An Exposition of the Teaching of the Orthodox Church Concerning the Mother of God (Part 3)

The holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church see in the words of the Evangelist Matthew given above a thought completely opposite to the thought of the Protestants—they see a testimony that the Mother of God, having conceived the God-man as a Virgin, remained after conception a Virgin, bore as a Virgin, after birth remained a Virgin, remained a Virgin forever. “The Ever-Virgin”, says the holy John of Damascus, “even after giving birth remains a Virgin, having had no union with a man until death. Although it is written: ‘And he did not know her’ (Joseph) ‘until she bore her firstborn Son’, yet one must know that ”firstborn“ refers to the first-born, even though he were the only one. The name firstborn denotes one who was born first, and does not necessarily indicate the birth of others. But the word ‘until’, although it denotes a period of definite time, does not exclude the time that follows after. Thus the words of the Lord: ‘And behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age’ (Mt. 28:20) do not mean that the Lord will separate from us after the end of the age, because the divine Apostle says: ‘And so we shall always be with the Lord’ (1 Thess. 4:17), that is, after the resurrection. Here the word ‘until’, although by itself denoting a definite period of time, has a completely opposite meaning according to the customary use of this word in Scripture. The Lord said: ‘You will never get out of there’ (from the darkness of hell) ‘until you have paid the last penny’ (Mt. 5:26). It is well known that the sufferings of hell are eternal: the word with a limited meaning ‘until’, here used, means that one confined in the darkness of hell will never come out of it, having no possibility of paying the debt of sin, the payment of which takes place only during earthly life through good deeds in Christ and the purification of sins through repentance. Of the raven which Noah sent out from the ark, it is said: ‘And it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth’ (Gen. 8:7); the raven did not return to the ark at all. Scripture says: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet’’ (Ps. 109:1); here the word ‘until’, denoting a limit of time, is again used to denote a boundless, infinite time. It is evident that the remaining of the incarnate Son at the right hand of the Father according to His humanity, which signifies His highest state of glory, will not be limited by the time which will be used for the overthrow of the enemies of the God-man, the fallen angels and the wicked men, but will continue infinitely forever and ever. The word ‘until’ has with regard to the Virgin the same meaning that it has with regard to the written law given by God. ‘Not an iota, not a dot,’ the Lord said, ‘will pass from the law until all is accomplished’ (Mt. 5:18). The law will be sealed by its fulfillment and will remain forever sealed as fulfilled: the Virgin sealed her virginity by the birth of God-Word and remained forever a Virgin, being sealed by the birth of God. ‘And he did not know her’ (Joseph) ‘until she bore her firstborn Son’: ”This means,“ says the blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria, ”he never touched her, neither before nor after the birth did he know her.“

Both Evangelists with evident, particular purpose point to the fact that the God-man was the “Firstborn”. The Jews, to whom the Messiah was promised, for this reason especially honored childbearing, and despised a woman’s barrenness; for the same reason they especially honored the firstborn among children, as one of the firstborn, in their opinion, was destined to be the awaited Messiah. Behold that desired and glorious “Firstborn”, say the Evangelists, who has fulfilled the desires and expectations! After His birth there is no reason for a woman’s barrenness to be her shame, and for the firstborn born from now on to enjoy special significance. From that time, glory passes from marriage to virginity, because the awaited Firstborn is a Virgin, and was born of a Virgin, keeping her a Virgin both at birth and after birth.

The holy Gospel passes over in silence the parents of the Mother of God; it presents the righteous Joseph as the guardian of her and of the God-man child. It must be that the parents of the Mother of God, having brought forth their priceless fruit at a very advanced age, soon afterward departed from this life. “God,” says the holy John of Damascus, “arranged it so that the Maiden (the Mother of God was called a Maiden because of her youth) is betrothed by the priests to Joseph, the New Book is entrusted to ‘one who knows how to read’ (Is. 29:11). This betrothal protected the Virgin.” The righteous Joseph was eighty years old, when the fourteen-year-old Virgin was betrothed to him. According to Jewish law, she was betrothed to him as a person who belonged to the tribe of Judah and the family of David, to which the Mother of God also belonged. Having spent four months in his house, she heard the annunciation from the lips of the Archangel and conceived the God-man. The humble Mary did not dare to tell her betrothed that the great Archangel had appeared to her, that she had become a wondrous temple of God. When Joseph learned from the angel who appeared to him in a dream of the great significance of the Virgin betrothed to him, he understood all the significance of his obligation toward her, became her servant, fulfilling his holy service with reverence and fear, as says the blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria. He acquired toward her a feeling of deep respect, similar to that which the holy Elizabeth felt and expressed, having been granted a visit from the Mother of God. “How does this happen to me”, she cried out, how comes this greatest honor, this greatest happiness to me, “that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk. 1:43). Not only righteous men were filled with reverence for the Mother of God—the Archangel Gabriel himself, in pronouncing the annunciation, stood before her with reverence. He treated the holy Zechariah quite differently when announcing to him the birth of John, the greatest among the prophets. Yes! Holy angels and holy men reverence the Ever-Virgin; rash and blasphemous judgments of her are proper only to cast-off spirits, who have filled both heaven and paradise with blasphemy, proper only to corrupted men who have entered into union with cast-off spirits. Most justly observes the holy John of Damascus that not only the deed, but even a thought of the corruption of the virginity of the Ever-Virgin can belong only to the most immoral, corrupted mind. How could the righteous Joseph, having heard from the angel great testimony of the Mother of God, having seen wondrous miracles accomplished at the birth of the God-man, attempt such crude lawlessness, such a terrible transgression, as attributed to him by the Protestants! How could the righteous eighty-year-old old man be carried away by youthful lust and before the eyes of the God-man corrupt His Mother! No, no! Such terrible depravity and crime is impossible for the holy old man. The righteous Joseph was deemed worthy of divine revelations, which are granted only to the pure in heart and body. When he was perplexed about the Mother of God, an angel appeared to him in a dream and said: “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife” (Mt. 1:20). The angel answers directly to the thoughts of Joseph. Joseph, suspecting Mary, wanted to send her away secretly from him; the angel, testifying to her chastity, commands him to have her with him, without any doubt, as one who had not violated her marital duty; then reveals that she conceived from the Holy Spirit. When the Son of God was to depart to Egypt from the murderous hand of Herod, the angel appeared to Joseph again and no longer called Mary his wife, but the Mother of the Child. Still twice more does the Gospel narrate the appearance of the angel to Joseph. At the appearance, more fully described, in which the return to the land of Israel was commanded, the angel again calls Mary only the Mother of the Child (Mt. 2:13, 20).

The Gospel mentions the brethren of the God-man (Jn. 7:3; Mt. 13:55); the blasphemers of the Ever-Virgin point to this circumstance as confirmation of their opinion. But the reliable Tradition of the Orthodox Church explains that the name of the brethren of the Lord was borne by the sons of the righteous Joseph, the betrothed of the Mother of God, from his first marriage. They bore the name of the brethren of the Lord in the same way in which Joseph was called his father. The Mother of God herself named Joseph thus. Having found the twelve-year-old Lord in the Temple at Jerusalem, she said to him: “Child, why have you done this to us? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety” (Lk. 2:48; cf. Lk. 4:22; Jn. 6:42). The Jews of the time, not knowing of the conception from the Holy Spirit and birth from the Virgin, recognized the God-man as the son of Joseph (Lk. 3:23); and the Mother of God, the disciples, and the near ones of the Lord concealed the great mystery from the hardened Jews, who did not hesitate to blaspheme the evident signs. What a blasphemous outcry they would have raised if the conception from the Spirit and birth from the Virgin had been revealed to them! This remained unknown to them, and according to popular opinion, Joseph was considered and called the father; consequently, his sons were considered and called the brethren of the Lord. They were in years much older than the God-man, who, consequently, could not be their firstborn.

The accusation against the holy Joseph of an attempt to violate the virginity of the Mother of God turns out to be senseless; even more incongruous is such an accusation with respect to the Mother of God herself. A thousand thousand maidens became brides of Christ, kept the seals of virginity unbroken; surely the greatest of maidens, the Bride and at the same time the Mother of God, did not do this? A thousand thousand maidens kept their virginity with the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit; surely the greatest of maidens, into whose womb the almighty God entered not through the action of grace but by His very essence, was able to do this? Did not she who was constantly in the closest communion with God do this? If the cherubim and seraphim, by their nearness to God, have their mind and heart constantly directed toward Him, cannot tear them away from Him, surely the incomparably higher than the cherubim and seraphim, surely she who conceived and bore God in her womb, who gave birth to God without pain, who nursed Him at her breast, carried Him in her arms, who spent her whole earthly life with Him, did not have her mind and heart attached to Him? Did she descend to carnal lust? No! Such a thought can be born and received only by those who have always crawled and continue to crawl in carnal lust, have never risen from it! May this blasphemous thought depart from us into the dark hell and into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels! We confess our Lady, the Mother of our God, before childbearing a Virgin, in childbearing a Virgin, after childbearing a Virgin, an Ever-Virgin. Knowing and confessing the greatness of the Mother of God, we direct our hearts toward her with unwavering faith, with the deepest reverence and, in succession from the holy Apostles, cry out to her in prayer: “O Most Holy Mother of God, help us!”

From certain passages of the Gospel it appears that the Lord answers the Mother of God, according to human judgment, coldly and severely; this again serves as a cause of stumbling for carnal minds. The unfairness of the stumbling is exposed by a spiritual examination of the actions and words of our Lord. Spiritual things must be judged spiritually, said the holy Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 2:14). The deeds and words of the Lord “are spirit and life” (Jn. 6:63). As the old Adam was carried away by affection for the old Eve and in this affection transgressed God’s commandment, so the New Adam—the Lord—shows Himself as having in view only the fulfillment of God’s will, and therefore manifests no affection at the loving concern shown to Him by the New Testament Eve. He manifests no sympathy even for this affection! Acting thus, He redeems by His dispassion the affection of the ancestor, redeems the acceptance of affection that led to sin by the rejection of affection that is sinless and natural; teaches us to guard against affections and to be led by feelings even for the most plausible reasons. The Law of God must be the lamp and guide of our conduct on our path of activity (Ps. 118:105).

The parents of the Lord—thus the Gospel calls the Mother of God and Joseph, speaking in this case according to the custom of contemporary society—had a pious custom of coming to Jerusalem every year for the Passover feast. When the Lord was twelve years old, they came to Jerusalem, taking with them the God-man Child. Having spent the days of the feast in the holy city, Mary and Joseph set out to return to their dwelling place, Nazareth, but the Child-Lord remained in Jerusalem. At first the Mother of God did not notice this, nor did Joseph: they supposed that the Lord was going with other worshippers. Having spent a whole day on the road, reaching, probably, a resting place, they began to search for Him among their relatives and acquaintances, but did not find Him, and returned to Jerusalem. There, after three days, they found the Lord in the Temple in the midst of the teachers of the law, brought into perplexity and awe by the word of God proceeding from the lips of the Child-God. The Ever-Virgin, seeing Him, uttered the tender words we have already mentioned: “Child, why have you done this to us? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” To this the Lord answered: “Why were you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” (Lk. 2:41-50). In the Lord’s answer it is evident that obligations with respect to God must be devoted wholly to thought, will, and love; obligations with respect to man have their own place, as is evident from the events that followed the answer (Lk. 2:51). When a man does not properly distribute his obligations and does not give each its due measure, then their fulfillment cannot bear the fruit of virtue; the fruit will be sins and errors, all the more dangerous because they wear an outwardly plausible appearance.

At a time when the Lord was already preaching the Gospel, in Cana, a small city of Galilee, a wedding was taking place, to which the Lord was invited with His disciples and the Mother of God (Jn. 2). The Lord sanctified the marriage and the wedding feast by His presence. In the midst of the feast there was a lack of wine. The Mother of God said to the Lord: “They have no wine.” The Lord answered her: “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” A wonderful answer concerning the fruit of the vine, which has so strong an influence on men! This is the answer that Adam should have given to Eve when she offered him to taste of the fruit forbidden by God, the deadly fruit that infected the human race with the poison of eternal death. “What have I to do with you, woman?”—such could have been Adam’s words—“You were created for me as a helper: do not become an advisor to betrayal. I am united with you by the bond of marriage into one flesh; but if you have disobeyed God—I separate from you, being united with you for serving God, not for opposing Him.” The second part of the Lord’s answer contains a deep, mysterious meaning.

The Mother of God has compassion on the wedding guests, for whom wine ran short in the midst of the feast, and wishes to remedy this lack through the divine power of her Son; God-Word, by His ineffable mercy, having descended in the form of man to fallen humanity, perishing on earth from the lack of spiritual food and drink, having brought humanity the bread of life and the new drink—His own Body and Blood, Himself, ready by His love for humanity to immediately grant this nourishment, hints at the table prepared by God and already very near, says: “My hour has not yet come.” “My hour has not yet come!”—the hour of saving sufferings has not come, the hour of the shedding of the life-giving Blood, which is destined to heal humanity from the intoxication of eternal death. The Lord desired this hour as the saving hour for men, as the hour in which He would manifest all the abundance of His love, as the hour for which He came into the world (Jn. 12:27). The petition of the Mother of God, in itself, contained nothing objectionable and was granted; from this it is evident that only by the initial rejection of the beneficent intercession of the New Testament Eve was expiated the assent of Adam to the sinful proposal of the Old Testament Eve. The meaning of the Lord’s words can be explained thus: “You are concerned with perishable food for men, but I have loved them with an incomprehensible Divine love. Guided by this love, I am ready and desire to give them for food and drink My own Body and My own Blood; but this too will be accomplished in its time, that is, in the time established and determined by the inscrutable counsel of God.” The holy Evangelist Matthew recounts that once when the Lord was teaching the people in a house, the Mother of God with the sons of Joseph, who were called the brethren of the God-man, came and waited for Him outside the house, wishing to speak with Him about something. This was reported to the Lord; but He answered: “Who is My mother and who are My brethren?” Then, pointing His hand toward His disciples, He added: “Behold, My mother and My brethren! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” (Mt. 12:46-50). Similarly, when a certain woman, hearing the wondrous teaching of the Lord, said to Him: “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which You nursed,”—the Lord answered: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” (Lk. 11:27-28).

The Lord remained constantly and uniformly faithful to His most holy service under all circumstances. “I came down from heaven,” He said, “not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (Jn. 6:38). Such divine behavior of the Lord and His divine words concerning the Mother of God do not at all diminish the dignity of the Mother of God—they exalt it. The Ever-Virgin is superior to all holy men both because she became the Mother of the God-man and because she was the most constant, the most attentive hearkener and fulfiller of the teaching proclaimed by the God-man. The first of these dignities is sealed by the second, and therefore the dignity of the Mother of God became the greatest dignity. The holy Gospel testifies of the Mother of God: “But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Lk. 2:19). This is said on the occasion of the account of the shepherds, to whom on the night of Christ’s birth an angel appeared and announced the birth of the Saviour. What is said has the following meaning: the Mother of God carefully followed all the events concerning the God-man from His birth, noticed them and treasured them in memory. Her heart served as a book for recording these events. Later the Gospel repeats its testimony: “His mother kept all these things in her heart.” (Lk. 2:51). This is already spoken of the words of the Lord. Not only did she notice with complete care the events concerning the Lord, but she noticed His very words, treasuring them in her heart, keeping them in her heart as priceless treasures in a chest, which itself became priceless because of the pricelessness of the treasures. It is not to be overlooked that the Gospel says this concerning those words of the Lord which were inaccessible to the Mother of God’s understanding at the time because of her then-spiritual state and which were explained to her later after her renewal by the Spirit. What hearing of God’s word can be stronger than that in which God’s word is placed in the heart and kept there? The holy prophet David said: “Behold, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of Me—I delight to do Your will, O My God, and Your law is within My heart.” (Ps. 39:9)—that is, within my heart. What the greatest saints of God desired to accomplish, the Mother of God, by the Divine grace granted to her, actually accomplished. And how did she accomplish it? First her heart and womb were overshadowed by the Holy Spirit; then her womb became a temple in which the Lord substantially dwelt; spiritual joy from the presence of the Lord in her embraced her whole being, as she herself testified. Ordinarily, holy joy embraces those who have been granted to sense the action of the Holy Spirit in themselves; all the more was the Mother of God filled with Divine joy. After the birth of the God-man she was in the closest relations with Him. In her arms and in her embrace He spent His infancy; she was inseparably united with Him not only in His childhood but in His youth and manhood, until His entrance into His Divine ministry, which lasted three and a half years. No one else was such a close hearer of God’s word and for such a prolonged time as the Mother of God; no one followed the words and deeds of the God-man with such deep and constant attention; no one kept them with such care and love. We have contemplated the behavior of the Lord toward the Mother of God at the marriage in Cana of Galilee; let us attend also to the behavior of the Mother of God toward the God-man. Having received to her petition a stern answer, she understood it quite differently than those who are scandalized by it. She did not see in this answer a rejection of her intercession and therefore turns to those serving at the feast and says to them: “Whatever He says to you,” (the Lord), “do it.” (Jn. 2:5). Following this instruction of the Mother of God, the God-man turned water into wine.

During the last three and a half years of the Lord’s stay on earth, the Mother of God could not be constantly with Him. During this time the Lord went about the land of Judea to proclaim the Gospel to men; but even during this time the Mother of God often saw Him and often followed Him among His disciples and female disciples, listening to His most holy teaching, to which she had acquired the habit of insatiable hunger. Especially steadfastly was she with Him during His sufferings. The Mother of God shared the sufferings of the God-man, participating in them in the most vivid and real way. As the old Eve in Paradise made the old Adam a partaker of her transgression, so the New Adam made the new Eve a partaker of the sufferings that redeemed the transgression of the forefathers. The Mother of God during the sufferings of the Lord and because of these sufferings was permitted to experience a most terrible sorrow. Sorrow pierced her heart like a deadly weapon (Lk. 2:35).

When the Lord had accomplished the redemption of mankind and was about to seal the redemptive work by His voluntary death while hanging on the cross, the Mother of God stood by the Lord and by His cross, together with John, the beloved disciple of the Lord. The Lord had already accomplished the redemption of mankind; He was already giving birth to mankind into new life through His pre-mortal sufferings; He was ready to accomplish this birth by His death. Having thus become the Progenitor of renewed humanity, taking the place of the ancestor for it, who was incapable because of the fall of bearing children to salvation and bore them only to perdition, the Lord suddenly turns to the Mother of God standing before Him, to the sharer of His sufferings for the redemption of mankind, and places her in the rights belonging to her with respect to mankind, the rights bestowed upon her by the God-man and by all her relations to the God-man. He declares her to be the Mother of the beloved disciple and in him of the whole renewed humanity, according to the understanding and explanation of the Fathers. Just as the Lord took the place of Adam, so He placed the Mother of God in the place of Eve. Eve, though created a virgin, transgressed God’s commandment and could not retain in herself the holy feeling of virginity; her subjection to her husband was announced to her as one of her penalties. The Mother of God, though conceived and born in the sin of the forefathers, prepared herself through chaste and God-pleasing life to be a vessel of God. Having become the vessel of God, she remained free from any thought of or sympathy with the desire of a husband, from the beast-like union to which, Scripture teaches us, women submitted as a result of the fall. Constant communion with God, who was also the Son of the Ever-Virgin, continually nourished her with heavenly, spiritual, and holy thoughts and feelings. The Apostle Paul said: “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with the Lord.” (1 Cor. 6:17). These words were fulfilled in all their fullness in the Mother of God, were fulfilled in her more and more abundantly than in all the holy virgins and holy maidens among the chosen humanity. The Mother of God was a Virgin before giving birth to the God-man, remained a Virgin in the very act of giving birth, remained a Virgin after giving birth. She did not know the desire for a husband, because she was wholly and completely drawn to God, united with God.”