Ancient consecrated virgins

[MarcoPolo]

I seem to recall (perhaps it was in Catholicism & Fundamentalism) that during Mary’s time, it was not unheard of that someone would practice celibacy or virginity. Does anyone else know what I’m talking about? Are there antiquated sources that mention this? Maybe I’m thinking of one of the Da Vinci Code debunking books referring to “Jesus would have married, all Jewish men married!”

 

[Doxiemom]

I seem to recall reading about selected virgins who were the weavers of the Veil that stood before the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Whatever it was suggested that Mary was one of them.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Interesting. There is a tradition that Mary along with other virgins were summoned to work on the veil. Looks like the Protoevangelium of James that mentions Mary and virgins weaving this veil, although this was before the Holy Spirit conceiving Jesus in her.

 

[Mark_Sam]

There was another thread on the temple virgins which is now closed, unfortunately. The original post was:

Hi All,

I have heard it proposed that Mary could have been a consecrated lifelong virgin, consecrated for service at the Temple. This is apparently stated in The Protevangelium of James.Can anyone give me another reference for the existence of Temple virgins at the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem?

Thanks,

Jim

In four pages of responses, no one had mentioned the passage in Maccabees.

Regarding Our Lady’s presentation in the temple, St. Alphonsus Liguori writes in The Glories of Mary:

"Yet, when the Immaculate Infant understood afterwards that Her holy parents, Joachim and Anna, had promised to God, even by a vow, as various authors relate, that if He should grant them a child, it should be consecrated to His service in the temple; for it was an ancient custom of the Jews to place their children in cells which were near the temple, that there they might be properly educated, as we learn from Baronius, Nicephorus, Cedrenus, and Suarez, as also from Josephus, the Jewish historian, St.John Damascene, St. Gregory of Nicomedia, St. Anselm (De Form. et Mor. B.M.), and St. Ambrose (De Vir. L 1). As it is also clearly seen in Macchabees, where, speaking of Heliodorus, who wished to enter the temple by force in order to take from it the treasures deposited there, it is said: “Because the place was like to come into contempt … the virgins that were shut up hastened to Onias.” (2 Mac. 3:19)

The entire quote is, “Others also came flocking together out of their houses, praying and making public supplication, because the place was like to come into contempt. And the women, girded with haircloth about their breasts, came together in the streets. And the virgins also that were shut up, came forth, some to Onias, and some to the walls, and others looked out of the windows.” (2 Mac. 3:18-19)

 

[Dale_M]

I seem to recall (perhaps it was in Catholicism & Fundamentalism) that during Mary’s time, it was not unheard of that someone would practice celibacy or virginity. Does anyone else know what I’m talking about? Are there antiquated sources that mention this? Maybe I’m thinking of one of the Da Vinci Code debunking books referring to “Jesus would have married, all Jewish men married!”

Certainly women of the early church would sometimes practice what is now referred to as consecrated virginity.

This is from the old Catholic Encyclopedia

St. Paul speaks of widows, who were called to certain kinds of church work (I Tim., v, 9), and of virgins (I Cor., vii), whom he praises for their continence and their devotion to the things of the Lord. In the earliest times Christian women directed their fervor, some towards the service of the sanctuary, others to the attainment of perfection. The virgins were remarkable for their perfect and perpetual chastity which the Catholic Apologists have extolled as a contrast to pagan corruption (St. Justin, “Apol.”, I, c. 15; Migne, “P.G.” VI, 350; St. Ambrose, “De Virginibus”, Bk I, c.; Migne, “P.L.”, XVI, 193). Many also practiced poverty. From the earliest times they were called the spouses of Christ, according to St. Athanasius, the custom of the Church (“Apol. ad Constant.”, sec. 33; Migne, “P.G.”, XXV, 639). St. Cyprian describes a virgin who had broken her vows as an adulteress (“Ep. 62”, Migne, “P.L.”, IV, 370). Tertullian distinguishes between those virgins who took the veil publicly in the assembly of the faithful, and others known to God alone; the veil seems to have been simply that of married women. Virgins vowed to the service of God, at first continued to live with their families, but as early as the end of the third century there were community houses known as partheuones; and certainly at the beginning of the same century the virgins formed a special class in the Church, receiving Holy Communion before the laity. The office of Good Friday in which the virgins are mentioned after the porters, and the Litany of the Saints, in which they are invoked with the widows, show traces of this classification. They were sometimes admitted among the deaconesses for the baptism of adult women and to exercise the functions which St. Paul had reserved for widows of sixty years.

oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Nuns