undefiled - her virginity is a sign of that.

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That is what you say.

The Bible, however, says: "marriage is honourable among all and the bed undefiled". (Hebrews 13:4).

Therefore sex within marriage is not dirty, impure or defiled.

In other words, Mary could have had sex with her husband Joseph as much as she liked, and it would not have defiled her, because God says that the marriage bed is undefiled. I don't know how much clearer the text could be, quite frankly.

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I think this comes down to Mary as a unique creature, unlike any other woman in the world. St Louis de Montfort describes it beautifully (though the translation goes in for a bit of purple prose - try not to have an apoplectic fit if you bother reading this, it's about as Marian as you can get even for a Catholic saint):

"There is not and there will never be, either in God's creation or in His mind, a creature in whom He is so honoured as in the most Blessed Virgin Mary....

Mary is God's garden of Paradise, His own unspeakable world, into which His Son entered to do wonderful things, to tend it and to take His delight in it. He created a world for the wayfarer, that is, the one we are living in. He created a second world - Paradise - for the Blessed. He created a third for Himself, which He named Mary.

She is a world unknown to most mortals here on earth. Even the angels and saints in heaven find her incomprehensible, and are lost in admiration of a God who is so exalted and so far above them, so distant from them, and so enclosed in Mary, His chosen world, that they exclaim: "Holy, holy, holy" unceasingly."



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"He brought me into the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love."

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
How funny, I was just thinking about the Perpetual Virginity today (I was in Westminster Cathedral). Anyway, Christianity has absorbed pagan - particularly Ancient Greek - views on virginity which did not apply to Judaism, and still don't. Indeed, the Jews were unusual amongst ancient religions in not having consecrated virgins and considering marriage and having a family to be holier than virginity.

Virginity being seen as 'pure' is a Greek idea, not a Hebrew one and so would have been utterly alien to Mary. For Mary it would have been natural and indeed holy to have children with her husband after having Jesus. Having sex is a mitzvot/commandment for Jewish couples.

Also, if Mary had not had a regular vaginal birth she would not have needed to be purified and offer a sacrifice at the Temple, which we know she did.

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
How funny, I was just thinking about the Perpetual Virginity today (I was in Westminster Cathedral). Anyway, Christianity has absorbed pagan - particularly Ancient Greek - views on virginity which did not apply to Judaism, and still don't. Indeed, the Jews were unusual amongst ancient religions in not having consecrated virgins and considering marriage and having a family to be holier than virginity.

Virginity being seen as 'pure' is a Greek idea, not a Hebrew one and so would have been utterly alien to Mary. For Mary it would have been natural and indeed holy to have children with her husband after having Jesus. Having sex is a mitzvot/commandment for Jewish couples.

Also, if Mary had not had a regular vaginal birth she would not have needed to be purified and offer a sacrifice at the Temple, which we know she did.

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posted by loggats
Seems like the Church's focus on her virginity (and the virginity of women) was itself empowering. She is pure, powerful and has a depth of identity independent of her relationship with a husband.

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• Mary was/is the most acceptable example of womanhood
• she holds that position because she was a virgin and remained a virgin
• qed virginity is the most highly prized quality for women - virgins = 1st class, non-virgins = 2nd class
• but Mary was also a mother - so women must also be mothers
• but to become a mother a woman must have sex which will make her a non-virgin
• moreover sex is dirty and shameful
• so women who are virgins and not mothers are not 1st class women because they are barren
• and women who are mothers have had sex so can't be virgins and so are 2nd class

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But you don't call her "Chaste Mary" you describe her as "Virgin". Its the church that has battered on and on about virginity.

If you look at my earlier post (sandwiched neatly between some of your multiple posts, WTF is up with things this evening?) you will see that I'm not saying that Mary wasn't/isn't special but that in stressing the virginity thing the church has missed the point entirely.

So I'll reiterate:

..."the important thing about Mary is not her virginity, it is her humanity."

And may I remind that it was YOU who posted the original thread linking vaginal delivery, virginity and the virgin Mary - which was why I asked how on earth you thought Christ was born. I'd still like to know - or have I missed yet another Vatican invention that tells the world that Jesus was somehow "borned"???

Moreover I'm not "ranting" - at the head of this thread you said

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I'd be interested to hear your views on this subject.

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Originally posted by L'organist:

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posted by loggats
Seems like the Church's focus on her virginity (and the virginity of women) was itself empowering. She is pure, powerful and has a depth of identity independennt of her relationship with a husband.

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What utter bullshit.

The Church's focus on Mary's virginity, far from being empowering, has been a means of exerting control over women - ALL women.

This obssession with virginity AND motherhood is toxic, which would be bad enough, but its also schizoid because the message it sends out is

• Mary was/is the most acceptable example of womanhood
• she holds that position because she was a virgin and remained a virgin
• qed virginity is the most highly prized quality for women - virgins = 1st class, non-virgins = 2nd class
• but Mary was also a mother - so women must also be mothers
• but to become a mother a woman must have sex which will make her a non-virgin
• moreover sex is dirty and shameful
• so women who are virgins and not mothers are not 1st class women because they are barren
• and women who are mothers have had sex so can't be virgins and so are 2nd class

As Lavinia Byrne said - you know women are in trouble when the pope mentions women and the Virgin Mary in the same sentence. For "pope" substitute "church" and you have the right picture.

What's this "depth of identity" - where are you finding that, pray? The Bible tells us virtually nothing about her - and some of the things that are there (like the fact that Jesus had brothers and, possibly, sisters) are swept under the carpet because they don't fit into the male-obssessive "eternal virgin" theory. Moreover, just to make sure that we all focus on the girl Mary her husband has been written out of the picture almost entirely.

WOMEN are grown-up people who can be equal partners in relationships where no one party holds power over the other.

GIRLS are children who, because of their immaturity, need nurturing and protecting and sheltering from some of the harsher realities of life.

The mad insistence that Mary is "ever Virgin" means she is always a girl - in other words she never grows up. By "elevating" Mary you invented Petra Pan almost 2 millennia before Barrie was born.

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Originally posted by loggats:
[
In the Mishnah, it is recorded that there were 82 consecrated virgins who wove the veil of the Temple:

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Originally posted by loggats:

It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
For Mary it would have been natural and indeed holy to have children with her husband after having Jesus. Having sex is a mitzvot/commandment for Jewish couples.

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Originally posted by L'organist:
WOMEN are grown-up people who can be equal partners in relationships where no one party holds power over the other.

GIRLS are children who, because of their immaturity, need nurturing and protecting and sheltering from some of the harsher realities of life.

The mad insistence that Mary is "ever Virgin" means she is always a girl - in other words she never grows up. By "elevating" Mary you invented Petra Pan almost 2 millennia before Barrie was born.

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Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Ah, the "Immaculate Conception." Rome's latest heresy.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

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Originally posted by loggats:

It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

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Are you equating "virgin" with "intact hymen"? Because those aren't the same thing. A virgin can most certainly give birth vaginally and remain virgin - in fact, it's likely that a non-zero number of lesbians have done exactly that.

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Originally posted by L'organist:
The mad insistence that Mary is "ever Virgin" means she is always a girl - in other words she never grows up. By "elevating" Mary you invented Petra Pan almost 2 millennia before Barrie was born.

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

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Originally posted by loggats:

It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

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Are you equating "virgin" with "intact hymen"? Because those aren't the same thing. A virgin can most certainly give birth vaginally and remain virgin - in fact, it's likely that a non-zero number of lesbians have done exactly that.

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While this may be true as a matter of medical fact known today, it's anachronistic thinking. <snip>

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Originally posted by Firenze:
What comes over to me is that if you tell centuries of celibate men that the only woman they can lawfully think about is the Virgin Mary, you get some weird stuff.

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Marriage is honourable among all and the bed undefiled...

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I think this comes down to Mary as a unique creature, unlike any other woman in the world. St Louis de Montfort describes it beautifully (though the translation goes in for a bit of purple prose - try not to have an apoplectic fit if you bother reading this, it's about as Marian as you can get even for a Catholic saint):

"There is not and there will never be, either in God's creation or in His mind, a creature in whom He is so honoured as in the most Blessed Virgin Mary....

Mary is God's garden of Paradise, His own unspeakable world, into which His Son entered to do wonderful things, to tend it and to take His delight in it. He created a world for the wayfarer, that is, the one we are living in. He created a second world - Paradise - for the Blessed. He created a third for Himself, which He named Mary.

She is a world unknown to most mortals here on earth. Even the angels and saints in heaven find her incomprehensible, and are lost in admiration of a God who is so exalted and so far above them, so distant from them, and so enclosed in Mary, His chosen world, that they exclaim: "Holy, holy, holy" unceasingly."

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Originally posted by loggats
She is pure, powerful and has a depth of identity independent of her relationship with a husband.

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1652 "By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory."

Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves. God himself said: "It is not good that man should be alone," and "from the beginning (he) made them male and female"; wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: "Be fruitful and multiply." Hence, true married love and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family from day to day.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel
I'm not sure that EE is on the right track banging on about the sex issue...

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No, I suppose the concept of virginity (and the claim that Mary could only be 'pure' if a perpetual virgin) has nothing to do with sex!

Sheesh!



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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis

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Originally posted by Laurelin
But as an evangelical Protestant, I have no difficulty believing that Mary and St. Joseph likely had a perfectly normal Jewish marriage after Jesus was born.

It is NOT disrespecting the Blessed Mother to believe this. I must make that very clear. Neither is it disrespecting her to believe - as I have done practically all my Christian life - that Jesus was born just like any other human baby. That is the wonder and the shock of the Incarnation. Yes, it is shocking. But God becoming Man is shocking.

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
While this may be true as a matter of medical fact known today, it's anachronistic thinking.

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You asked for views and I've given you mine. If you don't like them too bad - you did ask.

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Originally posted by L'organist:
... And it misses the point entirely: the important thing about Mary is not her virginity, it is her humanity.

The description of her in the gospels as "virgin" is not to impress upon us her purity, it is to stress her unimportance - she was too young to wield any power on her own (don't forget, by being responsible for handing on the religion women are powerful in Judaism).

The Church's subsequent preoccupation with her "virginity" has missed the point entirely - and later mad additions, such as the assumption, have only added another layer of unnecessary bilge.

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
But Barnabus, the subject of the discussion has been brought by a modern person who does know that a woman may have a broken hymen without having had intercourse. Such a woman is still a virgin. The Incarnation is enough of a miracle without clinging to the belief in a miraculously intact hymen. Having a hymen after the birth of Jesus wouldn't make Mary any more a virgin than she already was.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel
What I objected to was your proof-texting from Hebrews about the marriage bed being pure when the RC Church would be very aware of that verse and its implications and have their own way/s of working that out in practice.

I've done the evangelical proof-texting with Catholics before now and got the well-deserved response of 'Goodness me, as if we'd never noticed that before ...'

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