The following comes from:
Hans von Campenhausen, The Virgin Birth in the Theology
of the Ancient Church (trans. Frank Clarke; Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock,
2011; repr., London: SCM Press, 1954), 72-73, 75
It is not till the second half of the fourth century that the whole
question comes to life, (2) as the new monastic enthusiasm for the ideal of
virginity spreads over from the East into the West. (3) Just because asceticism
in the West had so far played a natural but only limited role, the strange
enthusiasm and radicalism of the new piety at first ran into strong opposition
and set off reactions. Here, in contrast to the East, the question of Mary and
her virginity very soon assumes a special importance. Indeed, Helvidius,
Jovinian, and later Bonosus sought to meet the overvaluation of the ascetic
ideal partly by appealing, in line with the older western tradition, to Mary’s
later, natural marriage with Joseph. (4) Thereupon in opposition to this
Ambrose, Jerome and many others put forth the new doctrine of the αειπαρθενια and upheld it
passionately. The words of Scripture no longer avail against it; anyone who
brings them into action against the eternal virginity merely proves thereby, as
Jerome ironically, that though he may read, he cannot understand ‘what, do a
devout conviction, remains unshaken’. (5) But not content with that, one can
now bring the αειπαρθενια to bear on the abstruse idea of Mary’s immaculate physical intactness
continuing even during the birth. This pretentious theological discovery of a virginitas
not only ante and post partum, but also in partu, is
specially to the credit of Latin theologians. It reminds one of gnostic myths,
but hardly has anything to do with them directly.
Notes for the Above:
(2) Thus also J. Galot, ‘La virginité de Marie et la naissance de
Jésus’, Noou. Rev. théol. 82 (1960), 449-69.
(3) In what follows cf. especially the sound presentation by P.
Friedrich, ‘St Ambrosius über die Jungfrauengeburt Marias (virginitas Mariae in
partu)’, Festgabe Alois Knöpfler (1917) 89-109.
(4) But it is only the virtinitas in partu, and not also post
partum, that Jovinian is clearly alleged to have contested; cf. Ambrose, Ep.
42.4: ‘uirgo concepit, sed non virgo generauit’.
(5) Adv. Helvid. 2: 'ipsis quibus aduersum nos usus est
testimoniis reuincatur, ut intelligat se et legere potuisse, quae scripta sunt,
et non potuisse, quae pietate roborata sunt cognoscere.' But Ambrose does not,
any more than Jerome, refrain from a detailed rectification of the supposedly
false expositions: Inst. virg. 5.36-9.57.
