Less clear is the analogy Irenaeus draws between the
story of Adam and Eve in paradise and the virginal conception. In developing
this analogy Irenaeus makes two statements that may imply that Mary had other
children after Jesus' birth. In Adversus Haereses 3.21.10, Irenaeus
asserts: "Just as that first-formed man, Adam, received his make-up from
the untilled and up-to-that-time [adhuc] virgin earth (for God had not
yet sent rain, and man had not yet worked the earth) and was formed by the hand
of God, that is, the Word of God, ... so too the Word, recapitulating Adam in
himself and existing from Mary, who was up-to-that-time [adhuc] a
virgin, correctly received the kind of generation that recapitulated
Adam's." Similarly, in 3.22.4 of the same work, Irenaeus draws an analogy
between Eve and Mary. Eve was disobedient when she was still [adhuc] a
virgin, though she already had a husband. Mary was obedient when she had an
already-chosen husband and, nevertheless, was still [adhuc] a virgin. (John
P. Meier, “On Retrojecting Later Questions from Later Texts: A Reply to Richard
Bauckham,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 59, no. 3 [July 1997]: 525)
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