Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 8

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

Jerome wrote:

In short, what I want to know is why Joseph refrained until the day of her delivery? Helvidius will of course reply, because he heard the angel say, “that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.” And in turn we rejoin that he had certainly heard him say, “Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife.” The reason why he was forbidden to forsake his wife was that he might not think her an adulteress. Is it true then, that he was ordered not to have intercourse with his wife? Is it not plain that the warning was given him that he might not be separated from her? And could the just man dare, he says, to think of approaching her, when he heard that the Son of God was in her womb? Excellent! We are to believe then that the same man who gave so much credit to a dream that he did not dare to touch his wife, yet afterwards, when he had learnt from the shepherds that the angel of the Lord had come from heaven and said to them, “Be not afraid: for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people, for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord;” and when the heavenly host had joined with him in the chorus “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men of good will;” and when he had seen just Simeon embrace the infant and exclaim, “Now lettest thou thy servant depart, O Lord, according to thy word in peace: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation;” and when he had seen Anna the prophetess, the Magi, the Star, Herod, the angels; Helvidius, I say, would have us believe that Joseph, though well acquainted with such surprising wonders, dared to touch the temple of God, the abode of the Holy Ghost, the mother of his Lord? Mary at all events “kept all these sayings in her heart.” You cannot for shame say Joseph did not know of them, for Luke tells us, “His father and mother were marvelling at the things which were spoken concerning Him.” And yet you with marvellous effrontery contend that the reading of the Greek manuscripts is corrupt, although it is that which nearly all the Greek writers have left us in their books, and not only so, but several of the Latin writers have taken the words the same way. Nor need we now consider the variations in the copies, since the whole record both of the Old and New Testament has since that time been translated into Latin, and we must believe that the water of the fountain flows purer than that of the stream.

Jerome is asking the right question about why it is told us that Joseph refrained.  The answer is to make it clear that Joseph did not father Jesus.  If Joseph had come together with Mary before Jesus' birth, people might speculate that Jesus was prematurely born but naturally conceived.  By instead waiting until after Jesus was born, Joseph made clear that Jesus' conception was entirely from above.

Jerome asks, "Is it true then, that he was ordered not to have intercourse with his wife?"  It's not clear where this came from.  To our knowledge, there was no such order.

Jerome continues, apparently quoting from Helvidius, "'And could the just man dare,' he says, 'to think of approaching her, when he heard that the Son of God was in her womb?' Excellent!"  This an interesting point.  I think my initial answer above is more correct, though one might fear to approach the Lord in such a manner, as Helvidius apparently argued.

Jerome's argument, however, that "Helvidius, I say, would have us believe that Joseph, though well acquainted with such surprising wonders, dared to touch the temple of God, the abode of the Holy Ghost, the mother of his Lord?"  Indeed, every woman who trusts in Christ is His Mother, according to Jesus, and is the temple of the Holy Ghost, according to Scripture.  Yet, godly men do not fear to approach their wives for this reason.  Such superstitious would contradict the clear teachings of Scripture.

Such sentimental arguments are easily turned on their head.  What Christian shuns pilgrimage to Jerusalem because Jesus was there?  What Christian fears to touch the stones on the temple mount where Jesus purified the temple?  When you hear that Jesus was a babe in a particular cave in Bethlehem, that only increases your desire to be there.

Paul teaches that we should not join ourselves to prostitutes because we are members of Christ's body.  However, this same reasoning only further insists that Joseph should join himself to his wife, because Joseph too is a members of Christ's body, and because God told Joseph to take Mary his wife.

Apparently, Helvidius made some kind of textual critical argument.  It's hard to tell what it was from Jerome's description: 

And yet you with marvellous effrontery contend that the reading of the Greek manuscripts is corrupt, although it is that which nearly all the Greek writers have left us in their books, and not only so, but several of the Latin writers have taken the words the same way. Nor need we now consider the variations in the copies, since the whole record both of the Old and New Testament has since that time been translated into Latin, and we must believe that the water of the fountain flows purer than that of the stream.

On its face, it looks like Jerome here is arguing for the superiority of the Latin over the Greek and Hebrew originals.  If that understanding of Jerome's words is correct, it reminds one of the King James Version advocates arguing that the English text is more pure than the Greek and Hebrew.  I suppose a different sense would be that he means that the Latin is very pure and must, therefore, have come from yet purer fountains when it was translated.

Frankly, either way (or perhaps some third and better way), it is interesting to note that Jerome began his re-translation of the Septuagint into Latin about three years after he wrote this work, and his re-translation of the New Testament shortly after that.

Looking at my critical Vulgate and my NA27, I don't see any major textual variants at Matthew 1:25, which Helvidius might have had in mind.  Perhaps some copies have "firstborn" mentioned in the verse, but even that should not make much difference to the argument.  I will not farther speculate on this point.

-TurretinFan