Perpetual virginity of Mary
One of the four Marian dogmas / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The perpetual virginity of Mary is a Christian doctrine that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin "before, during and after" the birth of Christ.[2] In Western Christianity, the Catholic Church adheres to the doctrine, as do some Lutherans, Anglicans, Reformed, and other Protestants.[3][4][5][6][7] The Oriental Orthodox Churches also adhere to this doctrine as part of their ongoing tradition,[8] and Eastern Orthodox churches recognize Mary as Aeiparthenos, meaning "ever-virgin".[9] It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church.[10] Most modern nonconformist Protestants reject the doctrine.[11]
The extant written tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary first appears in a late 2nd-century text called the Protoevangelium of James.[12] The Second Council of Constantinople in 553 gave her the title "Aeiparthenos", meaning Perpetual Virgin, and at the Lateran Synod of 649 Pope Martin I emphasized the threefold character of the perpetual virginity, before, during, and after the birth of Christ.[13] The Lutheran Smalcald Articles (1537) and the Reformed Second Helvetic Confession (1562) codified the doctrine of perpetual virginity of Mary as well.[14][3]
The doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity has been challenged on the basis that the New Testament explicitly affirms her virginity only until the birth of Jesus[15] and mentions the brothers (adelphoi) of Jesus,[16][17] who may have been: (1) sons of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Joseph; (2) sons of the Mary named in Mark 15:40 as "mother of James and Joses", whom Jerome identified as a sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus; or (3) sons of Joseph by a former marriage.[18]