My limited understanding of the title "Theotokos", is that the term was given to Mary, not to ascribe holiness to her, but to assert the divine nature of her son, Jesus. I have no issues from that perspective. Jeff
If the BVM was cleansed of unrighteousness, doesn't that mean she is without sin? I think the issue is that Romanists hold that she was "conceived" without sin...which is a different thing all together.
Don't worry Lowly Layman, The Lady Mary is reckoned to be, All Holy and Immaculate, as well as Ever Virgin! This is the belief of the Church in England, from the time these beliefs were formulated by the Ecumenical Councils, that is the Church of the first thousand years. They were the beliefs of the Anglican Church through the next millenium and were taught fiercly by the fathers of the later reformation by the Laudians and Restoration fathers as they are now still through the Councils,
Hard to be Ever Virgin when you had more children. This is a superstition refuted by scripture. This is what happens when you put tradition above scripture.
Well, let's see; what other terms could be applied to it? How about "foolish and vain tradition of men." Mary had other children. She could thus not be "ever virgin". Besides, why do people have a need to believe this fable? Do people miss the old pagan religions with goddesses so much that they have to make Mary one? The Roman Church did, but I thought the Anglican Church threw off Roman superstition and unscriptural doctrine.
Respectfully, I don't see where scripture refutes Mary's perpetual virginity. Hebrews of that time had no term for "cousin" and so the terms brother and sister were inclusive. The same is true for grandfather, which is why the term "father" was used for any ancester no matter how distant. We may be required to read the bible literally, but not literalistically. The first binds us to read the bible with the meaning the author intended. The second reads the words on the page as they are without giving thought to what the writer means, the use of idioms, or cultural context.
Whoever is confused or offended at the idea that Mary was not "ever-virgin" is a puzzle to me. Why is this Dark-Ages dislike of sexuality so important to retain? The holy Scripture written by Luke was not penned in Hebrew but in Greek, which does have two different words for blood-sibling (adelphos) vs. cousin-sibling (neepsios). When Luke refers to Christ's Mother & brethren standing outside one of Jesus' sermons, he uses the word for blood-brothers: Adelphoi. This is as conclusive as it can get. At any rate, Mary was a Hebrew woman who was married during the Old Covenant. It would've been a sin for her not to have provided as many children for Joseph as possible.
By the way, Tertullian took the "brothers" literally, making no mention of cousins in his 7th chapter of "On the Flesh of Christ": http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.v.vii.vii.html Interestingly, Tertullian says that His mother and brethren sinned by coming to try to stop Christ from preaching that day. We must all believe that Mary of Nazareth was a Virgin when the Holy Ghost conceived the LORD in her womb, and that she was the highly-favoured one, kecharitoméne. There is nothing in any of the prophecies or in the teaching of the LORD Jesus that indicates the necessity of her carrying virginity into death. Only the bizarre disdain of sexuality that emerged since Origen can be blamed for this odd refusal to believe that Mary was a normal, godly Christian.
Oh yes those superstitious Romanists who believe in the Blessed Virgin’s immaculate nature and perpetual virginity... "It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a Virgin." - Martin Luther "But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin..." - Martin Luther "Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ." - John Calvin "It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God." -Ulrich Zwingli "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 "I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary." - Ulrich Zwingli "It was fitting that such a holy Son should have a holy Mother." - Ulrich Zwingli
All this proves is that the Magisterial Reformers hadn't thrown off as much Roman superstition as they thought. If they were going by the scriptures on this, they could never have made those statements. And they also kept other Roman traditions, too -- like killing others for Christ, but I know they were just following good state-church policy. As I've said before, I am amazed at seeing so much desire on an Anglican forum to equate "tradition" with scripture or elevate it above same.
If the expert-in-Greek St. Dr. Luke says Adelphoi, and not Neepsioi, I am prone to believe the Holy Spirit, and not Calvin or Zwingli (whom I consider to have all been heretics in some way). Anyway, we are not Luther-ans, but Christ-ians, and His Word breathed & confirmed by His Spirit is the measure. This is the glory of the Scriptures: even when some of our greatest heroes are wrong on an issue, we need not fear, for we have recourse to the true Word of God.
By the way "Celtic1", the Celtic Christians indeed believed that St.Mary was a Pure Virgin and remained so the rest of her life. "As the sunbeam through the glass Passeth, but not staineth; Thus the Virgin as she was, Virgin still remaineth."
This is exactly the sort of nonsense that has plagued Catholic theology for a very long time. Why is virginity equal to purity? This is tied up with Original Sin, no doubt, but we cannot be anti-marriage, anti-sexuality Manichaeans. There is simply no prophecy pointing to an ever-virgin, and the Fulfillment of all things spoke of blood-brothers. There's no way around this, regardless of what mystical Celts have thought.
The church fathers as well... Hilary of Poitiers: “If they [the brethren of the Lord] had been Mary’s sons and not those taken from Joseph’s former marriage, she would never have been given over in the moment of the passion [crucifixion] to the apostle John as his mother, the Lord saying to each, ‘Woman, behold your son,’ and to John, ‘Behold your mother’ (John 19:26–27), as he bequeathed filial love to a disciple as a consolation to the one desolate.” Athanasius: “Let those, therefore, who deny that the Son is by nature from the Father and proper to his essence deny also that he took true human flesh from the ever-virgin Mary.” Epiphanius of Salamis: “We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things, both visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God . . . who for us men and for our salvation came down and took flesh, that is, was born perfectly of the holy ever-virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit.” “And to holy Mary, [the title] ‘Virgin’ is invariably added, for that holy woman remains undefiled.” Jerome: “[Helvidius] produces Tertullian as a witness [to his view] and quotes Victorinus, bishop of Petavium. Of Tertullian, I say no more than that he did not belong to the Church. But as regards Victorinus, I assert what has already been proven from the gospel—that he [Victorinus] spoke of the brethren of the Lord not as being sons of Mary but brethren in the sense I have explained, that is to say, brethren in point of kinship, not by nature. [By discussing such things we] are . . . following the tiny streams of opinion. Might I not array against you the whole series of ancient writers? Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men, who against [the heretics] Ebion, Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus, held these same views and wrote volumes replete with wisdom. If you had ever read what they wrote, you would be a wiser man.” “We believe that God was born of a virgin, because we read it. We do not believe that Mary was married after she brought forth her Son, because we do not read it. . . . You [Helvidius] say that Mary did not remain a virgin. As for myself, I claim that Joseph himself was a virgin, through Mary, so that a virgin Son might be born of a virginal wedlock.” Didymus the Blind: “It helps us to understand the terms ‘first-born’ and ‘only-begotten’ when the Evangelist tells that Mary remained a virgin ‘until she brought forth her firstborn son’ [Matt. 1:25]; for neither did Mary, who is to be honored and praised above all others, marry anyone else, nor did she ever become the Mother of anyone else, but even after childbirth she remained always and forever an immaculate virgin.” Ambrose of Milan: “Imitate her [Mary], holy mothers, who in her only dearly beloved Son set forth so great an example of material virtue; for neither have you sweeter children [than Jesus], nor did the Virgin seek the consolation of being able to bear another son.” Pope Siricius I: “You had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another birth might issue from the same virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh. For the Lord Jesus would never have chosen to be born of a virgin if he had ever judged that she would be so incontinent as to contaminate with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of the Lord’s body, that court of the eternal king.” Augustine: “In being born of a Virgin who chose to remain a Virgin even before she knew who was to be born of her, Christ wanted to approve virginity rather than to impose it. And he wanted virginity to be of free choice even in that woman in whom he took upon himself the form of a slave.” “It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?” “Heretics called Antidicomarites are those who contradict the perpetual virginity of Mary and affirm that after Christ was born she was joined as one with her husband.” Leporius: “We confess, therefore, that our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, born of the Father before the ages, and in times most recent, made man of the Holy Spirit and the ever-virgin Mary.” Cyril of Alexandria: “[T]he Word himself, coming into the Blessed Virgin herself, assumed for himself his own temple from the substance of the Virgin and came forth from her a man in all that could be externally discerned, while interiorly he was true God. Therefore he kept his Mother a virgin even after her childbearing.” Pope Leo I: “His [Christ’s] origin is different, but his [human] nature is the same. Human usage and custom were lacking, but by divine power a Virgin conceived, a Virgin bore, and Virgin she remained.” Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople: Canon 2: “If anyone does not confess that God the Word was twice begotten, the first before all time from the Father, non-temporal and bodiless, the other in the last days when he came down from the heavens and was incarnate by the holy, glorious, God-bearer, ever-virgin Mary, and born of her, let him be anathema.” Oh yeah, and another good protestant… John Wesley: “I believe . . . he [Jesus Christ]was born of the blessed Virgin, who, as well after as she brought him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin.”