Mary And Joseph Never Had Sex

The last congregation I served in the full-time capacity of shepherd or pastor summarized its central mission in this way: to bring the Living Word of Christ to the family and the family to Christ the Living Word. In this way the members of that church emphasized the centrality of family and family relationships.

Family relationships are defined in several ways in the Bible. As we opened the seventh chapter of John we immediately came upon a problem.

For not even his brothers believed in him. - Jhn 7:5 ESV

Who were Jesus' brothers? In an earlier blog I have pointed to one established interpretation that says Jesus had no blood brothers. He was an only child. In fact, Joseph and Mary had a platonic relationship throughout their marriage. She was always a virgin! One website I found proposes platonic relationships as a kind of ideal. It is a relationship . . .

. . . where you have a deep mindful and emotional connection with either a member of the opposite sex OR with a friend you build trust with (who may even be of the same sex), without the expectation or any possible initiative of a sexual favor or interaction.

The Biblical problem with this is that it militates strongly against the Jewish culture of Jesus' day, a culture in which children and family were considered one of the great blessings of God. As pilgrims made their way up to Jerusalem to celebrate one of the three great annual festival gatherings they would sing Ps. 128.

Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD. The LORD bless you from Zion! May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life! May you see your children's children! Peace be upon Israel! - Psalm 128:1-6 ESV

And then you have many stories about women who could or could not bear children. In Genesis 29-30 you find the strange story of envy and jealousy between Jacob's two wives. After Leah had borne four sons to Jacob, Rachel pleaded with him, "Give me children, or I shall die!" - Gen 30:1 ESV. The point, of course, is that she saw the bearing and raising of children as her primary task in life. It was the way by which the LORD blessed her. She had to have children or die!

However, in medieval times this positive view of sex within marriage shifted, in large part due to the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo.

Throughout the Confessions, the language Augustine uses to describe his sexual impulses is negative, reflecting images of disease, disorder, and corruption. Desire is mud (2.2, 3.1), a whirlpool (2.2), chains (2.2, 3.1) thorns (2.3), a seething cauldron (3.1), and an open sore that must be scratched (3.1). Desire for Augustine is almost a compulsion, an irrational impulse that he feels incapable of controlling without God's help, a bondage that he is too weak to escape. Desire becomes the last obstacle between Augustine and a complete commitment to God, because he is certain he cannot live a celibate life.

Augustine's view of sex—even within marriage—strongly influenced the interpretation of passages about Jesus' brothers such as the one quoted above. Surely Mary, the Mother of mothers, the pure and holy one who gave birth to our Lord, could never have been sullied with evil, ugly, irrational, sinful sexual desires. Surely she never had sex with Joseph. Surely she never bore other children. Hers was a holy life, a life without sex, devoted completely and totally to the raising of her one holy Son! That was her single-minded mission in life. In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pope Pius IX declared that Mary was herself immaculately conceived without sin. This is defined by Catholic Answers:  

Like all other descendants of Adam, she was subject to the necessity of contracting original sin. But by a special intervention of God, undertaken at the instant she was conceived, she was preserved from the stain of original sin and its consequences. She was therefore redeemed by the grace of Christ, but in a special way—by anticipation

What follows then is the teaching that Mary above all lived a holy—and sexless—life. And Joseph, supremely patient and understanding, supported her by never demanding that she act as his wife to satisfy and fulfill his desires in the marriage relationship. In this connection, the Apostle has these words in his letter to the believers in Corinth:

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman." But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. - 1Cr 7:1-7 ESV

Apparently Joseph had the gift from God. He too didn't need sex. More on this another time.