. . . Mary’s perpetual virginity
is best understood as a dogma set forth by the ordinary and universal
magisterium. No ecumenical council or pope has presented a solemn definition
that contains all three aspects of Mary’s virginity. In this manner, it is
unique among the four Marian dogmas. Nevertheless, the church has consistently
taught that Mary maintained her virginity before, during, and after the birth
of Christ. (Eric Lafferty, Approaching the Assumption, 1863-1950:
Revelation, Scripture, and the Laity in the Development of a Marian Dogma [Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2025], 21)
As a dogma set forth by the
ordinary and universal magisterium, it is difficult to assign an exact date for
its definition. No ecumenical council or pope ever promulgated a solemn
definition that contains the full tripartite definition. Both the Second Council
of Constantinople in 553 and the Lateran Synod in 649 are sometimes suggested
as possible dates, however, both fall short of a solemn definition. The Second
Council of Constantinople used the title aeiparthenos but did not issue
a definition. The Lateran Synod issued a definition but is not regarded as an
ecumenical council. Regardless, the accumulation of pronouncements by popes,
ecumenical councils, church fathers, and synods suffice to demonstrate the
church’s consistent doctrinal tradition of affirming Mary’s virginity ante
partum, in partu, and post partum. (Eric Lafferty, Approaching
the Assumption, 1863-1950: Revelation, Scripture, and the Laity in the
Development of a Marian Dogma [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2025], 28)
As Lafferty elsewhere notes, “it would be misguided to
downplay the synod’s authority” (Ibid., 28 n. 92). He then quotes Haffner. Here
is a fuller quotation from that work:
The solemn definitions of faith
by the Ecumenical Councils and the papal Magisterium followed the first brief
formulae of faith and the teaching of the Fathers on the virginal conception.
The Council of Chalcedon in the year 451, in its carefully formulated
profession of faith and with its infallibly defined content, affirms that Christ
was ‘begotten . . .as to his humanity in the latter days, for us and for our
salvation from Mary the Virgin Mother of God.’ In the year 649, the Lateran
Council made a clear declaration concerning the virginal conception: ‘If anyone
does not, according to the Holy Fathers, confess truly and properly that the
holy and ever virgin and immaculate Mary . . . without human seed, conceived by
the Holy Spirit, God the Word Himself, who before all time was born of God the
Father . . . let him be condemned.’ The council was not ecumenical, but
since it was conducted under the authority of Pope Martin I, and the teaching
was given under pain of anathema, so its authority came to be regarded as very
weighty. Pope Martin’s successor Agatho conveyed the impression that the
decisions of the Lateran Council were definitive, infallible and binding the
faith.
In the same way, in the year 681,
the third Council of Constantinople proclaimed that Jesus Christ was ‘begotten
. . . as to his humanity, by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, she who is
properly and in all truth the Mother of God.’ Other Ecumenical Councils (Constantinople
II, Lateran IV and Lyons II) declared Mary ‘ever-virgin’, stressing her
perpetual virginity. These affirmations were taken up by the Second Vatican
Council, which highlighted the fact that Mary ‘through her faith and obedience
. . . gave birth on earth to the very Son of the Father, not through the knowledge
of man but by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.’ (Paul Haffner, The
Mystery of Mary [Herefordshire, U.K.: Gracewing, 2024], 145-46, emphasis in
bold added)
The following is the text of Paul IV’s 1555 affirmation of
virginity in partum that is referenced elsewhere by both Lafferty and
Haffner:
The Trinity and the Incarnation (against
the Unitarians)
[From
the ordinance of Paul IV, “Cum quorundam,” Aug. 7, 1555]
993 [DS 1880] Since the depravity and iniquity of certain men have
reached such a point in our time that, of those who wander and deviate from the
Catholic faith, very many indeed not only presume to profess different heresies
but also to deny the foundations of the faith itself, and by their example lead
many away to the destruction of their souls, we, in accord with our pastoral
office and charity, desiring, in so far as we are able with God, to call such
men away from so grave and destructive an error, and with paternal severity to
warn the rest, lest they fall into such impiety, all and each who have hitherto
asserted, claimed or believed that Almighty God was not three in persons and of
an entirely uncomposed and undivided unity of substance and one single simple essence
of divinity; or that our Lord is not true God of the same substance in every
way with the Father and the Holy Spirit, or that He was not conceived of the
Holy Spirit according to the flesh in the womb of the most blessed and ever
Virgin Mary, but from the seed of Joseph just as the rest of men; or that the
same Lord and our God, Jesus Christ, did not submit to the most cruel death of
the Cross to redeem us from sins and from eternal death, and to reunite us with
the Father unto eternal life; or that the same most blessed Virgin Mary was not
the true mother of God, and did not always persist in the integrity of
virginity, namely, before bringing forth, at bringing forth, and always after
bringing forth, on the part of the omnipotent God the Father, and the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, with apostolic authority we demand and advise, etc. (The
Sources of Catholic Dogma, ed. Henry Denzinger and Karl Rahner [trans. Roy
J. Deferrari; St. Louis, Miss.: B. Herder Book Co., 1954], 301-2, emphasis in
bold added)
