How common was opposition to the perpetual virginity of Mary in the late patristic and early medieval eras?

I've said a lot over the years about early evidence against the perpetual virginity of Mary, in the New Testament and in early extrabiblical sources. See my recent post on Irenaeus, for example. What I want to do in this post is say more about the later sources. Helvidius will often be mentioned without much or any discussion of others, but he was far from an isolated individual on the subject in his day or in the centuries that followed.

Near the end of Augustine's life, he wrote a treatise on heresies that discusses the ongoing presence of people who denied Mary's perpetual virginity, referred to by Augustine as Helvidians (The Heresies, 84). He wrote that treatise after Jerome's death and a few decades after Jerome's response to Helvidius.

Before Jerome and Augustine wrote, Hilary of Poitiers referred to "many" who derived from passages like Matthew 1:25 conclusions such as that Mary had other children after Jesus (in D.H. Williams, trans., St. Hilary Of Poitiers: Commentary On Matthew [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012], sections 1:3-4 in the commentary, pp. 44-46). He refers to how opponents of Mary's perpetual virginity cite their view as a "tradition" (section 1:4, p. 45). Hilary disagrees with them, and denounces them with strong language, but he acknowledges that there were people in his day who held that view.

It should be noted that both Hilary and Augustine use the plural when discussing their opponents in these contexts. Hilary wrote before Helvidius came on the scene, and Augustine wrote afterward. So, Helvidius is just one individual in the midst of multiple others who held his view both shortly before his time and shortly after. Yet, he's so often treated as if he was an isolated individual presenting an idiosyncratic position.

Not long after Hilary, while commenting on Galatians 1:19, Ambrosiaster refers to "some people" who believe that Mary had other children after Jesus (Commentaries On Galatians-Philemon: Ambrosiaster, Gerald Bray, trans. and ed. [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2009], approximate Kindle location 410). As with Hilary, Ambrosiaster rejects the view of these individuals and denounces them with strong language (they're "mad enough" to make such an "ungodly" claim), but he does acknowledge the existence of the view and people who held it.

Eamon Carroll wrote:

The Bonosus case next occupied Ambrose’s attention. About 390, this Illyrian bishop [Bonosus], living in an area of Asia Minor where earlier in the same century even prominent and orthodox preachers had not considered Mary’s virginity after Christ’s birth a matter of faith, said Mary had other children. His neighboring bishops condemned him. Ambrose, appealed to from both sides, suggested to the Council of Bishops of Illyria the norms by which they might defend Mary’s perpetual virginity, the greatest argument being the demands of the divine Maternity. The episcopate of Illyria, under Anysius, to whom Pope Siricius had written, reaffirmed the condemnation of Bonosus.

(in Juniper Carol, ed., Mariology, Vol. 1 [Post Falls, Idaho: Mediatrix Press, 2018], approximate Kindle location 411)

Walter Burghardt commented:

Athanasius in Alexandria is astonishingly noncommittal, to judge from the works which have survived in Greek; but the little treatise, On Virginity, transmitted in Coptic, attests the existence in Egypt of individuals who claimed that Our Lady had other children besides Jesus, and reveals Athanasius as defender of Mary’s virginity after Bethlehem, though it gives no inkling that a point of faith was felt to be involved….

As the Nestorian controversy dawned (428), was the orthodox East universally persuaded of Mary’s permanent virginity? The question is not impertinent if we recall that Nilus of Ancyra was even then taking sharp issue with an individual who claimed the contrary; and, though he borrows his arguments from Epiphanius, unlike Epiphanius he does not tax his adversary with heresy. Jouassard may well be correct in concluding that Nilus is dealing with theological laggards, with people behind the times; for at this critical juncture of Christian history there is no evidence of any community whose bishop subscribes to the theory that Our Lady sacrificed her virginity after Bethlehem….

What is more striking still, the same belief (including virginity in parturition) was soon to be the common, though not unanimous, conviction of the dissidents as well. Little wonder that the Greeks experienced little, if any, difficulty in accepting the third canon of the Lateran Council in 649, and confessing (a) that the ever-virgin Mary conceived God the Word “without seed,” (b) that she brought Him to birth “without corruption,” and (c) that after childbearing her virginity remained “indissoluble.”

(ibid., 3423, 3453, 3463)

I'm not citing these sources to deny that the perpetual virginity of Mary was the more popular view in the late patristic and early medieval eras. Rather, my point is that there was ongoing opposition to the doctrine and that the opposition was significantly more widespread than advocates of the doctrine often suggest.

The belief that Mary had other children after Jesus was the mainstream view in the earliest centuries. You can read some of my posts on those earlier sources here and here.

What seems to have happened is that the earliest sources used language most naturally suggesting that Mary wasn't a perpetual virgin, since she wasn't. But belief in her perpetual virginity developed over time and gradually became more popular. It took on different forms, though, with some people believing that Jesus' brothers and sisters were children of Joseph from a previous marriage and some believing that they were non-biological relatives of some other type. We also see variation in the significance assigned to her perpetual virginity, as the discussion above illustrates. Modern advocates of Mary's perpetual virginity often cite Jerome's treatise against Helvidius, but other ancient proponents of her perpetual virginity disagreed with Jerome about who Jesus' brothers and sisters were and, apparently, the importance of her perpetual virginity. There was a diversity of views not only in terms of whether Mary was a perpetual virgin, but also on other matters involved.