You wrote:
“I am not saying that Calvin’s own expositions should be enough to convince you of course, merely that those Catholic sites are being dishonest in saying that Calvin and the Reformers held to the perpetual virginity of Mary.”
Really? How do you deal with these ‘Reformers’ then?:
Martin Luther (1483-1546):
A new lie about me is being circulated. I am supposed to have preached and written that Mary, the mother of God, was not a virgin either before or after the birth of Christ, but that she conceived Christ through Joseph and had more children after that. – Martin Luther, “That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew,” in Luther’s Works, vol. 45, ed. Walther I. Brand, 1962, Muhlenberg Press, p. 199.
The form of expression used by Matthew is the common idiom, as if I were to say, “Pharaoh believed not Moses, until he was drowned in the Red Sea.” Here it does not follow that Pharaoh believed later, after he had drowned; on the contrary, it means that he never did believe. Similarly when Matthew [1:25] says that Joseph did not know Mary carnally until she had brought forth her son, it does not follow that he knew her subsequently; on the contrary, it means that he never did know her. Again, the Red Sea overwhelmed Pharaoh before he got across. Here too it does not follow that Pharaoh got across later, after the Red Sea had overwhelmed him, but rather that he did not get across at all. In like manner, when Matthew [1:18] says, “She was found to be with child before they came together,” it does not follow that Mary subsequently lay with Joseph, but rather that she did not lie with him. Elsewhere in Scripture the same manner of speech is employed. Psalm 110[:1] reads, “God says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’” Here it does not follow that Christ does not continue to sit there after his enemies are placed beneath his feet. Again, in Genesis 28[:15], “I will not leave you until I have done all that of which I have spoken to you.” Here God did not leave him after the fulfilment had taken place. Again, in Isaiah 42[:4], “He shall not be sad, nor troublesome, till he has established justice in the earth.” There are many more similar expressions, so that this babble of Helvidius is without justification; in addition, he has neither noticed nor paid any attention to either Scripture or the common idiom. (“That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew,” pp. 211-13)
Helvidius, that fool, was also willing to credit Mary with more sons after Christ’s birth because of the words of the Evangelist: “And [Joseph] knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born Son” (Matt. 1:25). This had to be understood, as he thought, as though she had more sons after the first-born Son. How stupid he was! He received a fitting answer from Jerome. (“Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi” [1543], St. L. XX:2098; quoted in Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, Vol. II [Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1951], p. 308)
Then he [Luther] questioned whether Mary knew [i.e., had sexual relations with] Joseph even after the birth of Christ, as Matthew calls him “the firstborn son” [Matt. 1:25]. He answered, “The church has left this alone and has not determined this. But nevertheless the same consequence is firmly demonstrated because she remained a virgin, but on the other hand she was viewed as the mother of the Son of God. She was not judged to be the mother of human sons and remained in that state.” (Table Talk #4435 [1539], in Luther on Women, p. 56)
Then he [Luther] was asked whether Mary also had intercourse with Joseph after the birth of Christ, for Matthew says that he “knew her not until she had borne a son” [Matt. 1:25]. He replied, “The church leaves this [to us] and has not decided. Nevertheless, what happened afterward shows quite strongly that Mary remained a virgin. For after she had perceived that she was the mother of the Son of God, she didn’t think she should become the mother of a human child and adhered to this vow.” (Table Talk #4435 [same as above], in Luther’s Works, Vol. 54 [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967], p. 341)
It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a virgin. ... Christ, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact. (Weimer’s The Works of Luther, English translation by Pelikan, Concordia, St. Louis, v. 11, pp. 319-320; v. 6. p. 510.)
Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531):
I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin. (Zwingli Opera, Corpus Reformatorum, Berlin, 1905, v. 1, p. 424.)
I give an example: taught by the light of faith the Christ was born of a virgin, we know that it is so, that we have no doubt that those who have been unambiguously in error have tried to make a figure of speech of a real virgin, and we pronounce absurd the things that Helvidius and others have invented about perpetual virginity. – Huldrych Zwingli. “Friendly Exegesis, that is, Exposition of the Matter of the Eucharist to Martin Luther, February 1527,” in Selected Writings of Huldrych Zwingli, Volume Two, trans. and ed. by H. Wayne Pipkin, Pickwick Publications, 1984 p.275.
Then the pious mind finds wonderful delights in searching for the reasons why the lamb chose to be born of a perpetual virgin, but in this other case it finds nothing but a hopeless horror. [The other case that Zwingli here refers to is the Real Presence] – Huldrych Zwingli. “Subsidiary Essay on the Eucharist, August 1525,” in Selected Writings of Huldrych Zwingli, Volume Two, trans. and ed. by H. Wayne Pipkin, Pickwick Publications, 1984 p.217
Last time I checked, Luther and Zwingli and Calvin were all Reformers. Luther and Zwingli emphatically supported the ancient doctrine. Calvin may not have been emphatic, but it is clear he did NOTHING to oppose it. What he did so was oppose what he considered to be excesses in defense of the doctrine.
* Calvin of COURSE held to the Virgin birth of CHRIST, he merely maintained that there is no evidence to suggest Mary REMAINED a virgin.
* I do not know much about Zwingli to tell you the truth, but I do know that Luther was a devout Catholic before unearthing the truth of Scripture. He maintained a lot of Catholic practices and did not challenge Rome’s teachings on side issues of doctrine for quite awhile. He became more “progressively” Protestant as time went on and searched the Scriptures more deeply though, and this is true with regard to his views on Mary.
In **1532** he preached:
Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are…For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person. [36]
In **1534** Luther explained that Christ was “born of a young maiden, as you and I are born of our mothers. The only difference is that the Holy Spirit engineered this conception and birth, while in contrast we mortals are conceived and born in sin.”[37] Mary functioned in Luther’s theology as “the guarantee of the reality of the incarnation and of the human nature of Christ.”[38]
Pay attention to the dates of his writings and his evolving views.
http://www.ntrmin.org/Luthers%20Theology%20of%20Mary.htm
SO anyways, as close as his views remained to the Catholic Church, you can sense his views pointed to a trend among Christians to bring the centrality of the faith back to Christ and away from the Maryolatry that dominated the Middle Ages. It wouldn’t be until much later that Reformers such as Calvin would take their challenges against Roman dogma further through deeper expositions of Scripture from their original texts and languages.
Also, Luther was not revolutionary because of his views for or against the Catholic version of Mary. Luther was revolutionary for re-establishing the central doctrine of Biblical Christianity: the doctrine of justification by faith alone. He derided the papacy referring to the pope as the Antichrist, he held to the supreme authority of Scripture, and he diminished the myth of Purgatory—which was the cornerstone on which the Catholic system functioned.