Perpetual Virginity of Mary

[Anonymous No.21760636]

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary is an interesting tradition of the early Church but it should not be a dogma. At best it should be adiaphora (i.e. an idea to which the Church is indifferent). Change my mind.

The arguments I have read in favour of it typically revolve around overinterpretations of wordings. For example:
>Jerome's weirdly vulgar defence of it, a key part of which hinges on 'until' in Matthew 1:25
("but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus") not necessarily meaning that they had sex afterwards
>The argument repeated by JP2 that Luke 1:34 is written in the present tense in the Greek ( translated as "How can this be, as I am a virgin [literally: do not know man]?" / "Quomodo fiet istud, quoniam virum non cognosco?"), it means she took a permanent vow of chastity, i.e. "I by choice do not have sex in general [and never will]"
>Jesus being described in 2:7 as Mary's first-born rather than 'only' son, against which they argue that 'first-born' doesn't technically imply further children were born

These points are all technically arguable on semantic grounds but they seem pretty thin to me, and strike me as people looking for the doctrine in the text rather than the other way around. There also seem to have been plenty of people arguing against it in the early Church too (e.g. Jovinian), so it was far from a settled matter early on. It seems just to be logical gymnastics resulting from an assumption in the early church that virginity > marriage (i.e. if Mary wasn't a virgin it would mean she was in some way inferior to virgins).

Some of the story elements seem to come from the Protoevangelium of James (e.g. Mary's hymen being completely intact even after the birth), which is non-canonical. It feel like the infancy gospels became pious tradition early on (or were derived from it) and then these non-canonical traditions were 'found' in the canonical texts in slightly strained ways.

But even leaving that aside, lets assume these points are reasonable. Why is it relevant to our salvation? Why do we need to believe that Mary's hymen was intact post-birth in order to understand the gospel and master ourselves? It just seems completely irrelevant.

Unironically I welcome anyone that can change my mind on this. I've been Catholic my whole life but this feels like a strong impasse to me, I just don't believe it.

[࿇ C Œ M G E N V S ࿇ !KNDY/Ar.iI No.21760670]

1. THIS IS THE LITERATURE BOARD; THIS IS A TOPIC APTER FOR /his/.

2. YOU HAVE ALREADY CONVINCED YOURSELF THAT IT IS NOT REAL: WHY WASTE INTELLECTUAL ENERGY ATTEMPTING TO ARGUE AGAINST YOU?

THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, MOTHER OF GOD, IS ETERNALLY VIRGIN, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER YOU BELIEVE IT, IN SÆCVLA SÆCVLORVM.

[Anonymous No.21760679]

>>21760670
The topic is literally discussing the meaning implied in specific texts, that is /lit/

If you don't wish to answer the question then why waste intellectual energy making this post (with a trip, no less)?

Become, cumpenis

[Anonymous No.21760833]

Damn, I kinda trust the church fathers more than you.

[Anonymous No.21760856]

>>21760636
>but it should not be a dogma
It already is a dogma

[Anonymous No.21760903]

>>21760833
Okay, what's your understanding of the necessity of it being a dogma then?

>>21760856
Yes and I'm asking why it was necessary (or even fitting) to make that a dogma

[Anonymous No.21760911]

>>21760670
Based

[Anonymous No.21760930]

A different way to phrase this question:

Regardless of the accuracy of the belief, why does our salvation hinge on believing it? Given that disbelieving a dogma constitutes a mortal sin. It has no bearing on Christ's message whatsoever.

Again, this is not a troll post, I'm asking the question because I want to understand the position better from the Church's perspective

[Anonymous No.21760936]

>>21760930
>mortal sin

And excommunication, incidentally

https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/55336/catholicism-consequences-of-not-believing-in-all-dogmas