Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius – Part 21

Jerome wrote a response to Helvidius regarding the virginity of Mary. This post is the twenty-first in a series of responses to what Jerome wrote.

Jerome wrote:

But as we do not deny what is written, so we do reject what is not written. We believe that God was born of the Virgin, because we read it. That Mary was married after she brought forth, we do not believe, because we do not read it. Nor do we say this to condemn marriage, for virginity itself is the fruit of marriage; but because when we are dealing with saints we must not judge rashly. If we adopt possibility as the standard of judgment, we might maintain that Joseph had several wives because Abraham had, and so had Jacob, and that the Lord’s brethren were the issue of those wives, an invention which some hold with a rashness which springs from audacity not from piety. You say that Mary did not continue a virgin: I claim still more, that Joseph himself on account of Mary was a virgin, so that from a virgin wedlock a virgin son was born. For if as a holy man he does not come under the imputation of fornication, and it is nowhere written that he had another wife, but was the guardian of Mary whom he was supposed to have to wife rather than her husband, the conclusion is that he who was thought worthy to be called father of the Lord, remained a virgin.

What’s interesting about Jerome’s standard is that if we do the same with the dogma of the perpetual virginity, look at the result: “But as we do not deny what is written, so we do reject what is not written.” It is certain that Mary was Joseph’s wife, for Scripture writes it. They did not need to marry after she brought forth, they merely needed to come together. What is not written (or even hinted) in Scripture is that Mary remained a virgin until the end of her time on earth.

As for Joseph being a polygamist like some of his ancestors, it should be noted that this is rendered implausible by the strict monogamy imposed by Ezra and maintained by the Jews of the first century.

Jerome is quite wrong to say that it was written that Joseph was “the guardian of Mary.” Rather he is always described as her husband.

Moreover, while it is true that children of fornication by Joseph could have existed, there is no evidence to suggest that they would have been accepted into Mary’s family, such that they would have been traveling with her, rather than their own mother.

-TurretinFan