The posted provided by Randy makes my point perfectly. Catholics speak of their love for the fathers and tradition, but it is just talk for most of them. They will twist and bend the fathers and Scripture in any and every way to support their one and only true love, the Roman Catholic Church.
The Immaculate Conception of Mary
by Dr. Robert Schihl, Professor, Regent University
The constant faith (tradition: paradosis) of the Church attests to the belief in the special preparation of the holiness of the person of Mary to bear in her body the most holy person of the Son of God.
Church Fathers:
- implicitly found in the Fathers of the Church in the parallelism between Eve and Mary (Irenaeus, Lyons, 140? - 202?);
Even if there is an
implicit( not even an explicit parallel ) parallel between Eve and Mary that doesn’t prove a thing. Of course they want to use it to say she was born without sin, but why not the parallel with Eve in her sinning also?
- 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);
Once again there is nothing here to really interact with. So what if those adjectives are used of Mary? They are used of the Apostles and others also. This proves nothing, but it is all they got.
- Explicit language: Mary - free from original sin (Augustine, Hippo, 395-430 to Anselm, Normandy, 1033-1109);
Eastern Church:
Now we turn to the
explicit language it is made clear how they will twist the fathers. One wonders what explicit language the Dr has in mind from Augustine. It is pretty much accepted by scholars that Augustine did not believe in the Immaculate Conception. Here is patristic scholar J.N.D. Kelly:
“he [Augustine] did not hold (as has sometimes been alleged) that she [Mary] was born exempt from all taint of original sin (the later doctrine of the immaculate conception). Julian of Eclanum maintained this as a clinching argument in his onslaught on the whole idea of original sin, but Augustine’s rejoinder was that Mary had indeed been born subject to original sin like all other human beings, but had been delivered from its effects ‘by the grace of rebirth’.” (Early Christian Doctrines, p. 497)
So isn’t it telling that the only explicit language he mentions supposedly comes from Augustine 400 years in the church, but even here he is wrong, because Augustine believed Mary was tainted with original sin. So Augustine actually contradicts their dogma, but somehow they managed to try and use him to support it. There are others besides Augustine who clearly denies the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. There is Origen, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom
Eastern Church:
- celebrated a Feast of the Conception of Mary in the 8th to the 9th Century;
Western Church:
- celebrated a Feast of the Conception of Mary in the 12th Century;
- A record of the feast in the 11th Century in Great Britain; in the 12th Century in Normandy;
- Record in many churches of a Feast of the Conception of Mary in France, Germany, Italy and Spain in the 12th Century (Bernard, Clairvaux, 1090-1153);
14th Century:
This again shows the length they will go. Here is a response from an Eastern Orthodox website in reference to their belief in this dogma:
*
Q. What do the Orthodox believe about the “Immaculate Conception”?
A. Probably the best Orthodox answer to that question, ironically, is the argument of Leo the Great, who was Pope long before immaculate conception (or papal infallibility!) was announced as Roman Catholic dogma.
"One of the main arguments of Eutyches was that, if Christ had a real human nature, He would also have inherited the stain of sin. Since at that date Mary’s immaculate conception was unknown, Pope Leo could not argue from it, but had to make a distinction between the nature, which Christ did indeed assume from Mary, and the guilt which He did not assume, ‘because His nativity is a miracle’… Any idea of Mary’s own preservation from original sin, however, is ruled out not only in the Tome but also in Leo’s sermons, for example: In 62,2 we read “Only the Son of the blessed Virgin is born without transgression; not indeed outside the human race, but a stranger to sin… so that of Adam’s offspring, one might exist in whom the devil had no share.”
In other words, in the fifth century the idea was unheard-of. It’s an innovation. But it’s not only wrong because it’s new; it’s a symptom of a shift in Western Christians’ beliefs about sin, Christ, and humanity.*
So how can this Dr and a Roman Catholic attempt to use the Eastern Church for support of this Dogma? Celebrating a feast of her conception does not equal Immaculate Conception.
