Posted on 02/01/2007 9:29:47 AM PST by Ottofire
Because he stands in the shadows of Luther and Calvin, Zwingli (1484-1531) gets overlooked often. His writings can be difficult to track down. One can go to the local bookstore and get a Calvin or Luther bio or anthology, but you’ll do a lot searching to actually get a Zwingli book. When you do read Zwingli, it becomes apparent that he was not on par with either Luther or Calvin.
I’ve always wanted to read Zwingli discussing his Mariology. For the most part, the only people who seem to “care” about Zwingli’s Mariology are Roman Catholics. And really, they probably aren’t interested in actually reading and researching Zwingli. Rather, his writings are used for polemical purposes- to show that an early Reformer had particular beliefs about the Virgin Mary. It does appear that Zwingli did have some similar beliefs about Mary to those found in Roman Catholicism. This is a subject that I plan on exploring. I'd like to see for myself how Zwingli understood the role of Mary. I refuse to be spoon fed Zwingli quotes from Catholic apologetics- for I doubt most of the pop Catholic apologetic writers have actually read Zwingli on this subject.
Well, here's a present from me to the Catholic apologetics community. I did finally track down a piece from Zwingli on Mary. It is a section from the “Sermon on Mary, The Pure Mother of God”. Zwingli preached the sermon in Zurich in the autumn of 1522. In it, you will find Zwingli saying all sorts of things about Mary. He calls her "pure" and "holy", a "spotless virgin" etc. Note though, Zwingli’s explanation of the Greek word "kecharitomene". Zwingli understands the word to mean “favorable”.
“When the angel came in unto Mary, he greeted her with these words: " Hail, thou art full of grace! The Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women." Here it is to be noticed that this word "full of grace" is, translated from the Greek word "kecharitomene," which means beloved, or filled with grace, highly favored, whereby we understand that the word “full of grace " should not be taken to mean that she was from herself full of grace, but that all the grace with which she was so rich and full was from God. For to be full of grace is nothing else than to be highly favored of God and to be chosen before all other women. For grace is only the favor of God. So if I should say that God has given much grace to men, I should say nothing else than God has been very favorable to men and done loving things for them. Therefore is the pure Mary full of grace from God, as she herself sings: "He hath done to me great things." She says not: "I am great from mine own grace," but " the Almighty hath done to me great things." For immediately afterward she adds: "He hath regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden, for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." [Source: Guy Carelton Lee (ed.), The World’s Orators (New York: GP Putnum’s Sons, 1900, 95-96).
posted by James Swan at 6:33 AM
A question for you, then. Do you deny Christ when you deify Mary?
I don't think Luther ever denied anything about Mary.
If I recall, he held to the Immaculate Conception (I believe he called it "a sweet piety"), and to the virgin birth.
The problems Protestantism had with Mary didn't start in the Reformation, but mostly in the 19th Century, when Mary began to appear at places like Lourdes, and then into the 20th with the apparition at Fatima.
It was the Marian apparitions, really, that caused the sudden, acute focus on Mary, and forced a theological decision on everybody's part. For it's part, the Catholic Church's first clear and unambiguous use of Papal Infallibility as explicitly pronounced by Vatican I concerned Mary. For their part, the Protestants, especially American Protestants, began to become very, very hostile to Catholic Marian devotion at the same time, and for the same reason.
Mary either was either really injected into human history in the Mid-19th Century by real apparitions, or was conjured up by imaginations, but either way, she was front-and-center on stage in the Catholic world from the 1830s through World War 1 because of these revelatory apparitions which, in the first mass media age, swept the world up in speculation. That provoked a harsh reaction on the part of some Protestants, who came down very hard on Mary and the Marian Apparitions because they aren't biblical (obviously, considering the last penstroke of the Bible was probably sometime late in the First Century).
Luther and Calvin both would have probably attacked anybody who attacked Mary the way she has been attacked since the Lourdes Apparition.
In truth, Luther's position on Mary was very close to the Catholic position.
And, just to be clear, the Catholic position is that Mary is NOT co-redemptrix.
"Are you saying that Mary was perfect? Sinless?"
The teaching of the Catholic Church is that Mary was conceived without Original Sin, and did not bear the sin ancestral to man since Adam and Eve.
The further teaching is that Mary remained perpetually a Virgin, before and after the conception and birth of Christ.
The further teaching is that when Mary left the Earth, either by falling asleep or by dying, she was assumed bodily into heaven.
You haven't answered the question. A person could be a virgin all their life and still be a sinner. If you break one law once, you are a sinner, doomed to death.
"If you break one law once, you are a sinner, doomed to death."
Jesus never said that.
Sigh...
The wages of sin is death. Not some sins, but any and all sin.
If you break one jot or tittle of the law, you have broken the whole law.
I could go on, but you haven't even answered my question.
I thought I answered your question?
Catholic teaching is that Mary remained sinless her whole life.
Right. Give 'em heck. Ignore the leaven of the Pharisees.
Then she didn't need a savior. She was the only PERFECT human. She also contradicts scripture.
So does Jesus.
So does Job - blameless as he was.
So do Enoch and Elijah.
Anyway, there are many Catholics on FreeRepublic who can answer you. My time here is through.
Farewell and Godspeed.
Um... Jesus IS scripture.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God... The Word became flesh and dwelt among us...
--On the Last Day of Jedgment we will all know where Luther, Calvin, Zwingli are, won't we?
--Did they deny Chrisit, when they denied Christ's mother?
On the Last Day of Judgement, were will the masses of Mary Worshipers be, while they deny the completeness of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, and they look to their own works to get them out of harms way?
By worshiping Christ's mother, they deny Christ.
*************
LOL! I may have to borrow that explanation for myself sometime. :)
Catholics do not worship Mary.
HAIL MARY
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
I don't think a more perfect explanation of the Catholic view of Mary can be found.
Why pray to a dead woman when you can talk to a live savior?
You don't have to. No one is forced to say the "Hail Mary".
But there is no need to do so when you can talk to Jesus himself.
If you feel that way, don't say the "Hail Mary".
Where in the world did you get the idea that Catholics "deny the completeness of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross"?
Is that another misunderstanding of what you were taught in your youth?
Who told you that Catholics "look to their own works to get them out of harms way"?
Is that another mistaken teaching you learned as a youth?
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