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Persevero and caww

Up front, my post is long, so I apologize.

The notion that Mary and her role in Salvation history was not reflected on in the early Church is not true. The Church Fathers starting in the 2nd century clearly reflected on her unique role. In addition, the Canon of the Bible was itself in the development stage and was not finalized until the 4th century at the various Councils [Rome 382 AD, Hippo 393 AD, Carthage 397 AD]. For Catholics, the Church Fathers become the standard for understanding biblical theology and thus Doctrine and thus “sola scriptura”, as defined by Protestants since the 16th century is not Catholic Doctrine, nor was it the Doctrine of the Church before the 16th century.

With respect to the Church Fathers, Sacred Scripture and Tradition, Pope Benedict, in his book entitled “Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones For a Fundamental Theology” lays out the case for Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, as expressed in the Creeds of the Church, the Liturgy and writings of the Church Fathers, and how they are all important in building a foundation for orthodox doctrine. With respect to the Church Fathers, Pope Benedict (pp. 148-151) states :First, The Canon of Holy Scripture can be traced back to them, or at least to the undivided Church of the first centuries, of which they were the representatives. It is through their [The Church Fathers] efforts that precisely those “books” that today we call “New Testament” were chosen from a multitude of other available literary texts and that the “Greek version of the OT” was joined to them, that it was interpreted in terms of them, and together became known as “Holy Scripture.” The Pope continues and notes that a book was recognized as “canonical” if it was read in the Liturgy of the Church [public worship]. By Church, the Pope notes that it means that the numerous Eastern Churches had their own lists and customs, but in the end, all came to accept the same set of books. The Pope notes of the Gnostic texts, which aspired to become scripture but states that it was the anti-Gnostic Church Fathers whose writings against the Gnostics drew the line in the Church. In summary, the canon, as canon, would be inconceivable without the intellectual movement to which patristic theology bears witness.

Second, in addition to the Bible, the Church Fathers were instrumental in formulating the important symbola of all Christendom [ie. the Creeds and Confessions of Faith] and finally, in the ancient undivided Church, the reading of Sacred Scripture and the confession of faith [Creeds] were primarily liturgical acts of the whole assembly gathered around the Risen Lord. Thus, the Pope notes, it was the ancient Church, and thus the Fathers, that created the fundamental forms of Christian Liturgy

The Pope concludes by stating that given these 3 points, theology will always be indebted to the Church Fathers and will have cause to return again and again to them. The Bible, as the Pope notes, comes to us by way of history. If we ignore history, we become entangled and thus remain bound to our own thinking and reflect only ourselves. Therefore, the Pope concludes that the Church Fathers are still essential and must not be seen as a matter of cataloguing in a museum dedicated to what has been. No, “The Fathers are the common past of all Christians!.” And in the rediscovery of the common possession lies the hope for the future of the Church, the task for her—and our-present.

So with respect to the Church Fathers, it is clear that Mary’s “unique Role in Salvation history” was a point of theological study starting in the 2nd century. It is also clear that with respect to Mary’s death or if she died, the Sacred Scriptures are silent. So on this point, all we can say is the Scriptures are “silent with respect to the Assumption” and thus silence does not been acceptance of the Dogma or on the other hand, rejection of the Dogma.

With respect to “The Assumption of Mary”, the OT calls Eve the Mother of the Living (Gen 3:20). However, we also know that threw Adam and her sin, death came to all her descendants. In the second century, Church Fathers began to see that the Eve-Mary parallel which suggests that Mary and a role in salvation history in relation to Christ, just has Eve had a role in the fall of the human race in relation to Adam. St. Justin Martyr in his dialogue with Trypho is the first to actually propose the Doctrine of Mary as the New Eve. Fr. Luigi Lamberto in his work Mary and the Fathers of the Church, published by Ignatius Press notes that Justin wanted to show how the Lord had decided to accomplish the salvation of man by following the same procedure by which sin had been committed and caused the downfall of man (p. 47). He points out that the Eve-Mary parallel had its foundation in the Pauline doctrine of Christ as the second Adam (1 Cor 15: 21-22). St. Justin Martyr writes

“The Son of God became man through a Virgin, so that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same way it begun. For Eve, who was virgin and undefiled, gave birth to disobedience and death after listening to the serpent’s words. But the Virgin Mary conceived faith and joy; for what the Angel Gabriel brought her the glad tidings that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her, so that the Holy One born of her would be the Son of God, she answered, ‘Let it be done to me according to your word’ (Lk 1:38). Thus was born of her the Child about whom so many Scriptures speak, as we have shown. Through him, God crushed the serpent along with those angels and men who had become like the serpent.” (Dialogue with Trypho 100)

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, the great defender of orthodoxy against the Gnostic Heretics of the 2nd century, further develops the idea of Mary as the New Eve, which St. Justin Martyr began to develop in 155. Fr. Matero notes that St. Irenaeus first recapitulated salvation history in Christ by appealing back to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans 5: 12, where it states the whole human race fell into sin because of the man Adam, and then it was necessary that God’s son should become man and thus become the foundation of a new humanity. He then provides the following two quotes from Irenaeus, 1) that recapitulates Christ as the new Adam and 2) that recapitulates Mary as the new Eve.

(1) Irenaeus writes “When the Son of God took flesh and became man; he recapitulated in himself the long history of men, procuring for us the reward of salvation, so that in Christ Jesus we might recover what we had lost in Adam, namely, the image and likeness of God. For since it was not possible for man, once wounded and broken by disobedience, to be refashioned and to obtain the victor’s palm, and since it was equally impossible for him to receive salvation, as he had fallen under the power of sin, the Son of God accomplished both of those tasks. He God’s Word, came down from the Father and became flesh; he abased himself even unto death and brought the economy of our salvation to its completion.” (Against Heresies 3, 18)

(2) After recapitulating Christ as the new Adam, Irenaeus writes “Even though Eve had Adam for a husband, she was still a virgin….By disobeying, she became the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race. In the same way, Mary, though she also had a husband, was still a virgin, and by obeying, she became the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race…The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience. What Eve bound through her unbelief, Mary loosened by faith.” (Against Heresies 3: 22)

St. Irenaeus further writes and points out that only the Gnostic Heretics ignore God’s economy of salvation, in which Mary had a unique role in playing since she gave birth to Christ, the word made flesh. Irenaeus writes:

“Eve was seduced by the word of the [fallen] angel and transgressed God’ s word, so that she fled from him. In the same way, [Mary] was evangelized by the word of an angel and obeyed God’s word, so that she carried him [within her]. And while the former was seduced into disobeying God, the latter was persuaded to obey God, so that the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve. And just has the human race was bound to death because of a virgin, so it was set free from death by a Virgin, since the disobedience of one virgin was counterbalanced by the Virgin’s obedience.
If then, the first-made man’s sin was mended by the right conduct of the firstborn Son [of God], and if the serpent’s cunning was bested by the simplicity of the dove [Mary], and if the chains that held us bound to death have been broken, then the heretics are fools; they are ignorant of God’s economy, and they are unaware of his economy for [the salvation of’ man.’ (Against Heresies 5: 19)

Finally, St. Irenaeus develops the recapitulation theme to its fulfillment when he writes:

“Adam had to be recapitulated in Christ, so that death might be swallowed up in immortality, and Eve [had to be recapitulated] in Mary, so that the Virgin, having become another virgin’s advocate, might destroy and abolish one virgin’s disobedience by the obedience of another virgin.” (Proof of Apostolic Preaching 33)

In the 3rd century, we see Mary’s role in salvation history also reflected on in theological study. We see St. Clement of Alexandria [150 to 215 AD] reflecting on Mary as “Mother of God” and her perpetual virginity and how Mary was an archetypal model of the mystery of the Church, as well as the further reflection on Mary as the New-Eve.

It was in the 4th century we first see references to the “Assumption of Mary” or what the Eastern Church calls the “Dormition”. St. Ephrem the Syrian [306 to 373 AD], who reflects the Eastern Tradition at the Church of Antioch writes in a Christmas sermon “The Babe that I carry carries me, says Mary, and He has lowered His wings, and taken and placed me between His pinions, and mounted into the air; and a promise has been given me that height and depth shall be my Son’s.” St. Ephiphanius of Salamis [325 to 403 AD], also of the Eastern Church, who again wrote much on Mary as the New Eve and the meaning of her perpetual virginity, wrote in some detail about the end of Marys’ earthly life, and was the first to do so in detail. He writes, apparently to clarify some of the notions of what happened to Mary that “Sacred Scripture makes no mention of her death, whether she died, or did not die, whether she was buried, or not buried, and while it mentions St. John went on voyage to Asia, it is silent about Mary.

However, one interesting point is that St. Ephrem cites Revelation 12:13-14 as applying to Mary suggesting that she escaped the Dragon [Satan] and thus did not go thru death the way the rest of us did. Thus, he later formulated 3 hypotheses about Mary and her Dormition stating that 1) it was pure and happened with great honor, 2) If Luke 2:35 meant that she died, as opposed to the more common view that it relates to her seeing her Son suffer at the Cross, then she obtained Glory with the martyrs and her Holy Body, from which light shined forth for all the world, dwells among those who enjoy the repose of the blessed or she continued to live for to God, nothing is impossible [i.e. she did not die and was assumed without falling asleep]

With respect to St. Ephrem’s 3 hypotheses stated above, none of his contemporaries rejected them [i.e. St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Athanasius]. Also, St. Athanasius of Alexandria [296 to 373 AD] more clearly develops the notion of Mary as the “Ark of the New Covenant.”, which is associated with the Assumption of Mary. For example, St. John Damascene, the last of the Greek Church Fathers and considered among the best has in his writings a synthesis of the Greek Patristic Tradition and in some of his Homilies on the “Feast of the Dormition” (i.e. Assumption), he refers to Mary s the True Ark of the Lord since she carried in her womb, the Word of God [Christ] and he also cites Psalms 46:5, 65:4 and 68:16-17 as referring to Mary.

In todays Feast of the Assumption Liturgy, the readings were 1st reading from Revelation 11:19, 12:1-6, 10, Responsorial Psalm was Psalm 45: 9-12, 16; 2n reading was 1 Corinthians 15:20-27, and Gospel was Luke 1:39-56. So why these readings? Well, the passage from Revelation, as stated earlier, was applied to Mary back in the 4th century, as Mary was seen as the “Ark of the new covenant” and “taken up to Heaven by God”. The “Ark” as a typological reference to Mary becomes important. So let’s look at the Ark, in Exodus 25-27, we see God commanded the Hebrews to construct the Ark and we know from Hebrews 9:4 that Manna and Aarons rod was in there, along with the Stone tablets of God’s Law. We also know that the Presence of God was in the Ark (cf. Ex 40:34; Num 8: 18-22). We also know that God was very specific about how the Ark was built, i.e. Gold [again, see Exodus 25-30] because God would preside there.

So what happened to the Ark, Jeremiah 3:16 states the Ark will no longer come to mind, or be made again or missed by the people, thus the ark was lost. However, in 2 Maccabees 2: 1-4, it states:

“You will find in the records, not only that Jeremiah the prophet ordered the deportees to take some of the aforementioned fire with them, but also that the prophet, in giving them the law, admonished them not to forget the commandments of the Lord or be led astray in their thoughts, when seeing the gold and silver idols and their ornaments. With other similar words he urged them not to let the law depart from their hearts. he same document also tells how the prophet, following a divine revelation, ordered that the tent and the ark should accompany him and how he went off to the mountain which Moses climbed to see God’s inheritance. When Jeremiah arrived there, he found a room in a cave in which he put the tent, the ark, and the altar of incense; then he blocked up the entrance. Some of those who followed him came up intending to mark the path, but they could not find it. When Jeremiah heard of this, he reproved them: “The place is to remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy.

So, in Revelation 19: 11, St. John makes a startling statement as he states the Ark of his covenant is in heaven and then the next passages in Revelation 12: 1-14 speak of a woman with child and who the dragon is after. Psalm 45: 9 speaks of a Queen who sits at your right hand. This Psalm is pointing to Christ and thus the Queen is associated with Mary, understood in light of Christ as the Queen in ancient Israel was the Mother of the King [1 Kings 2: 12-20] , not the wife, thus Mary is seen as being the Queen which is also seen in Revelation 12.. Luke 1:39-56 used typology from the OT recounting David’s encounter with the Ark of the OT [see 1 Sam 6: 1-2; 2 Sam 6: 9-14] and described Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary in almost the exact terms as how David greeted the Ark when it came to him.

So in closing, the Catholic Church has strong theological basis in both Sacred Scripture and Tradition to see Mary as the New-Eve, the Ark of the New Covenant, and thus by God’s Grace and Power, she was “Assumed into Heaven” as she contained in her womb, the True Word of God, and True Manna from Heaven and the Eternal High Priest, i.e. Christ.

Regards and hope this “Long explanation” provides why Catholics believe what we believe and that it it rooted in the Faith of the Early Church and is rooted in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, as defined and understood by the Patristic/CHurch Fathers.