BVM & the reformation

[MJE]

This afternoon Hugh Hewitt was interviewing the screen writer for a movie opening Dec 1, The Nativity. Hugh asked the screen writer (an evangelical raised Baptist)if there were issues with Mary in the production because protestants, he said, have a concern about things marian. Then Hugh Hewitt implied that Marian doctrine was part of the problem leading to the reformation. Was there a specific doctrine? Was Hewitt off base? Who had the problem?

 

[Eileen_T]

Hugh Hewitt is obviously ignorant of history. Or maybe he subscribes to revisionist history.

Martin Luther was quite devoted to Our Lady, and retained most of the traditional Marian doctrines which were held then and now by the Catholic Church. This is often not well-documented in Protestant biographies of Luther and histories of the 16th century.

Along with virtually all important Protestant Founders (e.g., Calvin, Zwingli, Cranmer), Luther accepted the traditional belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary (Jesus had no blood brothers), and her status as the Theotokos (Mother of God):

Christ . . . was the only Son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides Him . . . “brothers” really means “cousins” here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers.
(Sermons on John, chapters 1-4, 1537-39)

He, 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.

(Ibid.)

God says . . . : “Mary’s Son is My only Son.” Thus Mary is the Mother of God.

(Ibid.)

God did not derive his divinity from Mary; but it does not follow that it is therefore wrong to say that God was born of Mary, that God is Mary’s Son, and that Mary is God’s mother . . . She is the true mother of God and bearer of God . . . Mary suckled God, rocked God to sleep, prepared broth and soup for God, etc. For God and man are one person, one Christ, one Son, one Jesus, not two Christs . . . just as your son is not two sons . . . even though he has two natures, body and soul, the body from you, the soul from God alone.

(On the Councils and the Church, 1539)

Probably the most astonishing Marian belief of Luther is his acceptance of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, which wasn’t even definitively proclaimed as dogma by the Catholic Church until 1854.

ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ95.HTM

That ex-Catholic priest Fr Martin Luther got a lot of things wrong, along with Calvin, Zwingli and Cranmer, but their devotion to the BVM was far greater than it is with their descendents in Protestantism.

 

[jemfinch]

That ex-Catholic priest Fr Martin Luther got a lot of things wrong, along with Calvin, Zwingli and Cranmer, but their devotion to the BVM was far greater than it is with their descendents in Protestantism.

Martin Luther was a monk, not a priest.

Jeremy

 

[drforjc]

Jeremy he was a monk but he was ordained a priest within his order.

 

[zorrox]

On the tomb of the Augustinian priest monk M Luther there is a depiction of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven

 

[jemfinch]

My mistake; in all my reading I somehow missed that he was a priest and a monk.

Jeremy

 

[Zooey]

On the tomb of the Augustinian priest monk M Luther there is a depiction of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven

I’m not surprised; Luther believed in & taught the Assumption, as well as the perpetual virginity of Mary.

 

[MJE]

Very interesting. I am not a student of the reformation but the statement by H. Hewitt (a former Catholic)was suspect. Very interesting re: his tombstone.