Virgin_," and in this sentiment all
Catholic tradition concurs.

There is a propriety which suggests itself to every Christian in Mary's
remaining a Virgin after the birth of Jesus, for, as Bishop Bull of the
Protestant Episcopal Church of England remarks, "It cannot with decency be
imagined that the most holy vessel which was once consecrated to be a
receptacle of the Deity should be afterwards desecrated and profaned by
human use." The learned Grotius, Calvin and other eminent Protestant
writers hold the same view.

The doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary is now combated by
Protestants, as it was in the early days of the Church by Helvidius and
Jovinian, on the following grounds:

First--The Evangelist says that "Joseph took unto him his wife, and he knew
her not _till_ she brought forth her first-born son."(223) This sentence
suggests to dissenters that other children besides Jesus were born to
Mary. But the qualifying word _till_ by no means implies that the chaste
union which had subsisted between Mary and Joseph up to the birth of our
Lord was subsequently altered. The Protestant Hooker justly complains of
the early heretics as having "abused greatly these words of Matthew,
gathering against the honor of the Blessed Virgin, that a thing denied
with special circumstance doth import an opposite affirmation when once
that circumstance is expired."(224) To express Hooker's idea in plainer
words, when a thing is said not to have occurred until another event had
happened, it does not necessarily follow that it did occur after that
event took place.

The Scripture says that the raven went forth from the ark, "and did not
return _till_ the waters were dried up upon the earth"(225)--that is, it
never returned. "Samuel saw Saul no more _till_ the day of his
death."(226) He did not, of course, see him after death. "The Lord said to
my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand _until_ I make thy enemies thy
footstool."(227) These words apply to our Savior, who did not cease to sit
at the right of God after His enemies were subdued.

Second--But Jesus is called Mary's _first-born_ Son, and does not a
first-born always imply the subsequent birth of other children to the same
mother? By no means; for the name of first-born was given to the first son
of every Jewish mother, whether other children followed or not. We find
this epithet applied to Machir, for instance, who was the only son of
Manasses.(228)

Third--But is not