John Barach has an intriguing post on the passage in Mark (3:20-35) which speaks of Jesus’ “own people” wanting to lay hold of him because they believed Him to be “out of His mind.” John points out that this story is interrupted by a second story, Jesus’ confrontation with the scribes from Jerusalem who claim that he casts out demons by the ruler of the demons (3:22-30). Then, in verse 31, the original story picks up again with the identification of those referred to as “His own people” (v. 21) with His mother and brothers (v. 31).
There is an interesting play on words here as well. The word translated “out of His mind” is related etymologically to the word which means “standing outside.” John writes, “So Jesus’ ‘own people’ think Jesus is the one ‘standing outside’ (= crazy). But Jesus’ family members turn out to be the ones literally ‘standing outside,’ while Jesus identifies those who are sitting inside as his true family, those who, in obedience to God’s will, are ‘sitting around him’ (3:32, 34). To be his true family — his true mother and brothers — his natural mother and brothers ought to come inside instead of calling him out.”
Jesus goes on (3:24-25) to declare that divided households cannot stand. If His own family (Mary and His brothers) oppose Him, then they will be “outsiders” and not members of His “true family” — those who sit around Him and receive His word. Barach observes, “If Jesus’ family thinks Jesus is ‘standing outside’ in the sense of being insane, then their household won’t ‘stand.'” As Jesus says (v. 35), His true family consists of those who do “the will of God.” If Mary and His brothers desire to be acknowledged as His “own people” they must trust in Him and obey just like the rest of the Family.
Thus, we see that Mary joined with Jesus’ brothers (who at this time were yet unbelieving) against Jesus Himself. All of them repented of opposing Jesus later of course. But here we have more evidence of the reality regarding Mary. Rather than being the unfailingly faithful woman who never wavered in doubt or unbelief, we see that Mary too, like the rest of us, had moments of weakness and failures of faith. She was a sinner and had to experience the forgiveness of her Son just like the rest of us.
And, that’s no insult nor is it a derogatory judgment. It’s the truth that Mary herself acknowledged from the moment we first see her in the gospels. The angel declares that Mary had “found grace” with God. Mary was delivered from the consequences of her father Adam’s sin in the same way the rest of us are — not by an immaculate conception, but by the grace of God which forgives us and delivers us from all sin.
Very interesting that today you should happen to point to John Barach’s post on this passage, as I was listening to a radio podcast discussion just today about this event in Scripture. If you care to listen to the radio conversation it occurs at the 25:45 mark in MP3 of the podcast (not quite halfway through the podcast).
Also, Dr. Lawrence Feingold of the Hebrew Association of Catholics has an excellent lecture relevant to Mary’s faithfulness and the reasons why the Catholic Church, beginning with the Apostolic Fathers, for 2000 years has held a much higher, and very different view of Mary than John Barach demonstrates.
KB
I suppose you could twist any passage of scripture in such a way that it seems to say what you wish it would. We have certainly seen this in the case of “gay theology” and other such intrigues against the Church’s teachings. The same is true for the various tortured “proofs” such as this one that claim to undermine the role of the Virgin Mary and other Catholic doctrine.
One wonders how one could responsibly square this concocted image of Mary with the Mother of Jesus found in John’s gospel who seems to know his “hour had come” at Cana even before he did.
Ah yes, good exegesis is “tortured proof.”
Who’s to say it is good? The three of you?
It would be in terribly bad taste for someone to write a post about your mother entitled “The Unfaithful Mrs. Wilkins,” especially since I presume she was a pious and faithful woman.
How much moreso to write such things about the Mother of God?
Luther believed in the Immaculate Conception. I’ll take Luther’s word and “exegesis” over yours.
Tim,
It is not good exegesis, because it is not even exegesis. It is eisegesis, theological speculation occasioned by an etymological similarity in the Greek, passed off as exegesis.
If you don’t agree, then here’s a question for you: If it were eisegesis, how would you know?
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Matt,
If someone wrote an article titled “The Unfaithful Mrs. Wilkins” and was talking about a season when she doubted the trustworthiness of God, that would be no insult nor slander (far less in “bad taste”) — it would simply be the truth. AND, it would be a beautiful testimony to the grace and mercy of God to sinners. God loves the weak and bears with those who stumble (see John the Forerunner) and bears with our infirmities and the weakness of our faith. Mary confessed herself to be a sinner saved by grace and thus, she would say “Amen!” and join with the rest of the redeemed who have seen the mercy of God bear them through times of weakness and doubt.
Devin, first, it was not “my exegesis” though I did find it helpful. Second: I find it amazing that you would stand with Luther when he had not one shred of Biblical support for this view and yet denounce him when he teaches in accord with the clear teachings of Scripture. Does that seem backwards to you?
Steve,
“Mary confessed herself to be a sinner” — where is that in the Bible? (Please, no eisegesis.)
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Brian, thanks for asking for Biblical support for my statement. It’s vital that our views be confirmed by the Scriptures. Few things are more troubling than holding doctrines that have no clear Biblical support. When Mary took up the words of Habakkuk for her song of praise she ascribes her salvation to God (Luke 1:46-48 “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden…”). Is it eisegesis to say that this is a confession affirming her salvation from sin and deliverance from the condemnation that all have inherited from Adam? Seems to me, she’s acknowledging her own need of salvation along with the rest of us and praising God for the fact that she too has “found grace” (Luke 1:30) in His sight.
Steve,
Stating that God is her Savior is not the same as saying that she is a sinner. It would be eisegesis to read “I am a sinner” into her stating that God is her Savior. See Volume XX of Scotus’s Lectura in Librum Tertium Sententiarum (Q.1 dis. 3), titled “Utrum Beata Virgo fuerit concepta in peccato originali (whether the Blessed Virgin was conceived in original sin).
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Luther did not believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
Mary confessed Jesus as her Savior but she didn’t need saving from sin! That’s rich.
James,
Here’s Luther in 1527, in a Sermon on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception:
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Luther preached a sermon on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1527! Bryan you obviously have some bad info since the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception wasn’t “invented” until 1854…so how could Luther…but Jim said Luther didn’t…Ouch! It’s the brain pain! Good one Bryan.
This will be my one and only comment on this thread. It was no mistake that this post appeared a day after our wonderful celebration of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. If there is one thing I learned as a Protestant, and especially in the PCA, it is that there always has to be a protest of something. There are some heavy hitters in the Reformed world making comments on this thread. It is amazing that the Catholic faith is arousing such attention at this moment in time. I thank you men for providing us Catholics an opportunity to share our faith with you, and your readers, over and over again. Perhaps those who have ears to hear will be able to look back at these comment threads and conferences and say, “If it had not been for those Reformed guys drawing so much attention to Catholicism, then I would have never become Catholic!” just as I am able to say that the “Auburn Avenue Theology,” as it were, directly put me on the road to Catholicism. Thank you all for contributing to my becoming Roman Catholic.
There are several men on here who are much better able to articulate the beauties of the Marian dogmas than I am. Rather than echo their able arguments (which I applaud) I want to offer my personal experiences with our Blessed Mother.
Every day I grow in my devotion to Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary. I have received many gifts from her hands, and many more that I will probably never recognize this side of the Beatific Vision. It has been through her intercession that I have been able to sale property which was burdening my family as well as keeping me from beginning to surmount financial obstacles which stand in the way of me, Lord willing, becoming a Catholic priest someday. I had been praying for two years for this land to sale, and I was airing my frustration to a friend of mine about how it seemed my prayers had not been answered. He suggested that I ask the Saints to pray for the land to sale. He reminded me that God gave us the Communion of the Saints for a reason and that sometimes God wants to answer our prayers in conjunction with Saintly intercession. I prayed in front of the Icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help at St. Matthew’s Catholic Church in Monroe, and three days later an offer was made by someone to buy my land, at the price we were asking! This, my friends, was answered prayer through the Blessed Virgin Mary. She has come through for me over and over again in little ways, and in big ways. One other example is that a friend of mine would refuse to talk to me about religion. He wanted us to observe “Bar Rules” in our friendship, which is don’t talk about religion or politics. When I would broach the subject, as I inevitably would do, it would turn into a fight, the last one being particularly rough. After that last fight, I determined to commit everything to prayer. I prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet for him everyday, and asked Our Lady of Perpetual Help to pray for him and lead him to her Son. Sure enough, he came to me a couple of months later and wanted to know how to be Baptized, and specifically requested that a Catholic Church do it because he knew for sure we believe in the Trinity! I am now driving him to RCIA every Thursday night in Monroe, and he will be Baptized, Confirmed, and receive First Communion this Easter Vigil.
I believe each and every theological point the Catholic Church teaches about the Mother of God, the Theotokos. I can testify that these are all true not just intellectually, but also from the evidence I have seen through answered prayer, through the effect the Rosary has on me when I say it, and many other examples I can give you. Mary is my mother, and I love her and I will defend her honor.
For many of you this will not be good enough for you. It will be just another sad example of a Protestant convert that had a potentially bright future in Reformed circles, or insert your particular lamentations about me here. You will believe what you want, rationalize and explain away my beliefs and experiences, and go back to listening to the Pope in your belly. I offer these words for those who have ears to hear, and in defense of the Immaculate and Ever-Virgin, Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for us all, and may you, through your intercessions, bring many who read these comment threads, and attend these anti-Catholic conferences, to faith in the Catholic Church, and increase their love for your Son, Jesus Christ the King. Amen.
Jeff Meyers says:
“Mary confessed Jesus as her Savior but she didn’t need saving from sin! That’s rich.”
Mary was saved from sin Jeff. You men are making a spectacle over something you don’t even understand because apparently you are motivated by hearsay rather than the actual teaching of the Catholic Church. It would be helpful if you read Scotus as Bryan recommended. Blessings and Peace. KB
“If you don’t agree, then here’s a question for you: If it were eisegesis, how would you know?”
By reading the statement in question? How else does anyone determine whether a statement is being properly determined or not?
Dad, don’t you know that you can only eisegete when you have the magisterium behind it?
All these good protestant Romanists are very nervous people. They cut their teeth on doctrine infallibility with Westminster Confession of Faith. When the FV showed them its deficiencies they had to go for something else to assuage their anxieties.
In this sense they need Mary to be without sin, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to honor her (it’s a very fragile thing, their honor of her. They can’t even allow God to honor her with more children).
Of course, even the Roman church acknowledges that the Im.Conception is not theologically necessary, but merely fitting. It’s a bit of theological doggerel.
The problem is that it contradicts the creed of Chalcedon. Jesus is like us in all things except sin AND (says Rome straying from the ancient church) that He was born of a sinless woman.
[…] infallibility, sola scriptura by Andrew In both friendly conversations and while reading blog comments from theological opponents (Roman Catholic epologist types), I’ve heard the objection to […]
Andrew,
Of course reading a statement is a necessary condition for determining whether a statement is exegesis or eisegesis. But the question is not “What is a necessary condition for determining whether a statement is exegesis or eisegesis?” Nor is reading a statement a sufficient condition for determining whether a statement is exegesis or eisegesis; otherwise proof-reading would eliminate all eisegesis, and among those who had read any statement in question, there would be no disagreement concerning whether it was exegesis or eisegesis.
Since eisegesis is something you want to avoid, you need an objective test (and not just “it doesn’t look like eisegesis to me”) to determine whether any particular claim is or is not eisegesis. If you have no such test, then you’re at the mercy of anyone who comes along offering eisegesis in the garb of exegesis.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
“Nor is reading a statement a sufficient condition for determining whether a statement is exegesis or eisegesis; otherwise proof-reading would eliminate all eisegesis, and among those who had read any statement in question, there would be no disagreement concerning whether it was exegesis or eisegesis.”
This assumes the only possible explanation for misreading (/erroneous proof-texting) is that the text is unclear in itself and requires a religious authority to clear up the obscurity. It ignores the many reasons people read texts (including completely non-religious historical texts) and come to different conclusions besides unclarity on the part of the text (i.e., like bias, careless reading, etc.). Some disagreements about the meaning of some texts have in fact been resolved by re-reading and continued discussion, and thus I don’t think you can rule out re-reading as a sufficient condition for determining whether an interpretation is exegetical or eisegetical.
“Since eisegesis is something you want to avoid, you need an objective test (and not just “it doesn’t look like eisegesis to me”) to determine whether any particular claim is or is not eisegesis.”
The objective test is: does this accurately represent the details of the text. That’s the test for the accurate interpretation of all communication.
Mr. Cross insists that Mary was not “a sinner.” Mr. Branson mocks me by claiming that she was nevertheless “saved from sin.” Okay, so the claim is then that Jesus saved Mary from sin altogether. He was her Savior in the sense that he insured she never inherited Adam’s sin nature and also never sinned. He saved her from sin in that she was immaculately conceived. So she was delivered from the common curse upon all mankind. In that way she can claim Jesus as her “Savior.”
Talk about eisegesis.
But if that is true, then Jesus never really “saved” her at all. She neither existed in the state of sin nor was she ever a sinner. At the moment of her creation in the womb of her mother she was free from sin and needed no Savior. At no time in her existence as a human person did she ever sin and therefore need a Savior. She didn’t exist before her conception, so she didn’t need a Savior then. And at the moment of her creation/conception she is sinless and so she doesn’t need a Savior at any time after that.
And she had no solidarity with the other poor sinners in her life or in her generation. She did not need to hope or pray for the coming of the Savior. He had already insured that she would never need his saving grace.
That means that Mary was born into the world in some sort of pre-Adamic sinless human nature. Right? That she lived a sinless life in the midst of massive temptations from the world, the flesh, and the devil all around her. That’s what it means to claim that she was not a sinner. Adam could not maintain his integrity for a day in the original, pristine “unfallen world.” But Mary, that super babe, she was able to go her whole life without ever thinking or doing something sinful? Yeah, right.
And where is there even a hint of Mary’s sinless conception in the Scriptures? Where do we read anything that even suggests that Mary lived a life of perfect sinlessness? It would not have been too difficult for Luke to include a statement to this effect. If anything, you might get the impression that Zechariah and Elizabeth were born sinless and never transgressed God’s law (Luke 1:6, “they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord”). But not even those words are applied to Mary.
So where does all of this craziness come from? Furthermore, what is the theological rationale for it?
Oh yeah, I should read Scotus.
And how can anyone argue with Mr. Kennedy who knows that she’s been conceived without sin because Mary has answered his prayers and he’s had such amazing experiences with her via the Rosary. That pretty much settles it.
Remy,
If you’ve taken logic, you know that the truth of A is not contradicted by the truth of (A & B). Therefore, the truth of Christ being like us in all things except sin and being born of a sinless woman is fully compatible with Christ’s being like us in all things except sin. That’s because the intention of the claim at Chalcedon is not to fill out the exception clause to include things like Jesus’ unique DNA code (not shared by any other human in the history of the world), being born of a virgin (not a property shared by any other human in history), His unique childhood (not identical to that of any other child in human history), His being eternal (not shared by any other human), His upholding all things by the word of His power (not shared by any other human), etc., etc. The purpose of the statement made by the conciliar Fathers at Chalcedon regarding what Jesus shared with us was limited to what He shared with us as human, not to all the events of His life and the properties and qualities of those connected to Him, including the virginity and sanctity of His Mother. Hence the statement by Chalcedon is fully compatible with His being unlike us in these other ways, including being conceived by the Holy Spirit and having a sinless Mother. If your statement were true, it would entail that the conciliar Fathers were denying that Christ was born of a virgin. But obviously they weren’t. Therefore, Chalcedon isn’t incompatible with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
What’s the eisegesis? Even if you don’t think there’s an interesting play on words between Jesus allegedly “standing outside” (= being crazy) at the beginning of the story and Mary and the brothers “standing outside” at the end of the story, the point with regard to Mary is still the same. She was standing outside, wanting Jesus to come out to her. But Jesus identifies those sitting around him as his mother. That’s explicit in the text of Mark 3: “Here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother” (3:34-35).
The implication is that Mary, at this particular point in time, is not doing God’s will, and to understand that, we simply have to look back at the beginning of the story: Jesus’ own people — that is, his family — thought that he was out of his mind and wanted to seize him. By the end of the story, Mary is one of those people. Her mistake was understandable, but her actions didn’t flow from faith at this point. And so Jesus leaves her as one of the outsiders, distinguished from the insiders who are his true family, his true mother.
That’s not just my Protestant way of reading this passage. Donahue and Harrington, both Jesuits, make much the same point in their Sacra Pagina commentary on Mark. They argue that 3:21 is speaking of Jesus’ relatives, family members, and take them to be the very same ones that are spoken of in 3:31-35 (pp. 129, 132).
Donahue and Harrington note that the reference to Jesus’ mother and brothers standing outside and sending people in to summon him reflects their concern about Jesus’ sanity and “prepares for the distinction between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ in 4:10-12” (p. 132). They also point out that the repetition of “outside” in 3:31-35 “heightens the gap between Jesus and his relatives, as does the use of the verb zetousin (‘seek’ or ‘search’), which is used elsewhere of the ominous plans of Jesus’ opponents (8:11; 11:18; 12:12)” (p. 132).
They summarize: “While the natural family of Jesus thinks is unbalanced, the true family is disclosed as those who do the will of God (3:35)” (p. 133).
John Paul Heil, also a Roman Catholic, agrees. In his commentary on Mark, he says that the position of Jesus’ mother and brothers (“standing outside”) “despite their close familial relationship to Jesus sharply contrasts that of the crowd ‘sitting arond him.’ The crowd, positioned between Jesus and his family, inform him that they are ‘outside,’ seeking him. Suspense is aroused as Jesus is presented with the choice of going ‘outside’ to join his family or remaining in the house with the crowd” (p. 92).
Jesus then asks who his mother and brothers are: “Thus distancing himself further from his family ‘standing outside…'” (p. 92). And then, Heil adds: “As he ‘looks around’ at the crowd who have surrounded him, Jesus astonishingly declares that ‘those seated around him in a circle’ constitute his true mother and brothers rather than those ‘standing outside.’ Jesus thus defines his true family and indicates where his true familial allegiance lies” (p. 92).
So it appears that these Roman Catholic commentators agree with me that Mary had the wrong view of Jesus at this time (i.e., she though he was insane), that she came to seize Jesus and take him away from the work he was doing, and that Jesus at this point distanced himself from her, leaving her standing outside instead of going out to her and identifying the people sitting around him as his true mother instead of her. Of course, Mary didn’t continue in her unbelieving appraisal of Jesus, but here she is an outsider.
Jeff I was in no way intending to mock you but rather encourage you to simply acknowledge the real teaching of the Catholic Church on this matter. Dr. Feingold’s Lecture encapsulates Scotus’ work on this very well. If you would give it a listen you would hear a faithful explanation of the doctrine and the Biblical support for it. Blessings and Prace. KB
Jeff,
(You can call me Bryan.) One can be saved in two ways, either by being pulled out of the mud, or by being prevented from falling into the mud in the first place. The latter is the greater saving, explained Scotus. It is not necessary for Mary to have existed at enmity with God at some point in time in order for her to have been saved by God. According to the natural order following from Adam’s sin, every child conceived by a man was, like the father from whose seed he was conceived, deprived of original righteousness and sanctifying grace, and so was conceived with original sin. So, under this order, Mary would have been conceived with original sin, because she was conceived by her father Joachim. And so preventing her from being deprived of sanctifying grace even for a moment, by infusing it into her soul at the very first moment of her existence, really was a saving, a saving greater than that of anyone else who has ever lived and will ever live.
It is not true that this doctrine would imply that “she would never need his saving grace”; she was full of His grace “full of grace”. Grace, in Catholic theology, is not just divine favor, and it is not just pulling people out of sin. Sanctifying grace is a participation in the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4), and this is something Mary had (and never lost) her entire life, and without which she could not have entered into Heaven.
It is not impossible for a Second Eve not to sin her whole life. Not sinning their whole life is precisely what Adam and Eve were supposed to do. But their disobedience does not entail that they couldn’t have obeyed, or that any other human in their condition (having sanctifying grace, and not having original sin or its effects) couldn’t have obeyed. With God nothing is impossible.
As for where this doctrine comes from, I’ve referred to what I think is the best book and an excellent lecture on this subject in my post titled “Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception“.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
I really think this discussion will never get its feet off the ground whilst there is a huge divide between Catholics and Protestant Evangelicals on the crucial issue of hermeneutics and God’s divine revelation. Dei Verbum is a good place to start for Protestant Evangelicals to understand the place of Sacred Scripture and Tradition in the living faith of the Church. Without coming to terms with the important issue of divine revelation we will continue down the boring road of sarcasm and conjecturing of Catholic theology. Without it there will be no articuli fidei in its essence. Yawn…I’d rather pray my rosary followed by a couple glasses of Port.
In Dei Verbum we are minded that
“It is clear, therefore, that in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.”
We are also reminded that
“this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully.”
All these speculations about Mary are meaningless in view of the clear statements of the Word of God. What “might” be and what the scriptures can be twisted to say are of no importance to serious exegetes.
I do stand corrected as regards Luther. Amazing. What rot. I grew up Lutheran and never heard this, but of course Lutherans long ago outgrew it. I went to RC school and did hear about IC, which means that the salvific work of Jesus was applied to Mary at conception so that she did not receive the “stain” of original sin on her “soul.”
This notion is, btw, contradicted by Mary’s offering blood sacrifices for purification after childbirth. Anyone who knows anything about the laws of uncleanness knows that sinners are a magnet for uncleanness, for uncleanness is symbolic death. This is why Jesus could not become unclean, and could enter a room with a corpse in it without needing cleansing. The fact that Mary became unclean and needed cleansing means that she did indeed possess the sin-magnet of original sin.
The public mockery of the lovely mother of our Lord that has gone on in RC and EO circles for centuries must someday end. She is not a goddess. She is not Artemis. Early Christians might have been embarrassed that the pagans in their midst claimed a higher religion of virginity with their Parthenon and their vestals, but linking Mary with this pagan filth is inexcusable.
Mary was a model believer, and as a believer, she had times of doubts and even, as Barach pointed out, thought wrongfully at one point that Jesus needed to come home and get a rest.
Mary is embarrassed and humiliated at being treated as some kind of endless virgin, as if her relations with Joseph were sinful.
You men need to beware. You will stand before Jesus someday, having insulted and abused His mother with your filthy lies and calumnies.
Also, _The Ratzinger Report_ gets to the heart of the problem in a Protestant approach to hermeneutics seeing scripture as the lone rule of faith and hence, like so many exegetical approaches to the Bible, divorce the exegesis from the Church and break the bond of the union.
“The bond between the Bible and the Church has been broken… The historico-critical interpretation has certainly opened many and momentous possibilities for a better understanding of the biblical text. But, by its very nature, it can illumine it only in the historical dimension and not explain it in its present-day claim on us. Where it forgets this limit it becomes illogical and therefore also unscientific. But then one also forgets that the Bible as present and future can be understood only in vital association with the Church. The upshot is that one no longer reads it from the tradition of the Church as a point of departure, and with the Church, but, instead, one starts from the newest method that presents itself as ‘scientific.’ With some scholars this independence has become an outright opposition – so much so that for many the traditional faith of the Church no longer seems justified by critical exegesis but appears only as an obstacle to the authentic ‘modern’ understanding of Christianity. . . The separation of Church and Scripture tends to erode both from within. In fact, a church without a credible biblical foundation is only a chance historical product, one organization among others . . . But the Bible without the Church is also no longer the powerfully effective Word of God, but an assemblage of various historical sources, a collection of heterogeneous books from which one tries to draw, from the perspective of the present moment, whatever one considers useful. An exegesis in which the Bible no longer lives and is understood within the living organism of the Church becomes archeology: the dead bury their dead. in any case, the last word about the Word of God as Word of God does not in this conception belong to the legitimate pastors, the Magisterium, but to the expert, the professor with his ever-provisional results always subject to revisions.”
John,
Here’s why your interpretation is eisegesis: because everything in that passage is fully compatible with Mary having never sinned. If you don’t agree, show one thing in the account that it is incompatible with Mary being sinless.
You write:
That’s speculation on your part. Everything in the passage is fully compatible with His Mother and brothers not being among those mentioned in 3:20-21.
Again you write:
Again, this is pure speculation on your part. Jesus is talking about His supernatural family (those one with Him by grace). You infer from His distinction between His natural family and His supernatural family that His natural family is not included in His supernatural family. But that conclusion does not follow. The distinction between His natural family and His supernatural family does not imply or entail that His natural family (or His Mother) are not members of His supernatural family.
You write:
This again is speculative eisegesis. Nowhere does it say that His mother and brothers were seeking to “take Him away from the ones who sit around Him.”
That’s more speculation on your part. Here you are trying to read the minds of His mother and brothers (and doing so in a way that maligns them) when the text does not say what their intentions were.
You go on:
Again, this pure eisegetical speculation on your part. Nothing in the text says they were acting in unbelief. You are reading that into the text.
There are more examples of eisegesis in your post, but there’s no need to point to them all. You get the idea.
You seem to have given no consideration to what the early Church Fathers have to say about this passage, and about Mary, when setting out to interpret this passage so as to construe Mary as sinning. Does it concern you that your interpretation is at odds with that of the Fathers?
Moreover, given the principle of charity, why would you want to smear Mary by assuming she was sinning, when nothing in the passage is incompatible with her being sinless, and nothing in the passage requires interpreting it so as to make her out to have sinned?
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
James,
You wrote:
Where does the Bible say that having original sin is necessary in order to become ceremonially unclean? That seems like speculation on your part.
John the Baptist said, “I baptize you with water for repentance” (Mt 3:11) but that doesn’t mean that Jesus had sin (actual or original) when He received John’s baptism. (Mt 3:15) So likewise, Mary’s keeping of the law (Luke 3:22-24) for the days of her purification, is fully compatible with her not having original sin.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Bryan:
First, I’m not worried about what the Fathers might have said about this passage. That may bother you, but that’s not a concern to me. I believe it’s possible to do exegesis without consulting the Fathers.
Second, I did consult Roman Catholic commentaries and they agreed with me that (a) Mary is included in the group of Jesus’ relatives at the beginning of the story, that (b) Jesus distances himself from her, which at the least indicates some problem with her at this point, and that (c) she is left outside the house, an “outsider,” distinguished from the “insiders” who are identified as Jesus’ mother.
Third, what you call “eisegesis” here, I call “exegesis”: It is the text that says that Jesus’ family came to “seize” him, a word that’s used in the sense of “arrest” elsewhere. It is the text that says that Jesus’ family thought he was out of his mind. It is the text that associates this charge with the fact that Jesus is so busy with people that he doesn’t have a chance to eat (vv. 20-21 in order). It is the text that is structured like a sandwich, as many exegetes notice, so that the people in the first part of the story are the same as the ones in the third part, so that Mary is among those who wanted to “seize” Jesus because she thought he was insane. It is the text that says that Jesus didn’t go out to his mother when she called him. It is the text that says that Jesus did not acknowledge that the woman outside was his mother but instead identified the people sitting around him as his mother. It is the text that emphasizes that those sitting inside around Jesus who are his mother are the ones who are doing God’s will, which implies that Mary is mistaken about what God’s will is. It is the text that emphasizes that Mary is “outside,” and it is the text that gives “outside” and “inside” pregnant meaning here.
Fourth, I’m happy with Jim’s way of summarizing my point: “Mary was a model believer, and as a believer, she had times of doubts and even, as Barach pointed out, thought wrongfully at one point that Jesus needed to come home and get a rest.” I don’t think this is some huge sin on Mary’s part. I think it’s a temporary failure (probably motivated by maternal concern for him) to trust Jesus, to trust that He knows what He’s doing, to trust that what He’s doing really is God’s will, to trust that the danger He’s in really is the path to safety for all those with Him, and so on.
It’s momentary; it’s likely relatively mild. It certainly isn’t high rebellion, like the scribes claiming that Jesus has Beelzebub, but it is a lapse and Jesus responds to Mary and his brothers in a way that indicates that for them, too, God’s will is not that Jesus come outside to them (answering the claims of his natural family) but that they come inside (not necessarily literally, but in the sense of joining those who do God’s will by trusting and listening to him). And the way Mark tells the story leaves us with a warning: Even family ties to Jesus are not sufficient; a divided household can’t stand; therefore, we must respond to Jesus not with (well-meaning) doubt but with faith.
Bryan,
If you had taken rhetoric you wouldn’t use your logic to such cheap effect.
Obviously, those objections you made (unique DNA, his particular experiences) are not in sight of the creed, but were you to deny that Jesus had DNA or fingerprints or sweat glands I would certainly be right to point to the creed. Your other objections about His godhead are frivolous because -as you note later- He is like us, as the creed says, in regards “to His manhood”.
Virgin birth would also fly in the face of the creed except for the fact that it is affirmed in the creed. So for me to argue what I argued would not entail that “the conciliar Fathers were denying that Christ was born of a virgin”.
Perhaps you could dissuade me of this, but it seems perfectly sensible to take the creed to mean that Jesus (in regards to His manhood) is like us in all regards (save those exceptions mentioned in the creed). Of course “all regards” being those things true of all mankind and not necessarily individually the way you (illogically) took it.
John,
You wrote:
I’m quite aware that it is possible to “do exegesis” without consulting the Fathers. And there is nothing intrinsically wrong with doing so, as an exercise. But if we don’t read the Bible with the Church, we’ve swallowed ecclesial deism hook, line and sinker. Our exegesis needs to be informed by the Church, because the Bible didn’t just drop down out of Heaven yesterday. It is a book that was given to a community of faith with a two-thousand year history, and in order to be understood properly and fully, it must be approached and interpreted in its true context, i.e. in and with that community.
The two Jesuits don’t count; they’re Jesuits. And Heil doesn’t support your conclusion, and would reject your appealing to his words to support your conclusion.
I’ve never met an eisegete who calls his work eisegesis. They all call their work ‘exegesis’. So calling it ‘exegesis’ doesn’t prove anything.
In vs. 21 it says “οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ”, which does not necessarily include His Mother.
That’s a non sequitur. A sandwich structure does not entail that the persons mentioned on one end are numerically the same persons mentioned on the other end.
Actually, the text never says that. But you’re showing how easy it is to read your own assumptions into the text, without even knowing that you are doing so.
Again, the text never says that Jesus did not do so. You are inferring from the text’s not saying x that the text says ~x. That’s a non sequitur, and a basic hermeneutical blunder.
No it does not. That again, is a non sequitur. Jesus’ statement is fully compatible with Mary not being mistaken about God’s will.
If the passage was merely stating it, but not emphasizing it, how would it look any different?
The meaning is that there is a distinction between his natural family and his supernatural family, as I already explained. But you are [mistakenly, unjustifiably and uncharitably] reading into this passage that His Mother was [at that time] not part of His supernatural family, and hence in a state of sin.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Bryan, you write:
That’s just special pleading. You make up a definition of “salvation” that only pertains to one individual in the history of the world. Of course, you need to make up a definition of salvation because she has inconveniently “rejoiced in God my Savior.” So in order to reconcile the doctrine of Mary’s sinlessness with her need for a Savior Scotus must invent a weird definition of “salvation” that will include this singular case. Please.
It’s funny to see the RC side of this debate in light of Arturo Vasquez’s recent post where he wrote:
What I find interesting is how these arguments could be applied to some of the Catholic blogs that I read. Most of them are involved in the rather Sisyphean exercise of trying to convince Protestants that Protestantism is not Scriptural. But, if we consider the premises of our sedevacantist philologist, the Christian Faith does not have its primary basis in Scripture: it resides rather in the “Mysteric Cult”, the Eucharist, and the power of God. Indeed, it has been refered to me several times that primitive Christianity may have spread not primarily through the persuasive preaching of the first followers of Christ, but rather through all of the miracles of the early Church. Early Christianity may have been more shamanistic than we would like to concede. Indeed, as Disandro points out, the primary presence of God in Israel during its Golden Age was not the presence of God in the Torah or the word, but rather in the Shekinah of the Temple, the Light of Glory:
Quam dilecta sunt tabernacula tua, Domine virtutum…
Thus, trying to persuade people that Catholicism is the true “religion of the Book” is a bit like trying to make an atomic bomb out of gum wrappers and rubber bands. The real foundation of our religion is elsewhere. (And not, as I would say, in ecclesiastical authority either, as some would wish to believe, but that is the subject of another post entirely, and it is past my bedtime.)
http://arturovasquez.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/on-the-church-and-language/#more-4770
Jeff,
How, exactly is it special pleading? Special pleading is criticizing another person’s position about x, and then making an exception for x when x is pointed out to be true of one’s own position.
So, I don’t see how saying that there are two ways in which a person can be saved is special pleading.
In Catholic theology, Adam and Eve were in a state of grace (and thus in a state of salvation) before they fell. They came into existence not in sin, but in a state of grace and original righteousness, and thus in a state of salvation. So Mary’s being saved by (among other things) not contracting original sin is similar to Adam and Eve’s being saved (prior to their fall) without having original sin. It is not an ad hoc definition of salvation — it goes back to the very beginning, to the fullness of grace and salvation given to Adam and Eve from the beginning of their existence.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Bryan: Okay, it’s not special pleading in the technical sense. I meant it in a more general sense of stretching out a definition to include your special case.
Adam and Eve would have been able to sing the Magnificat? I don’t think so.
Bryan:
First, you tell me that the Jesuits don’t count as exegetes because they’re Jesuits, but that Heil does count. Well, I can’t keep up with all of your sects. Donahue and Harrington are certainly well worth reading, and if you don’t like ’em, that’s your loss.
As for Heil, he says that there’s a sharp contrast between the position of Mary and of the people sitting around Jesus, that we wonder if Jesus will leave the crowd and go outside, that Jesus distances himself from Mary who is standing outside, and that Jesus “declares that ‘those seated around him in a circle’ constitute his true mother and brothers rather than those ‘standing outside’” (p. 92). That is, he’s saying that the crowd around him is his mother “rather than” (Heil’s words) Mary who is standing outside. If that’s not supporting what I’m saying, I don’t know what is.
Second, the groups in the first part of the story and the last part of the story may not be numerically identical. Contrary to what you wrote in your response, I didn’t say they had to be. There may have been twenty of Jesus’ relatives who thought he was nuts, while only Mary and his brothers actually came to seize him. But certain people “went out to seize him” in v. 21, and when they arrive where he is and send for him in v. 31, it turns out that they are Mary and his brothers.
Third, there is nothing in the text to suggest that Jesus got up and went out and everything to suggest that he didn’t. Jesus’ mother calls him to come out. People tell Jesus that his mother is calling him. And Jesus says that these people sitting around him are his mother. He is already with his mother. Why should we conclude that after saying that, Jesus still got up and went outside? It seems clear from the very next verse that Mary and Jesus’ brothers didn’t “seize” him as they came out to do (v. 21). So the text implies — though it doesn’t state explicitly and doesn’t need to — that Jesus didn’t go out to the people who were standing outside.
Fourth, Jesus says that those who are doing God’s will are his mother and brother and sister (v. 35), and he identifies those who are doing God’s will with the ones who are sitting in a circle around him. He looks at them and identifies them as his mother. The people say to him, “Your mother is outside.” Jesus says, “Here is my mother.” So if Mary thinks that it’s a problem for Jesus to be acting the way he is, with all these people surrounding him (vv. 20-21), then she is not understanding God’s will correctly. She needs to make sure she’s aligned with Jesus’ mother (the ones doing God’s will).
Fifth, I have never said that Jesus’ mother was (at that time) not part of Jesus’ “supernatural family.” It’s possible to sin and still be part of the church of Jesus Christ. It’s certainly possible to be mistaken about God’s will or about Jesus’ mission and still be part of the church of Jesus Christ. And it’s possible to have a misguided maternal concern for Jesus, thinking he needs to rest instead of doing what he’s doing because he seems to be acting crazy, which is a form of putting your own wisdom above His (and therefore above God’s), to need something of a mild rebuke, and still to be part of the church. Jesus is not dooming Mary to be outside forever. But he’s setting up a distinction between outside and inside that ought to have caused her to reflect on her position and her need to “come inside” and make sure she’s doing God’s will and not her own.
Sixth, this discussion has eaten up enough of my time, so I’m going to have to drop it at this point.
Mr. Cross,
Mary comes to the altar. For her a bird is killed and its blood is displayed on the side of the altar, which is the doorpost/doorway of the Temple. God sees the blood and causes the avenger to pass over Mary, which is what all blood displayed at the doorpost of the Temple means.
Uncleanness is symbolic death. That’s clear in Leviticus and Numbers 19. Mary is under death at this point, and requires a propitiatory (and temporary) animal sacrifice. The only people under death are those in union with Adam, as she was at this point. She is not in union with a prelapsarian Adam. She is in union with the postlapsarian Adam.
Jesus, not being united to Adam in his estate of sin, could not become unclean. He was not under death.
John’s baptism was for repentance, but that is not why Jesus was baptized. Jesus’ baptism was to set him aside as priest. Some washing in Leviticus were for uncleanness, but others were part of ordination. Peter Leithart’s *The Priesthood of the Plebs* is a good study on this.
On another point: We are indeed doing our reading in the context of the one holy catholic and apostolic church. We would welcome you to the Lord’s Table in our church, because we are catholic. We are not a sect. We treat the church as one. The RC and EO churches are sects that are neither apostolic in worship nor catholic in behavior.
The Church has never made perpetual virginity or IC a dogma, and there have always been those who objected to it. These things are not in the Nicene Creed. And quite some time back, that part of the Church that sought to be faithful to Jesus and His Word came reject these notions as grossly unworthy of Mary, the theotokos.
We invite you to join us and start honoring Mary properly, as she deserves to be honored.
Jeff,
The alternative is that they could work their way to heaven, apart from grace. That is Pelagianism. (See comment 10)
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
No, that’s not the only alternative. Talk about false dilemmas. Adam and Eve were created innocent and in a peaceful relationship with God. They didn’t need to earn God’s favor. Neither did they need a Savior. Singing the Magnificat would have made no sense. Just like it would make no sense for Mary to sing it had she not needed a Savior from sin and the curse.
Jeff,
If Adam and Even had not fallen, then either they could have gotten to heaven without grace, or they could not have gotten to heaven without grace. Logically, those are the only two possibilities.
The former position is Pelagian. The latter position entails that even if Adam and Eve had not sinned, God would nevertheless have been their Savior, because they would still be saved from eternal separation from God by grace.
But, Mary was conceived within a post-Fall order under which she would have been conceived having original sin. She was born under fallen man, and fallen man required salvation by divine sacrifice, because an infinite debt was owed for sin against an infinite God. By contrast, Adam and Eve were not created within that post-Fall order. Grace (being gratuitous) was not due to Adam and Eve, but neither were they created within a pre-existing order in which they would otherwise have been deprived of grace and yet were gratuitously protected from the original sin they would have contracted under that order. The grace possessed by Adam and Eve prior to the Fall did not require divine sacrifice, because there was no debt for sin. Therefore, Mary’s salvation is not the same as Adam and Eve’s would have been had they not sinned, because, for the reason just explained, Mary’s salvation required Christ’s Passion, while the pre-Fall grace enjoyed by Adam and Eve did not require Christ’s Passion. Hence, if Adam and Eve sang the Magnificat prior to their Fall, the word ‘Savior’ (in the Magnificat) would not have had the same implicature as it does for Mary, because it would not have included this notion of redemption and sacrifice by God on behalf of man on account of sin.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
James (please just call me Bryan),
I read what you wrote about Mary’s ceremonial purification and what this uncleanness symbolizes. But my simple yes or no question is this: If Mary had been sinless (i.e. without original and actual sin), would it have been possible for her to undergo the postnatal ceremonial purification described in Leviticus 12 and Luke 2? If no, then why not?
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
This is getting painful. Bryan writes:
What’s this “getting to heaven” stuff? Adam and Eve did not need to work or earn God’s favor to “get to heaven.” They were already loved by God and in a peaceful relationship with him. They didn’t need to earn that or work for it. And they were not looking “to get to heaven.” They were created to live on earth and rule over it. God was not their “Savior.” He was their loving, gracious Creator. This is not Pelagianism.
It’s just way too simple. Mary was a normal post-lapsarian woman. Born the same way as everyone else. She was chosen by God to be the mother of the Messiah. She didn’t need to be sinless for that. She was a faithful Israelite. She did need to be a virgin because the fruit of her womb would not be a new human person, but a Divine Person united to her/our human flesh. She gave birth to God the Son incarnate. She was theotokos. She is praised and blessed by all for her humble acceptance of the Angel’s announcement and for her faithful material care of the Messiah. But there is no reason in heaven or earth why she had to be born without sin or live a life of perfect sinlessness. Her role in the history of redemption was huge. But let’s not add to her stupid stuff that she didn’t ask for or God didn’t give her: sinless perfection, perpetual virginity, co-mediatrix, etc.
Jeff,
This is the goal of all Christians, to attain the perfect happiness of eternal life in the vision of God, because this is the end to which what God has graciously called all men. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” This is what the Christian life is all about, attaining heaven. Every man ends up either in heaven or in hell (eternal separation from God, excluded from His presence). I assume that we agree about what heaven is and that attaining heaven is the goal of the Christian life. (I’m not stating these things to be patronizing, but simply making sure we’re using terms — e.g. ‘heaven’ — in the same sense, so we’re not talking past each other.)
I agree that Adam and Eve were already loved by God, and in friendship with Him, knowing Him not just as Creator or First Cause, but as Father. Where we seem to disagree (though I can’t tell for sure) is that you seem to think that Adam and Eve were not initially offered heaven as an end. That is, you seem to think that heaven (as I’ve just described it in the previous paragraph) was not available to Adam and Eve in their pre-Fall condition. If that is an accurate description of your position, then do you think that heaven was only a post-lapsarian end? (“You two screwed up in attaining an end other than heaven, so now I’m going to offer you heaven.”) In other words, do think that God offered heaven as an end for man only after the Fall?
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
The question of whether a sinless Mary could have undergone purification is rather pointless, since she was not sinless and the whole point of purification was to deliver from being under death.
But no, I don’t think God has people do things that are mere play-acting.
“Why can’t the text be made to mean this?” is the standard exegetical move of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The text is clear. And it does not teach IC.
Heaven is certainly not MY goal. I am a Nicene Christian, and my goal is the resurrection of the body and life on a new earth in a new physical body. Heaven is the intermediate state.
Adam and Eve might have fallen asleep, say at age 1000, and moved to heaven (the control room of the cosmos) to await the resurrection. Otherwise the world would become wall to wall people in fairly short order.
And certainly I agree that the Son would have become incarnate to bring all His sons to glory, as the Bible says, even if Adam had not sinned. That’s pretty much what the Nicene Creed says also.
Heaven was not offered to Adam and Eve, certainly not as a goal. What was offered, and they were told to wait for it, was kingship, summarized by the phrase “knowledge of good and evil.” Had they persevered and grown up in wisdom, they would have been given that promised gift and been given rule over the wider world outside the garden. There is nothing in Genesis 2-3 about any “heaven” as goal.
“Savior,” however, implies a need to be saved, rescued, delivered from something. The Christian faith says Jesus saved us from the realm of death and sin, which is why Adam needed no savior. The Gnostic religion, of course, would say that Adam needed to be rescued from this “lower” world up to a “higher” world of “heaven.” But this is paganism, and not Biblical religion at all.
Yes, and this points out one of the problems we’re having here. Bryan and our other RC friends are bringing assumptions to the text that are utterly without any biblical support — but, because their Magisterium teaches them, they are bound to believe them and pretend that the actual text doesn’t contradict them (even though it doesn’t teach them). It’s the problem of holding doctrines the Bible doesn’t teach.
The oddity here is that our RC friends have kept insisting that we give biblical support for our views (and then reject our exegesis as “eisegesis” when we give it) — while not once offering a single piece of Biblical evidence for their doctrines. But, of course, this is really all you are left with when there isn’t any biblical evidence to be found.
And this is another reason why their departure from Catholic Church for the sectarianism that is Rome is without justification.
Jeff Meyers said:
CCC 490 – To become the mother of the Savior, Mary “was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role.” The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as “full of grace”. In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God’s grace.
The Church teaches that as the new Eve it was fitting for Mary to be sinless, just as Eve was created sinless. It was fitting that Mary as the new Eve be no less well-endowed to bring life and forgiveness into the world by her faithfulness, than the woman Eve was endowed, who brought death and judgment into the world by her unfaithfulness.
As to what is Mary (and we) needed, as the masterpiece of all His creation and the greatest of the Saints, the Blessed Virgin is a great testament to the fact that God is not a nominalist, or a miser.
Blessings and Peace.
KB
Steve wrote:
Steve, that is not actually true.
Bryan has appropriately recommended Scotus, and he and I have both recommended Dr. Feingold’s lecture (linked in comment #1 of this thread). I promise that if you read/listen you will hear the Catholic Church’s Biblical support for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. You may not agree with it, but the Biblical support is there, and is offered for your consideration.
Blessings and Peace.
KB
“The Church teaches that as the new Eve it was fitting for Mary to be sinless, just as Eve was created sinless. ”
Actually, the Church teaches no such thing. There is a sect that does, but not the Church.
James said:
Sorry about that. I realize that it sounds provocative/obnoxious for me to lead out with “the Church”. I should have said “the Catholic Church”, or maybe I should have said “the Roman Catholic Church”, but even then that might not have been good enough…sigh.
Blessings and Peace.
KB
James,
Heaven, according to the definition I gave, is not a place. Heaven is that supreme and definitive happiness consisting in eternal life in perfect uninterruptible communion with the Trinity and all the blessed, forever seeing the divine essence “with an intuitive vision and even face to face, without the mediation of any creature.” (See Benedictus Deus.) We see this end revealed in Scripture:
So if in your future state you will be seeing God as He is, then you will be ‘in heaven,’ no matter in what place you are located. That’s why when we are talking about heaven, bringing up the question of place is a red-herring.
The question that I asked Jeff is whether this end (i.e. heaven) was available to Adam and Eve in their pre-Fall condition, or was offered to man only after the Fall. The trilemma is this. (1) If heaven was offered to them before the Fall, and they could have attained it without grace, that is Pelagianism. (2) If heaven was offered to them before the Fall, and they could have attained it only by grace, then they too would have had a Savior (qualified in the important sense I explained above), even if they had never sinned. (3) If heaven was not offered to them before the Fall, but offered to man only after the Fall, this doesn’t make any sense, because it rewards man’s disobedience with an infinitely higher calling. I’m trying to understand which of these three position you and/or Jeff hold.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
In terms of your meanings, the eschaton is offered to them before the fall, but they are not called upon to work for it or earn anything. As the WCF puts it, the (misnomered) covenant of works entails patient continuance, not earning merits of some sort. The eschaton, when it arrives, comes as a gift, a new creation. One does not earn being created!
As I wrote, I agree with those who say that the Son would have become incarnate to bring this eschatology to its fullness. Jesus died twice on the cross; the first 3 hours of agony for our sins, but then giving up the Spirit in loving union with the Father as the prelude to resurrection.
So, if you are using “savior” in the sense of one who moves the human race from the good phase one to the best and final phase, then yes, Adam would have a savior. This is not the normal meaning of “savior,” however, which connotes rescue from a bad situation.
Adam and Eve would not have experienced the Son as savior but as glorifier.
Make sense?
James,
I can’t tell for sure from your reply which of the three positions I laid out in my previous comment you are taking. It looks like you are saying that God offered heaven (as I’ve defined heaven) to Adam and Eve prior to the Fall.
Assuming that I’ve understood you correctly, then if Adam and Eve had not sinned, would they (without grace) have been able to attain heaven, or would they have required grace in order to attain heaven?
If you say that had they not sinned they could have attained heaven without grace, I’m going to show why that is Pelagianism. But if you say that had they not sinned they could have attained heaven only by grace, and that without grace they would have been shut out from heaven, then we will be agreed that if Mary was immaculately conceived (i.e. having grace from the first moment of her existence) and never contracted original sin, and never committed actual sin, then she was nevertheless saved [from being eternally shut out from heaven] by grace. And since grace is God’s gratuitous gift, it would follow that even if she was immaculately conceived and never sinned, she was nevertheless saved by God, and thus that God is her Savior. And in this way we will be agreed that Mary’s Magnificat is fully compatible with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, even if you think that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is false.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
I can’t use the word “attain” for any of this. I’m in your second category. Grace is favor, and both creation and glorification entail grace.
Saving grace has to do with remission of sin. I don’t see that the RC position has anything to do with Adam and Eve. Jesus died for Mary’s participation in Adam’s sin, but the effect of His death was applied to her at the moment of conception so that she did not receive original sin. Hence, she never sinned. She’s not back in Adam or Eve’s position. She’s saved from sin and death in Christ all along. Adam and Eve did not initially need salvation from sin and death.
I agree, and I believe I stated earlier (maybe not) that from a post-1950 RC standpoint, Mary can called God her savior, because she was indeed rescued from the Adamic situation.
More Biblical support here for the consideration of those who have asked for it, and are interested in learning of it.
Blessings and Peace.
KB
You’ve got to be kidding me? And this is a biblical argument for the perpetual virginity of Mary? May I suggest that Roman Catholics stop trying to do biblical exposition and stick with the secret-tradition-passed-on-to-the-Roman-bishop-by-the-Apostle-Peter argument.
Pastor meyers — it strikes me as odd that you biblical horizons folks of all people would deny the clear typological link between Mary and the ark of the covenant. “Through New Eyes” was a real eye-opener for me when I first read it in college, though at the time I thought some of it was stretching the text a bit.
But the nearly word for word quotation of the passage about David before the ark and Mary’s visit to Elizabeth seems like it could hardly be accidental, especially given how far you guys are willing to go to chase a type.
I know this doesn’t get to your question about Mary’s virginity in scripture, but it does point out that there are clealy some typological things going on around our lady in the old covenant.
Matt: I didn’t deny a typological connection. The are, as you say, clearly some typological things going on in the story of the birth of Jesus. But even so, if I grant this connection between the Ark and Mary, there is not even the slightest hint of any need or necessity of her perpetual virginity. And THAT is what this argument is all about. We don’t “chase types.” We look for them in the Scriptures because they are all over the place. But we don’t look for them to support wacky, extra-biblical weirdness like the sinless conception of Mary, her sinless perfection, her perpetual virginity, or her bodily assumption into heaven.
So again, show me the biblical support for any of these monstrosities? Connect the dots for me, please. Don’t just throw out the fact that the birth of Jesus fulfills typological prophesy in the Old Covenant. We all know that it does. Show me THAT these types lead to her perpetual virginity and all that. Show me WHY these biblical connections even suggest all this other rot about Mary.
Jeff – I was actually offering the Called to Communion article as a biblical support for the Early Church Fathers view of Mary as the New Eve (only utterly faithful as against the unfaithfulness of Mary). Sorry for not being more clear that this was not offered as an example of Biblical support for the perpetual virginity of Mary.
I was wondering if you did refer to Scotus, or listen to the Feingold lecture as regards the Immaculate Conception.
Blessings and Peace.
KB
I just listened to the Feingold lecture. Where’s the biblical argument for the immaculate conception and the perpetual virginity of Mary? I heard something that came close to a typological argument for Mary as the new Eve. And then a lot of speculative theologizing about the need for her to be born sinless and some ambiguous references to some Patristic sources. But as Feingold himself says: the biblical argument is for Mary as the New Eve, and the immaculate conception is implicit in such a conception. Nice try. I’m still waiting to hear how anybody would be led to believe FROM THE BIBLE that Mary was born without sin, lived sinlessly, and remained a virgin all her life. So far nothing. Crickets chirping.
Jeff,
I don’t think any Catholic here was claiming that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception can be proved from Scripture alone. I think the primary intention of the Catholics commenting here was to show that John’s post about Mark 3 does not demonstrate that Mary sinned.
The Catholic paradigm with respect to Scripture is quite different from that Protestant paradigm. Jeffrey’s comments earlier in this thread were getting at that precise fact, as was Joel Martin’s comment. For example, the assumption that all theological truths must be explicitly stated in Scripture, is not itself explicitly stated in Scripture. So the criterion does not meet its own standard, and is thus self-refuting. In addition, this Protestant assumption implicitly rules out the possibility of the development of doctrine. Development is not an accretion or addition of something novel, but the organic unfolding of the deposit of faith as the Church, animated by the Spirit, deepens her understanding of that deposit. So an approach to theology that rules out development of doctrine will have difficulty accepting a doctrine like the Immaculate Conception because it is not laid out explicitly in Scripture and because it developed over a long period of time. But such an approach to theology should be called into question for this very reason. If the Church is a living Body, we should expect that she would grow not only in size and numbers, but also in her understanding of the faith that was entrusted to the saints once and for all. Any approach to theology that rules out development of doctrine is already incompatible with what Scripture explicitly reveals about the Church as a living organism animated by the same Spirit who inspired the Sacred Scriptures.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Okay. Now we’re making some headway. When we asked for biblical evidence for the sinless conception of Mary, her life of sinless perfection, and her perpetual virginity, we were sent to Feingold’s lecture and Scotus.
I go there to read and listen. But there is no real biblical evidence presented. I am told that all of that about Mary is implied in the typology of Mary as the New Eve. So I ask again: where is the Biblical evidence?
Now, I am told that there really is no Scriptural evidence. That I must accept this 19th-century theory of “the development of doctrine” as formulated by Roman Catholics. This, of course, conveniently allows them to justify all their extra-biblical articles of faith. But never mind that for a moment.
Here’s one of the problems with this. You can’t have it both ways. I thought all of this stuff about Mary was “universally acclaimed” by the church Fathers. That’s what we been hearing over and over again. We’ve been castigated for no accepting what was believed by everyone right off the bat in the early church. (Is see that Sean just posted another comment on this post claiming that there was no development of doctrine. That all this Mariolatry was all there everywhere in the early church.) How’s that development of doctrine theory working for you?
If the “Fathers” all believed it, when did it “develop”? Which is it? Universal acceptance by all the early church Fathers or development over time? Either it was all there at the beginning (but was not important enough for the Apostles to say anything about in their founding documents) or it took time to “develop”? Which is it?
Whoops. I forgot to close my italics tag. Sorry.
Sorry, wrong link provided above (though that is a fine post as well). The post I meant to point to is here.
KB
[…] The fact is that appeals to tradition are invariably appeals to the approved traditions at the present moment. Any historian knows that the claims for the supremacy of the Pope or the immaculate conception of Mary or many other things are based on a decision to favor the parts of the past (or allegations about the past) that the claimant can use and to dismiss all other evidence as “heretical” or “minority.” It always begs the question. Yet the proponents pretend that Scripture is impossible to interpret without tradition. And when confronted with some minor and obvious statement from Scripture that, quite unintentionally, shows what a pack of lies they are dedicated to pushing, they get quite unglued. […]
Exegesis: Jesus’ family think he is crazy. And they come to get him. Mary is among the members of his family coming to get him.
That isn’t hard and everything else is window dressing. If you don’t want to accept similarities in Greek words you don’t have to. It is possible Mary got dragged there under false pretenses and her authority was used deceptively to get to Jesus, but there is nothing in the text to indicate that. From what we are told by Luke, Mary thought Jesus had lost his senses at the time.
Pastor meyers — Good to hear you’re not opposed to Mary as the ark of the new covenant. From there it’s really just a hop skip and a jump to perpetual virginity.
After all, the new covenant fulfillment must necessarily be greater than the old covenant shadow. So what do we make of the death sentence for touching the old ark? It must be that the untouchable nature of the old ark was pointing us to something about the even more untouchable nature of the new ark.
It clearly wasn’t that it would have been dirty to touch the old ark, but rather that it was so holy and set apart that it ought to be respected and not touched in a mundane way. It was to be used for one holy purpose — to carry the presence of god. To use it for something else would be improper.
This canard of sexophobia in the fathers is wearing thin. The church has always believed this about our lady, typology supports it. It is an incredibly recent novum that anyone would even question it which makes me wonder why reformed types who claim to respect the church’s interpretation of doctrine would go to such lengths to oppose it.
Matt,
As we say on the coast, “dudeman, you aint making no sense.” You write:
“Good to hear you’re not opposed to Mary as the ark of the new covenant. From there it’s really just a hop skip and a jump to perpetual virginity.”
Okay, let’s draw this hop and skip out a bit. The whole temple is holy and no one’s supposed to go in their (Holy Place/Holy of Holies) who isn’t an Aaronic priest in the OT. You continue:
“After all, the new covenant fulfillment must necessarily be greater than the old covenant shadow. So what do we make of the death sentence for touching the old ark? It must be that the untouchable nature of the old ark was pointing us to something about the even more untouchable nature of the new ark.”
I think you’ve got the “necessarily be greater” model reversed. That which was untouchable and inaccessible in the Old Covenant becomes more touchable and accessible in the New (incarnation/torn veil). Drawing things out further, the New Covenant Temple is bigger and fleshier than the Old. It’s made with people…who have kids!
Have any of ya’ll read the 1st century rotoevangelium of James?
This document was written about 60 years after the end of Mary’s earthly life. According to patristics scholar, Johannes Quasten: “The principal aim of the whole writing is to prove the perpetual and inviolate virginity of Mary before, in, and after the birth of Christ” (Patrology, 1:120–1)
Does the fact that Mary’s perpetual virginity is the unanimous belief of the fathers from as far back as 60 years after the death of Mary (around the same time the final NT letters were being written) not mean anything?
“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” (Augsutine – Heresies 56 [A.D. 428]).
Yikes, the add a “P” to rotoevangeium of James”
“And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood by, saying: Anna, Anna, 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 Anna 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 holy things all the days of its life. 1 Samuel 1:11 And, behold, two angels came, saying to her: Behold, Joachim your husband is coming with his flocks. For an angel of the Lord went down to him, saying: Joachim, Joachim, the Lord God has heard your prayer. Go down hence; for, behold, your wife Anna shall conceive. And Joachim went down and called his shepherds, saying: Bring me hither ten she-lambs without spot or blemish, and they shall be for the Lord my God; and bring me twelve tender calves, and they shall be for the priests and the elders; and a hundred goats for all the people. And, behold, Joachim came with his flocks; and Anna stood by the gate, and saw Joachim coming, and she ran and hung upon his neck, saying: Now I know that the Lord God has blessed me exceedingly; for, behold the widow no longer a widow, and I the childless shall conceive. And Joachim rested the first day in his house.”
This document is fiction. No, it doesn’t bother me that the entire church of that generation believed an error. I’m sure our generation believes errors that other generations will outgrow, assuming they don’t harden their hearts and claim that the 21st century is an authoritative tradition.
It is good to see that there is testimony however that some did not believe in the superstition and were attacked for it. It was *not* universal, according to your own evidence.
Clement of Alexandria:
“It appears that even today many hold that Mary, after the birth of her Son, was found to be in the state of a woman who has given birth, while in fact she was not so. For some say that, after giving birth, she was examined by a midwife, who found her to be a virgin [probably referencing the “Protoevangelium of James”]. These things are attested to by the Scriptures of the Lord, which also give birth to the truth and remain virginal, in the hiddenness of the mysteries of truth. ‘She gave birth and did not give birth’, Scripture says, since she conceived by herself, not as a result of union with a man.”
This isn’t evidence for a universal tradition. It is evidence that Clement is promoting his view in the face of others. The fact that he won in his generation doesn’t mean that he is right.
OK, howis that protoevangelium not a false gospel? It was (if you admit to it being written 60 years after Mary) not an eyewitness account as it claims. That makes it a forgery. Otherwise, it would be canonical, which it never is nor was. Yet Clement relied on it to make his case.
Not convincing.
The Protoevangelium is listed as an apocryphal document at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/
Why are you using it as a source of orthodox teaching?
From the entry on St. Anne:
“All our information concerning the names and lives of Sts. Joachim and Anne, the parents of Mary, is derived from apocryphal literature, the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Protoevangelium of James. Though the earliest form of the latter, on which directly or indirectly the other two seem to be based, goes back to about A.D. 150, we can hardly accept as beyond doubt its various statements on its sole authority. In the Orient the Protoevangelium had great authority and portions of it were read on the feasts of Mary by the Greeks, Syrians, Copts, and Arabians. In the Occident, however, it was rejected by the Fathers of the Church until its contents were incorporated by Jacobus de Voragine in his “Golden Legend” in the thirteenth century. From that time on the story of St. Anne spread over the West and was amply developed, until St. Anne became one of the most popular saints also of the Latin Church. “
Yes. The fact that Jerome had to argue for perpetual virginity, and in such a vile manner, shows that plenty of people did not believe in it.
The source of this notion is clear: virginity as a higher divine calling among the pagans in whose context the early Greco-Roman Christians lived.
Immaculate conception of Mary cuts Jesus off from any connection with fallen Adam, means he could not have have been born under the liability of the law though personally undeserving, and destroys the doctrine of salvation. It is also, as noted, contradicted by Mary’s need for purification after childbirth.
It’s a form of docetism, pure and simple.
As for Mary’s continued virginity, all imagined types and allegories are meaningless in the face of the clear statement that she and Joseph had sex and other children. There is no question about this, and no point in discussing weird notions derived from pagan influences.
It is really a horror to see how the precious mother of Jesus is dragged through the mud and filth of pagan “perpetual virginity” notions.
James,
I’ve got pile of work to do, so I won’t be able to contribute here today, but I want to respond to one thing you said.
You wrote:
I’ve addressed that claim here.
You also wrote:
As I showed above, Mary’s keeping the ceremonial law does not entail that she had original sin, any more than Jesus’ keeping the ceremonial law showed that He had original sin. Circumcision symbolizes a cutting off of sin. But Christ was sinless, even before His circumcision. Therefore, there is no contradiction in a sinless person following the ceremonial law. And therefore Mary’s keeping the ceremonial law does not entail that she herself had original sin.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
I’l repost my response to Bryan’s nonsense about doctrinal development since I screwed up the original by leaving off a italics tag.
Okay. Now we’re making some headway. When we asked for biblical evidence for the sinless conception of Mary, her life of sinless perfection, and her perpetual virginity, we were sent to Feingold’s lecture and Scotus.
I go there to read and listen. But there is no real biblical evidence presented. I am told that all of that about Mary is implied in the typology of Mary as the New Eve. So I ask again: where is the Biblical evidence?
Now, I am told that there really is no Scriptural evidence. That I must accept this 19th-century theory of “the development of doctrine” as formulated by Roman Catholics. This, of course, conveniently allows them to justify all their extra-biblical articles of faith. But never mind that for a moment.
Here’s one of the problems with this. You can’t have it both ways. I thought all of this stuff about Mary was “universally acclaimed” by the church Fathers. That’s what we been hearing over and over again. We’ve been castigated for no accepting what was believed by everyone right off the bat in the early church. (Is see that Sean just posted another comment on this post claiming that there was no development of doctrine. That all this Mariolatry was all there everywhere in the early church.) How’s that development of doctrine theory working for you?
If the “Fathers” all believed it, when did it “develop”? Which is it? Universal acceptance by all the early church Fathers or development over time? Either it was all there at the beginning (but was not important enough for the Apostles to say anything about in their founding documents) or it took time to “develop”? Which is it?
Bryan,
Your post does not touch the Protestant position. Jesus came in flesh that was “likeness of sinful flesh” as Paul writes. He did not inherit a sinful (actually, death) nature from Mary, but He did inherit judicial liability for sin. He was born “under the Law,” in the postlapsarian situation in which Adamic humanity lies under the death of the Tree of Knowledge. Hence, from the time of His incarnation He was “born to die.”
If you do not accept this, then you have an arbitrary imposition of death upon Jesus apart from any identification with humanity. This is nominalism, and not the Christian position on reality.
Jesus inherits liability to death from Adam through Mary. He does not inherit a death/sin nature from her, because of the Holy Spirit.
If Mary were sinless, which in Biblical theology means deathless, then Jesus could not have inherited Adamic liability from her.
And as I wrote before, if she did not have a death-nature, should could not have become unclean. Jesus did not become unclean, and He never needed to be cleansed. As for Jesus’ circumcision, it is not correct to say that circumcision is a cutting off of sin. Circumcision is a cutting off of the Adamic future, and a statement of trust in a new future. It was entirely appropriate for Jesus to do this, and in fact His crucifixion was His greater circumcision.
On Mary as Ark:
1. The parallels between David and Elizabeth show us that God is present. They do not necessarily show us that Mary is Ark.
2. If Mary is Ark, she must be shrouded at all times, for to see her would be death. I guess she wore a superburka.
3. If Mary is Ark, to touch her is death. So, if she started to fall off the donkey and Joseph reached out to steady her, God would have killed him as He killed Uzzah.
4. If Mary had been Ark, in some extended sense, she ceased to be when Jesus was born.
5. God did not live inside the Ark but was enthroned on cherubim who were over the Ark. How is this supposed to link with Jesus being inside of Mary? I suspect the analogy is based on very superficial and erroneous understanding of the Bible.
6. The preparation of Mary to be “Ark” for the Lord lies in her virginity and piety — that is the statement of the Holy Spirit. Dreaming up other things, such as moral perfection or immaculate conception, is devoid of foundation.
7. To the extent that Mary, like the Ark, had some close association with God’s presence, neither she nor Elizabeth knew that the baby was Yahweh. Mary and Joseph did not bow down and pray to the 4-year old Jesus as God incarnate. Mary and Elizabeth only knew that God would be with the baby, as He had been with Hannah’s child. And if you want a much clearer type and analogy, consider Hannah.
8. Intelligent protestants do not limit typology only to those stated as such. We hear the music of the Bible over and over. All is type, as Jesus said in Luke 24. Themes are repeated over and over. All we insist upon is that the typology be part of God’s own revelation, consistent with all that the Bible says, and not imposed on the text from other sources. A good illustration of idiot typology is Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses.
8. The Bible is clear about Mary and Joseph, their children, etc. Any supposed typology that contradicts these facts is simply not Biblical typology.
I see now that the analogy points out the similarity of location and time and that the Ark contains the logos, manna, and high priestly staff. Okay. I can go with that. And then Jesus was born and Mary was no longer Ark. Period.
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/12/mary-in-the-old-testament-one-example/
The Temple of Israel no longer contains the shekinah, and after she gave birth, Mary no longer contained Jesus.
Still, the analogy between Ark and Mary can only go so far, as I pointed out.
James — Thanks for the response. As for most of your points on Mary as Ark, I think we can agree that it’s not always the case that the type and the fulfillment are not always exactly the same in every detail. Jesus wasn’t made out of the dust of the ground, but he’s still the new Adam.
But more importantly, Mary is like the Ark because she contained what the Ark contained, the word, the priesthood and the bread from heaven.
I would be interested in hearing more about your insight into the extent of Mary’s knowledge about Jesus and His identity and mission. I’m not aware of a Scripture that informs us that Mary didn’t know He was God. I’m not saying it’s an irrational assumption, I’d just be interested in how you got there.
Finally, you keep asserting that the Bible is clear about Mary and Joseph having had sex and more children, but it’s just not. The Bible simply doesn’t say “And Mary and Joseph had relations and produced children.” It’s not in there. You’re interpreting the biblical data one way while the vast majority of Christians now living and the vast majority of Christians who ever drew breath interpret it another way. With all due respect, I just don’t see why I should accept your novel interpretation on your say-so alone.
On whether Mary or anyone else knew Jesus was God, here is from the Biblical Horizons blog:
BOQ
Matthew 1:25 is quite clear: Joseph “was not knowing her until she gave birth to a son.” It does not say “never knew her.” The “imperfect” status verb here indicates routine continual activity.
And we may ask why Joseph would have felt any need to keep Mary a virgin. Neither he nor anyone else knew that Jesus was the incarnation of God. Often we hear from some in certain churches that “Well, if my wife had given birth to God Himself, I don’t think I could touch her sexually after that.” In fact, however, nobody knew Jesus was God incarnate. They knew that he was the promised Messiah, son of David, and savior of the world. They did not know and could not possibly have known that He was God on earth. How could Mary and Joseph ever have dealt with him growing up? How could the disciples possibly have had any kind of relationship with him if they had known He was God on earth?
When Jesus calmed the seas, the disciples wondered, saying, “Who is this that even the wind and waves obey him?” Clearly they did not think Jesus was God. He was a kind of super-Moses, who like Moses could command the sea. It is only after His resurrection that the disciples realized that He was God incarnate.
When Peter confessed, “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God,” he only meant that Jesus was the promised seed of David, the Messiah. In Psalm 2, the Davidic king is “son of God.” It is only after the resurrection that anyone said, “My Lord and my God!”
EOQ
I can add here that if Mary (and Joseph) had known that Jesus was Yahweh incarnate, then John the Baptist would have known it, and so would loads of other people. Unfortunately, our images and creches sort of backdate what we now know about Jesus, so that we see a shining baby in a manger with Mary and Joseph praying to him. This can be quite risky stuff if we don’t set it aside when dealing with theology.
Don’t the vast majority believe what they have been taught and believe their own tradition trumps anyone else’s reading of Scripture anyway? Why would any Protestant consider them reliable witnesses.
Besides, you’ll add new RC novelties whenever it suits you–the alleged “immaculate conception” of Mary for example.
So because we have later traditions without any root in the original Gospel accounts we must believe.
1. Jesus was not born but kind of miraculously exited from Mary’s body without any messiness.
2. Mary had no obligation to be a wife to Joseph even though they were married.
3. Jesus’ brothers were not really his brothers.
4. Jesus’ sisters were not really his sisters.
5. The writings we have about Church fathers insisting on this are not aimed at any substantial belief to the contrary within the ancient church.
6. It is right and good for a group of Church rulers to mandate these believes as necessary for membership.
7. This is a great data point for us to build theology, practice, and to an interpretive principle in typology.
Yeah, I think some majority of Christians past or present being wrong, even a vast majority if such was the case, is relatively easy to accept.
James,
How do you know that Jesus “inherited judicial liability for [Adam’s] sin”? (For someone who seems so opposed to anything not explicitly stated in Scripture, you seem to make many speculative theological claims that are not explicitly stated in Scripture.)
You wrote:
Jesus is fully human. That’s a 100% “identification with humanity.” He came to earth in order to die, to save us from our sins. That’s not an “arbitrary” imposition of death — He came precisely to die. You seem to think that unless Jesus inherited “judicial liability for [Adam’s] sin”, He could not have died, at least He could not have died in a non-arbitrary way. But the option you seem to be ignoring is that Christ, being God, could voluntarily give Himself up to die as a sacrifice for our sins, in obedience to His Father. Jesus Himself tells us this:
From the first moment of His conception death had no hold over Him, and no right over Him. He voluntarily gave Himself over to death, for our sake, in obedience to the Father. Death would have no right over someone who was never at any moment at enmity with God, just as death had no right over Adam and Eve until they sinned.
You’ve asserted this before, but you have not yet demonstrated it. You’ve only asserted it.
According to the ceremonial law, during menstruation a woman is ceremonially unclean. (Lev 15:19ff) Therefore, if as you claim only those having a “death-nature” could become ceremonially unclean, then it would follow that Eve could never have had a menstruation, until she sinned. Your claim would entail that if Mary had been conceived without original sin, then she could never have experienced a monthly cycle. Is that your position?
In the eyes of the Law, when the woman with a discharge touched Jesus’ garment (Mt 9:20), He became ceremonially unclean. (Num 19:22) In the eyes of the Law, when Jesus touched the leper, (Matt 8:3) Jesus became ceremonially unclean. When He touched the coffin containing the dead boy (Luke 7:14), He became ceremonially unclean (Num 5:2). But Jesus did not have a “death-nature”. So here’s the dilemma. Either Jesus became ceremonially unclean when He did those things, or He did not. If Jesus did become ceremonially unclean when doing those things, then it is false that having a “death-nature” is necessary in order to become ceremonially unclean. But if Jesus did not become ceremonially unclean when doing those things, then if Mary was conceived without original sin, it is not necessarily true that Mary became ceremonially unclean when giving birth. In that case, her keeping the law for ceremonial purification was out of obedience, not out of a need for her own personal purification. Having carried the living God in her womb for nine months, it is reasonable to believe that she was already more ceremonially purified than any Old Covenant ritual could have made her.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Matt writes:
Are you kidding me? Are you guys completely blind to what’s going on here?
You think that the silence of explicit references to Mary and Joseph’s sex life is evidence that she was a perpetual virgin?
The Bible simply does not say that Peter and his wife had relations and produce children, so the Apostle Peter was a perpetual virgin.
The Bible says that Mary and Joseph are MARRIED. Marriage involves sexual intimacy. To refuse sexual intimacy in marriage is SIN. If their marriage was not normal, and it was important that we know that it was not normal (as Rome claims), then the Apostles would have made that explicit.
If it was so incredibly important that Mary be born sinless, live a life of sinless perfection, and remain a virgin all her life—as Rome so confidently asserts—why do the Apostle’s not say a word about any of this? Answer: because it’s an extrabiblical myth.
Do you guys ever worry about all those warnings from Jesus about oral law traditions and adding to the Word of God?
Yes, as I wrote on the BH blog: “Jesse was not knowing his wife until after her purification.” Supposedly that does not imply that he DID know her afterwards? In fact, it probably means he NEVER had sex with her again. “David’s brothers came to him.” But that probably just means his cousins.
In the absence of other evidence — and there is none except myth — the meaning of these statements is obvious. Special pleading only enters when one believes odd notions nowhere stated or implied in Biblical theology.
Sex is good in marriage. Joseph and Mary had sex. Get used to it.
Nor am I interested in hearing that the vast majority of Christians have always believed that St. Luke painted Jesus from Mary’s description, or that Jesus sent a picture of himself to the King of Atossa, or other things enshrined on icons in vast reaches of the Christian religion; or that “orthodoxy” consists of the decisions of a council in 787 run by thug monks that states unless you pray to icons you are damned.
The vast majority of ancient Israelites in the judges era worshipped other gods along with Yahweh. The vast majority of them in the kingdom era worshipped at statues of Yahweh erected at shrines, or at bull images. As Jeroboam made clear, worshipping at calves was the true ancient position of Israelite religion, and he had loads of theologians to back him up.
God has spoken in the Bible, and what He says about Mary is not unclear at all.
The Marian dogmas are, it is admitted, implicit in the biblical text. It is granted that there exists no text that says “Mary is the Ark of the Covenant” nor does it say “Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven”. But the fact that there exists no such verses in no way means that the teachings are not biblical. Are we to conclude that since there exists no such verse that says, “Parents baptize your children” means infant baptism is unbiblical? Thank be to God, No! We also have no verse from the Old Testament that tells us that the Messiah would be crucified and buried and on the 3rd day rise from the dead, though the warp and woof of the narrative suggests and hints at something like this happening. Of course, the issue really is not about finding biblical support for our doctrine, in as much as it is; who has the authority from God to define and determine what is biblical or unbiblical. Catholicism has its biblical passages, I think we can at least agree on that.
On another note to attempt to demonstrate that Joseph and Mary had sexual relations based off, “and he knew her not until she had borne a son” is flimsy. As has been pointed out by better minds than mine, “until” does not need to be taken to mean a change after the stated fact. For example, “The LORD says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool,” (Ps 110) or, “Michal, daughter of Saul, had no children till the day of her death,” (2nd Sam 6:23) or “we know that the whole creation has been groaning with labor pains together until now” (Romans 8:22). So the argument for or against does not rest on the word “until”. I do think that the observation by someone (an Orthodox Monk, I believe) that if we take the word “until” in Matthew 1 in the modern English usage, indicating change, then we are left with the Gospel writer inviting us to contemplate the sexual activity of Mary and Joseph, which seem a bit strange. Not because sex is naughty or bad, but because sex is usually not something that one talks openly about to others. One may know that he can from a sexual union from his parents, but he does not usually ask his folks what the romance was like the night he was conceived.
The reference to Israel engaging in idolatry demonstrating that it is possible that the teaching authority of the Church could define heresy is interesting for the simple fact that the New Covenant is enacted upon better promises. Either Christ is with His Church, guiding her through the power of the Holy into all truth as the pillar and foundation of the truth, or He is, God forbid, not. If He is, then we can say, the Church cannot err, simply because Christ has protected her.
Oh, come now. “Adam knew his wife Eve” does not invite me to contemplate their act of sexuality. If it seems untoward when used of Joseph and Mary, it is because some other prejudice is in view.
It’s not just “until.” It is the continual action of the verb.
What “until” implies in a given context depends on the context. In Joseph’s case, anyone reading the text would automatically think they started having sex and had it routinely from then on. The other cases you cite are different because we KNOW from revelation that “until” has no end. (Though Romans 8, rightly understood, does mean that the Gentile ktisis began to cease groaning when the gospel was fully established in AD 70.)
As Meyers asked, what possible reason would Joseph and Mary have for not entering into normal marriage and having children? No angel told them not to, so why wouldn’t they? Married people have sex. Matthew’s statement, taken in normal context, means they had sex.
Finally, it just does not do to compare a typology that has no foundation with those that do. We KNOW that Jesus was raised on the 3d day. The text says so. We KNOW that all of the Bible speaks of HIM. The tradition you espouse needs to come to grips with the fact that nowhere in the many pages of the NT is there any hint of perpetual virginity, Mary as leader of the church, dormition or assumption, immaculate conception, or any of the rest of it. Nor is there anything in the Apostolic Fathers.
If you want a dual-source of revelation theory, then fine. Have at it. As a Protestant, I respect that, though I think it very wrong.
James,
I get what you are saying. I understand your rebuttal. My suspicion is that Matthew did not write that to make sure we know that Mary and Joseph had relations. I would suspect he wrote to make it very clear that the child in the womb of Mary did not come about in ordinary fashion, as an emphasis. That being said, who’s right and who’s wrong, who can say? That brings back to the issue at hand: Who has the divinely given mandate, the task, if you will, to define, defend, and determine what is to be believed by the faithful? Who has been entrusted with this task? If you say, the Church, I ask, which one? It is as simple as that.
James.
Did you read the 1st century Protevangelium of James that I cited?
Your argument about Mary’s virginity is basically, ‘sex is good for marriage.’ You get no argument from me.
But the very first generation of Christians understood Mary and Joseph’s marriage to be of a different sort.
You can read it here.
Also if you have time check out Jerome’s treatise aptly called, The Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary”
One apocryphal story promoted later by Clement proves nothing about what the first generation of Christians all thought.
Mark,
Why would the first generation of Christians believe this about Mary?
(PS, be nice to be as I am good friends with several of your kin-folk by marriage!) – Not to say that I wouldn’t assume you would be nice anyway.
Or, sorry I pressed ‘submit’ early…
On what basis are you denying that the early church believed this about Mary?
You need to re-read earlier comments. You are appealing to an apocryphal gospel that was written by a liar claiming to be James. The quotations from Clement that show the belief show that he and others were combating others who believed nothing of the kind.
And, beside all this, these sources also assert that Jesus somehow got out of Mary magically and bloodlessly. This isn’t truth; it is neurotic superstition. Oooh. Blood! Yucky! Jesus couldn’t have had anything to do with that.
I repeat what I said earlier: If nothing else has been confirmed by this discussion, it has revealed clearly that the Marian dogma invented by the Roman Church has no true basis in Scripture. (which, Sean, is why the early church didn’t believe it).
To say that Mary remained a virgin is to say that Mary sinned by failing to be a faithful and loving wife to Joseph (as Jeff Meyers pointed out above). To say that Mary and Joseph’s marriage was “special” and therefore had an exemption from this requirement, is to assert something the Scriptures say nothing about (and since sexual relations are so central to marriage, this is inconceivable — surely, such an amazing exception would be mentioned somewhere, right?). To assert that Mary had no other children is to exalt barrenness and to deprive Mary of one of the great blessings of the covenant. In short, to assert these teachings is to insult and slander Mary. Far from honoring her, it falsely charges her with sin and constitutes false witness.
If this is “honoring” Mary, pray, what does it mean to dishonor her? In other words, to quote that great cultural critic and theologian, Inigo Montoya, “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”
But the sad thing is that Romanists are bound to believe these horrifying falsehoods and defend them (and condemn their brethren who disagree). And it’s truly been terrifying (and disheartening) to watch.
Sorry Mark. I had missed your comments on the Protovangelium of James before.
I never said it was not apocryphal. I just said that it is of early origen. By the way, ‘apocryphal’ does not in of itself carry the negative connotation that you suggest.
Incidentally, if you read any of the church fathers on the matter they did not rely on the Protvangelium of James but on scripture (Jerome’s treatise handles nearly all the modern Protestant objections).
It is good to see that there is testimony however that some did not believe in the superstition and were attacked for it. It was *not* universal, according to your own evidence.
You could say the same for every heresy in the early church. The fathers were writting against heresies all the time. The Gnostics, after all, point to evidence of early Gnosticism so support their beliefs.
And, beside all this, these sources also assert that Jesus somehow got out of Mary magically and bloodlessly. This isn’t truth; it is neurotic superstition. Oooh. Blood! Yucky! Jesus couldn’t have had anything to do with that
A non-Christian could say the same thing about the Virgin birth.
The prevailing patristic belief is that Mary had no pain in childbirth because paid in childbirth is a curse of the fall.
Mark,
By the way, where do you get the idea that James the Just claimed to be the Messiah?
If nothing else has been confirmed by this discussion, it has revealed clearly that the Marian dogma invented by the Roman Church has no true basis in Scripture. (which, Sean, is why the early church didn’t believe it).
Can you back up this claim? That the early church did not believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary?
“And indeed it was a virgin, about to marry once for all after her delivery, who gave birth to Christ, in order that each title of sanctity might be fulfilled in Christ’s parentage, by means of a mother who was both virgin, and wife of one husband. Again, when He is presented as an infant in the temple, who is it who receives Him into his hands? Who is the first to recognize Him in spirit? A man just and circumspect,’ and of course no digamist, (which is plain) even (from this consideration), lest (otherwise) Christ should presently be more worthily preached by a woman, an aged widow, and the wife of one man;’ who, living devoted to the temple, was (already) giving in her own person a sufficient token what sort of persons ought to be the adherents to the spiritual temple,–that is, the Church. Such eye-witnesses the Lord in infancy found; no different ones had He in adult age.”
Tertullian, On Monogamy, 8 (A.D. 213).
“For if Mary, as those declare who with sound mind extol her, had no other son but Jesus, and yet Jesus says to His mother, Woman, behold thy son,’ and not Behold you have this son also,’ then He virtually said to her, Lo, this is Jesus, whom thou didst bear.’ Is it not the case that every one who is perfect lives himself no longer, but Christ lives in him; and if Christ lives in him, then it is said of him to Mary, Behold thy son Christ.’ What a mind, then, must we have to enable us to interpret in a worthy manner this work, though it be committed to the earthly treasure-house of common speech, of writing which any passer-by can read, and which can be heard when read aloud by any one who lends to it his bodily ears?”
Origen, Commentary on John, I:6 (A.D. 232).
“Therefore let those who deny that the Son is from the Father by nature and proper to His Essence, deny also that He took true human flesh of Mary Ever-Virgin; for in neither case had it been of profit to us men, whether the Word were not true and naturally Son of God, or the flesh not true which He assumed.” Athanasius, Orations against the Arians, II:70 (A.D. 362).
“And when he had taken her, he knew her not, till she had brought forth her first-born Son.’ He hath here used the word till,’ not that thou shouldest suspect that afterwards he did know her, but to inform thee that before the birth the Virgin was wholly untouched by man. But why then, it may be said, hath he used the word, till’? Because it is usual in Scripture often to do this, and to use this expression without reference to limited times. For so with respect to the ark likewise, it is said, The raven returned not till the earth was dried up.’ And yet it did not return even after that time. And when discoursing also of God, the Scripture saith, From age until age Thou art,’ not as fixing limits in this case. And again when it is preaching the Gospel beforehand, and saying, In his days shall righteousness flourish, and abundance of peace, till the moon be taken away,’ it doth not set a limit to this fair part of creation. So then here likewise, it uses the word “till,” to make certain what was before the birth, but as to what follows, it leaves thee to make the inference.”
John Chrysostom, Gospel of Matthew, V:5 (A.D. 370).
“Thus, what it was necessary for thee to learn of Him, this He Himself hath said; that the Virgin was untouched by man until the birth; but that which both was seen to be a consequence of the former statement, and was acknowledged, this in its turn he leaves for thee to perceive; namely, that not even after this, she having so become a mother, and having been counted worthy of a new sort of travail, and a child-bearing so strange, could that righteous man ever have endured to know her. For if he had known her, and had kept her in the place of a wife, how is it that our Lord commits her, as unprotected, and having no one, to His disciple, and commands him to take her to his own home? How then, one may say, are James and the others called His brethren? In the same kind of way as Joseph himself was supposed to be husband of Mary. For many were the veils provided, that the birth, being such as it was, might be for a time screened. Wherefore even John so called them, saying, For neither did His brethren believe in Him.’
John Chrysostom, Gospel of Matthew, V:5 (A.D. 370).
“But those who by virginity have desisted from this process have drawn within themselves the boundary line of death, and by their own deed have checked his advance; they have made themselves, in fact, a frontier between life and death, and a barrier too, which thwarts him. If, then, death cannot pass beyond virginity, but finds his power checked and shattered there, it is demonstrated that virginity is a stronger thing than death; and that body is rightly named undying which does not lend its service to a dying world, nor brook to become the instrument of a succession of dying creatures. In such a body the long unbroken career of decay and death, which has intervened between the first man and the lives of virginity which have been led, is interrupted. It could not be indeed that death should cease working as long as the human race by marriage was working too; he walked the path of life with all preceding generations; he started with every new-born child and accompanied it to the end: but he found in virginity a barrier, to pass which was an impossible feat.” Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, 13 (A.D. 371).
“[T]he Son of God…was born perfectly of the holy ever-virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit…”
Epiphanius, Well Anchored Man, 120 (A.D. 374).
“The friends of Christ do not tolerate hearing that the Mother of God ever ceased to be a virgin”
Basil, Homily In Sanctum Christi generationem, 5 (ante A.D. 379).
“But as we do not deny what is written, so we do reject what is not written. We believe that God was born of the Virgin, because we read it. That Mary was married after she brought forth, we do not believe, because we do not read it. Nor do we say this to condemn marriage, for virginity itself is the fruit of marriage; but because when we are dealing with saints we must not judge rashly. If we adopt possibility as the standard of judgment, we might maintain that Joseph had several wives because Abraham had, and so had Jacob, and that the Lord’s brethren were the issue of those wives, an invention which some hold with a rashness which springs from audacity not from piety. You say that Mary did not continue a virgin: I claim still more, that Joseph himself on account of Mary was a virgin, so that from a virgin wedlock a virgin son was born. For if as a holy man he does not come under the imputation of fornication, and it is nowhere written that he had another wife, but was the guardian of Mary whom he was supposed to have to wife rather than her husband, the conclusion is that he who was thought worthy to be called father of the Lord, remained a virgin.”
Jerome, The Perpetual Virginity of Mary Against Helvedius, 21 (A.D. 383).
“Imitate her, holy mothers, who in her only dearly beloved Son set forth so great an example of maternal virtue; for neither have you sweeter children, nor did the Virgin seek the consolation of being able to bear another son.”
Ambrose, To the Christian at Vercellae, Letter 63:111 (A.D. 396).
“Her virginity also itself was on this account more pleasing and accepted, in that it was not that Christ being conceived in her, rescued it beforehand from a husband who would violate it, Himself to preserve it; but, before He was conceived, chose it, already dedicated to God, as that from which to be born. This is shown by the words which Mary spake in answer to the Angel announcing to her conception; How,’ saith she, shall this be, seeing I know not a man?’ Which assuredly she would not say, unless she had before vowed herself unto God as a virgin. But, because the habits of the Israelites as yet refused this, she was espoused to a just man, who would not take from her by violence, but rather guard against violent persons, what she had already vowed. Although, even if she had said this only, How shall this take place ?’ and had not added, seeing I know not a man,’ certainly she would not have asked, how, being a female, she should give birth to her promised Son, if she had married with purpose of sexual intercourse. She might have been bidden also to continue a virgin, that in her by fitting miracle the Son of God should receive the form of a servant, but, being to be a pattern to holy virgins, lest it should be thought that she alone needed to be a virgin, who had obtained to conceive a child even without sexual intercourse, she dedicated her virginity to God, when as yet she knew not what she should conceive, in order that the imitation of a heavenly life in an earthly and mortal body should take place of vow, not of command; through love of choosing, not through necessity of doing service. Thus Christ by being born of a virgin, who, before she knew Who was to be born of her, had determined to continue a virgin, chose rather to approve, than to command, holy virginity. And thus, even in the female herself, in whom He took the form of a servant, He willed that virginity should be free.”
Augustine, Of Holy Virginity, 4 (A.D. 401).
“The ever-virgin One thus remains even after the birth still virgin, having never at any time up till death consorted with a man. For although it is written, And knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born Son, yet note that he who is first-begotten is first-born even if he is only-begotten. For the word first-born’ means that he was born first but does not at all suggest the birth of others. And the word till’ signifies the limit of the appointed time but does not exclude the time thereafter. For the Lord says, And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world, not meaning thereby that He will be separated from us after the completion of the age. The divine apostle, indeed, says, And so shall we ever be with the Lord, meaning after the general resurrection.”
John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith, 4:14 (A.D. 743).
“You could say the same for every heresy in the early church.”
So how do you know they are heretical? “The Church” decided. But the people who decided were the ones who decided they were the Church.
Unbiblical heresies in the Early Church that were defeated do not prove that unbiblical heresies that won for a time must be true.
“I never said it was not apocryphal. I just said that it is of early origen. By the way, ‘apocryphal’ does not in of itself carry the negative connotation that you suggest.”
Right. All the Church Fathers would agree that the fact that the Gnostics wrote a fake Gospel of Thomas does not have any negative connotations. Glad to see someone so faithful to tradition that forgeries are given weight.
“A non-Christian could say the same thing about the Virgin birth. ”
So what? God teaches the virgin conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit. The idea that he was supernaturally teleported without the use of the birth canal is not.
The Scriptures have no more weight in your argumentation than made-up forgeries, and any story that is sold to the public is given the same value as God’s own claims.
There is no biblical evidence to support Mary’s perpetual virginity. Moreover, as we have clearly show, there is every reason to believe that the Scriptures portray her life after Jesus’ birth as one of a normal Jewish woman married to Joseph. They made love and had children after Jesus was born.
If anyone wants to believe that she remained ever-virgin, that’s your call. Just don’t force it on me as an article of faith.
But let’s get back to the main point of this post. As weird as it is to teach Mary’s perpetual virginity, it is nowhere near as crazy as claiming she was born without sin and lived a sinless life to boot. That’s mythological in the extreme. Add to that the outrageous fancy that she was taken up into heaven bodily without dying. We just can’t let Jesus be Jesus; we have to have his mother ascend to heaven with him. Worse and worse, she is now proclaimed by Rome to be Queen of Heaven and Christian people are encouraged, even required to pray to her.
All of this together is idolatrous. Jesus cannot be the sole mediator; his mother has to help. Jesus cannot answer prayer without the help of his mother. Jesus doesn’t sit alone on the throne of David, his mother has to rule with him on her own throne as Heavenly Queen. Jesus can’t be alone the first fruits of humanity in heaven; he has to share that honor with his mother. Rome has made Mary an anti-Christ.
the Mary of Rome = Diana of the Ephesians.
No thanks. I’ll stick with the Mary revealed in the Scriptures — holy, faithful, and rightly honored wife of Joseph and mother of his children, mother of our Lord, and godly example to all the faithful.
Mark,
You could say the same for every heresy in the early church. So how do you know they are heretical? “The Church” decided. But the people who decided were the ones who decided they were the Church.
Mark, Do you recite the creed in Church every Sunday? Who wrote the creed?
Right. All the Church Fathers would agree that the fact that the Gnostics wrote a fake Gospel of Thomas does not have any negative connotations. Glad to see someone so faithful to tradition that forgeries are given weight.
I would suggest for you to research what the church means when it says ‘apocryphal.’
The Scriptures have no more weight in your argumentation than made-up forgeries, and any story that is sold to the public is given the same value as God’s own claims.
Mark. I disagree. The Catholic Church stands with the fathers who have always interpreted scripture to uphold the belief that Mary is Ever Virgin.
There is no biblical evidence to support Mary’s perpetual virginity.
The constant belief of the Catholic Church for over 2000 years disagrees. You make it sound as if the fathers who defined the Trinity, the canon of scripture, and original sin were all ignorant of scripture. Look over the names on the quotes I provided. Amrbose. Augustine. John Chrysostom. Are you going to say that those men and champions of the Christian faith didn’t know that the gospels call Jesus’ kin ‘brothers’ a few times? (Not to mention John Calvin and Martin Luther)
Jeff.
Some corrections. The Church is not dogmatic that Mary did not die. Second Mary did not ‘ascend’ to heaven. She was ‘assumed’ to heaven. This is a passive action and an important distinction.
The quotation from Tertullian makes it clear that Mary entered into normal marriage with Joseph. Which is why Jerome condemned him. Jerome’s essay, by the way, is a masterpiece of loonytoons exegesis and special pleading and semi-pagan prejudice. Its the kind of thing that would be given an “F” in any theology class today. But it is of value in showing that lots of people in the early church believed Mary and Joseph had a true marriage and had children, which is why Jerome had to write against them.
It is 200 years after the close of the canon before anybody argues for perpetual virginity. It was unheard of before then. It comes in about the same time as pieces of the True Cross were brought back from the “holy land,” and other nonsensical superstitions arose. Once the church became accepted, under Constantine, and lots of untaught pagans came into her, they brought their superstitions about vestal virgins, Artemis/Diana, and all the rest with them.
Citing a gnostic work in defense of the perpetual virginity of Mary is rather bizarre.
James.
Not every apocryphal work is Gnostic. You consider Maccebeus to be ‘apocryphal.’ Are you going to try to argue that Maccebeus is Gnostic? Just randomly calling early documents ‘Gnostic’ does not make them Gnostic.
It is 200 years after the close of the canon before anybody argues for perpetual virginity. It was unheard of before then.
Please present the early Christian writting from any father prior to AD 200 that taught that Mary had other children by Joseph. Please offer any bit of evidence that the perpetual virginity of Mary was ‘unheard of’ prior to 200 years after the close of the canon.
The quotation from Tertullian makes it clear that Mary entered into normal marriage with Joseph.
How so? Maybe you did not notice the fact that Tertullian made reference to Mary being ‘devoted to the Temple.’ Where did he get that idea? Hint: the ‘Gnostic’ Protovangelium of James.
I am surprised. Most Presbyterians I know care about church history and do not simply wave it off when they don’t like what the fathers taught.
PS. Forgive my spelling errors typed in haste.
“Mark. I disagree. The Catholic Church stands with the fathers who have always interpreted scripture to uphold the belief that Mary is Ever Virgin.”
“The Catholic Church stands with the fathers who have always interpreted scripture to uphold the belief that Mary is Ever Virgin.”
The phrase “interpreted Scripture” is being used amazingly here. You’ve not offered any interpretation or shown any from the past. You’ve appealed to attacks on people who believed the Bible and on a forged Gospel.
The term “ever virgin” is also being used loosely because you make it sound like it was merely an opinion that Mary didn’t have sex. But that is not true. The whole thing was driven by a superstitious need to save Mary’s hymen not only from Joseph’s penis but from Jesus’ head. Jesus and the Buddha share a need to remain special by avoiding biology. Yeah, that fits with the incarnation.
The entire thing is crap from beginning to end. You keep acting like it had nothing to do with superstitions about blood and fluid when it is obviously entirely motivated by such phobias. And then, you actually drag down the sign miracle of the Holy Spirit’s conception of Jesus as if it were motivated by the same superstition.
And some day you are going to meet the Man whose mother you’re talking about and pretend that an apocryphal story justifies you spreading this stuff? Good luck with that.
Gentlemen:
I was wondering something. At the annunciation, when Gabriel told Mary that she would conceive in her womb and bear a son and call his name Jesus, why was Mary so confused by this, asking “How will this be, since I do not know a man (I am a virgin)”.
Seeing that Mary was betrothed to Joseph at the time, if Mary anticipated sexual union with Joseph at some point in the near future, why would Gabriel’s news cause Mary to react as she did, which is to say, utterly confused as to how she could possibly become pregnant. Surely Mary knew “where babies come from”.
Only after Mary asks Gabriel how she could possibly conceive does Gabriel tell her that this conception will not be the result of sexual union, but rather “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
On the other hand, if Mary truly was (already) a consecrated Virgin of the Lord, betrothed to Joseph who was to be her guardian husband (respectful of her vow), then her confused response makes perfect sense. Otherwise, her confusion seems pretty ridiculous, does it not?
Blessings and Peace.
KB
Mark.
The phrase “interpreted Scripture” is being used amazingly here. You’ve not offered any interpretation or shown any from the past. You’ve appealed to attacks on people who believed the Bible and on a forged Gospel.
This isn’t entirely true. We have offered and actually linked to several discussions about the scripture behind the orthodox Christian belief about Mary being ever-Virgin.
The rub is that you don’t like this interpretation and because you have set yourself up as the arbitur of what the bible teaches, you do not accept the teaching of the Church.
The term “ever virgin” is also being used loosely because you make it sound like it was merely an opinion that Mary didn’t have sex. But that is not true.
Can you elaborate? Where do you get the idea that the Fathers calling Mary “Ever-Virgin” did not mean that she was ‘Ever-Virgin?’ Can you cite some fathers that describe this?
The entire thing is crap from beginning to end. You keep acting like it had nothing to do with superstitions about blood and fluid when it is obviously entirely motivated by such phobias. And then, you actually drag down the sign miracle of the Holy Spirit’s conception of Jesus as if it were motivated by the same superstition.
And some day you are going to meet the Man whose mother you’re talking about and pretend that an apocryphal story justifies you spreading this stuff? Good luck with that.
Mark. I am not going to continue having this discussion if it cannot continue with charity.
Sean: Gnostic works are gnostic works. Call them what you want. Thomas is gnostic. The Prot of James is gnostic. Do you know what gnosticism is?
“Why have you debased your soul and forgotten your God, seeing you were brought up in the Holy of Holies, and received your food from the hands of angels, and heard their songs?”
It’s also bunk. Jesus was born in a cave?
The author is a liar.
I don’t know where you’re coming from, but I find it hard to believe any Roman theologian would cite such rubbish as authoritative.
Please present any evidence from anyone before AD 200 who believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. Catholic Christian sources please, not gnostic pseudepigrapha. Irenaeus makes no mention of it, and he discusses Mary.
Tertullian is clear, and Jerome attacks him for it. The woman devoted to the Temple was aged Anna, not Mary.
“This isn’t entirely true. We have offered and actually linked to several discussions about the scripture behind the orthodox Christian belief about Mary being ever-Virgin.
The rub is that you don’t like this interpretation and because you have set yourself up as the arbitur of what the bible teaches, you do not accept the teaching of the Church. ”
I’m sorry, but I do accept the teaching of the Church. You just don’t want to count it as such. You’ve set yourself up as the arbiter of what is and is not the Church and have counted me and my witness out. You’ve also discounted everyone who disbelieved it in antiquity and defined them as heretics. Then you’ve used the resulting “concensus” as an authority for defining orthodoxy.
But, but to get in a more detailed direction, it is perfectly possible to offer two competing interpretations of Scripture and side with one because one respects the authority of the interpreter. But that is obviously nothing like what is going on in the case of Mary’s virginity, sinlessness, or assumption.
Kevin,
Your question is a good one. My short answer is that there is no evidence that I can find for any order of consecrated virgins in Israel. There is nothing in the Hebrew Bible about such a thing. If an analogy be sought with Jephthah’s daughter, I would point out that such deaconnesses were provided for by the temple servants and were not married — and it is questionable whether what was going on with Jephthah’s daughter was even proper and right. (I.e., since priests and Levites married, why not deaconnesses?)
I’m going to pass your question on to some folks who know Greek better than I do. Perhaps the tense of the verb indicates immediacy.
James.
I’d like to know, on what basis you are insisting that this is of Gnostic origen. The Catholic encyclopedia the the Orthodox Church affirm that it is of authentic Christian origin, although apocryphal.
The same church fathers that faught the heresy of Gnosticism defended the ever-Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Strange.
again…pardon bad spelling.
I quoted a clearly gnostic line from the text. The idea that anyone could grow up in the Holy of Holies and be fed by angels is purely gnostic. Nobody with the least understanding of Biblical religion would ever dream of writing such rubbish.
There’s nothing about Mary as ever-virgin in Irenaeus, the primary gnostic fighter. If you can find it, show me.
I am interested in what Jim Jordan and Jeff Meyers say about the passages in Numbers which in effect speak about women who take vows of sexual abstention whether permanent or temporary.
[6] And if she is married to a husband, while under her vows or any thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she has bound herself, [7] and her husband hears of it, and says nothing to her on the day that he hears; then her vows shall stand, and her pledges by which she has bound herself shall stand. [8] But if, on the day that her husband comes to hear of it, he expresses disapproval, then he shall make void her vow which was on her, and the thoughtless utterance of her lips, by which she bound herself; and the LORD will forgive her.
Further on it reads,
[13] Any vow and any binding oath to afflict herself, her husband may establish, or her husband may make void. [14] But if her husband says nothing to her from day to day, then he establishes all her vows, or all her pledges, that are upon her; he has established them, because he said nothing to her on the day that he heard of them. [15] But if he makes them null and void after he has heard of them, then he shall bear her iniquity.”
Now, what if Mary did this, Joseph heard it and it became binding on Mary? Is she an evil woman? To sexed crazed westerners this is unthinkable; but to OT Law it is not.
My points above about hermeneutics still stand and have yet to be made a part of this discussion which I find interesting.
If any of you want to know how great the Catholic Church believes that sex is, go and read JPII Theology of the Body and his excellent work _Love and Responsibility_.
James.
There’s nothing about Mary as ever-virgin in Irenaeus, the primary gnostic fighter. If you can find it, show me.
I cannot respond off the top of my head but I’ll look. However, that begs the question. There is also nothing in Irenaeus about the Trinity and countless other doctrines that you hold as orthodox.
The fact remains that the vast majority of fathers and early patristic writing we have that discusses Mary’s virginity confim the Catholic Church’s teaching.
James,
There is also quite a bit of flowery language in the bible. Having language that you do not like does not make it Gnostic.
How easy would it be to find a line in almost any book of the bible, isolate it, and then say, “Golly, that sounds Gnostic to me!”
A talking Donkey? RUBBISH!
A virgin birth? RUBBISH!
Angels in heaven praying with incense? RUBBISH!
Frankly, asserting that the Protvangelium of James is Gnostic, on the sole basis that you don’t like it, is an insult to Gnostics!
Luke 2.22-23: “And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord’).”
Jeffrey, there is nothing about sexual abstinence in Numbers 30. In context, this is the nazirite vow.
As for hermeneutics, I’m afraid my opinion of the statements you cited is pretty low. Papal imperialism (the magisterium) and the dismissal of all other branches of the church is not an impressive hermeneutics. The interpretive conversation led very gradually by the Spirit in all parts of Christendom is still in its early phases, since all nations are to be discipled.
Sean, I see no point in continuing conversation with you. If you cannot recognize gnostic rhetoric when you see it, there’s no point in going on.
Mark,
I think the conversation is better served without the caricatures of the “Church is squeamish about blood and sex.” Have you read the future John Paul’s Love and Responsibility or Theology of the Body (Wednesday Catechesis done over three years)? John Paul might make the Moscow crowd blush 🙂 !! Taylor Marshall has a post today about the blood of Mary and the blood of our Lord. Catholics are not afraid of “stuff”, things like blood, sex, flesh, hey, even bread and wine become for us the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
James,
“Once the church became accepted, under Constantine, and lots of untaught pagans came into her, they brought their superstitions about vestal virgins, Artemis/Diana, and all the rest with them.”
That narrative of history sounds much more like a Texe Marrs, Jack Chick appraisal than one by someone who has a high regard for the visible, historical and institutional Church.
I do have to say that I am surprised a bit by the quick dismissal of the Fathers. I do think reading Gambero’s book that Bryan referenced would be helpful.
Jeff,
“All of this together is idolatrous. Jesus cannot be the sole mediator; his mother has to help. Jesus cannot answer prayer without the help of his mother.”
If you could find in the Catechism of the Catholic Church where Jesus is not taught as the sole mediator between God and men I would be interested (CCC #618, 970, 1544). Surely if you deny Mary a role in participating in Christ’s mediation then you have denied yourself a share in that as well. Something tells me that you probably pray for others and thank God for that.
Mark.
The Catholic Church does not teach that Jesus’ birth did not come through the birth canal.
Some fathers, such as Aquinas quoting Augustine I believe, considered that Jesus did not come out of Mary’s womb in the natural way but this is not doctrine.
Dr. Ludwig Ott in “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma” explains:
– Mary bore her Son without any violation of her virginal integrity. (De fide on the ground of the general pro¬mulgation of doctrine.)
The dogma merely asserts the fact of the continuance of Mary’s physical virginity without determining more closely how this is to be physiologically explained. In general the Fathers and the Schoolmen conceived it as non-injury to the hymen, and accordingly taught that Mary gave birth in miraculous fashion without opening of the womb and injury to the hymen, and consequently also without pains (cf. S. th. III 28, 2).
However, according to modern natural scientific knowledge, the purely physical side of virginity consists in the non-fulfilment of the sex act (” sex-act virginity “) and in the non-contact of the female egg by the male seed (” seed-act virginity “) (A. Mitterer). Thus, injury to the hymen in birth does not destroy virginity, while, on the other hand, its rupture seems to belong to complete natural mother¬hood. It follows from this that from the concept of virginity alone the miraculous character of the process of birth cannot be inferred, if it cannot be, and must not be derived from other facts of Revelation. Holy Writ attests Mary’s active role in the act of birth (Mt. 1:25 ; Luke 2:7 : ” She brought forth “) which does not seem to indicate a miraculous process.
But the Fathers, with few exceptions, vouch for the miraculous character of the birth. However, the question is whether in so doing they attest a truth of Revelation or whether they wrongly interpret a truth of Revelation, that is, Mary’s virginity, from an inadequate natural scientific point of view. It seems hardly possible to demonstrate that the dignity of the Son of God or the dignity of the Mother of God demands a miraculous birth.
“I think the conversation is better served without the caricatures of the ‘Church is squeamish about blood and sex.'”
I’m not sure I have an opinion about modern Roman Catholics. But claims that there would be something wrong with Joseph and Mary having sex are exactly what being squeamish about sex is. Claims that Jesus must not have passed through the birth canal are the same regarding blood.
Some book saying something different doesn’t change where the tradition came from. And the squeamishness is obviously producing stories rather than any real historical tradition being at the root of the belief.
James,
Your disliking a text does not make it Gnostic.
There is a very static conensus of which documents are indeed actually Gnostic among patristic scholarship and the Protovangelium is not one of them. Highlighting a line from a text because you don’t like what it says does not make it Gnostic.
The Gnostic Society lists their texts here. As you can see, the Protovangelium is absent from the list.
Furthermore, the Gnostics even tried to teach against the Virgin birth! This is the exact opposite of what the Protovangelium is saying.
Earlier you said, “Do you even know what Gnosticism is? Do you?
Tom,
Once again this is just painful. You write:
The whole point is that God has indeed encouraged and commanded us to pray for one another. It promotes community. It’s what the priesthood of all believers is about. We pray for each other.
Mary, along with every other dead believer in heaven surely prays for the church and the world. NOBODY is denying that. Sigh.
What we are not permitted to do is pray to dead people in heaven. Talking to dead believers is never enjoined or commanded by God in the Bible.
And my point was not simply about prayer. You ignored everything else I said. Rome has made Mary an anti-Christ. It’s not enough that Jesus is conceived and born sinless. Mary must also share in that. It’s not enough that Jesus lives a sinless life; now his Mother must be confessed to have done so also. It’s not enough that Jesus ascended bodily into heaven; mom’s gotta go there the same way. It’s not enough that Jesus is crowned King; Mary must also be the Queen of Heaven. (BTW, this last is in direct contradiction to the biblical teaching that the church is the Bride of Christ and rules with him). And, no, she doesn’t symbolize or stand for the church in heaven as Queen. There’s not a shred of evidence for that in the apostolic Scriptures.
“But the Fathers, with few exceptions, vouch for the miraculous character of the birth. However, the question is whether in so doing they attest a truth of Revelation or whether they wrongly interpret a truth of Revelation, that is, Mary’s virginity, from an inadequate natural scientific point of view. It seems hardly possible to demonstrate that the dignity of the Son of God or the dignity of the Mother of God demands a miraculous birth.”
So suddenly the traditions of the fathers is not so authoritative. I went and looked at the early quotations, found out what “virgin birth” was taken to mean, and responded accordingly. I was told I was wrong to reject what those people believed, just like other Roman Catholics reject it.
“Tradition” means whatever Roman Catholic authorities tell us that it means. Appealing to it is as inconsistent as appealing to Scripture. This entire attack has been a huge feint.
We’re done. Please take the last word.
Jeff,
With all due respect, I think it was my comments that were ignored. You mentioned that the Church does not teach Jesus as the sole mediator. Instead of a caricature I gave you the Catechism, what the Church actually teaches.
“Rome has made Mary an anti-Christ.” Jeff, I believe that you are better than that. That comment is beneath you.
Mark,
The Church teaches Mary as a perpetual virgin not because she decided one day that this was the case, but because it is the truth. Now you may not agree with her and think her not a credible witness about Christ and the faith but then that just brings us back to the question: “Did Jesus Christ intend and establish one Church with a codified doctrine and practice?” (The question posed to me by the late Father Neuhaus).
Mark, if you could make the case that the Presbyterian Church is the historical, visible and institutional Church established by Christ then it would behoove me and others to enter into her communion.
So you are defending this asinine work called the Protoevangelium of James? It’s clearly idiotic. The author(s) knows nothing about the geography of Palestine. He lies and passes himself off as the Bishop of Jerusalem. He makes up stories about Jesus’ presentation in the Temple. He fabricates a legend about a midwife of Mary examining Mary after the birth and claiming she was still a virgin (virginitas in partu!). And you are claiming this piece of fiction, this work that has more in common with the Book of Mormon that the Bible, is a testament to the early church’s belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary?
This spurious, dopey work has probably had more to do with the cult of Mary that we might even imagine. Quasten’s concluding comments are telling:
Welcome to the alternate reality of the Roman church where fictions spun out by an Egyptian Charlatan calling himself the Bishop of Jerusalem are transformed into articles of faith.
Mark.
I would suggest reading what the Catholic Church actually teaches about Tradition here. Attacking a straw man isn’t beneficial in this discussion.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!
Jeff.
The work is admittedly apocryphal (admitted by the Catholic Church), but sigh, this does not mean its of “Gnostic” origin.
I did not present the work as the source of the Church’s understanding about Mary. Far from it. I only presented it to show that Mary’s ever-virginity was believed by the first generation of Christians. This apocryphal story, sheds light on this belief even if much of the story itself may be of ‘legend’ status.
You’ll find that the Church documents such as the Catechism that teach this doctrine do not even reference it.
I don’t have a large library of Marian literature, because after all the NT gives no support for any devotion to Mary or any of the rest of these notions. I do have *The Origins of the Cult of the Virgin Mary,* ed. by Chris Maunder, a Roman Catholic and Chair of the trustees of the Centre for Marian Studies, Wales. Anyway, the essays in this book are pretty clear that Marian devotion arose in the 4th century (300s) and spread during that century. This makes sense, since it is during this period that Jerome and others made war on those who held to the idea that Mary and Joseph were married and had children.
It is also of interest that the various writers in this book — all of whom are defending the RC Marian notions — are quite clear that this gnostic and heretical Prot. of James is an early source for these ideas.
It fascinates me that while the NT clearly and unmistakably states that Jesus was born in a stable attached to the house of a relative of Joseph in Bethlehem, this piece of crap says he was born in a cave (how gnostic can you get??), and evidently loads of RCs take this as truth and reject the statement of the Bible. [Gnostic scale-of-being ideas are all over this document.]
Wow. Not trying to be a meany but this conversation has been wholly lop-sided in favor of Scripture-quoting and interpreting Protestants. I was expecting some RCC interaction with the text of Scripture and all I see is philosophical implication based on thin logical hypothesis and quotation from spurious pseudepigrapha.
Food for thought:
“They rest upon things which have their origin from ambiguity.” Tertullian
“When, therefore, traditions are set forth which do not agree with the Scripture and which cannot be shown and proved from the Scripture, it is quite certain that they are not apostolic.” Martin Chemnitz
So, in my opinion, case closed.
Sean, the Prot. of James does not show that catholic Christians believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. It shows that some heretical fringe group in Egypt believed in it. And who knows how many there were?
You cannot show from anything written before 300 that the catholic church held to perpetual virginity. Except maybe Origin, and that’s hardly much to go on. The notion was controversial in the 300s precisely because it was new, or at least was newly being insisted upon against lots of catholic Christians who did not believe in it.
All this reminds me of EO guys who want to say that icons go all the way back, that Luke painted Jesus, etc. That is just not historically true. Icons crept into the church in the 700s, and were not there before. Then they were made mandatory in a war against the catholic tradition.
From what I can tell, the same thing happened in the 300s regarding Mary.
James,
You wrote:
Where does the NT “clearly and unmistakably” state that Jesus was born in a “stable attached to a house”?
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
James,
Why would Gnostics, who denied the physical virgin birth, write and promulgate a document that affirmed the virgin birth in certain terms.
PS.
Anyway, the essays in this book are pretty clear that Marian devotion arose in the 4th century (300s)
Guess what other doctrines arose and grew into maturity in that era? The Trinity for starters!
PS. If your ability to accept a doctrine rests with how late it came to be understood and fully accepted than I wonder how you accept the upstart 16th century reformation doctrines?
Bryan, I overstated the point, but it’s clear in Luke 2:7. The term often mistranslated “inn” is just “upper room,” the same as every other “upper room” in the NT. Joseph went to his relative, who told him the house was already full, and let him go into the stable (where perhaps other people already were).
It makes no sense for Joseph’s relative to turn him completely away and for them to go out to a cave.
Look, this cave stuff, with Mary growing up (impossibly) in the Holy of Holies, and being fed by angels, and all the rest of it — that’s just the axis of the gnostic worldview.
If one wishes to tie Jesus’ first birth to His second (i.e., resurrection), it’s not a cave that is the link, but the swaddling clothes.
Sean: Your comments are maddening. Let the readers of this blog decide if you are being rational or not. The formulation of the “doctrine” of the Trinity was grounded in an abundance of biblical data. Goodness.
As has already been established, and admitted by RCs, there’s not a shred of biblical evidence for Mary’s sinless birth, her sinless life of perfection, her perpetual virginity, and her bodily assumption into heaven. These are all extra-biblical myths. Legends on par with the fanciful stories in the Book of Mormon, and not much more edifying. Unlike other doctrinal developments, nobody came to embrace these fairy tales about Mary because they came to grips with biblical data that had not been properly assessed and evaluated in the past.
Jeff.
You reject the formulation of the Marian doctrines because you think they are not biblical. I get it.
Other developments are ok as long as you think they are also biblical.
In conclusion, true developments of doctrine are those which you think are biblical.
The *Catholic Church believes otherwise and has for thousands of years. The fathers of the church believed otherwise and even the Reformed fathers even believed otherwise.
I can let it rest at that.
Just don’t tell me that the Protovangelium of James is Gnostic. It is full of anti-Gnostic teaching, no Gnostic scholar claims it to be Gnostic and the Gnostics themselves don’t even claim it.
Half of what I have been arguing about on this thread isn’t so much the Marian teaching but rather the false characterizations that have been presented about the Marian teachings.
*And Orthodox Churches
Even the Protestant Reformers would rebuke Meyers for his rude OTT statements:
Here are some…
Yet Mary’s lifelong virginity is well attested in Protestant sources too. Martin Luther said, “Christ our Savior was the real and natural fruit of Mary’s virginal womb. . . . This was without the cooperation of a man, and she remained a virgin after that.” (18) John Calvin also defended Mary’s perpetual virginity: “Helvidius (a fourth-century heretic) has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ.” (19) Bernard Leeming reports that Calvin translates adelphoi as “cousins” or “relatives.” (20) The Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli wrote, “I firmly believe according to the words of the Gospel that a pure virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and remained a virgin pure and intact in childbirth and also after the birth, for all eternity. I firmly trust that she has been exalted by God to eternal joy above all creatures, both the blessed and the angels.” (21) John de Satgé says “There is certainly nothing in the Scriptures to invalidate the conclusion of the Church, in the days before the split between East and West, that Mary was a virgin all her life…. The full glory (of perpetual virginity) may be seen in the person of our Lord and his universal love, which all could claim and receive, but none could monopolize. In this sphere of love’s freedom (emphasis mine) Mary enjoys to the full an identification with him. It has set her free for universal ministry.” (22)
This article was excerpted from Refuting the Attack on Mary: A Defense of Marian Doctrines, second edition, Catholic Answers, 1999.
Regarding developments of doctrine such as the Trinity: I don’t think this was a development in the sense of bringing in outside resources (tradition, apocrypha, magisterium, etc.) to declare/craft something, but a continuation of Adam assigning names. But instead of God lining up the animals, others have lined up the texts throughout the (Spirit-inspired infallible) Scriptures that speak some aspect or act of God and then chose a word for this Creator of 3 with no beginning or end. Such oneness of nature in 3 persons (Mary ever excluded) is a mystery but is nonetheless clearly the only possibility given the abundance of complimentary (non-contradictory) texts stating that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are God, that God is one (and there is no other), that the Father is not the Son, that the Holy Spirit is a person rather than force, etc. Ditto the mystery of the diety/incarnation of Jesus adding full humanity to the Trinity for effective salvation of elect men and women apart from confessions, prayers, saints, bishops, popes, Roman Rites, icons, trinkets/relics, humble handmaids, blessed mothers, etc.
Such oneness of nature in 3 persons (Mary ever excluded)
I would say that the idea that Catholics include Mary in the Blessed Trinity means that the conversation has officially run its course.
Peace and Blessings.
Sean: don’t you know how to read? The previous comment said nothing about Catholics including Mary in the Trinity.
Yes, Mary in some respects is not a co-this, co-that, blessedly responding to simultaneous Catholic prayers, but she’s forever above Jesus and so due obedience from all men and pours forth greater compassion and relational understanding for all women. And even when we don’t pray to her, she can pray for us.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!”
John Calvin:
Gentlemen,
It seems to me that this conversation can’t be fruitful unless we step back and find common ground about a second-order question. From my point of view, there are different background assumptions at work here, and this results in radically different ways of approaching the available patristic and scriptural evidence.
If we agree that doctrine develops (in the sense I described above) and that ecclesial deism is false, then by what criteria do we distinguish genuine developments from false accretions or corruptions? We want to avoid two possible errors: mistaking an accretion for a development, and mistaking a development for an accretion. So unless we have some principled way of distinguishing a genuine development from an accretion/corruption, we will have no way of determining objectively (other than by ad hoc selection) which is which. We’ll be left choosing by our personal sentiment or fancy, and we’ll have no principled means by which to determine together whether a particular doctrine is an authentic development or not.
So if, for example, the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity were in fact a genuine development, how would we know?
From a Catholic point of view, the Holy Spirit would not allow the whole Church to come to believe and profess a false doctrine. Christ has assured us that the Holy Spirit guides the Church into all truth, and Christ has promised to be with her to the end of the age, even until the gospel has gone throughout the whole world, and He returns in glory. He has promised that the gates of Hades will not prevail against her. St. Paul teaches that she is the pillar and bulwark of truth. This gives us confidence that the development of the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit, and that when the Church speaks with one voice, the Church is following the Holy Spirit, just as we see in Acts 15.
So from a Catholic point of view, the universal acceptance in the Church of the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity by the fifth century, and the teaching at the Fifth Ecumenical Council that Mary is “ever-Virgin”, is a sure sign that this is a genuine development.
So, again, here’s my question: By what criteria do we distinguish genuine developments from false accretions or corruptions? There’s really no point in hashing through the patristic and conciliar evidence regarding the Marian dogmas, without first agreeing on how to answer this question.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
From your previous post using develop* only half as much (5x): “Development is not an accretion or addition of something novel, but the organic unfolding of the deposit of faith as the Church, animated by the Spirit, deepens her understanding of that deposit.”
I understand having a deeper understanding of the mysteries such as the Trinity and Incarnation.
I understand types and seeing how sections of text repeat or differ and how that illumines key points and the old can shed light on the new and vice versa.
I understand Romans 11:33 (“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”)
I don’t understand how you go from the deposit of Scripture to Mary’s perpetual virginity et al. Where is this “unfolding of the deposit of faith” reasoned most concisely? http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a9p6.htm ?
Bryan Cross came to Jesus from Rome and said, “Why do your Reformed disciples break the tradition of the elders? They refuse to venerate Mary, denying her immaculate conception, her sinless life, and her assumption into heaven. And on top of all that, they reject prayers made to her.”
Jesus answered him,
Jeff,
I don’t see how that answers my question. My question was about a principled way of distinguishing genuine development from accretion. In addition, you’ve changed the subject from the four Marian dogmas to communion of saints and iconoclasm. Trying to discuss them all in one thread would be superficial and unprofitable; they need to be considered carefully one at a time.
If you don’t have a principled basis for distinguishing genuine development from accretion, then you run the risk of falsely treating genuine development as a mere “tradition of men.” Hence my question.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Bryan,
Read Matt. 15:1-9. Jesus answers the objection of the Pharisees and Scribes about hand washing with a rebuke about how they break God’s commandments in the matter of honoring their father and mother.
Surely the Pharisees and Scribes left that conversation saying, “I don’t see how that answered our question. Our question was about his disciples not washing their hands. Jesus changed the subject on us. The guy is so superficial. He can’t even consider one topic at a time! Conversations with him are so unprofitable. And why doesn’t he recognize how the tradition of the elders is a legitimate development from the law of Moses. He and his disciples risk treating genuine development as a mere ‘tradition of men,’ to use his own words.”
Praying to Mary, bowing to her statues, rubbing her feet for good luck, venerating her as Queen of Heaven and Co-Redemptorix, believing idiotic extra-biblical legends about her miraculous sinless conception, her sinless life, her bodily ascension into heaven, her reigning as Queen of Heaven—this is all connected. It’s all about Rome’s elevation of legends to the status of articles of faith. It’s all about the tyranny of Rome going beyond the Word of God and binding consciences. It’s all a seamless cloth.
This is not about “development.” It’s about Rome’s arrogant imposition of her local, luny superstitions on the entire Christian world with the claim that they are all universal early church dogmas. It’s about ecclesiastical tyranny.
Bryan, doctrinal development proceeds from the teaching of the Scriptures. The essential prerequisite to “growing” and “developing” in our understanding, is that something first be actually taught in the Word of God. The Church enables me to grow and mature in my understanding of the things revealed. When segments of the Church (or individual teachers) embrace a dogma which has no basis in the Word, then there is nothing to discuss or “develop.” It doesn’t take a Greek scholar or a master in Hebrew (or an expert in philosophy, ancient studies, or any other discipline) to know when a teaching is being made up out of whole cloth and is antagonistic to things that the Church holds without dispute.
The Marian doctrines are without any biblical support (as has been admitted here). They didn’t “develop” from the Word of God. They are clearly “accretions” that are to be rejected. Anything that places Mary as a co-mediatrix with Jesus, as the “Queen” of heaven, ruler of the nations, healer of sickness, granter of forgiveness, and compassionate sanctifier of sinners — makes her a rival to Christ (as Jeff Meyers said, “an anti-Christ). What Rome has done with the holy mother of Jesus is disgraceful and shameful.
Thanks for the conversation, but it’s time to move on.
[edit: I just noticed that Jeff has already made my point — so sorry to pile on, but there it is]
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