A Deeper Dive Response to James Swan’s “ Luther Believed in Mary's Perpetual Virginity?”

Man's value before God is estimated by the dispositions of his heart, its uprightness, its goodwill, its charity, and not by the keenness of intellect or extent of knowledge.

 ~Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich

Part One:       Introduction.

            Catholic apologists are often called upon by Protestants to defend the Church’s teachings on Mary.  When they point out as a part of their defense of Marian doctrines that Martin Luther and other Reformers affirmed many of them, Protestant polemicists like James Swan do everything they can to rationalize away the views of the Reformers on Mary that they shared with  Catholics.  An article recently written by Swan, entitled "Luther Believed in Mary's Perpetual Virginity?" is an example of this kind of casuistry.  Swan argues Catholic apologists are wrong to quote Martin Luther in support of the doctrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary's perpetual virginity (also called Mary ever-virgin or Mary Aeiparthenos) claiming that Luther's views differ from the Catholic view.  To make sure the reader knows how Luther feels about Catholics, he intersperses his assertion with a generous helping of Luther's anti-papist rhetoric.  Swan then takes the fallback position that even if Luther did agree with Catholics on the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity, he was wrong.  Swan asserts that modern Protestants are correct to deny the doctrine based on the development of Protestant doctrine since Luther’s day. 

            Some preliminary observations:  In his usual style, Swan pretends that Protestants are all of one mind on the subject ignoring the fact many Protestants do believe in the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.  Also, he references several historians on how the Catholic faith caused the doctrine to grow instead of explaining the importance of the doctrine.  Added to that, Swan cites to a quote by Martin Luther from That Jesus Was Born a Jew that is suggestive that Catholics do not know themselves why they believe in the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity.

         While David Armstrong, a noted Catholic apologist, has responded to  Swan's article highlighting Swan's rhetorical flim-flam, I decided to offer a response for two reasons.  I was intrigued by Swan's assertion that the principle of the development of doctrine is not the sole property of Catholics and his articulation of the  Protestant version of that principle.  I thought worthwhile to compare and contrast the Protestant notion of the development of doctrine against the Catholic form. 

           I also thought it would be fruitful to discuss why the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity is theologically important to Catholics.  Catholic and Protestant apologists and scholars often debate the question of whether Mary was a virgin before, during, and after the birth of Jesus Christ without discussing why the subject should even matter to Christians.  As we shall see, such discussions devolve into indeterminable battles over the meaning of specific Bible passages and of certain Greek words such as heos hou (until) and adelphos (brethren) ignoring the elephant in the room about whether Greek was the original language of the Gospels.  While such debates do serve a critical purpose, I sometimes feel that we lose sight of the forest for the trees.  Hence, I thought to offer my perspective on the matter.

 Part Two: Development of Doctrine or Development of a Dodge?

            In his article, Swan says this about the Catholic understanding of the development of doctrine:

Yes, it's true Luther adhered to Mary's perpetual virginity,  but, it's important to realize this convert has assumed the overarching context of a Roman Catholic historical interpretive paradigm. Many of Rome's defenders use a basic historical narrative: the early church testifies to their beliefs only, those who don't are exceptions or heretics, if particulars of the early church don't quite fit their narrative, "development of doctrine" is brought in to smooth the rough edges over.

 In contrast, Swan describes his version of the development of doctrine principle:

                       This may be shocking to some Protestants: development of doctrine is not the sole property of Rome. For Protestants, doctrine also develops, but the guiding force that drives it is the Bible itself. It's not the outside influence of "Tradition" or an infallible outside source that solidifies it. The very Word of God has a rich depth that confronts each generation. Each generation produces keen minds that delve into the original languages of the Bible, analyzing the textual tradition, comparing scripture with scripture, challenge previous interpretations. If tradition plays a role, it's the role of being uncovered and rooted out if it's working as an interpretive blinder or force keeping the meaning of a biblical text shrouded. When Luther relies on an interpretive tradition to interpret the word "until" in his argumentation for perpetual virginity, or that "brothers" means "cousins," that interpretive tradition is to be called out, thrown on the table, and scrutinized closely, as the biblical discussions about the heos hou / ἕως ο  construction demonstrate. [Emphasis Added.]

            Swan concludes:

This discussion only begins to scratch the surface. Wrangling with Rome's defenders over whose version of church history is correct and who determines the development of doctrine is opening a Pandora's box discussion in which one will eventually grow weary or at some point run, as fast as one can, for any door of escape. If you find yourself confronted by quotes from Luther sounding blatantly Roman Catholic and confusingly un-Protestant, there is a simple solution.  Say, yes the quotes from Luther are different from the way Protestants think today, however, Luther himself didn't want his readers to follow him. He directed people back to the Scriptures.

            Contrary to what Mr. Swan says above, Catholics do not advance the development of doctrine just to “smooth the rough edges over” when it comes to what we believe.  Catholics view the development of doctrine as an organic principle that living things grow to demonstrate that what we believe today embodies, has grown out of, is in continuity with, and flows out of the deposit of faith that Church has passed down to us from the Apostles.  Catholics rely on the principle of the development of doctrine to show what is being taught in the Church today is a fuller understanding of God's revelation revealed in His written Word and Tradition.  We seek to demonstrate that our teachings conform to what has been passed down from the Apostles.  It provides us a way of knowing what we believe comes from God, not something we just made up ourselves.  

Swan does not see the development of doctrine as an organic principle.  Swan sees the notion of the development of doctrine as a liberating process that allows each successive generation of keen-minded people to re-evaluate the Church's interpretation and teaching of God's word and discard whatever teachings or interpretations they find disagreeable.  In Swan's world view, Tradition is something to be avoided or dodged because he sees it as something that obscures the word of God instead of illuminating it to provide a fuller meaning of truth.  In opposition to a historical interpretative paradigm, Swan offers us is a “keen mind” paradigm.

Swan's notion of the development of doctrine is a weapon to strip away the fuller meaning of doctrines that have grown and matured.  Instead of accepting what has been handed down, the believer is free to take any teachings they do not like and toss them on the dung heap. So what if Martin Luther believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary?  If someone is one of those keen minds Swan talks about, they can choose to ascribe a different meaning to heos hou or adelphos than what millions of Christians understood the words to mean over the previous 1500 years before the Re-formation.  The believer is free to create new narratives and deflower Mary at any point in her life they want as along the narrative fits what they think the Bible says.  Does this notion sound like the way God chooses to reveal Himself to His people?   

            I would suggest that Swan’s definition of “development” is novel and pretty much runs counter to the plain meaning of the word.  It is not merely one of those supposed amphiboles a former contributor to Beggars All would often harp on; it is plain wrong.  Frankly, I learned that words are supposed to mean something, not whatever I would like them to mean.  However, then again, I am a Catholic, not Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass:

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’”

That said, I do acknowledge that Swan would not likely consider me to be one of those keen minds.  However, based on his notion of the development of doctrine, Swan probably does not think that Luther is one of those keen minds either.  After all, Luther agrees with me that Mary is ever-virgin too.  

Swan states that the notion of the development of doctrine is not the sole property of Rome.  That may be true, but I like our piece of real estate much better than his.  Ours is one I can live on. 

Part Three:    Finding a Rhyme for Paradigm.  
                                                                                                     

            Rhetorical jousting aside, it might be helpful for our Protestant friends who read James Swan's blog, Beggars All,  to share what I understand the Catholic Church's   "historical interpretative paradigm," to be.  Swan does not bother to explain it, just like he never really explains anything the Catholic Church teaches.  Thus, it might be helpful to articulate what I understand the Catholic Church's teaching to be and why its understanding of the development of doctrine is biblically-based. 

Simply put, the historical interpretive paradigm of the Catholic Church consists of three parts: Scriptures, Tradition, and Magisterium.  The Catholic Church is not a "Bible alone" Church.  Our faith is in the Word of God, Who is a person, not just a book; even the Holy-Spirit inspired Scriptures.  The Church preached the Gospel message before it wrote it down.  Catholics believe that the Scriptures cannot be fully understood except when reading it within the Tradition of the Church.  We believe there is an inseparable relationship between Scripture and Tradition, which is the word of God revealed to the living community of the Church.  These two inseparable sources mirror each other and form one sacred deposit of faith.  It is entrusted to the Church to transmit this sacred deposit to each successive generation of Christians. (Dei Verbum 7-8).   The Magisterium, or the teaching office of the Church, is the servant of the word of God, teaching “only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit.”  For a great discussion on what Tradition is, I would suggest that folks read Dave Armstrong’s  Vs. Pasqualucci Re Vatican II #7: Dei Verbum & Tradition.

            In the Catholic historical interpretative paradigm, it is this teaching office of the Church that transmits the faith to believers. Here is what the Bible says about the transmission of  teaching:

“He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you [the disciples] rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” (Lk. 10:16 RSVCE)

“But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.  So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.  (2 Thess 2:15 RSVCE) (Emphasis Added).

“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”  For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”  (1 Cor. 11:23-25 RSVCE) (Emphasis Added).

“Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus;  guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.”  (2 Tim. 1:13-14 RSVCE)

“You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Tim 2:1-2 RSVCE) 

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation  through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of  God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:14-17 RSVCE).

But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?  And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!” But they have not all heeded the gospel; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?”  So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.  (Rom. 10:14-17 RSVCE)

            Now compare the above Scripture passages with what the Catholic Church teaches: 

                        8.         And so the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved by an unending succession of preachers until the end of time. Therefore the Apostles, handing on what they themselves had received, warn the faithful to hold fast to the traditions which they have learned either by word of mouth or by letter (see 2 Thess. 2:15), and to fight in defense of the faith handed on once and for all (see Jude 1:3).  Now what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes.  (Dei Verbum 8)

Does Swan’s keen mind paradigm that he outlined above seem closer to what the Scriptures say, or does the Catholic historical interpretative paradigm which he denigrates?  I would submit that the Catholic paradigm mirrors the way Tradition is to be handed down.  

            We must now consider how the principle of the development of doctrine fits into the Catholic interpretative paradigm:

This tradition, which comes from the Apostles, develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit.  For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (see Luke, 2:19, 51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her.  (Dei Verbum 8)   [Emphasis added; footnotes omitted.]

As stated before, the "development of doctrine" is an organic principle.  As faith grows from a mustard seed into a tree (Mt. 13:31-32), so does our understanding of our faith grow.  Development of doctrine is nothing less than the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Life itself,  working in the Church to achieve a"penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities”  which the Church experiences “through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth.”  It the growing “realization of  the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her."  (Dei Verbum, Ibid.).                                                                          

            Lest anyone thinks that this understanding of the development of doctrine is a new development in the Church’s teaching, here is what St. Vincent of Lerins writes in Chapter 23 of his Commonitory (5^th Century AD): 

                        On Development in Religious Knowledge.

                                                [54.      But some one will say, perhaps, Shall there, then, be no progress in Christ's Church? Certainly; all possible progress. For what being is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it? Yet on condition that it be real progress, not alteration of the faith. For progress requires that the subject be enlarged n itself, alteration, that it be transformed into something else. The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning.  

                                                [55.]    The growth of religion in the soul must be analogous to the growth of the body, which, though in process of years it is developed and attains its full size, yet remains still the same. There is a wide difference between the flower of youth and the maturity of age; yet they who were once young are still the same now that they have become old, insomuch that though the stature and outward form of the individual are changed, yet his nature is one and the same, his person is one and the same. An infant's limbs are small, a young man's large, yet the infant and the young man are the same. Men when full grown have the same number of joints that they had when children; and if there be any to which maturer age has given birth these were already present in embryo, so that nothing new is produced in them when old which was not already latent in them when children. This, then, is undoubtedly the true and legitimate rule of progress, this the established and most beautiful order of growth, that mature age ever develops in the man those parts and forms which the wisdom of the Creator had already framed beforehand in the infant. Whereas, if the human form were changed into some shape belonging to another kind, or at any rate, if the number of its limbs were increased or diminished, the result would be that the whole body would become either a wreck or a monster, or, at the least, would be impaired and enfeebled.

                                                [56.]    In like manner, it behooves Christian doctrine to follow the same laws of progress, so as to be consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age, and yet, withal, to continue uncorrupt and unadulterate, complete and perfect in all the measurement of its parts, and, so to speak, in all its proper members and senses, admitting no change, no waste of its distinctive property, no variation in its limits.

                                                [57.]    For example: Our forefathers in the old time sowed wheat in the Church's field. It would be most unmeet and iniquitous if we, their descendants, instead of the genuine truth of grain, should reap the counterfeit error of tares. This rather should be the result — there should be no discrepancy between the first and the last. From doctrine which was sown as wheat, we should reap, in the increase, doctrine of the same kind — wheat also; so that when in process of time any of the original seed is developed, and now flourishes under cultivation, no change may ensue in the character of the plant. There may supervene shape, form, variation in outward appearance, but the nature of each kind must remain the same. God forbid that those rose-beds of Catholic interpretation should be converted into thorns and thistles. God forbid that in that spiritual paradise from plants of cinnamon and balsam, darnel and wolfsbane should of a sudden shoot forth.

Therefore, whatever has been sown by the fidelity of the Fathers in this husbandry of God's Church, the same ought to be cultivated and taken care of by the industry of their children, the same ought to flourish and ripen, the same ought to advance and go forward to perfection. For it is right that those ancient doctrines of heavenly philosophy should, as time goes on, be cared for, smoothed, polished; but not that they should be changed, not that they should be maimed, not that they should be mutilated. They may receive proof, illustration, definiteness; but they must retain withal their completeness, their integrity, their characteristic properties. [Emphasis Added.]

            And here is what St. Vincent says about the kind of teaching that James Swan propounds by his keen mind paradigm:

                                                [58.]    For if once this license of impious fraud be admitted, I dread to say in how great danger religion will be of being utterly destroyed and annihilated. For if any one part of Catholic truth be given up, another, and another, and another will thenceforward be given up as a matter of course, and the several individual portions having been rejected, what will follow in the end but the rejection of the whole? On the other hand, if what is new begins to be mingled with what is old, foreign with domestic, profane with sacred, the custom will of necessity creep on universally, till at last the Church will have nothing left untampered with, nothing unadulterated, nothing sound, nothing pure; but where formerly there was a sanctuary of chaste and undefiled truth, thenceforward there will be a brothel of impious and base errors. May God's mercy avert this wickedness from the minds of his servants; be it rather the frenzy of the ungodly.

            Finally, St. Vincent discusses why the Church needs to develop its doctrines:

                                                [59.]    But the Church of Christ, the careful and watchful guardian of the doctrines deposited in her charge, never changes anything in them, never diminishes, never adds, does not cut off what is necessary, does not add what is superfluous, does not lose her own, does not appropriate what is another's, but while dealing faithfully and judiciously with ancient doctrine, keeps this one object carefully in view — if there be anything which antiquity has left shapeless and rudimentary, to fashion and polish it, if anything already reduced to shape and developed, to consolidate and strengthen it, if any already ratified and defined, to keep and guard it. Finally, what other object have Councils ever aimed at in their decrees, than to provide that what was before believed in simplicity should in future be believed intelligently, that what was before preached coldly should in future be preached earnestly, that what was before practised negligently should thenceforward be practised with double solicitude? This, I say, is what the Catholic Church, roused by the novelties of heretics, has accomplished by the decrees of her Councils — this, and nothing else — she has thenceforward consigned to posterity in writing what she had received from those of olden times only by tradition, comprising a great amount of matter in a few words, and often, for the better understanding, designating an old article of the faith by the characteristic of a new name.  (Emphasis Added).

            In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, St. John Henry Newman notes seven characteristics that can aid Christians in identifying what doctrine is a real development as opposed to the innovation of new doctrine or corruption of an older one.  Summarizing them, these characteristics are:

1.         Unity of Type:  Does the new teaching change underlying prior teaching?  Or to put the question another way, does an idea grow out of prior teaching?   

2.         Continuity of Principles:  Does a development continue or maintain the prior  principle to which it is related?  Does it continue or maintain one of the principles of   the Christian religion: dogma, faith, theology, sacraments, Scripture and its mystical    interpretation, grace, asceticism, the harm of sin, and the potential of matter to be sanctified?  

3.         Power of Assimilation:  Does the new understanding of the doctrine increase

understanding of the underlying doctrine?  Is it a consistent growth or more clearly define prior teaching?  Is it capable of incorporating the language and philosophy of the times?

             4.         Logical Sequence:  Is a doctrine the logical outcome of the original teaching?  

5.         The anticipation of Its Future:  Can the doctrine be seen as a corollary of the

previous one?  Is the doctrine somehow anticipated or implied by the original teaching?                                                

6.         Conservative Action:  Does the doctrine builds upon the doctrinal developments that precede it, clarifying and strengthening them so that it does not contradict or reverses another doctrinal development?

             7.         Chronic Vigor:  Does a doctrine maintain its life and vigor?  Does it increase faith?

The Catholic historical interpretative paradigm works to ensure that there is a coherence in the doctrines of the Church.  As doctrines grow, the development of doctrine anchors the doctrine to its underlying principle that does not change.  It provides the means to make sure that there is a real correspondence between them so that the new doctrine clarifies and protects the principle upon which is its foundation.  Thus, there are no new doctrines. Instead, there is only a fuller understanding of doctrines already held.   Mr. Swan's keen mind paradigm does not necessarily do any of these things.

            Why does doctrine need to develop?  As the Church grows, new situations arise that need clarity as St. Vincent teaches.  As James Swan admits, there is a rich depth to the word of God that confronts each generation.  The Bible is not explicit in everything it teaches.  The word Trinity, for example, is to be found nowhere in Scripture, yet we believe that God is a Trinity based on how the Scriptures are understood within the Tradition of the Church.  This fuller understanding is what has been handed down to us through the ages.

            Further, history reveals that doctrines often develop in response to various heresies or erroneous teaching that arise in the life of the Church.  For example, the doctrine developed in regards to the Incarnation as a response to the erroneous teachings of the Docetists, the Gnostics, Arius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutyches, the Monophysites, and the Monothelites.  Jesus asks all of us, "Who do you say I am? (Lk. 9:20)."  While the Scriptures state that the answer is Jesus is the Word made flesh and that Jesus is the Son of God (See, e.g., Prologue of the Gospel of John), what do those statements mean precisely?  Some, like the Docetists and the Gnostics, claimed Jesus was wholly divine and only had the appearance of a man or a superman.  Others, like the Arians, believed Jesus was a creature adopted as the Son of God.  The Apollinarians, on the other hand, believed the man Jesus was a creature that the Logos put on like a suit and was the creature's rational soul.  The  Nestorians held Jesus was a composite of two persons, each with their natures and that Mary was merely the mother of the person with a human nature. Then there were the Monophysites who believed that Jesus was a person who had a single nature that was a mixture of divine and human natures that had merged or were confused in some way.  The Monothelites were Monophysites who held that Jesus only had a divine will or if His human nature had a will, it was not free to cooperate with Christ’s divine will.  As a result of these many heresies, the dogma of the Incarnation developed over time in the history of the Church to explain more clearly, more fully, precisely who Christ is.  It was the result of the historical interpretative paradigm Swan disdains that we have this definition of the Person and natures of Jesus Christ from the Third Council of Constantinople (680-1 AD): 

                                    Following the five holy and universal synods and the holy and accepted fathers, and defining in unison, it professes our lord Jesus Christ our true God, one of the holy Trinity, which is of one same being and is the source of life, to be perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity, like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from the holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, who is properly and truly called mother of God, as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no separation, no division; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single subsistent being [in unam personam et in unam subsistentiam concurrente]; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, Word of God, lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as Jesus the Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the holy fathers handed it down to us.

And we proclaim equally two natural volitions or wills in him and two natural principles of action which undergo no division, no change, no partition, no confusion, in accordance with the teaching of the holy fathers. And the two natural wills not in opposition, as the impious heretics said, far from it, but his human will following, and not resisting or struggling, rather in fact subject to his divine and all powerful will. For the will of the flesh had to be moved, and yet to be subjected to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius. For just as his flesh is said to be and is flesh of the Word of God, so too the natural will of his flesh is said to and does belong to the Word of God, just as he says himself: I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me, calling his own will that of his flesh, since his flesh too became his own. For in the same way that his all holy and blameless animate flesh was not destroyed in being made divine but remained in its own limit and category, so his human will as well was not destroyed by being made divine, but rather was preserved, according to the theologian Gregory, who says: “For his willing, when he is considered as saviour, is not in opposition to God, being made divine in its entirety.” And we hold there to be two natural principles of action in the same Jesus Christ our lord and true God, which undergo no division, no change, no partition, no confusion, that is, a divine principle of action and a human principle of action, according to the godly-speaking Leo, who says most clearly: “For each form does in a communion with the other that activity which it possesses as its own, the Word working that which is the Word’s and the body accomplishing the things that are the body’s”. For of course we will not grant the existence of only a single natural principle of action of both God and creature, lest we raise what is made to the level of divine being, or indeed reduce what is most specifically proper to the divine nature to a level befitting creatures for we acknowledge that the miracles and the sufferings are of one and the same according to one or the other of the two natures out of which he is and in which he has his being, as the admirable Cyril said. Therefore, protecting on all sides the “no confusion” and "no division", we announce the whole in these brief words: Believing our Lord Jesus Christ, even after his incarnation, to be one of the Holy Trinity and our true God, we say that he has two natures [naturas] shining forth in his one subsistence [subsistentia] in which he demonstrated the miracles and the sufferings throughout his entire providential dwelling here, not in appearance but in truth, the difference of the natures being made known in the same one subsistence in that each nature wills and performs the things that are proper to it in a communion with the other; then in accord with this reasoning we hold that two natural wills and principles of action meet in correspondence for the salvation of the human race.

Contrast the above Christological definition with the variety of Christologies the  Protestant keen mind paradigm has brought us as the definitions at Chalcedon, and Constantinople III are gradually rejected by scholars who re-interpret the Scriptures to separate the historical Jesus from the Christ of faith.  Swan stated in his article that the way Luther thought is different from the way Protestants think today.  I agree and add that there is a wider theological gap between the theology of the Reformers and modern-day Protestants than there is between the Reformers and Catholics today, particularly when it comes to who Jesus Christ is.  The rejection of the doctrine of Mary ever-virgin is one piece of evidence of that.          

            Since the Catholic system of development of doctrine, is based on an organic principle, it does not reject or abandon doctrines  AFTER the Church receives them as truth.  A grown man cannot revert to becoming an infant again, no matter how keen he is or even if he wears a diaper and uses a pacifier.  Mr. Swan's admits that the Church acknowledged the truth of Mary as Aeiparthenos up to the time of Luther.  Mr. Swan's turning away from Mary's perpetual virginity is not a positive development of doctrine in any sense of the word, but a rejection of the doctrine that was handed down by the Church until modern times. 

It is here where Mr. Swan has a problem when it comes to denying that Jesus' mother was not a perpetual virgin.  What is the source of his particular tradition?  What is the foundational doctrinal principle it protects or preserves?  Can he point to any keen minds in the Church before the Reformation who held that Mary WAS NOT a Virgin after Jesus was born?  Swan quotes Luther to claim that Catholics are ignorant about why they believe in Mary's perpetual virginity, but he does not state why he believes what he does.  Is he ignorant of the theological principle behind his denial?

Part III:   “...[B]ut You Have Kept the Good Wine Until Now.” (John 2:10 RSVCE)  

            Martin Luther did believe in the dogma of Mary's perpetual virginity.  No matter how Swan argues the point, he cannot spin that fact.    What is truly remarkable is that Swan does not seem to have any idea as to why Luther believed in the doctrine in the first place.

            Perhaps he should have read That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew a bit closer rather than pulling a couple of anti-papistical quotes from it:

A new lie about me is being circulated. I am supposed to have preached and written that Mary, the mother of God, was not a virgin either before or after the birth of Christ, but that she conceived Christ through Joseph, and had more children after that. Above and beyond all this, I am supposed to have preached a new heresy, namely, that Christ was [through Joseph] the seed of Abraham. 

            Martin Luther here is certainly not denying in any way the doctrine of Mary’s virginity.  He is denouncing some folks who were apparently lying about Luther not believing in the doctrine which gives the real context to this Luther quote by James Swan:

            How these lies tickle my good friends, the papists! Indeed, because they condemn the gospel it serves them right that they should have to satisfy and feed their heart's delight and joy with lies. I would venture to wager my neck that none of those very liars who allege such great things in honor of the mother of God believes in his heart a single one of these articles. Yet with their lies they pretend that they are greatly concerned about the Christian faith.

Luther affirms his belief in the doctrine.  What he denies is that Catholics believe it.  After a couple of paragraphs of invective against Catholics for how they treat the Jewish people, Luther goes on to state the purpose of his letter-to tell us how real Christians should try to convert Jews and address arguments they make against the Incarnation when attempting to convert them.  One of those arguments is to deny Mary's virginity.  As in the early days of the Church, people attack the divinity of Christ by attacking His mother and her virginity:

Since for the sake of others, however, I am compelled to answer these lies, I thought I would also write something useful in addition, so that I do not vainly steal the reader's time with [200] such dirty rotten business. Therefore, I will cite from Scripture the reasons that move me to believe that Christ was a Jew born of a virgin, that I might perhaps also win some Jews to the Christian faith. Our fools, the popes, bishops, sophists, and monks - the crude asses' heads - have hitherto so treated the Jews that anyone who wished to be a good Christian would almost have had to become a Jew. If I had been a Jew and had seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the Christian faith, I would sooner have become a hog than a Christian.

They have dealt with the Jews as if they were dogs rather than human beings; they have done little else than deride them and seize their property. When they baptize them they show them nothing of Christian doctrine or life, but only subject them to popishness and monkery. When the Jews then see that Judaism has such strong support in Scripture, and that Christianity has become a mere babble without reliance on Scripture, how can they possibly compose themselves and become right good Christians? I have myself heard from pious baptized Jews that if they had not in our day heard the gospel they would have remained Jews under the cloak of Christianity for the rest of their days. For they acknowledge that they have never yet heard anything about Christ from those who baptized and taught them.

I hope that if one deals in a kindly way with the Jews and instructs them carefully from Holy Scripture, many of them will become genuine Christians and turn again to the faith of their fathers, the prophets and patriarchs. They will only be frightened further away from it if their Judaism is so utterly rejected that nothing is allowed to remain, and they are treated only with arrogance and scorn. If the apostles, who also were Jews, had dealt with us Gentiles as we Gentiles deal with the Jews, there would never have been a Christian among the Gentiles. Since they dealt with us Gentiles in such brotherly fashion, we in our turn ought to treat the Jews in a brotherly manner in order that [201] we might convert some of them. For even we ourselves are not yet all very far along, not to speak of having arrived.

When we are inclined to boast of our position we should remember that we are but Gentiles, while the Jews are of the lineage of Christ. We are aliens and in-laws; they are blood relatives, cousins, and brothers of our Lord. Therefore, if one is to boast of flesh and blood, the Jews are actually nearer to Christ than we are, as St. Paul says in Romans 9 [:5]. God has also demonstrated this by his acts, for to no nation among the Gentiles has he granted so high an honor as he has to the Jews. For from among the Gentiles there have been raised up no patriarchs, no apostles, no prophets, indeed, very few genuine Christians either. And although the gospel has been proclaimed to all the world, yet He committed the Holy Scriptures, that is, the law and the prophets, to no nation except the Jews, as Paul says in Romans 3[:2] and Psalm 147 [:19-20], "He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and ordinances to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation; nor revealed his ordinances to them."

Accordingly, I beg my dear papists, should they be growing weary of denouncing me as a heretic, to seize the opportunity of denouncing me as a Jew. Perhaps I may yet turn out to be also a Turk, or whatever else my fine gentlemen may wish.

            Then Luther begins his defense of Mary’s perpetual virginity by relating it to salvation history:              

Christ is promised for the first time soon after Adam's fall, when God said to the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall crush your head, and you shall bruise his heel" [Gen. 3:15]. Here I defer demonstrating that the serpent spoke possessed of the devil, for no dumb beast is so clever that it can utter or comprehend human speech, much less speak or inquire about such exalted matters as the commandment of God, as the serpent does here. Therefore, it must certainly have been a rational, highly intelligent, and mighty spirit which was able to utter human speech, deal so masterfully with God's commandments, and seize and employ human reason.

Since it is certain that a spirit is something higher than a [202] man, it is also certain that this is an evil spirit and an enemy of God, for it breaks God's commandment and acts contrary to his will. Therefore, it is undoubtedly the devil. And so the word of God which speaks of crushing the head must refer also to the devil's head; though not to the exclusion of the natural head of the serpent, for with a single word he speaks of both devil and serpent as of one thing. Therefore, he means both heads. But the devil's head is that power by which the devil rules, that is, sin and death, by means of which he has brought Adam and all Adam's descendants under his control.

This seed of the woman therefore, because he is to crush the devil's power, that is, sin and death, must not be an ordinary man, since all men have been brought under the devil through sin and death. So he must certainly be without sin. Now human nature does not produce such seed or fruit, as has been said, for with their sin they are all under the devil. How, then, can this be? The seed must be the natural child of a woman; otherwise, it could not be or be called the seed of the woman. On the other hand, as has been pointed out, human nature and birth does not produce such seed. Therefore, the solution must ultimately be that this seed is a true natural son of the woman; derived from the woman, however, not in the normal way but through a special act of God, in order that the Scripture might stand, that he is the seed only of a woman and not of a man. For the text [Gen. 3:15] clearly states that he will be the seed of woman.

This is thus the first passage in which the mother of this child is described as a virgin. She is his true natural mother; yet she is to conceive and bear supernaturally, by God, without a man, in order that her child may be a distinctive man, without sin, yet having ordinary flesh and blood like other men. This could not have been the case had he been begotten by a man like other men because the flesh is consumed and corrupted by evil lust, so that its natural act of procreation cannot occur without sin. Whatever conceives and bears through an act of the flesh produces also a carnal and sinful fruit. This is why St. Paul says in Ephesians 1 [2:3] that we are all by nature children of wrath. [203]

Now this passage [Gen. 3:15] was the very first gospel message on earth. For when Adam and Eve, seduced by the devil, had fallen and were summoned for judgment before God, Genesis 3 [:9], they were in peril of death and the anguish of hell, for they saw that God was against them and condemned them; they would gladly have fled from him, but could not. Had God let them remain in their anguish, they would soon have despaired and perished. But when, after their terrible punishment, he let them hear his comforting promise to raise up from the woman's seed one who would tread upon the serpent's head, their spirits were quickened again. From that promise they drew comfort, believing firmly in that blessed seed of the woman which would come and crush the serpent's head, that is, sin and death, by which they had been crushed and corrupted.

The second promise of Christ was to Abraham, Genesis 22 [:18], where God said, "In your seed shall all the Gentiles be blessed." If all the Gentiles are to be blessed, then it is certain that otherwise, apart from this seed of Abraham, they were all unblessed and under a curse. From this it follows that human nature has nothing but cursed seed and bears nothing but unblessed fruit; otherwise, there would be no need for all of them to be blessed through this seed of Abraham. Whoever says "all" excludes no one; therefore, apart from Christ, all who are born of man must be under the devil, cursed in sin and death.

Here again the mother of God is proven to be a pure virgin. For since God cannot lie, it was inevitable that Christ should be the seed of Abraham, that is, his natural flesh and blood, like all of Abraham's descendants. On the other hand, because he was to be the blessed seed which should bless all others, he could not be begotten by man, since such children, as has been said, [204] cannot be conceived without sin because of the corrupt and tainted flesh, which cannot perform its function without taint and sin.

Thus the word, by which God promises that Christ will be the seed of Abraham, requires that Christ be born of a woman and be her natural child. He does not come from the earth like Adam [Gen. 2:7]; neither is he from Adam's rib like Eve [Gen. 2:21-22]. He comes rather like any woman's child, from her seed. The earth was not the natural seed for Adam's body; neither was Adam's rib the natural seed for Eve's body. But the virgin's flesh and blood, from which children come in the case of all other women, was the natural seed of Christ's body. And she too was of the seed of Abraham.

On the other hand, this word by which God promises his blessing upon all Gentiles in Christ requires that Christ may not come from a man, or by the act of a man; for work of the flesh (which is cursed) is incompatible with that which is blessed and is pure blessing. Therefore, this blessed fruit had to be the fruit of a woman's body only, not of a man, even though that very woman's body came from man, indeed, even from Abraham and Adam. So this mother is a virgin, and yet a true natural mother; not, however, by natural capacity or power, but solely through the Holy Spirit and divine power.

Now this passage [Gen. 22:18] was the gospel from the time of Abraham down to the time of David, event to the time of Christ. It is a short saying, to be sure, but a rich gospel, subsequently inculcated and used in marvelous fashion by the fathers both in writing and in preaching. Many thousands of sermons have been preached from this passage, and countless souls saved. For it is the living word of God, in which Abraham and his descendants believed, and by which they were redeemed and preserved from sin and death and the power of the devil. However, it too was not yet proclaimed publicly to all the world, as happened after the coming of Christ, but remained solely in the possession of the fathers and their descendants.

            After setting out recapitulatory history starting with Genesis 3:15 and explaining the importance of Mary’s virginity for the Incarnation of Christ, this is the quote in the context hat James Swan left out so he could spin his narrative about what Luther believed:

                        [205] Now just take a look at the perverse lauders of the mother of God. If

you ask them why they hold so strongly to the virginity of Mary, they truly could not say. These stupid idolators do nothing more than to glorify only the mother of God; they extol her for her virginity and practically make a false deity of her. But Scripture does not praise this virginity at all for the sake of the mother; neither was she saved on account of her virginity. Indeed, cursed be this and every other virginity of it exists for its own sake, and accomplishes nothing better than its own profit and praise.

            In his usual fashion, James Swan leaves this important part out:

The Spirit extols this virginity, however, because it was needful for the conceiving and bearing of this blessed fruit. Because of the corruption of our flesh, such blessed fruit could not come, except through a virgin. Thus this tender virginity existed in the service of others to the glory of God, not to its own glory. If it had been possible for him to have come from a [married] woman, he would not have selected a virgin for this, since virginity is contrary to the physical nature within us, was condemned of old in the law, and is extolled here solely because the flesh is tainted and its built-in physical nature cannot bestow her fruit except by means of an accursed act.

Hence we see that St. Paul nowhere calls the mother of God a virgin, but only a woman, as he says in Galatians 3 [4:4], "The Son of God was born of a woman." He did not mean to say she was not a virgin, but to extol her virginity to the highest with the praise that is proper to it, as much as to say: In this birth none but a woman was involved, no man participated; that is, everything connected with it was reserved to the woman, the conceiving, bearing, suckling, and nourishing of the child were functions no man can perform. It is therefore the child of a woman only; hence, she must certainly be a virgin. But a virgin may also be a man; a mother can be none other than a woman.

For this reason, too, Scripture does not quibble or speak about the virginity of Mary after the birth of Christ, a matter about which the hypocrites are greatly concerned, as if it were something of the utmost importance on which our whole salvation [206] depended. Actually, we should be satisfied simply to hold that she remained a virgin after the birth of Christ because Scripture does not state or indicate that she later lost her virginity. We certainly need not be so terribly afraid that someone will demonstrate, out of his own head apart from Scripture, that she did not remain a virgin. But the Scripture stops with this, that she was a virgin before and at the birth of Christ; for up to this point God had need of her virginity in order to give us the promised blessed seed without sin. [Bold face is Swan’s quotes put back into context with the text.]            

Contrary to James Swan’s mendacious assertions, Martin Luther then goes on a lengthy defense of Mary’s virginity from the Scriptures:

The third passage is addressed to David, II Samuel 7 [:12-14], "When your days are fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom for ever. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son." These words cannot have been spoken of Solomon, for Solomon was not a posthumous son of David raised up after his death. Neither did God after Solomon (who during David's lifetime was born and became king) ever designate anyone as His son, give him an everlasting kingdom, or have him build such a house. Consequently, the whole passage must refer to Christ. We will let this passage go for the present because it is too broad and requires so much in the way of exegesis; for one would have to show here that Christ accordingly had to be the son of a woman only in order to be called here God's child, who neither should nor could come out of an accursed act.

The fourth passage is Isaiah 7 [:14], "God himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin is with child, and shall bear a son." This could not have been said of a virgin who was about to be married. For what sort of a marvelous sign would that be if someone who is presently a virgin should bear a child within a year? Such is the ordinary course of nature, occurring daily before our eyes. If it is to be a sign from God, therefore, it must be something remarkable and marvelous not given by the [207] ordinary course of nature, as is commonly the case with all God's signs.

It is of no help for the Jews either to try to evade the issue here and come up with this way of getting around it, namely: the sign consists in the fact that Isaiah says flatly that the child shall be a son and not a daughter. By such an interpretation the sign would have nothing to do with the virgin but only with the prophet Isaiah, as the one who had divined so precisely that it would not be a daughter. The text would then have to speak of Isaiah thus, "Behold, God himself will give you a sign, namely, that I, Isaiah, will divine that a young woman is carrying a son, and not a daughter." Such an interpretation is disgraceful and childish.

Now the text forcefully refers the sign to the woman, and states clearly that it shall be a sign when a woman bears a son. Now it certainly is no sign when a woman who is no longer virgin bears a child, be it the mother of Hezekiah or whatever woman the Jews may point to. The sign must be something new and different, a marvelous and unique work of God, that this woman is with child; her pregnancy is to be the sign. Now I do not deem any Jew so dense that he would not grant God sufficient power to create a child from a virgin, since they are compelled to acknowledge that he created Adam from the earth [Gen. 2:7] and Eve from Adam [Gen. 2:21-22], acts which require no less power.

But then they contend that the Hebrew text does not read, "A virgin is with child," but, "Behold, an almah is with child. [208] Almah, they say, does not denote a virgin; the word for virgin is bethulah, while almah is the term for young damsel. Presumably, a young damsel might very well have had intercourse and be the mother of a child.

Christians can readily answer this from St. Matthew and St. Luke, both of whom apply the passage from Isaiah [7:14] to Mary, and translate the word almah as "virgin." They are more to be believed than the whole world, let alone the Jews. Even though an angel from heaven [Gal. 1:8] were to say that almah, does not mean virgin, we should not believe it. For God the Holy Spirit speaks through St. Matthew and St. Luke; we can be sure that He understands Hebrew speech and expressions perfectly well.

But because the Jews do not accept the evangelists, we must confront them with other evidence. In the first place, we can say, as above, that there is no marvel or sign in the fact that a young woman conceives, otherwise, we would have a perfect right to sneer at the prophet Isaiah, and say, "What women would you expect to conceive if not the young ones? Are you drunk? Or is it in your experience a rare event for a young woman to bear a son?" For this reason that strained and farfetched answer of the Jews is just a vain and feeble excuse for not keeping silent altogether.

In the second place, grant that bethulah means virgin and not almah, and the Isaiah here uses almah, not bethulah. All this too is still nothing but a poor excuse. For they act as if they did not know that in all of Scripture almah nowhere designates a woman who has had intercourse (a fact of which they are perfectly well aware). On the contrary, in every instance almah signifies a young damsel who has never known a man carnally or had intercourse. Such a person is always called a virgin, just as St. Matthew and St. Luke here translate Isaiah.

[209] Now since they are such literalists and like to argue about semantics, we will concede that bethulah is not the same word as almah. But the only point they have established thereby is that this young woman is not designated by the term "virgin." However, she is designated by another term which also means a young woman who has never had intercourse; call her by whatever term you please, in her person she is still a virgin. It is childish and disgraceful to take recourse to words when the meaning is one and the same.

Very well; to please the Jews we will not translate Isaiah thus: "Behold, a virgin is with child," lest they be confused by the word "virgin," but rather, "Behold, a maiden is with child." Now in German the word "maiden" denotes a woman who is still young, carries her crown with honor, and wears her hair loose, so that it is said of her: She is still a maiden, not a wife (although "maiden" is not the same word as "virgin"). In like manner also, the Hebrew elem is a stripling who does not yet have a woman; and almah is a maiden who does not yet have a man, not a servant girl but one who still carries a crown. Thus the sister of Moses is called an almah in Exodus 3 [2:8] as is Rebekah in Genesis 24 [:16, 43], when they were still virgins.

Suppose I say in German, "Hans is engaged to a maiden," and someone should comment, "Well, then he is not engaged to a virgin." Why, everyone would laugh at him for vainly disputing about words if he thinks that virgin and maiden are not the same thing because they are different words. This is true also in the Hebrew, when the Jews argue with respect to this passage in Isaiah [7:14] and say, "Isaiah does not say bethulah, but almah. I submit that among themselves their own conscience tells them this is so. Therefore, let them say what they please, bethulah [210] or almah; Isaiah means a damsel who is nubile but still wears her crown, whom in the truest German we call a maiden. Hence, the mother of God is properly called the pure maiden, that is, the pure almah.

And if I should have had to tell Isaiah what to speak, I would have had him say exactly what he did say, not bethulah, but almah, for almah is even more appropriate here than bethulah. It is also more precise to say, "Behold, a maiden is with child," than to say, "A virgin is with child." For "virgin" is an all-embracing term which might also be applied to a woman of fifty or sixty who is no longer capable of childbearing. But "maiden" denotes specifically a young woman, nubile, capable of childbearing, but still a virgin; it includes not only the virginity, but also the youthfulness and the potential for childbearing. Hence, in German too we commonly refer to young people as maidens or maidenfolk, not virginfok..

Therefore, the text of Isaiah [7:14] is certainly most accurately translated, "Behold, a maiden is with child." No Jew who understands both German and Hebrew can deny that this is what is said in the Hebrew, for we Germans do not say "concepit, the woman has conceived"; the preachers have so rendered the Latin into German. Rather, the German would say in his mother tongue, "The woman is with child," or, "is heavy with child," or, "is pregnant."

But here in the Hebrew it does not say, "Behold, a maiden shall be with child," as though she were not as yet. It says rather, "Behold, a maiden is with child," as though she has the fruit already in her womb and nevertheless is still a maiden, in order that you will have to notice how the prophet himself is amazed that there stands before him a maiden who is with child even before she knows a man carnally. She was of course going to have a husband, she was physically fit and mature enough for it; but even before she gets to that she is already a mother. This is indeed a rare and marvelous thing.

This is the way St. Matthew [1:18] construes this passage when he says, "When Mary the mother of Jesus had been [211] betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit," etc. What does this mean other than that she was a young maiden who had not yet known a man although she was capable of it, but before she knew the man she was with child, and that this was an amazing thing since no maiden becomes pregnant prior to intercourse with a man? Thus, the evangelist regarded her in the same light as did the prophet, and set her forth as the sign and wonder.

Now this refutes also the false interpretation which some have drawn from the words of Matthew, where he says, "Before they came together she was found to be with child." They interpret this as though the evangelist meant to say, "Later she came together with Joseph like any other wife and lay with him, but before this occurred she was with child apart from Joseph," etc. Again, when he says, "And Joseph knew her not until she brought forth her first-born son" [Matt. 1:25], they interpret it as though the evangelist meant to say that he knew her, but not before she had brought forth her first-born son. This was the view of Helvidius which was refuted by Jerome.

Such carnal interpretations miss the meaning and purpose of the evangelist. As we have said, the evangelist, like the prophet Isaiah, wishes to set before our eyes this mighty wonder, and point out what an unheard-of thing it is for a maiden to be with child before her husband brings her home and lies with her; and further, that he does not know her carnally until she first has a son, which she should have had after first having been known [212] by him. Thus, the words of the evangelist do not refer to anything that occurred after the birth, but only to what took place before it. For the prophet and the evangelist, and St. Paul as well, do not treat of this virgin beyond the point where they have from her that fruit for whose sake she is a virgin and everything else. After the child is born they dismiss the mother and speak not about her, what became of her, but only about her offspring. Therefore, one cannot from these words [Matt. 1:18, 25] conclude that Mary, after the birth of Christ, became a wife in the usual sense; it is therefore neither to be asserted nor believed. All the words are merely indicative of the marvelous fact that she was with child and gave birth before she had lain with a man.

The form of expression used by Matthew is the common idiom, as if I were to say, "Pharaoh believed not Moses, until he was drowned in the Red Sea." Here it does not follow that Pharaoh believed later, after he had drowned; on the contrary, it means that he never did believe. Similarly when Matthew [1:25] says that Joseph did not know Mary carnally until she had brought forth her son, it does not follow that he knew her subsequently; on the contrary, it means that he never did know her. Again, the Red Sea overwhelmed Pharaoh before he got across. Here too it does not follow that Pharaoh got across later, after the Red Sea had overwhelmed him, but rather that he did not get across at all. In like manner, when Matthew [1:18] says, "She was found to be with child before they came together," it does not follow that Mary subsequently lay with Joseph, but rather that she did not lie with him.

Elsewhere in Scripture the same manner of speech is employed. Psalm 110 [:1] reads, "God says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.'" Here it does not follow that Christ does not continue to sit there after his enemies are placed beneath his feet. Again, in Genesis 28 [:15], "I will not leave you until I have done all that of which I have spoken to you." Here God did not leave him after the fulfilment had taken place. Again, in Isaiah 42 [:4], "He shall not be sad, nor troublesome, till he has established justice in the earth." [213] There are many more similar expression, so that this babble of Helvidius is without justification; in addition, he has neither noticed nor paid any attention to either Scripture or the common idiom.

This is enough for the present to have sufficiently proved that Mary was a pure maiden, and that Christ was a genuine Jew of Abraham's seed. Although more Scripture passages might be cited, these are the clearest. Moreover, if anyone does not believe a clear saying of His Divine Majesty, it is reasonable to assume that he would not believe either any other more obscure passages. So certainly no one can doubt that it is possible for God to cause a maiden to be with child apart from a man, since he has also created all things from nothing. Therefore, the Jews have no ground for denying this, for they acknowledge God's omnipotence, and they have here the clear testimony of the prophet Isaiah. [Bold face text shows where James Swan took the quote out of context].                        

            I apologize for the obnoxiously long quote from Luther's work which is much longer, but I did so to point out that Swan can cut and paste as astutely as any Catholic apologist.  I have included a link to the text of the letter so the reader can judge if I have fairly treated Swan's work.  I would dare say that James Swan's cut-and-paste job is far more insidious than the anonymous Catholic apologist he castigates in his article since he points to the splinter in his interlocutor’s eyes while ignoring the beam in his own.  Martin Luther’s exegesis above shows that biblical texts used to argue that Mary was not ever-virgin show nothing of the sort because those texts prove something different-the verity of the Incarnation.  Swan was probably hoping that us dumb, addled Catholics would not be keen enough or too lazy to read the actual text, but take his word for it.  Most importantly, Luther's argument acknowledges the whole point of the biblical texts–to protect the dogma of the Incarnation and the divinity of Our Lord.                           

This assertion is not an assumption on my part.  Martin Luther's final testament of his beliefs, the Smalcald Articles, references the doctrine of Mary Ever-Virgin as part of his statement on Who Christ is: 

                                                IV.       That the Son became man in this manner, that He was conceived, without the cooperation of man, by the Holy Ghost, and was born of the pure, holy [and always] Virgin Mary. Afterwards He suffered, died, was buried, descended to hell, rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, sits at the right hand of God, will come to judge the quick and the dead, etc. as the Creed of the Apostles, as well as that of St. Athanasius, and the Catechism in common use for children, teach.

Interestingly, Swan did not include this quote from the Smalcald Articles in his list of Luther quotes he used to try to argue that Luther's view on Mary's perpetual virginity offered from the Catholic viewpoint.  Did Swan decide to wait to serve the best quote showing what Luther believed about Mary’s virginity “until” we have all drunk the bitter wine of his cut-and-paste quotes highlighting Luther’s inflammatory rhetoric?  Did the self-proclaimed expert in all things Luther intentionally leave it out to distort Luther’s views on Mary and give a false impression?  Did Swan attempt to distract his readers about the theological importance of the doctrine of Mary ever-virgin?  Has he ever thought about why the doctrine is essential at all?  It will probably be like on those great mysteries of life, like how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop–the world will never know.  

            Now I admit I was thrown off by the use of brackets in the English translation of the above text.  Not being one of those keen minds that Swan refers to, I could only guess that the reason [and always] is in brackets.  Luther's Latin text of Article IV, calls Mary sempervirgine while Luther’s German text uses the word Jungfrau.  They both mean virgin, but the Latin is always-virgin, while the German is merely virgin or maiden. However, after reading his ardent defense of German maidenhood in That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, one can only conclude that Luther equated maidenhood with virginity, and the German word did not need an adverb like its Latin counterpart.    

            Giving the lengthiness of this section of the paper, I will only mention that the Lutheran Church affirmed the doctrine of Mary ever-virgin after Luther's death.  The Formula of Concord, one of its founding documents which state Lutheran beliefs and teachings states:

                                                [24]     On account of this personal union and communion of the natures, Mary, the most blessed Virgin, bore not a mere man, but, as the angel [Gabriel] testifies, such a man as is truly the Son of the most high God, who showed His divine majesty even in His mother's womb, inasmuch as He was born of a virgin, with her virginity inviolate. Therefore she is truly the mother of God, and nevertheless remained a virgin.  (Formula of Concord [Solid Declaration], Article VIII)

            I am on solid ground to say that both Martin Luther and the Lutheran Church after his death held the doctrine of Mary Ever-Virgin as a verity as did the Catholic Church before them.  Likewise, most of the Reformers believed in the doctrine too.  Can Swan point to the keen mind who refuted Luther’s scriptural defense of Mary’s perpetual virginity?  Please tell us the name of the exceptional Protestant genius who called Luther out, threw his interpretive tradition of the word "until" and “brethren” on the table, and scrutinized them closely according to “biblical discussions about the meaning of heos hou / ἕως ο” or adelphos?”  I imagine people would pay good money to see an actual argument made by the rogues’ gallery of anti-Catholic Protestant polemicists addressing the specific arguments made by Martin Luther in favor of Mary’s virginity. 

Such arguments may be over our heads, however.  If we Catholic ignoramuses are not keen enough to figure out that heos hou makes  Mary only a part-time or temporary virgin, how can we figure out if the Protestant mind is keen enough to toss out Luther's scriptural interpretation?  Moreover, if Luther got this doctrine wrong, what other doctrines did he get wrong?  For that matter, how do we know that he did not get leaving the Catholic Church wrong too?  And Swan wants to talk about Pandora boxes.  

In my world, a mind tempered by humility is keener than one honed by pride.  Any Protestant mind who thinks that they are keener than the Reformers or the Early Church Fathers doesn't sound very humble to me.   

Part IV: The Heos Hou Boogaloo.

As we have discussed previously, Luther gives a rather eloquent and forceful scriptural 

 argument in defense of Mary's perpetual virginity by showing that deniers of the doctrine misuse those texts.  Moreover, he correctly relates the doctrine of Mary’s virginity to the incarnational principle upon which it is based.  Up to modern times, the only people who denied Mary’s perpetual virginity were people who denied Christ’s divinity.  Going back to the earliest Christian writings, Mary was always known as the Virgin Mary, not Mary, the woman who was formerly a virgin.  The only reason the doctrine had to be further defined to state what was already known was to rebut the arguments of people who obstinately denied Christ's Sonship.    

            The question in my mind is, why is it so important to people like James Swan to deny Mary's perpetual virginity?  Like folks dancing in step to an old-time Latin tune, they repeat the same arguments over and over again on the meaning of heos hou and adelphos that heretics have made over the centuries.  Frankly, I do not think that Swan and his lamentation of like-minded polemicists even know what they deny when they claim Mary was not a perpetual virgin.  Because of their myopic blinkered tradition, the only thing they see is proving Catholics wrong. They could care less about the theology they are trying to prove wrong as well.  

While Swan claims that there is an interpretative tradition behind his denial of the doctrine pf Mary Aeiparthenos, he does not articulate what that tradition to be.  Does his tradition affirm that Jesus is a divine person Who assumed a human nature at the Incarnation?  Does his tradition affirm that Mary freely assented to being overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and bearing the Son of God?  How does he believe that his denial of Mary's perpetual virginity upholds the salvific principle that what is not assumed is not saved?  Did Jesus being incarnated in Mary sanctify her or set her apart or not?  Does Swan believe in the recapitulation principle by which Christ healed our wounded natures as stated here by St. Irenaeus: 

In accordance with this design, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to your word. (Luke 1:38) But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin (for in Paradise they were both naked, and were not ashamed, (Genesis 2:25) inasmuch as they, having been created a short time previously, had no understanding of the procreation of children: for it was necessary that they should first come to adult age, and then multiply from that time onward), having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race. And on this account does the law term a woman betrothed to a man, the wife of him who had betrothed her, although she was as yet a virgin; thus indicating the back-reference from Mary to Eve, because what is joined together could not otherwise be put asunder than by inversion of the process by which these bonds of union had arisen; so that the former ties be cancelled by the latter, that the latter may set the former again at liberty. And it has, in fact, happened that the first compact looses from the second tie, but that the second tie takes the position of the first which has been cancelled. For this reason did the Lord declare that the first should in truth be last, and the last first. (Matthew 19:30, Matthew 20:16) And the prophet, too, indicates the same, saying, instead of fathers, children have been born unto you. For the Lord, having been born the First-begotten of the dead, (Revelation 1:5) and receiving into His bosom the ancient fathers, has regenerated them into the life of God, He having been made Himself the beginning of those that live, as Adam became the beginning of those who die. (1 Corinthians 15:20-22) Wherefore also Luke, commencing the genealogy with the Lord, carried it back to Adam, indicating that it was He who regenerated them into the Gospel of life, and not they Him. And thus also it was that the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith. 

(St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III:22.4

            Catholics believe that Mary’s perpetual virginity is a sign of her freely chosen obedience to conform herself to God’s will.  It is proof of her “yes” to  God’s plan to be the cause of our salvation.  When Blessed Virgin Mary gave her voluntary fiat at Luke 1:38, she tells God that she is giving her complete and total self to God.  Her perpetual virginity is proof of that commitment to be a total gift of herself to God.  Without her free cooperation, there is no Incarnation.  Without her free choice, Christ could not assume flesh through her and heal what damaged through our first parent’s sin.  Her virginity makes her “as a temple unto Himself, and makes it His very own as an instrument, in it manifested, and in it dwelling. Thusly, taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty of the corruption of death He gave it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father.”  St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation 8:3-4.                                                            

            Mary’s perpetual virginity makes the statement at Ezekiel 44:2 true:

                        "Then said the LORD unto me; This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut." 

The Fathers of the Church interpreted this passage to be a typological reference to the perpetual virginity of Mary. It protects the doctrine of the Incarnation from being impugned by those who deny it.  They argue that if Mary had sexual relations with Joseph after Jesus' birth and had other children, how do we know that Jesus was incarnated?  Why shouldn't we believe that Mary lied about how she got pregnant with Him?      

            Catholics answer that since God took flesh from the Virgin's womb, He sanctified that womb.  When the Holy Spirit “overshadowed” Mary (Lk. 1:35) with His power, He consecrated Mary to Himself.  In effect, He was Mary’s spouse.   Once Mary was consecrated to God through the Incarnation, her perpetual virginity is proof that she should remain for Him alone.  Her fiat was a total commitment to her Son, her Redeemer-to give birth to Him, to provide and care for Him, to serve Him, and to be the model for all disciples after that.  Her perpetual virginity is an acknowledgment of Her Spiritual Motherhood, to be genuinely the "handmaid" of the Lord.

Lest Swan wants to quibble over whether this is modern Vatican II thinking, here is what St. Thomas Aquinas writes in the Summa Theologiae, Tertia Pars, q. 28, a. 3 beginning at the sed contra:

On the contrary, It is written (Ezekiel 44:2): "This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it; because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it." Expounding these words, Augustine says in a sermon (De Annunt. Dom. iii): "What means this closed gate in the House of the Lord, except that Mary is to be ever inviolate? What does it mean that 'no man shall pass through it,' save that Joseph shall not know her? And what is this—'The Lord alone enters in and goeth out by it'—except that the Holy Ghost shall impregnate her, and that the Lord of angels shall be born of her? And what means this—'it shall be shut for evermore'—but that Mary is a virgin before His Birth, a virgin in His Birth, and a virgin after His Birth?"

I answer that, Without any hesitation we must abhor the error of Helvidius, who dared to assert that Christ's Mother, after His Birth, was carnally known by Joseph, and bore other children. For, in the first place, this is derogatory to Christ's perfection: for as He is in His Godhead the Only-Begotten of the Father, being thus His Son in every respect perfect, so it was becoming that He should be the Only-begotten son of His Mother, as being her perfect offspring. 

Secondly, this error is an insult to the Holy Ghost, whose "shrine" was the virginal womb ["Sacrarium Spiritus Sancti" (Office of B. M. V., Ant. ad Benedictus, T. P.), wherein He had formed the flesh of Christ: wherefore it was unbecoming that it should be desecrated by intercourse with a man. 

Thirdly, this is derogatory to the dignity and holiness of God's Mother: for thus she would seem to be most ungrateful, were she not content with such a Son; and were she, of her own accord, by carnal intercourse to forfeit that virginity which had been miraculously preserved in her. 

                        Fourthly, it would be tantamount to an imputation of extreme presumption in

Joseph, to assume that he attempted to violate her whom by the angel's revelation he knew to have conceived by the Holy Ghost.

We must therefore simply assert that the Mother of God, as she was a virgin in conceiving Him and a virgin in giving Him birth, did she remain a virgin ever afterwards.

After that, we see St. Thomas answer the heos hou and adelphos arguments, as well as some others, that folks like Swan make against the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

Reply to Objection 1. As Jerome says (Contra Helvid. I): "Although this particle 'before' often indicates a subsequent event, yet we must observe that it not infrequently points merely to some thing previously in the mind: nor is there need that what was in the mind take place eventually, since something may occur to prevent its happening. Thus if a man say: 'Before I dined in the port, I set sail,' we do not understand him to have dined in port after he set sail: but that his mind was set on dining in port." In like manner the evangelist says: "Before they came together" Mary "was found with child, of the Holy Ghost," not that they came together afterwards: but that, when it seemed that they would come together, this was forestalled through her conceiving by the Holy Ghost, the result being that afterwards they did not come together. 

Reply to Objection 2. As Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. I): "The Mother of God is called (Joseph's) wife from the first promise of her espousals, whom he had not known nor ever was to know by carnal intercourse." For, as Ambrose says on Luke 1:27: "The fact of her marriage is declared, not to insinuate the loss of virginity, but to witness to the reality of the union." 

Reply to Objection 3. Some have said that this is not to be understood of carnal knowledge, but of acquaintance. Thus Chrysostom says [Opus Imperf. in Matth., Hom. 1: among the spurious works ascribed to Chrysostom] that "Joseph did not know her, until she gave birth, being unaware of her dignity: but after she had given birth, then did he know her. Because by reason of her child she surpassed the whole world in beauty and dignity: since she alone in the narrow abode of her womb received Him Whom the world cannot contain." 

Others again refer this to knowledge by sight. For as, while Moses was speaking with God, his face was so bright "that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold it"; so Mary, while being "overshadowed" by the brightness of the "power of the Most High," could not be gazed on by Joseph, until she gave birth. But afterwards she is acknowledged by Joseph, by looking on her face, not by lustful contact. 

                                    Jerome, however, grants that this is to be understood of knowledge by intercourse; but he observes that "before" or "until" has a twofold sense in Scripture. For sometimes it indicates a fixed time, as Galatians 3:19: The law "was set because of transgressions, until the seed should come, to whom He made the promise." On the other hand, it sometimes indicates an indefinite time, as in Psalm 122:2: "Our eyes are unto the Lord our God, until He have mercy on us"; from which it is not to be gathered that our eyes are turned from God as soon as His mercy has been obtained. In this sense those things are indicated "of which we might doubt if they had not been written down: while others are left out to be supplied by our understanding. Thus the evangelist says that the Mother of God was not known by her husband until she gave birth, that we may be given to understand that still less did he know her afterwards" (Adversus Helvid. v). 

Reply to Objection 4. The Scriptures are wont to designate as the first-born, not only a child who is followed by others, but also the one that is born first. "Otherwise, if a child were not first-born unless followed by others, the first-fruits would not be due as long as there was no further produce" [Jerome, Adversus Helvid. x]: which is clearly false, since according to the law the first-fruits had to be redeemed within a month (Numbers 18:16).

Reply to Objection 5. Some, as Jerome says on Matthew 12:49-50, "suppose that the brethren of the Lord were Joseph's sons by another wife. But we understand the brethren of the Lord to be not sons of Joseph, but cousins of the Saviour, the sons of Mary, His Mother's sister." For "Scripture speaks of brethren in four senses; namely, those who are united by being of the same parents, of the same nation, of the same family, by common affection." Wherefore the brethren of the Lord are so called, not by birth, as being born of the same mother; but by relationship, as being blood-relations of His. But Joseph, as Jerome says (Contra Helvid. ix), is rather to be believed to have remained a virgin, "since he is not said to have had another wife," and "a holy man does not live otherwise than chastely." 

Reply to Objection 6. Mary who is called "the mother of James and Joseph" is not to be taken for the Mother of our Lord, who is not wont to be named in the Gospels save under this designation of her dignity—"the Mother of Jesus." This Mary is to be taken for the wife of Alphaeus, whose son was James the less, known as the "brother of the Lord" (Galatians 1:19).

                        ST III, q. 28, a. 3.            

            Having said all of this, I do want to respond to a specific argument James Swan made in his article.  Swan cites Jaroslav Pelikan (who converted from the Lutheran Church to the Orthodox before his death), Giovanni Miegge, an Italian Protestant professor in mid-20th century, and Hilda Graef, a Catholic convert and Greek Patristics scholar, as evidence that the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity developed because of the growth in the Catholic ascetic ideal.  I would argue to the contrary-that the Church's ascetic ideal grew as a result of the belief in Mary's perpetual virginity.  As another noted scholar, Eamon Carroll, writes in "Theological Significance of Mary's Virginity" in Marian Studies Vol. 13 (1962), 151:

                        Finally, virginity post partum was considered. In this respect Mary is the model of Christian virginity, of life-long dedication to God. Christian virginity in general is eschatological, for it witnesses to the world to come when the number of the elect will be complete, and there will be neither marriage nor giving in marriage. Virginity involves detachment through ascesis truly, but as a means to the positive value of consecration now and forever. Our Lady's consecration to God was total and sacrificial, its positive value the greater because concupiscence did not hamper her progress. Here even some Protestant authorities are finding a meeting ground with us concerning the state of virginity and the Virgin Mary that holds out ecumenical hope. For a closing word, Sacra virginitas offers a practical corollary on Christian virginity in the words of St. Jerome: "For me, virginity means dedication through Mary and through Christ."

            I conclude this paper with this following thought.  Mary's perpetual virginity is a sacred symbol of Totus Christus, the Catholic principle that we too can be wholly in relationship with Jesus Christ as Mary was, is, and will be.  To be devoted to her through our belief in Marian doctrine is to be as intimately devoted to her Son as she was.  Virginity is not just a physical attribute that modern people ridicule; it is a way of life that can wholly unite us to Christ.  Since the time St. Ignatius of Antioch first called Mary the Virgin in his letters, the Church has undersood that all Mariology is Christology.  It is too bad that Swan does not understand that.  I pray someday he will come into the fullness of truth by believing as I do.

           Blessings!