Edition Hide
De Virginitate B. Mariae

7.

Helvidius.—"Haec, ais, apud me nugae sunt. et argumentationes superfluae, et disputatio magis curiosa, quam vera. Numquid non potuit Scriptura dicere: Et accepit uxorem suam, et non fuit amplius ausus contingere eam (Gen. XXXVIII, 26): sicut de Thamar dixit et Juda? Aut defuerunt Matthaeo verba quibus id quod intelligi volebat, posset effari? Non cognovit, inquit, eam donec peperit filium (Matth. I, 25). Post partum ergo cognovit, cujus cognitionem ad partum usque distulerat."

Translation Hide
The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary

9.

Helvidius will answer, “What you say, is in my opinion mere trifling. Your arguments are so much waste of time, and the discussion shows more subtlety than truth. Why could not Scripture say, as it said of Thamar and Judah, ¹‘And he took his wife, and knew her again no more’? Could not Matthew find words to express his meaning? ‘He knew her not,’ he says, ‘until she brought forth a son.’ He did then, after her delivery, know her, whom he had refrained from knowing until she was delivered.”