He's An Only Child -- A response to a Protestant argument against Mary's perpetual virginity

Envoy Magazine ^ | Ronald K. Tacelli, S.J.

[Patrick Madrid]

He's an Only Child
A bogus Greek argument against Mary's perpetual virginity is making the rounds.
By Ronald K. Tacelli, S.J.

Recently, in some Internet discussion groups, a few Protestant apologists have been expending quite a bit of energy trying to refute the Catholic doctrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary's perpetual virginity. "Ho hum", you might be saying to yourself. "What's new or interesting about that? The 'Mary-had-other-children' canard has been effectively demolished by Catholic apologists a hundred times over. Who cares about this latest twist on a worn-out claim?"

 

My reaction, each time Professor McCrossen ranted about this, was: What's the big deal? No reasonable person would take the phrase "He knew her not until she gave birth" as somehow proving that he never knew her at all. Why rail away against a position no sensible person is likely to take anyway?

Well, as one who believes in Mary's perpetual virginity, I care, and you should, too. You see, this new argument is based on two Greek terms that mean "until": heos and heos hou.

These Protestant critics of Mary's perpetual virginity are training their guns on Matthew 1:25, claiming that the Greek term for "until" used by St. Matthew - heos hou - implies a reversal or cessation of the condition that is expressed in the clause preceding it. Thus they're attempting to show from linguistic evidence alone that Scripture contradicts the Catholic dogma of Mary's perpetual virginity. And that is a very big deal.

These Internet Intellectuals willingly admit that the Greek word heos all by itself does not imply any such reversal or cessation. This is true of 1 Timothy 4:13, for example: "[heos] I come, attend to the public reading of scripture." But in Matthew 1:25, heos is not used by itself; the word for "until" is heos hou. And in the New Testament heos hou always indicates reversal of the preceding clause - or so they claim. One of the Protestant apologists involved in this Internet argument wrote:

"We have insisted that the basic meaning of heos hou in the New Testament, when it means 'until,' always implies a change of the action in the main clause" (emphasis in the original).

Now if this were true it would indeed indicate that there is linguistic reason for denying the teaching of the Catholic Church on Mary's perpetual virginity. So on that little conjunction, heos hou, a great deal seems to depend.

My old history professor at Boston College, Vincent McCrossen, God rest his soul, used to scream at us in class: "Matthew 1:25, where it says that Joseph did not know Mary until she had given birth to Jesus, does not - repeat: does not - prove that Mary was perpetually a virgin!" He went on to say (or rather scream) that the Greek word for "until" (heos) leaves the matter open. It does not necessarily imply that what didn't happen before the birth (ie. Joseph's "knowing" Mary) did happen after it.

My reaction, each time Professor McCrossen ranted about this, was: What's the big deal? No reasonable person would take the phrase "He knew her not until she gave birth" as somehow proving that he never knew her at all. Why rail away against a position no sensible person is likely to take anyway?

That was my first reaction. But upon further reflection, part of what he said seemed reasonable. Even in English the word "until" need not imply that what didn't happen before some point in time did happen after it.

Think of Granny. She started taking an antibiotic last night; this morning her skin has broken out in welts. We call the doctor and he tells us: "Don't give her any of that medicine until I get there!" In this case the word "until" means pretty much the same as "before"; and there is no implication that Granny will get the medicine after the doctor arrives. In fact, it's implied that she probably won't. So I concluded at the time: Better to say that Matthew 1:25 does not disprove Mary's perpetual virginity; that considered in itself and from the point of view of language alone it does indeed leave the matter open. Catholics can read it as consistent with their Faith; Protestants, as consistent with theirs. Both readings are possible. In any case, it's no big deal. Right?

Wrong. The heos hou argument is bogus.

I'm fluent in classical and koine Greek (koine is the simpler style of Greek used by the New Testament writers), having studied it for many years prior to my ordination to the priesthood and before I earned my Ph.D. I've taught high school and university courses in Greek, and I regularly read Scripture in Greek. But none of that qualifies me as anything close to being an expert in Greek. So rather than trust my own judgment, I checked it out with the experts.

I printed out transcripts of the online heos hou arguments made by these Protestant apologists and showed them to several Greek scholars. They laughed, treating them with scornful derision. They confirmed what I already knew: that heos hou is just shorthand for heos hou chronou en hoi (literally: until the time when), and that both heos and heos hou have the same range of meaning. But do they? Professional scholars can sometimes be dismissive because they've been scooped by unpedigreed amateurs. Could that be the case here? What does a hard look at the evidence reveal?

For one thing, it reveals that not every occurrence of heos hou in the New Testament plainly indicates reversal of the condition being described in the main clause.

Consider Acts 25:21: "But when Paul demanded to be kept in custody until [eis] the Emperor's verdict, I gave orders that he should be kept in custody until [heos hou] I could send him on to Caesar" (Anchor Bible translation, slightly amended; my bracketing).

Now when St. Paul was to be sent on, he was surely going to remain in custody; for his original request was to be kept in custody until the Emperor's verdict. Hence the use of heos hou in this verse does not imply that Paul ceased to be kept in custody after he had been remanded to Caesar. It implies the very opposite.

Another example of heos hou being used without any sense of a change in condition after the "until" happens is 2 Peter 1:19:

"Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable. You will do well to be attentive to it, as a lamp shining in a dark place, until (heos hou) the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." Clearly, St. Peter was not insinuating that we should cease being attentive to the truths he was presenting after "the day dawns and the morning star rises in [our] hearts." Here, as in Matthew 1:25, heos hou does not imply a change.

Think of a comparable case. Luigi, a mob informant in Chicago, tells agent Smith that he wants to be held in protective custody till he can meet with the head of the FBI in DC. Agent Smith phones his superiors and says: "I've put Luigi in protective custody until I can arrange for transportation to DC." Will Luigi cease to remain in protective custody once he leaves for DC? Of course not. The force of agent Smith's "until" obviously concerns the time before Luigi's leaving. He might have said to his superiors: "Luigi is in protective custody now and will remain in protective custody during the whole time before I'm able to arrange for his transportation to DC." But we express this in normal English by the word "until." If agent Smith had been speaking koine Greek, it seems clear he'd have said heos hou.

But suppose all this is wrong. Suppose that, apart from Matthew 1:25, every occurrence of heos hou in the New Testament clearly indicates a reversal of the main clause. That would still not prove that reversal is implied by Matthew 1:25. It would merely prove that Matthew 1:25 may be the only place in the New Testament where reversal is not implied. If this is supposed to be a linguistic argument, we need to ask ourselves: Did heos hou really have a range of meaning significantly different from heos all by itself? Is there evidence that between (say) 300 B.C. and 300 A.D., Greek speakers recognized that heos hou, unlike heos by itself, always implied reversal or cessation of what is expressed in the main clause?

The answer is no.

One Greek text well known to the authors of the New Testament was the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It was in place roughly two hundred years before Christ. And there, lo and behold, we find that heos hou does not always indicate reversal or cessation. In Psalm 111 (112):8 we read: "His heart is steadfast, he shall not be afraid until [heos hou] he looks down upon his foes." Obviously the man who delights in the Lord's commands is going to continue to have a steadfast heart and to be unafraid even after he looks down upon his foes.

Skip ahead now to the third century A.D. Clement of Alexandria wrote: "Thus thirty years were completed until [heos hou] He [Jesus] suffered" (Stromateis, 1.21; Patrologia Graeca, 8.885a). There is no reversal of the main clause here; once again, heos hou is equivalent to "before." So two hundred years before the New Testament and two hundred years after the New Testament, heos hou could be used, like heos all by itself, to mean extent of time up to a point - but with no negation of the idea expressed in the main clause.

Do our Cyberspace Savants really expect anyone to believe that for a brief period in the middle of this consistent usage, heos hou suddenly had to indicate reversal of the main clause? Or maybe they think that the New Testament was written in a special kind of Greek - one raised uniquely above the mundane flow of usage that preceded and followed it. Or maybe they're blowing smoke concerning a language they really don't know very much about. Or maybe these Protestant apologists do know a good deal about Greek, but they are either ignorant of this particular issue (and are trumpeting their ignorance over the Internet), or they do know their argument has no merit on linguistic grounds and are sneakily persisting in using it.

But regardless of how well or poorly these men know Greek, St. John Chrysostom, one of the greatest early Church Fathers, surely knew the Greek language immensely well (he wrote and spoke it fluently) and was sensitive to its every nuance. Let's look at what he had to say on the subject of Mary's perpetual virginity and the meaning of heos hou.

In his sermons on St. Matthew's Gospel (cf. Patrologia Graeca, 7.58), St. John Chrysostom quotes Matthew 1:25 and then asks, "But why . . . did [St. Matthew] use the word 'until'?" Note well here: In quoting the verse, Chrysostom had used heos hou; but in asking the question, the word he uses for "until" is heos all by itself - as if he were unaware of a difference in meaning between these two expressions.

He answers his question by saying that it is usual and frequent for Scripture to use the word "until" (heos) without reference to limited times. Then he gives three examples. The first is his own paraphrase of Genesis 8:7: "The raven did not return until the earth was dried up." Here Chrysostom uses heos hou for "until." (But the actual text of the Septuagint has heos alone.) The second example is from Psalm 90:2: "From everlasting to everlasting you are." The verse quoted (correctly) by Chrysostom has heos all by itself. The third example is from Psalm 72:7: "In his days justice shall flourish and fullness of peace until the moon be taken away." And here the word for "until," as in the Septuagint text, is heos hou.

If Joseph was a just man and a faithful Jew, if he believed that the God he worshipped, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who was present in the Holy of Holies, was present also in Mary's womb as Father of her Child,  is it really likely that he would have had relations with his wife once the Child had been born?

It's clear that for St. John Chrysostom, heos has exactly the same meaning as heos hou. That's why he framed his question about "until" in terms of heos alone, even though the verse giving rise to the question, which he'd just finished quoting, had heos hou instead. That's why it was natural for him to use heos hou in his paraphrase of Genesis 8:7. And that is why, in his list of analogues to Matthew 1:25, he used both heos and heos hou without the slightest hesitation - his linguistically sensitive ear registered no difference in meaning between them. (But there is a syntactical difference: heos hou came normally to be used as a conjunction; heos by itself as a preposition.)

If an unbridgeable linguistic chasm separated these two expressions, how could it be that the greatest master of the Greek language in all Christendom was unaware of it? The plain answer is that there was no such chasm. The whole "heos hou vs. heos" argument is a bunch of hooey. And both Sophocles in his Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods and Stephanus in his Thesaurus Graecae Linguae agree; they state explicitly that heos and heos hou are equivalent in meaning.

And finally, we have the testimony of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament that the Apostles and the early Church Fathers almost always quoted from in their writings.

So in this corner, ladies and gentlemen, we have Sophocles, Stephanus, the Septuagint, St. John Chrysostom, and modern Greek scholars; in that corner, we have the "Pentium Pamphleteers," swashbuckling Internet polemicists who are pretty clumsy in their wielding of this particular "argument" from the Greek. If you were inclined to wager money, I'd ask you: Where would you place your bets?

But beyond all this, it's the surrounding context, not words considered simply in themselves, that will usually tip the balance of interpretation. If we hear someone say: "I'm not going to eat anything until Thursday," we figure that come Thursday he's going to eat something - because people normally eat. Likewise when we read that a married couple did not have intercourse until a certain time, we figure that they did have intercourse after that time - because this is one of the ways married people normally express their love. And no doubt most (though not all) Protestants read Matthew 1:25 as they do, not out of any pedantic pseudo-scholarship or desire to derogate Mary or compulsive hatred for the Catholic Church.

Rather, they simply desire to see Mary and Joseph as a normal, loving couple. And to all such people of good will, I would close with the following question I'd ask them to ponder before they deny Mary's perpetual virginity: If Joseph was a just man and a faithful Jew, if he believed that the God he worshipped, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who was present in the Holy of Holies, was present also in Mary's womb as Father of her Child - is it really likely that he would have had relations with his wife once the Child had been born?

And if that question does not give you pause, be assured of my prayers until (heos hou) it does (and afterwards as well).

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[Hermann the Cherusker]

Give me the verse or verses in the bible that tells us about Mary's perpetual virginity OK?

Where is the verse saying she was not a perpetual virgin? You're the one denying it, why not prove your claim?

[bonfire]

Mary having sex with her HUSBAND relates in NO WAY to the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It seems for you; it does. Why is that? Why is it necessary that she remained a Virgin?

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

You can't prove she was with out adding to the Word of God from men. Sorry try again someday.

BigMack

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Question: Is it RC doctrine that belief of this "perpetual virginity" is necessary for one's salvation? IOW, can one still be forgiven his sins and yet dispute the "perpetual virginity" of Mary?

One may be ignorant of the doctrine and be saved, because the doctrine is not necessary by a necessity of means (as is faith in the existence of the Triune God, the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, and the future of man in either heaven or hell based on our acts).

However, those who deny the truth of the doctrine, knowing that the Catholic Church teaches it, are heretics, and will be lost, because they deny divine revelation, and turn what they do accept of it into a concotion of their own opinions, rather than accepting simply the truths proposed for our belief by God through Christ and the Apostles to the Church.

[american colleen]

What's wrong with Crisis?

I have a soft spot in my heart for Deal Hudson. When the "Voice of the Faithful" crew were bullhorning parishioners at the Cathedral where the Cardinal said Mass and acting up and setting themselves up as an alternative magisterium, Mr. Hudson flew to Boston to attend Mass and meet with a bunch of regular shmoes AND some of the VOTF members to get a first hand idea of what was going on. He was very supportive of efforts to "out" VOTF and he is a regular, nice guy, good sense of humor and a great love of God.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Golf - played Catholic or Protestant

What is Protestant Golf? Is it the personal interpretation of the rules by each player? Does that make Mulligans the equivalent of accepting homoexuality?

[american colleen]

Why is it necessary that she remained a Virgin?

It isn't necessary, I wouldn't think. On the other hand, why is it necessary for you that she have other children? You can't prove it either way from the bible alone.

Ya know, the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos has been documented since before the canonization of the bible. The very group who you trust to put the correctly inspired books in the bible also venerated Mary as a perpetual virgin AND believed in the consecrated Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

I could be wrong by a hundred years or so, but the very first time Christians started to disbelieve in the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary was in the last couple of hundred years or so.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

You can't prove she was with out adding to the Word of God from men. Sorry try again someday.

Sure I can. Read my post 79 and provide a cogent answer to the biblical arguments contained within. You know, something more than your standard content-less one line rejoinder. Include with your answer not only why I am wrong, but why you are right. It would be refreshing if you actually made an arguement for a change, rather than just arguing.

And I will take silence as an admission that you can't demonstrate anything to us, and will publicize your defeat accordingly.

Show us where it says in the Bible that Joseph and Mary had intercourse.

However, my reaction now, before you've even attempted to write anything:

Oh, I'm sorry, but I think you're going to have to "add to the Word of God" to demonstrate what is nowhere stated.

[bonfire]

"On the other hand, why is it necessary for you that she have other children"

It isn't. It doesn't matter one way or the other. It just seems so important to Catholics for her PERPETUAL virginity to be true. I just don't understand why? (seriously)

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

LOL you post was BS, heard and refuted here a 1000 times before, how long you been posting here Hermann?

My defeat, ROFLOL

Run along Hermann.

BigMack

[B-Chan]

Nope. After all, unless you're infallible, I can't be sure that the doctrine you teach is the real Truth and that the Catholic doctrine isn't. Are you claiming infalliblity? (^_-)

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Why is it necessary that she remained a Virgin?

1) Because Scripture gives her the title of "virgin" (Isaiah 7.14, Matthew 1.23, Luke 1.27), which makes no sense if she subsequently had sex. 2) Because the creed calls her "the Virgin Mary". 3) Because it pleased God to arrange things in this way.

Mary having sex with her HUSBAND relates in NO WAY to the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Sure it does. To say that after Almighty God passed forth from her womb, that a man would dare to desecrate her be having sexual relations with her, is to deny the divinty of Christ. It is a statement that there is nothing particualrly Holy about giving birth to God the Word that would give one any pause from daring to touch that which God has so hallowed.

Certainly, this is not the attitude of Scripture towards those things which God has super-sanctified by his physical presence, such as the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies, both of which are figures of Blessed Mary. When men dared to touch the Ark, they were killed. When anyone besides the High Priest entered into the Holy of Holies they were killed. When Ezekiel saw God pass through the East Gate of the new Temple, the Lord made abundantly clear His thoughts on whether any man should dare have something to do with this entranceway:

And the Lord said to me: This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it: because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it, and it shall be shut (Ezekiel 44.2)

God entered the world through the womb and birth canal of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Afterwards, in accordance with His word, this passageway was shut up forever, and Mary remained inviolate.

It is an abominable blasphemous sacrilege to suggest that God felt the man-made objects such as the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant were too super-sacntified to be touched by the hands of mere mortals or entered into, but that the Virgin Mary, she whom he made "full of grace" and "blessed among women" was not, and took on the task of ordinary motherhood after giving birth to Jesus Christ, her firstborn Son apparently being such a trifle that she needed a goodly lot of others to supplement him.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

LOL you post was BS, heard and refuted here a 1000 times before,

Oh? Show me then. It shouldn't be hard to make an actual argument, if that is within your mental powers, which I currently doubt, since your argumentation does not extend far beyond one-liner 3rd grade scatological terminology.

Heck, just point me to where you refuted it all 1000 times before through a few links. I don't need all 1000 instances, three or four would be fine. No need to retype what you've patiently and cogently explained elsewhere. Unless of course, you've never done it. I highly suspect this, seeing how difficult it is to find a post of yours that contains more than three lines.

how long you been posting here Hermann?

Since fall 2000 - just as long as you.

My defeat, ROFLOL

Yes, you're defeat. You talk big but run fast. There's a word for that behavior - Coward. And two words for your unsubstantiated pseudo-beliefs - Revolting Heresy.

Again, you want to work with the Bible alone? Tell me where it says Mary had sex with Joseph. You seem so certain of it, so it shouldn't be hard to just quote the verse. Just quoting one verse of the Bible shouldn't overtax your abilities here.

Run along Hermann.

No I think I'll stay right here and refute and ridicule the falsehoods you are attempting to spread about Blessed Mary. I'm certain my God, the Lord Jesus, is pleased by my honoring his Mother.

And its oh so easy when the opposite side of the issue concedes the field by failing to offer anything but profanity.

[Notwithstanding]

I have to ask who you have been at FR prior to using your actual name OR how it is that you knew right away how to post graphics, etc. so pefectly here at FR?

[Aquinasfan]

Patrick Madrid (the new FReeper) PING!

Welcome aboard Patrick!

[Tantumergo]

"It just seems so important to Catholics for her PERPETUAL virginity to be true. I just don't understand why? (seriously)"

You ask a fair question which Hermann has answered above from the point of scriptural exegesis.

However, the main reason we hold the PERPETUAL nature of Blessed Mary's virginity to be true (in addition to the typological proofs of scripture), is that this is the unanimous Tradition which we have received from the Apostles via the Fathers of the Church. i.e. men who knew, were taught by, and authorised by the Apostles to teach in their name and in the Name of Christ.

Essentially we believe it is an historical fact because of the testimony of those who were in a position to KNOW. To deny a fact is to deny Truth and hence a denial of Christ.

A Truth which has been believed by all Christians, in all times, and in all places is considered to be as sure as the Truths revealed in scripture (such a Truth by definition cannot contradict the testimony of scripture of course.)

I am sure you would agree that scripture does not contain all historical truths from the three years of Jesus' public ministry - let alone the rest of the events that took place between the years 1 AD and 75 AD.

For instance the New Testament nowhere mentions the actual destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple which took place in the summer of AD 70 - nevertheless it is a FACT that this event happened and that it had enormous theological significance for Jews and Christians alike.

For us the denial of Blessed Mary's Perpetual Virginity is as incomprehensible as if someone were to deny that General Titus sacked Jerusalem.

For Catholics the Bible is not an isolated vehicle of special revelation from God - it is historical - part of our family history - recorded by the family for the family under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

But there is a lot more family history that is just as true, but which is not recorded in the Bible. It is just as true because it really did happen - just as the events recorded in the Bible are true and really did happen.

[Aquinasfan]

Genesis 1

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [2] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Who's "us"?

Invincible ignorance can be overcome.

[Alex Murphy]

It matters because it relates to the Virgin Birth...

Technically, no it doesnt. It stops mattering at the manger.

...and to the divinity of Mary's child.

Can you elaborate on that? Are you saying that Jesus was made divine?

Are the nativity stories an essential part of Christianity?

Absolutely. Explain how and why the Virgin Birth (a single event in time-and-space) demands a Perpetual (never ending) maintenance of Mary's virginity.

[Tantumergo]

Welcome to the land of closed minds and hot tempers - you are very brave to come here without the cloak of anonymity! (You will have to always be on good behaviour!)

"He's an *orthodox* young Jesuit"

What a refreshing novelty!!! Even the salvation of the SJ's is still within God's abilities!

[Aquinasfan]

Give me the verse or verses in the bible that tells us about Mary's perpetual virginity OK?

Your question begs a more basic question. Why is it necessary to find a "proof text" of Mary's perpetual virginity in the Bible? That's not in the Bible. In fact, the Bible tells us to hold on to the traditions passed on to us by Christ's Church, either by word of mouth or by letter.

2 Thessalonians 2:15

So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings[ 2:15 Or traditions] we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

The Church Fathers on Mary's perpetual virginity.

A more fundamental question to you is, why do you hold to a non-scriptural tradition ("the Bible alone") promoted by a heretic?