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Posted on 06/23/2003 2:36:07 PM PDT by Patrick Madrid
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He's an Only Child 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?"
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 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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How do you read :
Jn. 10:27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
Jn. 10:28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one
can snatch them out of my hand.
Jn. 10:29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all;
[Many early manuscripts What my Father has given me is
greater than all] no-one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
Jn. 10:30 I and the Father are one.”
Barukh haba b'Shem Adonai
Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord
Y'shua HaMashiach
chuck <truth@YeshuaHaMashiach>
Jn. 10:27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. Jn. 10:28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one can snatch them out of my hand. Jn. 10:29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; [Many early manuscripts What my Father has given me is greater than all] no-one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. Jn. 10:30 I and the Father are one.”
The same way I read this:
John 17:11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
We will be one with the Father and Yeshua. Doubt that would make us God.
Agreed. And since Luther believed he was following Christ by upholding the historic Christian teaching on Mary's perpetual virginity, you would do well to imitate his example. As Saint Paul said, "Be imitators me me, as I am of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1).
And so ... I do and will follow Luther ... as he, in turn, follows Christ. To the extent that he doesn't, I will opt for another example (Christ comes to mind).
I also note that, when the Apostle Paul penned these words, ... the example of Christ, Himself, would have been much harder to come by (being in the process of being written and all), so ... Paul's example might be the very best one available.
Today, however, I have no such excuse, for the example of Christ is readily available to me, so, I can simply cut out all of the middlemen and follow Christ, so purely as His example is penned in the holy scriptures.
A great blessing indeed.
This is where we have to part company. I would see it as equivalent to having sex in a Church or in the Temple. Mary had been made indescribably Holy by God physically dwelling within her. Its incomprehendable to me.
Mary was not the Holy of Holies or the Ark of the Convenant, she was a living human being.
The book of Revelation directly compares her to the Ark of the Covenant, and uses the word seed to bring us back to mind of the prophecy of Genesis 3.15. Revelation 11.19-12.17 reads:
And the temple of God was opened in heaven: and the ark of his testament was seen in his temple. And there were lightnings and voices and an earthquake and great hail. And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being with child, she cried travailing in birth: and was in pain to be delivered. And there was seen another sign in heaven. And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and on his heads seven diadems. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered: that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod. And her son was taken up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, that there they should feed her, a thousand two hundred sixty days. And there was a great battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels. And they prevailed not: neither was their place found any more in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world. And he was cast unto the earth: and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying: Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ: because the accuser of our brethren is cast forth, who accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of the testimony: and they loved not their lives unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and you that dwell therein. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman who brought forth the man child. And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the desert, unto her place, where she is nourished for a time and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth, after the woman, water, as it were a river: that he might cause her to be carried away by the river. And the earth helped the woman: and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Catholic Golf: A failed drive may be anulled allowing a second shot without penalty. Annuled drives are preapproved for golfers named Kennedy.
Novus Ordo Catholic Golf: Female caddies (shirts optional) watch as the golfer kisses the Koran for luck and then takes a stance looking away from the hole and hits the ball. Afterwards they all hold hands. Female fans in funky looking ballet get up do liturgal swirls to celebrate!
SSPX Golf: A foursome each slices the ball out of bounds and insist they are in the right fairway despite the rest of the tour continuing without them. They insist they were never officially disqualified and that the original course used the fairway they landed on. SSPX golfers insist on yelling "IV" instead of the vernacular "Four" to warn others.
You can't make this stuff up... ;-)
Jesus wasn't Joseph's son at all. But Mary was definitely his wife. I don't see where the relationship between Joseph and Mary is linked to the relationship between Joseph and Jesus.
Ordinary is hardly the way to describe the events that are related in the nativity stories.
I'm not talking about the nativity stories. I freely accept the doctrine of the virgin birth. I'm talking about after the nativity, of which we have little information relating to the relationship between Mary and Joseph.
And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being with child, she cried travailing in birth: and was in pain to be delivered.
I'm pretty sure that this is a picture of Israel, not Mary.
In what context? In the context of staying single? No. In the context of married life? Yes. It would be quite unusual, and if you re-read both the Old Testament and the 1 Corinthians 7 that was earlier quoted it was not something encouraged by either Jews or Christians for married couples.
In any case, the early Christians put high store by virginity.
Mary and Joseph were observant Jews, not Christians. They went to the Temple on the proper occasions and followed Mosaic law.
They did not like modern Americans rank a family life among the single life.
What?
After all, they believed that the Lord was to return soon, so a normal life was not for them. After Paul had a tremendous religious experience, he devoted his whole life to the mission that Christ had given him.
Putting him on the road a lot, off to a lot of meetings, and putting him at risk of his life; which is not conducive to married life. Paul wasn't Joseph, leading a relatively normal life, supporting his family as a craftsman.
But Mary and Joseph had an experience that makes Paul's experience pale by comparison. I do not think it remarkable that that experience would make them forsake a normal life and make them devote themselves entirely to the mission of raising that remarkable child.
But they didn't forsake a normal life. Mary raised her child (or children, depending on how you interpret Scripture) at home. Joseph worked as a carpenter to support his family. How does Joseph and Mary having sexual relations detract from their ability to raise Jesus? If anything, it would help strengthen the bond of love between them and help them support each other in their family life. Isn't that why God created man and woman and the sexual bond within marriage?
As far as 847, it does not say the ignorant are saved as they are. Reading it in conjunction with 843 thorugh 848 leads one to the same conclusion reading Lumen Gentium 13-16 brings. Men may be partially prepared for salvation by certain parts of their religions, which retain portions of the truth. But the actual event of salvation must occur from coming to the supernatural Catholic Faith - whether by Missionary activity, or by a special revelation.
1) Scripture tells us that God desires the salvation of all men.
The Church does not posit this verse (1 Timothy 2.4) in the same emphasis that you do. Para. 851 shows that the Church teaches that this verse means "God wills the salvation of everyone through the knowledge of the truth." Knowledge of the truth would be knowledge of that faith which is necessary by a necessity of means for salvation.
We should know that to believe some articles is necessary, as a means to obtain salvation (necessitate medii); and that to believe others is a necessary as a matter of precept. To say that it is necessary as a means of salvation to believe certain articles, implies that, unless we believe these articles, it is utterly impossible for us to be saved. To say that the belief of other articles is necessary as a matter of precept, implies that we are bound to blieve in these articles; but, should we be in inculpable ignorance of them, we are excused from sin, and may be saved. To know and believe the two articles already laid down, viz.: that there is a God, and that he is a remunerator of vice and virtue, according to the words of the apostle, "For he that cometh to God, must believe that he is a rewarder to them that seek him" (Heb. 11:6), is certainly necessary as a means of salvation. Some authors hold that the belief of the other articles – the Trinity of Persons, and the Incarnation of the Word – is strictly commanded, but not necessary as a means, without which salvation is impossible; so that a person inculpably ignorant of them may be saved. But according to the most common and best opinion, the explicit belief of these articles is necessary as a means without which no adult can be saved. It is certain, as Innocent XI declared in the condemnation of the sixty-fourth proposition, that he who is ignorant of the two mysteries of the Most Holy Trinity, and of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, cannot be absolved.
- St. Alphonsus de Liguori, Instruction on the Commandments and Sacraments, 1.1.8
John 17:3. And this is life everlasting that they know Thee, the only true God, and JESUS CHRIST Whom Thou hast sent.
3. Life everlasting.] Both the life of glory in heaven, and of grace here in the Church, consisteth in the knowledge of God: that, in perfect vision: this, in faith working by charity; for, knowledge of God without keeping his commandments, is not true knowledge, that is to say, it is an unprofitable knowledge. 1 Io. 2. (Rhiems New Testament, 1582)
Tie these notes on John 17.3 (and 1 John 2) back into Para 851, and we've come full circle. God's will for all men to be saved in the truth means he wills for all men to be saved by a faith in Christ working in charity such that we keep the commandments in our moral life, and have a love for our neighbor in our social life, all of this being the knowledge of Christ necessary for us to "know, love and serve him in this life so that we may be happy with him forever in the next."
Wow...thanks for pinging me over here...I never saw this thread. Big Mack and Becky are here too...good to read you guys. :-)
Here's what the early Church defined on the subject:
If anyone does not profess according to the holy Fathers that in the proper and true sense the holy, ever-Virgin, immaculate Mary is the Mother of God, since in this last age not with human seed but of the Holy Spirit she properly and truly concevied the divine Word, who was born of God the Father before all ages, and gave Him birth without any detriment to her virginity, which remained inviolable even after His birth: let him be anathema.
-Pope St. Martin I, Council of the Lateran, Canon 3, 649 AD
This definition settled permanently any controversy on the topic for Catholics.
The quotation you give is not meant to hold James out as Christ's physical brother, but rather his kinsman. You would do well to read Canon 1 of the same Council in Trullo, which says in part:
Moreover what things were set forth by the two hundred God-bearing fathers in the city of Ephesus in the days of Theodosius our Emperor, the son of Arcadius; these doctrines we assent to as the unbroken strength of piety, teaching that Christ the incarnate Son of God is one; and declaring that she who bare him without human seed was the immaculate Ever-Virgin, glorifying her as literally and in very truth the Mother of God. We condemn as foreign to the divine scheme the absurd division of Nestorius, who teaches that the one Christ consists of a man separately and of the Godhead separately and renews the Jewish impiety.
Keep your chin up bucko.
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