Jimmy Akin

Hey, Tim Jones, here.

Several days ago, while commenting on Jimmy’s post entitled James White Responds, I replied to a Catholic-basher who wrote –

"You hold to gnosticism by saying that Mary’s hyman remained intact during and after the birth of Christ. By agreeing with that ancient heresy, you guys are by implication sayin that Christ didn’t have a real human body…"

Now, I knew this was bunk. In my 14 years as a Catholic, I have never heard this taught by anyone. So, I replied-

"Catholics believe no such thing. That is NOT what is meant by Mary’s perpetual virginity.".

And I wasn’t alone. Another commenter replied

"Nobody in the Catholic church is required to believe this.".

… which is certainly my understanding.

I admit that, though I studied well enough on my way to becoming a Catholic, and though I feel I have a good grasp of the fundamentals (thanks to folks like Ludwig Ott and Jimmy Akin), I am no apologist. I am not widely read, and there are doubtless a number of ancillary topics of which I know little or nothing. I am familiar with the Catechism (and have taught CCD classes, as well as Confirmation prep and RCIA), but I have not delved very deeply into either theology or Church history (the councils and the writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church).

So, I was very interested to see a later commenter write –

"Actually, Free Grace is close to the mark on the perpetual virginity thing… the dogma of the perpetual virginity states that Mary remained a virgin before, *during*, and after Jesus’ birth, and the "during" is taken to refer to the retaining of the physical sign of Mary’s virginity…"

He went on to give THIS LINK to an article on the subject, by Fr. John Saward.

I followed the link and read the article. The commenter was right that a good number of Fathers and Doctors of the Church believed and taught that Mary remained physically intact (no disruption of the birth canal) even during Jesus birth. According to the article –

"It is of divine faith for Catholics to hold that our Lady not only conceived the divine Word as man "without seed, by the Holy Spirit" but also gave birth to Him "without corruption."."

The article continues –

"According to the Church’s Doctors, this freedom from corruption means that the God-Man leaves His Mother’s womb without opening it (utero clauso vel obsignato), without inflicting any injury to her bodily virginity (sine violatione claustri virginalis), and therefore without causing her any pain.".

So it appears that I was wrong in asserting that "Catholics believe no such thing"… some Catholics do. But can this be called the teaching of the Church on this point? Is it, in fact, defined doctrine?

The Church does indeed maintain that Mary remained a virgin before, during and after Jesus’ birth, giving birth to Christ "without corruption"… but what does this really mean? I am certainly open to the idea that Jesus was born in a miraculous way that was unlike natural childbirth… something like the way he could appear and disappear at will after his resurrection, seeming to move through walls.

But opinion has not been unanimous on the subject. The following are from Father Saward’s footnotes to the article;

"…St John Chrysostom, for example, is content to assert the fact of the miraculous preservation of our Lady’s virginity during childbirth and refuses to delve into the details; "…Although I know that a virgin this day gave birth, and I believe that God was begotten before all time, yet the manner of this generation I have learnt to venerate in silence, and I accept that this is not to be probed too curiously with wordy speech.".

"…Quite a few of the Fathers asked for an unambiguous declaration not only to affirm the Virginal Conception of Jesus—which the Christian faith has never doubted—but also fully to safeguard the aphorism Virgo ante partum, in partu et post partum. The Council thought that the terminology it employed could suffice for this end, without going into biological details. "

"…St Thomas says that the hymen pertains to virginity only per accidens, and that its rupture by any means other than sexual pleasure is no more destructive of virginity than the loss of a hand or foot (cf. ST 2a2ae q. 152, a. I, ad 3). However, he also holds that bodily integrity belongs to the perfection of virginity."

So, it appears to me that, though the council had the opportunity to affirm Mary’s virginal integrity through childbirth in clearly physical terms, they chose not to do so.

Also, some saints and doctors of the Church (like St. John Chrysostom, above), while holding that Mary remained always a virgin, were reluctant to delve too deeply into the exact mode of Jesus’ birth.

Perhaps for many, or even most, of the early Church Fathers and saints, it might have been impossible to imagine that a woman could be called a virgin once her female parts had been opened, either in the act of sex, or in the act of childbirth. They might, therefore, have been culturally conditioned to understand Mary’s virginal purity through childbirth in physical terms (just as we may be culturally conditioned to be skeptical of miraculous explanations).

In modern times, we have a narrower understanding of virginity that means merely "never having had sex". Indeed, if most of us today knew of a young woman who had conceived and given birth without the benefit of any male participation (no sex, no male seed to fertilize the egg) we would surely have no problem describing this as a "virgin birth", even though mother and child had experienced normal and natural childbirth. I would certainly never maintain that the woman could no longer truly call herself a virgin.

It seems to me, then, that Catholics, while they must uphold that the Blessed Virgin was truly "Ever Virgin", are free to believe either that,

1) Jesus slipped from his mother’s womb in some miraculous way that  preserved her from any bodily disruption (in other words, without opening her womb).

or that,

2) Jesus experienced a natural childbirth, but that this in no way disqualifies Mary from the title "virgin".

or some combination of the two (like perhaps it was a natural childbirth, but Mary was miraculously preserved from its physical effects).

This is all new to me, but my understanding at present is that Catholics are not required to believe that Jesus slipped out of the womb like a vapor, or that Mary was physically unaltered through the birth process. I am open to either explanation, and can even see a certain poetic symmetry to the assertion, but I am not ready to say that it is anything like a dogma of the Church.