“So they went up to Mount Zion with gladness and joy, and offered burnt
offerings, because not one of them had fallen till they returned in safety” (1
Macc. 5:54)––Are we to read this verse to mean that the soldiers were
killed after they returned from battle?
Even early Protestant leader John Calvin shared St. Jerome’s opinion:
“There have been certain folk who have wished to suggest from this
passage (Matthew 1:25) that the Virgin Mary had other children than
the Son of God, and that Joseph then dwelt with her later; but what
folly this is! For the gospel writer did not wish to record what
happened afterwards; he simply wished to make clear Joseph’s
obedience and to show also that Joseph had been well and truly
assured that it was God who had sent His angel to Mary. He had
therefore never dwelt with her nor had he shared her company.”
7
Third objection: “What about the fact that in some versions of St.
Matthew 1:25 Jesus is called ‘first-born.’
Doesn’t this imply that he
was therefore the first-born of several?”
According to the Jewish Law a child was named “first-born” irrespective of
whether there were yet, or ever to be, other children born to the same
mother. The law as stated in Exodus 13:2 required that “whatever is first to
open the womb among the people of Israel” be consecrated to God forty
days after its birth. The child is designated “first-born” even though it is
only forty days old and hence impossible for it to have any brother or sister
yet. John Calvin also conceded this fact:
“And besides this, Our Lord Jesus Christ is called the first-born. This
is not because there was a second or a third, but because the gospel
writer is paying regard to the precedence … Scripture speaks thus of
naming the first-born whether or not there was any question of the
second.”
8
Fourth objection: “Psalm 69 (68) is Messianic and speaks of the
Messiah as a stranger and an alien even unto His mother’s children.”
7
Sermon on Matthew 1:22-25, published 1562.
8
Ibid.
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