I just don’t get the *weight* placed on perpetual Virginity. I have seen people go so far as to say that if after Christ had been Born Mary later had relations *with her husband* that she would have been a whore!
To me the Nature of Christ and the Gospel of Christ has Nothing to do with Mary. As special as she must have been in Gods eyes for him to use her as he did its still completely insignificant to Christ.
Amen!
“As special as she must have been in Gods eyes for him to use her as he did its still completely insignificant to Christ.”
And Mary is the first person to emphasize this fact — she never tried to take anything away from Christ’s glory to add to hers. Read the Magnificat, Luke 46...
To me the Nature of Christ and the Gospel of Christ has Nothing to do with Mary. As special as she must have been in Gods eyes for him to use her as he did its still completely insignificant to Christ.
AMEN!
Many pagan heresies sprang up in the days of the early church. It was inevitable. But that doesn't mean we need to agree with them.
This concoction of "perpetual virginity" of Mary only mirrors the RCC's schizophrenic mentality when it comes to sexuality, and that old "virgin/whore" dichotomy.
Loving, compassionate human sexuality in a God-ordained marriage between a husband and wife is a gift from God to His family, and that includes Mary and Joseph. So much so, in fact, that Christ used the metaphor of the bride and bridegroom several times when teaching us of His church on earth.
Please see my post#28 above.
It didn't become an issue until pagans came into the Church by the tens of thousands--and it is amazing the anti-sex attitudes some had in those days.
St. Augustine in about AD 400 had to deal with a controversy between those who actually said real Christians must all be celibate, and those who said (as modern Protestants do) that celibacy or married made no difference to one's spiritual state as a Christian. St.'Augy split the difference, saying that celibacy was indeed the higher state, but that married people too could be acceptable Christians.
This became the standard view in the Middle Ages and is more or less what the Roman Catholic view still is today. If one just reads Paul in I Cor. 7 one could conclude this...but only without tensioning that instructional passage against the whole of the rest of the scriptures.
Even the classical doctrine of original sin Augustine understood as being the result of "concupisceny" (Lust) which, since it was unavoidable during the sex-act--passed on sin to the conceived child. (logically I guess he would have speculated in vitro concieved children as not having original sin....)Of course many accept (as to I) the doctrine of original sin without that explanation.
The literal physical perpetual virginity of Mary was seen as so incredibly important that theories abounded (not kidding now...) on how Jesus was born without passing through the birth canal....(thereby physically preserving the hymen). Many believed that part of the miracle of His birth was the baby Jesus just suddenly appearing in Mary's arms--skipping the hard part.