Did Mary take a vow of virginity? The question of Lk 1:34 and the theologians’ answer

Did Mary take a vow of virginity? Theological tradition answers yes, but it is divided about the manner and the moment. The common opinion of the schools holds that Mary made a vow of virginity and that she was the first woman to do so. Thomas Aquinas, however, introduces a decisive distinction: before the betrothal there was the desire, not yet an absolute vow.

The question is not devotional, it is exegetical and scholastic. It arises from a single sentence of the Gospel of Luke, and the answer determines how one understands Mary’s marriage to Joseph and the perpetual virginity of Mary itself. What follows gathers the works of the library of Locus Mariologicus, including those that deny the vow.

What is at stake in the question of Lk 1:34?

The whole debate is concentrated on Mary’s answer to the angel Gabriel: “πῶς ἔσται τοῦτο, ἐπεὶ ἄνδρα οὐ γινώσκω;”, in literal translation “how shall this be, since I do not know man?”. The Vulgate renders it “quomodo fiet istud, quoniam virum non cognosco?”. The technical point lies in the tense of the verb: γινώσκω is present, and not past. Mary does not say that she has not known man up to that moment, she says that she does not know man, and she says it already after being betrothed to Joseph.

Hence the difficulty that occupied theologians for centuries. If Mary was betrothed and expected to live out the marriage, the question would be superfluous, because the announced conception could come about in the ordinary way. The objection becomes reasonable only if there is, on her part, a firm purpose. This is the reason why tradition introduced the category of vow at this point.

The common thesis of the schools: Mary was the first to make the vow

The clearest formulation is found in a classic manual, the Compendium of Mariology by I. Keuppens, of 1946, which devotes a thesis of its own to the question, stated in Latin as “utrum Maria omnium prima votum perpetuum virginitatis emiserit”, that is, “whether Mary, the first of all, made a perpetual vow of virginity”. Keuppens’s answer is affirmative, and the proposition he defends says that the Blessed Virgin made, before all others in time and in perfection, the vow of virginity. Keuppens adds a useful datum from the history of theology: it is the “sententia communissima”, the most common opinion, which Gabriel Vásquez went so far as to call most true.

It is not, therefore, a marginal opinion. Luigi Gambero, in studying the medieval Latin theologians, sums up why this thesis seemed so attractive to the scholastics: “se il dono della maternità divina è venuto a Maria esclusivamente da Dio, quello della verginità risulta anche il frutto dell’iniziativa di lei”, that is, “if the gift of divine motherhood came to Mary exclusively from God, that of virginity results also from the fruit of her own initiative”. The vow is the way of saying that Mary’s virginity was not a state of fact, but a personal and free act.

The collective work published on the Sixteenth Centenary of the Council of Capua, by Giovanni Liccardo, Franco Ruotolo, and Sergio Tanzarella, gathers the same insistence in a Spanish theologian of the second scholasticism, who speaks of “voluntas servandi virginitatem”, the will to preserve virginity, and comments: “Maria ha voluto essere e rimanere vergine. La sua volontà è stata efficace amore della castità, non una velleità o vaga tendenza alla santità della vita”, “Mary willed to be and to remain a virgin. Her will was an efficacious love of chastity, not a velleity or a vague tendency toward holiness of life”.

Thomas Aquinas made a distinction that many forget

Here is the point at which the sources diverge, and the divergence deserves to be noted rather than harmonized. Francisco Morgott and Gabino Chávez, in the Mariología tomística, state that “Santo Tomás no duda ni un instante que la virgen haya hecho este voto”, “Saint Thomas does not doubt for an instant that the Virgin made this vow”, and that he finds the proof in the character of the Mother of God and in Lk 1:34.

Francisco Canals Vidal, however, reads the same Thomas with greater precision and shows that Aquinas denies precisely what many attribute to him. According to Canals Vidal, Thomas does not hold that the Mother of God, before being betrothed to Joseph, had made an absolute vow of virginity, but that, even though she had it in desire, “confió sobre esto su voluntad al divino arbitrio”, “she entrusted her will in this matter to the divine judgment”. The reference is the commentary on the Sentences, book IV, distinction 30, question 2, article 1.

The word vow designates here two distinct things. One is the interior purpose of virginity, prior to the betrothal and submitted to the will of God. The other is the absolute, binding vow, which tradition situates after the betrothal, when it was already clear that Joseph shared the same purpose. Andrea Mallimaci, commenting on the same place of the commentary on the Sentences, formulates Thomas’s argument thus: “la Santísima Virgen, antes de casarse con José, fue certificada divinamente de que José tenía el mismo propósito. Por eso, no se estaba poniendo en peligro al casarse”, “the Most Holy Virgin, before marrying Joseph, was divinely assured that Joseph had the same purpose. For this reason, she was not putting herself in danger by marrying”.

Why the Fathers read a prior purpose in Mary’s question

The reading is not a scholastic invention. Áurea Silva dos Santos, in the study The Role of the Virgin Mary in the Economy of Salvation, of 2024, drawing on Manfred Hauke, records that a preceding purpose of virginity in Mary is indicated for the first time by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, who died in 394, and by Saint Augustine, who died in 430, in holding that the question of Lk 1:34 would make no sense if a few months later Mary were to begin to have marital relations with Saint Joseph.

It is worth underlining the nuance. Neither Gregory of Nyssa nor Augustine builds the argument from a juridical formula of vow, but from the coherence of the scene: a question like that one presupposes a life already decided. This is why Eva C. Rava, in Perpetual Virginity and Divine Motherhood of Mary, of 1992, records the astonishment of Bernard of Clairvaux before this choice, in the apostrophe “O Vergine saggia, o Vergine pia, chi ti ha insegnato che piace a Dio la verginità?”, “O wise Virgin, O pious Virgin, who taught you that virginity is pleasing to God?”. Bernard admires the firmness of the purpose in a culture in which sterility was held to be a curse.

Who denies that Mary made a vow of virginity?

The most famous denial is that of John Calvin, and it is quoted by João Marcos de Oliveira Silva in the study Blessed among Women?, of 2019. Commenting on Lk 1:34, Calvin writes that “the conjecture which some make from these words, that she had made a vow of perpetual virginity, is unfounded and completely absurd”. The fact is all the more interesting in that Calvin himself, according to the same study, did not break with faith in the perpetual virginity of Mary, which Silva records as shared also by Luther and by Wesley. The vow is denied without denying the virginity.

Nor is it a controversy closed in the sixteenth century. Carlos Ignacio González, in Mary, Evangelized and Evangelizer, of 1988, refers in the bibliography to the article by M. Villanueva, “Nueva controversia en torno al voto de virginidad de Nuestra Señora”, in Estudios Bíblicos 16, of 1957, pages 307 to 328. The modern exegetical discussion has a literature of its own and is prior to the Second Vatican Council.

How can the vow be reconciled with a true marriage?

The classic objection is evident: whoever makes a vow of virginity cannot contract a valid marriage, because matrimonial consent bears upon the body. Thomas Aquinas’s answer, quoted in the acts of the First International Symposium of Josephology, is in the Summa Theologiae, III, question 29, article 2: “verum fuit matrimonium Virginis Matris Dei et Joseph: quia uterque consensit in copulam conjugalem, non autem expresse in copulam carnalem, nisi sub conditione, si Deo placeret”, “the marriage of the Virgin Mother of God and Joseph was true, because both consented to the conjugal union, but not expressly to the carnal union, except under the condition, if it should please God”.

The distinction is fine and resolves the impasse. The object of the consent is the copula conjugalis, the conjugal bond, and not the copula carnalis, to which the two consent only under condition. Hence the doctrine that the marriage was true and at the same time virginal, a theme treated in the betrothal of Mary and Joseph.

What the Church defines and what it leaves open

It is worth separating the levels, because this is where much discussion becomes confused. The perpetual virginity of Mary is doctrine of faith, professed with the Greek title ἀειπάρθενος, aeiparthenos, ever-virgin, and articulated in the three classic aspects of virginitas ante partum, in partu, and post partum, as is explained in the article on the virginity of Mary and the three aspects of the dogma. The vow, on the other hand, in the sense of a determinate and datable juridical act, belongs to theology and not to dogmatic definition.

The prudent formulation is this: faith affirms the perpetual virginity, common theology affirms the vow, and the most rigorous reading of Thomas Aquinas distinguishes between a purpose submitted to God and an absolute vow subsequent to the betrothal. The same demand for rigor applies to the most frequent objection against the perpetual virginity, treated in who are the brothers of Jesus in the Bible.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Mary take a vow of virginity before or after the betrothal?

According to the reading of Thomas Aquinas presented by Francisco Canals Vidal, before the betrothal there was the desire for virginity, entrusted to the divine judgment, and not an absolute vow. The absolute vow is situated afterwards, when it was already certain that Joseph had the same purpose.

Is Mary’s vow of virginity a dogma of faith?

No. The dogma is the perpetual virginity of Mary, professed as aeiparthenos. The vow is the common theological explanation of how that virginity was assumed by Mary, but it is not the object of a definition.

Where does the Bible speak of Mary’s vow of virginity?

Nowhere expressly. The only biblical support is indirect and is found in Lk 1:34, in the question “I do not know man”, whose Greek verb in the present led Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine to suppose a purpose already assumed.

Did Calvin accept Mary’s vow of virginity?

No. According to the study by João Marcos de Oliveira Silva, Calvin called the conjecture of the vow something unfounded and completely absurd, although he did not deny the perpetual virginity of Mary, which Luther and Wesley also held.

Who was the first person to make a vow of virginity?

The common thesis of the manuals, formulated by I. Keuppens in the Compendium of Mariology of 1946, is that the Blessed Virgin was the first of all, in time and in perfection, to make the vow of virginity. Keuppens presents it as the most common opinion among theologians.