Posted on 12/19/2010 6:59:20 PM PST by marshmallow
A comparison is instituted between the disobedient and sinning Eve and the Virgin Mary, her patroness. Various and discordant heresies are mentioned.
1. That the Lord then was manifestly coming to His own things, and was sustaining them by means of that creation which is supported by Himself, and was making a recapitulation of that disobedience which had occurred in connection with a tree, through the obedience which was [exhibited by Himself when He hung] upon a tree, [the effects] also of that deception being done away with, by which that virgin Eve, who was already espoused to a man, was unhappily misled—was happily announced, through means of the truth [spoken] by the angel to the Virgin Mary, who was [also espoused] to a man. For just as the former was led astray by the word of an angel, so that she fled from God when she had transgressed His word; so did the latter, by an angelic communication, receive the glad tidings that she should sustain (portaret) God, being obedient to His word. And if the former did disobey God, yet the latter was persuaded to be obedient to God, in order that the Virgin Mary might become the patroness (advocata) of the virgin Eve. And thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so is it rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedience having been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience. For in the same way the sin of the first created man (protoplasti) receives amendment by the correction of the First-begotten, and the coming of the serpent is conquered by the harmlessness of the dove, those bonds being unloosed by which we had been fast bound to death.
2. The heretics being all unlearned and ignorant of God's arrangements, and not acquainted with that dispensation by which He took upon Him human nature (inscii ejus quæ; est secundum hominem dispensationis), inasmuch as they blind themselves with regard to the truth, do in fact speak against their own salvation. Some of them introduce another Father besides the Creator; some, again, say that the world and its substance was made by certain angels; certain others [maintain] that it was widely separated by Horos from him whom they represent as being the Father— that it sprang forth (floruisse) of itself, and from itself was born. Then, again, others [of them assert] that it obtained substance in those things which are contained by the Father, from defect and ignorance; others still, despise the advent of the Lord manifest [to the senses], for they do not admit His incarnation; while others, ignoring the arrangement [that He should be born] of a virgin, maintain that He was begotten by Joseph. And still further, some affirm that neither their soul nor their body can receive eternal life, but merely the inner man. Moreover, they will have it that this [inner man] is that which is the understanding (sensum) in them, and which they decree as being the only thing to ascend to "the perfect." Others [maintain], as I have said in the first book, that while the soul is saved, their body does not participate in the salvation which comes from God; in which [book] I have also set forward the hypotheses of all these men, and in the second have pointed out their weakness and inconsistency.
Lovely. Thanks
Ping!
well said....
Eight different "pagan source heresies" are mentioned, but none address the extremely ancient belief of God the Mother. To link the theology of Mary all the way back to Eve without ever mentioning this virtually global, and religiously fundamental, belief concept seems just a tad disingenuous.
Silly me. I’ve been believing that it was through Jesus, God’s Messiah, that escape from the consequences of sin was made available to us. And silly Ol’ God, forgetting that the problem of sin had been relieved by a virgin.
Also worth mentioning that St Irenaeus was the student of the martyred Bishop of Smyrna Polycarp, who was the disciple of St John the Apostle.
>>The heretics being all unlearned and ignorant of God’s arrangements...<<
Sounds like they need to read a Bible. Then they won’t be ignorant. Jesus speaks of and addresses His mother many times in the bible. It gives you a pretty good feel for where she stands in the “pecking order”.
Hint: There is the triune God, and then there is everybody else.
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Yes. It was traditional to treat Jesus as the New Adam, and Mary as the New Eve.
In fact, even after the Reformation, Milton begins Paradise Regain’d with the promise that Jesus will rebuild the Paradise that Adam lost within the “waste wildernesse” through which he wanders for forty days and where he is tempted by Satan. And Mary plays a significant part in Milton’s poem.
It was also traditional to suggest that the tree from which the cross was made on which Jesus was crucified was descended from the Tree of Knowledge, from which Adam ate the Forbidden Fruit.
Eve abstracted information from her environment making her - and us - human, like it or not.
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