Zwingli On Mary’s Perpetual Virginity

V. And I believe that this humanity was conceived of the virgin, made pregnant by the Holy Spirit, and was brought forth by preserving her perpetual virginity,* that He, who from eternity was born Lord and God from a father without mother, might be born into the world as deliverer and healer of souls from a virgin mother, in order that a holy and spotless offering might be made to Him unto whom all altars, loaded with animals, smoked to no purpose, and men might repent of sacrificing beasts and turn to the offering of their hearts, when they would see that God had prepared and offered to Himself a victim in the form of His own. (The Latin works and the correspondence of Huldreich Zwingli, Edited, with Introductions and Notes, by William John Hinke [The Heidelberg Press, Philadelphia, 1922], Volume Two, pp. 244-245; emphasis mine)

To you then, O Emperor, I offer a summary of my faith, with this condition, that at the same time I declare solemnly, that I entrust and permit the judgment not only of these articles, but of all that I have ever written or, by the grace of God, shall yet write, not to one man only, nor to a few merely, but to the whole Church of God, as far as it speaks by the command and inspiration of the Word and Spirit of God.  

First of all, I both believe and know that God is one and He alone is God, and that He is by nature good, true, powerful, just, wise, the Creator and Preserver of all things, visible and invisible; that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are indeed three persons, but that their essence is one and single. And I think altogether in accordance with the Creed, the Nicene and also the Athanasian, in all their details concerning the Godhead himself, the names or the three persons.

I believe and understand that the Son assumed flesh, the human nature, indeed the whole man, consisting of body and soul, which He truly assumed of the immaculate and perpetual virgin Mary; but this in such a manner, that the whole man was so assumed into the unity of the hypostasis or person of the Son of God, that the man did not constitute a separate person, but was assumed into the inseparable, indivisible and indissoluble person of the Son of God. And, although both natures, the divine and the human, have so preserved their character and peculiarity that both are truly and naturally found in Him, yet the distinct peculiarities and activities of the natures do not separate the unity of the person any more than in man soul and body constitute two persons. For as these are of the most diverse nature, so they function by diverse peculiarities and operations ; nevertheless man, who consists of them, is not two persons, but one. So God and man is one in Christ,* the Son of God from eternity and the Son of Man from the time appointed ; one person, one Christ; perfect God and perfect man ; not because one nature becomes the other, or because the natures are fused together, but because each remains its peculiar self ; and yet, the unity of this person is not broken by this retention of the peculiarities. (Ibid., pp. 35-36; emphasis mine)

“He, then, through whom we were all created [I Cor. 8:6], and through whom it pleased God to recreate and renew the world, was, when the time seemed to Him ripe, conceived in the womb of a spotless virgin without any male aid, by the fructification of the Holy Spirit (for He who was to be born thence was sent to make spiritual beings out of fleshly), and began His human life. Read Luke Chaps. 1 and 2, and Matthew 1, and John 1, that I may not have to busy myself here with such well-known facts. Christ had to be born of a virgin* on two accounts: first, because His divine nature could not suffer that any stain of sin attach to it, as has been said above. For God is so thoroughly light, purity, innocence, goodness, that He cannot endure any thing that is in any respect dark, impure, defiled, or evil. Therefore the birth had to be absolutely pure of every stain, because He that was born was also God. Second, on account of the nature of the sacrificial victim. For that had to be free from all blemish, as the law of Moses required, though that applied only to purity of flesh, Heb. 9 : 9. How much more had that victim to be absolutely spotless which made atonement for the sins not only of all who had been, but of all who were yet to come! And this could not have been unless He had been born of a virgin, and without male intervention. For if the virgin had conceived from the seed of a man, would not the birth have been thereby polluted? And if a woman who had before known a man had conceived Him, even from the Holy Spirit, who would ever have believed that the child that was born was of the Holy Spirit? For nature knows no birth that is not besmirched with stain. For, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin did my mother conceive me,” Ps. 51 : 5. Virgin, therefore, she had to be, and ever virgin, too, who should bear Him in whom there could be not even the least suspicion of a blemish, much less any real blemish. Now I add evidence of these things. That He is a victim who expiates every blemish and defect is prefigured in the lamb, “phase” … of “transitio” [passing over], or rather “praeteritio” [passing by], lest in consequence of the ambiguity in the word any one should understand by “transitio” a going forth. For the Hebrew term “paesa” [!] … signifies a leap or a passing by; for the angel of the Lord leaped over without injury when he saw the door posts smeared with the blood [cf. Exod. 12:23]. Of this figure I shall say nothing more, since it is perfectly clear in itself and through the notices of all who have spoken of it. Furthermore, the John who baptized the Son of God, as soon as he saw Christ coming towards him, pointed Him out to his disciples with the words: “Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!” John 1:29. He taketh away, therefore, the sins of the world (for sin is used here for “offence and defect of mankind”) —not the original defect only, as false religion teaches, does He atone for, nor the sins of those only who were before Him, but of the world; and not those only which the Popes direct are to be remitted by their crowd of priests, but of the world ; and He takes away not only those sins which you redeem with money, but the sins of the world independently of any bargain. The sin against the Holy Ghost requires especial consideration, and I shall not go into it here. That He was born of a virgin, Matthew and Luke bear witness, as I have shown ; but, lest one miss Old Testament proofs, we have Isa. 7 : 14 and Ezek. 44 : 2. Since, however, there are persons who, in stout defense of the decrees of the Roman Pontiff, say that not all the facts of our belief are set forth in the Holy Scriptures—inasmuch as the perpetual virginity of the theotokou [God-bearing] and thrice blessed Virgin Mary cannot be established from the Holy Scriptures—it is worth while to oppose to them the invincible shield of the truth, that their eyes may be blinded by its brightness so completely that they shall learn not to blaspheme. Isaiah [7 : 14] says that a virgin shall conceive and bear. What is there to wonder at, pray, if a virgin conceives? Did any woman ever conceive who had not once been a virgin, quite apart from our virgin? But the uncommon thing is that she who conceives and bears should remain a virgin. Our virgin, then, remains a virgin, and remaining a virgin is ever virgin; otherwise she would not remain a virgin. And this Ezekiel finely indicates, saying [44:2]: ‘This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, neither shall any man enter in by it; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut for the prince.’ The objections that could be raised here as to the meaning because of the circumstances can be so easily removed that one aiming at brevity must not delay over them ; for “all things happened unto them by way of example, etc.” False religion slips up, therefore, when she snarls out that the perpetual virginity does not hold unless it be confirmed by the decrees of the Popes. For, as they cannot by their decrees make her that is defiled undefiled, so they could not with these suspicious dicta of theirs remedy the Virgin’s reproach by decreeing that she is ever virgin. For unless she were virgin in her own quality, they could not make her virgin by their decrees. Her virginity is based on the fact, not on the decrees of men.

“The ever virgin, then, brought forth Christ, God’s Son and hers, while on a journey to Bethlehem, according to the predictions of the prophets, Mic. 5 : 2, Matt. 2 : 6, Luke 2 : 7, and laid her babe in a manger, because there was no room in the inn on account of the crowd of people who had then gathered there to be taxed…” (The Latin Works of Huldreich Zwingli: together with selections from his German works, edited with notes by Clarence Nevin Heller, [The Heidelberg Press, Philadelphia, 1929], Volume Three, pp. 112-114; emphasis mine)