Paschasius Radbert (easily one of my favorite names for any saint I’ve read about this year–Butler instructs us that the second of these names was properly pronounced “Rabert”) is best known for his theological writings regarding those aspects of the faith that cannot be demonstrated. In one of his most famous treatises, Paschasius Radbert (it’s as fun to write as it is to say.. try both!) asserts “the perpetual virginity of Mary, in bringing forth the Son of God”–which, at first glance sounds like yet one more assertion that Mary did not have sex with a human male before giving birth to Jesus. Almost, but not quite! Paschasius Radbert goes all the way (so to speak) in arguing that at no point–before, during, or after the birth of Jesus Christ–was Mary’s hymen torn. Mary remained virgo intacta even after Jesus was brought forth and wrapped in swaddling clothes!

Now, I grew up post-Enlightenment and post-Reformation, and as a Protestant. As the last of these, I was not taught to reverence Mary–respect, yes, but not revere. That said, I was nonetheless taught that she had never had sex before Jesus was born. And, joyfully, each Christmas I sang of “yon Virgin” and of the baby Jesus, a.k.a. the “no crying he made” newborn.

On one hand, it is easy to shrug off these claims–just like some people dismiss LDS (Mormon) cosmology (including the planet/star Kolob) or Islamic houris that await its martyrs. But this misses an opportunity to explore the questions of Why: Why is it so important that Mary be a virgin? Why is it vital to focus any attention whatsoever on her hymen?

In my own assessment, Christianity painted itself into a corner early on when it made the dual assertions that (1) Jesus, who indisputably lived a human life, is God, and (2) there has always been and always ever will be Only One God. It was not enough to celebrate that people experienced something of the Divine when they encountered Jesus, interacted with him, felt his touch, heard his words. It was not enough to proclaim that the ripple effect of Jesus’s time while alive continues to be felt millennia later…a miracle in and of itself. It is not enough to identify Jesus as manifesting God’s presence among us. No, a critical-enough mass of Christians with the power to control the narrative (i.e., decide what is orthodoxy and what is heresy) had to make Jesus be THE GOD.

And so I ask you, Dear Reader: Doesn’t this make our Paschasius Radbert inevitable? If THE GOD is going to be a human baby, it cannot be via an ordinary birth. Certainly THE GOD cannot be the product of a human sperm and a human egg (THE GOD cannot be created by human agency). Ergo, Jesus was necessarily specially produced. If there’s no way to avoid connecting Jesus of Nazareth with the woman Mary, who apparently gave some kind of birth to him, then Mary’s womb must not have involved being more than a vessel for GODNESS to enter and exit. And if this GODNESS did not break her hymen on its way in, then there’s no reason it should on its way out!

This in turn connects to the question, “Why Mary?” The answer must logically be that she was, herself, immaculately conceived. That is, she (alone of the human race since Adam and Eve) was herself free of the taint of original sin and thus was a clean (kosher, sterilized, pure, chaste) vessel for containing and then pouring out (“bringing forth”) GODNESS. A perfect chalice.

So, given that two-fold assertion of early orthodoxy that locked future “acceptable” Christians into declaring that Jesus is God and there is only One God, we have to have both the Virgin Birth of Jesus-GOD and the preceding Immaculate Conception of Mary in our theological (“God Talk”) toolkit. And what better way to solidify the putative truth of this two-fold orthodoxy than by claiming that Mary’s hymen was at no point stretched, torn, ruptured, or disturbed?!

Frankly, Paschasius Radbert boldly followed the logical conclusions set in place centuries prior to his own birth. Make him a saint for that? We’ve already seen worse!