"This passage afforded the pretext for great disturbances, which were introduced into the Church, at a former period, by Helvidius. The inference he drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband. Jerome, on the other hand, earnestly and copiously defended Mary’s perpetual virginity. Let us rest satisfied with this, that no just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words of the Evangelist, as to what took place after the birth of Christ.
He is called first-born; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin. It is said that Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son: but this is limited to that very time. What took place afterwards, the historian does not inform us. Such is well known to have been the practice of the inspired writers."
St Jerome
Who's this Helvidius that keeps getting mentioned? He was a 4th century theologian who taught that Mary was not a virgin after the birth Jesus and based this belief on the very same verses that we have brought up. Helvidius' view was immediately condemned in the Church as newly-invented blasphemy, with a famous defense of Mary's perpetual virginity given by St Jerome in his work The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary: "Pray tell me, who, before you appeared, was acquainted with this blasphemy? Who thought the theory worth two-pence?" (18)
The explanations quoted above in defense of the perpetual virginity of Mary, while accurate, are fairly poignant (and at times even a bit harsh). So who are they from?
None other than the great Protestant Reformer John Calvin.
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