Show me the writings of those writers I quoted that support the perpetual virginity of Mary…
In Protestant apologetics, the Blessed Mother receives a lot of attention, all of it negative. Great stress is laid on “the brethren of the Lord” (Mark 3:31). A Fundamentalist commentary identifies them for us.
“Who were the “brothers” and “sisters” of Jesus, mentioned in Matthew 13:55-56 and Mark 6:3? Mary’s own children? Or children of Joseph by a former marriage? Or cousins? The plain, simple, natural meaning of these passages is that they were Mary’s own children. This is the OPINION [emph. mine] commonly held among Protestant commentators. And it is substantiated by the statement in Luke 2:7 that Mary “brought forth her FIRST-BORN [emph. theirs] son.” Why “first-born,” if there were no others? . . . As for Mary’s “perpetual virginity,” how about Matthew 1:25?”
Matthew 1:25 says: “And he knew her not till she brought forth her first born son: and called his name Jesus.”
Reading this, we get some idea of the burdens borne by those who are “free” to interpret Holy Scripture, while tightly tethered to a tradition made up of reasons not to believe. Those who just believe are spared much confusion.
The "plain, simple, natural meaning " is not necessarily the meaning God intended to convey. These revealed truths encompass supernatural realities beyond our experience. Negative Protestant oral tradition, exerting its shrinking, narrowing, and leveling effect on everything it touches, shows its inadequacies when faced with the sublime, which is to say, all the time.
O.S.'s tone reflects his confidence that these objections to Catholic teaching are irrefutable and conclusive. But unlike “the opinion commonly held among Protestant commentators,” which is only a denial and requires no research at all, Catholic opinion is drawn from twenty centuries of scholarship and an even older history, all of it in complete accord with Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
The questions raised by the term “brothers and sisters of Jesus,” and the application to the child Jesus of the title “firstborn” can be ANSWERED, and answerd without denying other known truths. The reference texts put forth to prove Protestant denials, Matthew 13:55-56, Mark 6:3, Luke 2:7, and Matthew 1:25 are all being made to say essentially the same things: our Lord had brothers and sisters; Mary and Joseph were ordinary people. Except for Him, the Holy Family was an ordinary family just like everybody else’s. Did I say “leveling”?
This leveling is required by Protestant principles. If it be essential to fiduciary faith that it infallibly assures the sinner of his own justification, it cannot mean anything but a firm conviction of the actual possession of grace. Moreover, if there is no interior righteousness capable of increase or decrease, if the sinner is justified through God’s sanctity eternally the same, it is evident that all the just from the common mortal to the apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary possess one and the same degree of righteousness and sanctity. This notion is proved totally false by three little words in the New Testament, St. Peter’s admonition: “Grow in grace” (2 Peter 3:18).
Helvidius, writing about 380, attacked the perpetual virginity of Mary by asserting that the “brethren of the Lord” were sons of Mary and Joseph, born after the virginal conception of Jesus. At first, St. Jerome refused to reply to a doctrine that was “novel, wicked and a daring affront to the faith of the whole world.” But he was finally prevailed upon by friends to write “De Perpetua Virginitate B. Mariae.” In this masterly treatise against Helvidius, he showed the falsity of the latter’s teaching not only by convincing arguments based on the explanation or critical interpretation of the relevant texts, but by an appeal to the testimony of Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr and all the other men going back apostolic times who had written on the subject.
Helvidius was effectively silenced and never ventured a reply. Little more was heard of his theory until it was revived by those nearer to our times.
