Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 24

Jerome wrote a response to Helvidius regarding the virginity of Mary.  This post is the twenty-fourth (and final!) in a series of responses to what Jerome wrote.

Jerome wrote:

I have become rhetorical, and have disported myself a little like a platform orator. You compelled me, Helvidius; for, brightly as the Gospel shines at the present day, you will have it that equal glory attaches to virginity and to the marriage state. And because I think that, finding the truth too strong for you, you will turn to disparaging my life and abusing my character (it is the way of weak women to talk tittle-tattle in corners when they have been put down by their masters), I shall anticipate you. I assure you that I shall regard your railing as a high distinction, since the same lips that assail me have disparaged Mary, and I, a servant of the Lord, am favoured with the same barking eloquence as His mother. 

Yes, Jerome has indeed waxed rather rhetorical.  Whether Helvidius ever responded in kind, we do not know (or at least, I do not).  On the other hand, while I may be willing to grant Jerome his intent to defend Mary, he has defended her by picturing her as a mere ward, not the wife she was.  He has painted her as though she were a 5th century nun, rather than a first century bride.  Jerome placed his own values above the words of Scripture, and in doing so did not defend Mary.

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 23

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

Jerome wrote:

I do not deny that holy women are found both among widows and those who have husbands; but they are such as have ceased to be wives, or such as, even in the close bond of marriage, imitate virgin chastity. The Apostle, Christ speaking in him, briefly bore witness to this when he said, “She that is unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord, how she may please the Lord: but she that is married is careful for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.” He leaves us the free exercise of our reason in the matter. He lays no necessity upon anyone nor leads anyone into a snare: he only persuades to that which is proper when he wishes all men to be as himself. He had not, it is true, a commandment from the Lord respecting virginity, for that grace surpasses the unassisted power of man, and it would have worn an air of immodesty to force men to fly in the face of nature, and to say in other words, I want you to be what the angels are. It is this angelic purity which secures to virginity its highest reward, and the Apostle might have seemed to despise a course of life which involves no guilt. Nevertheless in the immediate context he adds, “But I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I think therefore that this is good by reason of the present distress, namely, that it is good for a man to be as he is.” What is meant by present distress? “Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days!” The reason why the wood grows up is that it may be cut down. The field is sown that it may be reaped. The world is already full, and the population is too large for the soil. Every day we are being cut down by war, snatched away by disease, swallowed up by shipwreck, although we go to law with one another about the fences of our property. It is only one addition to the general rule which is made by those who follow the Lamb, and who have not defiled their garments, for they have continued in their virgin state. Notice the meaning of defiling. I shall not venture to explain it, for fear Helvidius may be abusive. I agree with you, when you say, that some virgins are nothing but tavern women; I say still more, that even adulteresses may be found among them, and, you will no doubt be still more surprised to hear, that some of the clergy are inn-keepers and some monks unchaste. Who does not at once understand that a tavern woman cannot be a virgin, nor an adulterer a monk, nor a clergy-man a tavern-keeper? Are we to blame virginity if its counterfeit is at fault? For my part, to pass over other persons and come to the virgin, I maintain that she who is engaged in huckstering, though for anything I know she may be a virgin in body, is no longer one in spirit. 

I certainly reject Jerome's notion that there is a higher reward to celibacy than to marriage.  I would emphasize to him that a bishop ought generally to be a husband, notwithstanding the tradition to the contrary that had already developed.  Jerome's preference for celibacy is faulty, and it is the motivation behind his response to Helvidius.

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 22

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

Jerome wrote:

And now that I am about to institute a comparison between virginity and marriage, I beseech my readers not to suppose that in praising virginity I have in the least disparaged marriage, and separated the saints of the Old Testament from those of the New, that is to say, those who had wives and those who altogether refrained from the embraces of women: I rather think that in accordance with the difference in time and circumstance one rule applied to the former, another to us upon whom the ends of the world have come. So long as that law remained, “Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth”; and “Cursed is the barren woman that beareth not seed in Israel,” they all married and were given in marriage, left father and mother, and became one flesh. But once in tones of thunder the words were heard, “The time is shortened, that henceforth those that have wives may be as though they had none”: cleaving to the Lord, we are made one spirit with Him. And why? Because “He that is unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married is careful for the things of the world, how he may please his wife. And there is a difference also between the wife and the virgin. She that is unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married is careful for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.” Why do you cavil? Why do you resist? The vessel of election says this; he tells us that there is a difference between the wife and the virgin. Observe what the happiness of that state must be in which even the distinction of sex is lost. The virgin is no longer called a woman. “She that is unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit.” A virgin is defined as she that is holy in body and in spirit, for it is no good to have virgin flesh if a woman be married in mind.

“But she that is married is careful for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.” Do you think there is no difference between one who spends her time in prayer and fasting, and one who must, at her husband’s approach, make up her countenance, walk with mincing gait, and feign a shew of endearment? The virgin’s aim is to appear less comely; she will wrong herself so as to hide her natural attractions. The married woman has the paint laid on before her mirror, and, to the insult of her Maker, strives to acquire something more than her natural beauty. Then come the prattling of infants, the noisy household, children watching for her word and waiting for her kiss, the reckoning up of expenses, the preparation to meet the outlay. On one side you will see a company of cooks, girded for the onslaught and attacking the meat: there you may hear the hum of a multitude of weavers. Meanwhile a message is delivered that the husband and his friends have arrived. The wife, like a swallow, flies all over the house. “She has to see to everything. Is the sofa smooth? Is the pavement swept? Are the flowers in the cups? Is dinner ready?” Tell me, pray, where amid all this is there room for the thought of God? Are these happy homes? Where there is the beating of drums, the noise and clatter of pipe and lute, the clanging of cymbals, can any fear of God be found? The parasite is snubbed and feels proud of the honour. Enter next the half-naked victims of the passions, a mark for every lustful eye. The unhappy wife must either take pleasure in them, and perish, or be displeased, and provoke her husband. Hence arises discord, the seed-plot of divorce. Or suppose you find me a house where these things are unknown, which is a rara avis indeed! yet even there the very management of the household, the education of the children, the wants of the husband, the correction of the servants, cannot fail to call away the mind from the thought of God. “It had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women”: so the Scripture says, and afterwards Abraham received the command, “In all that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice.” She who is not subject to the anxiety and pain of child-bearing and having passed the change of life has ceased to perform the functions of a woman, is freed from the curse of God: nor is her desire to her husband, but on the contrary her husband becomes subject to her, and the voice of the Lord commands him, “In all that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice.” Thus they begin to have time for prayer. For so long as the debt of marriage is paid, earnest prayer is neglected.  

Jerome argues "I rather think that in accordance with the difference in time and circumstance one rule applied to the former, another to us upon whom the ends of the world have come."  Even if we were to accept this argument in theory, Mary was a part of the former.  She went to Jerusalem for the sacrifice of her purification under the former.

Moreover, Jerome is wrong about the latter being different from the former when it comes to marriage.

Hebrews 13:4 Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

Moreover, while a single person may focus more attention on the worship of God, Mary lived as a married woman, kept a house with Joseph, and raised Jesus (not even to mention his brethren and sisters).  She continued in the company of his brethren even after He began his ministry.  One may try to claim that she never knew Joseph, but they openly traveled together and lived together.  She did not remain in her father's house.

As for Jerome's deprecation of the lives of married women, I think it speaks its own condemnation, as every godly wife and mother can attest.  The bottom line, though, is that Mary did not live in some nunnery.  She lived in a house with Joseph and raised Jesus and his brethren. 

I will just add that this strong preference for celibacy over marriage is why it was so important to Jerome to claim that Mary remained celibate even after Jesus' birth.

-TurretinFan

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

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 20

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

Jerome wrote:

I now direct the attack against the passage in which, wishing to show your cleverness, you institute a comparison between virginity and marriage. I could not forbear smiling, and I thought of the proverb, did you ever see a camel dance? “Are virgins better,” you ask, “than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were married men? Are not infants daily fashioned by the hands of God in the wombs of their mothers? And if so, are we bound to blush at the thought of Mary having a husband after she was delivered? If they find any disgrace in this, they ought not consistently even to believe that God was born of the Virgin by natural delivery. For according to them there is more dishonour in a virgin giving birth to God by the organs of generation, than in a virgin being joined to her own husband after she has been delivered.” Add, if you like, Helvidius, the other humiliations of nature, the womb for nine months growing larger, the sickness, the delivery, the blood, the swaddling-clothes. Picture to yourself the infant in the enveloping membranes. Introduce into your picture the hard manger, the wailing of the infant, the circumcision on the eighth day, the time of purification, so that he may be proved to be unclean. We do not blush, we are not put to silence. The greater the humiliations He endured for me, the more I owe Him. And when you have given every detail, you will be able to produce nothing more shameful than the cross, which we confess, in which we believe, and by which we triumph over our enemies.  

Notice well that in this point, Jerome is fundamentally inconsistent with the notion of in partu virginity.  Instead, we see Jerome embracing Helvidius' picture of a natural, bloody childbirth, not rejecting it.  I think he missed Helvidius' point, but that's ok.  The point is that if you accept that Mary's birth canal let Jesus path through, you should not think it some harm to Mary that Joseph knew her after.

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 19

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

Jerome wrote:

Now that I have cleared the rocks and shoals I must spread sail and make all speed to reach his epilogue. Feeling himself to be a smatterer, he there produces Tertullian as a witness and quotes the words of 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 proved from the Gospel—that he 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. We are, however, spending our strength on trifles, and, leaving the fountain of truth, are following the tiny streams of opinion. Might I not array against you the whole series of ancient writers? Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenæus, Justin Martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men, who against 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. But I think it better to reply briefly to each point than to linger any longer and extend my book to an undue length.  

Witnesses on Helvidius' side

Tertullian:  It seems clear, and Jerome does not deny, that Tertullian also favored the idea that Jesus brothers were his brothers.

Victorinus of Petavium:  

Jerome argues that Petavium is just speaking in the same sense as Scripture.  Unfortunately, while it is believed that Victorinus of Petavium composed a Commentary on Matthew, that commentary has been lost.  This is one case where it seems that Helvidius and Jerome may have had access to writings we don't have.  From what we can tell, Victorinus was influenced by Origen.  Moreover, Origen tenuously hypothesized that Mary may have remained chaste, even while acknowledging the natural meaning of the words was that Jesus' brethren were Mary and Joseph's children (see below).  So, it's unclear whether Victorinus followed or didn't follow Origen's view.

Origen says that the hypothesis that the brethren are not really brothers is based on two works: "But some say, basing it on a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled, or “The Book of James,” that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary." (Commentary on Matthew, Book X, Section 17) I pause to point out that these two works are heretical (see discussion of Gospel of Peter - see discussion of Protoevangelium of James) forgeries.  Both sources seem to be Docetic friendly, if not outright Docetic in their authorship.  Origen goes on to say, "And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the first-fruit among men of the purity which consists in chastity, and Mary among women; for it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the first-fruit of virginity."

Neither of the Gospel of Peter nor the Protoevangelium of James is a reliable historical account.  Moreover, the motivation for accepting that view is exactly what Origen says: to make Mary a chaste virgin as some kind of parallel to Jesus.

Witnesses on Jerome's side:

Ignatius:

From Jerome's "Lives of Illustrious Men," we know that Jerome only knew of the seven authentic epistles of Ignatius.  However, none of them mentions Mary as a perpetual virgin.  The reason for this discrepancy is unclear.  There is no good reason to think Jerome had some bonus material from Polycarp.

Polycarp:
Once again, none of Polycarp's extant writings supports Jerome's position, and Jerome's "Lives of Illustrious Men" only identifies Polycarp's still-extant epistle.  So there is no reason to think Jerome had some bonus material from Polycarp.

Irenæus:

You may be seeing a theme here.  While a significant quantity of Irenaeus' writings are extent, they do not have any evidence of teaching on the perpetual virginity.  On the contrary, several statements by Irenaeus imply that he believed she ceased to be a virgin.  For example, he uses "firstborn" to describe Jesus' relationship to Mary, but more significantly he calls Mary "as yet virgin" in parallel to the ground from which Adam was taken.  In the parallel, everyone knows that the ground was subsequently tilled, so it is natural to assume Irenaeus understood Mary the same way (Against Heresies 3:21:10). Similarly, Irenaeus uses the phrase "while yet in virginity" to describe Mary in parallel to Eve, which implies that the condition of virginity subsequently ceased as it also did for Eve (Against Heresies 3.22.4).

Justin Martyr

Same situation as Irenaeus, in that we have extant writings, but there is no apparent support for Jerome's conclusion.

"many other apostolic and eloquent men, who against Ebion, Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus,"

Irenaeus wrote against the Ebionites, and presumably is who Jerome has in mind.  The Ebionites allegedly denied the virgin birth, because they denied Jesus' divinity.

Theodotus of Byzantium apparently similarly asserted that Jesus was non-divine, but that he was adopted by God at Jesus' baptism.  It's unclear who Jerome had in mind here.  Perhaps he meant Hippolytus. 

Hippolytus seems to be ambiguous.  He claims that the brothers were children of Joseph "through seed," but this cannot rule out that they could be Joseph's from an earlier marriage, a second wife, etc.    The most natural understanding of Hippolytus is that he affirmed that the brothers of Jesus were only half brothers (see this interesting post). 

It is unclear who is meant by the person who wrote against Valentinus.  In his Lives, Jerome describes Polycarp as leading back to faith those who had been deceived by Valentinus, so perhaps he means him.

We do not need to accuse Jerome of dishonesty.  He may have sincerely believed that he would find such teachings in their writings.  The bottom line, though, is that he was wrong.

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 18

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

Jerome wrote:

There are things which, in your extreme ignorance, you had never read, and therefore you neglected the whole range of Scripture and employed your madness in outraging the Virgin, like the man in the story who being unknown to everybody and finding that he could devise no good deed by which to gain renown, burned the temple of Diana: and when no one revealed the sacrilegious act, it is said that he himself went up and down proclaiming that he was the man who had applied the fire. The rulers of Ephesus were curious to know what made him do this thing, whereupon he replied that if he could not have fame for good deeds, all men should give him credit for bad ones. Grecian history relates the incident. But you do worse. You have set on fire the temple of the Lord’s body, you have defiled the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit from which you are determined to make a team of four brethren and a heap of sisters come forth. In a word, joining in the chorus of the Jews, you say, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? and his sisters, are they not all with us? The word all would not be used if there were not a crowd of them.” Pray tell me, who, before you appeared, was acquainted with this blasphemy? who thought the theory worth two-pence? You have gained your desire, and are become notorious by crime. For myself who am your opponent, although we live in the same city, I don’t know, as the saying is, whether you are white or black. I pass over faults of diction which abound in every book you write. I say not a word about your absurd introduction. Good heavens! I do not ask for eloquence, since, having none yourself, you applied for a supply of it to your brother Craterius. I do not ask for grace of style, I look for purity of soul: for with Christians it is the greatest of solecisms and of vices of style to introduce anything base either in word or action. I am come to the conclusion of my argument. I will deal with you as though I had as yet prevailed nothing; and you will find yourself on the horns of a dilemma. It is clear that our Lord’s brethren bore the name in the same way that Joseph was called his father: “I and thy father sought thee sorrowing.” It was His mother who said this, not the Jews. The Evangelist himself relates that His father and His mother were marvelling at the things which were spoken concerning Him, and there are similar passages which we have already quoted in which Joseph and Mary are called his parents. Seeing that you have been foolish enough to persuade yourself that the Greek manuscripts are corrupt, you will perhaps plead the diversity of readings. I therefore come to the Gospel of John, and there it is plainly written, “Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” You will certainly find this in your manuscript. Now tell me, how is Jesus the son of Joseph when it is clear that He was begotten of the Holy Ghost? Was Joseph His true father? Dull as you are, you will not venture to say that. Was he His reputed father? If so, let the same rule be applied to them when they are called brethren, that you apply to Joseph when he is called father.  

As this section is long, I will again break it into chunks and respond piecemeal.

1) "There are things which, in your extreme ignorance, you had never read, and therefore you neglected the whole range of Scripture and employed your madness in outraging the Virgin, like the man in the story who being unknown to everybody and finding that he could devise no good deed by which to gain renown, burned the temple of Diana: and when no one revealed the sacrilegious act, it is said that he himself went up and down proclaiming that he was the man who had applied the fire. The rulers of Ephesus were curious to know what made him do this thing, whereupon he replied that if he could not have fame for good deeds, all men should give him credit for bad ones. Grecian history relates the incident."

It's my first time reading about this incident, but of course I don't see myself in the role described.  Quite the opposite.

2) "But you do worse. You have set on fire the temple of the Lord’s body, you have defiled the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit from which you are determined to make a team of four brethren and a heap of sisters come forth. In a word, joining in the chorus of the Jews, you say, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? and his sisters, are they not all with us? The word all would not be used if there were not a crowd of them.”"

Redirect your rage, Jerome.  We are defending Mary's honor as being a faithful wife to her husband Joseph.  We are the ones calling her blessed by saying that she was blessed with many children.  And those words that you call the chorus of the Jews are the words the Evangelists reported for our benefit, words that the Savior did not deny.

3) "Pray tell me, who, before you appeared, was acquainted with this blasphemy? who thought the theory worth two-pence?" 

You mean, of course, aside from the Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture?  But were there any before Helvidius who shared his opinion?  It seems that, in fact, there were.

4) "You have gained your desire, and are become notorious by crime. For myself who am your opponent, although we live in the same city, I don’t know, as the saying is, whether you are white or black. I pass over faults of diction which abound in every book you write. I say not a word about your absurd introduction. Good heavens! I do not ask for eloquence, since, having none yourself, you applied for a supply of it to your brother Craterius. I do not ask for grace of style, I look for purity of soul: for with Christians it is the greatest of solecisms and of vices of style to introduce anything base either in word or action." 

It is true that Helvidius is now (as perhaps also then) chiefly known by the fact that he wrote on this topic, and even more that Jerome replied.  Jerome's "you're a nobody" and "you're not eloquent" are obviously just more ad hominem.

5) "I am come to the conclusion of my argument. I will deal with you as though I had as yet prevailed nothing; and you will find yourself on the horns of a dilemma. It is clear that our Lord’s brethren bore the name in the same way that Joseph was called his father: “I and thy father sought thee sorrowing.” It was His mother who said this, not the Jews. The Evangelist himself relates that His father and His mother were marvelling at the things which were spoken concerning Him, and there are similar passages which we have already quoted in which Joseph and Mary are called his parents. Seeing that you have been foolish enough to persuade yourself that the Greek manuscripts are corrupt, you will perhaps plead the diversity of readings. I therefore come to the Gospel of John, and there it is plainly written, “Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” You will certainly find this in your manuscript. Now tell me, how is Jesus the son of Joseph when it is clear that He was begotten of the Holy Ghost? Was Joseph His true father? Dull as you are, you will not venture to say that. Was he His reputed father? If so, let the same rule be applied to them when they are called brethren, that you apply to Joseph when he is called father."

We cannot object to this point, nor do we wish to do so.  It is indeed true that while the brethren and sisters of Jesus were reputed to be full blood brothers and sisters, they were only half blood.  For Joseph was only the reputed, presumed, and adoptive father of Jesus, not his biological father.

Of course, though, this parallel only supports our and Helvidius' argument, it does not undermine it.

Moreover, note that Jerome's comment about the Greek manuscripts is quite vague without being able to see whatever Helvidius wrote.  It looks like Jerome is saying that Helvidius must be calling the Greek manuscripts of the day corrupt, and that Helvidius may be pointing to some textual variant.  If we ever find a copy of Helvidius' work (and we have no expectation that we will), it would be very interesting to find out what he said.  

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 17

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

Jerome wrote:

Innumerable instances of the same kind are to be found in the sacred books. But, to be brief, I will return to the last of the four classes of brethren, those, namely, who are brethren by affection, and these again fall into two divisions, those of the spiritual and those of the general relationship. I say spiritual because all of us Christians are called brethren, as in the verse, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” And in another psalm the Saviour says, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren.” And elsewhere, “Go unto my brethren and say to them.” I say also general, because we are all children of one Father, there is a like bond of brotherhood between us all. “Tell these who hate you,” says the prophet, “ye are our brethren.” And the Apostle writing to the Corinthians: “If any man that is named brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such a one no, not to eat.” I now ask to which class you consider the Lord’s brethren in the Gospel must be assigned. They are brethren by nature, you say. But Scripture does not say so; it calls them neither sons of Mary, nor of Joseph. Shall we say they are brethren by race? But it is absurd to suppose that a few Jews were called His brethren when all Jews of the time might upon this principle have borne the title. Were they brethren by virtue of close intimacy and the union of heart and mind? If that were so, who were more truly His brethren than the apostles who received His private instruction and were called by Him His mother and His brethren? Again, if all men, as such, were His brethren, it would have been foolish to deliver a special message, “Behold, thy brethren seek thee,” for all men alike were entitled to the name. The only alternative is to adopt the previous explanation and understand them to be called brethren in virtue of the bond of kindred, not of love and sympathy, nor by prerogative of race, nor yet by nature. Just as Lot was called Abraham’s brother, and Jacob Laban’s, just as the daughters of Zelophehad received a lot among their brethren, just as Abraham himself had to wife Sarah his sister, for he says, “She is indeed my sister, on the father’s side, not on the mother’s,” that is to say, she was the daughter of his brother, not of his sister. Otherwise, what are we to say of Abraham, a just man, taking to wife the daughter of his own father? Scripture, in relating the history of the men of early times, does not outrage our ears by speaking of the enormity in express terms, but prefers to leave it to be inferred by the reader: and God afterwards gives to the prohibition the sanction of the law, and threatens, “He who takes his sister, born of his father, or of his mother, and beholds her nakedness, hath commited abomination, he shall be utterly destroyed. He hath uncovered his sister’s nakedness, he shall bear his sin.”  

As this section is long, I will again break it into chunks and respond piecemeal.

1) "Innumerable instances of the same kind are to be found in the sacred books. But, to be brief, I will return to the last of the four classes of brethren, those, namely, who are brethren by affection, and these again fall into two divisions, those of the spiritual and those of the general relationship."

Of course, these "brethren by affection" in themselves have nothing to do with the Jews use of "brothers" and "sisters" to describe Jesus' family members.  Jerome is not wrong about this point, but it is a red herring.

Likewise, I once again take the opportunity to praise Jerome for his appeal to Scripture.

2) "I say spiritual because all of us Christians are called brethren, as in the verse, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” And in another psalm the Saviour says, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren.” And elsewhere, “Go unto my brethren and say to them.” I say also general, because we are all children of one Father, there is a like bond of brotherhood between us all. “Tell these who hate you,” says the prophet, “ye are our brethren.” And the Apostle writing to the Corinthians: “If any man that is named brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such a one no, not to eat.”" 

Interestingly, I'm not sure whether "I will declare thy name unto my brethren" (Psalm 22:22) must be interpreted in a sense other than physical brothers in the ordinary sense.  Nevertheless, given the immediate parallel to the congregation in the next part of the same verse, I don't think this would be the most clear proof.

3) "I now ask to which class you consider the Lord’s brethren in the Gospel must be assigned. They are brethren by nature, you say." 

Yes and no.  Yes, they are brothers of the same mother.  No, they are not full biological siblings, because Joseph is only Jesus' father adoptively and presumptively, not biologically, as Scripture makes exceedingly clear.

4) "But Scripture does not say so; it calls them neither sons of Mary, nor of Joseph."

Even setting aside the verses that mention a Mary, the mother of James and Joses, still Scripture does present them as the family of Jesus in verses that mention Joseph and Mary.  If we set aside the disputed verses about Mary, there are no others that explicitly use the phrase "son of Joseph" or the like.  Nevertheless, these brothers accompany Mary in many places in the gospels.

5) "Shall we say they are brethren by race? But it is absurd to suppose that a few Jews were called His brethren when all Jews of the time might upon this principle have borne the title."

Agreed that such an option is absurd.

6) "Were they brethren by virtue of close intimacy and the union of heart and mind? If that were so, who were more truly His brethren than the apostles who received His private instruction and were called by Him His mother and His brethren? Again, if all men, as such, were His brethren, it would have been foolish to deliver a special message, “Behold, thy brethren seek thee,” for all men alike were entitled to the name." 

Agreed as well that this is not a legitimate option.

7) "The only alternative is to adopt the previous explanation and understand them to be called brethren in virtue of the bond of kindred, not of love and sympathy, nor by prerogative of race, nor yet by nature. Just as Lot was called Abraham’s brother, and Jacob Laban’s, just as the daughters of Zelophehad received a lot among their brethren, just as Abraham himself had to wife Sarah his sister, for he says, “She is indeed my sister, on the father’s side, not on the mother’s,” that is to say, she was the daughter of his brother, not of his sister. Otherwise, what are we to say of Abraham, a just man, taking to wife the daughter of his own father? Scripture, in relating the history of the men of early times, does not outrage our ears by speaking of the enormity in express terms, but prefers to leave it to be inferred by the reader: and God afterwards gives to the prohibition the sanction of the law, and threatens, “He who takes his sister, born of his father, or of his mother, and beholds her nakedness, hath commited abomination, he shall be utterly destroyed. He hath uncovered his sister’s nakedness, he shall bear his sin.”

Interestingly, we do indeed think that Abraham's wife Sarah was his half-sister.  But nevertheless, while this broader sense of "brother" or "sister" as referring to cousins is not automatically ruled out in the same way as the other two, it is still (a) subject to the same "Scripture does not say so" argument and (b) less well supported by the context. 

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 16

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

Jerome wrote:

Now here we have the explanation of what I am endeavouring to show, how it is that the sons of Mary, the sister of our Lord’s mother, who though not formerly believers afterwards did believe, can be called brethren of the Lord. Possibly the case might be that one of the brethren believed immediately while the others did not believe until long after, and that one Mary was the mother of James and Joses, namely, “Mary of Clopas,” who is the same as the wife of Alphæus, the other, the mother of James the less. In any case, if she (the latter) had been the Lord’s mother S. John would have allowed her the title, as everywhere else, and would not by calling her the mother of other sons have given a wrong impression. But at this stage I do not wish to argue for or against the supposition that Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary the mother of James and Joses were different women, provided it is clearly understood that Mary the mother of James and Joses was not the same person as the Lord’s mother. How then, says Helvidius, do you make out that they were called the Lord’s brethren who were not his brethren? I will show how that is. In Holy Scripture there are four kinds of brethren—by nature, race, kindred, love. Instances of brethren by nature are Esau and Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, Andrew and Peter, James and John. As to race, all Jews are called brethren of one another, as in Deuteronomy, “If thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.” And in the same book, “Thou shalt in anywise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee, which is not thy brother.” And again, “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely bring them again unto thy brother. And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it home to thine house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.” And the Apostle Paul says, “I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren’s sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites.” Moreover they are called brethren by kindred who are of one family, that is πατρία, which corresponds to the Latin paternitas, because from a single root a numerous progeny proceeds. In Genesis we read, “And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we are brethren.” And again, “So Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east: and they separated each from his brother.” Certainly Lot was not Abraham’s brother, but the son of Abraham’s brother Aram. For Terah begat Abraham and Nahor and Aram: and Aram begat Lot. Again we read, “And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son.” But if you still doubt whether a nephew can be called a son, let me give you an instance. “And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen.” And after describing the night attack and the slaughter, he adds, “And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot.” Let this suffice by way of proof of my assertion. But for fear you may make some cavilling objection, and wriggle out of your difficulty like a snake, I must bind you fast with the bonds of proof to stop your hissing and complaining, for I know you would like to say you have been overcome not so much by Scripture truth as by intricate arguments. Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebecca, when in fear of his brother’s treachery he had gone to Mesopotamia, drew nigh and rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, and watered the flocks of Laban, his mother’s brother. “And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s brother, and that he was Rebekah’s son.” Here is an example of the rule already referred to, by which a nephew is called a brother. And again, “Laban said unto Jacob. Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? Tell me what shall thy wages be.” And so, when, at the end of twenty years, without the knowledge of his father-in-law and accompanied by his wives and sons he was returning to his country, on Laban overtaking him in the mountain of Gilead and failing to find the idols which Rachel hid among the baggage, Jacob answered and said to Laban, “What is my trespass? What is my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued after me? Whereas thou hast felt all about my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff? Set it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us two.” Tell me who are those brothers of Jacob and Laban who were present there? Esau, Jacob’s brother, was certainly not there, and Laban, the son of Bethuel, had no brothers although he had a sister Rebecca.  

As this section is long, I will again break it into chunks and respond piecemeal.

1) "Now here we have the explanation of what I am endeavouring to show, how it is that the sons of Mary, the sister of our Lord’s mother, who though not formerly believers afterwards did believe, can be called brethren of the Lord." 

This would seem to make Mary's parents the least creative on the planet, if they had two surviving daughters each named Mary.  Jerome is clearly reading John 19:25 with "Mary the wife of Cleophas" being an appositive for Mary's sister, as it is presented in the King James Version.

John 19:25 "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene."

Of course, Mary's "sister" can be her husband's sister, or her brother's wife, or her female cousin, or the like.

2) "Possibly the case might be that one of the brethren believed immediately while the others did not believe until long after, and that one Mary was the mother of James and Joses, namely, “Mary of Clopas,” who is the same as the wife of Alphæus, the other, the mother of James the less."

This is just pure speculation, and would give this Mary now three designations.  It is not impossible, of course, but is there any good reason to think it? Helvidius' explanation is even more probable.

3) "In any case, if she (the latter) had been the Lord’s mother S. John would have allowed her the title, as everywhere else, and would not by calling her the mother of other sons have given a wrong impression."

Jerome's rules for John are curious.  John never calls Mary by the name, Mary.   Most of the references to Mary in John's gospel are clearly to Mary the sister of Lazarus and Martha (John 11:1, 2, 19, 20, 28, 31, 32, and 45; John 12:3).  If Mary Magdalene is the same Mary, then the only other woman who is called Mary in John's gospel is this "Mary the wife of Cleophas."

Jesus' mother is elsewhere described in John's gospel usually as "the mother of Jesus" or the like, without naming her.  In fact, if one only had the Gospel of John, one would not know Mary's name.

Moreover, the verses that call Mary the mother of James and Joses are in the other gospels, not in John.

4) "But at this stage I do not wish to argue for or against the supposition that Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary the mother of James and Joses were different women, provided it is clearly understood that Mary the mother of James and Joses was not the same person as the Lord’s mother." 

It is clear that Mary, the wife of Clopas, is not the mother of Jesus.  The problem for Jerome, though, is that it is hard to establish that this woman is the mother of James and Joses.

5) "How then, says Helvidius, do you make out that they were called the Lord’s brethren who were not his brethren? I will show how that is." 

Helvidius' rhetoric is weak, but his point is valid.  The farther these men are from being sons of Jesus' mother, the weaker Jerome's claim.

6) "In Holy Scripture there are four kinds of brethren—by nature, race, kindred, love." 

No one should doubt that there are multiple uses of "brother" in Scripture.  On the other hand, the most usual way when describing families is to speak of brothers who are of the same mother and/or father.

7) "Instances of brethren by nature are Esau and Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, Andrew and Peter, James and John." 

Yes, and this is the kind of context in which James, Joses, and the others are called Jesus' brothers.  They are called this in the context of mentioning Jesus' presumptive parents, Mary and Joseph.

8) "As to race, all Jews are called brethren of one another, as in Deuteronomy, “If thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.” And in the same book, “Thou shalt in anywise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee, which is not thy brother.” And again, “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely bring them again unto thy brother. And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it home to thine house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.” And the Apostle Paul says, “I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren’s sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites.”"

We readily grant that this usage exists, but it was not in that sense that James, Joses, and the rest were identified as brothers of Jesus. The point of the mention of those siblings was that the people knew Jesus and his immediate family, not merely other members of the tribe of Judah.

9) "Moreover they are called brethren by kindred who are of one family, that is πατρία, which corresponds to the Latin paternitas, because from a single root a numerous progeny proceeds. In Genesis we read, “And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we are brethren.” And again, “So Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east: and they separated each from his brother.” Certainly Lot was not Abraham’s brother, but the son of Abraham’s brother Aram. For Terah begat Abraham and Nahor and Aram: and Aram begat Lot. Again we read, “And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son.” But if you still doubt whether a nephew can be called a son, let me give you an instance. “And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen.” And after describing the night attack and the slaughter, he adds, “And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot.” Let this suffice by way of proof of my assertion."

Pre-Mosaic usage of "brother" (in Hebrew and literally translated to Greek or Latin) is hardly a very compelling antecedent to the usage in Greek by the evangelists.  That said, we should acknowledge that the word can be used in that broader sense, which is still less broad than the "all Jews" sense.  There is no particular reason to think that the Jews of Jesus' home town were using "brother" and "sister" in the sense described.

10) "But for fear you may make some cavilling objection, and wriggle out of your difficulty like a snake, I must bind you fast with the bonds of proof to stop your hissing and complaining, for I know you would like to say you have been overcome not so much by Scripture truth as by intricate arguments." 

Lovely rhetoric, and notice again Jerome's appeal to the authority of Scripture, and his acknowledgment of its superiority to crafty arguments.

11) "Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebecca, when in fear of his brother’s treachery he had gone to Mesopotamia, drew nigh and rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, and watered the flocks of Laban, his mother’s brother. “And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s brother, and that he was Rebekah’s son.” Here is an example of the rule already referred to, by which a nephew is called a brother. And again, “Laban said unto Jacob. Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? Tell me what shall thy wages be.” And so, when, at the end of twenty years, without the knowledge of his father-in-law and accompanied by his wives and sons he was returning to his country, on Laban overtaking him in the mountain of Gilead and failing to find the idols which Rachel hid among the baggage, Jacob answered and said to Laban, “What is my trespass? What is my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued after me? Whereas thou hast felt all about my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff? Set it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us two.” Tell me who are those brothers of Jacob and Laban who were present there? Esau, Jacob’s brother, was certainly not there, and Laban, the son of Bethuel, had no brothers although he had a sister Rebecca."

Again, Jerome is having to go back to pre-Mosaic usage in another language to justify a broader sense of brother.  It is true, of course.  It simply does not pin down or even much suggest that the brothers of Jesus were not sons of his mother.

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 15

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

Jerome wrote:

What darkness, what raging madness rushing to its own destruction! You say that the mother of the Lord was present at the cross, you say that she was entrusted to the disciple John on account of her widowhood and solitary condition: as if upon your own showing, she had not four sons, and numerous daughters, with whose solace she might comfort herself? You also apply to her the name of widow which is not found in Scripture. And although you quote all instances in the Gospels, the words of John alone displease you. You say in passing that she was present at the cross, that you may not appear to have omitted it on purpose, and yet not a word about the women who were with her. I could pardon you if you were ignorant, but I see you have a reason for your silence. Let me point out then what John says, “But there were standing by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” No one doubts that there were two apostles called by the name James, James the son of Zebedee, and James the son of Alphæus. Do you intend the comparatively unknown James the less, who is called in Scripture the son of Mary, not however of Mary the mother of our Lord, to be an apostle, or not? If he is an apostle, he must be the son of Alphæus and a believer in Jesus, “For neither did his brethren believe in him.” If he is not an apostle, but a third James (who he can be I cannot tell), how can he be regarded as the Lord’s brother, and how, being a third, can he be called less to distinguish him from greater, when greater and less are used to denote the relations existing, not between three, but between two? Notice, moreover, that the Lord’s brother is an apostle, since Paul says, “Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and tarried with him fifteen days. But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.” And in the same Epistle, “And when they perceived the grace that was given unto me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars,” etc. And that you may not suppose this James to be the son of Zebedee, you have only to read the Acts of the Apostles, and you will find that the latter had already been slain by Herod. The only conclusion is that the Mary who is described as the mother of James the less was the wife of Alphæus and sister of Mary the Lord’s mother, the one who is called by John the Evangelist “Mary of Clopas,” whether after her father, or kindred, or for some other reason. But if you think they are two persons because elsewhere we read, “Mary the mother of James the less,” and here, “Mary of Clopas,” you have still to learn that it is customary in Scripture for the same individual to bear different names. Raguel, Moses’ father-in-law, is also called Jethro. Gedeon, without any apparent reason for the change, all at once becomes Jerubbaal. Ozias, king of Judah, has an alternative, Azarias. Mount Tabor is called Itabyrium. Again Hermon is called by the Phenicians Sanior, and by the Amorites Sanir. The same tract of country is known by three names, Negebh, Teman, and Darom in Ezekiel. Peter is also called Simon and Cephas. Judas the zealot in another Gospel is called Thaddaeus. And there are numerous other examples which the reader will be able to collect for himself from every part of Scripture.  

On this point, verbosely proven, we have lost the main force of the argument. The main issue is that Scripture plainly speaks of Jesus having brothers, and naming those brothers.  Because in two places where the brothers are named, the naming comes from unbelieving Jews, Helvidius seems to have attempt to bolster his argument by reference to places where we would expect to see Mary the Mother of Jesus.

Thus, Jerome has gotten sidetracked over the issue of: 

Mat 27:56 Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children.

Mark 15:40 There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;

Mark 15:47 And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.

Mark 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

Luke 24:10 It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.

John 19:25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.

Coming back to the argument, let's break it down in more detail:

1) "You say that the mother of the Lord was present at the cross, you say that she was entrusted to the disciple John on account of her widowhood and solitary condition: as if upon your own showing, she had not four sons, and numerous daughters, with whose solace she might comfort herself?"

These sons and daughters, however, were younger than Jesus.  Moreover, as noted elsewhere, as yet they did not believe on Jesus.  So, it was natural for Jesus to entrust the care of his mother to a fully grown believer.

2) "You also apply to her the name of widow which is not found in Scripture."

One has to admire this point by Jerome.  While we suspect that Mary was a widow by this time (because the last mention of Joseph being alive is when Jesus was twelve), it is true that we do not know: Scripture does not say.  Jerome is right to appeal to Scripture, but it is that same Scripture that does not give Mary the title of Perpetual Virgin, but rather wife of Joseph.

3) "And although you quote all instances in the Gospels, the words of John alone displease you." 

Jerome is right to criticize a cherry-picking hermeneutical method.  Whether he is right in his criticism, we will consider more closely.

4) "You say in passing that she was present at the cross, that you may not appear to have omitted it on purpose, and yet not a word about the women who were with her. I could pardon you if you were ignorant, but I see you have a reason for your silence."

This is a beautiful rhetorical flourish.  If indeed Helvidius has omitted something, Jerome is right to point it out!

5) "Let me point out then what John says, “But there were standing by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” 

I don't wish to spoil the beauty of Jerome's rhetoric, but for clarity to the reader, you can understand that Jerome is going to argue that Mary the wife of Clopas is the mother of James and Joses.

6) "No one doubts that there were two apostles called by the name James, James the son of Zebedee, and James the son of Alphæus. Do you intend the comparatively unknown James the less, who is called in Scripture the son of Mary, not however of Mary the mother of our Lord, to be an apostle, or not? If he is an apostle, he must be the son of Alphæus and a believer in Jesus, “For neither did his brethren believe in him.” If he is not an apostle, but a third James (who he can be I cannot tell), how can he be regarded as the Lord’s brother, and how, being a third, can he be called less to distinguish him from greater, when greater and less are used to denote the relations existing, not between three, but between two?"

Matthew 10:3

Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus;

Mark 3:18

And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite,

Luke 6:15

Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes,

Acts 1:13

And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James.

So, James the son of Alphaeus is definitely one of the two apostles with that name.

Jerome's argument takes "James the less," in Mark 15:40 to be the same as James the son of Alphaeus.  The reasoning is that "less" is a comparative of two.  This argument works great in English (and I suppose also in the Latin from which Jerome was working), but μικροῦ in Greek can mean "least" as well as it can mean "less."  Moreover, we simply don't know why that James is called James the Less.  It can be a reference to being a child, for example (Matthew 10:42, Matthew 18:10, and Matthew 18:14 use a form of the word to refer to children) or to someone being short (Zachaeus is called by this term in Luke 19:3).  In Mark, the evangelist that calls James, James the less, the term is used of mustard seed (Mark 4:31) and of children (Mark 9:42).  In short (pun noticed though not initially intended), the argument that there can only be two, if James is "James the Less," fails.  He could be James the kid, or James the short, or James the younger.  Moreover, there is nothing from the context in Mark 15:40 that tells us that the James mentioned is an apostle.

Moreover, no James in Scripture is called "James the Greater" or even "James the Great."  So, if this is to be taken as a concrete comparison, there is no greater James identified.  Indeed, he may just be younger than his brother Joses, although it is not clear why Mark would want to convey that information.

The solution for Helvidius' theory is that this "James the Less," the son of Mary, is the same as James the brother of the Lord.  His being little (either in terms of stature or age) would explain why Mary needed John in Jesus' absence.  

7) "Notice, moreover, that the Lord’s brother is an apostle, since Paul says, “Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and tarried with him fifteen days. But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.” And in the same Epistle, “And when they perceived the grace that was given unto me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars,” etc. And that you may not suppose this James to be the son of Zebedee, you have only to read the Acts of the Apostles, and you will find that the latter had already been slain by Herod."

In Jerome's haste, he seems to contradict himself here.  At our number 6 above, Jerome had pointed out that Jesus' brothers did not believe.  Yet at our number 7, Jerome insists that the brother of our Lord was an apostle.  There is a way that both things can be the case: James, the brother of the Lord, may not have been one of the twelve (nor one of the seventy), but he may have been sent as an apostle in a lesser sense, perhaps after his conversion after Jesus' resurrection or ascension.

8) "The only conclusion is that the Mary who is described as the mother of James the less was the wife of Alphæus and sister of Mary the Lord’s mother, the one who is called by John the Evangelist “Mary of Clopas,” whether after her father, or kindred, or for some other reason. But if you think they are two persons because elsewhere we read, “Mary the mother of James the less,” and here, “Mary of Clopas,” you have still to learn that it is customary in Scripture for the same individual to bear different names. Raguel, Moses’ father-in-law, is also called Jethro. Gedeon, without any apparent reason for the change, all at once becomes Jerubbaal. Ozias, king of Judah, has an alternative, Azarias. Mount Tabor is called Itabyrium. Again Hermon is called by the Phenicians Sanior, and by the Amorites Sanir. The same tract of country is known by three names, Negebh, Teman, and Darom in Ezekiel. Peter is also called Simon and Cephas. Judas the zealot in another Gospel is called Thaddaeus. And there are numerous other examples which the reader will be able to collect for himself from every part of Scripture.  "

Jerome's argument, as I best understand it, is that the Mary, mother of James, is also Mary of Clopas.  There were a lot of women with the name, Mary.  So, one should not assume they are all Jesus' mother.  Likewise, as Jerome points out, some people are given multiple names in Scripture.  Moreover, Helvidius' argument faces this same problem as Jerome, in that Mary the Mother of Jesus is not usually called the mother of James and Joses.  Of course, the solution is the same, namely that more than one name can be given to the same person.

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 14

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

Jerome wrote:

My reason for repeating the same thing again and again is to prevent him from raising a false issue and crying out that I have withheld such passages as make for him, and that his view has been torn to shreds not by evidence of Scripture, but by evasive arguments. Observe, he says, James and Joses are sons of Mary, and the same persons who were called brethren by the Jews. Observe, Mary is the mother of James the less and of Joses. And James is called the less to distinguish him from James the greater, who was the son of Zebedee, as Mark elsewhere states, “And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid. And when the sabbath was past, they bought spices, that they might come and anoint him.” And, as might be expected, he says: “What a poor and impious view we take of Mary, if we hold that when other women were concerned about the burial of Jesus, she His mother was absent; or if we invent some kind of a second Mary; and all the more because the Gospel of S. John testifies that she was there present, when the Lord upon the cross commended her, as His mother and now a widow, to the care of John. Or must we suppose that the Evangelists were so far mistaken and so far mislead us as to call Mary the mother of those who were known to the Jews as brethren of Jesus?”

This particular branch of Helvidius' argument I find less persuasive.  While it is certainly an interesting problem for Mariologists  (i.e. her absence at certain points), it is easy to see how someone could try to argue that this is some different Mary who happens to have sons also by the same name as Jesus' brethren. The name, Mary, derived from Aaron's sister, and was a very common name, even in first century before the mother of Jesus was famous.  So, while Helvidius may be right, I think that this is less strong than the other passages that explicitly name Jesus' brethren as Jesus' brethren.

Moreover, we will see some more problems highlighted by Jerome in his responses in the next section ... 

  

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 13

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

Jerome wrote:

The last proposition of Helvidius was this, and it is what he wished to show when he treated of the first-born, that brethren of the Lord are mentioned in the Gospels. For example, “Behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, seeking to speak to him.” And elsewhere, “After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren.” And again, “His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judæa, that thy disciples also may behold the works which thou doest. For no man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou doest these things, manifest thyself to the world.” And John adds, “For even his brethren did not believe on him.” Mark also and Matthew, “And coming into his own country he taught them in their synagogues, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?” Luke also in the Acts of the Apostles relates, “These all with one accord continued stedfastly in prayer, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.” Paul the Apostle also is at one with them, and witnesses to their historical accuracy, “And I went up by revelation, but other of the apostles saw I none, save Peter and James the Lord’s brother.” And again in another place, “Have we no right to eat and drink? Have we no right to lead about wives even as the rest of the Apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?” And for fear any one should not allow the evidence of the Jews, since it was they from whose mouth we hear the name of His brothers, but should maintain that His countrymen were deceived by the same error in respect of the brothers into which they fell in their belief about the father, Helvidius utters a sharp note of warning and cries, “The same names are repeated by the Evangelists in another place, and the same persons are there brethren of the Lord and sons of Mary.” Matthew says, “And many women were there (doubtless at the Lord’s cross) beholding from afar, which had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.” Mark also, “And there were also women beholding from afar, among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome”; and in the same place shortly after, “And many other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem.” Luke too, “Now there were Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them.”

By and large, this seems like the best starting place for the argument, not the final point.  After all, it is this issue that makes the others seem less significant.  Helvidius apparently omitted Paul, but the bottom line is that Scripture affirms multiple times that Jesus had brothers and sisters, and at least some of Jesus' brothers are even named.

  

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 12

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

Jerome wrote:

Our position is this: Every only begotten son is a first-born son, but not every first-born is an only begotten. By first-born we understand not only one who is succeeded by others, but one who has had no predecessor. “Everything,” says the Lord to Aaron, “that openeth the womb of all flesh which they offer unto the Lord, both of man and beast, shall be thine: nevertheless the first born of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem.” The word of God defines first-born as everything that openeth the womb. Otherwise, if the title belongs to such only as have younger brothers, the priests cannot claim the firstlings until their successors have been begotten, lest, perchance, in case there were no subsequent delivery it should prove to be the first-born but not merely the only begotten. “And those that are to be redeemed of them from a month old shalt thou redeem, according to thine estimation for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary (the same is twenty gerahs). But the firstling of an ox, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, thou shalt not redeem; they are holy.” The word of God compels me to dedicate to God everything that openeth the womb if it be the firstling of clean beasts: if of unclean beasts, I must redeem it, and give the value to the priest. I might reply and say, Why do you tie me down to the short space of a month? Why do you speak of the first-born, when I cannot tell whether there are brothers to follow? Wait until the second is born. I owe nothing to the priest, unless the birth of a second should make the one I previously had the first-born. Will not the very points of the letters cry out against me and convict me of my folly, and declare that first-born is a title of him who opens the womb, and is not to be restricted to him who has brothers? And, then, to take the case of John: we are agreed that he was an only begotten son: I want to know if he was not also a first-born son, and whether he was not absolutely amenable to the law. There can be no doubt in the matter. At all events Scripture thus speaks of the Saviour, “And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord) and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons.” If this law relates only to the first-born, and there can be no first-born unless there are successors, no one ought to be bound by the law of the first-born who cannot tell whether there will be successors. But inasmuch as he who has no younger brothers is bound by the law of the first-born, we gather that he is called the first-born who opens the womb and who has been preceded by none, not he whose birth is followed by that of a younger brother. Moses writes in Exodus, “And it came to pass at midnight, that the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon: And all the first-born of cattle.” Tell me, were they who then perished by the destroyer, only your first-born, or, something more, did they include the only begotten? If only they who have brothers are called first-born, the only begotten were saved from death. And if it be the fact that the only begotten were slain, it was contrary to the sentence pronounced, for the only begotten to die as well as the first-born. You must either release the only begotten from the penalty, and in that case you become ridiculous: or, if you allow that they were slain, we gain our point, though we have not to thank you for it, that only begotten sons also are called first-born.

We don't disagree with Jerome's long-winded explanation of this point.  However, as mentioned in the previous post, Jerome does not seem to realize that it is valuable for the evangelists to mention Jesus' status as firstborn because it was known that he had brothers and sisters.

Matthew 1:25

And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.

Luke 2:7

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

We acknowledge that the term can be used of an only child, but it is one of many Scriptural evidences, not in itself an absolute proof.  Moreover, since we believe that the gospel was written after Jesus was 30 years old, it would have been more natural for the evangelist to refer to Jesus as her only son, if the evangelist wished to clarify his relationship to Mary.

I should point out, however, that in addition to the points raised above and in the previous post, Jesus' position as firstborn was also significant for his being David's heir to the throne.  If, as some have argued, Joseph had other boys before Jesus, Jesus would not have been Joseph's presumed firstborn.  Accordingly, he would not have inherited the throne of David from his father.

  

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 11

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

Jerome wrote:

An ample reply has now been given to what he advanced respecting the words before they came together, and he knew her not till she had brought forth a son. I must now proceed, if my reply is to follow the order of his argument, to the third point. He will have it that Mary bore other sons, and he quotes the passage, “And Joseph also went up to the city of David to enroll himself with Mary, who was betrothed to him, being great with child. And it came to pass, while they were there, the days were fulfilled that she should be delivered, and she brought forth her first-born son.” From this he endeavours to show that the term first-born is inapplicable except to a person who has brothers, just as he is called only begotten who is the only son of his parents.

Jerome does not seem to realize that it is valuable for the evangelists to mention Jesus' status as firstborn because it was known that he had brothers and sisters.

Matthew 1:25

And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.

Luke 2:7

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

We acknowledge that the term can be used of an only child, but it is one of many Scriptural evidences, not in itself an absolute proof.  Instead, we should consider the context of the comment, in an account written after Jesus had well-known brothers and sisters.  

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 10

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

Jerome wrote:

If you are so contentious, your own thoughts shall now prove your master. You must not allow any time to intervene between delivery and intercourse. You must not say, “If a woman conceive seed and bear a man child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of the separation of her sickness shall she be unclean. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days. She shall touch no hallowed thing,” and so forth. On your showing, Joseph must at once approach, her, and be subject to Jeremiah’s reproof, “They were as mad horses in respect of women: every one neighed after his neighbour’s wife.” Otherwise, how can the words stand good, “he knew her not, till she had brought forth a son,” if he waits after the time of another purifying has expired, if his lust must brook another long delay of forty days? The mother must go unpurged from her child-bed taint, and the wailing infant be attended to by the midwives, while the husband clasps his exhausted wife. Thus for sooth must their married life begin so that the Evangelist may not be convicted of falsehood. But God forbid that we should think thus of the Saviour’s mother and of a just man. No midwife assisted at His birth; no women’s officiousness intervened. With her own hands she wrapped Him in the swaddling clothes, herself both mother and midwife, “and laid Him,” we are told, “in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn”; a statement which, on the one hand, refutes the ravings of the apocryphal accounts, for Mary herself wrapped Him in the swaddling clothes, and on the other makes the voluptuous notion of Helvidius impossible, since there was no place suitable for married intercourse in the inn.

As mentioned in my previous post, we ought to assume that Joseph knew his wife after Jesus' birth.  That does not imply that with mathematical precision, Joseph began making love the same moment that the placenta of Christ left Mary.  On the contrary, I think it is better to say that such knowledge began either in Egypt or upon their return to Nazareth, in either case after the days of Mary's purification were complete.

I think Jerome makes a good point about the absence of a midwife.  This point, incidentally, rebukes the fantastical account in the heretical forgery, known as the Protoevangelium of James.  It's hard to say how it relates to Helvidius, since Jerome does not provide Helvidius' argument here.  Presumably, Jerome is suggesting that someone else would have needed to watch Jesus while Joseph and Mary made love, and that there was no one else, not even a midwife.

As noted above, it's sufficient to say that they may have made Jesus' brethren and sisters upon their return to Nazareth, or perhaps even in Egypt.  

Nevertheless, it's not hard to tell that Jerome is out of familiar water when he comes to speculating on places where married people can become one flesh, or the contexts in which that can happen.  I doubt Mary was in any mood for it, and God's law regarding seems to forbid it, but to say it is "impossible" is to demonstrate one's lack of experiential familiarity with human heterosexual activity.  To put it differently, this is not a comment one would expect from Augustine. 

  

-TurretinFan

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 9

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

Jerome wrote:

Helvidius will answer, “What you say, is in my opinion mere trifling. Your arguments are so much waste of time, and the discussion shows more subtlety than truth. Why could not Scripture say, as it said of Thamar and Judah, ‘And he took his wife, and knew her again no more’? Could not Matthew find words to express his meaning? ‘He knew her not,’ he says, ‘until she brought forth a son.’ He did then, after her delivery, know her, whom he had refrained from knowing until she was delivered.”

If Helvidius did not think of this argument himself, I must praise Jerome for providing an excellent example of what has recently come to be called a steel man argument.  This is indeed correct.  It would not have been hard for the Evangelist to write that Joseph took his wife, but never knew her, or that Mary remained a virgin, or the like, if the Holy Spirit had wished us to think that.

Moreover, had the Holy Spirit intended to convey the perpetual virginity with such a statement, one would expect the Holy Spirit to elsewhere clarify that the brothers and sisters were not actually sons and daughters of Mary.

Of course, the word of caution here is that we cannot dictate to the Holy Spirit how the Holy Spirit expresses himself.  Just because a statement could be made more clearly, we cannot demand that the Holy Spirit do so.

In this case, however, the plain meaning of the words is simply that the Joseph abstained from knowing his wife until Jesus was born.  The implication, therefore, is that Joseph began to know Mary after Jesus was born, though presumably also after the time of purification set forth in the law of Moses and described in Luke.

  

-TurretinFan

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

Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 7

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

Jerome wrote:

The word of God says in Genesis, “And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem, and lost them until this day.” Likewise at the end of Deuteronomy, “So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in the valley, in the land of Moab over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.” We must certainly understand by this day the time of the composition of the history, whether you prefer the view that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch or that Ezra re-edited it. In either case I make no objection. The question now is whether the words unto this day are to be referred to the time of publishing or writing the books, and if so it is for him to show, now that so many years have rolled away since that day, that either the idols hidden beneath the oak have been found, or the grave of Moses discovered; for he obstinately maintains that what does not happen so long as the point of time indicated by until and unto has not been attained, begins to be when that point has been reached. He would do well to pay heed to the idiom of Holy Scripture, and understand with us, (it was here he stuck in the mud) that some things which might seem ambiguous if not expressed are plainly intimated, while others are left to the exercise of our intellect. For if, while the event was still fresh in memory and men were living who had seen Moses, it was possible for his grave to be unknown, much more may this be the case after the lapse of so many ages. And in the same way must we interpret what we are told concerning Joseph. The Evangelist pointed out a circumstance which might have given rise to some scandal, namely, that Mary was not known by her husband until she was delivered, and he did so that we might be the more certain that she from whom Joseph refrained while there was room to doubt the import of the vision was not known after her delivery.

Once again, we do not disagree with Jerome that "unto this day" is a statement that does not have the same kind of fixed termination as the usual statement.  Moreover, had the Evangelist written that Joseph did not know his wife, until this day, we would simply conclude that Joseph had not yet known Mary when the gospel was written.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that the question of whether the Pentateuch was re-edited later is already raised in Jerome's time.  As Jerome notes, it is not really salient to this issue, but it is an interesting question.

Jerome says "that some things which might seem ambiguous if not expressed are plainly intimated, while others are left to the exercise of our intellect." Unfortunately, Jerome draws the wrong conclusion.  For example, while Jerome points out some examples of cases where "unto this day" was a situation that probably continues even now, such as the lack of knowledge of Moses' sepulcher.  By contrast, Genesis 26:33 "And he called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day." or Genesis 35:20 "And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day."  There is a city today named Beersheba, which is fairly close to where the city of Beersheba was.  However, if the name is ever changed, this would not negate Scripture.  And Scripture was not lying when for a time there was no city with that name.  Likewise, the pillar of Rachel's grave is gone, yet Scripture did not lie.

Instead, recall that there is a distinction between the counter-examples and the rule.  The rule is, "he did [x] until [the end of doing x]." The counter-examples so far are future, "he will do [x] until [forever, the end of the person's life, until the end of time, or some other indefinite or final future point]" and now present, "until this day" or the like.

Yet Scripture does not say that Joseph did not know Mary until his death, nor that Joseph will know now Mary until the second coming, nor that Joseph did not know Mary until this day.  Instead, a fixed termination for Joseph's abstinence is provided.  So, once again Jerome has observed an interesting grammatical point, but has not fully considered the grammatical consequences of his grammatical observation.

 

-TurretinFan