Late Medieval And Reformation Sources On The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary

TurretinFan and Dan Chapa recently produced a video discussing the diversity of views of the perpetual virginity of Mary held by sources of the late medieval and Reformation eras. It draws on some of the material in my recent posts here, here, and here.

The Diversity Of Views Of The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary In The Late Medieval And Reformation Eras (Part 3)

One of the issues that sometimes comes up in discussions of Mary's perpetual virginity is the necessity of accepting the doctrine. Is acceptance of it a requirement for salvation? If somebody believes in the perpetual virginity of Mary, to what degree does he think opponents of the doctrine have erred? As my last post mentioned, a person could be agnostic about whether Mary was a perpetual virgin. And people who support the doctrine or oppose it can do so to a wide variety of degrees. Issues like these often get overlooked or underestimated, not just when considering the timeframes I'm focused on in these posts, but also more broadly.

The Diversity Of Views Of The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary In The Late Medieval And Reformation Eras (Part 2)

People have taken a lot of different positions on the perpetual virginity of Mary. A wide variety of views is found in the historical record during the timeframes I'm addressing. You could believe that Mary didn't have sexual intercourse, but reject her virginity in partu. You could believe in her perpetual virginity, yet not think that rejecting it makes somebody a non-Christian. You could affirm her perpetual virginity or oppose it to different degrees. You could be agnostic on the subject. And so on.

This post will discuss some examples of individuals who opposed the perpetual virginity of Mary. The next post will address sources who took other positions that are significant in one way or another.

The Diversity Of Views Of The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary In The Late Medieval And Reformation Eras (Part 1)

It's common for Roman Catholics and other critics of Protestantism to bring up support among the earliest Protestants for various Marian beliefs that are often rejected by Protestants today, like the perpetual virginity of Mary. Individuals like Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli will be cited in support of her perpetual virginity and other such beliefs about her. While it's true that the earliest Protestants were closer to groups like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy on Marian issues than modern Protestants are, even the earliest Protestants substantially disagreed with those groups on some Marian issues. See the examples discussed here. And the early Protestants who accepted Mary's perpetual virginity sometimes disagreed with Catholics and other modern advocates of the perpetual virginity of Mary on some issues related to the doctrine, like whether she took a vow of virginity. In the coming days, I'm going to be discussing some late medieval and Reformation sources who were more distant from a traditional Catholic view on the perpetual virginity of Mary. What I want to do in this post is discuss some background issues that I think are helpful in framing the discussion.

More Soteriological Disagreement Before The Reformation

In the context of discussing baptismal regeneration, I've mentioned that there was widespread disagreement among the extrabiblical sources before the Reformation regarding initiatory rites. Things like regeneration, the forgiveness of sins, and the reception of the Holy Spirit would sometimes be placed at the time of baptism, but often would be placed in some other context instead (faith prior to baptism, prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal laying on of hands, etc.). The extrabiblical sources before the Reformation widely disagreed about baptismal efficacy, despite how popular it is to falsely claim that everybody before the Reformation believed in baptismal regeneration, that almost everybody did, or some such thing. What modern advocates of baptismal regeneration attribute to baptism was often attributed to prebaptismal faith, anointing with oil, foot washing, or something else by many pre-Reformation sources. For a discussion of some patristic examples, see here. On medieval sources, see here. And I've provided other examples in other posts.

More Pre-Reformation Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Lollards

I've discussed their support for Reformation views in other posts, like here and here. And here's one about a book on Lollard heresy trials in the first half of the fifteenth century.

More About Maximus Of Turin And Eternal Security

I've written some posts over the years about belief in eternal security before the Reformation. Contrary to what's often asserted by critics of eternal security, the concept was held in various forms by some extrabiblical sources before the Reformation, as my series linked above argues.

In one of those posts, I cited some comments the Roman Catholic scholar Brian Daley made about Maximus of Turin. Since then, I've read a collection of Maximus' sermons, and I think Daley's comments should be supplemented. While there is some material in Maximus that seems to support eternal security, there's also some that seems to go against it if taken in isolation. I think more should be said than what Daley provides, so you can scroll to the bottom of that post just linked for an update I just added.

The Wolves Complaining Of The Lambs

"But how deservedly soever we complain that the doctrine of truth was corrupted, and the whole body of Christianity sullied by numerous blemishes, still our censurers deny that this was cause sufficient for so disturbing the Church, and, in a manner, convulsing the whole world. We, indeed, are not so stupid as not to perceive how desirable it is to avoid public tumults, nor so savage as not to be touched, and even to shudder in our inmost soul, on beholding the troubled condition in which the Church now is. But with what fairness is the blame of existing commotions imputed to us, when they have not been, in the least degree, excited by us? Nay, with what face is the crime of disturbing the Church laid to our charge by the very persons who obviously are the authors of all these disturbances? This is just the case of the wolves complaining of the lambs….Nor is this calumny against us without precedent. With the very same charge which we are now forced to hear, wicked Ahab once upbraided Elijah, viz., that he was the disturber of Israel. But the holy Prophet by his reply acquitted us; 'I,' says he, 'have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and thou hast followed Baalim,' (I Kings 18:17, 18.) It is unfair, therefore, to load us with odium, on account of the fierce contest concerning religion which this day rages in Christendom, unless, indeed, it be thought proper first to condemn Elijah, with whom we have a common defense. His sole excuse is, that he had fought only to vindicate the glory and restore the pure worship of God, and he retorts the charge of exciting contention and disturbances upon those who stirred up tumults as a means of resisting the truth." (John Calvin)

Agnosticism On Controversial Issues Before The Reformation

Just as people are often undecided about religious issues in our day, the same was true in past generations. That category of agnosticism is often, I'd say typically, ignored in discussions of historical theology, especially pre-Reformation church history.

We'll be told that everybody before the Reformation held such-and-such a view, but the fact that some individuals were agnostic on the subject won't be mentioned. (Probably often because the person making the claim about what everybody believed isn't aware of that agnosticism.)

For example, as I've mentioned before, some individuals were agnostic about whether Mary was assumed to heaven. That agnosticism persisted even into the second millennium of church history. See, for example, the entries on Aelred of Rievaulx, Isaac of Stella, and Peter of Celle in Michael O'Carroll's Theotokos (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1988).

Another example of this kind of thing is discussed in Craig Atwood's book on the Hussites, The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009). On page 180, he refers to some pre-Reformation Hussites who "wanted to leave up to God the question of whether the [eucharistic] bread changed or remained bread".

We see this sort of thing frequently in our day, with predestination, eschatology, church government, and whatever else. We need to keep in mind that people were sometimes agnostic on religious issues prior to the Reformation as well. People tend to focus on opposition to a belief when thinking about an alternative to the claim that everybody held that belief before the Reformation. But we need to remember that agnosticism is another category that's relevant. The people who were agnostic about the subject shouldn't be grouped with the people who affirmed the belief in question.

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 3)

Murray Wagner refers to how Petr Chelcicky "denounced the doctrine of purgatory...Chelcicky's rejection of purgatory has its precedent among the Waldenses and Lollards and is paralleled in the Taborite demand that chantries for the dead and intercessory prayers to the saints also be abolished." (Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 121-23) Wagner refers to how Chelcicky ridiculed "the veneration of saints" (127) and was "critical of prayers of intercession to the saints" (143). Craig Atwood refers to Taborite opposition to images (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 118). Katerina Hornickova writes:

In reality, the view of saints’ merits and intervention in Hussite and Utraquist teaching varied among different fractions of the religious movement, from refusal by the radicals to acceptance by conservatives....

With the influence of Matthew of Janov, and wyclifite ideas on the Hussite theologians Jacobellus of Stříbro and Nicolas of Dresden, the radical Hussite party’s view of the contemporary Catholic cultic practices of veneration of saints’ relics and images was largely negative....

[quoting Nicolas Biskupec of Pelhřimov] "from the authority of the doctors it is clear that invocations and prayers are (forms of) cult that are appropriate only for God…Therefore we do not pray and invoke the saints, nor do we seek help from them and thus impede the cult that only God deserves"...

Nicolas’ ideas were developed in the writings of Petr Chelčický (c. 1390–1460), an original thinker, close to the radicals, in his writings of 1430s-1440s. The founding ideology of what came to be the Unity of Brethren takes on a similar critical view on the cult of saints, refusing the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the saints.

Some of the more radical Hussites were premillennialists for a while (Murray Wagner, Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 33).

Atwood writes that "The churches that developed out of the Hussite reforms made congregational singing a central part of worship decades before Martin Luther set Protestant doctrine to tavern tunes." (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 52)

Regarding literacy, education, and the reading of scripture: "The Czech Reformation had made lay reading of the vernacular Bible a key component of reform, but in Prague it was primarily the aristocracy and wealthy burghers who had this privilege. The Taborites extended biblical literacy to the common people. This ideal of an educated, active laity would bear rich fruit in the Unity, especially in Comenius's advocacy of universal education." (111)

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 2)

Some of the Hussites held to "an outright denial of any notion of Christ's presence in the eucharist...In time, Tabor arrived at a eucharistic position very comparable to the symbolic teaching." (Murray Wagner, Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 59-60) Craig Atwood compares the Taborite view to Ulrich Zwingli's (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 252). Wagner summarizes:

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 1)

In other posts, I've discussed other groups who were forerunners of the Reformation to some extent, the Waldensians and the Lollards. I've occasionally discussed the Hussites as well, but not as much. What I want to do in this series of posts is provide more examples from the Hussite movement. Though that movement continued into the Reformation era and beyond, my focus here will be on the pre-Reformation Hussites.

Reformation Resources

Reformation Day will be celebrated at the end of the month. I've been maintaining a collection of resources on Reformation-related topics, which you can access here. I've updated that post since linking it last year. The baptismal regeneration page has been updated in multiple places. I added an entry addressing the subject of apostolic churches and the alleged problem of Protestants disagreeing with what all apostolic churches believe. I also added a link to a post on Marian apparitions. The link on the perpetual virginity of Mary and children of Joseph from a former marriage has been updated.

Are Protestants underestimating Mary?

Ben Merritt of Cleave to Antiquity recently produced a video in which he interviewed an eyewitness of the Zeitoun Marian apparitions and concluded that he accepts the apparitions as appearances of Mary. In the comments section, Sean Luke of Anglican Aesthetics said that he holds a similar view. Other commenters also said that they're Protestant and accept the apparitions as appearances of Mary. In another recent video, Myles Christian of Canon & Creed provided "a historical survey of giants in Protestant history who held Mary in high esteem". He cites their belief in concepts like Mary's perpetual virginity, her becoming sinless after conception, and her assumption. Elsewhere in the video, he refers to a problem with Protestants "overcorrecting" errors about Mary. He asks at another point, "Are we possibly missing something that they [earlier Protestants] saw from scripture?" One portion of the video refers to an argument for Mary's assumption based on fetal microchimerism, but doesn't explain how it allegedly leads to the conclusion that Mary was assumed. He ends the video by commenting, "But if men like the reformers, who were radically committed to sola scriptura, sola fide, and the purity of the gospel, if they could hold Mary in high esteem without compromising their convictions, then maybe we can too."

Who Martin Luther Was Above All Else

"The first endeavor must be to understand the man. One will not move far in this direction unless one recognizes at the outset that Luther was above all else a man of religion. The great outward crises of his life which bedazzle the eyes of dramatic biographers were to Luther himself trivial in comparison with the inner upheavals of his questing after God." (Roland Bainton, Here I Stand [Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1978], 6)

That's something to keep in mind as so many Christians in our day keep going after the false lead of the media, whatever is prominent in the news at the moment, and giving so much attention to gender issues, the family, politics, and such while doing so little in religious contexts.

Claims About What "All Of The Apostolic Churches" And "The Protestant Reformers" Believed

When it's shown that there are significant historical problems with something like the perpetual virginity of Mary, her assumption, or praying to saints (e.g., the early absence of the belief, early sources contradicting it, sources being agnostic about it as late as the medieval era), a common response is to say that all apostolic churches accept the belief in question. Or we'll be told that some or all of the foremost leaders of the Reformation accepted it, that early Protestants in general did, or something else along those lines. We'll be told about how all of the apostolic churches practice prayer to the saints, how high of a Mariology the leaders of the Reformation had, and so on.

Several things need to be kept in mind when that sort of response comes up:

Limits On Our Knowledge Of Pre-Reformation History

It's common for critics of Protestantism to claim that various Protestant beliefs are absent in the historical record prior to the Reformation, were only held by a small number of people during that timeframe, etc. For documentation that those Protestant beliefs were more widespread than critics suggest, see here. But another point that should be made is that we sometimes have significantly little record of individuals and groups who plausibly, sometimes probably, held the views in question.

For example, I've written a lot over the years about the beliefs of pre-Reformation groups like the Waldensians and Lollards. Yet, it's often the case that what we know about them comes from their opponents. We're going by trial records, for instance. Think of Norman Tanner's Heresy Trials In The Diocese Of Norwich, 1428-31 (London, England: Royal Historical Society, 1977). In their trial records, the Lollards Tanner wrote about were frequently asked about certain issues: who we should pray to, purgatory, issues pertaining to the sacraments, etc. But there were other issues that were never brought up, at least in the English portions of the trial records Tanner cites. I've documented widespread opposition to and agnosticism about the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary among mainstream patristic and medieval sources, for example, even into the second millennium of church history. How likely is it that Lollards who opposed praying to Mary, opposed venerating images of her, and so on never opposed the idea that she was immaculately conceived or the idea that she was bodily assumed to heaven? But if the church officials who conducted the trials didn't ask them about those issues, and we have no or inadequate records of the beliefs of those Lollards elsewhere, then we don't have any explicit testimony from them on those subjects. We should keep in mind how incomplete our records sometimes are and how plausible it is that the beliefs in question were more widespread than we can document with explicit testimony.

Remembering William Tyndale And Thomas Bilney

Gavin Ortlund recently produced a good video about William Tyndale. It also briefly discusses another martyr of the Reformation era, one who's discussed much less than he should be, Thomas Bilney. If you go here and here, you can watch a couple of segments on Bilney in a documentary. The first segment is about his conversion. The second is about his martyrdom.

Reformation Resources

Reformation Day is coming up later this month. Here's a collection of resources on Reformation issues. I occasionally update that post. Since last October, I've added a new link on infant baptism. I also updated the eternal security link to go to a series I wrote on the topic earlier this year. The collection of links on baptismal regeneration has been updated as well. And I added a link to a post about the claim that Luke 1:34 reflects a vow of perpetual virginity Mary had taken. I also added a new link on sola scriptura. A new link was added on Roman Catholic miracles. One of the posts on the perpetual virginity of Mary had a link added concerning ongoing opposition to Mary's perpetual virginity in the late patristic and early medieval eras, from the fourth century onward. And I added a link about how those who believed in some form of justification through works before the Reformation disagreed about which works justify.

The Apostolic Tradition Of Praying Only To God

Gavin Ortlund recently made some good comments on Twitter about the evidence against praying to saints. What he said is also applicable to praying to angels.

As the comments section of his thread illustrates, though, we need to also be prepared to discuss a lot of other issues relevant to the subject. And Protestants seldom know much about the topic or make much of an effort to argue for their position.

Gavin's comments are primarily about the evidence from the Biblical era, but see here regarding extrabiblical sources. And we've addressed other extrabiblical and Biblical evidence in other posts, like this one on Psalm 103:20-21, this one on Matthew 27:47, here on Hebrews 12:1, and here on Revelation 5:8 and 8:4. Regarding the idea that attempting to contact the deceased is acceptable, since Jesus and Peter spoke to some individuals they raised from the dead, see here and here. And see my posts in the YouTube thread here for a discussion of some sources that are brought up less often, such as Eusebius of Caesarea and the Gospel Of Bartholomew. In that thread, I also interacted with some advocates of praying to saints and angels. See here for my interactions with the arguments of Joe Heschmeyer of Catholic Answers and here for a thread in which I interacted with some Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox opponents. If you search our archives, you can find a large number and variety of relevant topics addressed in a lot of posts.

I'm not going to repeat everything I've said before, but I'll reiterate some points about issues that keep coming up (such as in Gavin's Twitter thread). Our focus should be on the material most relevant to praying to saints and angels, such as narrative passages in which prayer can be and often is narrated and comments and documents about prayer. To go, instead, to contexts like poetry and catacomb inscriptions, all the while ignoring or underestimating the widespread absence and contradictions of prayer to saints and angels in more relevant contexts, is irresponsible. Yet, we see Catholics, Orthodox, and other advocates of prayer to saints and angels doing that over and over and over again. It's like trying to prove that Protestants believe in prayer to saints and angels by citing Psalm 103:20, the singing of "Angels From The Realms Of Glory" in a Protestant church service, or a Protestant gravestone with an inscription that's written as if it's addressed to a deceased person. In addition to ignoring the relevant genre issues, advocates of praying to saints and angels frequently do things like assume without argument the earliest date for a source whose dating is disputed if that source seems favorable to their position, appeal to forgeries, or cite anonymous sources, even though they so often dismiss anonymous sources and even significant named sources (e.g., Tertullian, Origen) in other contexts. You have to watch for that kind of behavior at every step along the way. If we judge the evidence as it would normally be judged in other contexts, it heavily favors the conclusion that we should pray only to God. But if you're going to argue for that conclusion, you have to be vigilant and diligent at every step, so that you and your audience aren't taken off course by all sorts of diversions. Protestants need to care enough about God and the people and issues involved to do that work.