08 — Virginity and Mariology

Ambrose the great Latin promoter of consecrated virginity, in De Virginibus and its companion works; and the Marian theology — the perpetual virginity and the Mary–Church type — that flowed from it and passed into Augustine.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father / Latin)

Part of the St. Ambrose of Milan Reference Guide. This section contains two content files:

File	Summary
de-virginibus.md	De Virginibus and Consecrated Virginity — De Virginibus, Ambrose’s earliest treatise, written for his sister Marcellina, and the cluster of works around it (De Viduis, De Virginitate, De Institutione Virginis, Exhortatio Virginitatis) by which Ambrose made himself the foremost Latin advocate of consecrated virginity: the praise of the virgin-martyr Agnes, the theology of virginity as a higher calling, the opposition it provoked, and the relation to the Jovinian controversy.
marian-theology.md	Marian Theology — Ambrose as a major early Latin witness to the Mother of God: his defense of Mary’s perpetual virginity (including virginitas in partu) against Bonosus, his presentation of Mary as the pattern and model of the consecrated virgin, his pioneering Mary–Church typology, and his influence on Augustine’s Mariology — with a careful note distinguishing what Ambrose actually taught (Mary’s all-holiness and perpetual virginity, the shared patristic inheritance) from the later Western definition of the Immaculate Conception, which he did not hold.

File

Summary

de-virginibus.md

De Virginibus and Consecrated Virginity — De Virginibus, Ambrose’s earliest treatise, written for his sister Marcellina, and the cluster of works around it (De Viduis, De Virginitate, De Institutione Virginis, Exhortatio Virginitatis) by which Ambrose made himself the foremost Latin advocate of consecrated virginity: the praise of the virgin-martyr Agnes, the theology of virginity as a higher calling, the opposition it provoked, and the relation to the Jovinian controversy.

marian-theology.md

Marian Theology — Ambrose as a major early Latin witness to the Mother of God: his defense of Mary’s perpetual virginity (including virginitas in partu) against Bonosus, his presentation of Mary as the pattern and model of the consecrated virgin, his pioneering Mary–Church typology, and his influence on Augustine’s Mariology — with a careful note distinguishing what Ambrose actually taught (Mary’s all-holiness and perpetual virginity, the shared patristic inheritance) from the later Western definition of the Immaculate Conception, which he did not hold.

08 — Virginity and Mariology

See Also