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<\/a><\/p>\nFrancisco Tourinho<\/span><\/span><\/a> is a Brazilian Calvinist apologist. He described his theological credentials on my Facebook page<\/a>:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I have the respect of the academic community for my articles published in peer review magazines, translation of unpublished classical works into Portuguese and also the production of a book in the year 2019 with more than 2000 copies sold (with no marketing). In addition I have higher education in physical education from Piau\u00ed State University and theology from the Assemblies of God<\/a> Biblical Institute, am currently working towards a Masters from Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, and did post-graduate work at Dom Bosco Catholic University. Also, I am a professor in the Reformed Scholasticism discipline at the Jonathan Edwards Seminary in the postgraduate course in Philosophical Theology. [edited slightly for more flowing English]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Today I came across the following quote:<\/span><\/p>\n The friend who defended the Marian dogma of perpetual virginity categorically stated, through this source (Max Thurian apud Calvino), that the great reformer defended the Marian dogma. I went looking for the source, and I found the same quote on several Catholic apologetics websites, but they all look like this, a quote, that is, a secondary source.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This was almost certainly derived, or indirectly derived from one of my blog articles<\/a>.<\/p>\n I also looked for the sermon quoted by the apologists, attributed to John Calvin, and I didn\u2019t find it either.<\/span><\/p>\n You\u2019ve come to the right place, then, because I ran across the original primary source in French<\/a>. I didn\u2019t have it at first (or else I would have cited it). Then I did. It has been posted on my blog since 10-14-14: three years and eight months before the article I am now critiquing.<\/p>\n But first, let\u2019s look at the quotation I produced: longer than the above \u201cabridged\u201d version:<\/p>\n There have been certain strange folk who have wished to suggest from this passage [Matt 1:25] that the Virgin Mary had other children than the Son of God, and that Joseph had then dwelt with her later; but what folly this is! for the gospel writer did not wish to record what happened afterwards; he simply wished to make clear Joseph\u2019s obedience and to show also that Joseph had been well and truly assured that it was God who had sent His angel to Mary. He had therefore never dwelt with her nor had he shared her company. There we see that he had never known her person for he was separated from his wife. He could marry another all the more because he could not enjoy the woman to whom he was betrothed; but he rather desired to forfeit his rights and abstain from marriage, being yet always married: he preferred, I say, to remain thus in the service of God rather than to consider what he might still feel that he could come to. He had forsaken everything in order that he might subject himself fully to the will of God.<\/span><\/p>\n And besides this, our Lord Jesus Christ is called the first-born. This is not because there was a second or a third, but because the gospel writer is paying regard to the precedence. Scripture speaks thus of naming the first-born whether or no there was any question of the second. Thus we see the intention of the Holy Spirit. This is why to lend ourselves to foolish subtleties would be to abuse Holy Scripture, which is, as St. Paul says, \u201cto be used for our edification.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From this we learn several things:<\/p>\n 1. It serves as a further interpretation or clarification of his allegedly \u201cagnostic\u201d commentary on Matthew 1:25, as actually affirming perpetual virginity.<\/p>\n 2. It shows that his denial of a vow of perpetual virginity from Mary is not necessarily and not in fact the same as a denial of her perpetual virginity.<\/p>\n 3. Calvin does indeed believe in the traditional doctrine, as we see in his statement: \u201cnot because there was a second or a third\u201d<\/span> and his assertion that Joseph never dwelt with Mary. Mary had no further children. This is why he habitually refers to her as \u201cthe virgin\u201d<\/span> in his writings, much like Catholics have through the centuries. It implies perpetual virginity.<\/p>\n 4. Since they never lived together, according to Calvin, obviously they had no children together. Thus, Mary was perpetually a virgin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This 1562 sermon may be one reason why many Protestant (including Calvinist) scholars agree that Calvin adhered to Mary\u2019s perpetual virginity:<\/p>\n David F. Wright, in his book,\u00a0Chosen by God: Mary in Evangelical Perspective<\/i>\u00a0(London: Marshall Pickering, 1989, pp. 173, 175), stated:<\/p>\n . . . his more careful biblicism could insist on only Mary\u2019s refraining from intercourse before the birth of Jesus (i.e., her virginity\u00a0ante partum<\/i>). On the other hand, he never excluded as untenable the other elements in her perpetual virginity, and may be said to have believed it himself without claiming that Scripture taught it. . . . [Calvin] commonly speaks of Mary as \u201cthe holy Virgin\u201d<\/span> (and rarely as simply as \u201cMary\u201d preferring \u201cthe Virgin<\/span>\u201d, etc.).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n . . . the Virgin Birth, which Calvin holds, together with the perpetual virginity of Mary. (p. 66)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Calvin was likewise less clear-cut than Luther on Mary\u2019s perpetual virginity but undoubtedly favored it. Notes in the Geneva Bible (Matt. 1:18, 25; Jesus\u2019 \u201cbrothers\u201d) defend it, as did Zwingli and the English reformers . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Protestantism . . . remained remarkably open to the idea of Mary\u2019s perpetual virginity. Among others, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Wollebius, Bullinger and Wesley claimed that Mary was ever-virgin (semper virgo<\/i>). The Second Helvetic Confession and the Geneva Bible of the Reformed faith and the Schmalkald Articles of the Lutheran churches affirm it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The\u00a0post-partum<\/i>\u00a0or perpetual virginity concept is held by some Protestants and was held by many Reformers (e.g., Calvin in his sermon on Mt. 1:22-25) . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Note that this refers to the\u00a0sermon<\/i>\u00a0I cited above, not just Calvin\u2019s\u00a0Commentaries<\/i>. And this is from the revised ISBE: not a source one can easily dismiss.<\/p>\n Derek W. H. Thomas<\/b>, writing in\u00a0A Theological Guide to Calvin\u2019s Institutes: Essays and Analysis<\/i>\u00a0(edited by David W. Hall & Peter A. Lillback; Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing [Calvin 500 series]: 2008, p. 212), makes a casual reference: \u201ca perpetual virgin in Calvin\u2019s view!\u201d<\/p>\n He is a professor of systematic and pastoral theology at Reformed Theological Seminary.\u00a0 His doctoral dissertation was devoted to Calvin\u2019s preaching on the book of Job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Timothy George\u00a0<\/b>concurs, with slight qualification:<\/p>\n To be sure, there is nothing theologically problematic about affirming Mary\u2019s perpetual virginity. This venerable tradition, first given dogmatic sanction at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553, was affirmed by Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin during the Reformation, though Calvin was more agnostic about this belief than the other two reformers.\u00a0(in\u00a0Mary, Mother of God<\/i>, edited by\u00a0Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Pub. Co.: 2004;\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>p. 109)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Dr. George is the dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, teaches Church history and serves as executive editor for\u00a0Christianity Today<\/i>. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Southern Baptist Convention, has written more than twenty books, and regularly contributes to scholarly journals. His book\u00a0Theology of the Reformers<\/i>\u00a0is used as a textbook in many schools and seminaries.<\/p>\n J. A. Ross MacKenzie<\/b>\u00a0wrote:\u00a0\u201cCalvin, like Luther and Zwingli, taught the perpetual virginity of Mary\u201d (in Alberic Stacpoole, editor,\u00a0Mary\u2019s Place in Christian Dialogue<\/i>, Wilton, Connecticut: Morehouse-Barlow, 1982, 35-36).\u00a0 Dr. Mackenzie\u00a0was a professor of church history at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, and has translated or written more than twenty theological books.<\/p>\n Robert H. Stein<\/b>, professor of New Testament interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, also agrees:<\/p>\n If one believes in the perpetual virginity of Mary, a teaching held not only by Roman Catholicism but also by Greek Orthodoxy, Martin Luther, and John Calvin, then the Helvidian view must be rejected. (Mark<\/i>\u00a0[Commentary], Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic: 2008, p. 187)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Calvin\u2019s successor\u00a0Theodore Beza\u00a0argued that Catholics and Protestants agreed on the perpetual virginity of Mary, at the Colloquy of Poissy in 1561 (see William A. Dyrness,\u00a0Reformed Theology and Visual Culture: the Protestant Imagination from Calvin to Edwards<\/i>, [Cambridge University Press, 2004], pp. 86-87). Here are some other Calvin utterances on the topic:<\/p>\n [On Matt 1:25:]\u00a0The inference he [Helvidius] 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 . . . No just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words . . . as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called \u201cfirst-born\u201d; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin . . . What took place afterwards the historian does not inform us . . . No man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.<\/span>\u00a0(Pringle,\u00a0ibid<\/i>., vol. I, p. 107)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n John Calvin\u2019s comment on the text quoted by the Catholic apologists\u2019 source also does not suggest that he defended perpetual virginity. Calvin\u2019s text in this part seems to be more cautious, however, we learn from him that the Marian dogma of perpetual virginity was not unanimous among the church fathers, since he cites Helvidius as not defending this thesis, and Jerome, at a later period, disagreeing with Helvidius.<\/span><\/p>\n Under the word \u201cbrethren\u201d the Hebrews include all cousins and other relations, whatever may be the degree of affinity.<\/span>\u00a0(Pringle,\u00a0ibid<\/i>., vol. I, p. 283 \/ Commentary on John<\/em>, [7:3] )<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Not satisfied, I did some research on what John Calvin thought on the matter, and look at Calvin\u2019s opinion, in Luke 1:34, Calvin comments:<\/span><\/p>\n The conjecture which some have drawn from these words, that she had formed a vow of perpetual virginity, is UNFOUNDED and COMPLETELY ABSURD. She would, in that case, have committed treason, allowing herself to be joined to her husband, and would have poured contempt on the sacred covenant of marriage; which could not have been done without scorning God. Though the Papists exercised a barbarous tyranny on this subject, they never went so far as to permit the wife to form a vow of continence at her own pleasure. Furthermore, it is an idle and unfounded assumption that a monastic life existed among the Jews.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, at first glance, the evidence from this comment did seem fairly compelling against my stated position. But I knew (because I had documented it previously) that many Calvinist\u00a0 scholars and other Protestant experts on Calvin agree that he did\u00a0<\/i>accept the perpetual virginity, and so I wondered why that is, and I started digging for more information. I found another related citation, that I think affirms what I and others have been arguing, lo, these many years. [the one at the top, from a 1562 sermon]<\/p>\n Moreover, it wasn\u2019t a question of corrupting marriage, since for Calvin, they never lived together and thus were not \u201cunited.\u201d<\/span> Thus, the difficulty for the belief that he held to the perpetual virginity of Mary, suggested prima facie<\/i>\u00a0by his comment on Luke 1:34 vanishes. For Calvin,\u00a0both<\/i>\u00a0things are true: Mary didn\u2019t make such a vow and they didn\u2019t live together in a chaste fashion, since he thinks they didn\u2019t live together\u00a0at all<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n
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