Mary, Mother of God

CatholicExchange.com ^ | 12-31-06 | Marcellino D'Ambrosio, Ph.D.

[Salvation]

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Mary, Mother of God

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Marcellino D'Ambrosio

December 31, 2006

The mother of the Messiah has been called many things in the last 2000 years — the Virgin Mary, Our Lady, the Blessed Mother.  But call her "the Mother of God" and you'll see some Christians squirm.

This is nothing new.  One day in the early fifth century, a priest preached a stirring sermon in the presence of the patriarch of Constantinople.  His subject was the holy mother of Jesus.  The preacher continually referred to Mary as the "Theotokos" meaning "God-bearer" or mother of God.  This was no innovation — Christians had invoked Mary under this title for at least two hundred years.  Nevertheless, at the close of the sermon, the patriarch ascended the steps of the pulpit to correct the preacher.  We should call Mary the Mother of Christ, said Patriarch Nestorius, not the Mother of God.  She was the mother of His human nature, not the mother of His divinity.

His comment sparked a riot.  And the dispute rocked not only the congregation, but the entire empire.  Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt, immediately recognized that Nestorius's Marian theology was a symptom of a much deeper problem, a problem with the incarnation itself.  For to deny Mary the title "Mother of God" makes of Jesus a dichotomy, a split personality.  It would mean that God had not really embraced our humanity so as to become human.  Rather, the humanity of Christ is hermetically sealed off from the divinity, as if Jesus were two persons, as if human nature were so distasteful that God, in Christ, had to keep it at arm's distance.  It is OK, according to Nestorius, to say that in Jesus, God raised Lazarus, or multiplied the loaves, or walked on water.  But it is not OK to say that in Jesus God is born or that God died.

Cyril, aware that this was a challenge to the heart of our faith, demanded that an ecumenical council be called to settle the matter.  So in 431, the Council of Ephesus met under Cyril's leadership and solemnly proclaimed that Mary is indeed rightly to be honored as the Theotokos, the Mother of God.  It proclaimed that from the moment of His conception, God truly became man.  Of course Mary is a creature and could never be the origin of the eternal Trinity, God without beginning or end.  But the second person of the blessed Trinity chose to truly become man.  He did not just come and borrow a human body and drive it around for awhile, ascend back to heaven, and discard it like an old car.  No, at the moment of His conception in the womb of Mary, an amazing thing happened.  God the Son united Himself with a human nature forever.  Humanity and divinity were so closely bound together in Jesus, son of Mary, that they could never be separated again.  Everything that would be done by the son of Mary would be the act both of God and of man.  So indeed it would be right to say that a man raised Lazarus from the dead and commanded the wind and waves, that God was born that first Christmas day and that, on Good Friday, God died.

The Council of Ephesus, once confirmed by the pope, became the third ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, and its teaching in this matter is dogma, truth revealed by God which all are bound to accept.

So why does the Roman liturgy celebrate the Octave of Christmas as the Feast of Mary the Mother of God?  Because this paradoxical phrase strikes at the very heart of Christmas.  The songs we sing and the cards we write extol the babe of Bethlehem as Emmanuel, God-with-us.  He is so with us that after Gabriel's visit to the Virgin of Nazareth, the Divine Word can never again be divided from our humanity.  What God has joined, let no man separate.

Dr. D'Ambrosio studied under Avery Cardinal Dulles for his Ph.D. in historical theology and taught for many years at the University of Dallas. He now directs www.crossroadsinitiative.com, which offers Catholic resources for RCIA, adult faith formation, and teens, with a special emphasis on the Year of the Eucharist, the Theology of the Body, the early Church Fathers, and the sacrament of confirmation.

(This article originally appeared in Our Sunday Visitor and is used by permission of the author.)

[bornacatholic]

Your entire argumentative bailiwick is sola scriptura. Catholics and The Orthodox reject that as a late-arriving heresy. And yet you continue to insist we must follow you in your personal opinions which are based on oral protestant traditions..

Remember Einstein defining insanity as repeating the same actions and expecting different results?

We have the Bible and Tradition and The Church Teaching Mary is the Mother of God. We ain't gonna accept "correction" from you.

As for sola scriptura, please review Acts 10 .....

And there was a certain man in Caesarea, named Cornelius, a centurion of that which is called the Italian band; A religious man, and fearing God with all his house, giving much alms to the people, and always praying to God. This man saw in a vision manifestly, about the ninth hour of the day, an angel of God coming in unto him, and saying to him: Cornelius. And he, beholding him, being seized with fear, said: What is it, Lord? And he said to him: Thy prayers and thy alms are ascended for a memorial in the sight of God. And now send men to Joppe, and call hither one Simon, who is surnamed Peter:

*Let's pause for a minute. An Angel of God was sent to Cornelius in answer to his prayers. Did he tell Cornelius to "Read the Bible?" No. He tells him to go to Peter, the First Pope. That alone destroys any idea of sola scriptura. let's continue...

He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side. He will tell thee what thou must do.

*Let's pause another minute. HE will tell you what to do. Not the Bible. The Pope. A Living authority. Lets continue....

Then Peter, going down to the men, said: Behold, I am he whom you seek; what is the cause for which you are come? Who said: Cornelius, a centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and having good testimony from all the nation of the Jews, received an answer of an holy angel, to send for thee into his house, and to hear words of thee.

*Let's pause a minute. An Angel, sent from God, told Cornelius not to "read the Bible" but to go and receive an answer from the First Pope, Peter. Let's continue....

And Cornelius said: Four days ago, unto this hour, I was praying in my house, at the ninth hour, and behold a man stood before me in white apparel, and said: Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thy alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God. Send therefore to Joppe, and call hither Simon, who is surnamed Peter: he lodgeth in the house of Simon a tanner, by the sea side. Immediately therefore I sent to thee: and thou hast done well in coming. Now therefore all we are present in thy sight, to hear all things whatsoever are commanded thee by the Lord.

*Let's pause a minute. They assembled before the first Pope, Peter to be taught authoritatively by him. They did not read the Bible and decide for themselves. Acts is a total repudiation of sola scriptura (and not just in this little section I am highlighting) Let's continue...

.. While Peter was yet speaking these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word. And the faithful of the circumcision, who came with Peter, were astonished, for that the grace of the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the Gentiles also.

*Hearing and believing the authoritative teaching of Peter was an occasion of them receiving the Holy Ghost poured out upon them. Not from reading the Bible but from hearing and believing the authoritative Pope. It is almost as if God was sending them a sign that hearing and believing Peter was sanctioned by God Himself :)

For they heard them speaking with tongues, and magnifying God. Then Peter answered: Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost, as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then they desired him to tarry with them some days.

*Well, so much for the equality of all believers reading the scriptures and deciding for themselves. Peter, the Pope, COMMANDED. How could he do that is he had no authority?

Sola Scriptura is disproved by Scripture

[bornacatholic]

Individuals always make generalisations.

However, I do see your point.

Perhaps this, as an aphorism, is more to your liking... I made it up my ownself :)

Peter resurrected Tabitha. Protestants resurrect heresies.

[Blogger]

bornacatholic. I have never insisted that you do anything, much less follow me. Your attitude is abusive. Please cease from pinging me.

[Mad Dawg]

It appears you find me nettlesome.

You know, I've never actually seen a nettle, or known it when I saw it.

I do NOT find you the least bit nettlesome, and I'm irritated with myself for having given that impression. On the gol darn sed contra, I find your comments extremely helpful, by and large.

BUT: I think that the connection between the teaching of a denomination and the praxis of its members is at best unclear. In this or some thread I mentioned by way of analogy that sometimes the best hospitals have the highest death rates and the greatest concentration of badly sick people.

Further, "Protestant" covers so diverse a multitude that generalizations strike me as a priori suspect. I wouldn't expect my Unitarian brother to know his Bible, and some high church Anglicans would probably know Thomas at least as well as their Bibles and possibly better.

So I was contesting, I suppose, the general usefulness og observations of a socialogical type about groupings of people under some religious term or identifier. And just as I don't want to have to defend some borderline sectarian chapel calling itself Catholic but with a big old statue of Mary getting pride of liturgical place, I don't want Blogger to have to defend the lax practices of some of his alleged brethren.

I hope that that contention is clear -- and I'm sorry I didn't make it clearer the first time I hit 'Post' -- and also helpful. AND I hope if it's not good that you will help me see why.

[Religion Moderator]

Discuss the issues all you want, but do NOT make it personal!

[bornacatholic]

Well, thanks for clearing that up, brother. I will agree that all generalisations are problematical. However, absent them our conversations can become quite lugubrious and pedantic.

For me, I think defending Catholicism is rather easy. That is prolly because to be fully Catholic one must maintain the Bonds of Unity in Worship, Doctrine, and Authority - as the Church Herself Teaches.

So, if one comes in here as an sspx'er or one who succors that schism, I can easily dismiss then as faux catholics...I understand it is much harder when dealing with protestants as the one unifier for them is opposition to the Church Jesus established.

We simply men have an easy life :)

[Mad Dawg]

Oh, I have another alleged point!It's this: I think that apologetic debate is 99 times out of 100 a waste of time. First, it's done badly. And among the bad ways it's done is to unleash an assertion and then repeat it as if that were a logical argument. Second, I think most of us, while dazzling ourselves with our own rhetorical dash and bobbaunce, doubt our own reasoning abilities enough to have a habit of saying quietly to ourselves something like,"That's a good argument; let me think about it for a year or two." But at the same time we expect our debate opponents to see immediately (See "dash and babbaunce" above) how very right we are and to concede our point and capitulate promptly, and we get all huffy when they don't.

This leads to unkind words.

And that leads to the devil rubbing his hands and saying,"We'll sneak up on 'em while they're fighting each other But don't stop 'em too quickly, they're doing better than we can at making True Religion look bad."

This strikes me as not a good thing. And when I find myself reacting like a wounded dog, I am later ashamed of myself. And I came here for edumication, information, and fun, not for shame and guilt. I can make a disgraceful fool of myself without getting all networked and cybernetic and everything. Paying too much for something I don't even want is a bad deal.

So, my alleged point is that if we can communicate our POV and how a reasonable person of good will might believe it and even find some joy in it, we have done well. And if we can hear someone else do ditto, we have done very well, especially if that point runs contrary to ours. And if we MUST debate aggressively, my own preference, and there's no reason why anybody should care but FWIW, is that it be as formal as a fencing match and conducted with even less rancor than an argument before the Supremes.

/Pompous rant off

[Religion Moderator]

Beautiful essay, Mad Dawg. Thank you!

[bornacatholic]

I read ya, brother. You make some good points.

Just speaking for myself, I think this is a blast. Arguing is my way of learning. I have a really thick skin and enjoy mixing it up - I am Irish and Algonguin - and so I prolly do not even realise how I come across to others. For my clan, fighting is loving.

As for defending the Faith, I realise there are much better apologists in here - campion, wideawake, jo kus, sitetest, black elk, romulus, etc etc - but I doubt any have one-half the blast I do..

I just do the best I can with what I have been Graced with. I do recognise and acknowledge any conversions are solely the work of the Holy Ghost.

One just does not know how one's unique way of being is being used.

My way of being may appeal to only one in ten million. But I may be here as God's answer to the prayer off that solitary lurker. We never know....

[Mad Dawg]

Thanks.

Now, if only I lived as well as I sometimes talk ...

[Campion]

By calling Mary the mother of Jesus, you firmly place Mary as Christ's biological mother and then can define Christology not upon whom Mary was, but who Christ is.

But by denying her the title "Mother of God" you thereby deny either that she is the mother of the person Jesus, or that the person Jesus is truly God, or that there is only one person in Jesus. You either deny the clear scriptural teaching that Christ was "born of a woman", or you deny that Christ is truly God the Son (the Arian heresy), or you deny the orthodox teaching about the hypostatic union (the Nestorian heresy).

[OLD REGGIE]

For me, I think defending Catholicism is rather easy. That is prolly because to be fully Catholic one must maintain the Bonds of Unity in Worship, Doctrine, and Authority - as the Church Herself Teaches.

I'm curious. How many "fully Catholics" do you suppose there are in the United States; in the World?

[Blogger]

I do no such thing. I focus on Christ, not Mary.

Even the term Theotokos is being potentially misappropriated here. It means bearer of God, rather than Theoìçôñïò which would be the Mother of God. Jesus come to Mary's womb as already divine. If one wants to consider her as a God bearer, in the sense that one bears a load or something to that regard- then you'll bring me closer to your thinking. But calling her the "mother of God" destroys Jesus' eternal pre-existence as God and gives him a beginning as God. That must be maintained or Jesus is not God. As God, he has no mother. As the incarnate Christ in Mary's womb, he has a mother. He was what he always was, God Almighty. However, Mary did not contribute to his Godhood. Only his humanity.

Calling her the Scriptural term "mother of Jesus" places her in her proper role and does not destroy either His godhood or His eternal pre-existence to her. Nor does it destroy His humanity.

How Jesus was 100% God and 100% man is a mystery. The incarnation is a mystery. And, as I stated before, it is best to make your theological statements concerning Christology with Christ as the focus rather than bring Mary into the discussion in any othe fashion than Mother of Jesus.

What I am saying is not Nestorian. I understand what that means and have disavowed myself of any such identification. I believe that Jesus was 1 person, 100% God and 100% man united in that one person. Please realize that there is a tension there that needs to be maintained in order to protect Christ's eternal pre-existence as God as well. Otherrwise, you have God having a biological mother and the 3 persons of the trinity being able to be affected by human reproduction. Mother of Jesus suffices, unless you want to say that Jesus wasn't God - which is nowhere near what any of us who object to the exalted term for Mary are saying.

[trisham]

bookmark

[Campion]

If one wants to consider her as a God bearer, in the sense that one bears a load or something to that regard

Theotokos means "bearer of God" in the sense of one who gives birth to a child, not in the sense of one carrying a load.

But calling her the "mother of God" destroys Jesus' eternal pre-existence as God and gives him a beginning as God.

Only if you assert that motherhood necessarily implies pre-existence, and only if you make the extremely fundamental theological error that there is any such thing as a "beginning" to God.

(A God who has a "beginning" isn't God. There is no "beginning to God" like there are no square circles.)

All of the council fathers of Ephesus subscribed to the Nicene Creed, which says that Jesus was begotten by the Father ante omnia saecula, "before all the ages" or "before all time". If you try to understand the title "mother of God" outside of orthodox Nicene Trinitarianism and outside of an orthodox understanding of the meaning of the term "God" (uncreated, necessary, eternal, transcendant existence) ... you will necessarily come up with hash.

Nobody ever said Catholic dogma made sense taken one particle at a time. You take it all, or take none of it. As God, he has no mother.

"Mother" describes the relationship of one person to another. The person Jesus is either God, or he isn't. He either has a mother, or he doesn'.t If he's God, and he has a mother, then she is the mother of God.

[sitetest]

Dear Mad Dawg,

I hadn't noticed that anyone had called anyone a heretic.

Several posters have pointed out that refusing to call Mary the Mother of God IS heresy, but that's not the same as calling someone a heretic, not by a very long stretch.

I don't see how it is inappropriate to note that a particular belief is at odds with the teaching of the Undivided, Universal Church, as bindingly defined by an Ecumencial Council. For Catholics and Orthodox, to deny the ratified and confirmed binding teaching of a Council is to speak (or write) heresy.

That doesn't strike me as polemical or harsh. Just a fact.

But, again, as far as I can see (and I read all of the posts still extant), no one has called anyone else a heretic.


sitetest

[Mad Dawg]

So is it fair to say that Campion was going with Ephesus and Chalcedon and Blogger is saying the he not only stipulates but enthusiastically endorses the union of the divine and human natures in one Jesus Christ? And then Blogger wants to look at Theotokos versus his coined-only-to-be-disparaged Theoìçôñïò? And Blogger MIGHT be able to accept Theotokos, but wants it to be translated God bearer.

I have got to find my MacQuarrie. As a tentative essay: Even the mother of your garden variety human is not all the source of that nascent person. Mom bore me, but while I laugh and sing like her, I gesture and analyze like the old man (NOT in the Pauline sense -- Okay, well, maybe). So the entirety of moi isn't dependent on Mom, but she's my Mom for good and ill.

And we're not saying that NOTHING of Jesus came from Mary? As Lewis in one place imagined, wouldn't people in Nazareth have looked at Him and said, "He's his mother's Boy."

And, as I stated before, it is best to make your theological statements concerning Christology with Christ as the focus rather than bring Mary into the discussion in any other fashion than Mother of Jesus.

Yeah that. And we think we're doing that. If Jesus is very God, God of God, then the Mother of Jesus is the Mother of, uh, what exactly?

"Mother of God", or at least "Theotokos", IS a Christological term. Nestorius's disagreement, as reported, was on the basis that he disagreed with the Christology.

SO, if the distinction between Theotokos and Theoìçôñïò is going to be advanced, the Christological aspects would be, I think on the nature of the union between the two natures.

Chalcedon, in part, saith:

...; one and the same Christ, Son,Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change,without division, without separation; [obviously, my emphasis] ...the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten .....

So one the one hand we need to look at the difference between "mother" and "bearer" and on the other on how close the union of the two natures is.

And Blogger is saying that the Divine nature clearly pre-exists the human nature. And against that I am suggesting that approximately half of what I am is alien to my Mom - or why would she so often have looked at me in disgust and said, "You're just like your Father!"

Gotta go.

[bornacatholic]

LOL Good question, reggie. I really don't know. I belong to a really large Parish - St. Thomas More, Boynton Beach, FL - and I am convinced the VAST majority there really are fully Catholic.

But, I doubt my Parish is representative. Our Pastor is a brilliant and charismatic Pastor, a convert from So Baptism, and he knows the Faith and teaches us, kids, adolescents, and adults, the truth about Jesus from the Pulpit every single day. There are also continuing adult catechesis, bible studies etc and a myriad of ministries etc.

However, even for those who are not fully Catholic, it is best they remain in the Church so they can grow into being fully Catholic. They certainly won't learn that extra ecclesiam...besides, the Church has the Sacraments and Grace, the medicine and food, that can heal the broken Catholic and make him whole and heal and nourish the theologically diseased Catholic and make him spiritually healthy and whole.