A Blog on Assyrian Church Theology

Dear readers,

Today, I have stumbled upon a blog called “East Meets East”, which is dedicated to exploring the theological tradition of the Assyrian Church of the East, somewhat in light of Eastern (Chalcedonian) Orthodoxy.

The author, Fr. Ephraim Alkhas, has not blogged in a while (a matter of years) but from what I’ve read, he does very intentional, thoughtful, scholarly, and charitable writing. There is an obvious interest in truth and in examining the heritage of the Church of the East for what it really is.

For those unfamiliar: the Assyrian Church of the East is an apostolic communion which broke ties with the other churches in light of the Council of Ephesus (431.) This Church has historically been referred to as the “Nestorian” Church (for the sake of convention, if not for the sake of slur,) but it seems as though their Christology does not really qualify as such. This Church sent missionaries even further east than Syria, eventually reaching all the way to China, several centuries before the Jesuits made their first historic mission trips to those regions (surprising them to find any sort of Christianity present upon their arrival.)

This Church also suffered the development of two different schismatic groups, both of which ultimately entered into communion with the Pope of Rome, becoming what is known as the Chaldean Catholic Church (which actually now outnumbers the original Assyrian Church from which it split.)

Church history enthusiasts, theologians, and truth-oriented ecumenists will most likely find this blog highly interesting.

http://eastmeetseastblog.blogspot.com

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St. Ephrem the Syrian, ora pro nobis

The Eucharist: Realist Implications in St. Augustine

No reasonable voice would contest that St. Augustine of Hippo did not believe the Sacraments to be efficacious. It is ceded even by Protestant historians that he believed them to communicate saving, sanctifying grace, and the Eucharist is among them. But what is the nature, in his mind, of the Sacrament itself? No doubt, St. Augustine devoted much of his expositions on the Eucharist to its symbolic nature -- but, is that as far as his own belief actually goes? Or does he go further?

Here are provided some quotes I seldom see quoted by either the Catholics or the Protestants in the debate surrounding his Eucharistic theology. They, I believe, demonstrate a view which far transcends the notion of mere symbolism concerning the Lord's Supper, for they speak on not only the efficacy and grace of the Sacrament, but the Sacrament itself. I believe it is not unreasonable to ascribe to St. Augustine an actual belief in the Real Presence.

On the Remission on Sin, and on the Baptism of Infants 34
The Christians of Carthage have an excellent name for the sacraments, when they say that baptism is nothing else than Salvation, and the sacrament of the body of Christ nothing else than Life. Whence, however, was this derived, but from that primitive, as I suppose, and apostolic tradition, by which the Churches of Christ maintain it to be an inherent principle, that without baptism and partaking of the supper of the Lord it is impossible for any man to attain either to the kingdom of God or to salvation and everlasting life? ...We therefore ought not to doubt that even for infants yet to be baptized was that precious blood shed, which previous to its actual effusion was so given, and applied in the sacrament, that it was said, "This is my blood, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins."


From Ennarations on the Psalms, 33[34]:1
"And was carried in His Own Hands: how carried in His Own Hands? Because when He commended His Own Body and Blood, He took into His Hands that which the faithful know; and in a manner carried Himself, when He said, This is My Body."

From The Confessions 8:23
"For He judges and approves what He finds right, but disapproves what He finds amiss, whether in the celebration of those sacraments by which are initiated those whom Your mercy searches out in many waters; or in that in which the Fish Itself is exhibited, which, being raised from the deep, the devout earth feeds upon…"

From Sermon 228B*

"No longer is a victim sought from the flocks for a blood sacrifice, nor is a sheep or a goat any more led to the divine altars, but now the sacrifice of our time is the body and blood of the priest himself."

"So Christ our Lord, who offered by suffering for us what by being born he had received from us, has become our high priest for ever, and has given us the order of sacrifice which you can see, of his body that is to say, and his blood. When his body, remember, was pierced by the lance, it poured forth the water and the blood by which he cancelled our sins. Be mindful of this grace as you work out your salvation, since it is God who is at work in you, and approach with fear and trembling to partake of this altar. Recognize in the bread what hung on the cross, and in the cup what flowed from his side."

"And therefore receive and eat the body of Christ, yes, you that have become members of Christ in the body of Christ; receive and drink the blood of Christ.

"You were able to read or to hear this in the gospel before, but you were unaware that this eucharist is the Son. But now, your hearts sprinkled with a pure conscience, and your bodies washed with pure water, approach him and be enlightened, and your faces will not blush for shame (Ps 34:5). Because if you receive this worthily, which means belonging to the new covenant by which you hope for an eternal inheritance, and if you keep the new commandment to love one another, then you have life in yourselves. You are then, after all, receiving that flesh about which Life itself says, The bread which I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world; and Unless people eat my flesh and drink my blood, they will not have life in themselves.

The Firstborn Son

We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time. 
Romans 8:22

Aside from the texts which refer to the brothers of the Lord, the other frequently cited passage to bolster the argument against the Perpetual Virginity of Mary is Matthew 1:24-25. The Scripture reads:

"Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus."
Matthew 1:24-25 (KJV)

There are two words which, especially in conjunction with one another, appear to damn the idea that Mary bore no other children besides Jesus the Christ. They are the words "firstborn" and "till" -- words which, to those unfamiliar with the nuances of the Sacred Texts, would sequentially necessitate that there must have been other children which followed the birth of Christ. But we shall delve into and shed light on the texts, and reveal these nuances, discovering that no such necessity actually exists. Both terms carry Hebraic functions which speak beyond their simplistic meaning.

"Firstborn"

The Flight into Egypt, Carlo Dolci (1616-1686), oil on canvas

To the ears of moderns, the term "firstborn" would seem to imply that there must necessarily also be, at the very least, a second born. But this is not how ancient Jews and Christians would have understood the term. Rather, when God instructs Moses on the consecration of the firstborn throughout the land, this is how the concept is described:

The Lord said to Moses: Consecrate to me all the firstborn; whatever is the first to open the womb among the Israelites, of human beings and animals, is mine.
Exodus 13:1-2 

This consecration of the firstborn, being one of the commandments of Almighty God given to the people of Israel, would have been equally applicable, presumably including the occasion when a family or an animal had only one offspring. The firstborn is nothing more than that which opens the womb for the first time.

All in all, if Mary had no other children besides the Lord, He nevertheless would still have been "the first to open the womb." (Linguistically, it's no different than the man who settled down with his high school sweetheart and explains it by saying that he married "his first girlfriend.")

"Until/Till/'Til/Unto"

Just as "firstborn" doesn't necessarily imply a "second born", neither does the word "until" necessarily imply any sort of termination of circumstance. On the contrary, sometimes it merely used for emphasis of that circumstance, affirming its details up to a certain point in time, with no bearing on what happens afterwards.

This is not an argument for some unique and abstract usage of the word "until"; the examples found in Scripture are copious indeed. Here are but a few examples:

• "And he [Noe] sent forth a raven; and it went forth and returned not until the water was dried from off the earth." Genesis 8:7 LXX
  
  [Yet anyone who's familiar with this story knows that the raven, famously, never returned to Noah.]

• "And he buried him [Moses] in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." Deuteronomy 34:6 (KJV)
  
  [The day after these words were written down, was the body of Moses then discovered?]

• "As to Michal daughter of Saul, she had no child till the day of her death." 2 Samuel 6:23 (YLT)
  
  [Should we conclude that on the day she died, Michal gave King David a child?]

• "David also said to Solomon his son, 'Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished'" 1 Chronicles 28:20 (NIV)
  
  [Is God only unfailing and faithful while there is work left for his servants to be done?]

• "From the rising of the sun till to the going down (From the rising of the sun until the going down of the same); the name of the Lord is worthy to be praised." Psalms 113:3
  
  [Is God's name not worthy of praise in between sunrise and sundown?]

• "And even to your old age I am he" Isaiah 46:4 (KJV)
  
  [After man is old and fades away into death, is God no longer God?]

• "And behold, I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age." Matthew 28:20b (BLB)
  
  [Does this mean that when the age is completed, Christ will no longer be with his disciples?]

• "We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time." Romans 8:22
  
  [If you read the wider context, Paul is very assertive that earth still has yet to give birth.]

• "And they went up to mount Sion with joy and gladness, and offered holocausts, because not one of them was slain, till they had returned in peace. "1 Maccabees 5:54 (DRA)
  
  [Does "till" imply that once Judah Maccabeus and men returned safely, at least one of them were slain?]

In these passages, this linguistic function of the word is utilized so as to emphasize the point of the text. The meanings of these other texts, are of course rather, obvious. By saying Michal bore no children "til" the day of her death, it communicates that throughout her whole life, she never bore children. Likewise, the Messiah's statement "I am with you always, until the completion of the age", communicates His unwavering fidelity, which actually reaches beyond the scope of time.

So then, what point is being emphasized in Matthew 1:25 by the inclusion of these words? That at no time at all during Mary's pregnancy of Christ did Joseph ever compromise her virginal integrity. (The dynamic force of its inclusion might interpret the verse along the lines of "he knew her not even until she brought forth her firstborn.") It operates so as to stress, to affirm against suspicion surrounding the matter, that the Lord Jesus Christ was truly conceived and born of a virgin. The purpose of this verse isn't to inform the reader about what would later become of the Lord's family, but is rather about the Lord himself, emphasizing and insisting that his miraculous birth was truly and only that: miraculous.

"I also shall make him My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth."

Psalms 89:27

Liturgical Theology of Latin Rite Matrimony (Peter Totleben, O.P.)

Over at Gabriel Sanchez's blog Opus Publicum, he put up an excerpt and some commentary from Orthodox Scholar Fr. John Meyendorff on the subject of the Sacrament of Marriage. It carries the usual Eastern critique of Western marriage theology. These are Meyendorff's words:

Many confusions and misunderstandings concerning marriage in our contemporary Orthodox practice would be easily eliminated if the original connection between marriage and the Eucharist were restored. Theoretically, Orthodox sacramental theology, even in its scholastic, textbook form, has preserved this connection in affirming, in opposition to Roman Catholicism, that the priest is the ‘minister’ of marriage. Western medieval theology, on the contrary, has created a series of confusions by adopting, as in so many other points Roman legalism as the basis of sacramental theology: marriage, being a ‘contract’, is concluded by the husband and wife themselves, who are therefore the ‘ministers’ of the sacrament, the priest being only a witness. As a legal contract, marriage is dissolved by the death of one of the partners, but it is indissoluble as long as both are alive. Actually, indissolubility i.e., a legal concept taken as an absolute is the main, if not the only, contribution of Christianity to the Roman Catholic concept of marriage. Broken by death, assimilated with a human agreement, marriage, in the prevailing Western view, is only an earthly affair, concerned with the body, unworthy of entering the Kingdom of God. One can even wonder whether marriage, so understood, can still be called a sacrament. But, by affirming that the priest is the minister of the marriage, as he is also the minister of the Eucharist, the Orthodox Church implicitly integrates marriage in the eternal Mystery, where the boundaries between heaven and earth are broken and where human decision and action acquire an eternal dimension.

Orthodox Christians commonly accuse the West of a legalistic understanding of marriage, claiming it is purely consent based and has no real ecclesial function in its essence, and that it does s not carry any eschatological significance.

However, an erudite reply from Dominican Br. (now Fr.) Peter Totleben put up a response that really delves into the history and sacramental theology of marriage for the Western Church, one which explains the sacerdotal relevance to the sacrament, and a fantastic brief but dense exegesis of the famous passage from Matthew where Christ answers the Saducee's question on marriage and the resurrection.

It highly impressed me, enough to the point where I thought it warranted its own blog post. So I offer you the same erudition he offered me and all of Gabe's readers. I hope it benefits the overall dialogue on this issue.

"A typical pattern that you see in the works of Meyendorff (especially when he is critical of Western practices) is that he takes a term, a tag, or a catch-phrase that strikes him as odd, gives it his own meaning, and then criticizes it in terms of the meaning he has given it. So he can be a bit hard to engage. 

There are also some problems with Meyendorff’s historical work. He’s usually invested in a particular “side” in the historical events that he investigates. And he doesn’t really take the positions of other sides seriously. He usually is too trusting of his own party’s evaluations of its opponents, and he uncritically repeats them as if they were objective summaries of the state of affairs. And he never really consults what the opponents of his side have to say. 

So, reading Meyendorff can sometimes be like letting Rush Limbaugh explain democrats to you. . . 

That’s pretty much what is happening in this quote. Meyendorff treats “contract” and “indissolubility” as if his understanding of these two terms exhausts the understanding of marriage of the Latin Church. Then he concludes that there is nothing particularly Christian about any of it. But of course, a more integral reading of the Latin tradition (or even a slightly less superficial treatment of it) would show that this is nonsense on stilts.
Really, what’s going on here is that the Latin Church makes a clearer distinction between natural and sacramental marriage. Natural marriage is elevated to the dignity of a sacrament. It’s just an observation of the evident fact that non-Christians fall in love, get married and have children. It’s “the one blessing not lost by the fall.” And it is good. You don’t need grace to make nature good. 

And, in fact, every sacrament presupposes some good natural action. Baptism presupposes washing with water; confirmation presupposes anointing with oil; the Eucharist presupposes offering a sacrifice and eating; penance presupposes the actions of confession, contrition, and satisfaction on the part of the penitent. Likewise, marriage as a sacrament presupposes the committed procreative love of the spouses–i.e. natural marriage. It is this which gets elevated and changed into a sign and instrument of grace. (And the sign has a composite signification with reference to the past, present and future, so the marriage has an inherently eschatological dimension). 

If marriage is an institution of nature, then it is reasonable to suppose that it began with the consent of the two spouses. This is the basis behind the Latin view that consent makes the marriage. But this is without prejudice to either the intercession of the Church or God’s causality. 

In the Latin Church, the priest is not simply a witness to the contractual exchange of consent, and this is evident from the liturgy of Marriage. In the traditional rite, the priest even says, “I join you in matrimony, in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Then, the ritual instructs him, “If the nuptial blessing is to take place [ie. if both parties are Catholic], the Pastor celebrates the Mass pro Sponso et Sponsa.” This is because the nuptial blessing (uniquely) is given between the anaphora and communion (where the bride and groom share in the Eucharist). What is really puzzling is that Meyendorff is criticizing Catholics for separating the meaning of marriage from the meaning Eucharist, while the Orthodox have maintained it, when it is the Catholics who have so carefully maintained the connection between the celebration of marriage and the celebration of the Eucharist. It is a bit odd to explain to an Orthodox theologian that the liturgy is supposed to be an important source for theology, but there you go. 

(Actually, this whole dispute over who is the minister of marriage is overblown. In the Byzantine period, the Orthodox Church was responsible for the administration of civil marriage, and they witnessed the consent of the couple as a matter of course, and then blessed them. The Catholic Church would at times admit the validity, but not the liceity of clandestine marriage. However, marriage before a priest was the norm. And for centuries now, the liturgical rite of marriage has been required even for a valid marriage)
Nor does the doctrine that consent makes the marriage neglect God’s causality. 

Meyendorff highlights how the couples are the ministers of the sacrament of marriage. What Meyendorff doesn’t tell you is that the minister of the sacrament is always an instrumental cause. In the administration of the sacraments; there is a synergy between God and the human minister, with the human minister subordinated to God’s causal action. No one ever supposed that two baptized people simply ratify a contract, and that is all that marriage is. It is also a bit odd that one has to remind an Orthodox theologian about the doctrine of God’s synergy with human actions, but again, there you go.) 

Seen from this light, the Latin Church is not assimilating marriage to a human contract, but is saying that God enters into a synergy with the couple, deifying their human love to make it a sign and instrument of — or, if you like, an eschatological participation in — his heavenly kingdom. It is simply absurd to assert that the Latin church makes of marriage “only an earthly reality.” 

But that doesn’t mean that marriage carries over into heaven. On a natural level, marriage is for the procreation and upbringing of children. This type of family organization will not obtain in heaven. On a sacramental level, marriage is an eschatological sign and instrument of God’s covenant love for his people, as this is shown in Christ’s love for his Church. Sacraments are for this world. Precisely by calling them sacraments (or mysteries in St. Paul’s sense) and by giving them an eschatological dimension, you are conceding that they are for this world. (You don’t need a sacrament of the kingdom once the reality of the kingdom is consummated.) 

Think about the Eucharist. We will not celebrate the Eucharist in heaven, because we will not need a sacramental liturgy in heaven. In heaven, sacramental worship gives way to a worship of a more un-mediated sort. Priests remain priests in heaven, of course (they are still marked by their character), but they do not exercise their sacramental functions. The hierarchy of sacramental ministers gives way to the hierarchy of charity which is the flourishing of the baptismal priesthood. (Monks remain monks because consecrated life is a more intense participation). Marriage, however, is a type of relationship that is radically characterized by its procreative dimension–that’s why marriage itself, even in its sacramental form passes away at death. 

This is really crass, supine, or affected ignorance on the part of Meyendorff. Instead of paying attention to the discipline, liturgy, theology, or magisterial teaching of the Latin Church, he gives a misleading account of its doctrine so that he can engage in an act of petty point-scoring. How does that help anyone?

But I wonder if all of this doesn’t highlight another problem. A lot of the Orthodox thinking on marriage in the 20th century makes it seem like the procreative dimension of marriage is somehow not constitutive of marriage, especially when this is seen as a sacrament. The fundamentally procreative nature of marriage is at the heart of Latin thinking about the sacrament. This is true whether it is a discussion of the “ends of marriage” the “goods of marriage” or the “unitive and procreative dimensions of marriage.” The Catholic Church has been pretty consistent in arguing that these cannot be separated. 

The Church’s position is often misunderstood. People often think of the unitive and procreative ends of marriage as two really distinct things, and then wonder which is primary. (It’s like the old SNL commercial parody: “It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping.”) But that’s not really the right way to think about it. What a thing is is specified by its end, and so a thing can’t have two ends. Actually the procreative and unitive “ends” of marriage aren’t really distinct. Marriage isn’t a friends-with-exclusive-benefits sort of arrangement. Natural marriage has only one end: a procreative end. It’s not just any sort of union, and the sexual act is not accidental to the sort of union that it is. A husband and a wife literally fit their bodies together so that they become one agent, one cause in the creation of a new life. 

And it is important to get fleshy like that when talking about marriage, because that is what makes marriage different from any other kind of union or friendship. When you read modern Orthodox writing about the sacrament of marriage, it seems to sacramentalize the unitive aspects of marriage, while factoring out the procreative nature of that union. But the reason why marriage is a sacrament and other kinds of friendship aren’t is precisely because of the special kind of friendship (i.e. a procreative one) that marriage is. 

And, of course, if marriage is fundamentally about turning procreative union into a sacrament of the kingdom, then marriage does not continue into heaven. In Matthew 22, Jesus did not say that the woman would not have sex with any of her seven husbands in heaven. He said that none of the seven would be her husband–even though she had sex with all of them on earth. 

Nor is it an argument against this position that we will continue to love our families in heaven. Of course we will. But from this it does not follow that we are still married.
Like so much of what is found in 20th Century Orthodox writers, I’m not sure how well-grounded it actually is in the texts of the Greek Fathers. At any rate, when reading the Fathers, we need to recall that they were living in a culture that took the procreative nature of marriage for granted, and a culture that had a strong pagan background where the unitive implications of marriage needed to be emphasized. 

Actually, I think that a lot of modern Orthodox writers are explicitly trying to appeal to the post-Cartesian sensibilities of their readers. And, as is unfortunately so often the case with 20th century Orthodox writers, “ancient faith” and “light from the East” really just means thinly-veiled modernism. 

It is actually this modern, “de-fleshified” concept of marriage that is behind many of the deviations from traditional Christian morality that some Orthodox writers are trying to promote. Once marriage is no longer fundamentally procreative, there is no reason why you can’t use contraception. Once marriage is no longer essentially characterized by the meaning of the sexual act (the way that the husband and wife become the one cause of their child and are responsible for raising it), there’s no reason the husband and wife can’t move on. 

It’s not that Catholics make marriage only an earthly affair, it’s that Orthodox make it only a heavenly one."

St. Ambrose of Milan, Letter 42

[Looking up passages from St. Ambrose of Milan (A.D. 333-397) to study his views concerning the Bishop of Rome, I came across this letter. It is a letter to Pope Siricius from a Synod assembled in Milan. I found it very interesting, not only on account of its relation to the Pope, but also on account of its stance on the matter of virginity and marriage, and its treatment of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I thought it would be worth sharing in its entirety. Please enjoy and be edified.]

St. Ambrose of Milan (333-397)

TO THEIR LORD, THEIR DEARLY BELOVED BROTHER, POPE SIRICIUS, AMBROSE, SABINUS, BASSANIUS, AND THE REST SEND GREETING.

1.  In your Holiness' Letter we recognized the vigilance of a good shepherd, for you faithfully guard the door which has been entrusted to you, and with pious solicitude watch over the fold of Christ, being worthy to be heard and followed by the sheep of the Lord. Knowing therefore the lambs of Christ, you will easily discover the wolves, and meet them as a wary shepherd, so as to keep them from scattering the Lord's flock by their unbelieving life and dismal barking.

2.  We praise you for this, our Lord and brother dearly beloved, and join in cordial commendations of it. Nor are we surprised that the Lord's flock was terrified at the rage of wolves in whom they recognized not the voice of Christ. For it is a savage barking to shew no reverence to virginity, observe no rule of chastity, to seek to place every thing on a level, to abolish the different degrees of merit, and to introduce a certain meagreness in heavenly rewards, as if Christ had only one palm to bestow, and there was no copious diversity in His rewards.

3.  They pretend that they are giving honour to marriage. But what praise can rightly be given to marriage if no distinction is paid to virginity? We do not deny that marriage was hallowed by Christ, for the Divine words say, And they twain shall be one flesh, and one spirit, but our birth precedes our calling, and the mystery of the Divine operation is much more excellent than the remedy of human frailty. A good wife is deservedly praised, but a pious virgin is more properly preferred, for the Apostle says, He that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well, but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better; for the one careth for the things of the Lord, the other for the things of the world. The one is bound by the chains of marriage, the other is free from chains; the one is under the Law, the other under Grace. Marriage is good, for thereby the means of continuing the human race has been devised, but virginity is better, for thereby the heritage of the heavenly kingdom is regained, and the mode of attaining to heavenly rewards discovered. By a woman care entered the world; by a virgin salvation was brought to pass. Lastly, Christ chose virginity as His own special gift, and displayed the grace of chastity, thus making an exhibition of that in His own person which in His Mother He had made the object of His choice.

4.  How great is the madness of their dismal barkings, that the same persons should say that Christ could not be born of a virgin, and yet assert that women, after having given birth to human pledges, remain virgins? Does Christ grant to others what, as they assert, He could not grant to Himself? But He, although He took on Him our flesh, although He was made man that He might redeem man, and recal him from death, still, as being God, came upon earth in an extraordinary way, that as He had said, Behold I make all things new, so also He might be born of an immaculate virgin, and be believed to be, as it is written, God with us. But from their perverse ways they are induced to say 'She was a virgin when she conceived, but not a virgin when she brought forth.' Could she then conceive as a virgin, and yet not be able to bring forth as a virgin, when conception always precedes, and birth follows?

5.  But if they will not believe the doctrines of the Clergy, let them believe the oracles of Christ, let them believe the admonitions of Angels who say, For with God nothing shall be impossible. Let them give credit to the Creed of the Apostles, which the Roman Church has always kept and preserved undefiled. Mary heard the voice of the Angel, and she who before had said How shall this be? not asking from want of faith in the mode of generation, afterwards replied, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. This is the virgin who conceived, this the virgin who brought forth a Son. For thus it is written, Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son; declaring not only that she should conceive as a virgin, but also that she bring forth as a virgin.

6. But what is that gate of the sanctuary, that outward gate which looketh towards the East, which remains shut, and no man, it is said, shall enter in by it but the Lord, the God of Israel. Is not Mary this gate, by whom the Saviour entered into the world? This is the gate of righteousness, as He Himself said, Suffer us to fulfil all righteousness. Blessed Mary is the gate, whereof it is written that the Lord hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut after birth; for as a virgin she both conceived and brought forth.

7.  But why should it be incredible that Mary, contrary to the usage of natural birth, should bring forth and yet remain a virgin; when contrary to the usage of nature, the sea saw and fled, and the floods of Jordan retired to their source. It should not exceed our belief that a virgin should bring forth, when we read that a rock poured forth water, and the waves of the sea were gathered up like a wall. Nor need it, again, exceed our belief that a man should be born of a virgin, when a running stream gushed forth from the rock, when iron swam upon the waters, and a man walked upon them. If therefore the waves carried a man, could not a virgin bring forth a man? But what man? Him of Whom we read, The Lord shall send them a Man Who shall deliver them; and the Lord shall be known to Egypt. Wherefore in the old Testament a Hebrew virgin led the people through the sea, in the New Testament a royal virgin was elected to be a heavenly abode for our salvation.

8.  But what more? let us also subjoin the praises of widowhood, since in the Gospel next after that most illustrious birth from a virgin, comes the widow Anna; she who had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; and she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served with fastings and prayers night and day.

9.  And fitting it is that these men should despise widowhood, which is wont to keep fasts, for they regret that they should have been mortified by these for any time, and avenge the wrong they inflicted on themselves, and by daily banquets and habits of luxury seek to ward off the pain of abstinence. They do nothing more rightly than in thus condemning themselves out of their own mouth.

10.  But they even fear lest their former fasting should be reckoned against them. Let them choose whichever they like: if they ever fasted, let them repent of their good work, if never, let them confess their own intemperance and luxury. And so they assert that Paul was a teacher of excess. But who can be a teacher of temperance if he was a teacher of excess, who chastised his body and brought it into subjection, and recorded his performance of the service he owed to Christ by many fastings; and this not for the purpose of praising himself and his doings, but that he might teach us, what example to follow. Did he then teach excess who said, Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances? Touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using; who also says, Not in indulgence of the body, not in any honour to the satisfying and love of the flesh, not in the lusts of error; but in the Spirit by Whom we are renewed.

11.  If what the Apostle has said is not enough, let them hear the Prophet saying, I chastened myself with fasting. He therefore who fasts not is uncovered and naked and exposed to wounds. And if Adam had clothed himself with fasting he would not have been found to be naked. Nineveh delivered itself from death by fasting. And the Lord Himself says, This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

12.  But why need we say more to our master and teacher? seeing that these persons have now paid the worthy price of their perfidy, who have on this account come even hither, that no place might remain where they were not condemned; who have proved themselves to be truly Manichees, by not believing that He came forth from a virgin. What madness is this, almost equal to that of the modern Jews? If He is not believed so to have come, neither is He believed to have taken upon Him our flesh, therefore He was seen only in figure, He was crucified only in figure. But He was crucified for us in truth, He is in truth our Redeemer.

13.  He is a Manichee who denies the truth, who denies that Christ came in the flesh; and therefore the remission of sins is not their's; but it is the impiety of the Manichees which both the most merciful Emperor has abhorred, and all who saw them have fled from as a plague. Witnesses thereof are our brethren and fellow-presbyters, Crescens, Leopardus, and Alexander, fervent in the Holy Spirit, by whose means they have been exposed to common execration, and driven as fugitives from the city of Milan.

14.  Wherefore you are to know that Jovinian, Auxentius, Germinator, Felix, Plotinus, Genialis, Martianus, Januarius and Ingeniosus, whom your Holiness has condemned, have also, in accordance with your judgment, been condemned by ourselves.

May our Almighty God keep you in safety and prosperity, Lord and brother most beloved.

Here follows the subscription.

I, Eventius, Bishop, salute your Holiness in the Lord, and have subscribed this Epistle.
Maximus, Bishop.
Felix, Bishop.
Bassianus, Bishop.
Theodorus, Bishop.
Constantius, Bishop.
By command of my lord Geminianus Bishop, and in his presence, I Aper, Presbyter, have subscribed.
Eustasius, Bishop, and all the Orders have subscribed.

- - -

[Source: St. Ambrose of Milan, Letters (1881), pp. 269-324, Letters 41-50 at Tertulian.org]

"Blessed are the Breasts" (Did Christ downplay His mother?)

St. Mary with Jesus, Elisabeth Sarani

Our Protestant brethren sometimes object to the Catholic/Orthodox veneration of Christ’s mother, Mary. They find it to be pious exaggeration or even blasphemous. Some even believe the Scriptures anticipated this phenomenon, and readily prescribed the proper attitude to rectify such behavior: they point to this passage in the Gospel of St. Luke:

While [Jesus] was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!”
Luke 11:27-28

Is Jesus really downplaying His Mother? Is this a fair textual deduction of the passage?

No. And here’s why:

It might be understandably read that way if read in isolation from the rest of Scripture’s testimony, but such an isolation would go against the obvious messages found in other places of Scripture. Mary is, in many places, affirmed outrightly to be blessed. What’s more, these passages are found in the same book of the Bible: the Gospel of Luke.

And [the angel Gabriel] came to her [Mary] and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.
(Like 1:28)

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb..." 
(1:41-42)

"Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;"
(1:48b)

The angel Gabriel addressed her as "highly favored one." Her cousin Elizabeth, being full of the Holy Spirit, declares that she is “blessed among all women.” And finally, in her own hymn of praise, Mary states that all generations will call her “blessed.”

Is Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, contradicting the testimony of Third via St. Elizabeth? Of course not. There is no way around; Mary is unambiguously consideried to be blessed, by the angel Gabriel, by her relative Elizabeth, and in her own hymn of praise unto God. Christ's words should not therefore be taken to deny any such thing. It would be denying the explicit testimony of Scripture, creating textual dissonance, to read the Messiah’s words in such a way as to suggest that being his mother was not special.

Having established that the passage should be seen in no way to contradict that Mary is, in fact, blessed, let us now move forward to see what it is Christ does define as being truly blessed. He says "blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it." Are the two notions utterly unrelated?

Having been instructed by the angel that she will be "the virgin [who] shall conceive and bear a son" (Isaiah 7:14), how does the Virgin Mary respond?

"Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."
(Luke 1:38) 

Who can fail to see that this is exactly what "hearing the word of God and keeping it" looks like? Mary is rightly called blessed on account of her obedience to the message of God. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Mary's role in birthing the savior is blessed in itself, but what makes her especially blessed but her obedience. Jesus is in no way denying that his mother is blessed among women, but rather, He is indicating the true source of blessedness, including her own. It wasn't her motherhood which rendered her a worthy disciple; it was her discipleship which rendered her a worthy mother. In reference to this very same passage, St. Augustine of Hippo so aptly expresses the concept thus:

"Thus also her nearness as a Mother would have been of no profit to Mary, had she not borne Christ in her heart after a more blessed manner than in her flesh." (On Holy Virginity par. 5) 

Yet even in light of all this, it's still reasonable to hold that the office itself of being Christ's mother indeed contributes to her being blessed among all women. It isn't somehow arbitrary or unimportant. Evidence for this is, again, found in Luke's Gospel itself. Following her declaration that "blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb", Elizabeth also iterates...

And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 
Luke 1:43

If we look at the text honestly, we will see that Elizabeth specifically expresses that the Blessed Virgin herself, being the mother of the Lord, as contributing to the happiness of the occasion.

So, ultimately, let us not do damage against the Lucan account of the Holy Gospel by seeing Christ's words as somehow denouncing his mother. There is no need to pit "blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb" against "blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it!" The Lord, though revealing a deeper spiritual truth, is not at all denying the beatitude to such a woman as his mother. She is blessed among all women because she is His mother, and she is His mother because she the one par excellence who "hears the word of God and observes it." The Word of the Lord not only took root in her heart, but it also took root in her womb, and in so doing, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

The Reformers on Mary's Perpetual Virginity

The Protestant Church in Strasbourg, Saint

Pierre-le-June, displays this beautiful

statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Every Christian, and every ecclesial body, has their own traditions. They all have their own unique approaches to doctrine and practice. They also tend to esteem individuals whom they emulate as expressing the values which they themselves hold dear -- in other words, to some degree or another, they all have saints.

This is true even for the non-Orthodox and non-Catholic Christians, as the Protestant world was recently in the midst of celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformarion. Their traditions include such things as the sixty-six book canon for the Bible, the Five Solas, and the formulation of "Statements of Faith." (Calvinists have T.U.L.I.P, etc.)

In appeal to the Protestant's sensitivity on the issue of Mary's virginal status, rather than invoking the authority of my saints, I would like to invoke the authority of his saints -- those who witnessed to his doctrines. The heaviest heavyweights of Protestantism, much like the Church Fathers, had enough familiarity with the Biblical records, which they (rightly) esteemed as precious, to see how the Perpetual Virginity of Mary does not contradict them. Being advocates of, and adherents to, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura (a hallmark for Protestants, which Catholics and Orthodox do not affirm), they found the concept of "Blessed Mary, Ever-Virgin" wholly compatible with their own readings of the Sacred Texts.

John Calvin

John Calvin

We will begin with the one who was least emphatic on the issue among the early Protestants. A man who truly "searched the scriptures," John Calvin wrote a copious amount of Biblical commentaries. In one section of his Harmony of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, he briefly references the debate between St. Jerome and Helvidius over the virginity of Mary. Commenting on Matthew 1:25 ("he knew her not until she brought forth her firstborn"), Calvin writes:

This passage afforded the pretext for great disturbances, which were introduced into the Church, at a former period, by Helvidius. The inference he drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband. Jerome, on the other hand, earnestly and copiously defended Mary’s perpetual virginity. Let us rest satisfied with this, that no just and wellgrounded inference can be drawn from these words of the Evangelist, as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called first-born; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin. It is said that Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son: but this is limited to that very time. What took place afterwards, the historian does not inform us. Such is well known to have been the practice of the inspired writers. Certainly, no man will ever raise a question on this subject, except from curiosity; and no man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.
(Commentary on Matthew, Mark and Luke, Matthew 1:25)

We can see that, in his own reading of the Holy Gospel, Calvin sympathized not with Helvidius, but with Jerome. He recognized that the words "firstborn" and "until" do not somehow necessitate that Mary in fact bore other children besides Jesus. He deemed such an inference neither "just" nor "well-founded", for they are included for informing the reader of Virgin Birth. That said, he does not argue the point any further, but he does denounce any desire to speak contrariwise as stemming "from an extreme fondness of disputation." He would think of the idea of raising a dispute around this text as merely arguing for argument's sake, stemming from unhealthy desire.

Now, onto the more explicit witnesses.

Martin Luther

Martin Luther

In truth, we will find our most copious amount of affirmation for Mary's constant virginity in none other than the original Protestant himself, Martin Luther.

Much academic study has been done on the life and teachings of Martin Luther. Reputable historians of Luther, both Protestant (Franz Pieper; Jaroslav Pelikan) and Catholic (Hartmann Greisar) alike report that the man adhered to this Marian doctrine for the whole of his life -- before, during, and after his break with Rome.

On the issue of inferring subsequent offspring from the words "firstborn" and "until," Luther speaks more strongly than Calvin. He adamantly dismisses those who would interpret Mt. 1:25 as inferring Mary would have bore other children.

Such carnal interpretations miss the meaning and purpose of the evangelist. As we have said, the evangelist, like the prophet Isaiah, wishes to set before our eyes this mighty wonder, and point out what an unheard-of thing it is for a maiden to be with child before her husband brings her home and lies with her; and further, that he does not know her carnally until she first has a son, which she should have had after first having been known by him. Thus, the words of the evangelist do not refer to anything that occurred after the birth, but only to what took place before it. ... Therefore, one cannot from these words [Matt. 1:18, 25] conclude that Mary, after the birth of Christ, became a wife in the usual sense; it is therefore neither to be asserted nor believed. All the words are merely indicative of the marvelous fact that she was with child and gave birth before she had lain with a man. (That Jesus was Born a Jew) 

And elsewhere, in the collection of his sermons on the Gospel of John:

"Christ, our Savior, was the real and natural fruit of Mary's virginal womb . . . This was without the cooperation of a man, and she remained a virgin after that. […] Christ . . . was the only Son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides Him . . . I am inclined to agree with those who declare that 'brothers' really mean 'cousins' here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers." (Sermons on John)

Ulrich Zwingli

Luther was not alone among the early Protestant reformers to be unabashed in his rejection of Helvidianism. On the other prominent side of the original movement, this belief also found an adherent in Ulrich Zwingli, who also upheld this doctrine.

Ulrich Zwingli

In his famous doctrinal dispute with Martin Luther concerning the Holy Eucharist, the Swiss Reformer wrote an exposition of his position in response a year after their famous meaning. In it, we find his giving witness to his stance on the perpetual virginity of Mary.

I give an example: taught by the light of faith the Christ was born of a virgin, we know that it is so, that we have no doubt that those who have been unambiguously in error have tried to make a figure of speech of a real virgin, and we pronounce absurd the things that Helvidius and others have invented about perpetual virginity.
(Friendly Exegesis, that is, Exposition of the Matter of the Eucharist to Martin Luther, February 1527)

He deems the position advocated by Helvidius as "absurd." He says elsewhere in his works:

I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin.
(Ulrich Zwingli, sämtliche Werke) 

John Wesley

One other foundational figure of Protestantism shall be cited in our favor. Also among these names is the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. In his Letter to a Roman Catholic in which Wesley seeks to establish a spirit of friendship and an acknowledgement of common ground (and by so doing, consciously goes against the sensitivities of his coreligionists), he frames part of this mutual agreement in a format which holds resemblance to the historic Christian creeds. In the section affirming their common Christological convictions, those which he would hold as a Protestant, Wesley writes:

"I believe that He [Jesus] was made man, joining the human nature with the divine in one person; being conceived by the singular operation of the Holy Ghost, and born of the blessed Virgin Mary, who, as well after as before she brought Him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin."
(Letter to a Roman Catholic 7)

John Wesley

Luther, Zwingli, and Wesley all unambiguously gave their assent to the doctrine of Mary's constant abstinence; Calvin, at the barest minimum, implicitly acknowledged its plausibility. One can neither label these men "papists", nor accuse them of being unfamiliar with the testimony of Holy Writ; Yet even with their consciences informed by the Protestant conviction of Sola Scriptura ("Scripture Alone"), they found nothing scandalous in this teaching.  The sheer fact of the matter is this: among the most prominent men in Protestantism, this concept of Mary's perpetual virginity was neither foreign nor opposed to their own respective ideologies, and it did not occasion them with a point of dissension against Rome.

It should then be evident: one need neither be Orthodox nor Roman Catholic in order to see the idea of Mary's unwavering abstinence as one worthy of credit. It has not only a place within classical Christianity, but it also holds a place within the history of Protestantism. The Protestants of today who would wish to condemn this doctrine are departing from the ground upon which stood their forefathers.