Post #8 - the last - in the 2007 Advent series on the O Antiphons. The master-post for this series is here and the text of all the Great O Antiphons is here.
Virgo virginum, quomodo fiet istud? Quia nec primam similem visa es nec habere sequentem. Filiae Ierusalem, quid me admiramini? Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis.
Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? For neither before was any like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? That which ye behold is a divine mystery.
I wrote a bit last time about the trouble with the trouble with the verse in Isaiah that gets interpreted as meaning Jesus was born of a Virgin. Have a go at that one, if you like.
UNICEF picked its photo of the year for 2007.
1st Prize for Stephanie Sinclair
Child brides
He’s forty, she’s eleven. And they are a couple – the Afghan man Mohammed F.* and the child Ghulam H.*. “We needed the money”, Ghulam’s parents said. Faiz claims he is going to send her to school. But the women of Damarda village in Afghanistan’s Ghor province know better: “Our men don’t want educated women.” They predict that Ghulam will be married within a few weeks after her engagement in 2006, so as to bear children for Faiz.
During her stay in Afghanistan, it consistently struck American photographer Stephanie Sinclair how many young girls are married to much older men. She decided to raise awareness about this topic with her pictures.
Christians, at least of a certain stripe, are quite familiar with this. St Joseph is traditionally thought to be over 50 - sometimes over 70! - marrying his virgin bride of 13 or so. In All Chastity, of course. It is a relatively *very* recent idea that Mary and Joseph might have had a normal marriage; and only very recently indeed (in the last 50 - 60 years) did this idea take hold in the majority of Christians. Until the last century the vast majority of Christians were quite traditional in their belief in the Afghani-style wedding of the Mother of God and her Most Chaste Spouse.
Spooky.
St. Gregory of Nazianzus says, “That which was not assumed is not healed; but that which is united to God is saved”. And the first thing that we notice is that sex isn’t part of the picture - not even “procreative-only” sex.
According to traditional teaching, Mary doesn’t have it at all, and neither does Jesus.
So where is the salvation of sex?
I know that both some modern biblical critics and some ancient anti-Christian polemicists were quite certain that Mary conceived out of wedlock and that Joseph graciously (or for a price) covered up for her. I don’t buy that at all. My own doubt of the Virgin Birth takes a more occamist pattern: Mary and Joseph had a child who grew up to be the preacher of Nazareth we all know. Interesting stories got added later.
But my doubt isn’t the issue here - and I’ll still be getting choked up when we sing “Silent Night” at the end of Midnight Mass.
I don’t think we get very far talking about the salvation (healing) of man without sex. I don’t care if one wishes to adhere to traditional Christian sexual morality or if one is an unreconstructed Mormon, or even an African Bishop. One can even take a more liberal stance.
What I’m wondering about is the denial of sex: if neither Mary nor Jesus had it, how is it saved?
Later…
Another thought dawned on me. The need for a virgin birth was a scientific need - as they understood science then. A man’s seed was thought to go into a woman and grow as in an incubator. They didn’t know about the woman’s egg contributing 50%. So Mary was thought of as the incubator for God’s seed. This made sense in the ancient world but that’s not how it works. Again, not denying the miracle, but it’s not a case of seed incubating, but rather God inhabiting… and that could just as easily been a regular everyday sort of baby.
Well, of course, Irenaeus said Jesus died at 55 or so years old precisely because he wanted to be sure that God had also saved all the old people. Great for those of us on the mature side of 40 but still below the witching hour of 55! I suppose Irenaeus didn’t know anyone older than that, although that seems unlikely even in those times.
LOL! I’d not made that connection at all.
Huw, there are a few points I’d like to quibble about. ;-)
First, I think you’ve mis-applied the statement made by St. Gregory the Theologian. He wrote that in the context of the debate about Apollinarianism - the question was whether or not the man Jesus had a human logos (mind, reason) as well as the divine Logos, or whether the divine had simply replaced the human. His argument, then, was simply that our human reason could not be redeemed if it had not been assumed and united with God-in-Christ.
Saying that human sexual activity is excluded from salvation because our Lord remained celibate is like saying no woman can be saved because Christ was born a male child. To me it looks like the same type of error.
My second quibbling point is in your assertion that the traditional understanding of the universal church is now the minority position. Even some of the early Reformers accepted the perpetual virginity of Mary. I don’t know if there are any Protestants who believe that now, but I’m not convinced that the RCC and the Orthodox are in a minority yet. If one wishes to include that “other” Abrahamic faith, Islam is quite clear in teaching both the virgin birth and the lifelong chastity of Mary.
I’m not going to quibble about your thoughts on the science of the day, other than to point out that neither the Gospel accounts nor indeed the LXX show any attempt at a “scientific” rationalization. I’m sure you’d be able to locate some of the Orthodox hymnography if you look around - it is *precisely* about the wonder of God indwelling His creation.
My point was - and is - that Mary is called a virgin and Jesus is portrayed as one because of some fear of sex: such as the Church fathers - and others responsible for canons - showed… either in their fear of women or of sex, itself.
I think I must have miswrote… I didn’t mean to make any claims about the virginity of Mary in the section about her marriage to Joseph being “normal” I simply meant that, thankfully, the image of a “Taliban marriage” is no longer common except among certain extreme RCs and EOs. The rest of the world seems to envision a teenage couple. They also seem not to be having sex.
I will have to accept your correction on the Nazianzus quote. I do so on one caveat: please correct all modern Orthodox preachers who use it incorrectly! (Kidding)
But seriously, that is the issue here: how the fathers get preached.
Ah, okay. I misunderstood what you were trying to say about the age difference.
I’m still not convinced that your “fear of sex” thesis holds, though. There certainly is a fair bit of writing which you can point to in support of that, although mainly in the West. Be that as it may, I think you’re confusing the effect for the cause.
In your reflection on O Emmanuel, you wrote that it is important to Christian doctrine that the Miriam of Nazareth be not a young woman (Almah) but rather a virgo intacta (Parthenos). The problem I have with your argument is just that the text of the LXX and the Gospels both precede any hint of a Christian fear of sex.
I’m not denying that there is some pretty messed-up views of sex, particularly amongst those following Augustine of Hippo. But to try and read that back as an explanation of the Jewish translation of the LXX (later co-opted by the Christians) is anachronistic.
I’ve got a few thoughts bumping around in my head about the meaning, value, and “salvation” of sex but I don’t want to hijack your blog - and I’m also too lazy and unmotivated to sort them out on my own. ;-)
please correct all modern Orthodox preachers who use it incorrectly!
One at a time is all I’m able to manage. But it shall be done. :->
“The problem I have with your argument is just that the text of the LXX and the Gospels both precede any hint of a Christian fear of sex.”
Well, the LXX, being translated by Jews, of course, has nothing to do with it. It’s how Christians used the LXX that is the issue. As for “any hint…” there are some readings of St Paul that indicate the fear of sex was quite common early on. I don’t generally buy *all* of the follow through of those arguments (IE Pagel’s “The Gnostic Paul”) but some aspects of the argument makes sense.