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3 thoughts on “Virgin on the ridiculous – the church, women and the cult of virginity”

  1. Love this. I have been saying this for years. It also seems to me that Mary had a baby and after that she is not a virgin unless you believe that Jesus just spontaneously floated out of Mary’s uterus. Babies weren’t born that way then.


  2. The counsel of virginity is given in the New Testament. In Matthew 19, Jesus refers to those who have made the sacrifice for the kingdom of heaven, and he recommends his disciples to imitate these. “He that can take, let him take it.” In 1 Corinthians 7, 25-40, Paul formally declares that marriage is permissible, but that it would be better to follow his counsel and remain single. His primary reason is that the married man “is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife: and he is divided”; whereas he that is without a wife directs all his care to his own bodily and spiritual sanctification, and is at liberty to devote himself to prayer, and I should add, serving God and His kingdom. It is because Mary was elected to be the Mother of God incarnate, she remained a virgin for the rest of her life. She was no ordinary woman, since Jesus was no ordinary son. Further, I believe she, being a devout religious Jew, would have felt uneasy living a normal marital life with God Himself (the Divine Logos incarnate) living in the same house with her and Joseph. I’m sure she was acquainted with Judaic tradition. Moses himself remained continent in his marriage for the rest of his life once God summoned him to lead the Israelites to the promised land, and so did the seventy elders abstain from their wives after they received the call to produce the Septuagint. Eldad and Medad did likewise after the spirit of prophecy came upon them, according to ancient Jewish tradition (Midrash Exodus Rabbah 19; 46.3; Sifre to Numbers 99 sect. 11; Sifre Zutta 81-82, 203-204; Aboth Rabbi Nathan 9, 39; Tanchuman 111, 46; Tanchumah Zaw 13; 3 Petirot Moshe 72; Shabbath 87a; Pesachim 87b, Babylonian Talmud). Thus, virginity is a counsel. What it isn’t is an obsession or the ideal of a cult.


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