SRR #44 | Roman Catholics and Their Queen Part 2

I do a podcast.

I'm not interested in your podcast.

These are wolves. Truth be told, I oftentimes lay awake at night trying to figure out how I can get rid of wolves.

We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

We are polemical and polarizing, Jesus style.

I would first say that to characterize what we do as fashion is itself fashion. It's not hate. It's history. It's not fashion. It's the Bible.

Jesus said, Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time.

To battle.

Mother Mary and the Perpetual Virginity Debate

Alright, welcome back to Simple Riff from on the radio. My name is Tim and I am here with the other Tim, our expert in Roman Catholicism for another episode on Mother Mary. Today, we are going to be doing the fourth part in this series on Mother Mary.

I've titled it Roman Catholics and their Queen. And just for continuity sake, there's part one, part two, part three, and this is going to be part four. So just to recap, in case you haven't heard all the episodes, the first episode, we just gave a basic overview of Mother Mary and tackled the idea that she is the Queen.

The second episode, we tackled Mother Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant. Did I say that right, Brother Tim?

Yes, you did say that right.

Because I know last time I was saying it wrong. I was saying that she was the New Covenant. No. She's the Ark of the New Covenant. And then last week was a really good one. We tackled the idea that Mother Mary is sinless.

And so, today Tim is pressed for time, so today we're just going to jump right in this. But before I do that, let me just go ahead and play a commercial for the network to let you guys know what other podcasts are on there and so that you can check them out.

This podcast is a member of the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network.

Alright, welcome everybody to another podcast episode with Semper Reformanda Radio.

Hi, welcome to Theology.

Gals. Welcome everyone to the Logical Belief Ministries podcast.

Well, welcome to School of Biblical Harmonetics. Welcome.

Everybody to Rappling with Theology.

What is going on guys? Shining his lights, coming at you.

Well, welcome to Slick Answers.

Good evening and welcome to Conversations from the Port.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Bible Thumping Wingnut Podcast. The Bible Thumping Wingnut Network. Ten podcasts, one network. Check them out. BibleThumpingWingnut .com.

Alright, so those are all the other podcasts that are on our network. I want to encourage everybody to check them out. Go to the website, make a profile. A friend requests us. The website's very interactive.

Check out the blogs. We write blogs as well. But as I said, let's just go ahead and jump into today's topic. So, Tim, what are we going to be looking at with regards to Roman Catholicism and Mother Mary today?

The Roman Catholic View of Mary’s Perpetual Virginity

Okay, today what we're going to focus on is the perpetual virginity of Mary. And it's important for us to define what we mean by that. All people who claim to be Christians typically would agree that Mary was a virgin at Christ's conception.

And she remained a virgin until Christ was born.

And.

The scriptural support for that is that in Matthew 1 .18, Luke 1 .27 -34, these are the ones that talk about the Old Testament prophesied that a virgin shall be with child. And Luke 1 .27 -34 is when the angel Gabriel visited with Mary and announced that she was going to be having a Christ child.

And she responded, how can this be since I do not know a man?

So,.

The position from scriptures is that Mary was a virgin when she conceived. And as the scriptures also say later, Joseph did not know her until after Christ was born. And so we know that she remained a virgin until Christ was born.

Now, what's important to understand about the Roman Catholic view of the virginity of Mary is that they believe that she was a virgin before Christ was born, then remained a virgin throughout her whole life, and that is that she didn't have any other children.

And then, finally,.

That, and this is the one that we're really going to focus on today, is that she, that they believe that she remained a virgin during Christ's birth. That is, so there's pre-partum, which is prior to Christ's birth, post-partum, which is after Christ's birth, and then there's the virginity in part two, which is during the delivery of Christ.

And what's important to understand at this point is that Roman Catholics believe that when Mary delivered.

Christ,.

Her physical virginity was not compromised. In other words, there was no opening of the womb, there was no tearing of the flesh, that Jesus miraculously came out completely without compromising Mary's physical virginity.

And we're going to really focus on that today, because that's a very important part of our study on Mary in this series, is that we have to ask, when did this idea come up, that Mary was, remained a virgin even in childbirth?

And what we'll find is that.

This.

Idea that she was, she remained a virgin even in childbirth actually comes from a second century document called the Proto-Evangelium of James, or the Proto-Gospel of James, and it is not canonical and it's not apostolic, and in fact I would suggest that it's even Gnostic, because it actually has Jesus just coming through Mary in a flash of light and just showing up in her arms.

Without.

Anything happening to Mary, and it's almost, what we'll find is some of the early church writers considered that to be a docetic or Gnostic position, and that is that this idea that Jesus was just a phantom, and this idea that he could pass through Mary without compromising her virginity suggested the Gnostic position, that he was just a phantom to begin with, and he never really took on a body.

And when we get to Tertullian, we're going to have him arguing against the position that Jesus was just a phantom by accentuating the fact that she did suffer in childbirth and there was tearing of the flesh when Christ was born, because Christ's birth was perfectly natural.

So that's where we are. We're not going to focus a lot on pre-partum, because everybody's going to agree to that, although there's people out there that claim that maybe Mary wasn't even a virgin prior to Christ's birth and prior to conception, but we won't go there.

The Scripture is very clear on this, that Mary was a virgin when she conceived.

So.

What I wanted to focus on is that although there are some writings from the 2nd century that are not apostolic, this idea that Mary was a virgin before, during, and after Christ's birth,.

The whole.

Package of perpetual ever-virginity, or they call Mary ever-virgin, that's what they mean by that. We would say Mary was a virgin, and Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, and we all know what we mean by that.

Roman Catholics would refer to Mary and give her the title as ever-virgin, and that is that she was a virgin always at all times, before, during, and after the delivery of Christ. But what we find is that this does not become settled until the latter part of the 4th century.

We've gone through this before with so many other Roman Catholic teachings, and today we're going to hit another one that it doesn't really resolve to a doctrine of the faith until the latter part of the 4th century, and when it does, it's based on these apocryphal documents that even Roman Catholic apologists acknowledge are not apostolic.

So we ready to go with Mary's perpetual virginity?

Yeah, let's jump into it. I'm just thinking, I've already said some things that I didn't know about the virginity, I guess, with regards to when Christ was born, so yeah, I'm already learning a lot. Let's just jump into it.

Well, so yeah, it's important to keep that in mind, is that we may find ourselves in agreement with Roman Catholics that Christ was born of a virgin, but what they mean by that is something different than what we mean by it.

We believe that she was a virgin all the way up until delivery, and then when she delivered Christ, it was perfectly normal, and Christ opened her womb, and it was a perfect, she had childbirth pain, just like everybody else, and every other woman that's ever had a child, and it was a perfectly normal delivery.

In fact, what we find when we get to some of the early writers, is that they considered that evidence, or their belief in that, was because they believed Jesus came all the way down. He didn't just come part way, He became, He truly became a man, and truly was born of a woman, and when we read some of the early writers, church fathers, they'll talk about that His delivery through Mary was almost as painful as His death, because He had to open her womb, and it was painful for Him, because He had to squeeze through.

I've never given birth to a child, I know that my wife, her last child was without an epidural, and so she knows exactly what that's like, and I know that when a child opens the womb, it really is a big deal for that child, because He's the first one through, and can really compress the skull, which is, when my son Tanner was born, he opened, he was the first to open my wife's womb, and his head looked like a sausage when it came out,.

Because it was just,.

This is just what it's like, and the early writers recognized this, and what we'll find to our surprise is that they had to back off that. Some in the latter part of the 4th century had to change their story in a hurry once they realized that a new doctrine had come up, that Mary was a virgin, even in part two.

So, I want to give an example, this is what you typically find, and I find this a lot with Roman Catholic apologists, is they'll always talk about, well, yes, this has always been taught by the Church, why as recently as the late 4th century, we have this X, Y, and Z, and we find this, there's an outfit called Biblical Catholic Apologetics, and in their article on Mary virgin and ever virgin, they have this statement under the subtitle, The Constant Faith of the Church, and this is the statement, Great Teachers of the Church from at least the 4th century spoke of Mary as having remained a virgin throughout her life.

And I think that's, it's almost comical, when you realize how often Roman Catholics have to make that point, why as recently as the late 4th century, this, that, or the other. And this is just one more thing, it's one more novelty from the latter part of the 4th century that Roman Catholics have tried to purvey upon the world as an apostolic doctrine, but if you can't trace it back earlier than the latter part of the 4th century, then not only is it not apostolic, but it's also misleading to say it was the Constant Faith of the Church, and what we'll find as we go through, is that it was not the Constant Faith of the Church.

And just to give you.

Some examples, this biblical Catholic apologetics page says, well look, we have Athanasius, Epiphanius, Jerome, Augustine, and Cyril of Alexandria. Well, all of these are from the late 4th century, you know.

That's their evidence for Mary being a virgin pre-partum, in part two, and post-partum. And even then, you'll find that not all of them agreed that Mary remained a virgin in part two. It's a very, I mean, among the Roman Catholic teachings that are allegedly apostolic, this is one of the most confounded and confused and torturous.

Arguments.

That they make, because everybody they turn to, in some way, disagrees with what the actual doctrine is. Now, in some webpages, you're going to come across people say, well, Irenaeus believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary.

And I want to return now, and it's very important, that we draw on established Roman Catholic experts in Mariology to talk about what they themselves have acknowledged. You remember last week, when we talked about the Immaculate Conception, we drew on Juniper Carroll, and also Ola Thorne, as well.

Both were very well respected Roman Catholic Mariologists, and they would agree that there's no real solid evidence for Mary's immaculacy or sinlessness until the latter part of the 4th century. In fact, they say that 377 AD was a turning point in the West where Ambrose had introduced a novelty, but at last they said, well, we can trace it to Ambrose, and therefore it must not have a new...

And the same thing here is that, well, we can trace this to the latter part of the 4th century, and therefore it must be apostolic. And that's a huge logical leap, and it's one that often even educated evangelicals fall for, say, wow, if we can trace it to the latter part of the 4th century, it must be true.

Well, I would say to the contrary, if you can only trace it to the latter part of the 4th century, then it's a novelty and it's not apostolic. But Juniper Carroll, when he is writing on the patristic tradition concerning Mary's virginity, he says, according to those authentic writings of his which have come down to us, there is nothing in these translated passages to show that Irenaeus held the permanence of Mary's virginity.

So here you have a Roman Catholic Mariologist, a scholar in Mariology, and he's saying, you know what, I know some people are out there saying that Irenaeus, who died in 202 A .D., so he's really a 2nd century, early 3rd century scholar, patristic writer, Juniper Carroll says, you know what, we've looked at this and we just don't find anything compelling in Irenaeus to say that he held to Mary's perpetual virginity.

So there are some who say that Origen, and he's also 2nd century, mid 3rd century, so I would guess that his writings are all from really the 3rd century, since he was born in 185,.

But.

He has been brought forth as evidence that Mary didn't have any other children after Jesus. And what's interesting here is that he draws on apocryphal works, and apocryphal are basically works that are not received in the canon of the Scriptures, are not recognized by anybody as canonical, and they are, in this case, we're talking about the Gospel according to Peter, and the Proto-Evangelium of James.

And this is something that's very interesting. This is Origen in his Commentary on Matthew, Book 10, Chapter 17. And he appeals to the Gospel according to Peter, and the Book of James, or the Proto-Evangelium of James, to support the theory that the brethren of Jesus were actually sons of Joseph by a former marriage.

And the story here is that Mary was a consecrated virgin, that she had pledged herself to virginity from an early age, and she knew that she was not going to marry, and was not going to know a man. And so Roman Catholics sometimes will fall back on this, to say that when Mary said to Gabriel, how can this be, since I do not know a man?

And to her vow of celibacy. This third century, and he says, but some say, basing it on a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled, or the Book of James, that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife whom he married before Mary.

And he.

Says,.

Well, I think this is in harmony with reason. And he says, well, it doesn't make sense to me.

That.

Mary would know intercourse with a man after the Holy Ghost came into her. That is, the Holy Ghost had basically become espoused to her, and therefore she's taken.

From,.

She's off the market, in other words. So it just makes sense that she wouldn't have another,.

That.

She wouldn't actually be married and know a man.

And, you know,.

Or just, well, this seems in harmony with reason, but he's still just appealing to tradition and not to recognize Scriptures. But we're going to come back to the proto-evangelium of James a little bit later, because Juniper Carroll has some things to say about it.

But what I want to highlight is that Origen did not believe that Mary's virginity was preserved in childbirth. So even if we have Origen even giving credence, and the words he actually says in his commentary on Matthew are not really really, you know, emphatic praise of these sources.

He just says, well, there's some people that say this, and it seems to me reasonable, but he doesn't seem, he doesn't convey to this as if it's some received apostolic doctrine. He just says, well, hmm, I thought about it, and it seems to make sense.

But no sense that he'd actually received this as an apostolic truth. But later in another work, and this is his homilies on Luke, homily 14, paragraph 7 to 8, he actually says that Jesus' birth was normal, and that in the case he says, in the case of every other woman, it is not the birth of an infant, but intercourse with a man that opens the womb.

But the womb of the Lord's mother was opened at the time when her offspring was brought forth. So he's, here Origen is saying that what normally would happen to a virgin on her wedding night is what happened to Mary when Christ was born.

So he's actually, here Origen is saying that Mary's virginity was compromised in delivery. So even if he believed that maybe Mary didn't have other, didn't have sex after Christ was born, he still believed that his birth was normal, and that Mary's womb was opened by his delivery.

And that's the very thing that Roman Catholics denied. They would say that her virginity was preserved in part two. But what's interesting, to go back to Juniper Carroll, regarding the Gospel of Peter and the Proto-Evangelium of James, this is what he says.

He says,.

Objectivity characteristic of the transmission of a doctrine that is authentically apostolic in origin. So, now keep in mind that this is Juniper Carroll, who is the preeminent Mariologist of Roman Catholicism.

He said, listen, I know that Origen appealed to them, but there's nothing in them that could even be stretched to the level of apostolicity.

And therefore,.

We just simply can't look at that and assume that they had transmitted an apostolic doctrine. And what's more, Origen didn't believe that Mary was a virgin in part two. And Roman Catholic doctrine requires all three, pre-partum, in part two, and post-partum.

So, do you see how, you know, as much as people would love to find some evidence, as much as Roman Catholics would love to find evidence of this, before Nicaea, they really don't find evidence of the doctrine taking hold until the latter part of the fourth century.

And what you find is an amalgamation of all these different writers who had different views on it.

And, or.

If they had a view that, say, Mary was a virgin in part two, and we're going to get to Clement of Alexandria in a second, what we'll find is that the text is compromised, and we don't really have any evidence that, we aren't really sure that this is something that Clement wrote.

So, are you with me so far?

Yeah, I'm with you. I'm going along with you on your notes. I see that you're on number two now, and I know that you're pressed for time. So, folks, I'm just going to sit back today and let Tim run the show.

But, you know, I'll just make this one comment. You said that they can't find any evidence to support their claims prior to the fourth century, but what it sounds like you're saying, and what we're going to continue to show is that there's actually evidence to the contrary.

So, it's not just that, hey, they can't go past the, they can't go further back than the fourth century. It's that when you do go back further than the fourth century, you find all these individuals saying the exact opposite of what they want them to say.

Yeah, that's right. You find this consistently. When we covered, when we did our series on the sacrifice of the Mass, what we found prior to the latter part of the fourth century is that when they talked about bread and wine being offered, it was in the context of Philippians 4 .18 where when we provide, we meet the needs of the fellow saints with the bread and wine that people have brought together as the tithe or to bring to the church with such sacrifices, the Lord is well pleased.

That's what Paul wrote in Philippians 4 .18, but you don't get the sense that they were actually turning the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ and then sacrificing Christ's body and blood to God.

Not until the latter part of the fourth century. With the Immaculate Conception, you have these people talking about the sinfulness of Mary, and the Catholic Encyclopedia just writes that off as, well, that's just stray private opinion, but it was the constant faith of the church that the Pius IX said in his infallible proclamation.

And what we find is the very opposite is what we find in the early churches that thought that Mary was sinful. And here what we're finding is that there was no sense that Mary, no apostolic sense that Mary was.

Both.

A virgin in childbirth.

And.

Afterward. In other words, there's no sense that she was an ever virgin, which is a very late development. So one piece of evidence that they would use is Clement of Alexandria. And so Clement of Alexandria, this is from Clement of Alexandria, this is from the Stromata Book 7, Chapter 16.

And here's what he writes. It says, but as appears many even down to our own time regard Mary on account of the birth of her child as having been in the puerperal state, that is the state.

Of.

Childbirth that involves the pain and the travail. Although she was not. That's what he says. Although she was not. For some say that after she brought forth, she was found when examined to be a virgin.

So this is Clement of Alexandria.

And.

It's possible that he's referring to the proto-evangelium of James. Now, this is what's interesting. Juniper Carroll again, referring to this particular citation from Clement of Alexandria. It says, the problem is that the citation of Clement of Alexandria on her perpetual virginity comes from an unreliable source.

He says, we cannot absolutely rely on this text since it is a 6th century translated adaptation into Latin by Cassiodorus with the expressed intention of expurgating anything that might be offensive. In other words, this is from the 6th century.

It's a translation of Clement's works and the author explicitly states that he's expurgating anything that might be considered offensive. So we can't really know. I mean, this is a Latin adaptation 3 centuries removed from Clement of Alexandria.

And so, we don't.

Even have evidence that this is really a reliable source. So again, with Roman Catholics, it's often, well, we don't know for sure who wrote this or we don't know when it was written or like we talked about last week when Steve Ray actually put Hestias of Jerusalem in 300 AD and it turns out the Catholic Encyclopedia says we really don't know much about him but he's probably from the 5th century.

You keep on finding this questionable data from Roman Catholics.

And their.

Goal is to get us to overlook a 300 year gap between the Apostles and their teachings. Sorry, between the Apostles and Roman Catholic teachings. And many Roman Catholics fall for this and we've talked about this on many different podcasts.

That too many.

Protestants and Evangelicals are willing to just grant to Roman Catholicism that 300 year assumption. Say, if it was taught in the latter part of the 4th century then that must have been something that was continuous from the Apostles.

Whereas there's another option. That other option is that this is a novelty and the early church did not agree with it. So, another example is that people will appeal to the Nicene Creed because the Nicene Creed would refer to Christ was born of Mary ever virgin.

Okay, so the Nicene Creed is 320. The Nicene Council was from 325 AD. The problem is that the original council made no mention of Mary being ever virgin. That is continuously a virgin in all phases of life.

And that's not really until like 2nd Constantinople the 2nd Council of Constantinople in the 6th century when we start seeing Mary ever virgin being used in the councils. And so the Nicene Creed that states Christ was born of Mary ever virgin is actually.

Late.

4th century or even early 5th century. It's not something that came from.

The Nicene Council.

Some folks would also say, well Athanasius was at Nicaea and he used the term ever virgin. Well, it's true that Athanasius used the term ever virgin, but he does not use that until 360 AD in his Discourses Against the Arians as Discourse 2, Chapter 70.

Again, late 4th century. Have you noticed that no matter how hard they try, they always end up in the late 4th century. And they might say, well, Athanasius believed it. And I say, I don't care. Athanasius isn't enough to persuade me.

You know, what matters.

Is, is it true? Is it true? Is it apostolic? Just because Athanasius believed it doesn't matter to me.

That response is gold. Oh, well, I don't care.

That's good. Stop trying to, you know, I'm pulling back the curtain saying, look, the early church didn't agree with this. But late 4th century, late 4th century, come on. You gotta give us the last 300 years, okay?

We can get you to the late 4th century working backwards from now and you just have to give us the last 300 years. I'm not going to. The early church didn't agree with this nonsense and Roman Catholics have been trying to, you know, trying to fool people saying, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and just accept that this must be true because if we can trace it back to the latter part of the 4th century then it must be true.

And where they trace it back further.

It's from.

The Proto-Evangelium of James 2nd century. And the reason I would although it's not typically classified as a docetic or Gnostic document. Docetism comes from the Greek word for phantom, where there was a heresy that Jesus had not actually taken flesh but he had actually come into the world as a phantom and a ghost or a spirit that never actually had a body.

And.

If you remember in our discussion on the sacrifice of the mass, the early church they looked at the bread and the wine.

They said.

That Jesus would never have used elements of this earth, like the bread and the wine as a figure for his body unless there had truly been a body right? So they used the elements to say, wow, he said this is my body.

He must have really become flesh and blood like us. They didn't look at it and say, oh, he really meant this is my body.

And so what.

You find in the early church is that you have the early writers arguing against the Gnostics and the Docetists saying Jesus really took on flesh he really took on a body. That's why he said this is my body, this is my blood and Mary really did have childbirth pains because we know Jesus really had a body and therefore to come through Mary he must have had she must have had childbirth pains because Jesus had a body.

Now, I want to now turn to Roman Catholic Apologist James Aiken because he's got a video on YouTube and I would recommend that people watch this. It's only three minutes long but it's very telling.

It's.

Called How Did the Church Fathers Explain the Perpetual Virginity of Mary and if you just type in James Aiken, Catholic Answers Perpetual Virginity of Mary, you'll come across a YouTube video. Like I said it's just a little bit more than three minutes long and he says, okay we have two sources.

One is the apocryphal Proto-Evangelium of James, second century probably about 150 A .D. and that's the one that says Joseph became a guardian of Mary who was a consecrated virgin and that the brethren of Christ were from Joseph's previous marriage.

So Joseph had been married before and he just took on Mary as more like, he was a caretaker he was just a custodian in other words and Mary was the consecrated virgin and then Joseph just took her on into his custody to care for her and as the story goes on there's a when Joseph brings Mary to Jerusalem to give birth there's a flash of light and next thing you know Mary is holding Jesus in her arms and he's taking her breast and beginning to nurse and it's just.

Well there you go.

Mary's virginity was preserved in part to you. It says it right there in the Proto-Evangelium of James. In fact in the story, and people can look this up online it's very easy to find. If you just search for the Proto-Gospel of James or Proto-Evangelium of James you'll find it but it's just not written in a sense that is credible and it certainly isn't apostolic.

But it turns out that the the midwife is there as well. She's not there in the scriptural narratives but she is in this one and she doesn't believe it. She goes and checks and then because the midwife checks Mary to verify that she's still a virgin her hand then withers and she has to pray to God to repent because she questions the holiness of Mary.

It's all silly nonsense and yet this is what James Aiken the Roman Catholic Apologist is using. Well we have the Proto-Evangelium of James then he says but we also have Jerome from the late 4th century and Jerome took a different view.

He said the brethren of Christ are not step-brothers and sisters but they're actually cousins. They're not actual brothers. They're just cousins. They're near relations but they're not brethren by.

Mary.

Hey Tim before you get into that I just have one real quick question. Hopefully it won't complicate things too much but just for the sake of clarity when you say the Proto-Evangelium of James and you're talking about the Apocrypha real quick that would mean that these books are included in the Roman Catholic Bible.

Is that correct?

No, no. See these are there's an Apocrypha like 1st and 2nd Maccabees that sort of thing that is included.

Right and that's what I'm thinking about. So this is different.

There are books that are apocryphal that even Roman Catholics would agree that they're not in the Bible.

Ok, ok, ok.

So the Gospel of James and the Gospel of Peter, Roman Catholics do not regard them as scripture either. And so as you can see they're stretching quite a bit to get to.

They're stretching a lot tremendously.

So what's interesting is that James Aiken gives us two possible sources for the antiquity of this doctrine. The first is the Proto-Evangelium of James that even Roman Catholics agree is not scriptural.

They say well but the idea was there and that shows you something. I say well it just shows me the idea was there. There's also other ideas that Jesus did not take on a body. But what's really interesting what we find is that by the time we get by the time we get to Jerome who believed originally that Jesus' birth was perfectly normal he eventually changes his tune and starts adopting a view more consistent with the Proto-Evangelium of James.

But we'll get to Jerome in just a second but at least his turn from one position to another. But what's interesting about when James Aiken gives us two possibilities. He says there's the Proto-Evangelium of James from the 2nd century and then there's Jerome who had the theory that Christ's brethren in the scriptures are actually cousins and not actual brothers.

The problem is and this is from 383 AD this is late 4th century.