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Perpetual virginity of Mary

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The Vladimir Eleusa icon of the Ever Virgin Mary. The Aeiparthenos (Ever Virgin) title is widely used in Orthodox liturgy, and icons show her with three stars, on her shoulders and forehead, symbolising her threefold virginity

The perpetual virginity of Mary is a Christian doctrine that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin "before, during and after" the birth of Christ. In Western Christianity, the Catholic Church adheres to the doctrine, as do many Lutherans, some Anglicans, Reformed, and other Protestants.

In Eastern Christianity, the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Church of the East both adhere to this doctrine as part of their ongoing tradition, and Eastern Orthodox churches recognize Mary as Aeiparthenos, meaning "ever-virgin". It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Most nonconformist Protestants, such as the Plymouth Brethren, reject the doctrine.

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A

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  • At that time, the Saxons grew strong by virtue of their large number and increased in power in Britain. Hengist having died, however, his son Octha crossed from the northern part of Britain to the kingdom of Kent and from him are descended the kings of Kent. Then Arthur along with the kings of Britain fought against them in those days, but Arthur himself was the military commander [dux bellorum]. His first battle was at the mouth of the river which is called Glein. His second, third, fourth, and fifth battles were above another river which is called Dubglas and is in the region of Linnuis. The sixth battle was above the river which is called Bassas. The seventh battle was in the forest of Celidon, that is Cat Coit Celidon. The eighth battle was at the fortress of Guinnion, in which Arthur carried the image of holy Mary ever virgin on his shoulders; and the pagans were put to flight on that day. And through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the power of the blessed Virgin Mary his mother there was great slaughter among them. The ninth battle was waged in the City of the Legion. The tenth battle was waged on the banks of a river which is called Tribruit. The eleventh battle was fought on the mountain which is called Agnet. The twelfth battle was on Mount Badon in which there fell in one day 960 men from one charge by Arthur; and no one struck them down except Arthur himself, and in all the wars he emerged as victor.

C

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  • I, Pope Calixtus III, promise and vow to the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to the Ever-Virgin Mother of God, to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the heavenly host, that I will do everything in my power, even, if need be, with the sacrifice of my life, aided by the counsel of my worthy brethren, to reconquer Constantinople, which in punishment for the sin of man has been taken and ruined by Mahomet II, the son of the devil and the enemy of our Crucified Redeemer. Further, I vow to deliver the Christians languishing in slavery, to exalt the true Faith and to extirpate the diabolical sect of the reprobate and faithless Mahomet in the East. For there the light of Faith is almost completely extinguished. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee. If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy, God and His holy Gospel help me. Amen.
    • Pope Callixtus III, Solemn vow shortly after his election as Pope, quoted in Ludwig Pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, Volume II (1891), p. 346
  • 93 Q. Having made the sign of the Cross what should you say?
A. Having made the sign of the Cross, I say: "I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Virgin, to all the Saints, and to you, my spiritual Father, that I have sinned."

J

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  • I say then, first, that holy virginity is like a divine balm which preserves the body of Mary from corruption, and you will be convinced of it if you meditate attentively on what was the perfection of her virginsl purity...Why, you will never form a just idea of it, you will never comprehend its perfection until you have understood that it wrought in the Virgin Mother a perfect integrity of soul and of body...An extraordinary grace gas diffused over her an abundant heavenly dew which has not tempered, as in the other elect, but quenched the fire of concupiscence, that is, not only evil works, which are as it were the conflagration that concupiscence excites; not only evil desires, which are as it were the flame it thrusts forward, and evil inclinations, which are the intense heat it produces, but even the furnace and the hearth itself. In the words of theology the 'kindling of sin', that is , the deepest root and the most intimate cause of sin. After this, how could the flesh of the holy Virgin have decomposed, that felsh from which virginity of soul and body, and perfect conformity with Jesus Christ has taken away every principle of corruption together with the fire of concupiscence?...Mary was all pure and she ought consequently to be incorruptible.
  • Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, as quoted in Joseph Duhr, SJ, The Glorious Assumption of the Mother of God, translated by John Manning Frances, SJ, Pç.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, June 1950 (with nihil obstat by John M.A. Fearns, S.T.D., and imprimatur by Cardinal Francis Spellman given on September 18, 1950), pp. 37-38 (of 153). OCLC 2212367.
  • There are things which, in your extreme ignorance, you Elvidius had never read, and therefore you neglected the whole range of Scripture and employed your madness in outraging the Virgin, like the man in the story who being unknown to everybody and finding that he could devise no good deed by which to gain renown, burned the temple of Diana: and when no one revealed the sacrilegious act, it is said that he himself went up and down proclaiming that he was the man who had applied the fire. The rulers of Ephesus were curious to know what made him do this thing, whereupon he replied that if he could not have fame for good deeds, all men should give him credits for bad ones. Grecian history relates the incident. But you do worse. You have set on fire the temple of the Lord's body, you have defiled the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit from which you are determined to make a team of four brethren and a heap of sisters come forth. In a word, joyning in the chorus of the Jews you say, "Is not this the carpenter's son?is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? and his sisters, are they not all with us? The word all would not be used if they were not a crowd of them." Pray tell me, who before you appeared, was acquainted with this blasphemy? Who thought the theory worth two-pence? You have gained your desire and have become notorious by crime...
19... Feeling himsellf to be a smatterer, he, Helvidius, produces Tertullian as witness and quotes the words of Victorinus bishop of Petavium. Of Tertullian I say no more than he did not belong to the Church. But as regards Victorinus, I assert what has already been proved from the gospel-that he spoke of the brethren of the Lord not as being sons of Mary, but brethren in the sense I have explained, that is to say, brethren in point of kinship not by nature. We are, however, spending our strenght on trifles, and, leaving the fountain of truth, are following the tiny streams of opinion. Might I not array against you the whole series of ancient writers? Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men, who against Ebion, Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus, held these same views, and wrote volumes replete with wisdom. If you had never read what they wrote, you would be a wiser man...
21... You say that Mary did not continue a virgin: I claim still more, that Joseph himself on account of Mary was a virgin, so that from a virgin wedlock a virgin son was born. For if as a holy man he does not come under the imputation of fornication, and it is nowhere written that he had another wife, but was the guardian of Mary (whom he was supposed to have to wife) rather than her husband, the conclusion is that he who was thought worthy to be called the father of the Lord, remained a virgin.
  • Saint Jerome, The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary, Against Helvidius (PL, 23, 209 ff.; tr. W. H. Freemantle, NPN, 6, 343 f.). As reported in Father Paul Palmer, SJ, Mary in the Documents of the Church, pp. 25-27 (of 129), Lowe and Brydone (printers) Ltd, London L.W. 10, for Burns Oates and Washbourne Ltd, 28 Ashley Place, London, S.W.I. (with nihil obstat by E.A Cerny, S.S, D.D., and imprimatur by Franciscus P. Keough, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore, given on 23 November 1951). OCLC 3286267.

L

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  • Canon 3. If anyone does not in accord with the Holy Fathers acknowledge the holy and ever virgin immaculate Mary as really and truly the Mother of God, inasmuch she, in the fulness of time, and without seed, conceived by the Holy Spirit God the Word Himself, who before all time was born of God the Father, and without loss of integrity brought Him forth, and after His birth preserved her virginity inviolate, let him be condemned.
  • The Lateranense Council, can. 3 (Mansi, 10, 1151; DB, 256).
  • The local council took place at the Lateran Palace under the auspices of Pope St. Martin I (649).Its 20 canons were received at the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (the third to be held here, 681). As reported in Father Paul Palmer, SJ, Mary in the Documents of the Church, pp. 31-32 (of 129), Lowe and Brydone (printers) Ltd, London L.W. 10, for Burns Oates and Washbourne Ltd, 28 Ashley Place, London, S.W.I. (with nihil obstat by E.A Cerny, S.S, D.D., and imprimatur by Franciscus P. Keough, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore, given on 23 November 1951). OCLC 3286267.


  • In vernacular language, it is said that the Precious Blood was shed “for all,” whereas in the Latin text (even the latest revised Latin text) it is said that the Precious Blood is “for many” and not “for all.” [...] The new Offertory prayers do not express the Catholic notion of sacrifice. They simply express the concept of a mere sharing of bread and wine. For example, the Tridentine Mass addresses the prayer to God: “Accept, O holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this Immaculate Victim which your unworthy servant offers to You, my living and true God, in reparation for my countless sins, offenses, and negligence.” The new Mass says: “We offer this bread as the bread of life.” There is no mention of sacrifice or victim. Interviewer: Could you cite a translation that actually contradicts Catholic dogma? Mgr. Lefebvre: Yes. For example, in the Latin text, the Virgin Mary is called Semper Virgo, “Ever Virgin.” In all modern translations, the word “ever” has been removed. This is very serious, because there is a big difference between ‘Virgin’ and “Ever Virgin.” It is very dangerous to tamper with translations of this kind.
  • Latin is also important for maintaining the unity of the Church, because when people travel, and people travel more and more abroad nowadays, it is important for them to find the same echo that they heard from a priest at home, whether in the United States, South America, Europe, or anywhere else in the world. They are at home in any (Catholic) church. It is their Catholic Mass that is being celebrated. They have always heard the Latin words since childhood, their parents before them, and their grandparents before them.
  • He [Eutyches] did not realize what he was bound to hold on the Incarnation of the Word of God. Nor he was willing to seek the light of understanding through a diligent search of the wide range of the Sacred Scriptures. And yet, he might have listen attentively to that common and universal confession in which the whole body of the faithful acknowledges it's belief in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary. By these three statements, the devices of almost all heretics are overthrown,...Unquestionably, therefore, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit within the womb of His Virgin Mother. She brought Him forth without the loss of virginity, even as she conceived Him without its loss...That birth, so wondrously unique and so uniquely wonderful, must not be understood in such a way that the distinctive properties of His humanity were excluded through this newness of His creation. For while it is true that the Holy Spirit gave fruitfulness to the Virgin, yet the reality of His body was received from her body; and "Wisdom building itself a house" (Prov. 9,11), "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn. 1:14)-that is, in that flesh which He took from man and which He quickened with the breath of a higher life...
The Son of God, therefore, came down from His heavenly throne without relinquishing the glory of His Father, and entered this lower world by way of a new order and new mode of birth...By way of a new mode of birth, insofar as virginity inviolate which knew not the desire of the flesh supplied the material of flesh. From His Mother the Lord took nature, not sin. Jesus Christ was born from a virgin's womb, from a miraculous birth. And yet His nature is not on that account unlike to ours, for He that is true God is also true Man.
  • [Jesus] was born in time with a rational soul, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, from Mary, ever virgin; he has two births, one eternal from the God the Father, the other in time from his mother.
    • [Gesù] è nato nel tempo con un'anima razionale, in virtù dello Spirito Santo, da Maria sempre vergine; ha due nascite, una eterna dal Padre, l'altra nel tempo dalla madre.
  • O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon thy holy name, and as suppliants we implore thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin Immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel St. Michael, thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of souls. Amen.

M

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  • The divine Christ, Who was conceived by this perpetual Virgin through the activity of the Holy Spirit, and was clothed by her with flesh animated by a rational soul, has called her to Himself and in His turn has clothed her with an unequalled glory. He has made her take part in His inheritance; for she is His most holy mother.
  • Saint Modestus of Jerusalem, Encom. in Dormit., 6 & 7, PG, 86, 3292s. As reported in Joseph Duhr, SJ, The Glorious Assumption of the Mother of God, translated by John Manning Frances, SJ, Pç.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, June 1950 (with nihil obstat by John M.A. Fearns, S.T.D., and imprimatur by Cardinal Francis Spellman given on September 18, 1950), p. 36 (of 153). OCLC 2212367.

P

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  • Surely we cannot deny that Your Reverence was perfectly justified in rebuking him on the score of Mary's children, and that you had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another birth might issue from the same virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh. For the Lord Jesus would never have chosen to be born of a virgin if he had ever judged that she would be so incontinent as to contaminate with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of the Lord's body, that court of the Eternal King. To assert such a view is to do nothing less than to accept as a basis that Jewish falsehood which holds that He could not have been born of a virgin. And once the weight of episcopal authority is gained for the view that Mary gave issue to many children, they will strive with even greater zeal to attack the truth of [Christian] faith.
  • We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

T

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  • If Mary was thus strengthened against every movement of sin by her first sanctification, much more did grace grow in her and much more was concupiscence weakened or even completely uprooted in her, when the Holy Spirit came upon her, according to the angel’s word, to form of her the body of Christ. After she had been made the shrine of the Holy Spirit and the tabernacle of the Son of God, we may not believe that there was ever any inclination to sin in her, or that she ever experienced any pleasurable feeling of carnal concupiscence. And so we must view with revulsion the error of Helvidius who, while admitting that Christ was conceived and born of the Virgin, asserted that she later bore other sons to Joseph.
Certainly this error finds no support in Matthew’s statement that Joseph “knew her not” namely, Mary, “till she brought forth her first-born Son” (Matt. 1:25); as though he knew her after she gave birth to Christ. The word “till” in this text does not signify definite time but indicates indeterminate time. Sacred Scripture frequently asserts with emphasis that something was done or not done up to a certain time, as long as the issue could remain in doubt. Thus we read in Psalm 109:1: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” There could be some doubt whether Christ would sit at the right hand of God as long as His enemies did not seem to be subject to Him; but once we know that they are, no room for doubt could remain. Similarly there could be some doubt as to whether Joseph knew Mary before the birth of God’s Son. The Evangelist took pains to remove this doubt, thus giving us to understand beyond all question that she was not known after giving birth.
Nor does the fact that Christ is called Mary’s first-born give any support to the error, as though she bore other sons after Him. For in scriptural usage the son before whom no other is born is called the first-born, even though no other should follow him. This is clear from the case of the first-born sons who according to the Law were consecrated to the Lord and offered to the priests.
Again, the error of Helvidius receives no support from the Gospel narrative that certain individuals are called the brethren of Christ, as though His mother had other sons. Scripture is accustomed to apply the name brethren to all who belong to the same relationship. For example, Abraham called Lot his brother, although Lot was his nephew. In the same way Mary’s nephews and other relatives are called Christ’s brethren, as also are the relatives of Joseph, who was reputed to be the father of Christ.
Accordingly the Creed states: “Who was born of the Virgin Mary.” And, indeed, she is called a virgin without any qualification, for she remained a virgin before the birth, at the birth, and after the birth of Christ. That there was no impairment of her virginity before and after Christ’s birth, is clear from what has been said. More than that: her virginity was not violated even in the act of giving birth. Christ’s body, which appeared to the disciples when the doors were closed, could by the same power come forth from the closed womb of His mother. It was not seemly that He, who was born for the purpose of restoring what was corrupt to its pristine integrity, should destroy integrity in being born.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, Compendium Theologiae, Ch. 225 - Perpetual Virginity of Christ's Mother.

See also

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