The evangelicals’ relentless attacks against the Blessed Virgin Mary are distressing, and in this regard, they are not evangelicals at all.

Dear Father Angelo,

As a Catholic, I have been engaged in a dialogue with some evangelical Christians at the request of a friend of mine who is engaged to one of them. Being Catholic, she is doing everything she can to convert him. She asked me to visit their blog and write something to try to make them understand where they are going wrong.

The issue at stake is their belief in the existence of Jesus’ brothers and in the non-virginity of the Virgin Mary. I was reflecting on the fact that this is indeed a crucial issue.

” I’ll give you the example of Mark 15:40 and John 19:25, which make it clear that James and Joses were the sons of Mary of Cleophas and not brothers of Jesus. The Hebrew and Aramaic languages were poor in terms. On the other hand, even in Naples they say “Fratema cugino” to refer to a cousin. In Greek, adelfos also means cousin. This shows how the word must be understood in the context of the culture and linguistic usage of the time.

With regard to the other question concerning Joseph’s dream, and in particular Matthew 1:25, “he did not know her until etc.”, the evangelist intends to highlight what happened before and not what happened after, namely the virgin conception by the Holy Spirit. Do we want proof that this is the meaning? The same conjunction is found in John 9:18, where it says that the Pharisees did not believe in the healing of the man born blind “until his parents were called.” Perhaps, then, the evangelist meant that they did not believe until then, but that they believed afterwards? No! In fact, we know that they did not believe even afterwards.

As for the question of the firstborn, we know that in the Bible the firstborn son is usually called the firstborn, whether or not he is followed by other brothers. (cf. Ex 13:2; 13:13; Num 15:8; Heb 1:16). Even secular language gave the word the same meaning, as can be seen, for example, in an inscription dating from approximately the time of Christ’s birth and found in Egypt in 1922: it says that a woman named Arsinoe “died in the pains of childbirth of her firstborn son.” On the other hand, if the firstborn were only the one followed by brothers, he would not be entitled to the rights of primogeniture until the other brothers were born (as the Law prescribed). This is absurd since the Law commanded the “redemption” of the firstborn within the first month of birth (Num 18:16). Consider also that Christ is the firstborn in a very profound sense beyond biological considerations.

As for your statement concerning the personal relationship, I agree. It is right to meditate on the word, which should not be distorted or interpreted personally. The Church was founded directly by Christ precisely to maintain the uniformity of the message and its purity and truth. To give you an example, think that if you considered the expression “wives, be submissive to your husbands” literally, you would evidently endorse discriminatory behavior. But that’s not the literal meaning. On the other hand, look at what happens in Islam where there is no ‘‘authority capable of preserving orthodoxy. There are those who come to think that people should be killed in the name of Allah.

I hope I’ve managed to explain myself.

Consider something else too. Our Lady where she appeared, even in Fatima, declared herself as the Immaculate Conception. But this is just one thing that further confirms elements that already exist.”

They couldn’t argue with this first comment. But then another interlocutor wrote a post that put me in a little bit of a crisis. I honestly can’t say more.

(here we leave aside the disquisition on the various meanings of the words brother, cousin, relative, so that the language used in the New Testament would leave room for misunderstanding, reporting only the essential, editorial note): the Greek term used is adelfòs, which means “brother”, and not “cousin”. New Testament authors know how to use a specific term for “relative” (Sunghenès: Lc 1:36.58.61, 2:44; Mk 6:4), one for “cousin” (anepsiòs: Col 4:10) and one for “brother” (adelfòs: Mt 14:2; Mk 1:16.19, 3:17, 13:12, etc.). The apostle Paul, a Jew who mastered Greek very well, used sunghenès to say relative (Rom 16:11), anepsiòs for cousin (Col 4:10) and adelfòs for brother (Gal 1:19 – and in this case he speaks of James “brother of the Lord”). When it comes to Jesus’ brothers, in short, adelfòs is used.

I hope you can suggest some arguments to me to refute their beliefs. For this reason, I am sending you the comment in word which has put me in a position not to be able to argue any further.

I greet her cordially and thank her.

Dominic

Response from the priest

Dearest,

1. do not be dazzled by the apparent science of these evangelicals, who have very little science. They are generally very crude and fundamentalist.

How many times in the New Testament do we speak of brothers (adelfoi) and this term is applied to everyone.

Why don’t they bring you all the quotes where the word brother occurs?

A basic dictionary of the New Testament, edited by a Protestant of undoubted seriousness and competence, says that the word adelfos in the New Testament occurs 343 times and means: brother, relative, fellow believer, fellow countryman, neighbor, friend.

The word sister (adelfé) occurs 26 times and means: sister, relative, companion of faith.

Saint Paul, who has a good command of Greek, uses the word adeòlfos many times, and in the meanings described above.

2. They also accuse the Catholic Church of providing this version.

And do not the Orthodox have the same faith as the Catholic Church? Don’t they also believe in Mary’s perpetual virginity?

Why this exclusive relentlessness against the Catholic Church?

Here you can notice their bad faith and ignorance.

3. But the most serious thing is upstream: the interpretation of the Scriptures at one’s own discretion. While St. Peter says: “Know this first of all: no prophetic writing should be subject to private explanation, since a prophecy was never brought by human will, but moved by the Holy Spirit those men spoke from God” (2 Pt 1, 20-21).

And since this quote is inconvenient to them, they did so: they removed the second letter of St. Peter from the Holy Scriptures.

They did this for other books of the Bible as well.

4. And so we come to what evangelicals and Protestants deny: the value of Tradition.

They refer to Scripture alone.

But by whom are we told that the Scriptures are inspired? Who provides us with the catalogue of inspired books? Certainly not from Scripture, but from Tradition.

They themselves cannot fail to resort to Tradition to know the catalogue of inspired Books. And why on this point do they accept Tradition and not accept it on the interpretation of the Scriptures?

5. In the second century of the Christian era, the Gnostic heresy appeared, which gave a different interpretation of Scripture. What have the holy Fathers done? They drew on the meaning that those words of Scripture had been given everywhere, especially in the Churches founded directly by the Apostles, always and by all.

Well, by Tradition we mean precisely this: what has always been believed, everywhere and by everyone (quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, quod a semper creditum est).

6. Coming to our problem, here is what the Church of the first centuries (Tradition!) thought about Mary’s virginity.

Epiphanius († 403) says that Mary’s perpetual virginity is a universal conviction of faith: “When and at what time did one dare to pronounce Mary’s name without immediately adding, if questioned, the Virgin to it?” (Adversus haereses, 1,3).

He states that Mary’s birth was painless and calls Mary “Perpetual Virgin” 16 times.

Virginal birth is generally interpreted as an event that goes beyond the laws of nature.

In the Sermo de Margarita, attributed to Ephrem († 373) or to a Syrian author of his own period we read: “The Virgin conceived without injury of her virginity and gave birth without pain… It was the Holy Spirit who brought into childbirth what had never been experienced in childbirth. Therefore the born did not break the seal of virginity, nor did the Virgin suffer”.

Ambrose (†397) speaks of “uterus clausus, so Mary is the good door that was closed and did not open. Christ passed through it, but did not open it” (De institutione virginis 8, 57).

The Virgin is the closed door mentioned in Ez 44:1-2 (Ephrem, Amphilochius, Theodotus of Ancyra, Hesychius …), it is the burning bush that is not consumed (Gregory of Nyssa), it is similar to the closed doors of the Last Supper (Hilarius, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysologist, Proclus, Gregory the Great) and to the tomb of Christ that remained sealed (Ephrem).

Jerome calls Mary virgo aeterna (Comm. in Ez., 44, 3).

Augustine († 430) affirms the perpetual virginity of Mary, who “virgin conceived, virgin gave birth, virgin remained” (Sermon 51, 11,18).

As for the virginity of childbirth, Augustine, while not going into details, affirms its physiological integrity: “If at the time of Christ’s birth the bodily integrity of Mary had been damaged, he would no longer have been born of the Virgin and falsely (let it never be!) the church would confess that he was born of the Virgin Mary” (Enchiridion 34).

Commenting on Ez 44:2: “This door will remain closed: it will not be opened, no one will pass through it, because the Lord, the God of Israel, has passed through it” S. Augustine writes: “What does it mean: ‘‘closed door in the house of the Lord except that Mary will always be intact? And what: ‘‘the Lord alone enters and exits it’ except that the Holy Spirit will fertilize her and the Lord of angels will be born of her? And what finally do the words indicate ‘‘will it be closed forever’, except that Mary is a virgin before childbirth, a virgin in childbirth, a virgin after childbirth?” (Sermo 195).

Leo the Great († 461) speaks of Jesus “conceived by the Holy Spirit within the womb of the Virgin mother, who gave birth to him while preserving her virginity, as she conceived him while preserving her virginity” (Tomus ad Flavianum, 449).

S. Ildefonso of Toledo († 667) wrote the treatise De Virginitate perpetua Sanctae Mariae contra infideles, the first work in the West dedicated entirely to the exposition of Mary’s perfections, and spread in particular on that of virginity.

7. Evangelicals have been coming out recently. Can they think of interpreting the Scriptures without referring to the meaning that has been given to them for centuries?

Would the Holy Spirit have left the Church from the beginning to wait for them to come and finally settle over their heads?

Bitter is the obstinacy against the Blessed Virgin Mary, shown by these evangelicals, who in this are not evangelicals at all, since they do not want to do to Mary what Elizabeth did when, “full of the Holy Spirit, she exclaimed loudly: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. What do I owe it to the Mother of my Lord to come to me?” (Lk 41-42).

Elizabeth shouted loudly that time. And it was moved by the Holy Spirit! Why do they not obey and imitate?

For they do not pay veneration and affection to the One to whom God has willed the gaze to turn from the dawn of creation: “I will put enmity between you and the woman” (Gen 3:13).

Isn’t that Woman Mary?

Do you put evangelicals aside? And on what side do they want to lead believers in Christ with such relentlessness and acrimony?

I compliment you on the answer you gave.

I entrust you to Mary and bless you.

Father Angelo

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