Posted on 12/05/2010 6:14:57 PM PST by RnMomof7
............The Historical Evidence
The Roman Catholic Church claims that this doctrine, like all of their other distinctive doctrines, has the “unanimous consent of the Fathers” (contra unanimen consensum Patrum).[10] They argue that what they teach concerning the Immaculate Conception has been the historic belief of the Christian Church since the very beginning. As Ineffabilis Deus puts it,
The Catholic Church, directed by the Holy Spirit of God… has ever held as divinely revealed and as contained in the deposit of heavenly revelation this doctrine concerning the original innocence of the august Virgin… and thus has never ceased to explain, to teach and to foster this doctrine age after age in many ways and by solemn acts.[11]
However, the student of church history will quickly discover that this is not the case. The earliest traces of this doctrine appear in the middle ages when Marian piety was at its bloom. Even at this time, however, the acceptance of the doctrine was far from universal. Both Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Clairvaux rejected the immaculate conception. The Franciscans (who affirmed the doctrine) and the Dominicans (who denied it, and of whom Aquinas was one) argued bitterly over whether this doctrine should be accepted, with the result that the pope at the time had to rule that both options were acceptable and neither side could accuse the other of heresy (ironic that several centuries later, denying this doctrine now results in an anathema from Rome).
When we go further back to the days of the early church, however, the evidence becomes even more glaring. For example, the third century church father Origen of Alexandria taught in his treatise Against Celsus (3:62 and 4:40) that that the words of Genesis 3:16 applies to every woman without exception. He did not exempt Mary from this. As church historian and patristic scholar J.N.D. Kelly points out,
Origen insisted that, like all human beings, she [Mary] needed redemption from her sins; in particular, he interpreted Simeon’s prophecy (Luke 2.35) that a sword would pierce her soul as confirming that she had been invaded with doubts when she saw her Son crucified.”[12]
Also, it must be noted that it has been often pointed out that Jesus’ rebuke of Mary in the wedding of Cana (John 2:1-12) demonstrates that she is in no wise perfect or sinless. Mark Shea scoffs at this idea that Mary is “sinfully pushing him [Jesus] to do theatrical wonders in John 2,” arguing that “there is no reason to think [this] is true.”[13] However, if we turn to the writings of the early church fathers, we see that this is precisely how they interpreted Mary’s actions and Jesus’ subsequent rebuke of her. In John Chrysostom’s twenty-first homily on the gospel of John (where he exegetes the wedding of Cana), he writes,
For where parents cause no impediment or hindrance in things belonging to God, it is our bounden duty to give way to them, and there is great danger in not doing so; but when they require anything unseasonably, and cause hindrance in any spiritual matter, it is unsafe to obey. And therefore He answered thus in this place, and again elsewhere “Who is My mother, and who are My brethren?” (Matt. xii.48), because they did not yet think rightly of Him; and she, because she had borne Him, claimed, according to the custom of other mothers, to direct Him in all things, when she ought to have reverenced and worshiped Him. This then was the reason why He answered as He did on that occasion… He rebuked her on that occasion, saying, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” instructing her for the future not to do the like; because, though He was careful to honor His mother, yet He cared much more for the salvation of her soul, and for the doing good to the many, for which He took upon Him the flesh.[14]
Now why on earth would Jesus care for the salvation of Mary’s soul at this point in time if she was already “preventatively” saved through having been immaculately conceived, as was claimed earlier? That does not make any sense, whatsoever. Likewise, Theodoret of Cyrus agrees with John Chrysostom in saying that the Lord Jesus rebuked Mary during the wedding at Cana. In chapter two of his Dialogues, he writes,
If then He was made flesh, not by mutation, but by taking flesh, and both the former and the latter qualities are appropriate to Him as to God made flesh, as you said a moment ago, then the natures were not confounded, but remained unimpaired. And as long as we hold thus we shall perceive too the harmony of the Evangelists, for while the one proclaims the divine attributes of the one only begotten—the Lord Christ—the other sets forth His human qualities. So too Christ our Lord Himself teaches us, at one time calling Himself Son of God and at another Son of man: at one time He gives honour to His Mother as to her that gave Him birth [Luke 2:52]; at another He rebukes her as her Lord [John 2:4].[15] And then there is Augustine of Hippo, whom many Roman Catholic apologists attempt to appeal to for their belief in the immaculate conception. They like to quote a portion of chapter 42 of his treatise, On Nature and Grace, where Augustine states,
We must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honour to the Lord; for from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin.[16]
However, those who quote this passage miss the point of what Augustine is trying to communicate. He was trying to refute the Pelagian heretics (who were the ones who were claiming that Mary—among other biblical characters—were sinless, since they denied the depravity of man). The article explaining Augustine’s view of Mary on Allan Fitzgerald’s Augustine Through the Ages helps clear up misconceptions regarding this passage:
His [Augustine's] position must be understood in the context of the Pelagian controversy. Pelagius himself had already admitted that Mary, like the other just women of the Old testament, was spared from any sin. Augustine never concedes that Mary was sinless but prefers to dismiss the question… Since medieval times this passage [from Nature and Grace] has sometimes been invoked to ground Augustine’s presumed acceptance of the doctrine of the immaculate conception. It is clear nonetheless that, given the various theories regarding the transmission of original sin current in his time, Augustine in that passage would not have meant to imply Mary’s immunity from it.[17]
This same article then goes on to demonstrate that Augustine did in fact believe that Mary received the stain of original sin from her parents:
His understanding of concupiscence as an integral part of all marital relations made it difficult, if not impossible, to accept that she herself was conceived immaculately. He… specifies in [Contra Julianum opus imperfectum 5.15.52]… that the body of Mary “although it came from this [concupiscence], nevertheless did not transmit it for she did not conceive in this way.” Lastly, De Genesi ad litteram 10.18.32 asserts: “And what more undefiled than the womb of the Virgin, whose flesh, although it came from procreation tainted by sin, nevertheless did not conceive from that source.”[18]
As can be seen here, these and many other early church fathers[19] did not regard Mary as being sinless or immaculately conceived. It is quite clear that the annals of church history testify that Rome cannot claim that this belief is based upon the “unanimous consent of the fathers,” since the belief that Mary was sinless started out among Pelagian heretics during the fifth century and did not become an acceptable belief until at least the beginning of the middle ages.
Conclusion
As has been demonstrated here, neither scripture nor church history support the contention of the Roman Catholic Church that Mary was sinless by virtue of having been immaculately conceived. In fact, Rome did not even regard this as an essential part of the faith until the middle of the nineteenth century. This should cause readers to pause and question why on earth Rome would anathematize Christians for disbelieving in a doctrine that was absent from the early church (unless one wants to side with the fifth century Pelagians) and was considered even by Rome to be essential for salvation until a century and a half ago. Because Rome said so? But their reasons for accepting this doctrine in the first place are so demonstrably wrong. After all, they claim that this was held as divinely revealed from the very beginning, even though four and a half centuries’ worth of patristic literature proves otherwise. This ought to be enough to cast doubt not only on Rome’s claims regarding Mariology, but their claims to authority on matters of faith and morals in general.
If I could cause my image to appear, I think I'd work with beer foam.
May God
lead you ever closer to
HIS TRUTH,
HIS WORD,
HIS WILL,
HIMSELF.
>>How fluent are you in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic?<<
I make no representations as to the inaccuracy of interpretations.
Those who say the RCC is “wrong” and “not truly representative of the Bible” must defend that charge by supporting the accuracy of their interpretation (of the interpretation).
Heck, linguistic scholars can’t even agree on “Nom” — how can someone with a few years’ experience whose theological schooling consists of reading cherry-picked phrases from a bad interpretation of the Bible come to the conclusion the RCC and its 1,000+ years of scholarship and billions of adherents are “just wrong?”
The onus is not on me. Your argument is forensically flawed.
And my Aramaic is admittedly rusty.
Exactly! He wasn’t PC - He called it what it was/is for correction. But thin skinned see it as condemnation.
How fluent are you in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic?
It’s nothing more than their IMPLICITLY reading between the lines again. They do it in Scripture, in order to invent doctrine. And they do it in posts, in order to get threads locked when they become uncomfortable.
INDEED.
THX.
Perhaps the thin-skinned
and/or
the guilty
see it as condemnation.
It amuses me when someone doubts the virign birth yet believes Jesus rose from the dead by leaving the stone tomb without rolling away the stone and appeared in a room where the doors and windows were locked! Leaving Mary's womb and appearing then in our where/when was no great difficulty for the God to Whom Time is a volume. If these discussions didn't get so nasty with each other (proddies and Catholics ... I'm a proddy, BTW), they would be amusing to follow.
Jesus is THE ROCK.
I a Catholic told me that Mary’s mother was also sinless. How could she have produced a sinless mother of Jesus if not? And how far back do you want to take that? Down through all of Mary’s lineage? Her whole linage had to have been sinless then.
We Orthodox teach that Mary committed no personal sins, while rejecting the Latin innovation of the “Immaculate Conception” (which we see as a needless fix to a spurious problem created by simultaneously maintaining the true patristic understanding of Mary’s purity and accepting Blessed Augustine’s account of the effects of the Fall, unaccountably while rejecting his traductionist theory of the origin of the soul on which, in his own thinking, the theory rested).
Now there is some variance of opinion as to what is meant by this, as we recognize both voluntary and involuntary sins. Some Orthodox hold that Mary committed no sins—period. Others hold that she committed no voluntary sins—which is easier to square with “no man (anthropos) liveth and sinneth not, and Thou only art beyond sin”.
A Catholic told me that Mary’s mother was also sinless. How could she have produced a sinless mother of Jesus if not? And how far back do you want to take that? Down through all of Mary’s lineage? Her whole linage had to have been sinless then.
It’s nothing more than their IMPLICITLY reading between the lines again. They do it in Scripture, in order to invent doctrine. And they do it in posts, in order to get threads locked when they become uncomfortable.
Absolutely indeed.
It occurs to me . . . some ask about Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic scholarship, fluency etc.
It seems to me, the worst amongs the Proddys in terms of such scholarship
ARE EXCEEDINGLY LIGHT YEARS BEYOND, BETTER THAN
the most learned RC’s when it comes to
Simple Biblical understanding and discernment;
understanding basic honest logic and truthfulness
etc. etc. etc.
Sheesh what duplicitous jerks populate the other side.
Thank you. I am blessed. He has blessed me mightily.
**And such a mentality has the cluelessness **
**I’m beginning to think they have not a shred of a clue about how they look to rational humans. **
Are you trying to mind-read again?
An honest assessment of the Christianity of Latin America reveals a great deal of paganism.
Plenty of converts from Islam have reported that Jesus appeared to them, prompting their conversion. Considering the risk they take for their new faith, I believe their claims. The visitations by saints do not quite ring as true.
Thanks for making my point about flawed interpretations. Since Jesus was talking to (then-named) Simon and establishing him as Pope Peter ("Petros" and variants is the word for "rock" in almost all Latin and ME languages). There is Biblical support for the line of succession from Peter to the modern day Pope.
You can't even get it right with a simple English translation -- how in the world do you think you or anyone else can condemn the RCC as not adhering to the Bible?
Attempts to get this thread pulled or locked by abusing the moderators will fail.
Quix appears to have a very special exemption from the rules of civil conduct here. He can post pictures of asses, make nasty comments and read minds all without fear of correction. Very odd.
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