Virgin Mother of God

Companion to the Summa ^ | 1950 | Walter Farrell, O.P.

[irishtenor]

I think that you will find that ALL scripture means All scripture. Otherwise, think of the consequences: All OT scripture is God breathed, but NT isn't, so you don't have to follow it.

[PFKEY]

I'm not a follower of John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli or Martin Luther.

I am familiar with the explaination that Jesus' brothers were really his cousins. However, I find no importance in the matter of whether they were brothers or cousins.

The Bible does not say Mary was sinless or a perpetual virgin.

[IGNATIUS]

Historic Christianity gave you your Bible!The NT canon didn't hop up onto a table off the floor.The books which made the cut were selected by men under inspiration of God the Holy Spirit.The criteria was whether it was in accord with oral tradition passed from Christ,the Apostles, and the Church Fathers.

[PFKEY]

What is YOPIOS?

If you're lucky someone will respond with a really cute graphic that will explain the meaning.

[irishtenor]

God gave us his word.

[irishtenor]

If it means what I think it means, he is saying that I am interpeting scripture. I think he had better try again. All I did was read and post what was in the Bible, I didn't interpet anything. If he has a problem with that, he can take it up with God. They are his words.

[irishtenor]

***The criteria was whether it was in accord with oral tradition passed from Christ,the Apostles, and the Church Fathers.*** The criteria was if it agreed with the OT and if it was the word taught by Jesus. It has nothing to do with oral tradition. Tradition fails miserably, just ask the Pharasies.

[PFKEY]

Hey look I found it. And hopefully it shows up just like in the preview. If it does then my html skills are growing. This picture came to me courtesy of Polycarp.

What I find curious about the interpretation issue is how they defend their interpretations.

All doesn't really mean all.

Brother doesn't really mean brother.

Father doesn't really mean father.

[irishtenor]

Thanks, I think that says it all. To bad when the Bible is very clear on something, they have to claim the church has better insight.

[IGNATIUS]

Until the NT books were written and finally selected the venue for the lessons,works,life,and commands of our Lord was word of mouth--- ie oral tradition.This was of course supported by the OT,but traditions of the Pharisees are really irrelevant to this issue.

After the NT canon was determined it would be some 1000 years before a few people began to have printed Bibles available in their own language.The laity relied on the Church to read Scriptures to them and explain their meaning and application to daily life.But now we have several hundred million popes like yourself who make their own private interpretations of scripture and sometimes form new denominations.

[ladyinred]

Martin Luther taught that Mary was born without sin and he continued his devotions to the Virgin Mary until his death."

May I ask a question? Where did Martin Luther get this opinion? I have never read that in the scriptures, so am I to assume he got that from the Catholic Church and just carried it on into the Luthern doctrine?

BTW: I am not here to argue with anyone, as I respect your faith in your church, just don't always agree with it. I have just always been curious about the Mary doctrine. Thanks.

[irishtenor]

So now I am a Pope! Great, it's a step up from Elder.

Getting serious. When I post a verse of scripture, you have to remember that it is the word of God that I am quoting. If it goes against your tradition, well, that's too bad. The Bible is clearly right in every situation. For Catholicguy to call me a liar when all I did was use scripture is calling God a liar.

I am not interpeting scripture, I am just quoting what is in the Bible. I am not telling you what it means, nor am I telling you what to believe. When it says ALL HAVE SINNED, well, that must mean that all have sinned, there is no interpetation, just God's word.

[redgolum]

Mariology first came into the Church in the middle of the Christlogical controversies. At that time(300's if I remember right), there were vast differences in how different leaders protrayed Christ. Because of the confusion, many no longer felt as strong a connection to Jesus, He was to unknowable.

Veneration of Mary began to creep in at this time also. Mary was a human that was the mother of Jesus. Since she was definatly human, she was on one level easier to understand. By the time the Christological controversies were done, Mariology was big in the West and she was begining to be refered to as God Bearer.

In the East, this smelled a bit to close to Mary worship. The E. Orthodox refused to call Mary the Mother of God, saying that implies she is a goddess herself, but did call her Mother of Christ. This, along with the "proceeds from the Father and the Son" part of the Nicene Creed was the major reason that the RC and EO split.

Since then, Mairology has grown vastly. It was not as universal as most RC's want to believe, or even as developed.
Mary is the most blessed woman, she was the mother of Jesus. The danger is that so many can get so wrapped up in Mary that they forget Jesus.

[irishtenor]

Thank you. My thought also.

[Catholicguy]

Catholic Marian Doctrines: A Brief Biblical Primer

MOTHER OF GOD

The Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431 declared Mary the Mother of God (Greek, Theotokos) in order to safeguard the divinity of Christ, which was being attacked by the Nestorians, a heretical group which had recently arisen. Since Christ was God in the flesh (Col 2:9, Jn 1:1,14), Mary is the Mother of God the Son. Both Luther and Calvin (along with all the major Protestant Founders) agreed. But she is a creature, like us, and is not worshiped in Catholicism as a sort of goddess. She is venerated due to the unfathomable honor of having been chosen to bear and raise the incarnate God.

MARY'S IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Catholics believe that God saved Mary in a special way, preventing her from sin, because of her extraordinary role and proximity to God the Son and Holy Spirit (Lk 1:35). An angel called Mary highly favored or full of grace in Lk 1:28. The Greek word, kecharitomene, means "completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace." On this and other grounds, Catholics hold that she was free of sin from conception and throughout her life. Even Luther agreed! The medieval theologians constructed an interesting word-picture to illustrate how Mary was just as saved as we are (Lk 1:47), yet in a different sense. Imagine a pit in a forest path, representing the quagmire of sin. All of us are in that pit, wallowing in the mud. But God will pull us out of it and redeem us, provided we are willing. With Mary, God did something different. He never allowed her (unlike us) to fall into this pit. But in both cases, whether through prevention or rescue, it is equally true that it is God alone who saves. Mary is everything she is due to the unmerited, free grace of God, not because of some intrinsic superiority, regarded as originating separately from God.

ARK, TEMPLE, TABERNACLE, AND MARY

The closer one is to God, the holier one must be (e.g., Ex 3:5, Deut 23:14). God's presence imparts holiness (1 Cor 3:13-17, 1 Jn 3:3-9). The Jewish high priest entered the "Holy of holies" in the Tabernacle or Temple only once a year, under pain of death (Lev 16:2-4,13). The Ark of the Covenant was so holy only a few could touch it (Num 4:15, 2 Sam 6:2-7). Scripture compares Mary to the Ark (Lk 1:35 & Ex 40:34-8 / Lk 1:44 & 2 Sam 6:14-16 / Lk 1:43 & 2 Sam 6:9). If mere inanimate objects can be so "holy" due to proximity with God, how much more so Mary, who bore God? Protestants often have difficulty with this conception because of their faulty view of mere external, "legal" justification, which doesn't necessarily lead to actual, objective holiness.

MARY'S ASSUMPTION

The Assumption is not an arbitrary presumption. It follows from Mary's sinlessness. Since bodily decay results from sin (Ps 16:10, Gen 3:19), the absence of sin allows for instant bodily resurrection at death (i.e., the Assumption). Mary shared (in a secondary, derivative fashion) in her Son's victory over sin, death, and the devil (Heb 2:14-15), as foretold in Gen 3:15. She was the "firstfruits" of Christ's work on our behalf, which will eventually put an end to death and result in all saints having glorious, incorruptible bodies. It was proper and appropriate for Mary - since she was the mother of God the Son - to "prefigure" the redeemed world to come by means of both her Immaculate Conception and Assumption. Scripture speaks of occurrences similar to the Assumption: Enoch (Gen 5:24; cf. Heb 11:5), Elijah (2 Ki 2:11), St. Paul (2 Cor 12:2,4), the so-called "Rapture" (1 Thess 4:15-17), risen saints after Jesus' Crucifixion (Mt 27:52-3). It is illogical and unacceptably dogmatic to assert that an event couldn't have happened because it was not recounted in Scripture. This would be as foolish as saying that Jesus couldn't have done any miracles other than those we find in the Bible (see Jn 20:30, 21:25). If the Assumption is not that radically different from many other occurrences in Scripture, flows from the interrelated theological notions explicitly found there, and is supported by the testimony of early Christian Tradition, it is neither "idolatrous" nor "unbiblical" to believe in it.

THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

All the Protestant Founders (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.) firmly believed in Mary's Perpetual Virginity, but some Protestants since have claimed that Jesus had siblings. The Greek word for "brother," adelphos, can and does mean many things in Scripture: nationality (Acts 3:17,22), neighbor (Mt 7:3, 23:8), even all mankind (Mt 25:40). Several other biblical arguments exist also. No one sought to deny this Tradition until the late 4th century, when one Helvidius unsuccessfully tangled with St. Jerome.

MARY OUR SPIRITUAL MOTHER AND INTERCESSOR

The idea of Mary as the Mother of believers is derived most directly from Jn 19:26-7, where Jesus tells St. John from the cross to "behold thy mother." Mary is also Mother and symbol of the Church in Rev 12:1,5,17. Catholics believe that they greatly benefit from Mary's intercession because of her sinlessness (Jas 5:16). Since Mary is incomparably more alive and holy than we are, to ask for her prayers (Rev 5:8, 6:9-10) is good biblically-based "spiritual sense."

[Catholicguy]

The Second Council of Nicaea (787), the seventh Ecumenical Council, which is fully accepted by the Orthodox, declared:

The Lord, the apostles and the prophets have taught us that we must venerate in the first place the Holy Mother of God, who is above all the heavenly powers . . . If any one does not confess that the holy, ever virgin Mary, really and truly the Mother of God, is higher than all creatures visible and invisible, and does not implore, with a sincere faith, her intercession, given her powerful access (parrhésia) to our God born of her, let him be anathema.

[Catholicguy]

"The danger is that so many can get so wrapped up in Mary that they forget Jesus."

The danger is some get so wrapped up in polemics they forget what The Orthodox are required to believe or be declared anathema

[Catholicguy]

Ephesus 431 A.D.

Formula of union between Cyrill and John of Antioch

We will state briefly what we are convinced of and profess about

—the God-bearing virgin and

—the manner of the incarnation of the only begotten Son of God

—not by way of addition but in the manner of a full statement, even as we have received and possess it from of old from

—the holy scriptures and from

—the tradition of the holy fathers,

—adding nothing at all to the creed put forward by the holy fathers at Nicaea.

For, as we have just said, that creed is sufficient both for the knowledge of godliness and for the repudiation of all heretical false teaching. We shall speak not presuming to approach the unapproachable; but we confess our own weakness and so shut out those who would reproach us for investigating things beyond the human mind.

We confess, then, our lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God perfect God and perfect man of a rational soul and a body, begotten before all ages from the Father in his godhead, the same in the last days, for us and for our salvation, born of Mary the virgin, according to his humanity, one and the same consubstantial with the Father in godhead and consubstantial with us in humanity, for a union of two natures took place. Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of the unconfused union, we confess the holy virgin to be the mother of God because God the Word took flesh and became man and from his very conception united to himself the temple he took from her. As to the evangelical and apostolic expressions about the Lord, we know that theologians treat some in common as of one person and distinguish others as of two natures, and interpret the god-befitting ones in connection with the godhead of Christ and the lowly ones with his humanity.

Third letter of Cyril to Nestorius; Therefore, because the holy virgin bore in the flesh God who was united hypostatically with the flesh, for that reason we call her mother of God, not as though the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh (for "the Word was in the beginning and the Word was God and the Word was with God", and he made the ages and is coeternal with the Father and craftsman of all things), but because, as we have said, he united to himself hypostatically the human and underwent a birth according to the flesh from her womb

[Gamecock]

***So now I am a Pope! Great, it's a step up from Elder.***

Oh no, first Peil, now IT. We Calvinists are about to become as messy as the RC church, schisms everywhere!


***For Catholicguy to call me a liar when all I did was use scripture is calling God a liar.***

It seems like there is something in scripture about bearing false witness. But then again, what do I know, I'm not allowed to interpret scripture.....

[drstevej]

***So now I am a Pope!***

Not so fast, the Fourth Secret says nothing of a golden throated Calvinist in the Lazy Boy of Peter.

Why not shoot for Arch Bishop of Canterbury? It would be great irony to send them an Irish AB to replace their ArchDruid.