The perpetual virginity of the Mother of our God is one of the oldest and most contentious beliefs and dogmas in Christendom. My intention here is to demonstrate that it was no late innovation by assembling evidence from the scriptures, Jewish tradition, and early Christian literature. This paper will present a brief sketch of the historical and scriptural evidence supporting this tradition of Holy Orthodoxy.
A True Marriage without Consummation
Scripture clearly presents Mary and Joseph as truly married, even while their union was chaste. One of the main causes of confusion on this topic is the common but initially understandable conflation between 1st century Jewish betrothals and modern engagements. In Matthew 1:18-25, Mary is said to be “betrothed” to Joseph, but before they “came together”, it says, “she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” Joseph, being a good man, “resolved to divorce her quietly”.
Their notion of betrothal was not the same as ours today. The passage says their relationship was in a kind of marriage status where they would need a divorce to end. A Jewish betrothal, erusin or kiddushin, is a binding marital relationship. This is evidenced in scripture, where it calls a betrothed virgin the wife of another man (Deut. 22:23–24), and reflected in later rabbinical law (Kiddushin 1:1).
Even though this was a binding marital relationship, betrothal was still distinct from the entrance into the full married life, where a betrothed woman goes from under her father’s authority into her husband’s. So their “betrothal” was already a legally binding marriage, as Jewish law required a bill of divorce at this time to end the relationship (Deut. 24:1).
But this leads to the next question, and it comes from the misunderstanding that a marriage is only fully complete with sexual intercourse; this is dispelled in the preserved rabbinic tradition. According to Sifrei Bamidbar, once a woman has entered the chuppah, one can be held responsible for marital infractions, even if they have not yet had sexual relations with her. In the earlier period of the law, the chuppah refers to the entrance into the entire sphere of marriage, that is, the nissuin.
The text in the Gospels is consistent with this view: Joseph had taken Mary as his wife, but then immediately “He knew her not until (heōs hou) she had borne a son” (Matt 1:25), a common idiom that does not imply further relations. We see the same Greek word for “until” used elsewhere in Scripture where the prior state continues indefinitely (e.g., 2 Samuel 6:23, Psalm 110:1).
How Can This Be?
Luke 1:34 is also noteworthy. When the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she soon will conceive, she replies, "How shall this be, since I don't know a man? "(Luke 1:34). Since Mary was already betrothed, she presumably knew how children are produced after marriage, which would be soon. Therefore, her question leaves open the possibility that she did not have plans to enter into a marriage with expected intercourse. While it does not prove that she had taken a lifelong vow, it is difficult to simply dismiss this aspect as irrelevant.
About Until
For a moment, let’s concede this and see how this understanding of “Until” will affect the following verses and how they are understood:
“Michal the daughter of Saul had no child until the day of her death” - 2 Samuel 6:23
This verse would be saying that Michal had children after her death.
And this psalm would be understood to say, Christ will cease to be at the right hand of the Father after his enemies are subdued, but no proper Christian would interpret this that way.
“The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool.’” - Psalm 110:1
Similarly, “Until” in Matthew 1:25 does not imply a change afterward but indicates a preservation of her virginity up until the birth of Christ, and that Joseph had no part in her pregnancy. To use it as evidence against the doctrine invites bigger issues than this dogma ever could.
Vow of Chastity and the Israelite Tradition
One of the problems for someone from other traditions who thinks of the mother of God’s virginity is the “why” aspect. It’s hard for many people, especially evangelicals, to imagine why anyone would choose to live a life abstaining from sexual relations, even as a vow to the Lord. The deeper meaning and spiritual fruit that follow a voluntary renunciation of those desires in total service to the lord are overlooked or misunderstood and are often read as a later Christian anachronism to support having Monks.
This difficulty is partly due to our disconnect from the ancient context in which chastity was once considered a pious and holy sacrifice. The Torah, for example, in Numbers 30: 3-8, describes the framework under which women could take vows of devotion and abstinence. This matters because the passage assumes a woman’s religious vow could continue even within marriage:
“If a woman took a vow that sexual intercourse with her husband is forbidden to her…In the first clause the husband cannot nullify his wife’s vow, and the case is one where she renders forbidden even the fruit that she herself brings.” - Nedarim 81b-82a
Philo of Alexandria (1st century Jewish Philosopher) in “The Contemplative Life” says that Jewish women willingly vowed lifelong chastity in dedication to the Lord within a ascetic community, a proto-monk/nun culture.
“…the feast is shared by women also, most of them aged virgins, who have kept their chastity not under compulsion … but of their own free will, in ardent yearning for wisdom… desiring not mortal offspring but immortal children which only the God-loving soul begets…”
This is an extremely reputable first-century piece of evidence that female consecrated virginity was a known and honored position.
The Brothers
The brothers of Jesus (Mark 6:3, Matt. 13:55). The argument here is that if these really were children of Mary by Joseph, then Mary’s perpetual virginity must be false. The Greek word ἄδελφος doesn’t mean “full brother” exclusively, as can be seen when the Septuagint translates “cousins” or other relatives as ἄδελφοι. For example, in Genesis 13:8 Abraham says to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me…for we are brethren” even though Genesis 11:27-32 says that Lot was Abraham’s nephew. Similarly, in Genesis 29:15 Laban says to Jacob, “Because thou art my brother.” Now, of course, they weren’t biological brothers. They were uncle and nephew.
In the broader context, Mark lists “Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses” (Mark 15:40) among the women present at the crucifixion, two names which Mark also gives as being among the siblings of Jesus (Mark 6:3), yet distinguishes from Mary the mother of Jesus, and John also mentions “Mary of Cleophas” (John 19:25). St. Jerome identified these women as being related to Mary and used this evidence to support his hypothesis. In any case, the gospel doesn’t force us to accept James and Joses as later sons of Mary. We have a second-century testimony from Eusebius on the family of Jesus. He identifies Clopas, the husband of that other Mary, as the brother of Joseph, and Symeon, the Son of Clopas, as the cousin of Jesus, while referring to Jude as his brother:
“…And after James the Just had suffered martyrdom, as the Lord had also on the same account, Symeon, the son of the Lord’s uncle, Clopas, was appointed the next bishop. All proposed him as second bishop because he was a cousin of the Lord…” - Hist. eccl. 4.22.4
“But when this same Domitian had commanded that the descendants of David should be slain, an ancient tradition says that some of the heretics brought accusation against the descendants of Jude (said to have been a brother of the Saviour according to the flesh), on the ground that they were of the lineage of David and were related to Christ himself. Hegesippus relates these facts in the following words…” - Hist. eccl. 3.19.1
This fits the older Eastern explanation where James and Jude were sons of Joseph from a previous marriage and therefore belonged to Jesus’ household, whereas Symeon was properly a cousin, see also 2.1.2 and The Protoevangelium of James:
“Then James,… [the first] bishop of the church of Jerusalem. This James was called the brother of the Lord because he was known as a son of Joseph, and Joseph was supposed to be the father of Christ, because the Virgin, being betrothed to him, was found with child by the Holy Ghost before they came together, as the account of the holy Gospels shows.” - Hist. eccl. 2.1.2
“But Joseph refused, saying: I have children, and I am an old man, and she is a young girl…” - The Protoevangelium of James
Nothing in that relationship requires Mary to be James’ birth mother. The important point that early Christians already understood the use of ἀδελφός and did not assume that they were later children of Mary.
And finally, this here would be unusual if she did have several other biological sons besides Christ:
“When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” 27 Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.” - John 19:26–27 NKJV
The usual and obvious reply is that His brothers were unbelievers at that time, so of course she would not have been given to them. But their unbelief was temporary, as we see Christ later appeared to James in 1 Corinthians 15:7, and in Acts 1:14 they are said to be among the believers with Mary. This is not what we would expect if Mary had several other biological sons that could take care of her.
One may take the biblical evidence as unconvincing, but that person is left with a harder problem. Why does this belief appear so early and is treated by Saints like Jerome and Athanasius as not just an invention that requires ad hoc defenses but as ordinary Christian belief?
For the Orthodox Christian, this is precisely what Holy Tradition and reception looks like: not an ex nihilo invention centuries later, but the Church preserving and making explicit what was already contained in the faith she received once and for all.