Did Matthew 1:25 Imply Mary’s Perpetual Virginity?

A Comprehensive Linguistic and Pragmatic Analysis

J. Neil Daniels

The question of whether Mary remained perpetually a virgin after the birth of Christ is not a matter of idle speculation but has long stood at the heart of the differing exegetical traditions that divide Protestants and Roman Catholics. At the center of this dispute is the text of Matthew 1:25, which declares that Joseph “did not know her until (ἕως οὗ, heōs hou) she gave birth to a son.” The interpretive fault line runs along the force of the conjunction heōs hou. Does the phrase simply set a temporal boundary, indicating that Joseph refrained from sexual relations with Mary only up to the point of Christ’s birth? Or does it leave open the possibility of continued abstention thereafter, and thus lend credence to the dogma of Mary’s perpetual virginity?

The Catholic position, articulated most famously by Jerome in the fourth century, maintains that the text is compatible with the claim that Joseph and Mary never consummated their union. Jerome appealed to biblical parallels—most notably 2 Samuel 6:23, which states that “Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child until the day of her death”—arguing that heōs does not necessarily imply a subsequent change of state. Helvidius, by contrast, insisted that the natural implication of the phrase is that normal marital relations commenced after Jesus’ birth. The Reformation largely sided with Helvidius, and in the modern period, scholars such as Eric Svendsen, deploying both corpus analysis and pragmatic theory, have provided renewed support for this reading. In what follows, I shall argue that the linguistic evidence, combined with the pragmatic rules governing natural conversation, overwhelmingly favors the Protestant interpretation.

Jerome and Helvidius: An Ancient Controversy

The earliest recorded debate on the matter, that between Jerome and Helvidius in the late fourth century, already framed the essential terms of the discussion. Helvidius contended that heōs hou must be read in its straightforward temporal sense: Joseph abstained from sexual relations with Mary only until she gave birth, after which the marriage would have followed its expected course. Jerome’s counterargument rested upon the broader semantic range of “until.” He insisted that the term could delimit a period without making any claim about what followed it. His favorite example was Michal, who is said to have had no children “until the day of her death” (2 Sam 6:23). Clearly, Jerome reasoned, the phrase does not imply that she bore children after death.

Two difficulties arise, however, with Jerome’s argument. First, the case of Michal involves heōs in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures composed centuries before the New Testament and reflecting different linguistic conventions. That construction is not identical to the heōs hou found in Matthew 1:25. Second, Jerome’s appeal overlooks the contextual difference: Michal’s barrenness is bound up with the finality of death, whereas Joseph’s abstention is temporally linked to an event—the birth of Christ—that by its very nature does not carry finality but signals the completion of a unique period. Thus, Jerome’s analogy is strained, even if rhetorically potent.

Svendsen’s Linguistic Contribution

The modern debate took a decisive turn with Eric Svendsen’s doctoral dissertation, later published as Who Is My Mother? His study distinguished among three principal Greek constructions rendered as “until”: heōs alone, heōs an, and heōs hou. A corpus analysis spanning two centuries before and after Christ demonstrated that heōs hou, when used in contexts comparable to Matthew’s narrative, consistently signals a boundary that marks the cessation of the prior state once the subsequent event occurs.^1

To illustrate, consider Matthew 17:9, where Jesus tells the disciples, “Do not tell anyone what you have seen until (heōs hou) the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” Here the prohibition clearly ends with the resurrection. Likewise, in Luke 24:49, the disciples are instructed, “Stay in the city until (heōs hou) you are clothed with power from on high.” Again, the command terminates at the specified event, after which a new course of action begins. In no case does heōs hou imply that the prior condition continues indefinitely.

By contrast, the simpler heōs may at times bear a more indeterminate sense, and heōs an introduces conditional or indefinite elements. Thus, the precise form in Matthew 1:25 is decisive. If Matthew had intended to say nothing about what followed the birth of Christ, he might have employed heōs alone. Instead, he chose heōs hou, a construction that, as Svendsen shows, almost invariably carries the implication of a state that ends once its temporal boundary is reached.^2

Pragmatic Considerations: The Gricean Framework

Beyond the linguistic data lies the realm of pragmatics, the study of how language functions in context. Here the insights of H. P. Grice prove particularly illuminating.^3 Grice’s Cooperative Principle, along with his four conversational maxims—quality, quantity, relation, and manner—offers a lens through which to interpret Matthew’s wording.

Under the maxim of quantity, speakers provide neither too much nor too little information. If Matthew had intended to teach Mary’s perpetual virginity, he would likely have stated it directly, for the idea is hardly trivial. Instead, he wrote that Joseph “did not know her until she had given birth to a son.” The most natural inference, given Grice’s maxims, is that the abstention lasted only until the specified event. To suggest otherwise would violate the expectation that the narrator is providing just the information required to understand the situation.

This inference is further strengthened by the maxim of relevance. The point of the statement in Matthew 1:25 is to stress the virginal conception of Christ. Once that theological point is secured, the narrative has no further reason to emphasize sexual abstention. The reader, guided by conversational implicature, naturally assumes that after the birth, normal marital relations began.

Catholic Counterarguments and Their Weaknesses

Roman Catholic apologists frequently appeal to other biblical passages where “until” appears without implying a change of state. For example, Genesis 8:7 describes the raven that went “to and fro until the waters were dried up,” yet the bird did not necessarily return after the waters receded. Likewise, Deuteronomy 34:6 notes that no one knows Moses’ burial place “until this day,” without suggesting that the site later became known. Such examples are marshaled to argue that “until” can delimit a period without entailing anything beyond it.^4

Yet these cases do not parallel Matthew 1:25 in their linguistic form. They employ heōs without the particle hou, or else reflect Hebrew idioms translated into Greek. The distinctive feature of Matthew’s construction is precisely the compound heōs hou, which in first-century usage consistently demarcates a boundary beyond which the prior condition ceases. When examined within its own semantic and syntactic category, Matthew 1:25 aligns more closely with texts like Matthew 17:9 and Luke 24:49 than with Old Testament idioms translated into Greek.

Context also matters. In Matthew 1:18, the evangelist has already stated that Mary was found to be with child “before they came together.” Such phrasing presupposes that coming together in the marital sense was the expected norm. To assert that they “did not know each other until she gave birth” therefore carries the natural implication that after the birth, the ordinary consummation of marriage followed. Were Matthew attempting to suggest perpetual abstention, this phrasing would be at best misleading, at worst deceptive.

Broader Theological and Historical Considerations

The linguistic and pragmatic evidence is decisive in its own right, but the broader theological and historical considerations reinforce the point. The notion of Mary’s perpetual virginity does not arise in the New Testament itself but develops later within the patristic tradition. Jerome’s polemic against Helvidius reflects not the unanimous consensus of the early church but a theological trajectory already shaped by ascetic ideals and Marian devotion. Even within the patristic corpus, voices existed—Tertullian being one of the more prominent—that did not affirm perpetual virginity.

Moreover, Matthew’s concern in the infancy narrative is not to elevate Mary as an exemplar of perpetual virginity but to emphasize the miraculous origin of Jesus. The virginal conception secures his divine sonship; once that fact is established, the narrative has no reason to forestall the ordinary course of marital life. In this respect, Matthew’s presentation is pragmatic and restrained, fitting the Jewish context of the first century rather than the later cultic veneration of Mary.

Conclusion: The Force of Heōs Hou

The accumulated evidence thus points in a single direction. The construction heōs hou in Matthew 1:25 marks the termination of Joseph’s abstention at the point of Jesus’ birth. Pragmatic theory corroborates this reading, for if the evangelist had intended to teach perpetual virginity, he would not have employed a form that naturally implies cessation. Catholic counterarguments, often drawn from Old Testament examples, collapse upon closer inspection of the distinctive Greek construction.

What remains, then, is a text that insists upon the virginal conception of Christ while simultaneously affirming the normality of Joseph and Mary’s marriage thereafter. Far from endorsing perpetual virginity, Matthew’s narrative bears the stamp of ordinary linguistic usage and conversational economy. It communicates precisely what it must to secure the doctrine of the incarnation, and no more. The burden of proof rests with those who would press upon Matthew a meaning alien to his grammar, his context, and his communicative intent.

Endnotes

Eric Svendsen, Who Is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism (Amherst, NY: Calvary Press, 2001), originally a doctoral dissertation. Available for free PDF download here: https://repository.nwu.ac.za/bitstream
Ibid., esp. 122–35.
H. P. Grice, “Logic and Conversation,” in Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts, ed. Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (New York: Academic Press, 1975), 41–58.
E.g., Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on “Romanism” by “Bible Christians” (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988).