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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[WriteOn]

Actually your perspective on sex is a measure of your modernity. This is St. Paul by way of Augustine (On marriage and Concupiscence):

BOOK I, CHAP. 3 --CONJUGAL CHASTITY THE GIFT OF GOD.

That chastity in the married state is God’s gift, is shown by the most blessed Paul, when, speaking on this very subject, he says: "But I would that all men were even as I myself: but every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that." Observe, he tells us that this gift is from God; and although he classes it below that continence in which he would have all men to be like himself, he still describes it as a gift of God. Whence we understand that, when these precepts are given to us in order that we should do them, nothing else is stated than that there ought to be within us our own will also for receiving and having them. When, therefore, these are shown to be gifts of God, it is meant that they must be sought from Him if they are not already possessed; and if they are possessed, thanks must be given to Him for the possession; moreover, that our own wills have but small avail for seeking, obtaining, and holding fast these gifts, unless they be assisted by God’s grace.

[Aquinasfan]

But the Jew were COMMANDED to not touch the Ark. Joseph was told not to be afraid to take Mary as his WIFE, but nothing was said about not touching her. God told married people to have sex.

I used the phrase "not touching her" as a euphemism.

Nothing was said about Joseph not having relations with Mary? So what? The assertion doesn't contradict Scripture. This represents an argument from silence, proving nothing.

Put all this together and instead of worrying about one word here and there and the perpetual virginity thing goes out the window. IMO:)

Put all of the evidence together, Scripture and Tradition, as Hermann and Tantumergo have done respectively, and the case is overwhelmingly in favor of Mary's perpetual virginity.

[Notwithstanding]

Well, glad to see you here.
Have fun and best wishes for a sane experience.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

You have a sick view of sex. Why would sex between a married man and woman desecrate her, when it is an act of love approved by God?

No, I think I have a Biblical view of sex.

Revelations 14.4 These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. (King James Version)

Exodus 19.15 15 And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives. (King James Version)

1 Corinthians 7.5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. (King James Version)

If sex is so totally approved by God for all times, all married people, and all occasions, as you seem to think, why does his Word say it defiles? Why does He command the Israelites to abstain from their wives for three days prior to His physically coming among them to grant the law? Why does St. Paul ernestly entreat married couples to abstain during times of fasting and prayer?

And do you expect us to believe that St. Joseph, the "Just Man" (Matthew 1.19), was so tempted by Satan that he could not live in continence with Blessed Mary? Or that Blessed Mary, who is "full of grace" (Luke 1.28), and at enmity with satan (cf. Genesis 3.15) was so tempted by Satan that she could not fulfill her vow to "know not a man" (Luke 1.34)?

For Mary to have marital relations with Joseph would be a desecration because 1) we believe Mary had made a solemn vow to God to live a Virginal life, like Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, and St. John the Baptist who all lived without marrying; 2) because God made her ineffably holy by dwelling within her and nursing from her.

Just as the Ark of the Covenant was desecrated when touched by a human after the presence of God had resided upon it:

2 Samuel 6.6-7 And when they came to Nachon's threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God. (King James Version)

Just as the Holy of Holies was desecrated when approached by anyone but the High Priest who had ritually purified himself:

Leviticus 16.2 And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat. (King James Version)

Just as Mt. Sinai was desecrated by human presence while God dwelt upon it, and the Lord threatened death to any who would dare come into his presence:

Exodus 19.11-13, 20-24 And be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount ... And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up. And the LORD said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the LORD to gaze, and many of them perish. And let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth upon them. And Moses said unto the LORD, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it. And the LORD said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the LORD, lest he break forth upon them. (King James Version)

Most certainly, you and most Protestants today (though not your founders Luther and Calvin) have no sense at all of the holiness of God. This is why you cannot understand the Perpetual Viriginity or the Perpetual Sinlessness of Mary. You have a queer view that God may be seen and touched by sinners, and the sinners live, and that that which God touches, consecrates, and sets apart for Himself only, such as the Ark of the Covenant, or the Blessed Virgin Mary, is not any more Holy than anything else, despite the abundant and most clear words of Holy Scripture to the contrary.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

What faith or church do you belong to?

I'd be whats called a Monotheist Messianic.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

What I want is for you to read his argument, which is about a verse in the Bible and which seems to me to rebute effectively what has been argued elsewhere by your side.

Its just another flavor of the 11 page Jerome thesis on the verse. I didn't read it as rebutting much.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

I agree entirely. Our faith confirms the Bible, since the Catholic Faith, at least, existed from AD 33 on, and was thus prior to all fo the New Testament. The Church proposes this dogma for our belief as somethign divinely revealed, and also obviosuly known by St. Luke from his conversations with the Blessed Virgin, and we accept it.

But when debating with Protestants, it is useful at time to controvert them with the plain words of the their own version of Scripture, or the Greek.

[Ex-Wretch]

"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.,

That's it in a nutshell.

May God then choose between me and thee. It is this blind devotion to Mary and "mother church" that also gave us the world is flat edict and the Inquisitions and all of the persecution of true godly believers for the last 2000 years.

As to Joseph not being allowed to "desecrate" Mary, this is akin to believing in evolution vs. the creation. It takes waaaay more faith to believe. If God the Father would allow His very own Son to be "desecrated" by becoming carnal flesh and further, to suffer profanities, spittings, beatings, being nailed to a cross to die and hanging half-naked for all to see .... well, I don't think He would be too upset to see Mary and Joseph have a loving, conjugal relationship during the course of their marriage (post Jesus' birth).

[Pyro7480]

It is this blind devotion to Mary and "mother church" that also gave us the world is flat edict and the Inquisitions and all of the persecution of true godly believers for the last 2000 years.

Devotion to Mary CAUSED all of these things you name!!?? Man, talk about stretching it a bit...

[Hermann the Cherusker]

why did Joseph even continue with the marriage at all, if we're going to accept the "better to be single" proof-texts that Hermann cites?

Because it is a grave injustice for a child to be raised without a father, and St. Joseph was a "just man" (matthew 1.19).

The texts cited say it is better to remain a virgin. One may, of course, marry and not have sex. This was what St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin did, what Roman Catholic Priests did for the first millenium of the Church's existence (abstained from their wives after ordination), and also what some saints did.

[al_c]

Does that make Mulligans the equivalent of accepting homoexuality?

No, silly ... mulligans represent the forgiveness of sins errant shots. ;o)

[NYer]

Why would sex between a married man and woman desecrate her, when it is an act of love approved by God?

In Jewish Law a man betrothed to a woman was considered legally married to her. The word for betrothed in Hebrew is Kiddush, a word that is derived from the Hebrew word Kadash which means "holy" "consecrated," "set apart." Because by betrothal (as in Mt 1:18; Lk 1:27) , or marriage, a woman became the peculiar property of her husband, forbidden to others.

The Oral Law of Kiddushin (Marriages and Engagements) states; "The husband prohibits his wife to the whole world like an object which is dedicated to the Sanctuary" (Kiddushin 2b, Babylonian Talmud).

We know from the Gospel of Matthew 1:14 that Joseph the husband of Mary was a righteous man, a devout law-abiding Jew. Having noticed that Mary was pregnant and that he, her betrothed, had nothing to do with the pregnancy, Joseph had either to publicly condemn her and have her put to death for adultery (Dt 22:22-29) or put her away privately.

His decision was made when an angel appeared to him in a dream, saying: "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins" (Mt. 1:20-21). The angel does not use the phrase for marital union: "go in unto" (as in Gn 30:3, 4, 16) or "come together" (Mt 1:18) but merely a word meaning leading her into the house as a wife (paralambano gunaika) but not cohabiting with her.

For when the angel revealed to him that Mary was truly the spouse of the Holy Spirit, Joseph could take Mary, his betrothed, into his house as a wife, but he could never have intercourse with her because according to the Law she was forbidden to him for all time.

PERPETUAL VIRGINITY OF MARY

[Ex-Wretch]

"For Mary to have marital relations with Joseph would be a desecration because 1) we believe Mary had made a solemn vow to God to live a Virginal life ... "

This belief comes from superstition not scripture. Mary espoused no such thing or she would never have consented to marry Joseph in the first place. It wasn't until they had already been betrothed a while when the angel appeared to Mary and, Joseph was also reassured to take Mary in a dream.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

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.

With little authority from those trained in the Hebrew language. Trinitarians and Binitarians sometimes advance the statement in Genesis 1:26 as proof (in contradiction of the evidence of thousands of singular pronouns denoting the One God) that a plurality of persons in the Godhead was responsible for the creation. "Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our Likeness". This argument is precarious. Modern scholars no longer take the Hebrew phrase, "Let Us" or the word elohim to mean a plurality of God persons as creator. It is most likely that the plural pronoun "us" contains a reference to the One God's attendant council of angels, who themselves had been created in the image of God and had been witnesses to the creation of the universe (Job 38:7). It is fanciful to imagine that this verse supports the idea that God was speaking to the Son and the Holy Spirit. Where in Scripture does God ever speak to His own Spirit? the text says nothing at all about an eternal Son of God, the second memnber of a coequal trinity. Moreover, the "us" of the text gives no indication of two other equal partners in the Godhead. If God is a single person His use of the word "us" means that He is addressing someone other than Himself, e.e., other than God.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

What's that? I thought you were a Christian?

Well you'd be right. I believe Yeshua lived, died, rose again and will return. I believe he is not diety. I believe I don't have to believe in a polyistic trinity to be saved.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

Oops I meant polytheistic.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

Angels don't create. Why would you think God would look to the angels for input?

Ah. A Catholic going hyperliteralist on me. That's unusual. You've never endeavored to do a task in a company of people and said "Let us" do such and such?