Compiled and written by Andy R., last updated on April 2nd, 2026.

The following include notes I’ve taken on important and or interesting historical and theological points in the Gospel of Matthew, interpreted through a traditional lens.

Matthew Chapter One

When Joseph woke from his sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.

—Matthew 1:24-25

According to the 2024 Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testament, page 1726, the original Greek word ‘heōs’ (ἕως), used for ‘until,’ indicates a period of time occurring with no future change; it can be translated ‘to’ or ‘till’ as well. Thus, this passage does not indicate Mary had relations with Joseph after bearing Jesus Christ, at bare minimum it leaves the notion ambiguous, if not relating the opposite. The traditional authors of the Church support this assertion when commentating on Matthew: 

And I [St. Jerome] must also entreat God the Father to show that the mother of His Son, who was a mother before she was a bride, continued a Virgin after her son was born… 

Then he [Helvidius, a 4th century Christian publicly challenging Mary’s perpetual virginity] would teach us that the adverb ‘till’ implies a fixed and definite time, and when that is fulfilled, he says the event takes place which previously did not take place, as in the case before us, “and knew her not till she had brought forth a son”… 

Our reply is briefly this,—the words ‘knew’ and ‘till’ in the language of Holy Scripture are capable of a double meaning. As to the former, he himself gave us a dissertation to show that it must be referred to sexual intercourse, and no one doubts that it is often used of the knowledge of the understanding, as, for instance, “the boy Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and his parents knew it not.”¹ Now we have to prove that just as in the one case he has followed the usage of Scripture, so with regard to the word ‘till’ he is utterly refuted by the authority of the same Scripture… 

And the Saviour in the Gospel tells the Apostles, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”² Will the Lord then after the end of the world has come forsake His disciples, and at the very time when seated on twelve thrones they are to judge the twelve tribes of Israel will they be bereft of the company of their Lord? Again Paul the Apostle writing to the Corinthians says, “Christ the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ’s, at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.”³ Granted that the passage relates to our Lord’s human nature, we do not deny that the words are spoken of Him who endured the cross and is commanded to sit afterwards on the right hand. What does he mean then by saying, “for he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet”⁴? Is the Lord to reign only until His enemies begin to be under His feet, and once they are under His feet will He cease to reign? Of course His reign will then commence in its fullness when His enemies begin to be under His feet.

‍ ‍—St. Jerome (A.D. 342-420). CCEL.org, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II, Volume VI—Jerome: Letters and Select Works (Published 1893), Treatises., The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary, Sections: 2, 5, & 6.

And when he [St. Joseph] had taken her [Blessed Virgin Mary], “he knew her not, till she had brought forth her first-born Son.” He [St. Matthew] hath here used the word “till,” not that thou shouldest suspect that afterwards he did know her, but to inform thee that before the birth the Virgin was wholly untouched by man. But why then, it may be said, hath he used the word, “till”? Because it is usual in Scripture often to do this, and to use this expression without reference to limited times. For so with respect to the ark likewise, it is said, “The raven returned not till the earth was dried up”⁵. And yet it did not return even after that time. And when discoursing also of God, the Scripture saith, “From age until age Thou art,”⁶ not as fixing limits in this case. And again when it is preaching the Gospel beforehand, and saying, “In his days shall righteousness flourish, and abundance of peace, till the moon be taken away,”⁷ it doth not set a limit to this fair part of creation. So then here likewise, it uses the word “till,” to make certain what was before the birth, but as to what follows, it leaves thee to make the inference. Thus, what it was necessary for thee to learn of Him, this He Himself hath said; that the Virgin was untouched by man until the birth; but that which both was seen to be a consequence of the former statement, and was acknowledged, this in its turn he leaves for thee to perceive; namely, that not even after this, she having so become a mother, and having been counted worthy of a new sort of travail, and a child-bearing so strange, could that righteous man ever have endured to know her. For if he had known her, and had kept her in the place of a wife, how is it that our Lord commits her⁸, as unprotected, and having no one, to His disciple, and commands him to take her to his own home? 

—St. John Chrysostom (A.D. 347-407), CCEL.org, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I, Volume X: St. Chrysostom: Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew (Published 1888), The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Homily V., Section 5.

But in what he says, “And he did not know her till she brought forth a son,” commonly Sacred Scripture is accustomed to designate an end point, as it were, for things that do not have an end point, and to attribute a definite time period for things that are not limited by time. Let us indeed record a few of the many examples of this. God says the following through Isaiah to the people: “I am who I am; and until you grow old, I am”⁹. When he says, “Until you grow old, I am,” he appears to attribute a definite time limit on himself, but God should not on that account be understood to be limited by time, who has to be confessed as eternal. In another passage, too, in the same prophet, the Lord reproaches the Jews for their sins, and among other things he says the following: “I live, then, says the Lord, for this sin will not be forgiven you until you die”¹⁰. Yet the unjust who persevere in their sins are held liable to punishment all the more so after their death. [Likewise] it is said in the psalm under the persona of the just ones, “Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until he have mercy on us.”¹¹. Here too it seems that there is a definite time limit, when it is said, “Until he have mercy on us,” though we know that the eyes of the just ones are fixed on God all the more after they attain mercy. In the gospel too the Lord himself says the following to his disciples: “And I am with you all the days until the end of the age”¹². In this statement too he appears to attribute a time limit, as though the Lord promises his disciples that he will be with them till the end of the age, when there is no doubt that after the end of the age the Lord will be with his disciples all the more. For once immortality has been granted, according to the apostle’s statement, the Lord must be seen no longer “through a mirror and enigmatically, but face to face”¹³. If you look, you will find many other countless examples of this. Thus when it is said in the present passage, “He did not know her till she brought forth a son,” you ought to notice that all time has been signified by means of an indication of a small amount of time.

—St. Chromatius of Aquileia (A.D. 337-407). Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Father in Translation, Volume 75: Chromatius of Aquilea: Sermons and Tractates on Matthew (Published 2018), Tactaces on Matthew, Tacticate 3: On Matthew 1:24-25, Section 2.

Though the quotations of the early Christian fathers and writers of The Church on the doctrine of Mary’s Perpetual Virginity are nearly endless, not all commentate directly on Matthew 1:25, so it would not be appropriate to add them all here. However, I’ve included two separate quotations, not from different authors, but rather from one council and one synod. The Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (A.D. 553-554) included in their infallible declarations that the repudiation of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary was anathema, thus dogmatizing it, and was declared necessary again in the condemnations of the 649 A.D. Lateran Synod.

The Capitula of the Council:…

II. If anyone shall not confess that the Word of God has two nativities, the one from all eternity of the Father, without time and without body; the other in these last days, coming down from heaven and being made flesh of the holy and glorious Mary, Mother of God and always a virgin, and born of her:  let him be anathema… 

VI. If anyone shall not call in a true acceptation, but only in a false acceptation, the holy, glorious, and ever-virgin Mary, the Mother of God, or shall call her so only in a relative sense, believing that she bare only a simple man and that God the word was not incarnate of her, but that the incarnation of God the Word resulted only from the fact that he united himself to that man who was born [of her]; if he shall calumniate the Holy Synod of Chalcedon as though it had asserted the Virgin to be Mother of God according to the impious sense of Theodore; or if anyone shall call her the mother of a man (ἀνθρωποτόκον) or the Mother of Christ (Χριστοτόκον), as if Christ were not God, and shall not confess that she is exactly and truly the Mother of God, because that God the Word who before all ages was begotten of the Father was in these last days made flesh and born of her, and if anyone shall not confess that in this sense the holy Synod of Chalcedon acknowledged her to be the Mother of God:  let him be anathema. 

‍ ‍—Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (A.D. 553-554).CCEL.org, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II, Volume XIV: The Seven Ecumenical Councils (Published 1900), The Fifth Ecumenical Council. The Second Council of Constantinople., The Capitula of the Council., Declarations 2 & 6.

Now, therefore, that we have professed these things with piety and orthodoxy according to their inspired teaching, in harmony and common accord we all issue the following decree….

Canon 2. If anyone does not acknowledge in accordance with the holy fathers, properly and truly, God the Word, one of the holy, consubstantial and adorable Trinity, who descended from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the all-holy ever-virgin Mary, and became man, was crucified in the flesh for us and our salvation, willingly suffered and was buried and rose on the third day, and ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come again with his paternal glory, together with the flesh (with its intellectual soul) that he assumed, to judge the living and the dead, let him stand condemned.

Canon 3. If anyone does not acknowledge in accordance with the holy fathers, properly and truly, the holy, ever-virgin and immaculate Mary to be Theotokos [Mother of God], as having properly and truly at the end of the ages conceived from the Holy Spirit without seed and borne incorruptibly God the Word, born from God the Father before all ages, while her virginity remained intact even after the birth, let him stand condemned.

Canon 4. If anyone does not acknowledge in accordance with the holy fathers, properly and truly, the two births of the one and the same our Lord and God Jesus Christ, one before the ages, bodiless and eternal, from God the Father, and the other at the end of the ages and in the flesh from the holyever-virginMary, and that the one and the same our Lord and God Jesus Christ is consubstantial with God the Father in respect of the Godhead and consubstantial with the Virgin Mother in respect of the manhood, and that the same is ‘passible in the flesh and impassible in the Godhead, circumscribed in the body and uncircumscribed in the spirit, and that the same is both created and uncreated, earthly and heavenly, visible and intelligible, finite and infinite, so that the complete man who fell under sin should be formed anew by the same who is both complete man and God’, let him stand condemned.

—Lateran Synod of A.D. 649. Translated Texts for Historians, Volume 61: The Acts of the Lateran Synod of 649 (Published 2014), Pages 376-377.

Footnotes:

[1] Luke 2:43

[2] Matthew 28:20          

[3] 1 Corinthians 15:23-25

[4] 1 Corinthians 15:25          

[5] Genesis 8:7

[6] Psalm 90:2          

[7] Psalm 72:7

[8] John 19:27          

[9] Isaiah 46:4

[10] Isaiah 22:14          

[11] Psalm 123:2 

[12] Matthew 28:20          

[13] 1 Corinthians 13:12