Marian dogma

[Mystophilus]

Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin.
Mary is the Immaculate Conception.
After the birth of Jesus, Mary remained a Virgin.

Basically I’d really like to know where these teachings came from and what their significance is and influence.

All of these are related to (but do not very simply derive from) a second-century document called the Protoevangelium of James, which is easy to find in translation online and which describes Mary’s early life.

The first and second depend upon a lot of developments in Catholic theology, and so I’ll leave those to others, with just the basic comment that Catholic theology is generally accretive in a logical fashion: if the Church believes X, and X logically implies Y, then Y can become Church teaching.

The third is quite simply a historical question, and it really works like this: the Bible never discusses the issue, because the oft-quoted “Joseph didn’t sleep with her until she gave birth” does not, in Greek, imply anything whatsoever about activity after she gave birth; our nearest historical source is the Protoevangelium, which explicitly states that she was far younger than Joseph, who already had other children; we have no records of any other children of Mary, which is a fairly significance absence from the historical record, given how important they would have been in the Church; while there is some early-Church speculation about her possibly having had other children, it shows up much later, cites no individuals or genealogies as examples, and is a tiny, unpopular minority theory. Therefore, the weight of history is frankly on the side of her continued virginity.

 

[plainsongflower]

Thanks ChristRocket I will be sure to get Behold your Mother it looks like exactly the sort of thing I am after

Thanks JerryZ for that link. Looks like an interesting read.

Thank you JoeT777 for your fascinating answer.

Thanks steve b for the video.

Thank you Mystophilus, I’ll be sure to check out the Protoevangelium of James.

And thank you every body else for your discussion

 

[Church_Militant]

Hi so I’ve been becoming a Catholic for a while and at one point I got a list of the dogmas and certain truths and started working through it to make sure I understood everything I would be implicitly declaring I believe if/when I am confirmed. I’ve whittled it down to three dogmas and three certain truths that I don’t understand at all. The dogmas are these:

Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin.
Mary is the Immaculate Conception.
After the birth of Jesus, Mary remained a Virgin.

Basically I’d really like to know where these teachings came from and what their significance is and influence. My family are protestant and I attend a protestant Christian college and take theology classes there sometimes and I have protestant friends and I’m really going to be facing a lot of questions so I’d like to at least be confident in my beliefs whether I can convince other people or not.

I will post my other questions in other threads.

Thank you in advance!

Here, I can suggest a small investment that will really help you with everything that you can likely encounter about our Marian beliefs.
shop.catholic.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/135x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/r/e/refutingattackmary.jpg
Refuting The Attack on Mary
$9.95

 

[JoeT777]

Sorry, but you’re mixing languages here: “full of grace” is the English translation of the Latin plena gratia, Jerome’s translation from the Greek; κεχαριτωμενη, on the other hand, is “having been given grace [or favour]”. The idea of “full” is not in the Greek; the idea of the current state as a result of a previous event is not in the Latin.

The ‘Logos’ is more than the audible Word of God; more properly it is understood as the Divine Wisdom. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” is the result of the incarnation which occurs in time. The Second Person of the Trinity, Christ was always Divine Wisdom. Jesus is the light of Divine Wisdom Incarnate who “dwelt among us. . . full of grace and truth.” This is the Personified Word of God in the Person whose Divine hypostasis existed in the eternal past, exists in the Person of Christ in antiquity, exists in Christ today and exists in Jesus Christ for eternity. He joined Himself with flesh, blood, and soul of man in perfect harmony as the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, i.e the Personification of all Grace. Both the natures of God and man are united in a harmonious unanimity that animated His Body to a seamless concomitant act, yet not conjoined.

Christ’s Divine nature is perceived as ‘infused,’ as opposed to conjoined or as injected into His human nature. The Blessed Virgin Mary’s womb became the dwelling place of God, a human Holy of Holies, or a human Ark of the Covenant. Accordingly, Jewish tradition holds that the Tabernacle must remain pure even after the Ark has been removed – the spot on which the Ark of the Covenant rests becomes a holy place.[Cf 2 Sam. 6:7]. In this way we hold the Blessed Virgin Mary as holy and celibate in her life. She is literally full of grace, full of God; would we, (or could we), expect less? Would the Jewish Nation accept a Paschal Lamb any less than spotless? So, saying Mary was Full of Grace it needs to be understood as a fullness that transcends even the spiritual. Fr. Fr. Stefano M. Manelli explains:

The angel Gabriel calls Mary with an expression identifying her and unveiling her hiddenmost being: she is the Full of Grace. In Greek, the expression is a past participle (kechaz-itomene), not easily translatable. Other proposed translations are these: “highest in grace”, “most beloved”, “privileged”, and “gratified”. The Vulgate translation full of grace is certainly a good one, but does not fully express all of the nuances of the Greek. The fullness of grace here obviously meant a fullness above all spiritual, but not excluding that which is physical.

The exceptional character of the angel’s greeting to Mary consists not so much in the single phrases, also found elsewhere in the Old Testament, as in the linking of the two expressions. “Rejoice” and “full of grace”, as a form of address. No similar instance of this in relation to any other creature can be verified in the Old or New Testament. Hence, Origen could write: “Because the angel greeted Mary with new expressions, which I have never encountered elsewhere in the Scriptures, it is necessary to comment on this. I do not, in fact, recall having read in any other place in the Sacred Scriptures these words: Rejoice, O Full of Grace. Neither of these expressions is ever addressed to a man: such a special greeting was reserved only for Mary.” [Fr. Stefano M. Manelli , *All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed]

Not only is the Vulgate a good translation, it is superior to any of the Protestant versions, which makes Mary nothing more than His favored good little girl. When in fact she is more than ‘full of grace’ we should say she has a perfected holiness.

JoeT

 

[JohnR77]

I have been reading the Early Church Fathers from the 1st and 2nd centuries and I have not seen any teaching about Mary or anyone alluding to her conception.

Rita

Hi Rita,

Do you feel the need to restrict yourself to such early dates ?

If so, please note that the books of the Bible were not collected together into a single collection until the 300’s. And you will not find a complete list of books, all 27, that belong in the New Testament, exactly as we have today, before about AD 367.

“He became man by the Virgin, in order that the disobedience which proceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in the same manner in which it derived its origin. For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her: wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God; and she replied, ‘Be it unto me according to thy word.’ And by her has He been born, to whom we have proved so many Scriptures refer, and by whom God destroys both the serpent and those angels and men who are like him; but works deliverance from death to those who repent of their wickedness and believe upon Him.”
Justin Martyr,Dialogue with Trypho,100(A.D. 155),in ANF,I:249

“[H]e was born of Mary the fair ewe.”
Melito de Sardo,Easter Homily(c.A.D. 177),in PAT,I:244

"In accordance with this design, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.’ But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin (for in Paradise ‘they were both naked, and were not ashamed,’ inasmuch as they, having been created a short time previously, had no understanding of the procreation of children: for it was necessary that they should first come to adult age, and then multiply from that time onward), having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race. And on this account does the law term a woman betrothed to a man, the wife of him who had betrothed her, although she was as yet a virgin; thus indicating the back-reference from Mary to Eve, because what is joined together could not otherwise be put asunder than by inversion of the process by which these bonds of union had arisen; s so that the former ties be cancelled by the latter, that the latter may set the former again at liberty. And it has, in fact, happened that the first compact looses from the second tie, but that the second tie takes the position of the first which has been cancelled. For this reason did the Lord declare that the first should in truth be last, and the last first. And the prophet, too, indicates the same, saying, "instead of fathers, children have been born unto thee.’ For the Lord, having been born “the First-begotten of the dead,’ and receiving into His bosom the ancient fathers, has regenerated them into the life of God, He having been made Himself the beginning of those that live, as Adam became the beginning of those who die. Wherefore also Luke, commencing the genealogy with the Lord, carried it back to Adam, indicating that it was He who regenerated them into the Gospel of life, and not they Him. And thus also it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith.”
Irenaeus,Against Heresies,3:22(A.D. 180),in ANF,I:455

“For whereas the Word of God was without flesh, He took upon Himself the holy flesh by the holy Virgin, and prepared a robe which He wove for Himself, like a bridegroom, in the sufferings of the cross, in order that by uniting His own power with our moral body, and by mixing the incorruptible with the corruptible, and the strong with the weak, He might save perishing man.”
Hippolytus,Treatise on Christ and antiChrist,4(A.D. 200),in ANF,V:205

Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin.
Mary is the Immaculate Conception.
After the birth of Jesus, Mary remained a Virgin.

To understand these you will need to pray for God’s grace and wisdom. They are His work. To deny them is an insult to God. Ask God to help you love Mary in imitation of Him, so as to love her the way He loved her.

You can read more at

defendingthebride.com/mary.html

 

[Mystophilus]

The angel Gabriel calls Mary with an expression identifying her and unveiling her hiddenmost being: she is the Full of Grace. In Greek, the expression is a past participle (kechaz-itomene), not easily translatable. Other proposed translations are these: “highest in grace”, “most beloved”, “privileged”, and “gratified”. The Vulgate translation full of grace is certainly a good one, but does not fully express all of the nuances of the Greek. The fullness of grace here obviously meant a fullness above all spiritual, but not excluding that which is physical.

The exceptional character of the angel’s greeting to Mary consists not so much in the single phrases, also found elsewhere in the Old Testament, as in the linking of the two expressions. “Rejoice” and “full of grace”, as a form of address. No similar instance of this in relation to any other creature can be verified in the Old or New Testament. Hence, Origen could write: “Because the angel greeted Mary with new expressions, which I have never encountered elsewhere in the Scriptures, it is necessary to comment on this. I do not, in fact, recall having read in any other place in the Sacred Scriptures these words: Rejoice, O Full of Grace. Neither of these expressions is ever addressed to a man: such a special greeting was reserved only for Mary.” [Fr. Stefano M. Manelli , *All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed

]

To continue Manelli’s comments into his very next sentence, which you have so curiously omitted, “St. Luke, moreover, also makes it clear, even if not expressly, that Mary had had the fullness of grace” from the first moment of her conception" [emphasis added]. Note, in particular, Manelli’s admission that the idea of fullness is not expressed in the Greek.

Manelli goes on,
In fact, the use of the past perfect participle (kecharitomene) [and here the transliteration is correct: rho, not zeta] is to indicate something already true of the subject in the past, and hence possibly extending even to the very first moment of her existence. Here can be recognized one of the implicit foundations for the truth of the Immaculate Conception, which excludes from the very beginning of her existence any presence of sin, and which alone with perfect exactitude is “fullness of grace”.

Here he explains the basis of his inference of fullness from a *theological *position, not from *linguistic *evidence. From the same website, note also Rene Laurentin’s rendering, “She is the-one-who-has-found-grace”, Ignace de la Potterie’s “Mary is ‘transformed by grace’”, and William Most’s that “the verb means to put her into favor or grace”. As all three demonstrate, fullness is *not *a component of the verb or the participle (q.v. de la Potterie’s comment on “the **theme **of “being full of grace”” [emphasis added], referring to an *idea *which he sees throughout, rather than a denotation explicitly provided). “Highest in grace”, by the way, is another motivated paraphrase, as is “most beloved”, since neither the idea of being highest ('υψιστος) nor the idea of being loved (αγαπητος) is present in the Greek. “Privileged” is okay but lacking in the perfect aspect while “gratified” is rather weak in addition to that failing.

So, no, “full of grace” is a paraphrase, not a translation.

 

[spedteacherita]

Hi Rita,

Do you feel the need to restrict yourself to such early dates ?

If so, please note that the books of the Bible were not collected together into a single collection until the 300’s. And you will not find a complete list of books, all 27, that belong in the New Testament, exactly as we have today, before about AD 367.

“He became man by the Virgin, in order that the disobedience which proceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in the same manner in which it derived its origin. For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her: wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God; and she replied, ‘Be it unto me according to thy word.’ And by her has He been born, to whom we have proved so many Scriptures refer, and by whom God destroys both the serpent and those angels and men who are like him; but works deliverance from death to those who repent of their wickedness and believe upon Him.”
Justin Martyr,Dialogue with Trypho,100(A.D. 155),in ANF,I:249

“[H]e was born of Mary the fair ewe.”
Melito de Sardo,Easter Homily(c.A.D. 177),in PAT,I:244

"In accordance with this design, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.’ But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin (for in Paradise ‘they were both naked, and were not ashamed,’ inasmuch as they, having been created a short time previously, had no understanding of the procreation of children: for it was necessary that they should first come to adult age, and then multiply from that time onward), having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race. And on this account does the law term a woman betrothed to a man, the wife of him who had betrothed her, although she was as yet a virgin; thus indicating the back-reference from Mary to Eve, because what is joined together could not otherwise be put asunder than by inversion of the process by which these bonds of union had arisen; s so that the former ties be cancelled by the latter, that the latter may set the former again at liberty. And it has, in fact, happened that the first compact looses from the second tie, but that the second tie takes the position of the first which has been cancelled. For this reason did the Lord declare that the first should in truth be last, and the last first. And the prophet, too, indicates the same, saying, "instead of fathers, children have been born unto thee.’ For the Lord, having been born “the First-begotten of the dead,’ and receiving into His bosom the ancient fathers, has regenerated them into the life of God, He having been made Himself the beginning of those that live, as Adam became the beginning of those who die. Wherefore also Luke, commencing the genealogy with the Lord, carried it back to Adam, indicating that it was He who regenerated them into the Gospel of life, and not they Him. And thus also it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith.”
Irenaeus,Against Heresies,3:22(A.D. 180),in ANF,I:455

“For whereas the Word of God was without flesh, He took upon Himself the holy flesh by the holy Virgin, and prepared a robe which He wove for Himself, like a bridegroom, in the sufferings of the cross, in order that by uniting His own power with our moral body, and by mixing the incorruptible with the corruptible, and the strong with the weak, He might save perishing man.”
Hippolytus,Treatise on Christ and antiChrist,4(A.D. 200),in ANF,V:205

To understand these you will need to pray for God’s grace and wisdom. They are His work. To deny them is an insult to God. Ask God to help you love Mary in imitation of Him, so as to love her the way He loved her.

You can read more at

defendingthebride.com/mary.html

I want to stay within the earlier writings just because if it were a dogma at that time then we would see more written about it then, as we see other doctrines of the church at that time. I’m not trying to diminish anything at all just want to make sure that it was taught early on. I appreciate Catholic devotion to Mary but, having been brought up as a Protestant, I want to learn. Most info that I have been given has been from 3rd, 4th centuries and on…

I have been asking God to help me understand what I should be knowing and understanding - Mary is an important piece of the history of the Christian church. I honor her as having to go through a mighty tough time being pregnant without having a husband and going through any social problems connected with that. She did give birth to our Lord and Savior Jesus so there’s no way that I couldn’t love her for that…it’s just going beyond that is hard for me.

Thank you so much for the information you shared with me. I will take the time to study and read it.

God bless your help!!

Rita

 

[Abu]

“Full of grace” is a unique title given to Mary, and suggests a perfection of grace from a past event. Mary is not just “highly favored.” She has been perfected in grace by God. “Full of grace” is only used to describe one other person - Jesus Christ in John 1:14.

Karl Keating remarks that these newer translations, based on the Greek, "are imperfect since they give the impression that the favour bestowed on Mary was no different from that given other women in the Bible…indistinguishable from the status of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist; or Sarah, the wife of Abraham; or Anna, the mother of Samuel * all of whom, by the way, were long childless and were ‘highly favoured’ because God acceded to their pleas to bear children.”

Karl Keating says that the older translations convey that this grace is permanent and of a singular kind in keeping with the Greek which indicates a perfection of grace, and which is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception teaches. He stresses that the sense of the Greek kecharitomene is not just “to look upon with favour, but to transform by this favour or grace.” (From René Laurentin).

Convert from Evangelicalism, ex-Pastor David B Currie, in his book *Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic *thinks that St Jerome “probably did the best job of translating this passage so many centuries ago. He translated it as ‘Hail, full of grace’. The important point to notice is that Mary is not addressed by Gabriel as ‘Mary’. She is addressed as ‘full of grace’, as though that were her name. When we unpack the Greek meaning of these words, Gabriel called Mary ‘The One Most Full of God’s Gracious Gift of His Life in All Time’.”

 

[JoeT777]

To continue Manelli’s comments into his very next sentence, which you have so curiously omitted, “St. Luke, moreover, also makes it clear, even if not expressly, that Mary had had the fullness of grace” from the first moment of her conception" [emphasis added]. Note, in particular, Manelli’s admission that the idea of fullness is not expressed in the Greek.

Manelli goes on,
In fact, the use of the past perfect participle (kecharitomene) [and here the transliteration is correct: rho, not zeta] is to indicate something already true of the subject in the past, and hence possibly extending even to the very first moment of her existence. Here can be recognized one of the implicit foundations for the truth of the Immaculate Conception, which excludes from the very beginning of her existence any presence of sin, and which alone with perfect exactitude is “fullness of grace”.

Here he explains the basis of his inference of fullness from a *theological *position, not from *linguistic *evidence. From the same website, note also Rene Laurentin’s rendering, “She is the-one-who-has-found-grace”, Ignace de la Potterie’s “Mary is ‘transformed by grace’”, and William Most’s that “the verb means to put her into favor or grace”. As all three demonstrate, fullness is *not *a component of the verb or the participle (q.v. de la Potterie’s comment on “the **theme **of “being full of grace”” [emphasis added], referring to an *idea *which he sees throughout, rather than a denotation explicitly provided). “Highest in grace”, by the way, is another motivated paraphrase, as is “most beloved”, since neither the idea of being highest ('υψιστος) nor the idea of being loved (αγαπητος) is present in the Greek. “Privileged” is okay but lacking in the perfect aspect while “gratified” is rather weak in addition to that failing.

So, no, “full of grace” is a paraphrase, not a translation.

Countering "even if" is emphasized, does this not have bearing on Fr. Manelli’s comment? If I say “even if” some proposition is not true, does that mean the proposition is not true? Or does it mean ‘even if’ putting aside the interpretation “full of grace” we still read in the context of Luke that she is indeed “full of grace”. But, why would she be declared “full of grace”, or for that matter “most favored”; have you any ideas?

If Mary had original sin could St. Paul say in Hebrews Christ is ‘like us in every way, except for sin’? Without ‘making’ a god, without a man becoming ‘possessed’ by a god, how is the incarnation possible unless Mary is free of sin?

JoeT

 

[spedteacherita]

Countering "even if" is emphasized, does this not have bearing on Fr. Manelli’s comment? If I say “even if” some proposition is not true, does that mean the proposition is not true? Or does it mean ‘even if’ putting aside the interpretation “full of grace” we still read in the context of Luke that she is indeed “full of grace”. But, why would she be declared “full of grace”, or for that matter “most favored”; have you any ideas?

If Mary had original sin could St. Paul say in Hebrews Christ is ‘like us in every way, except for sin’? Without ‘making’ a god, without a man becoming ‘possessed’ by a god, how is the incarnation possible unless Mary is free of sin?

JoeT

I believe it’s one of the mysteries of God - Isn’t God omnipotent enough to have Mary bear a sinless child? How did St. Ann bear a ‘sinless’ Mary…how far back do you go in order to ensure that Jesus was born sinless?

Those are the questions that still come to me after studying the many teachings of the Catholic Church - and one of the stumbling blocks…

 

[Mystophilus]

Countering "even if" is emphasized, does this not have bearing on Fr. Manelli’s comment? If I say “even if” some proposition is not true, does that mean the proposition is not true?

Actually, no, it does not mean that it is true: it means that the speaker *believes *it to be true. Manelli believes that it is true, but admits (like the others) that it is not expressed in the text, which is fair enough for someone who does not claim sola scriptura.

This absence of explicit expression is what makes Jerome’s rendering, plena gratia, a paraphrase rather than a translation. That does not make Jerome wrong, of course, but it does shed interesting light upon how he was rendering the text.

Or does it mean ‘even if’ putting aside the interpretation “full of grace” we still read in the context of Luke that she is indeed “full of grace”. But, why would she be declared “full of grace”, or for that matter “most favored”; have you any ideas?

I am guessing, from the context, that you want to know whether I consider the expression χαριτωμενη (“having been given grace” - no mention of “full” or “most”) to be significant, or whether I am trying to claim that Gabriel was just saying, “Hello.” The answer is very certainly the former: Gabriel could have stopped at “Χαιρε”, but did not.

In Greek, Gabriel tells Mary that she is currently in a state which is the result of having previously been given favour. He does not explain what that means. When he says, a little later, “ευρες γαρ χαριν παρα τω θεω” (“for you found/find favour with God”), he repeats the idea, and still does not explain it.

The traditional Protestant explanation is that the “favour” is what Gabriel goes on to say, i.e. that Mary is to bear the Messiah. That reading seems both shallow and presumptuous to me, but I am not about to jump to the conclusion that the unknown must be knowable, let alone that it must be known to be X.

If Mary had original sin could St. Paul say in Hebrews Christ is ‘like us in every way, except for sin’? Without ‘making’ a god, without a man becoming ‘possessed’ by a god, how is the incarnation possible unless Mary is free of sin?

I am not Catholic, and do not believe in Original Sin in the Catholic sense. I therefore have no problem with the idea of Mary sinning and Christ not sinning. I also have no problem with the idea that a God who can create the universe would have any trouble incarnating sinlessly within the body of an imperfect mortal.

 

[Abu]

Mystophilus #31
I am not Catholic, and do not believe in Original Sin in the Catholic sense. I therefore have no problem with the idea of Mary sinning

Not believing that the Christ founded His Catholic Church and no other explains the inability to follow the Christ.

As Jesus the Christ wrote nothing, we came to know Him and His teaching only through His Church, which authenticated and proclaimed what Sacred Scriptures form the Word of God She did this through Pope Damasus at a Council of Rome in 382, confirmed at the Councils of Hippo, 393, Carthage III 397, Carthage IV in 419 and canonised at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) – 46 books in the Old Testament, 27 books in the New Testament.

How did this fact come about?
I find four promises to Peter alone:
“You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church.” (Mt 16:18)
“The gates of hell will not prevail against it.”(Mt 16:18)
“I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven." ( Mt 16:19)
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” (Mt 16:19) [Later to the Twelve].

**Sole authority: **
“Strengthen your brethren.” (Lk 22:32)
“Feed My sheep.”(Jn 21:17).

That is what the Christ mandated.

That Church then is personified through Sacred Scripture as:
The Church is “the pillar and bulwark of the truth (1 Tim 3:16).” St. Paul says also, “through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph 3:10).” The Church teaches even the angels! This is with the authority of Christ! We are redeemed by Christ’s Passion and Death (heaven was opened); we are not saved until we co-operate with Him.

So there is no justification whatsoever for denying the dogma and doctrine of Christ’s Church: the clear teaching and obvious results of Original Sin, and the reality of the teaching that Mary is conceived without sin, has never sinned and was assumed into heaven.

 

[Mystophilus]

Not believing that the Christ founded His Catholic Church and no other explains the inability to follow the Christ.

And thus the Non Sequitur of the Week award is won.

 

[Reuben_J]

Here’s an 11 minute video. Well worth it. Hit pause as necessary if you take notes
youtube.com/watch?v=xg2OQ_iPTv8

Great work of compilation of various points about Mary in the Bible. I would like to keep that video for easy future reference.

God bless.

Reuben

 

[Dorothy]

Here’s an 11 minute video. Well worth it. Hit pause as necessary if you take notes
youtube.com/watch?v=xg2OQ_iPTv8

Extraordinary…

Thanks be to the Lord!

 

[steve_b]

Actually, no, it does not mean that it is true: it means that the speaker *believes *it to be true. Manelli believes that it is true, but admits (like the others) that it is not expressed in the text, which is fair enough for someone who does not claim sola scriptura.

This absence of explicit expression is what makes Jerome’s rendering, plena gratia, a paraphrase rather than a translation. That does not make Jerome wrong, of course, but it does shed interesting light upon how he was rendering the text.

I am guessing, from the context, that you want to know whether I consider the expression χαριτωμενη (“having been given grace” - no mention of “full” or “most”) to be significant, or whether I am trying to claim that Gabriel was just saying, “Hello.” The answer is very certainly the former: Gabriel could have stopped at “Χαιρε”, but did not.

In Greek, Gabriel tells Mary that she is currently in a state which is the result of having previously been given favour. He does not explain what that means. When he says, a little later, “ευρες γαρ χαριν παρα τω θεω” (“for you found/find favour with God”), he repeats the idea, and still does not explain it.

The traditional Protestant explanation is that the “favour” is what Gabriel goes on to say, i.e. that Mary is to bear the Messiah. That reading seems both shallow and presumptuous to me, but I am not about to jump to the conclusion that the unknown must be knowable, let alone that it must be known to be X.

I am not Catholic, and do not believe in Original Sin in the Catholic sense. I therefore have no problem with the idea of Mary sinning and Christ not sinning. I also have no problem with the idea that a God who can create the universe would have any trouble incarnating sinlessly within the body of an imperfect mortal.

#57 , #35 ,

As an aside

In Greek : ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/inter-tense.htm

Perfect Tense
the progress of an action has been and the results of the action are continuing on, in full effect. In other words, the progress of the action has reached its culmination and the finished results are now in existence. Unlike the English perfect, which indicates a completed past action, the Greek perfect tense indicates the continuation and present state of a completed past action.

Passive participle means she did nothing for this grace . It was done to her freely

“Full of grace” is how the angel addressed Mary. This is who she is in front of God. Even before she says yes to the angel.

Her state is perfectly graced from the beginning, by God’s completed past action.

 

[JoeT777]

Re: Marian dogma

I believe it’s one of the mysteries of God - Isn’t God omnipotent enough to have Mary bear a sinless child? How did St. Ann bear a ‘sinless’ Mary…how far back do you go in order to ensure that Jesus was born sinless?
Mystophilus;12928126:

I am not Catholic, and do not believe in Original Sin in the Catholic sense. I therefore have no problem with the idea of Mary sinning and Christ not sinning. I also have no problem with the idea that a God who can create the universe

would have any trouble incarnating sinlessly within the body of an imperfect mortal.

I don’t believe there are any ‘mysteries’ that separate us from the recognition of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. It is contrary to ‘being the light and the truth’. Only the blinders we fit for ourselves shield our view the “substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.”

The idea that Mary’s mother, Anne, would need to be sinless and presumably her father, Joachim, as well for Mary to be conceived Immaculate comes from ill formed concept of original sin as well as the Immaculate Conception. The Immaculate Conception does not mean that Mary was impeccable, without error (not all error is sin nor must one be impeccable to be sinless), it means only that she was born without the privation of original justice. All children are born without actual sin but they inherit the punishment from the original sin which was the act of Adam. Thus, Christ, like all children, would be born without ‘original justice’, the privation of original justice or original sin - an absurdity in that Christ IS all JUSTICE.

Prior to the fall, Adam stood before God as a just man. Adam had no need of salvation as he was created good, he was sanctified in his creation. Original justice accompanied Adam’s creation as a moral quality or habit that perfectly joined his will to an enlightened understanding of the will of God. Justice is inexplicably joined to the other Cardinal virtues; justice gives the rights to honorable prudence, temperance, and fortitude in moral acts. All just acts are directed for the glory and honor of God, thus without justice any act is avaricious. It could be said Adam ‘abided’ in God, much like we are invited to abide in Christ partaking of the Eucharist. [John 6:57].

The original sin is viewed as a ‘stain’ on the soul which condemns us to a spiritual death. An absurdity is created when we say this ‘stain’ is applied to both Christ and Mary. We cannot separate Mary from Jesus Christ because His flesh is that of Mary. Christ bore the flesh of Mary being born of woman. Likewise, the person Mary, a creature made by God with the same attributes as any human nature but blessed with original justice at her conception. Catholics say Mary was ‘preserved’ from original sin being filled with the same sanctifying grace one receives in baptism. She never knew sin in her entire life. If we believe otherwise then we would be right to say that Jesus was born of sin, nursed on sin, and raised by sin until He was became of age.

As I recall Luther was one of the first who suggested that man is born with a nature of sin. The Anglican have much the same view of original sin in paragraph IX of the Articles of Faith original sin is referred to as an infection of nature making concupiscence is sin whereby even temptation is sin. Both imply the nature of man was ‘created’ evil. If we factor this into our understanding of Mary’s role in our Salvation, then Mary is born with the stain of original sin which she would pass along to her son. Being the case then, Christ was not the ‘spotless’ Lamb of God, unless the God/man Jesus Christ is ‘made’. This conclusion brings us to an absurdity; a God is not created by God. If however, in an attempt to avert declaring that Jesus Christ had the nature of sin, then we must somehow suggest that the incarnation was a bubble of ‘protection’. But such a bubble would be the means by which God created God - an absurdity as well.

It was fitting then, that God should establish His original Justice in this woman we now call the New Eve, Mary mother of God. “Truth exists the Incarnation happened” and Mary must be Immaculate.

Those are the questions that still come to me after studying the many teachings of the Catholic Church - and one of the stumbling blocks…

At one time my stumbling block was the Immaculate Mary. I could not find the Second Person of the Trinity by looking around Mary, I found Him by looking through Mary; in her own words ‘she magnifies the Lord’. Looking through the person Mary we rejoice in our own salvation as a journey through life, we see her Son performing His first act of glory in the joy of living and man’s first step back to original justice, we witness Him crushing the head of the serpent who brings death, and it is through Mary, our spiritual mother He dispenses all grace.

JoeT

 

[Mystophilus]

Perfect tense means having been completed in the past, once and for all, not needing to be repeated.

No, it does not mean that it is permanent, either in Greek or in biblical Greek. This is quite obvious even with examples of exactly the same form of the perfect from exactly the same work:

Luk 11:21 οταν ο ισχυρος καθωπλισμενος φυλασση την εαυτου αυλην εν ειρηνη εστιν τα υπαρχοντα αυτου
Luk 11:22 επαν δε ο ισχυροτερος αυτου επελθων νικηση αυτον την πανοπλιαν αυτου αιρει εφ η επεποιθει και τα σκυλα αυτου διαδιδωσιν

The state identified by καθωπλισμενος in v.21 is overturned in v.22.

Luk 12:2 ουδεν δε συγκεκαλυμμενον εστιν ο ουκ αποκαλυφθησεται και κρυπτον ο ου γνωσθησεται

The state identified by συγκεκαλυμμενον is overturned by the next verb.

Luk 19:30 ειπων υπαγετε εις την κατεναντι κωμην εν η εισπορευομενοι ευρησετε πωλον δεδεμενον εφ ον ουδεις πωποτε ανθρωπων εκαθισεν λυσαντες αυτον αγαγετε

The state identified by δεδεμενον is overturned in the same verse.

They are all perfect, not permanent. The Greek perfect, like the English perfect, refers to a state in existence at the narrative moment (the story’s “now” time) as a result of an action or event before that time. It does not say anything at all about what happens thereafter. It does not make the state permanent.

Does that mean that the state of grace expressed in κεχαριτωμενη is temporary? No. In other locations in Luke, in other parts of biblical Greek, and in other Greek texts, perfects are used for states which do not get overturned. Any idea of permanence has to come from somewhere other than that word, which simply fails to address that concept.

Unlike the English perfect, which indicates a completed past action, the Greek perfect tense indicates the continuation and present state of a completed past action.

This is fairly accurate for the Greek, but inaccurate for the English.

In English, completed past action is represented by the past simple, “I did it.” In contrast, the perfect form, “I had done it”, “I have done it”, “I will have done it”, etc, expresses a state in one time created by an action or event at a previous time. The only continuation necessitated in either language is from the pre-narrative time to the narrative time, not thereafter.

 

[Mystophilus]

As I recall Luther was one of the first who suggested that man is born with a nature of sin.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to “Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the “death of the soul”” because the idea predates Luther by a very long time. It is at least as old as Augustine.

The Anglican have much the same view of original sin in paragraph IX of the Articles of Faith original sin is referred to as an infection of nature making concupiscence is sin whereby even temptation is sin. Both imply the nature of man was ‘created’ evil.

Er, no.

First, the ninth Article of Religion says, “it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit”. It does not imply that humankind were created evil, and instead says that we are “inclined to evil”. Thus, the article continues, “and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation”: the article expressly states that the sin, not the person, is what deserves God’s wrath and damnation.

Second, as an Anglican, I am not obliged to believe the Thirty-Nine Articles, not required, for example, to think that “The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.”

If we factor this into our understanding of Mary’s role in our Salvation,

Which would be wholly unnecessary.

then Mary is born with the stain of original sin which she would pass along to her son. … If however, in an attempt to avert declaring that Jesus Christ had the nature of sin, then we must somehow suggest that the incarnation was a bubble of ‘protection’. But such a bubble would be the means by which God created God - an absurdity as well.

This is a fallacy of the excluded middle.

If we assume that such a taint exists and we assume that the Virgin has it and we assume that the Virgin would naturally transfer it, we are under no logical obligation to assume that the same God who could create spontaneous life within her would be unable to filter it out whilst allowing the divinely-incarnated foetus to grow in a natural manner.

 

[JohnR77]

I believe it’s one of the mysteries of God - Isn’t God omnipotent enough to have Mary bear a sinless child? How did St. Ann bear a ‘sinless’ Mary…how far back do you go in order to ensure that Jesus was born sinless?

Those are the questions that still come to me after studying the many teachings of the Catholic Church - and one of the stumbling blocks…

Hi Rita,

I have begun a page here that I hope helps.

defendingthebride.com/ma3/only22.html

                       **Mary’s Immaculate          Conception ?  -  What Does God Need ?**
     The position of the Catholic Church is sometime          misrepresented as follows:[INDENT]                 Catholics (sic) claim that because Jesus                  was perfect and without sin then His mother Mary must also, by                  necessity, be without sin because a sinless being could not be                  within the womb of another person who did have sin.   Therefore,                  it is argued by Protestants that by extension, then Mary’s                  mother must also have been without sin. And her mother, and her                  mother … all the way back to our first parents in the Garden of                  Eden.
             And so, Protestants focus on the question,                  “What does an Omnipotent God need?  In an absolute sense, He                  needs nothing.   “Does Jesus, a pure, spotless and sinless being                  need an Immaculate Mother ?”   
         [/INDENT]Does the question,  “What does God need?”  
    correctly reveal what God chooses to do?

     Some will use the question, and its obvious answer          in the absolute sense, to dismiss the Pope, the Church, the Sacraments          and all things Catholic.  Protestants will say, “God  (and by extension          “I”) doesn’t need any of those things.

     Taking this question (and its implied answer) to          its extreme and logical conclusion some will even say God doesn’t need          the Bible.  He can send his messenger to speak directly to me. Consider          Mohammad who claimed additional visions and teaching of the Koran as          well as Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, Ellen G. White, etc.

     Someone might also ask, “Does God need my faith, my          love, my prayers, my devotion?”

     Now we see the problem with the question.  It is          not sufficient in helping us to answer all the questions we need to ask.           Sometimes, Satan confuses people with the lesser appropriate questions.

     Better questions to ask are  
    “What does God deserve?

     Does He deserve my whole hearted love, devotion and          faith?”
     And, “What kind of mother, does the King of Kings,          the Lord of Lords, the Son of God Almighty deserve?”

     Catholics believe the Jesus has an Immaculate          Mother not because He needed it by necessity, but because He deserves it          and that is what is appropriate.

     Consider that Jesus rode a colt into Jerusalem that          no one else had ridden.  (Mark 11:2, Luke 19:30)  Why?  Because it is          appropriate.  Jesus deserves it.  Mary’s Immaculate conception is God’s          work.  It helps us see how important Jesus is.  It gives glory to God.
    
      
     **Theological Objection**

     One Protestant pastor, who now has since converted          to Catholicism, said that he – before his conversion -  absolutely could          not accept Mary’s Immaculate Conception because he thought it took away          from the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.   So much of his Protestant          theology had so focused on Jesus alone being the spotless victim who          paid the price for our sins, that he idea of Mary being Immaculate in          his eyes threatened the uniqueness of Jesus.  However, the quality that          really sets Jesus apart is that He is the God Man.  
     See
              [         http://www.defendingthebride.com/je/divine.html#reason](http://www.defendingthebride.com/je/divine.html#reason)
      
      .