The Virginitas in Partu
Arthur Burton Calkins
In her interesting
article "Reproductive Science and the Incarnation" (Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly
Vol. 25, No. 4, [Fall 2002] 11-25) Dr. Catherine Brown Tkacz offers a number of
interesting correlations between the discoveries of reproductive science and
the Church's belief in the mystery of the Incarnation. Just as the Holy Spirit has continued to
bring forth deeper insights into the meaning of this mystery (cf. Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation [Dei
Verbum] #8), so also the data of biological science, evaluated in the light
of Scripture and Tradition, can help us to marvel at the inexhaustible richness
of the mystery. The point is, of
course, that the mystery can never be simply explained either by theology or by
modern science. At the end of her essay
Dr. Tkacz appropriately comments that "the mystery of Jesus's Incarnation
remains ineluctable and eternal" (p. 22).
Without taking away
from the valuable insights which her article provides, I would nonetheless take
issue with Dr. Tkacz' treatment of Mary's virginity in giving birth to Christ
(commonly referred to as the virginitas
in partu) on p. 21 and in endnotes #76 and #78 on p. 25. It must be admitted that the datum of the
faith that Mary gave birth as a virgin, unfortunately, receives virtually no
attention in contemporary catechesis or preaching. Indeed, who can remember having heard of the "virgin
birth" of Jesus (and not of his "virginal conception" or of his Mother's
"life-long virginity") in a homily in the last forty years?
I. Datum of the
Tradition
The fact is that
the mystery of Mary's virginity in giving birth to the Savior was preached and
taught consistently by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. One finds beautiful expositions of it in the
homilies and catecheses of St. Gregory of Nyssa (+ c. 394)[1],
St. Ambrose (+ 397)[2], St. John
Chrysostom (+ 407)[3], St. Proclus
of Constantinople (+ 446)[4],
Theodotus of Ancyra (+ before 446)[5],
St. Peter Chrysologus (+ 450)[6],
Pope St. Leo the Great (+ 461)[7],
Severus of Antioch (+ 538)[8],
St. Romanos the Melodist (+ c. 560)[9],
St. Venantius Fortunatus (+ c. 600)[10]
and Pope St. Gregory the Great (+ 604)[11]
This preaching and
teaching was not a mere matter of pious fantasizing, but rather it was a
careful "handing on" of what had been received. The miraculous birth of Jesus in time was
seen as a reflection of the mystery of his eternal generation by the Father.[12] As with all of the most important data which
touched on the person of the Son of God, it became progressively clarified by
the magisterium. Already during the
pontificate of Pope St. Siricius (384-399) this matter was dealt with in the
Plenary Council of Capua (392) and in the Synods of Rome and Milan in 393[13]
with St. Ambrose's teaching on Mary's "incorruption" in giving birth
emerging as authoritative.[14] In his De
institutione virginum St. Ambrose introduced this mystery by quoting the
beginning of the forty-fourth chapter of Ezeckiel:
"Then
he brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary, facing the east; but it
was closed. He said to me: This gate is to remain closed; it is not to
be opened for anyone to enter by it; since the Lord, the God of Israel, has
entered by it, it shall remain closed." ... Who is this gate, if not Mary?
Is it not closed because she is a virgin? Mary is the gate through which Christ entered this world, when he
was brought forth in the virginal birth and the manner of His birth did not
break the seals of virginity [quando virginali
fusus est partu, et genitalia virginitatis claustra non solvit].[15]
... There is a gate of the womb, although it is not always closed; indeed only
one was able to remain closed, that through which the One born of the Virgin
came forth without the loss of genital intactness [per quam sine dispendio claustrorum genitalium virginis partus exivit].[16]
St. Ambrose'
defense of the "virgin birth", especially in this treatise, is so
definitive that those who have subsequently sought to "re-interpret"
the doctrine in the light of the criticism of Dr. Albert Mitterer[17]
have found it necessary to take him on.[18]
II. The
Magisterium
In 649 the Roman
Synod which convened at the Lateran, whose teaching was approved as
authoritative by Pope St. Martin I, anathematized anyone who would deny that
Mary "gave birth to [God the Word] without corruption".[19] In his Constitution Cum quorumdam hominum condemning the errors of Unitarianism Pope
Paul IV admonished all those who deny that the Blessed Virgin Mary "did
not retain her virginity intact before the birth, in the birth, and perpetually
after the birth."[20] The
Roman Catechism also known as The
Catechism of the Council of Trent followed suit with this clear teaching:
For in
a way wonderful beyond expression or conception, he is born of his Mother
without any diminution of her maternal virginity. As he afterwards went forth from the sepulcher while it was
closed and sealed, and entered the room in which his disciples were assembled,
although "the doors were closed" (Jn. 20:19), or, not to depart from
natural events which we witness every day, as the rays of the sun penetrate the
substance of glass without breaking or injuring it in the least: so, but in a more incomprehensible manner,
did Jesus Christ come forth from his mother's womb without injury to her
maternal virginity. ...
To Eve it was said: "In pain you shall bring forth
children" (Gen. 3:16). Mary was
exempt from this law, for preserving her virginal integrity inviolate, she
brought forth Jesus the Son of God, without experiencing, as we have already
said, any sense of pain.[21]
The Second Vatican
Council presented this mystery succinctly by speaking of "the birth of Our
Lord, who did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified
it"[22] and the Catechism of the Catholic Church repeats
that statement after clarifying that
The
deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary's
real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God
made man.[23]
Those who would say
that these recent professions of the mystery are minimal and non-binding need
only examine the footnotes appended to each of them to discover that they are
based on previous major declarations of the magisterium which have been
considered definitive since the Patristic era.
The text of Lumen Gentium
cites the Lateran Synod of 649, the Tome
of St. Leo the Great to Flavian[24]
and the De institutione virginum of
St. Ambrose. The Catechism gives two citations to the Tome to Flavian,[25]
as well as citing the Second Council of Constantinople,[26]
the Letter of Pope Pelagius I to Childebertus,[27]
the Lateran Synod of 649, the Profession of Faith of the Synod of Toledo of 693[28]
and Pope Paul IV's Constitution Cum
quorumdam hominum.
III. Dr. Tkacz'
Comments
A. The
Miraculous Nature of Christ's Birth
Now back to Dr.
Tkacz. She states that
He
[Christ] chose to traverse the birth canal. ... He passed through her [Mary's]
cervix. Its strength had kept him
securely in the uterus throughout gestation and now it widened to deliver him
to wider life. He passed through the
vagina, the organ with which every wife knows her husband. Jesus emerged through the labia, the vulva
[21].
The good doctor
reports as if she were an eye-witness, precisely on the assumption that there
was nothing miraculous in the birth process of the Son of God. On the other hand Father Peter Damian
Fehlner makes this very trenchant comment:
But on
this question, viz. whether the virginity of our Lady in childbirth involves
miraculous elements distinct from the virginal conception, there is an even
more basic consideration. The Church
has always insisted on this, antecedently to any theological reflection on the
point. Belief precedes analysis; indeed sets very severe limits on our intellectual
curiosity about the details of this singular birth.[29]
In this he is in
fact echoing a major address which Pope John Paul II gave on 24 May 1992 in
Capua where he had gone to address a Mariological Congress organized to
commemorate the 16th Centenary of the Plenary Council of Capua which had dealt
specifically with Mary's virginity in childbirth. On that occasion the Pope stated:
The
theologian must approach the mystery of Mary's fruitful virginity with a deep sense of veneration for God's free,
holy and sovereign action. ...
The theologian, however, who approaches the
mystery of Mary's virginity with a heart full of faith and adoring respect,
does not thereby forego the duty of studying the data of Revelation and showing
their harmony and interrelationship; rather, following the Spirit, ... he puts
himself in the great and fruitful theological tradition of fides quĉrens intellectum.
When theological reflection becomes a moment
of doxology and latria, the mystery of Mary's virginity is disclosed, allowing
one to catch a glimpse of other aspects and other depths.[30]
B. The Patristic
Testimony
In Dr. Tkacz'
endnote #76 she rather lightly dismisses an article by Father Stanley Jaki on
the virgin birth because he does not cite any Patristic texts in making his
case. She opines that the miraculous
nature of the birth of Christ "seems to me essentially modern, based on a
pietistic thought that to honor Jesus one must dissociate him from human birth,
as if birth were indecent" (p. 25).
I trust that by now the reader will recognize that this doctrine is
clearly taught by the Fathers. (For
reasons of space we must forego discussion of the Scriptural bases of the
doctrine.) Further, the miraculous
nature of Jesus' birth is not an indictment of human birth as being
"indecent", but rather fully congruent with the saving purposes of
the Incarnation. As Pope St. Leo the
Great preached:
The
Lord Jesus Christ came to take away our maladies, not to contract them; to
bring a remedy to our vices, not to succumb to them. ... That is why it was
necessary for Him to be born in new conditions [propter quod oportuit ut novo nasceretur ordine]. ... It was
necessary that the integrity of the One being born preserve the pristine
virginity of the one who gave birth.[31]
John Saward's
excellent study, Cradle of Redeeming Love,
provides several illuminating pages on the fittingness of the miraculous nature
of Jesus' birth.[32]
C. The Seal of
Virginity
In endnote #78 Dr.
Tkacz states "Legend attributes an intact hymen to the Theotokos" and
then goes on to quote from Taber's
Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary that the "rupture or absence [of the
hymen] is not evidence of loss of virginity". While a certain sense of delicacy, inspired by the 1960 Monitum of the Holy Office of 1960,[33]
makes me hesitate a moment before taking issue with this statement, it needs to
be dealt with. On this matter the late
Father Juniper Carol, O.F.M. summarized quite clearly how the approach of the
Fathers and the magisterium had come to be understood:
At the
appropriate time, Our Blessed Lord left the womb of His Mother through the
natural channels but in a miraculous way, that is, without in any manner
opening any part of Mary's body. In
other words, there was no dilatation of the normal passage, no opening of the
vagina, no breaking of the virginal hymen.[34]
In less specific
biological language the Holy Father treated this issue in his discourse at
Capua in 1992. He stated:
It is a
well-known fact that some Church Fathers set up a significant parallel between
the begetting of Christ ex intacta
Virgine [from the untouched Virgin] and his resurrection ex intacto sepulcro [from the intact
sepulchre]. In the parallelism relative
to the begetting of Christ, some Fathers put the emphasis on the virginal
conception, others on the virgin birth, others on the subsequent perpetual
virginity of the Mother, but they all testify to the conviction that between
the two saving events -- the generation-birth of Christ and his resurrection
from the dead -- there exists an intrinsic connection which corresponds to a
precise plan of God: a connection which
the Church, led by the Spirit, has discovered, not created.[35]
With regard to Dr.
Tkacz' specific insistence, John Saward provides clarification from the Angelic
Doctor:
St.
Thomas says that the hymen pertains to virginity only per accidens, and that its rupture by any means other than sexual
pleasure is no more destructive of virginity than the loss of a hand or foot
(cf. ST 2a2ĉ q. 152, a. I, ad
3). However, he also holds that bodily
integrity belongs to the perfection of virginity (see Quĉstiones quodlibetales 6, q. 10, prol).[36]
Could we expect
that God would do less for His Virgin Mother?
IV. Virginity of
Flesh -- Virginity of Heart
What does this doctrine
mean? It certainly shouldn't be taken
in any way as lessening "the value and dignity of marriage"[37]
asserts the Holy Father. Rather, he
insists, it should be seen as pointing to the fact that the bodily integrity of
Mary is a physical sign of her total spiritual virginity, that the virginity of
her flesh is an indication of the virginity of her heart:
Therefore,
she fulfils in herself the ideal of perfect adherence to God's plan, without
compromise and without the defilement of falsehood or pride; the ideal of
faithful fulfilment of the covenant, the violation of which on the part of
Israel is compared to adultery by the prophets; the ideal of sincere acceptance
of the Gospel message, in which the single-hearted are called blest (cf. Mt.
5:8) and virginity for the kingdom is extolled (cf. Mt. 19:12); the ideal of
rightly understanding the mystery of Christ -- the Truth par excellence (cf. Jn. 14:6) -- and his doctrine, because of
which the Church is also called a virgin since she preserves the deposit of faith whole and incorrupt.[38]
[1]Luigi Gambero,
S.M., Mary and the Fathers of the
Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in
Patristic Thought trans. Thomas Buffer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999) 154-156, 158-159.
[3]John Saward, Cradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002)
209.
[12]Cf. John Saward, Cradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002)
212-213.
[15]Domenico
Casagrande, Enchiridion Marianum Biblicum
Patristicum (Rome: Figlie della
Chiesa, 1974) 368 [W. A. Jurgens, The
Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 2 (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1979) 172 (#1327)].
[18]Cf. Karl Rahner,
S.J., "Virginitas in Partu: A contribution to the problem of the
development of dogma and of tradition" in Theological Investigations 4 (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1966) 134 ff. and the response by James T.
O'Connor, "Ambrose and Karl Rahner:
Reflections on the "Virginitas in Partu" in Mater Fidei et Fidelium: Collected Essays to Honor Theodore Koehler
on His 80th Birthday (Marian Library Studies) (n.s.) Vol. 17-23 (1985-1991)
726-731; John R. Meyer, "Ambrose's exegesis of Luke 2, 22-24 and Mary's virginitas in partu" Marianum 62 (2000) 169-192 and the
response by Peter Damian Fehlner, F.I., "Virginitas in Partu" in Immaculata Mediatrix 2 (2002) 241-246.
[19]Heinrich Denzinger,
S.I., Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum
et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum:
Edizione Bilingue (XXXVII) a cura di Peter Hünermann (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane, 2000) #503 (henceforth
referred to as D-H); J. Neuner, S.J.
& J. Dupuis, S.J. (eds.), The
Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church Sixth
Revised and Enlarged Edition edited by Jacques Dupuis (NY: Alba House, 1998) #703 (henceforth referred
to as TCF). For commentary, cf. Fehlner, Virgin
Mother 14-16.
[21]Robert I. Bradley,
S.J. and Eugene Kevane (eds.), The Roman
Catechism (Boston, MA: St. Paul
Editions, 1985) 49-50.
[30]Acta Apostolicĉ Sedis (henceforth referred to as AAS) 85 (1993) 664 [L'Osservatore Romano (English edition, henceforth referred to as ORE) 10 June 1992, p. 13].
[31]In nativitate Domini, sermo 2, no. 2. Enchiridion
Marianum 924 [English translation in Saward 213, n. 133].