Sacramentally Speaking

As stated in the last post, the Protoevangelium of James is an early Christian writing which dates back to the mid-2nd century. I will briefly discuss this document here, not because I hold it to the level of the Holy Scriptures, but because I believe it as a small piece of the mounting evidence in favor of Mary as ever-virgin. This document is important because it is a reflection of the beliefs of some of the earliest Christians and while it is not the final say in the matter, it must still be considered. In this document, we hear two crucial assertions in favor of our argument: firstly that Mary was consecrated as a virgin in the Temple. This was not an unusual practice at the time as we know from earlier Jewish writings. This consecration of Mary as a Temple Virgin came about from her mother, Anna, who we can assume as being infertile (the text describes her as “childless”). She says to the Angel Gabriel that she will give her son or daughter to the Lord if he will allow her to conceive. When Mary turns 12, the temple priests begin to look for a widower who can care for the Virgin and they select Joseph. Joseph responds “ I have sons, and I am an old man, but she is a girl: lest I became a laughing-stock to the children of Israel.” This appears to be evidence that at the very least, it was an influential belief of some Christians to whom these events and memories were very close to.

One honorable mention before we move to the next point is a quote from Hippolytus of Rome which comes from his work titled Against Beron and Helix: Fragment VIII which was written around 210 A.D. In this work, Hippolytus refers to Christ’s conception as being from “the all-holy Mary, ever-virgin, by an undefiled conception, without conversion, and was made man in nature, but separate from wickedness…”. Here we again demonstrate that this dogma was held long before it was declared a dogma by the Church at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 A.D.

These proofs of the dogma that I have outlined so far in part one and two of this series were the arguments that I was convinced of when initially diving into this topic as a protestant. This is not an extensive list of all of the evidence that I don’t have time to type or the examples that I am just completely ignorant to (there is a lot). One parting reflection before I call it a wrap is that even Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, believed in the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. Some sources even claim that he had a devotion to Our Lady. In a series Luther wrote between the years 1537-39 titled Sermons on John, Luther asserts that the brethren of the Lord were his cousin’s. It is unclear when Protestantism departed from this belief (at least it is to me because I haven’t dug into it) but it seems that the Reformation has caused a progressively growing departure from the faith of the apostles and of Christ.