Because of the Protestant Reformers Beliefs On Mary

Back when I first joined YIMCatholic, I was going to write posts about my conversion. I hammered out seven posts in pretty rapid succession and then, I stopped writing them until recently.

Many of my posts now are simply my observations of the world which are colored through the lens of a convert to Catholicism. It would be difficult for them not to be. Other posts I've written are of the "look what I just found!" variety, and the "I want to share this with you" type. Call them the discovery posts if you will.

Recently I gave a talk on the Communion of Saints for my parishes RCIA group. Consequently, I've been answering questions of potential converts that have prompted me to explain my conversion to others.

Basically, this has resulted in my having become a neophyte evangelist of sorts for the Church. And though this blog space isn't the forum for heavy-duty apologetics, because others do that better elsewhere, I have always seen my role here at YIMC as one of evangelizing.

Back to my conversion story, when I was first confronting the idea of becoming a Catholic, I had to look hard at the question "Why am I Protestant?" Having just moved cross-country following my retirement from the Marines, I found out that my mother no longer went to church where we had gone when I was growing up. Instead of the non-denominational church I grew up in (and which we were a founding family of), I learned that she now went to a Presbyterian church instead. Hmmm.

Rather than start visiting all kinds of churches, which appealed to me about as much as shopping for a new car, my family and I kept going to the local Catholic parish in our new town while I did research and home improvement projects. One of the first things I looked into was the problem of Catholics and their obviously misguided devotion to the Virgin Mary.

The funny thing is, I had sat in the pews in the Catholic Church with my wife for close to 18 years and I had never really noticed any wacky or overly zealous devotion to Mary. Not at Mass, anyway, and as we didn't stick around much after the conclusion of Mass, I didn't see anything that made me uncomfortable. Truthfully, I was surprised about this and it's probably a big reason why I continued to sit in the pews with my patient Catholic wife for that long a time.

This didn't stop me from believing that weird Marian devotions were happening though, and I assumed talk of her perpetual virginity was just "crazy talk." Like most, I had no idea what the Immaculate Conception was either and I just thought people were referring to Our Lord's conception. I was ignorant, plain and simple. But I had in mind a mission to correct the wrong religious track that my family was on so I started planning the military campaign to retake the spiritual territory I had ceded to the Church. My first target was what I thought would be the easiest: Mary.

Before I went on my "destroy Marian Devotion" offensive, though, I knew I would have to do a little homework. Planning ahead, you see, I figured the best place to start was with the guys who picked up the Protestant Reformation football and ran with it for touchdowns. Follow the winners Frank, and victory will be yours!

But get this. Much to my surprise, nay, shock(!) I had to throw a penalty flag on myself and look for a different angle of attack. Because what I found out was that the Big Three "Reformers" all agreed with the Catholic Church's teachings on the Mother of God!

Throughout his life Luther maintained without change the historic Christian affirmation that Mary was the Mother of God:

"She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God ... It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God."

Again throughout his life Luther held that Mary's perpetual virginity was an article of faith for all Christians - and interpreted Galatians 4:4 to mean that Christ was "born of a woman" alone.

"It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a Virgin."

Yet again the Immaculate Conception was a doctrine Luther defended to his death (as confirmed by Lutheran scholars like Arthur Piepkorn). Like Augustine, Luther saw an unbreakable link between Mary's divine maternity, perpetual virginity and Immaculate Conception. Although his formulation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not clear-cut, he held that her soul was devoid of sin from the beginning:

"But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin..."

Although he did not make it an article of faith, Luther said of the doctrine of the Assumption:

"There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know."

Despite his unremitting criticism of the traditional doctrines of Marian mediation and intercession, to the end Luther continued to proclaim that Mary should be honored. He made it a point to preach on her feast days.

"Is Christ only to be adored? Or is the holy Mother of God rather not to be honoured? This is the woman who crushed the Serpent's head. Hear us. For your Son denies you nothing." Luther made this statement in his last sermon at Wittenberg in January 1546.

It has been said that John Calvin belonged to the second generation of the Reformers and certainly his theology of double predestination governed his views on Marian and all other Christian doctrine . Although Calvin was not as profuse in his praise of Mary as Martin Luther he did not deny her perpetual virginity. The term he used most commonly in referring to Mary was "Holy Virgin".

"Elizabeth called Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God."

"Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ." Calvin translated "brothers" in this context to mean cousins or relatives.

"It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor."

"To this day we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honour to Mary, in willing her to be the mother of his only-begotten Son."

"It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God."

"I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin." Zwingli used Exodus 4:22 to defend the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.

"I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary."

"The more the honor and love of Christ increases among men, so much the esteem and honor given to Mary should grow."

I remember being blown away by these revelations. I had gone to Christian churches my whole life and I had been told what I was supposed to believe, and I had never been told these things about Mary. I felt a little bit like the fellow wearing tan below, even though I was really acting like the guy wearing black.

And then I thought, "methinks they dost protest too much." And like young Skywalker above, I too leaped with faith and lived to tell the tale. I didn't land on my feet though. Instead, I landed in the lap of Blaise Pascal.

And so began the process of my going back to the Scriptures and to the Church Fathers and back through the history of the Catholic Church, and finally back into the arms of Christ's Church Herself.

To read more about the Protestant Reformers views on the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to track down the footnotes too, head on over to catholicapologetics.info. Head over to Scripture Catholic too, and bring your Bibles. Then head over to the Vatican and look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well.

what is YOUR definition of veneration?

The act of giving honor to.

Does it involve bowing the knee before a statue or icon? Why?

Why not? I bowed my knee before my intended wife. I still sometimes bow when asking to dance. Maybe it's a Southern thing. It is often cultural.

why pay any veneration (or in my view, worship) to any saint??

Why honor soldiers? We throw parades for sports teams. I think when it comes to honor, our religious 'heroes' deserve at least as much as our sports or military or sports heroes.

Is not our duty to worship God?

Out of love and gratitude and awe. We do so.

Then, if so, why venerate anyone long gone from this earth?

Bob Feller was recently given honor on his death, why?

From the Martyrdom of Polycarp (c. 135 AD):

...it is neither possible for us ever to forsake Christ...nor to worship any other. For we worship him indeed, as being the Son of God. However, as for the martyrs, as disciples and followers of the Lord, we worthily love them on account of their extraordinary affections towards their own King.

We have access to the Creator of the Universe; if you take time to venerate/worship or pray to anyone/qnything else, you’re replacing God by misusing that time. That is idolatry.

I don't worship anyone but God. I often ask others for their prayers. Worshiping anyone but God would be idolatry, but honoring and asking for intercessory prayer is not worship.

Do you have a better definition of idolatry? What makes an idol an idol?

thanks for your reply...

When you prayer to humans in Heaven, do you receive a response from them?

I ask the Saints in Heaven to pray for me. They are with me in Holy Communion. We believe in the Communion of Saints - including those in Heaven. Do I hear the voices of those in Heaven. No. Does being part of and in communion with the full Body of Christ engender a response in me. Most definitely. The most important response of my life here on earth.

Can they provide comfort to you, like the Holy Spirit does?

Not "like". They are two radically different things. The comfort of the Saints is different. Somewhat like the comfort of another human, like a mother perhaps. And like the comfort of those who have gone and who have sacrificed for our Lord before us. The saints serve as guides and people to emulate. We know they are with God and, with us, in the Body of Christ. The Communion of the Saints, being part of the Body of Christ are the supreme comforts. Asking the Saints for their prayers and honoring their love and sacrifice is but one way for me to bring present that and one result is comfort and confidence. It is not an either/or, but an and. And I welcome all the ands God provides. :)

In fact, scripture strictly forbids us from communicating with any spirit that has left this world, except for The Holy Spirit.

It forbids necromancy.

We reference two parts of scripture in this regard. First, that our God is the God of the living, Christ has defeated death. Secondly, Revelation 5:8, which depicts the saints in heaven offering our prayers to God under the form of "golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."

thanks for your reply. Certainly the body of Christ, that remains on Earth, is unified, but there is nothing in scripture that suggests we can communicate with departed humans. In fact, scripture strictly forbids us from communicating with any spirit that has left this world, except for The Holy Spirit.

No it isn’t — in Luke’s Gospel — “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to Your Word.”

That she is a servant/handmaiden of The Lord. And so was Esther and so was Elizabeth who bore John the Baptist who PREPARED THE WAY! Everyday of his life was spent serving The Lord and he was murdered for it.

Each one called for a certain purpose to fulfill their destiny for HIS KINGDOM. Is that too hard to grasp? Or if Catholics did grasp it, the counterfeit church would crumble on the quicksand it was built on. In actuality it has crumbled - it's being held up w/toothpicks by the blinded.

Now why do you believe that God created the world with only a word? Yet don’t believe that the Son of God became incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary at God’s Word spoken through the Angel, Gabriel?

Slow down. You are overstretching and taking liberties that aren't yours - you don't speak for me and state what YOU think I believe. Which Catholics constantly do because of their association with the RCC that does the same. They spoon fed their subjects on what to believe.

Created the world with ONLY a word? Get back to HIS WORD, your catechism is confusing you.

The Son of God ALWAYS was - He wasn't created in a womb. The Son of God became flesh in the womb - He took on another form. That is the way God's Word, who is JESUS designed creation to take place. HE NEVER GOES AGAINST HIS OWN WORD for HE IS THE WORD.

So back to the RCC's heresy teachings - it opposes God's Word over and over again. It's not hidden, and it's not a mystery - it's reality.

BTW, I knew what was meant by “boundaries” — He should have used the word “guidelines” instead. LOL!

And yet you had no problem making a fuss and insinuations? Nice job at truth there.

You stating what word he 'should' have used - truly shows YOUR CONTROL ISSUE - a major flaw with Catholics - that is prevalent on these threads. Everyone knew what he meant but you needed to make a fuss and insinuate. Control/manipulation/intimidation - their root is witchcraft from the master of lies/deception. And that is what the RCC is all about - CONTROL over the minds and souls of it's subjects.

“Philip Schaff”

You regard Philip Schaff to be a greater authority than the Council of Chalcedon? I don’t. Schaff’s got an opinion of events he didn’t witness. Chalcedon is much closer to the period than we are, and so should bear greater weight unless Schaff has positive corroboration of his own opinion.

Yes, I’m aware that the earliest documents we possess do not testify as to the fate of the Blessed Virgin. I believe I just said this. The earliest information we do possess is that the claim was raised, and confirmed at Chalcedon. Could it have been known earlier? Yes. Do we currently lack the documentation? Also yes.

Archaeological evidence of the early Church prior to the reign of Constantine is quite sparse.

Why was Origen unaware of this? Considerable time had passed between Origen and between the Apostles. He didn’t possess the physical evidence, nor was he aware of her tomb and the location in Jerusalem. Both of which were confirmed to be true at Chalcedon.

Why might the church in Jerusalem have difficulty transmitting this information? The entire community had been levelled and destroyed in 70 AD. Then again in Bar Kochba. The bishop of Jerusalem, even in the time of Constantine was called Aelia, after the rebuilt city.

It makes sense to me, that when Christianity finally acheived recognition, that Mary’s tomb would be rediscovered as well as the documentation that the tomb had been empty in the time of the Apostles.

The assumption of Mary. This is truly an amazing dogma, yet there is no Scriptural proof for it, and even the Roman Catholic writer Eamon Duffy concedes that, ‘there is, clearly, no historical evidence whatever for it ...’ (Eamon Duffy, What Catholics Believe About Mary (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1989), p. 17).

For centuries in the early Church there is complete silence regarding Mary’s end. The first mention of it is by Epiphanius in 377 A.D. and he specifically states that no one knows what actually happened to Mary. He lived near Palestine and if there were, in fact, a tradition in the Church generally believed and taught he would have affirmed it. But he clearly states that ‘her end no one knows.’ These are his words:

But if some think us mistaken, let them search the Scriptures. They will not find Mary’s death; they will not find whether she died or did not die; they will not find whether she was buried or was not buried ... Scripture is absolutely silent [on the end of Mary] ... For my own part, I do not dare to speak, but I keep my own thoughts and I practice silence ... The fact is, Scripture has outstripped the human mind and left [this matter] uncertain ... Did she die, we do not know ... Either the holy Virgin died and was buried ... Or she was killed ... Or she remained alive, since nothing is impossible with God and He can do whatever He desires; for her end no-one knows.’ (Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. 78.10-11, 23. Cited by juniper Carol, O.F.M. ed., Mariology, Vol. II (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), pp. 139-40).

In addition to Epiphanius, there is Jerome who also lived in Palestine and does not report any tradition of an assumption. Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, echoes Epiphanius by saying that no one has any information at all about Mary’s death. The patristic testimony is therefore non-existent on this subject. Even Roman Catholic historians readily admit this fact:

In these conditions we shall not ask patristic thought—as some theologians still do today under one form or another—to transmit to us, with respect to the Assumption, a truth received as such in the beginning and faithfully communicated to subsequent ages. Such an attitude would not fit the facts...Patristic thought has not, in this instance, played the role of a sheer instrument of transmission’ (Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M., ed., Mariology, Vol. I (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1955), p. 154).

How then did this teaching come to have such prominence in the Church that eventually led it to be declared an issue of dogma in 1950? The first Church father to affirm explicitly the assumption of Mary in the West was Gregory of Tours in 590 A.D. But the basis for his teaching was not the tradition of the Church but his acceptance of an apocryphal Gospel known as the Transitus Beatae Mariae which we first hear of at the end of the fifth century and which was spuriously attributed to Melito of Sardis. There were many versions of this literature which developed over time and which were found throughout the East and West but they all originated from one source. Mariologist, Juniper Carol, gives the following historical summary of the Transitus literature:

An intriguing corpus of literature on the final lot of Mary is formed by the apocryphal Transitus Mariae. The genesis of these accounts is shrouded in history’s mist. They apparently originated before the close of the fifth century, perhaps in Egypt, perhaps in Syria, in consequence of the stimulus given Marian devotion by the definition of the divine Maternity at Ephesus. The period of proliferation is the sixth century. At least a score of Transitus accounts are extant, in Coptic, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Armenian. Not all are prototypes, for many are simply variations on more ancient models (Juniper Carol, O.F.M. ed., Mariology, Vol. II (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), p. 144).

Thus, the Transitus literature is the real source of the teaching of the assumption of Mary and Roman Catholic authorities admit this fact. Juniper Carol, for example, writes: ‘The first express witness in the West to a genuine assumption comes to us in an apocryphal Gospel, the Transitus Beatae Mariae of Pseudo–Melito’ (Juniper Carol, O.F.M. ed., Mariology, Vol. l (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), p. 149). Roman Catholic theologian, Ludwig Ott, likewise affirms these facts when he says:

The idea of the bodily assumption of Mary is first expressed in certain transitus–narratives of the fifth and sixth centuries. Even though these are apocryphal they bear witness to the faith of the generation in which they were written despite their legendary clothing. The first Church author to speak of the bodily ascension of Mary, in association with an apocryphal transitus B.M.V., is St. Gregory of Tours’ (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Rockford: Tan, 1974), pp. 209–210).

Juniper Carol explicitly states that the Transitus literature is a complete fabrication which should be rejected by any serious historian:

The account of Pseudo-Melito, like the rest of the Transitus literature, is admittedly valueless as history, as an historical report of Mary’s death and corporeal assumption; under that aspect the historian is justified in dismissing it with a critical distaste (Juniper Carol, O.F.M. ed., Mariology, Vol. l (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), p. 150).

It was partially through these writings that teachers in the East and West began to embrace and promote the teaching. But it still took several centuries for it to become generally accepted. The earliest extant discourse on the feast of the Dormition affirms that the assumption of Mary comes from the East at the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth century. The Transitus literature is highly significant as the origin of the assumption teaching and it is important that we understand the nature of these writings. The Roman Catholic Church would have us believe that this apocryphal work expressed an existing, common belief among the faithful with respect to Mary and that the Holy Spirit used it to bring more generally to the Church’s awareness the truth of Mary’s assumption. The historical evidence would suggest otherwise. The truth is that, as with the teaching of the immaculate conception, the Roman Church has embraced and is responsible for promoting teachings which originated, not with the faithful, but with heretical writings which were officially condemned by the early Church. History proves that when the Transitus teaching originated the Church regarded it as heresy. In 494 to 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius issued a decree entitled Decretum de Libris Canonicis Ecclesiasticis et Apocryphis. This decree officially set forth the writings which were considered to be canonical and those which were apocryphal and were to be rejected. http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/assumption.html

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.