The Perpetual Virginity of
Our Lady
Objection: “Mary had other children besides Jesus. This is clear from
the following passages of the Bible:
‘While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his
brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him’ (St. Matt.
12:46).
‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not
this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not
his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all
his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this? And they
took offense at him’ (St. Matt. 13:54-57).”
According to Fundamentalists, it appears clear from these passages that
Jesus Christ had brothers and sisters, and that the Virgin Mary did not
remain a virgin all her life; yet it has been the belief in the Catholic Church
since ancient times that the Virgin Mary was a virgin before, during, and
perpetually after the birth of Christ (ante partum, in partu, post partum).
The so-called Protoevangelium of St. James (written c. 170 AD) says that
the Virgin Mary was one of the women who, like the prophetess Anna,
lived celibate lives in the Temple of Jerusalem, praying full-time: “(from
the time she was three) Mary was in the temple of the Lord as if she were a
dove that dwelt there” (4:7). A life of continual prayer and service to the
Lord in the Temple meant that Mary could not live the ordinary life of a
childbearing mother, and so she made a vow of perpetual virginity.
However, due to considerations of ceremonial cleanliness, it was eventually
necessary for Mary to have appointed a guardian who would respect her
vow of virginity. Thus Joseph, an elderly widower who already had
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