Posted on 05/31/2011 11:53:33 AM PDT by marshmallow
The Protoevangelium of James
“And behold, an angel of the Lord stood by [St. Anne], saying, ‘Anne! Anne! The Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive and shall bring forth, and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world.’ And Anne said, ‘As the Lord my God lives, if I beget either male or female, I will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God, and it shall minister to him in the holy things all the days of its life.’ . . . And [from the time she was three] Mary was in the temple of the Lord as if she were a dove that dwelt there” (Protoevangelium of James 4, 7 [A.D. 120]).
“And when she was twelve years old there was held a council of priests, saying, ‘Behold, Mary has reached the age of twelve years in the temple of the Lord. What then shall we do with her, lest perchance she defile the sanctuary of the Lord?’ And they said to the high priest, ‘You stand by the altar of the Lord; go in and pray concerning her, and whatever the Lord shall manifest to you, that also will we do.’ . . . [A]nd he prayed concerning her, and behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him saying, ‘Zechariah! Zechariah! Go out and assemble the widowers of the people and let them bring each his rod, and to whomsoever the Lord shall show a sign, his wife shall she be. . . . And Joseph [was chosen]. . . . And the priest said to Joseph, ‘You have been chosen by lot to take into your keeping the Virgin of the Lord.’ But Joseph refused, saying, ‘I have children, and I am an old man, and she is a young girl’” (ibid., 8–9).
“And Annas the scribe came to him [Joseph] . . . and saw that Mary was with child. And he ran away to the priest and said to him, ‘Joseph, whom you did vouch for, has committed a grievous crime.’ And the priest said, ‘How so?’ And he said, ‘He has defiled the virgin whom he received out of the temple of the Lord and has married her by stealth’” (ibid., 15).
“And the priest said, ‘Mary, why have you done this? And why have you brought your soul low and forgotten the Lord your God?’ . . . And she wept bitterly saying, ‘As the Lord my God lives, I am pure before him, and know not man’” (ibid.).
Origen
“The Book [the Protoevangelium] of James [records] that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end, so that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word . . . might not know intercourse with a man after the Holy Spirit came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the firstfruit among men of the purity which consists in [perpetual] chastity, and Mary was among women. For it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the firstfruit of virginity” (Commentary on Matthew 2:17 [A.D. 248]).
Hilary of Poitiers
“If they [the brethren of the Lord] had been Mary’s sons and not those taken from Joseph’s former marriage, she would never have been given over in the moment of the passion [crucifixion] to the apostle John as his mother, the Lord saying to each, ‘Woman, behold your son,’ and to John, ‘Behold your mother’ [John 19:26–27), as he bequeathed filial love to a disciple as a consolation to the one desolate" (Commentary on Matthew 1:4 [A.D. 354]).
Athanasius
“Let those, therefore, who deny that the Son is by nature from the Father and proper to his essence deny also that he took true human flesh from the ever-virgin Mary” (Discourses Against the Arians 2:70 [A.D. 360]).
Epiphanius of Salamis
“We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things, both visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God . . . who for us men and for our salvation came down and took flesh, that is, was born perfectly of the holy ever-virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit” (The Man Well-Anchored 120 [A.D. 374]).
“And to holy Mary, [the title] ‘Virgin’ is invariably added, for that holy woman remains undefiled” (Medicine Chest Against All Heresies 78:6 [A.D. 375]).
Jerome
“[Helvidius] produces Tertullian as a witness [to his view] and quotes Victorinus, bishop of Petavium. Of Tertullian, I say no more than that he did not belong to the Church. But as regards Victorinus, I assert what has already been proven from the gospel—that he [Victorinus] spoke of the brethren of the Lord not as being sons of Mary but brethren in the sense I have explained, that is to say, brethren in point of kinship, not by nature. [By discussing such things we] are . . . following the tiny streams of opinion. Might I not array against you the whole series of ancient writers? Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men, who against [the heretics] Ebion, Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus, held these same views and wrote volumes replete with wisdom. If you had ever read what they wrote, you would be a wiser man” (Against Helvidius: The Perpetual Virginity of Mary 19 [A.D. 383]).
“We believe that God was born of a virgin, because we read it. We do not believe that Mary was married after she brought forth her Son, because we do not read it. . . . You [Helvidius] say that Mary did not remain a virgin. As for myself, I claim that Joseph himself was a virgin, through Mary, so that a virgin Son might be born of a virginal wedlock” (ibid., 21).
Didymus the Blind
“It helps us to understand the terms ‘first-born’ and ‘only-begotten’ when the Evangelist tells that Mary remained a virgin ‘until she brought forth her first-born son’ [Matt. 1:25]; for neither did Mary, who is to be honored and praised above all others, marry anyone else, nor did she ever become the Mother of anyone else, but even after childbirth she remained always and forever an immaculate virgin” (The Trinity 3:4 [A.D. 386]).
Ambrose of Milan
“Imitate her [Mary], holy mothers, who in her only dearly beloved Son set forth so great an example of material virtue; for neither have you sweeter children [than Jesus], nor did the Virgin seek the consolation of being able to bear another son” (Letters 63:111 [A.D. 388]).
Pope Siricius I
“You had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another birth might issue from the same virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh. For the Lord Jesus would never have chosen to be born of a virgin if he had ever judged that she would be so incontinent as to contaminate with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of the Lord’s body, that court of the eternal king” (Letter to Bishop Anysius [A.D. 392]).
Augustine
“In being born of a Virgin who chose to remain a Virgin even before she knew who was to be born of her, Christ wanted to approve virginity rather than to impose it. And he wanted virginity to be of free choice even in that woman in whom he took upon himself the form of a slave” (Holy Virginity 4:4 [A.D. 401]).
“It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?” (Sermons 186:1 [A.D. 411]).
“Heretics called Antidicomarites are those who contradict the perpetual virginity of Mary and affirm that after Christ was born she was joined as one with her husband” (Heresies 56 [A.D. 428]).
Leporius
“We confess, therefore, that our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, born of the Father before the ages, and in times most recent, made man of the Holy Spirit and the ever-virgin Mary” (Document of Amendment 3 [A.D. 426]).
Cyril of Alexandria
“[T]he Word himself, coming into the Blessed Virgin herself, assumed for himself his own temple from the substance of the Virgin and came forth from her a man in all that could be externally discerned, while interiorly he was true God. Therefore he kept his Mother a virgin even after her childbearing” (Against Those Who Do Not Wish to Confess That the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God 4 [A.D. 430]).
Pope Leo I
“His [Christ’s] origin is different, but his [human] nature is the same. Human usage and custom were lacking, but by divine power a Virgin conceived, a Virgin bore, and Virgin she remained” (Sermons 22:2 [A.D. 450]).
“”ISHTAR-MARY CARICATURE””
This is really getting old,dear brother, and it is very foolish to keep saying this because it reveals your lack of knowledge about this.
Here is something to help you about this...
http://home.earthlink.net/~mysticalrose/mary.html
Queen of heaven was a title of the goddess Ishtar; so some anti-Catholics believe that Catholics are really praying to Ishtar because they call Mary Queen of Heaven.
By this line of reasoning we could “prove” that Evangelicals pray to Satan when they call Jesus “the Morning Star”, because “morning star” is the literal meaning of the Hebrew word usually translated “Lucifer” in Isaiah 14:12. It should be obvious that identical titles do not indicate identity of persons; were this so, King Nebuchadnezzar would be Jesus, since both are called “king of kings” (Daniel 4:24; Apocalypse/Revelations 19:16).
Ishtar does not deserve the title Queen of heaven because she is not truly the queen of heaven; she doesn’t even exist! But Mary is the queen-mother of Christ, the King of heaven, so she is the true Queen of heaven!
In the Davidic monarchy, the queen-mother, or gevirah (”lady”; feminine form of gevir, “lord”) played a very important role. King Solomon instituted this position when he enthroned his mother, Bathsheba, at his right hand (I Kings 2:19), and all his successors followed his example with their own mothers. This was the kings’ way of fulfilling the Commandment to honor their mothers (Exodus 20:12)
Each time the Bible records a king of Judah, it mentions his mother (see I Kings 14:21; II Kings 14:2; 21:19; 23:36; 2 Ch 22:2) because she was the gevirah, and so had a special place in his court. The prophet Jeremiah sends a warning to both the king and his mother (Jer 13:18), and the Babylonians took both King Jeconiah and his mother away into captivity (2 Kings 24:15; Jer 29:2).
Jesus is the final Son of David, the rightful heir to King David’s throne. He has exalted the Davidic dynasty into heaven itself, thus making it a truly everlasting kingdom (Ps 89:35-37). And, like His earthly forefathers, He has enthroned His Mother, Mary, at His right hand as the Gevirah of the Kingdom of heaven.
It's y'alls "ISHTAR-MARY CARICATURE". Nobody else's.
You are the only ones who talk about it. Jesse Duplantis is also y'alls.
"ISHTAR-MARY" and Jesse Duplantis are y'alls fixation.
I can understand, considering it is Jesse Duplantis.
But I have no future plans to send money to J Duplantis
Perfectly understandable.
That's fine but I was asking about your assignment. The personal one you received from God.
Yup, that guaranteed limousine ride that the Calvinists are counting on taking is somehow pointed in the opposite direction that the Christians walking the Via of Christ are going.
Mary is God's creation, a human being, period. And Catholics do NOT worship Mary, if they did I'd leave the Church. Catholics pray to Mary only to aske her to pray for them, as the mother of Jesus Christ, God incarnate. Protestants ask others to pray for them, which is right and good. But if the prayers of other, united to our own, make our prayers stronger, then how much stronger are our prayers when Jesus Christ's mother prays for us? Is the Virgin Mary dead, or alive in Heaven without the ability to hear our pleas and prayers? Impossible. The people in Heaven are more alive than you and I, and can most certainly hear our petitions, just as our heavenly Guardian Angels hear us.
Also consider the "Mount of the Transfiguration", where Jesus appeared to Peter, James and John, along with Moses and Elias. Our Lord actually spoke and conversed with Moses and Elias, both of whom certainly saw and heard the three Apostles. The Apostles then venerated Jesus and the two Old Testaments Saints by desiring to build them each a "tabernacle". Was this a slight to Jesus, the Son of God, that the Apostles wanted to venerate the Old Testament Fathers? Not at all.
That's actually almost funny. I ally myself with the Gospel -- with God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit... my comment was related to your attack on Quix -- nothing else. Nice try on trying to co-opt me in on your argument with Quix. I'm not playing and you're still failing.
Hoss
How, exactly, did I "identify myself" with Duplantis? All I did was ask you about your remark to Quix. Please tell me how that in any way associates me with Duplantis?
Are you trying that hard to try to get me into this? Once again, you're setting up a straw man argument, and not so cleverly either.
Keep trying....
Hoss
If you say so.
my comment was related to your attack on Quix -- nothing else. Nice try on trying to co-opt me in on your argument with Quix. I'm not playing and you're still failing.
Your fail is that you take my question as an accusation. Perhaps there is something to my question, in that case...
How, exactly, did I "identify myself" with Duplantis? All I did was ask you about your remark to Quix. Please tell me how that in any way associates me with Duplantis?
You hopped into the middle of a conversation in which you had not participated until that point, and appeared to support one individual within that conversation. If you take the questioning of your apparent position as an accusation, then that is your problem, not mine.
Thank you for jumping in, jiminy. And I concur. :)
I’m reading John of Damascus and he confirms my hunch that many, including many of our non-Catholic brethren, do not understand the Incarnation and its implications.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
If you follow the ploy of evading the rules by using “y’all” even when the post is to a single person, you can always claim it was meant to be plural, even though it was obviously meant for a single individual. Then you always have a legalistic way of avoiding getting dinged for breaking the rules. It works well doesn’t it, Quix?
A post, addressed to an individual, that said for example “Y’all are an idiot” mixes the singular and the plural but probably would get past the rule of making it personal. Right, Quix?
Not
anywhere REMOTELY NEAR AS OLD
As the Vatican Cult
pushing
the Ishtar-Mary caricature
on the citizens of the planet
so relentlessly, seductively, slickly, corruptly.
Which reminds me . . .
perhaps y’all can recall the
rationalizations, pontifications, justifications
for the Pope’s splendor and traveling machines . . .
when Proddys were chiding y’all about them.
Welllllll, insert above re Jesse.
And
WHEN Jesse—IF—Jesse
ever comes remotely close to the Pope’s splendor
even ‘merely’ parading around in gold gilded robes with worshipful attendants bowing and scraping and kissing his ring
then write me immediately.
And I’ll send off a scathing letter to Jesse quite quickly.
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