What the Early Church Believed: The Perpetual Virginity of Mary

The Protoevangelium of James

Written around A.D. 120, probably less than sixty years after Mary's earthly life, the Protoevangelium of James aims, as patristics scholar Johannes Quasten notes, to prove Mary's perpetual virginity before, during and after Christ's birth.

It records that St. Anne vowed to devote her child to the Lord, as Samuel's mother had (1 Samuel 1:11). Mary would serve at the Temple, as women had for centuries (1 Samuel 2:22) and as Anna did (Luke 2:36-37), which meant a life of perpetual virginity. For reasons of ceremonial cleanliness she needed a guardian who would respect her vow, and Joseph, an elderly widower with children, was chosen. This would also explain why Joseph seems to have died before Jesus' ministry and why Mary was entrusted to John at the cross. When Mary was found with child, Joseph was accused before the Temple authorities of defiling a virgin of the Lord, and Mary of breaking her vow. To say she broke that vow by bearing other children is a grave insult to her.

The "brethren of the Lord"

Until Jerome in the fourth century, the most common view was that the Lord's brethren were Joseph's children by a former marriage. Jerome proposed they were cousins, since Jewish idiom called cousins "brethren." The Church allows either view, as both fit Mary's perpetual virginity. The Reformers Luther, Calvin and Zwingli honored Mary's perpetual virginity as biblical teaching, as have other Protestants.

The witness of the early Church

• The Protoevangelium of James (120): Anne vows her child to the Lord; Joseph, chosen by lot, protests that he is old with children; Mary insists she is pure and knows no man.
• Origen (248): Jesus' brethren were Joseph's sons by a former wife; Mary is the first fruit of virginity among women.
• Hilary of Poitiers (354): had they been Mary's sons, she would not have been entrusted to John at the cross (John 19:26-27).
• Athanasius (360) and Epiphanius (374–375) call her "ever-virgin."
• Jerome (383) answers Helvidius by appeal to Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus and Justin, and holds that Joseph too was a virgin.
• Didymus the Blind (386), on Matthew 1:25: Mary never married anyone else nor bore another child.
• Ambrose (388): Mary did not seek to bear another son.
• Pope Siricius I (392): Christ would not have chosen a virgin who would later conceive by another.
• Augustine (401–428): "A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing ... a Virgin perpetual"; those who deny it are heretics.
• Leporius (426), Cyril of Alexandria (430) and Pope Leo I (450): she conceived, bore, and remained a virgin.