The Perpetual Virginity of Mary

The Madonna of the Magnificat by Botticelli — The Madonna of the Magnificat, Sandro Botticelli — image: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Mary, Ever-Virgin — affirmed by the Lateran Council, A.D. 649

The Catholic Church holds, and has held from her earliest days, that Mary was a virgin before, during, and after the birth of Jesus. The phrase used in the ancient creeds is simple and three-fold: ante partum, in partu, post partum — before birth, in birth, after birth. Mary is Aeiparthenos, the Ever-Virgin.

This is not a teaching that arose late, or one that was added when devotion to Mary grew. It is one of the oldest professions of the Christian faith, found in every great creed of the early Church and confessed without dispute by the Fathers of East and West.

What the dogma says

Mary conceived Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, without the cooperation of any man (the virginal conception). She gave birth to Him in a way that did not violate her bodily integrity (virgin in birth). And after His birth she remained a virgin for the rest of her life (virgin after birth).

The dogma was confirmed solemnly by the Lateran Council under Pope Saint Martin I in A.D. 649, which declared:

If anyone does not properly and truly confess… that the holy Mother of God and ever-Virgin and immaculate Mary in the earliest of the ages conceived of the Holy Spirit without seed, namely God the Word Himself… and bore Him without corruption, her virginity remaining indissoluble even after the birth: let him be condemned.
— Lateran Council, Canon 3, A.D. 649

In Scripture

When the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will conceive, her response reveals her vocation: “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” (Luke 1:34). Her question presumes that virginity is a settled state of her life, not merely an accident of the moment.

When she conceives, she conceives by the Holy Spirit; Saint Joseph, her betrothed, is told in a dream that “that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20).

And the Gospels never name a single sibling of Jesus by Mary. The “brothers” mentioned in the Gospel (e.g., James, Joses, Jude, Simon in Mark 6:3) are, by the unanimous early tradition of the Christian East and West, His extended kinsmen — cousins or step-relatives in the broad Semitic sense of “brother.” When Jesus on the Cross entrusts His mother to the disciple John (John 19:26-27), it is impossible to imagine He would do so if she had other natural sons.

The Jewish roots: the Ark and the Temple Virgin

For first-century Jews, the body of Mary was not just a body but a kind of holy place. To understand this, we have to look at the Old Testament Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark, made at God’s command in the time of Moses, contained three sacred objects: a jar of the manna (the bread from heaven), the rod of Aaron (the staff of the priest), and the tablets of the Law (the word of God on stone). It was the place where God’s glory dwelt with His people. Anyone who touched it without authorization died (2 Samuel 6:6-7). The Ark was used only for that one holy purpose; it was not put to other uses.

Mary, the Christian tradition recognizes, is the new Ark. In her womb she carried the true Bread from Heaven, the true High Priest, and the Word of God made flesh. The very language of the Gospel of Luke describing the Annunciation is drawn from the Old Testament accounts of the Ark: “The power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35) echoes the cloud that overshadowed the Ark in the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:35).

If the Ark of the Old Covenant, a thing of gold and acacia wood, was kept exclusively for God, how much more the new Ark, the body of the Mother who bore Him? The early Church understood Mary’s perpetual virginity as the Ark’s exclusive consecration brought to its full meaning. Her body, having been the dwelling place of the Word of God, was not turned to other uses. She remained His.

Some early Christian writings — particularly the Protoevangelium of James, dating to about A.D. 145 — preserve the tradition that Mary herself was consecrated as a young girl by her parents Joachim and Anne to a life of dedicated virginity in the Temple at Jerusalem. The Eastern feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, celebrated November 21, remembers this. Whether or not the historical details are exact, the Church has always understood Mary’s virginity as freely chosen and lifelong, not accidental.

The witness of the Church Fathers

On this point, the Christian East and West are completely agreed. Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, Saint Ambrose of Milan, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Basil the Great, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Saint John Damascene — every great Father affirms it. The Reformers themselves — Luther, Calvin, Zwingli — all confessed Mary’s perpetual virginity. It is one of the few Marian doctrines that united Christians for sixteen centuries.

Her virginity is not diminished by giving birth, and her childbearing is not stained by her virginity.
— Saint Augustine of Hippo

A spiritual reflection

It is a great mystery, and a great gift, that the Mother of God consecrated her body wholly to God. Her virginity is not a refusal of love. It is the deepest possible openness to it. Mary said yes to God so completely that no other word, in her body or in her soul, could be added or subtracted.

She is the first of those whom Saint Paul will later call “consecrated” — men and women who, in religious life, give their bodies to God in the same single-hearted way. She is the patroness of every nun, every priest, every consecrated virgin in the long tradition of the Church. She is also the patroness of married couples, who give their bodies in their own consecrated way.

In an age that does not always know what to make of such things, Mary stands as a quiet sign that the body, given wholly to God, is not diminished but glorified.