Okay, okay. I know people are tiring of our little back and forth about the issue of Mary’s perpetual virginity, and I know Mr. Murphy seems to have delivered the coup de grace in his last letter, but I’d like one more crack at the issue. Please indulge me.

Mr. Murphy once again listed all of the instances of references to Jesus’ “brothers” and correctly pointed out that the original Greek of the New Testament used the word “adelphos,” brother, instead of the word for cousin, “anepsios.”

There is the undeniable fact that there was no word for “cousin” in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. Mr. Murphy assumes that the early writer or translator used the Greek term for brother because he knew that “aha” in Aramaic could only mean blood brother. But, there are alternative explanations just as reasonable as Mr. Murphy’s.

First, the translator could have been a bit lazy and neglected to figure out exactly when he should use “adelphos” or “anepsios.”

Second, it is also an undeniable fact that Jews did refer to cousins, kinsfolk, and indeed any other male Jew as “brother” because they considered themselves part of the same extended family.

So, the translator may have also been using the correct word because “brothers” more accurately represented the sentiment of the word “aha” than “cousins,” even if it wasn’t mean to denote the idea of a blood brother.

Mr. Murphy cites the passage that refers to Jesus’ brothers “James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon” and goes on to say that this proves Jesus had four brothers. But, there’s no way “James” could be Jesus’ brother. There were only two apostles named James. One was clearly identified as the son of Zebedee, and the other the son of Alphaeus, so he could not have been Jesus’ blood brother (also notice that never are any of the so-called brothers in the New Testament identified as the “son of Mary, wife of Joseph” or “son of Joseph”).

Let’s move beyond these issues to one of authority. I think it’s interesting that Mr. Murphy on one hand tells us to not trust authority in the form of the Catholic Church, or any church for that matter, yet on the other hand quotes J.B. Lightfoot as an authority to bolster his position. Which is it, Mr. Murphy: do we trust authority or not?

My answer would be that yes, we must trust authority because we and other individuals are prone to error. My authority is the Catholic Church, which has been consistent on this issue and every other matter of faith and morals for 2,000 years, including the key issue of which books belong in the Bible.

Mr. Murphy’s point about St. Jerome not defending Mary’s perpetual virginity until the 4th century is also interesting. He seems to imply that this fact establishes that the teaching dates only from the 4th century and was therefore probably made up.

But the opposite is true. St. Jerome had to defend the teaching because for the first time in recorded history the notion of Mary’s perpetual virginity was being denied by one Helvidius. The novel, new teaching in the 4th century was therefore that of Helvidius, not Jerome. He was simply defending that which had been held to be true for nearly four centuries.

Let us return to the Bible for the final point. Mr. Murphy rightly claims the Bible as the source of authority. So does the Bible anywhere say that individual interpretation is the way to understand God’s will?

No. Nothing in the Bible even comes close to supporting individual interpretation. Rather, Christ affirms ecclesiastical authority when he, in the midst of endless, stinging criticisms of the Jewish religious leadership, nevertheless affirms the principle of authority. He says: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach” (Matt 23: 1-3).

In fact, the Bible nowhere claims itself as the primary source of authority. Instead, you have St. Paul affirming that the Church is the “pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Tim 3:15), after having earlier exhorted over and over the Corinthians to resolve their problems through the authority of the Church.

Jesus did not reject the concept of tradition outright. He rejected it specifically when it was wrong and cautioned us to distinguish between the mere and flawed traditions of men and true tradition as embodied in God’s duly instituted authority on earth.

To wit, churchmen have been wrong about many things, and still are from time to time. They are human and imperfect. But never has wrong teaching or certain devotional practices and traditions been raised to the level of solemn teaching on faith and morals.

Those, including the teachings about Mary, have been cared for and proclaimed without alteration for 2,000 years by the Catholic Church.

I trust the Church, believe it was established by Christ for this purpose (“on this rock I build my church”) and have no reason to doubt its sincerity or motives. (Interestingly, what good does the veneration of Mary do for the supposedly sexist Catholic Church, which elevates a woman as the greatest and most perfect disciple of Christ?)

But if you only rely on your own interpretation or that of a 19th-century English scholar, then you are indeed correct to distrust “the teachings of men.”

Trey Hoffman

Peachtree City, Ga.

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