Virgin birth

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virgin birth — a woman giving birth without documented involvement of a male figure in the act of conception (attested e.g. by an intact hymen) — is a widespread and well-known religious and cultural motif. It belongs to the category of portents and magic signs that announce the extra-ordinary event of a divinity entering into a human body (theophany). For example, (mahayanic) versions of the life of Buddha recount that his mother conceived him when a white elephant touched her thigh; and the Persian divinity Zoroaster is said to have been born from a virgin. Stories of mythical conceptions, such as the goddess Aphrodite's from the foam of the sea, or that of the hero Perseus, who was conceived by a golden rain emanating from Zeus, are different: here, the act of conception is present, if only metaphorically.

In Christianity, virgin birth assumed a special centrality parallel to the role of virginity itself. Christ assumed human form, that is became incarnate, when the Word of God penetrated Mary, a virgin, and thus made her fertile. (Some early sources suggest that Mary herself had been conceived without intercourse on the part of her mother Anna; this is the Immaculate Conception and not virgin birth.) Paul mentions only that Jesus was born from a woman (Galatians 4: 4); but the Gospels of Matthew (1: 18–25) and Luke (1: 26–38) emphasize that no human was involved in his conception: God himself, through his Spirit, generated his Son. Interpretations of this phenomenon vary widely, and were subject of many debates throughout the first centuries of Christianity. At stake was, for example, whether or not Mary had been a virgin before, during, or again after her birth; this was relevant in order to ascertain whether Christ had just assumed the form of a human being temporarily, or had fully become human. Since the councils of Ephesos (431) and Chalcedon (451), Mary is seen as theotokos, as ‘God-bearer’, and therefore as having been a virgin at all stages. The great medieval scholar Thomas Aquinas, among many others, re-examined the pro and contra of this definition, and declared that Mary must have been a virgin because of the ‘honour of the Father, who sent Christ’, and the ‘nature of the Son’, that is their divinity — however, he did not think that Mary was a virgin while giving birth. Mary's virginity despite her motherhood remained a central and well-liked tenet of faith in Christianity. It was not challenged in the Reformation, though the reform principles considerably lessened its centrality, together with that of Mary herself. However, as a symbol of Christ's divinity, and as such a unique act, his virgin birth retains its theological power.

Susanna Elm

virgin birth The assertion in the gospels of Matthew and Luke that Jesus was born of Mary without the intervention of a human partner. The pregnancy was initiated by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1: 18; Luke 1: 35). The earliest writers in the NT (Mark and Paul) show no knowledge of such a virginal conception, and it is suggested that the narratives are a midrash on the LXX of Isa. 7: 14 which prophesies a birth from a ‘virgin’ (in the Greek). The Greek parthenos was used to translate the Hebrew almah, which means a ‘young woman’, and is so translated at Isa. 7: 14 by NRSV, REB, NJB, thus correcting the ‘virgin’ of AV, RV. But modern translations of Matt. 1: 23 correctly translate the Greek parthenos by ‘virgin’ because Matt. is quoting the LXX. As early as the 2nd cent. CE the Jewish controversialist Trypho was pointing out that the Hebrew did not mean a virgin but that Isa. 7: 14 was referring to the natural birth of Hezekiah. Indeed the LXX went out of favour with Greek-speaking Jews, who opted for the literal translation by Aquila in the early 2nd cent. CE. Later in the 2nd cent. the pagan philosopher Celsus claimed that Jesus' father was Panthera, a Roman soldier.

The narratives in Matt. and Luke are very different from the exuberant birth stories of heroes in Hellenistic literature. But since historical enquiries cannot settle the truth or otherwise of the gospels' accounts, theological arguments are brought in. In favour of the traditional doctrine it is argued that it is appropriate as a means by which God made a decisive break with the old, sinful humanity and inaugurated in Jesus a new, untainted humanity. The miracle of the birth came to be regarded as a sign of the divine nature of Jesus, while the birth itself indicated true humanity (and as an argument against Docetism it was included in the creeds). On the other hand, some modern theologians argue that the doctrine must imply that the humanity of Jesus was somehow impaired, since with only one parent he could not have been a fully male human being. If Jesus was provided miraculously with chromosomes, specially created by God, with no human ancestry, how did he have a human inheritance, of the house of David (Matt. 1: 17, 20; Rom. 1: 3)?

Virgin Birth of Christ. The Christian doctrine that Jesus was conceived by the Virgin Mary by the operation of the Holy Spirit and without sexual relations with a man (one should strictly speak of ‘virginal conception’; that Mary remained a virgin even in giving birth is a later idea).

Among modern Christians belief in the virgin birth is often taken as a touchstone of orthodoxy, both by Catholics, for whom it is involved with mariology, and Protestants. Some liberal theologians have criticized the doctrine as setting Christ's humanity apart from ours. They have also drawn attention to the widespread claim of virgin births in many religions (e.g. Mahāmāyā and the Buddha, Kuntī/Pṛtha and Karna, Zoroaster and the saviour, Saoshyant), and have suggested that this is a reverential theme introduced for apologetic reasons. Even stronger criticisms have been made by feminist writers and theologians, who point out that Mary is not even accorded the participation of parthenogenesis if perpetual virginity (see above) is affirmed.

virgin birth Christian doctrine teaching that the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit and without the involvement of a human male. That Jesus had no earthly father is a basic tenet of Roman Catholicism, all the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and most Protestant Churches.