Barbara wrote:Are you sure that Calvin also acknowledged the Ever-Virginity of Our Heavenly Queen ? I think it was only Luther who did...Luther was not as radical as Calvin was in rejecting ALL the tenets of the Catholic Church. Calvin was extreme.
Yes, Calvin did hold to some very Catholic doctrinal truths, which the vast majority of his spiritual spawn later renounced as heresy, and the Evervirginity of Mary is one of them:
Calvin argues that in Matthew 1:25 ("[Joseph] knew her [Mary] not till she had brought forth her firstborn son") the term "firstborn" and the conjunction "till" do not contradict the doctrine of perpetual virginity, but the Bible does not tell us what happened to Mary afterwards.[3]
At the same time, Calvin argues that the claims that Mary took a vow of perpetual virginity in Luke 1:34 ("How shall this be, since I know not a man?") is "unfounded and altogether absurd," and moreover he says that, had she taken such a vow, "[s]he would, in that case, have committed treachery by allowing herself to be united to a husband, and would have poured contempt on the holy covenant of marriage...."[4] Although Algermissen suggests that Calvin believed that Mary in this verse looked into the future and recognized, that in light of this special grace, any contact with a man would be excluded for her,[5] this interpretation takes an objection Calvin is refuting in his commentary and makes it his own position.[6]
And again:
"Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ."8 Calvin translated "brothers" in this context to mean cousins or relatives.
"It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor."9http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apo ... l/mary.htm
And again, Calvin believed we ought to venerate the Virgin Mary:
Veneration of Mary[edit]
Calvin had genuine respect for Mary and saw her as a model for faith. "To this day we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honour to Mary, in willing her to be the mother of his only-begotten Son". The genuine respect for Mary in Calvin's writing, and his attempt to express his Marian convictions to the faithful of his day in his explanations of the epistles is not fully known or shared by Reformed Protestants after John Calvin.[19]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calv ... on_of_Mary
And other reformation fathers had similar views. Witness the words of Ulrich Zwingli:
"It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God."11
"I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin."12 Zwingli used Exodus 4:22 to defend the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
"I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary."13
"Christ ... was born of a most undefiled Virgin."14
"It was fitting that such a holy Son should have a holy Mother."15
"The more the honor and love of Christ increases among men, so much the esteem and honor given to Mary should grow."16 http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apo ... l/mary.htm
As for Luther, perhaps the Reformer least opposed to the honours the Church gives to the Virgin Mary, he ascribed to her ever-virginity, and veneration, and -- at least in the last sermon he ever preached at Wittenburg, he said that it was not entirely unfitting to ask her to hear our petitions:
Throughout his life Luther maintained without change the historic Christian affirmation that Mary was the Mother of God:
"She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God ... It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God."1
Again throughout his life Luther held that Mary's perpetual virginity was an article of faith for all Christians - and interpreted Galatians 4:4 to mean that Christ was "born of a woman" alone.
"It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a Virgin."2
"The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart."5
"Is Christ only to be adored? Or is the holy Mother of God rather not to be honoured? This is the woman who crushed the Serpent's head. Hear us. For your Son denies you nothing."6 Luther made this statement in his last sermon at Wittenberg in January 1546.
