Once a Virgin, Always a Virgin? – 3

Dwight: This “pseudonymous grab-bag of unlikely tales” was considered reliable enough for the church fathers who lived less than two hundred years from the events described, but not for you who are separated by nearly two thousand years. Who’s more likely to be right here?

Anyway, I’ve said before I don’t use The Protoevangelium as Scripture, but as an ancient document that helps “shed light on Scripture”. But it is not the only evidence that points to a marriage that is permanently celibate. Such arrangements were part of the Jewish background of the New Testament Church. Both the classical historian Philo and the Dead Sea Scrolls tell us that permanently celibate marriages were part of the religious customs of the first century Jewish Essene community at Qumran. 1 Corinthians 7:36-38 may suggest that relationships like this were encouraged in order for the couple to devote themselves to prayer and the Lord’s service. Paul may also be recommending this type of marriage when he advises “those who have wives to live as if they have none.” (1 Cor. 7:29.)

David: 1 Corinthians 7 is a very slender reed on which to balance this argument. The interpretation of the passage is difficult; Paul almost disclaims its authority (v. 25: “I have no command from the Lord”); and it is tailored to an unusual circumstance (v. 26: “Because of the present crisis”). Your view of this passage puts it in some tension with Paul’s instructions about clergy properly being husbands and fathers (1 Tim. 3:2-5, 12; Titus 1:6). Most important; the people involved in the arrangement Paul permits are expressly held not to be bound by vows, but to be free to marry (vv. 28, 36). The clear, pedestrian teaching about marital sex in this chapter is in verse 5: “Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time …. Then come together again….” There’s little evidence that vowed celibate “marriages” existed in the Apostolic-era Church, and no evidence that Mary and Joseph had such a marriage.

Dwight: I give historical, Scriptural and cultural evidence from first century Judaism and Christianity, but that isn’t enough. But consider: What other arrangement could have been made for a young Jewish girl who found herself pregnant? (Especially if she had taken a vow of celibacy.) By all appearances she had committed a heinous sin and the law demanded her to be stoned. She couldn’t be sheltered by her family. Joseph had intended to “put her away” but when the angel informed him of the circumstances he changed his mind. But he couldn’t just take Mary in and shelter her as an unwed mother. That would have been scandalous for both of them. His going through with the planned marriage and adopting the girl by marrying her was the only option given the extraordinary circumstances.

David: The only option? How about the option the Bible describes?—He took her as his wife. If it would have been a scandal for Joseph to shelter an unwed woman, I don’t see how the scandal is relieved by his taking her in under a pseudo-“marriage” in which (according to the Protoevangelium, chapter 15) it would have been a “grievous crime” for them to have sex. There was still no chaperone.

Dwight: You don’t account for the possibility that an older man might just look on a young girl in such a situation as a man might regard a daughter or a niece. Neither do you account for the fact that Mary and Joseph would have been surrounded by an extended family and closely-knit community who would have helped keep an eye on the situation.

David: No, I do understand the concept; I just don’t understand calling it “marriage”. I don’t think any real evidence accounts for this doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity. It seems, rather, that the “evidence” of a celibate marriage was cooked up to bolster a conclusion that someone had already deemed fitting. And that brings me to the second question, which is, What would be the reason for Mary’s supposed perpetual virginity? Your answer is that her continued virginity is a fulfillment of her virginal character. You link-and equate-virginity and holiness. In order for Mary to be really holy, she would have to be a virgin; a woman who has had sex—even just with her husband—can’t be really holy. However, virginity is not always a mark of holiness, and for a person who is married but is still a virgin (and there are such people), that virginity may be a pathology (and grounds for an annulment, I think). A husband or wife who deliberately refuses sex to his or her spouse is not holy in so doing; he or she would be selfishly “depriving” his or her spouse. (1 Cor. 7:25.) On the contrary, the ideal for married people is a well-ordered and fulfilled sexual relationship.

You describe Mary in her maturity as “a venerable, pure, and holy matron”. I hope you wouldn’t say that this status is impossible for a married woman. And yet you said that it “denigrates” Mary to suggest she had sex with her husband. Do we “denigrate” married women—our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters—if we presume that they have had normal relations with their husbands? Not at all. But it’s evidently not enough for you that Mary be spiritually pure; she must, though married, remain physically a virgin in order to remain truly pure. I resist that. It misunderstands sex, marriage, and virginity.

Dwight: It denigrates Mary not because she might have made love with her husband and was therefore “dirty”. Instead it denigrates her because it suggests that she followed a lesser way of holiness.

David: As I’ve said, I don’t think you can show that marriage is a “lesser” way of holiness. Continue Reading

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