A: The Jewish culture, of course, but also the early Christian culture as well, especially Pauline morality regarding virginity.
Is there a strong teaching in Judaism in favor of permanent virginity as an achievement? Marriage was the highest achievement for both men and women and an unmarried man of thirty would be unusual in Jewish culture. The culture would strongly discourage a never-married man from remaining in that state along with the pressure to bear children, no? I don't see the Jewish connection unless you are referring to the concept of Korban. This though refers to the sacrifice of male animals (a symbol of the Christ yet to come) and later the setting apart of a son for permanent temple service - e.g. Samuel.
The manipulative practice of Korban is criticized by Jesus. I don't see a Jewish tradition of setting aside a woman as Korban. Can you expound on the Jewish connection further?
By early Christian culture (which incidentally is Christianized Jewish culture) you are wholly referring to Paul's teachings in 1 Corinthians 7, correct? We don't find any veneration of Mary as sinless or Immaculate in the NT. She is venerated as a chosen vessel (but, to that point she was observant as a Jew only), but rarely mentioned afterward in any important capacity for the early church, using the NT as the historical record. If Paul is the example of abstention from sex aren't his writings duplicitous on the subject, that is does post marital chastity or perpetual human virginity connote any real positive spiritual effect? That is does your sexual status (within a lawful and God-recognized marriage) have any affect on your salvation?
My thinking is that Paul's discourse is at best contradictory, neither proposing one or the other state as best, but predicating your choice on personal preference within the bounds the Lord has set for marriage. I would like to understand this better, especially in the face of secular attacks on Christian morality which I presume we all agree on; i.e. sex within legal, lawful, God-approved marriage is good, outside that context it is bad. Mary creates a subtext for the attack by making celibacy, post marriage superior to sex within marriage.
Also, I am interested to know if believing in Mary as stated in either the Orthodox or Catholic traditions is considered a saving doctrine, that is if I don't believe in Mary as described am I still eligible for Heaven?
She is venerated in rather physiological terms indeed (Lk 11:27f) "Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck"; however, this manner of veneration is immediately corrected by Jesus: "Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it". We venerate Mary not as a physiological vessel, but as a conscious, willing, obedient bearer and protector of the Word, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
Mary is mentioned several times after the childhood of Jesus at the critical juntures in the history of the Church. We already discussed her evident, venerated presence during Christ's ministry; she also was at the very initiation of that ministry at the feast at Cana. But she was also at the foot of the Cross, where she was told to adopt the disciple Jesus loves, and through him, all the Christian believers (John 19:25f). After the Ascention, Mary was in the Upper Room as the Holy Ghost illuminated the Church (Acts 1:14f). Finally, it is hard to see anyone other than Mary in the image of Queen of Heaven in Acts 12, where Mary continues her struggle with Satan on behalf of her Christian children even today. That role is consistent with the promise given in Genesis 3: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (KJV)".
This is a question that is difficult to answer briefly, because it comes from a non-Catholic belief system. The Church teaches that people are not saved by faith alone. The scripture clearly teaches in many places that we are judged by our works (see Romans 2:6-10, Matthew 25:31-46). That means, someone with very coarse belief may be saved if he has works of love in him, and a theology professor may be condemned if his life does not imitate Christ.
However, faith is important. One who is not interested in perfecting his faith has already failed a major test, as he is then lukewarm about his faith. Works of love are not likely to come out of that disposition. Worse even, is one who is really defiant about the faith as taught by the Church: someone who knows the teaching but defies it (that is a definition of a heretic).
So, in that light... The Creed of the Church only mentions Mary in her historical role as the Mother of Jesus ("He was born of the virgin Mary and became man"). She is mentioned along with the entire communion of saints in the liturgy as the saints join us in prayer. Often, prayers to Mary (Hail Mary and Hail Holy Queen) are offered at the conclusion of the Mass, and many hymns are dedicated to Mary. This is it as regards the mandatory prayer life of the Catholic Church. The sacraments of the Church do not invoke Mary.
Hail Mary is often given as penitential work. Rosary (consisting of repeated Hail Marys, Our Fathers and Glory Be) is a popular devotion, but of course not everyone does it.
The Catechism mentions Mary as second Eve and as having a mystical connection with the Church. Immaculate conception, perpetural virginity and sinlessness of Mary are defined dogmas of the Catholic Church. As with any dogma, it is fine to experience doubts or puzzlement about them, but it is an act of heretical defiance to reject them.
Special devotion to Mary is usually a spontaneous expression of faith. Some people experience it more than others. I doubt that the mystery of the Incarnation can be approached without a very serious and loving devotion to Mary, and the Incarnation is one of the two pillars of our faith (the Resurrection is the other).
I suppose Jesus would have been a dismal failure in that regard. Yet, as far as I know, he was never publicly criticized by his opponents for that according to the Bible.
Christian morality is an amalgam of several factors that influenced it over time, and from different cultural realities. Mariology is a reflection of a belief that developed in the early Church, rather than something that was there, clearly defined, from the beginning.
Mary's virginity finds parallels in the concepts rather than practices of the Jewish culture within the context of early Christian beliefs (i.e. that she is the Tabernacle, and the Tabernacle is pure, and inviolate), just as the Catholic/Orthodox interpretation of the Jewish scriptures finds acceptance through the prism of the Christian faith (i.e. as a foreshadowing of Jesus), which is not to be found in the Jewish interpretation.
Outside of that Christian mindset, Mary is a failure as a Jewish woman, as much as Jesus, being a 30 year old single male virgin, is a failure according Jewish cultural norms of manhood.
That doesn't mean that asceticism was unknown or unpracticed by some segments of the Jewish society, such as the Essenes or, later on, the Ebionites. If you are asking for an example of Jewish vestal virgins, or temple priestesses, you won't find any, but that's because the question would be missing the point.
The culture would strongly discourage a never-married man from remaining in that state along with the pressure to bear children, no?
Was John the Baptist faulted for being one? People who appeared as prophets and things considered set aside by God were not judged according to everyday standards because they were doing things concerning "higher authority." Again, here, Mary is believed by Christians, and that includes early Jewish Christians, to have been set aside by God as a suitable vessel, and that purpose overrode the social norms by which she would have been judged. In other words, she had a "higher purpose" in life than to be a good mother and a wife to man.
By early Christian culture (which incidentally is Christianized Jewish culture) you are wholly referring to Paul's teachings in 1 Corinthians 7, correct?
Not exactly, although Paul is the oldest source we have on that subject. Whether it was something that was uniformly practiced across the nascent Christendom is highly doubtful (as some of his own Epistles attest to). But it is reasonable to think that most Christians saw Jesus was their role model to follow, and that it was obvious his life was one of celibacy rather than one of seeking a wife and a family.
In fact his teaching pretty much makes it clear that following him, at the price of leaving your loved ones, was the way to go. His disciples and the women who followed him apparently assumed celibate life style and Peter, who was married, basically abandoned his family (which, according to modern standards of our society, would be prosecutable!). So, there is no doubt what the Christian priorities were when it comes to this topic.
In fact, the Gospels were brutally clear about what comes first. "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." [Luke 14:26] Everything else took on secondary importance.
Early Christians firmly believed, and the Apostles taught, as evidenced from Paul's letters and the Gospels, that the Second Coming was expected within their lifetime which would render all material blessings on earth meaningless. To assure your way into heaven was to sell everything, give to the poor, and follow Jesus, for it would be easier, as Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us, for "a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
Self-sacrifice, self-denial, as well as purity of internal and external life became an important factor, and virginity was a "certificate of authenticity" of total devotion to Christ. Paul's own morality is a critique of pagan practices. By the second century, morality also became an issue vis-a-vis Gnostic beliefs which pointed in the opposite direction, and by the third century, asceticism and monasticism become very prominent aspects of Christian righteousness, and are seen as such to this day in both Orthodox and Catholic communities, although in Orthodoxy it is much more pronounced.
In the same time period, a book called the Protoevangelium of James becomes the leading source of reference for Christians about Mary's perpetual virginity as well as details of Jesus' childhood. Although the Church never considered it inspired, it was taken into account as some kind of witness worthy of consideration.
In such mental milieu, Mary assumes an ever increasingly pure image that goes beyond being just a "suitable vessel" (Ignatius), or the Second Eve (Justin Martyr), or even Eve's advocata (Irenaeus), in the Church. It becomes inconceivable to the Church that she would lower her priorities and serve an ordinary man when her purpose was set aside providentially only to serve God. Having carnal relations after giving birth to her divine Son would have been seen as tantamount to infidelity (in more than one meaning of the word) and a desecration of her body, a Tabernacle.
Origen (early 3rd century) is credited with the title Theotokos (Birthgiver of God), who also asserts perpetual virginity along with other 3rd century writers. By the 4th century, Mary is firmly established in the Church as the most pure, ever-virgin Mother of God.
Notably, this de fide doctrine was universally accepted by the Christian community until today, and was not questioned until the Reformation, some 1,200 years later.
The only dogmatic aspect of Mary that is considered essential to the Orthodox faith is that she is the Holy Virgin Mother of God (Theotokos), (Canon I, Council of Ephesus, AD 431). Note that it doesn't say "ever-virgin." However, in the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) Pope St. Leo I refers to her as 'ever virgin Mary' in his letter to the Council.
This dogmatic requirement was in response to those (such as Nestorius) who taught that she was Christotokos (Mother of Christ), denying Jesus' divinity. As such Theotokos is intimately related to the Christiological dogma of the Church, namely that Christ is fully God and fully man, one person in two natures. Denying one is also dneying the other. And denying any of the basic pilalrs of chrisianity (Trinity, Chrisotlogy, Theotokos) is essential aspecy of the Christian faith.
The Orthodox do not judge who goes to hell and who doesn't. That is up to God. However, they would tell you that denying that Mary is the Holy Virgin Theotokos would disqualify you as a Christian, as per the Council of Ephesus.