ECFs and the Immaculate Conception

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Cruxis117

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I’ve been challenged to find Church Fathers or any other writings which show that the Immaculate Conception was in the deposit of faith before the death of the last Apostle. I do accept the Immaculate Conception and wish to defend it, this is why I’m asking about these quotes. If anyone knows of stuff like that, please let me know. I’m open to either online or paper-format resources.
 
i would check out the book Hail Holy Queen by scott hahn i read it and it talks about the early Church fathers and has quotes about the immaculate conception God bless
 
I defend the Immaculate Conception from Scripture…

[BIBLEDRB]Luke 1:26-28[/BIBLEDRB]

Look up the Greek word the angel uses as Mary’s name (translated above as “Full of Grace”). Look up the be English translation of that word… It is “Having been Filled with Grace”. It is most definitely the past tense. This is said BEFORE Jesus is conceived in her womb. So Scripture clearly states that Mary had been FILLED with GRACE. Something no other person in the Bible is described as having experienced. Consider for a minute what being FILLED with Grace means… This is the definition of the Immaculate Conception. The only point left to argue is when it happened. Did She get Filled with Grace at breakfast that morning? Or when She was conceived? If we get down to arguing about the timing, the argument really becomes moot.

Of course I’m no Theologian and I’ve been wrong on more than one occasion 🙂

God bless
 
Your not going to get anything, at least not that I am aware of, from the time before the last Apostle died. For heaven’s sake, the Bible wasn’t even complete. The first history of the church wasn’t even written until the middle of the third century. It sounds like an impossible challenge. But St. Ephrem, Autustine, and Ambrose wrote of Mary’s sinless conception in the fourth century.

Ephrem"Because there are those who dare to say that Mary cohabited with Joseph after she bore the Redeemer, we reply, ‘How would it have been possible for her who was the home of the indwelling of the Spirit, whom the divine power overshadowed, that she be joined by a mortal being, and gave birth filled with birthpangs, in the image of the primeval curse?’ If Mary was blessed of women, she would have been exempt from the curse from the beginning, and from the bearing of children in birthpangs and curses. It would be impossible therefore to call one who gave birth with these birthpangs blessed." (Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron)

AugustineWe must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honour to the Lord; for from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin (On Nature and Grace, 42).

There are doubless many others. But prior to the death of John, Peter, et al? I doubt there is anything. It seems like a goose chase to me, a waste of time.

-Tim-
 
The Ascension of Isaiah (c. AD 90, possibly a Christian revision of an earlier Jewish work) and Odes of Solomon (c. AD 125, sometimes bound with an earlier collection of Jewish songs) both speak of Mary as having given birth to Jesus without birth pangs. Since birth pangs were/are believed to be the result of original sin, this may be a reflection of an implicit or explicit belief that Mary was exempted from what we now call original sin.

St. Ephraim the Syrian wrote in Nisibene Hymns (c. AD 370), I assume addressing Jesus Christ, “You alone and your Mother are more beautiful than any others, for there is no blemish in you nor any stains upon your Mother. Who of my children can compare in beauty to these?” As an aside that one’s interesting for those Eastern Christians who dislike the idea of a “stain” on the soul, but let’s pass over that.

St. Ambrose of Milan, in Virgins (AD 377) described Mary in this way: “She was a virgin not only in body but also in mind, who stained the sincerity of its disposition by no guile, who was humble in heart, grave in speech, prudent in mind, sparing of words, studious in reading, resting her hope not on uncertain riches, but on the prayer of the poor, intent on work, modest in discourse; wont to seek not man but God as the judge of her thoughts, to injure no one, to have goodwill towards all, to rise up before her elders, not to envy her equals, to avoid boastfulness, to follow reason, to love virtue. When did she pain her parents even by a look? When did she disagree with her neighbors? When did she despise the lowly? When did she avoid the needy?”

St. Augustine of Hippo, in Nature and Grace (AD 415) wrote: “We must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord; for from him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear him who undoubtedly had no sin. Well, then, if, with this exception of the Virgin, we could only assemble together all the forementioned holy men and women, and ask them whether they lived without sin while they were in this life, what can we suppose would be their answer?”

In Falling Asleep of Mary (c. AD 550) the author, in describing the transfer of Mary’s body to heaven, described it as “spotless and precious”. Granted this is her body not her soul but like the idea that she did not suffer birth pangs the integrity of her body could be considered as reflecting the integrity of her soul.

The source for all this is The Fathers Know Best; Your Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early Church by Jimmy Akin. The book contains a lot of other quotes concerning Mary but these are the ones that seemed most relevant to the Immaculate Conception to me.
 
Cruxis117 said:
I’ve been challenged to find Church Fathers or any other writings which show that the Immaculate Conception was in the deposit of faith before the death of the last Apostle. I do accept the Immaculate Conception and wish to defend it, this is why I’m asking about these quotes. If anyone knows of stuff like that, please let me know. I’m open to either online or paper-format resources.
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Whoever challenged you probably knows that Saint Thomas Aquinas did not believe in the Immaculate Conception.
It was not a dogma in his day and so he, like anyone else, could express their own opinion about it.

I quote Thomas Aquinas’ own words from his Catechetical Instructions:

“Christ excelled the Blessed Virgin in this, that He was conceived and born without original sin, while the Blessed Virgin was conceived in original sin but was not born in it.”

If the Immaculate Conception was in the Deposit Of Faith before the last apostle died Aquinas would have known that and not held the opinion he did.

Therefore, I do not think you will find what you are looking for.
 
thistle said:
Whoever challenged you probably knows that Saint Thomas Aquinas did not believe in the Immaculate Conception.
It was not a dogma in his day and so he, like anyone else, could express their own opinion about it.

I quote Thomas Aquinas’ own words from his Catechetical Instructions:

“Christ excelled the Blessed Virgin in this, that He was conceived and born without original sin, while the Blessed Virgin was conceived in original sin but was not born in it.”

If the Immaculate Conception was in the Deposit Of Faith before the last apostle died Aquinas would have known that and not held the opinion he did.

Therefore, I do not think you will find what you are looking for.
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It would depend on which quote from Aquinas one looks at. On another forum, a poster once provided the following:*First, he affirmed it: “Such was the purity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was exempt from both original and actual sin.” [Com. in I Sent, d. 44, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3]

Later, in the Summa, he explicitely denies it: “The Blessed Virgin did indeed contract original sin.” [Summa theologiae IIIa, q. 27, a. 2, ad 2]

Ultimately, though, he accepted it: “For she was most pure because she incurred the stain neither of original sin nor of mortal sin nor of venial sin.”[Expositio super salutatione angelica]*
 
Cruxis117 said:
I’ve been challenged to find Church Fathers or any other writings which show that the Immaculate Conception was in the deposit of faith before the death of the last Apostle. I do accept the Immaculate Conception and wish to defend it, this is why I’m asking about these quotes. If anyone knows of stuff like that, please let me know. I’m open to either online or paper-format resources.
Click to expand...
I would cite it as a faulty demand if your opponent is asking for the explicit definition from 1854 to have existed in the same wording in the 1st century. When we believe it was “in the deposit of faith” we believe that the one deposit of divine revelation contained the teaching––not that all true dogmas were articulated precisely at once by the infant Church, whether we are talking about the Trinity or canon of Scripture, or whatever. Perhaps your friend believes there is a statute of limitations on how long the Holy Spirit has after Christ’s death to unfold such truths to the Church out of that one deposit, but there is no rationale for imposing such a deadline. Anyway, the Immaculate Conception certainly is contained in the deposit of faith.

And in addition to the above quotes, I recommend Luigi Gambero’s Mary and the Fathers of the Church.
:o
 
Arghh, your friends reasoning is frustrating for he is treating the teachings of the Catholic Church as if they are merely laws recorded in a book to be found in your common government library.

Here are two reasonable ways to refute him without any evidence (though after the 3rd century there is plenty of it)
  1. I liken the deposit of faith to the laws of the universe. The universe didn’t recently start operating under the law of gravity with the birth of Sir Isaac Newton. No, gravity was always there, it just needed to be fleshed out. The fact that Jesus Christ promised truth to his Church means that whatever is taught has God’s personal stamp of approval. If you lack this faith in the Church, then you can pretty much refute any Christian belief and assume any Dogma is of human origin, even the books of the Bible and the Holy Trinity.
  2. Doctrine needs to be developed. It would be silly to assume that the Immaculate Conception was written about right after St. Mary’s death since the Dogma of Original Sin hadn’t even been fully defined. In many ways, there was no need to talk about when the sinlessness of Mary began, because they weren’t even quite sure what being sinful even entailed. Was it external or internal, permanent or temporary?
The Church is the mystical body of Christ, it contains so many mysteries that are hard to understand and comprehend. The Trinity is probably the most problematic Dogma of the Catholic Church since it directly relates to the nature of God and the word appears nowhere in scripture or in the first 150 years of the Church. Yet, we believe it nonetheless. So what is the difference between 150 years and 350 years or 3000 years? Nothing, except you can see where the Church placed its development of its theology at the time.

This is a silly and immature argument and speaks very lowly of your friends concept of human history.
 
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