Historical Dates for belief in Mary's sinlessness

  • Thread starter Thread starter friardchips
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
F

friardchips

Guest
Wasn’t sure where to put this.

This is a reminder for those who are not aware that the Catholic Church considered Our Lady’s sinlessness right back to the earliest centuries.

ewtn.com/faith/teachings/maryc3a.htm

*'Church Fathers:

implicitly found in the Fathers of the Church in the parallelism between Eve and Mary (Irenaeus, Lyons, 140? - 202?);’*

This is very early. Right back in the earliest centuries, the parallel between Eve and Mary was being pondered upon!

‘Found in the more general terms about Mary: “holy”, “innocent”, “most pure”, “intact”, “immaculate” (Irenaeus, Lyons, 140?-202?; Ephraem, Syria, 306-373; Ambrose, Milan, 373-397);’

Here we have her Immaculate state being considered from East to West. Of course, St. Ambrose was a Catholic Bishop of Milan.

‘First explicit language: Mary - free from original sin (Augustine, Hippo, 395-430 to Anselm, Normandy, 1033-1109).’

So, here we have Our Lady being identified explicitly from Scripture as having been free from sin as early as 395-430 in the Catholic Church, by St. Augustine. Who was a Latin Church Father.

‘Eastern Church:
celebrated a Feast of the Conception of Mary in the 8th to the 9th Century’.

I think this feast concetrated largely on St. Anne.

ewtn.com/library/answers/imconcep.htm
  • this link speaks of the battle for clarity on the subject.
Also too, remember Blessed John Duns Scotus take up the healm in later centuries.

Just something to recount so then when people speak of Our Lady they can reflect on how just how long the Church has been pondering upon Our Lady’s immaculate holiness.

And no doubt, the Scripture writers themselves, at least St. Luke and St. John, but possibly all, knew of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception.
If anyone does pass by and wish to join in, then please can this conversation be carried out with charity and goodwill.

If it is carried out in goodwill then it could be a beautiful discussion.

I am interested in the history of this, it being so important.
 
Oh…mmm…🍿…this virtual-popcorn tastes…yum…quite salty…
 
And doesn’t the angel’s description of Mary as “kecharitomene” in Luke imply that she has always been without sin?
 
friardchips said:
Wasn’t sure where to put this.

This is a reminder for those who are not aware that the Catholic Church considered Our Lady’s sinlessness right back to the earliest centuries.

ewtn.com/faith/teachings/maryc3a.htm

*'Church Fathers:

implicitly found in the Fathers of the Church in the parallelism between Eve and Mary (Irenaeus, Lyons, 140? - 20*2?);’

This is very early. Right back in the earliest centuries, the parallel between Eve and Mary was being pondered upon!

'Found in the more general terms about Mary: “holy”, “innocent”, “most pure”, “intact”, "immaculate" (Irenaeus, Lyons, 140?-202?; Ephraem, Syria, 306-373; Ambrose, Milan, 373-397);’

Here we have her Immaculate state being considered from East to West. Of course, St. Ambrose was a Catholic Bishop of Milan.

'First explicit language: Mary - free from original sin (Augustine, Hippo, 395-430 to Anselm, Normandy, 1033-1109).’

So, here we have Our Lady being identified explicitly from Scripture as having been free from sin as early as 395-430 in the Catholic Church, by St. Augustine. Who was a Latin Church Father.

'Eastern Church:
celebrated a Feast of the Conception of Mary in the 8th to the 9th Century’.

I think this feast concetrated largely on St. Anne.

ewtn.com/library/answers/imconcep.htm
  • this link speaks of the battle for clarity on the subject.
Also too, remember Blessed John Duns Scotus take up the healm in later centuries.

Just something to recount so then when people speak of Our Lady they can reflect on how just how long the Church has been pondering upon Our Lady’s immaculate holiness.

And no doubt, the Scripture writers themselves, at least St. Luke and St. John, but possibly all, knew of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception.
If anyone does pass by and wish to join in, then please can this conversation be carried out with charity and goodwill.

If it is carried out in goodwill then it could be a beautiful discussion.

I am interested in the history of this, it being so important.
Click to expand...
Thank you and God Bless, Memaw
 
boomerang said:
And doesn’t the angel’s description of Mary as “kecharitomene” in Luke imply that she has always been without sin?
Click to expand...
vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p4s1c1a2.htm

*'The prayer of the Virgin Mary

2617 Mary’s prayer is revealed to us at the dawning of the fullness of time. Before the incarnation of the Son of God, and before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, her prayer cooperates in a unique way with the Father’s plan of loving kindness: at the Annunciation, for Christ’s conception; at Pentecost, for the formation of the Church, his Body.88 In the faith of his humble handmaid, the Gift of God found the acceptance he had awaited from the beginning of time. She whom the Almighty made “full of grace” responds by offering her whole being: “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word.” “Fiat”: this is Christian prayer: to be wholly God’s, because he is wholly ours.

2618 The Gospel reveals to us how Mary prays and intercedes in faith. At Cana,89 the mother of Jesus asks her son for the needs of a wedding feast; this is the sign of another feast - that of the wedding of the Lamb where he gives his body and blood at the request of the Church, his Bride. It is at the hour of the New Covenant, at the foot of the cross,90 that Mary is heard as the Woman, the new Eve, the true “Mother of all the living.”

2619 That is why the Canticle of Mary,91 the Magnificat (Latin) or Megalynei (Byzantine) is the song both of the Mother of God and of the Church; the song of the Daughter of Zion and of the new People of God;**** the song of thanksgiving for the fullness of graces poured out in the economy of salvation and the song of the “poor” whose hope is met by the fulfillment of the promises made to our ancestors****, “to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.”’*

Our Lady’s abundant graces are the perfect realisation of, and for the Church, in Christ. However, to go into this deeper, “full of grace”, is not the same as “filled with some graces”, “filled with graces”, or “in receipt of graces”, or even “in grace”, “with grace”, “of many graces”, or again “in good grace”; no, she is addressed as “full of grace”.

So, if we take the term as what the Angel said, then we take what the Angel said as what the Angel said:

In short, yes.

Our Lady is the New Ark of the Covenant and therefore would need to be born immaculate in order for the incarnation to happen in and through her. I found this too, explaining that it is an address, a title:

catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=50095

‘What the Angel Gabriel wants to communicate to Mary and to us is in the word kecharitomene is that Mary has a unique name, a unique title, a unique role in sacred history, and so–though human–is a unique being in the economy of salvation.’

And this refers back to my first reference from the Catechism, which says:

'She whom the Almighty made “full of grace” responds by offering her whole being:

…she whom the Almighty MADE “full of grace”.

This was an act of Creation. God made her “full of grace”.

The Immaculate Conception can be proved with various areas in Scripture.

This is because Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception is bound up with Jesus’ Resurrection.
 
From Pope Pius XII’s encyclical letter Ad Caeli Reginam (1954), posted by another poster on a different thread, here is a paragraph that supports what the address, ‘full of grace’ means, in fullness:

*'41. In order to understand better this sublime dignity of the Mother of God over all creatures let us

recall that the holy Mother of God was, at the very moment of her Immaculate Conception, so filled

with grace as to surpass the grace of all the Saints. Wherefore, as Our Predecessor of happy memory,

Pius IX wrote, God "showered her with heavenly gifts and graces from the treasury of His divinity so

far beyond what He gave to all the angels and saints that she was ever free from the least stain of

sin; she is so beautiful and perfect, and possesses such fullness of innocence and holiness, that

under God a greater could not be dreamed, and only God can comprehend the marvel."[55]’.*
🙂
 
ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2bvm22.htm

*'1. The doctrine of Mary’s perfect holiness from the first moment of her conception met with a certain resistance in the West…which were taken up again and explained with particular force by St Augustine.

This great doctor of the Church certainly realized that Mary’s status as Mother of a completely holy Son required total purity and an extraordinary holiness. This is why, in the controversy with Pelagius, he stressed that Mary’s holiness is an exceptional gift of grace and stated in this regard: “We make an exception for the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom, for the sake of the Lord’s honour, I would in no way like to be mentioned in connection with sin…”(De natura et gratia, n. 42).

…Augustine stressed Mary’s perfect holiness and the absence of any personal sin in her because of her lofty dignity as Mother of the Lord. Nonetheless, he could not understand how the affirmation of a total absence of sin at the time of conception could be reconciled with the doctrine of the universality of original sin…This conclusion was later reached by an ever more penetrating understanding of the Church’s faith, explaining how Mary had benefited from Christ’s redemptive grace from her conception.’*

biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/a28.htm

*'Around 390 AD, St. Augustine writes:

“Every personal sin must be excluded from the Blessed Virgin Mary for the sake of the honor of God.”

Similarly, St. Ambrose of Milan (340-397) says:

“Mary, a virgin not only undefiled but a virgin whom grace has made inviolate, free from every stain.”’*

*’…the Greek Liturgies…St. Basil the Great (d. 379) and St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) call Mary “Panagia” (“All-Holy One”) and “Panagiota” (“All-Sinless One”).

'…in the Syrian Church, we have St. Ephraem the Syrian (c. 350), who says:

“Thou, and Thy Mother are alone in this. You are wholly beautiful in every respect. There is in Thee, Lord, no stain, nor any spot in Thy Mother.” (Poem to Christ)

And,

“My Lady Most Holy, All-Pure, All-Immaculate, All-Stainless, All-Undefiled, All-Incorrupt, All-Inviolate …Spotless Robe of Him Who clothes Himself with light as with a garment …Flower unfading, purple woven by God, alone Most Immaculate.” (Ibid)’.*

I love this:

‘Also, the Syrian St. John Damascene (645-750) speaks of Mary, saying: "The serpent never entered that Paradise."’
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top