Dogmatic and Polemical Works

On the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Mary against Heldidius

ON THE PERPETUAL VIRGINITY OF THE BLESSED MARY AGAINST HELVIDIUS INTRODUCTION ~ HEN ST. JEROME arrived in Rome for his second visit in the year 382, his reputation as a scholar and ascetic and as the defender of the faith had preceded him. He had already won recognition for his translation of the homilies of Origen into Latin, for his biography of the monk, Paul, and for the composition of his Chronicle. As early as the year 370, he had organized a society of men at Aquileia who were interested in the ascetic life; and he himself had retired shortly after that, in the year 374, to the desert of Chalcis, east of Antioch, where he spent the next five years as a monk. The dogmatic controversies of this period profoundly agitated the Christians of Antioch and echoes reached even the depths of the desert of Chalcis. St.. Jerome became involved in one of these controversies with the Arians, who had accused him of Sabellianism. A few years later at Antioch, in the year 379, he wrote his first controversial treatise against the Luciferians. It was, therefore, with enthusiasm that scholars and ascetics and traditionalists received St. Jerome in Rome. New honors were bestowed on him at Rome. Pope Damasus appointed him as his secretary and chief counselor, and commissioned him to bring out an official text of the early version of the New Testament. So popular was St. Jerome with the people and with the Pope that it was rumored that he would succeed to the chair of Peter after the death of Damasus. St. Jerome found favorable soil at Rome for the preaching of asceticism. The promoters of the ascetic life and many Roman ladies who had been meeting in the palace of the saintly Marcella on Mount Aventine, where they convened to discourse on holy matters and read the Scriptures and sing psalms, found in St. 3 4 SAINT JEROME Jerome their champion and accepted him as their guide and counselor. St. Jerome's acceptance of their invitation and open espousal of the cause of the celibate and virgin life was soon to involve him in a serious controversy. Angry opposition was organized against him; for, in the expository letters! which he wrote for these ascetic women, St. Jerome reprehended the conduct of lukewarm laymen, as well as clerics. Because of the great favor that St. Jerome enjoyed with the Pope, his opponents did not dare. to denounce him openly. Their opportunity came when Pope Damasus died and was succeeded by Pope Siricius. The question of asceticism, and virginity and marriage, had been seriously discussed and debated at Rome previous to St. Jerome's arrival. In the year 380, a certain Carterius2 had published at Rome a book on virginity and asceticism, drawing his main argument from his contention of Mary's absolute and perpetual virginity.3 A certain Helvidius,4 the leader of I Cf. especially, St. Jerome, Epistola 22, ad Eustochium, on the preservation of virginity. 2 Carterius was an obscure monk who lived at Rome at the time. Cf. Ferd. Cavallera, Saint Jerome, sa vie et son oeuvre 1 (Louvain and Paris 1922) 95. The work of Carterius is no longer extant. 3 The perpetual virginity of Mary is a solemnly defined dogma of the Catholic Church, expressed in the striking formula that Mary was a virgin 'ante partum, in partu, et po~t partum: For an excellent and thorough treatment of the subject, d. Philip J. Donnelly, 'The Perpetual Virginity of the Mother of God: in Manology 2, ed. Juniper B. Carol (Milwaukee 1957). St. Matthew is an unassailable witness to the virginity of Mary ante partum, and his use of the prophecy of Isaia (7.14): 'Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel,' implies, at least, the virgin birth. St. Luke not only teaches explicitly the virginal conception, but also furnishes elements on which to base the conclusions that Mary gave birth to Christ without the loss of her virginal integrity, and that she preserved her virginity throughout her life. The early Christian Fathers, St. Irenaeus, St. Justin, St. Ignatius, and St. Hippolytus, following the traditional apostolic. teaching, affirmed explicitly Mary's absolute and perpetual virginity. For a more detailed discussion of the subject, d. Donnelly, op. cit., Section I, 'The Witness of Scriptures to the Virginity of Mary,' 229-264; and...