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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
The ARCIC Statement on Mary features an underlying agreement on Mary as a basis for recommending that Anglicans accept the two Marian dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption as matters of faith. In outlining the case it becomes clear that the place of Scripture, as expressed in Article 6 of the Thirty Nine Articles, is different in the two Communions. The two Marian dogmas shift the focus of the underlying agreement so that Mary becomes more aligned with Jesus than believers. Mary's sinlessness, which is the focus of the dogma of Immaculate conception, apparently involves her continuing virginity. Though perpetual virginity is assumed in the creeds and the Book of Common Prayer, it is not explicitly connected with Mary's purity or sinlessness. This move is consistent with the place of virginity and celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church. It is a serious difference from the Anglican position. In addition, ecumenical research brings into question the view that Mary remained ever a virgin recognizing children born to Joseph and Mary. Historically and exegetically the mother and brothers of Jesus are seen as believers and followers of Jesus.
1. Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ (Harrisburg and London: Morehouse, 2005)Google Scholar, is An Agreed Statement of ARCIC. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in consultation with the Anglican Communion Office, appointed the Anglican members and the Vatican Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity appointed the Roman Catholic members.
2. Henceforth referred to as ‘the Seattle Statement’ or ‘the Statement’ and by paragraph.
3. See para. 2 (pp. 3–4) and the attempt to overcome this difficulty in paras. 60–63.
4. Two supporting statements, one by the co-chairmen and the other by Nicholas Sagovsky, were published in the Church Times on 27 05 2005.Google Scholar
5. See para. 58.
6. See para. 59.
7. A third-century (Latin) view of the transmission of the soul and of original sin identified the parents as the source. Pope Anastasius II (d. 498 CE) condemned this view, but Pope Gregory I the Great (c. 540–604 CE) reopened the issue because the condemned view is not contrary to Scripture.
8. While the tradition of the continuing virginity of Mary was known before Jerome, he rejected it in that form and set out to develop an argument based on the NT. The earlier tradition describes the confirmation of the virginity of Mary immediately following the birth of Jesus. The midwife attending his birth attests Mary's virginity in partu. Some texts mention only this aspect, which is not covered by Jerome's reconstruction. Another aspect of the tradition provides a rationale for explaining away evidence that seems to suggest that Mary subsequently had other children and that Jesus had half brothers and half sisters. Jerome's improbable reconstruction of NT evidence produced a different explanation, arguing that those known as brothers of Jesus were his cousins.
9. Matthew and Luke attest that, while Mary was betrothed to Joseph, she conceived as a consequence of the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Matthew and Luke teach that Mary did not have relations with Joseph until she had given birth to Jesus, her firstborn. The Statement uses Matthew to illustrate Jesus' messianic descent from David and Luke to show his descent from God via virginal conception (paras. 13 and 16). This is rather schematic because Matthew also depicts virginal conception as a sign of the birth of the Messiah (para. 12).
10. In Mt. 13.55, Jesus is called ‘the son of the carpenter’ (Joseph). See Lightfoot, J.B., ‘The Brethren of the Lord’, being Dissertation II in St Paul's Epistle to the Galatians: A Revised Text and Introduction, Notes, and Dissertations (repr.; London: Macmillan, 10th edn, 1905 [1865]), p. 262 point 3.Google Scholar
11. See my Just James: The Brother of Jesus in History and Tradition (Colombia: University of South Carolina, 2nd edn, 2004), pp. 213–20, 295–97.Google Scholar Mk 3.31–31 first narrates the arrival of ‘his [Jesus]’ mother and his brothers' (⋯F; μήτηρ αὐτοu καì oἱ ⋯δελфοì αὐτοu and the crowd then reports to Jesus ‘your mother and your brothers (⋯F; μήτηρ σον καì οἱ ⋯δελфοì σον) are outside seeking you.’ There is no hint that ‘brothers’ (the obvious meaning) should be understood as cousins.
12. Paras. 45, 46, 56. In para. 45 the Seattle Statement notes ‘that the Book of Common Prayer in the Christmas collect and preface refers to Mary as “a pure virgin”.’
13. For a detailed discussion see my Just James (2004), pp. 213–20, 295–98.Google Scholar
14. See para. 7, ‘our use of Scripture seeks to draw upon the whole tradition of the Church.’
15. Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea from 4 BCE–39 CE.
16. See my commentary on Mark's Gospel (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 102.Google Scholar
17. According to the Eastern view the brothers of Jesus were children of Joseph (but not Mary) by a previous marriage. Thus they were Jesus' stepbrothers.
18. Note 3 of the Statement seeks to give plausibility to the broader meaning of adelphos by demonstrating Mary's extended family, referring to Elizabeth, who in Lk 1.36 is called (Mary's) ‘your kinswoman’ (⋯ συγγενíς σον). But the kinswoman is not called ‘your sister’!
19. See my Just James, pp. 292–94Google Scholar, especially the notes on p. 292 which provide references to texts discussed in ch. 5 (pp. 105–58).
20. See my Just James, pp. 143–47, 151–54. The normal meaning of adelphos is ‘brother’. Where another meaning is intended, such as the symbolic use of Mk 3.33–35, the context makes this meaning clear, as 3.35 does in this case. But the family metaphor depends on the close family relationships of ‘my mother, my brother, my sister’.
21. Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, pp. 252–91.Google Scholar
22. Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, p. 252 n. 1 point (1).Google Scholar
23. Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, p. 261Google Scholar point 1. Leading Roman Catholic NT scholar Meier, J.P. in his A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), pp. 220–22, 316–32Google Scholar, esp. 324–29, supports this point. See also Fitzmyer, J.A., The Gospel According to Luke, Vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1981), pp. 723–24Google Scholar; Pesch, R., Das Markusevangelium, Vol. 1 (HTKNT; Freiburg: Herder, 1977), pp. 322–25Google Scholar for support from other leading Roman Catholic exegetes. Meier and others draw attention to the analogical use of family relations to describe relations within the Jesus movement (see Mk 3.33–35). But this is different from the argument that adelphos indicates cousin or some other relationship of wider kinship, for which there is no evidence in the NT and patristic texts prior to Jerome.
24. Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, pp. 252Google Scholar n. 1 point (1), 253, 258–59 point 1. Before Jerome no-one had suggested that the brothers of Jesus were his cousins.
25. Rightly recognized in the Statement, para. 32. ‘For Ignatius († c.110) and Tertullian († c.200), Jesus is fully human, because “truly born” of Mary.’
26. Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, pp. 259–61.Google Scholar According to that tradition Mary gave birth in a cave. Tradition identifies that cave and the cave in which Jerome took residence with caves under the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. See O'Connor, Jerome Murphy, The Holy Land: An Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 1986), pp. 167–68.Google Scholar
27. See my Just James (2004), pp. 198–200, 299–304.Google Scholar
28. Commentary on Matthew, 1.c. See Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, p. 260.Google Scholar
29. See Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, pp. 261–67.Google Scholar From the overlap between Jn 19.25, Mt 27.56 and Mk 15.40, Jerome concluded that the sister of the mother of Jesus was also named Mary and was the wife of Alpheus (= Clopas, see Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, pp. 253, 255–57, 267, 290)Google Scholar, mother of James the less (but τοu μικροu actually means the small, not the less! See Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, p. 262Google Scholar point 4) and Joses. A relatively small number of Jewish names were in use at the time. Mary and Salome account for the names of about half of the women whose names we know (see Ilan, Tal, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity Part 1: Palestine 330 BCE–200 CE (TSAJ, 91; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 2002).Google Scholar But it is unlikely that the mother of Jesus and her sister were both called Mary. According to Eusebius (HE 3.11.1), Hegesippus identified Clopas as the brother of Joseph. That would make the children of Mary and Clopas step cousins (unless two brothers married two sisters!). Using Jerome's assumptions it is possible to piece together the evidence of the Gospels and Hegesippus via Eusebius, to show that Mary and Clopas had three sons named James and Joses (Mk 15.40) and Symeon (Hegesippus). These are the names of three of Jesus' four brothers. But Mk 15.40 does not say this Mary is the wife of Clopas and Jn 19.25 does not say that the wife of Clopas is the mother of James and Joses. Hegesippus does say that Symeon was the son of Clopas, but mentions no brothers. Nowhere in the NT is there confirmation that James the brother of the Lord was known as James the small '(ιακώβος ⋯ μικρóς). The names of Jesus' brothers are among the most popular Palestinian Jewish names of the time and could be traditional in this family of brothers Joseph and Clopas (see Lightfoot, ‘Brethren’, pp. 268–69 and Ilan, Lexicon). The evidence, however, only shows that Mary and Clopas had a son called Symeon, the second bishop of Jerusalem and the cousin of Jesus. Even if the improbability of Jerome's reconstruction is overlooked, there is the problem that adelphos does not mean cousin and those called brothers (never cousins) are always in the company of Mary the mother of Jesus (and Joseph) not Mary and Clopas (Alpheus). The NT and patristic evidence before Jerome consistently attest this difference between the first and second bishops. The first (James) was the brother and the second (Symeon) was the cousin of Jesus.
30. Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, p. 252Google Scholar n. 1 point (2). Lightfoot argued that this position was unjustifiably ignored and set about to remedy the situation.
31. See the discussion above of para. 19, fn. 3 of the Statement.
32. See Just James, pp. 198–200, 299–304.Google Scholar
33. See Elliott, J.K., The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
34. Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, p. 275.Google Scholar
35. The quotation is from bk 7, ch. 16. J.N.D. Kelly identifies the reference by book (7), paragraph (93) and verse (7). He claims it provides evidence of Clement's use of Protevangelium, Early Christian Doctrine (London: A & C Black, 5th edn, 1977), p. 493.Google Scholar All subsequent quotations of Kelly are to this fifth edition. For the quotation from Clement see the translation by Chadwick, Henry in Alexandrian Christianity (LCC, 2; ed. Chadwick, Henry; London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954) p. 154Google Scholar; and The Ante-Nicene Library Volume II (ed. Coxe, A. Cleveland; London: T & T Clark; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), p. 551.Google Scholar For the Greek text of Stromateis VII, see the edition by Hort, F.J.A. and Mayor, J.B. (London: Macmillan, 1902).Google Scholar
36. Thus Kelly, as indicated in the note above. Chadwick, (Alexandrian Christianity)Google Scholar implies a connection in n. 21 p. 154. Lightfoot claims Clement of Alexandria as an earlier witness to Protevangelium. His appeal to Clement is unconvincing even if the Latin translation of a purported text from Clement is authentic. ‘Jude…being one of the sons of Joseph and [the Lord's] brother…though he was aware of his relationship to the Lord, nevertheless did not say he was his brother; but what said he? Jude the servant of Jesus Christ, because he was his Lord, but brother of James; for this is true; he was his brother, being Joseph's [son]’ (Lightfoot, ‘Brethren’, p. 279). Lightfoot takes this to mean James and Jude were not children of Joseph and Mary. But what the text says is that Jude did not call himself ‘his brother’ because Jesus was ‘his Lord’. This is true regardless of whether they were both children of Mary or not!
37. It is interesting and disturbing to note that the early date of these texts is used to confirm that Protevangelium belongs to the mid second century and that the early date of Protevangelium is used to confirm that these texts also belong to the mid second century. The clear evidence does not demonstrate the existence of any one of them before the third century. Then Protevangelium appears to present the most developed and composite treatment of the virginity of Mary. On the dating issue discussed see M.A. Knibb (ed.) on the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. Charlesworth, J.H.; New York: Doubleday, 1985), II, pp. 143–76Google Scholar, esp. pp. 143, 149–50. See also Kelly, J.N.D., Early Christian Doctrine, p. 492.Google ScholarOdesand Ascension are composite texts and the relevant sections come from later parts of the texts. Just how late is the question that needs evidence to provide an answer. The earliest positive identification of the Vision of Isaiah is in the fourth century quotations of 11.34 by Jerome and 9.35–36 by Epiphanius (Knibb, , Martyrdom, p. 149).Google Scholar
38. I take Clement's reference to the examination of Mary following the birth as a reference to the role of the midwife who verified Mary's virginity in partu.
39. Lightfoot, , ‘Brethren’, p. 275.Google Scholar
40. ‘We neither heard her voice, nor did a midwife come … He came not out of the womb of a woman but descended from a heavenly place’ (Acts of Peter 24).Google Scholar In Ascension 11.7–10Google Scholar the pregnancy lasts only two months and then Mary looked and saw a small child. She was astonished, and ‘her womb was found as [it was] at first, before she had conceived.’ Following this Joseph's ‘eyes were opened, and he saw the infant and praised the Lord.’ Neither of these nor Ode 19 fits well with Clement, Protevangelium, or clearer and earlier teaching of Ignatius and Tertullian that the reality of Jesus' humanity was derived from Mary.
41. See para. 31.
42. Para. 15 and see para. 1. But these texs need to be discussed in relation to texts mentioned in paras. 19 and 20. See the discussion below.
43. Paras. 6 and 77.
44. Para. 58.
45. Para. 77, first dot point.
46. Paras. 15, 74.
47. Joseph's intended course of action, designed to avoid disgracing Mary, makes clear that Matthew is not saying that Joseph was a just man. Rather there is compassionate faithfulness in his righteousness as there is in the righteousness of God.
48. Para. 11 and see Preface, p. x and para. 5, which refers to ‘Mary's freely uttered fiat —’, as does para. 16.
49. Para. 59. The wording is from the Dogma as defined by Pope Pius IX.
50. See paras. 59 (including n. 11) and 78 (second dot point). There is no way in which this could involve Mary's free response.
51. Para. 34 and see 31.
52. See paras. 2, 31, 34, 76, 80 etc.
53. This is recognized in para. 32.
54. See Lightfoot, J.B., Apostolic Fathers (London: Macmillan, 1885), Part II, Vol. 2, Section I, pp. 90–94.Google Scholar
55. The Seattle Statement para. 33 notes that ‘In defence of his [Jesus'] true divinity, the early Church emphasized Mary's virginal conception of Jesus Christ.… They appealed to the virginal conception to defend both the Lord's divinity and Mary's honour.’ Only from the third century do we find evidence of the claim of the perpetual virginity of Mary.
56. Paras. 12–17.
57. Para. 13.
58. Para. 16.
59. Para. 12.
60. From ‘The Definition of Chalcedon, 451 CE’, Documents of the Christian Church, selected and edited by Henry Bettenson, pp. 56–57.Google Scholar
61. The Seattle Statement, para. 34.
62. ‘Mary and the Saints’ being ch. 18 of Early Christian Doctrine, p. 491.Google Scholar
63. Kelly, , Early Christian Doctrine (p. 494)Google Scholar notes the application of Theotokos to Mary by Bishop Alexander of Alexandria around the time of the Arian controversy (Ep. Ad Alex. Thess. 54). From Alexandria this use spread in the East except to Antiochine circles.
64. Paras. 31 and 77.
65. Briefly discussed in para. 34 without revealing the complexity of the issue.
66. Recognized in para. 32.
67. See the position of Eutyches and his appeal for support to Cyril in ‘The Admissions of Eutyches’, in Documents of the Christian Church (selected and ed. Bettenson, Henry; London: Oxford University Press, 3rd edn, 1999), pp. 52–53.Google Scholar
68. See para. 34 n. 6. Under the presidency and championing of Cyril, and adopting his language, the Council of Ephesus adopted Theotokos as a title for Mary. It was subsequently adopted by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE. But Chalcedon added significant qualifications to the anti-Nestorian position of the Council of Ephesus.
69. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925.
70. From ‘The Definition of Chalcedon, 451 CE’, pp. 56–57.Google Scholar
71. See paras. 61, 62, 63.
72. See my Just James, pp. 28–31, 35–36, 41.Google Scholar
73. See paras. 19 and 20.
74. Para. 19.
75. Para. 20.