‘The Perpetual Virginity of Mary’ by Saint Jerome – Proposition 1st. That Joseph was only putatively, not really, the husband of Mary – points 10-14
[Saint Jerome – IV-V Century AD; Stridon, Roman Empire/Bethlehem, Palaestina Prima; Translation of the Bible into Latin – Vulgate; Doctor of the Church]“10. If you are so contentious, your own thoughts shall now prove your master. You must not allow any time to intervene between delivery and intercourse. You must not say, If a woman conceive seed and bear a man child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of the separation of her sickness shall she be unclean. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days. She shall touch no hallowed thing, and so forth. On your showing, Joseph must at once approach, her, and be subject to Jeremiah's Jeremiah 5:8 reproof, They were as mad horses in respect of women: every one neighed after his neighbour's wife. Otherwise, how can the words stand good, he knew her not, till she had brought forth a son, if he waits after the time of another purifying has expired, if his lust must brook another long delay of forty days? The mother must go unpurged from her child-bed taint, and the wailing infant be attended to by the midwives, while the husband clasps his exhausted wife. Thus forsooth must their married life begin so that the Evangelist may not be convicted of falsehood. But God forbid that we should think thus of the Saviour's mother and of a just man. No midwife assisted at His birth; no women's officiousness intervened. With her own hands she wrapped Him in the swaddling clothes, herself both mother and midwife, Luke 2:7 and laid Him, we are told, in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn; a statement which, on the one hand, refutes the ravings of the apocryphal accounts, for Mary herself wrapped Him in the swaddling clothes, and on the other makes the voluptuous notion of Helvidius impossible, since there was no place suitable for married intercourse in the inn.
11. An ample reply has now been given to what he advanced respecting the words before they came together, and he knew her not till she had brought forth a son. I must now proceed, if my reply is to follow the order of his argument, to the third point. He will have it that Mary bore other sons, and he quotes the passage, And Joseph also went up to the city of David to enroll himself with Mary, who was betrothed to him, being great with child. And it came to pass, while they were there, the days were fulfilled that she should be delivered, and she brought forth her first-born son. From this he endeavours to show that the term first-born is inapplicable except to a person who has brothers, just as he is called only begotten who is the only son of his parents.
12. Our position is this: Every only begotten son is a first-born son, but not every first-born is an only begotten. By first-born we understand not only one who is succeeded by others, but one who has had no predecessor. Numbers 18:15 Everything, says the Lord to Aaron, that opens the womb of all flesh which they offer unto the Lord, both of man and beast, shall be yours: nevertheless the first born of man shall you surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shall you redeem. The word of God defines first-born as everything that opens the womb. Otherwise, if the title belongs to such only as have younger brothers, the priests cannot claim the firstlings until their successors have been begotten, lest, perchance, in case there were no subsequent delivery it should prove to be the first-born but not merely the only begotten. Numbers 18:16 And those that are to be redeemed of them from a month old shall you redeem, according to your estimation for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary (the same is twenty gerahs). But the firstling of an ox, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, you shall not redeem; they are holy. The word of God compels me to dedicate to God everything that opens the womb if it be the firstling of clean beasts: if of unclean beasts, I must redeem it, and give the value to the priest. I might reply and say, Why do you tie me down to the short space of a month? Why do you speak of the first-born, when I cannot tell whether there are brothers to follow? Wait until the second is born. I owe nothing to the priest, unless the birth of a second should make the one I previously had the first-born.
Will not the very points of the letters cry out against me and convict me of my folly, and declare that first-born is a title of him who opens the womb, and is not to be restricted to him who has brothers? And, then, to take the case of John: we are agreed that he was an only begotten son: I want to know if he was not also a first-born son, and whether he was not absolutely amenable to the law. There can be no doubt in the matter. At all events Scripture thus speaks of the Saviour, And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord) and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons. If this law relates only to the first-born, and there can be no first-born unless there are successors, no one ought to be bound by the law of the first-born who cannot tell whether there will be successors. But inasmuch as he who has no younger brothers is bound by the law of the first-born, we gather that he is called the first-born who opens the womb and who has been preceded by none, not he whose birth is followed by that of a younger brother. Moses writes in Exodus, Exodus 12:29 And it came to pass at midnight, that the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon: And all the first-born of cattle. Tell me, were they who then perished by the destroyer, only your first-born, or, something more, did they include the only begotten? If only they who have brothers are called first-born, the only begotten were saved from death. And if it be the fact that the only begotten were slain, it was contrary to the sentence pronounced, for the only begotten to die as well as the first-born. You must either release the only begotten from the penalty, and in that case you become ridiculous: or, if you allow that they were slain, we gain our point, though we have not to thank you for it, that only begotten sons also are called first-born.
13. The last proposition of Helvidius was this, and it is what he wished to show when he treated of the first-born, that brethren of the Lord are mentioned in the Gospels. For example, Matthew 12:46 Behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, seeking to speak to him. And elsewhere, John 2:12 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren. And again, John 7:3-4 His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judæa, that your disciples also may behold the works which you do. For no man does anything in secret, and himself seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, manifest yourself to the world. And John adds, John 7:5 For even his brethren did not believe in him. Mark also and Matthew, And coming into his own country he taught them in their synagogues, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence has this man this wisdom, and mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Luke also in the Acts of the Apostles relates, Acts 1:14 These all with one accord continued steadfastly in prayer, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. Paul the Apostle also is at one with them, and witnesses to their historical accuracy, And I went up by revelation, but other of the apostles saw I none, save Peter and James the Lord's brother. And again in another place, 1 Corinthians 9:4-5 Have we no right to eat and drink? Have we no right to lead about wives even as the rest of the Apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? And for fear any one should not allow the evidence of the Jews, since it was they from whose mouth we hear the name of His brothers, but should maintain that His countrymen were deceived by the same error in respect of the brothers into which they fell in their belief about the father, Helvidius utters a sharp note of warning and cries, The same names are repeated by the Evangelists in another place, and the same persons are there brethren of the Lord and sons of Mary. Matthew says, And many women were there (doubtless at the Lord's cross) beholding from afar, which had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. Mark also, And there were also women beholding from afar, among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome; and in the same place shortly after, And many other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem. Luke too, Luke 24:10 Now there were Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them.
14. My reason for repeating the same thing again and again is to prevent him from raising a false issue and crying out that I have withheld such passages as make for him, and that his view has been torn to shreds not by evidence of Scripture, but by evasive arguments. Observe, he says, James and Joses are sons of Mary, and the same persons who were called brethren by the Jews. Observe, Mary is the mother of James the Less and of Joses. And James is called the less to distinguish him from James the greater, who was the son of Zebedee, as Mark elsewhere states, And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid. And when the sabbath was past, they bought spices, that they might come and anoint him. And, as might be expected, he says: What a poor and impious view we take of Mary, if we hold that when other women were concerned about the burial of Jesus, she His mother was absent; or if we invent some kind of a second Mary; and all the more because the Gospel of S. John testifies that she was there present, when the Lord upon the cross commended her, as His mother and now a widow, to the care of John. Or must we suppose that the Evangelists were so far mistaken and so far mislead us as to call Mary the mother of those who were known to the Jews as brethren of Jesus?”
Image: SIMONE MARTINI ~ ‘Maestà’ (detail), 1315, fresco, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italia