The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary

[hyperdulia again]

the mother of god came into this world a virgin and she left it a virgin. even luther and calvin believed this.

[ZmeFly]

The word for brother, sister, cousin, or any near kin was the same word in Jesus'

time. When the bible was translated and they say Jesus' "brother or sister" this really meant cousin.

GOD becam Flesh from the Blessed Mother, from a womb prepared especially for him in the Immaculate Conception(the birthof Mary free from original sin).

Mary's Flesh was holy and no human being would be worthy of being born of the same Flesh.

Edited December 19, 2003 by ZmeFly

[CatholicAndFanatical]

Hey ICTHUS,

this was taken from my post in the Apologetic board. Theres alot there but I think this one sentence did a good job.

It is written (Ezech. 44:2): "This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it; because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it." Expounding these words, Augustine says in a sermon (De Annunt. Dom. iii): "What means this closed gate in the House of the Lord, except that Mary is to be ever inviolate? What does it mean that 'no man shall pass through it,' save that Joseph shall not know her? And what is this--'The Lord alone enters in and goeth out by it'--except that the Holy Ghost shall impregnate her, and that the Lord of angels shall be born of her? And what means this--'it shall be shut for evermore'--but that Mary is a virgin before His Birth, a virgin in His Birth, and a virgin after His Birth?"

[Adeodatus]

Icthus,

Cmom and others have done a phenomenal job in answering you, so I will not re-invent the wheel here! (Not that I could reproduce what they've done!).

But I discern at the bottom of all this, and your questions on the Eucharist in the other thread, is a fundamentally different view about how we ought to use the Scriptures. Indeed, about how we ought to READ the Scriptures.

I think we agree that the Scriptures are 'God-breathed' or inspired by God. The Armenians apparently call the Bible the 'Breath of God' (little bit of trivia I couldn't resist throwing in).

But along with inspiration, there must be a God-given aid to READ the Scriptures. I believe that the idea that there is a plain literal sense of the Bible is a heresy. No where does the Bible say that, and even if it did, how could you believe it? The Bible cannot testify to itself. Think about the Gospel of John. Jesus does not testify to himself, and admits that self-testimony is no testimony. The same with the Bible.

Now think about this: the Bible, so long as it remains unread, remains a book of printed words. But the minute you start to read it, it exists as 'the Bible as read by Icthus', or 'the Bible as read by Adeodatus', etc. The minute you read the Bible you are already interpreting it. There is NO literal plain self-evident sense!!!!!!

For Catholics we want to read the Bible as 'the Bible as read by the Church'. Why? Well it's a matter of placing the horse before the cart. The Church, gathered and sanctified by the Holy Spirit as Christ's mystical Body, first gathered the Scriptures and appended to them her own writings (the New Testament). The Bible is the Church's book, and both Church and Bible are gifts of God.

If the Bible were the 'sole rule of faith', why don't we keep the Sabbath on Saturdays? Why don't we stone adulterers? or homosexuals? or keep lepers outside of the city? The reason is not that we've become more 'enlightened' or 'civilised'. If the Bible is the 'sole rule of faith' we ought to be mindless, unreflective, literalist fundamentalists. Why aren't we?

Because the horse comes before the cart. The Church, by divine help, interprets HER scriptures. God who breathed into the Bible, also breathes in His Church to help her to read the book He has given to her.

If this were not true, then how do non-Catholics know that the Bible is God's book? If the Catholic Church did not guarantee the inspiration of the Scriptures how would anyone know it? You can't take the Bible's word for it, because if you do then there is nothing to stop you taking the Koran's own self-testimony, or the Book of Mormon's, or the Granth-Sahib, or the Bhagavad-Gita. In fact, there would be no reason why you couldn't take 'Alice in Wonderland' as your Scriptures!!!!

Sorry, I am not trying to poke fun at you Icthus. But I'm trying to make this point: the Church guarantees the Scriptures. The Church also guarantees the extent of the Scriptures: how many books make the Bible? The Church reads the Scriptures and ponders it in her heart, and preaches it to the whole world.

This, I think, is the essence of what Catholics mean by 'Scripture and Tradition'---not that Tradition is a loose esoteric body of knowledge we forgot to write down, but marshall up everytime we dispute with Protestants. No. 'Scripture and Tradition' form what Vatican II calls the 'sacred deposit of faith'. This lives in the Church by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Some of it was written down as the New Testament. But the Church reads ALL the Scriptures in the light of this 'deposit of faith', this 'rule of faith', this 'apostolic tradition'. And why not? Christ founded the Church on His apostles and breathed the Holy Spirit upon them. The Church---this same one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church---still bears the 'sacred deposit of faith' in her.

So any non-apostolic Christian (i.e. all Protestants) has a really hard time trying to show why they read the Bible as their holy book. Because they got it from Catholics? Yes. But what gives them the right to try and interpret it for themselves? That guarantee is only given to the Church built on the apostles!

This is what Cmom meant by (in another thread): 'Sacred tradition hands on in its full purity God's Word'. Scripture is 'pure' as a book because it is God-breathed. But it must be 'pure' also when it is read and understood, by the God-breathing that takes place in the Church as she reads her Scriptures.

This, Icthus, is the reason I believe you have difficulties with the Eucharist (ironically you have problems here with the plain, literal sense of Scripture!), with the perpetual virginity of Mary, etc. Why do we read the Bible as sacred Scripture and not Alice in Wonderland? Pray about this, and I will pray for you. God bless. Peace......