Mary the second Eve?

[Sheep4sale]

How can this be?

First: Eve came from Adam where Jesus came from Mary.
Second: Adam and Eve were husband and wife, Jesus and Mary were/are not.
Third: Jesus bride is the church, and Mary the Catholic Church says is somehow married to the Holy Spirit or is the bride of the Holy Spirit.

I believe the last statement I read somewhere on Catholic Answers.

Just asking.

 

[Dan_Defender]

Mary is the Second Eve, because she fulfilled the Genesis 3:15 prophecy: ‘And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; she shall crush your head, and you shall strike at her heel.’

 

[Justin_Mary]

How can this be?

You listed several “reasons” Mary & Eve are not alike. Similarly we can list several “reasons” Jesus & Adam are not alike.

Adam is created, Jesus is begotten. Adam had children, Jesus did not. Adam was defeated by sin, Jesus wasn’t.

So we can see there are differences. But there are similarities as well. If Jesus was to say, “Bone of my bone. Flesh of my flesh.” Who would he be taking about?

It is St Paul who writes,”as sin entered through Adam Grace entered through Christ” linking Adam to Jesus by their differences. It is the Church Fathers who link Eve’s disobedience to Mary’s obedience.

 

[Vico]

How can this be?

First: Eve came from Adam where Jesus came from Mary.
Second: Adam and Eve were husband and wife, Jesus and Mary were/are not.
Third: Jesus bride is the church, and Mary the Catholic Church says is somehow married to the Holy Spirit or is the bride of the Holy Spirit.

I believe the last statement I read somewhere on Catholic Answers.

Just asking.

St. Pope John Paul II

We thank you, Mary, because you ceaselessly and unfailingly lead us to Christ.
Mother of the divine Son, watch over us, watch over our unshakeable fidelity to God, to the Cross, to the Gospel and to the holy Church, as you have done since the first moments of our Christian history. Defend this nation which for a thousand years has walked the path of the Gospel. Grant that we live, grow and persevere in faith until the end.

Hail, O Daughter of God the Father,
Hail, O Mother of the Son of God,
Hail, O Bride of the Holy Spirit,
Temple of the Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

© L’Osservatore Romano , Editorial and Management Offices, Via del Pellegrino, 00120, Vatican City, Europe, Telephone 39/6/698.99.390.

Library : Hail, Bride of the Holy Spirit! | Catholic Culture

 

[Cathoholic]

Because prefigurements and fulfillments although having many similarities,
also have non-similarities.

Yes the Blessed Virgin Mary is the New Eve.

CCC 975 “We believe that the Holy Mother of God, the new Eve , Mother of the Church, continues in heaven to exercise her maternal role on behalf of the members of Christ” (Paul VI, CPG § 15).

Bold mine.

The Blessed Virgin Mary as the New Eve is the FULFILLMENT of the old Eve (so we expect differences in addition to similarities).

The fall occurred via a man and woman (Adam and Eve).

Redemption occurred via a man and a woman (Jesus and Mary).
Christ (the New Adam) by nature carried out this.
He brought in the Blessed Virgin Mary by grace to be a helper to Him.

Jesus also associates the Church (His bride - see Ephesians 5 for the bridal imagery) with Himself in this realm. The same Church (one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic) made from the side of the New Adam, Jesus Christ.

Not because He intrinsically needs helpers (Jesus is true God and true Man after all), but a “need” because Jesus wills helpers.

Hope this helps.

God bless.

Cathoholic

 

[CRV]

7 Church Fathers on that Profound Insight of Mary as the New Eve
St. Justin Martyr, 2nd century;
St. Irenaeus of Lyon, 2nd century;
Tertullian, 2nd-3rd century;
St. Gregory the Wonder-worker, 3rd century.
St. Jerome, 4th century;
St. Ephrem, 4th century;
St. Augustine, 4th-5th century

Catholic Education Resource Centre - Knowing Mary Through the Bible: New Wine, New Eve - the whole article is worth reading, but towards the end is a section titled “The New Eve”

Mary: The New Eve and Our Spiritual Mother Dr. Andrew Swafford Ascension Press -
What’s the biblical evidence for seeing Mary as the New Eve? - again, the whole article is worth reading.

 

[po18guy]

An excellent video in which the scripture is carefully unpacked for you.

 

[ZMystiCat]

First: Eve came from Adam where Jesus came from Mary.

To start, I think it is worth noting that there does not need to be an absolute sameness between an Old Testament and New Testament type. We also call Mary the new Ark, but she obviously wasn’t/isn’t an inanimate object. We call Jesus the New Adam, but He wasn’t created, nor did He sin.

As for this difference in particular, it’s worth noting that Paul actually draws a parallel between birth and Eve being taken from Adam’s side (1 Cor. 11:12).

There’s also some notable parallels in the New Testament between Eve and Mary. Just some of the more notable ones:

1. The Annunciation holds many parallels to the serpent visiting Eve.
2. Just as Eve, in her disobedience, helped set in motion the Fall through Adam, Mary, in her obedience, helped set in motion salvation through Jesus.
3. Jesus, the New Adam, calls Mary “woman” at the wedding feast, which harkens back to how Adam originally called Eve Woman, a name she maintained until after the Fall.

 

[Wesrock]

Mary as a new Eve is one of the earliest Marian topologies attested to in Patristic writings (that we still have copies of). And it really needs to be understood in a topological sense, which is the approach the Early Church Fathere took to relating the Old and New Testaments.

 

[tafan2]

Is not Mary the Mother of the Church?

 

[amazingcatholic]

Father Mike Schmitz explained it this way: Eve handed off the forbidden fruit to Adam, and caused death for the world. But in the New Testament, Mary gave birth to Jesus who gave life to the world. She fulfilled the prophecy in Genesis 3:15

 

[Soubirous1]

my understanding is Mary is the Mother of God and of the New Covenant. She is the New Ark of the Covenant and the first Tabernacle. I think she is called the second Eve because all things were made new in Jesus’s Blood.

 

[HarryStotle]

How can this be?

First: Eve came from Adam where Jesus came from Mary.
Second: Adam and Eve were husband and wife, Jesus and Mary were/are not.
Third: Jesus bride is the church, and Mary the Catholic Church says is somehow married to the Holy Spirit or is the bride of the Holy Spirit.

I believe the last statement I read somewhere on Catholic Answers.

Just asking.

To be precise, the term is NOT “Second Eve,” but the New Eve, which doesn’t imply succession so much as reversal. Mary undid what the first Eve did.

Ergo:

Eve coming from the body of Adam is reversed by the New Adam (Jesus) coming from the body of the New Eve [Mary].

Adam and Eve were not technically “husband and wife” until after she had eaten of the fruit, originally they were “helpmates” and “one flesh.” The word “husband” only appears after she ate: …she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. (Gen 3:6)

Eve as “the mother of all the [mortal] living” (Gen 3:20) is reversed because Mary is the Mother of all members of the Church who have eternal [immortal] life by sharing in the Body [one flesh] of Christ, the New Adam.

Mary is consort of the Holy Spirit with the New Adam (Jesus) in the renewed sense that Eve (with Adam) originally walked with God in Eden.

 

[Cathoholic]

(CURRENT) CATHOLIC (Latin Rite) LITURGY (THE MASS) In your divine wisdom you planned the redemption of the human race and decreed that the new Eve should stand by the cross of the new Adam: as she became his mother by the power of the Holy Spirit, so, by a new gift of your love, she was to be a partner in his passion, and she who had given him birth without the pains of childbirth was to endure the greatest of pains in bringing forth to new life the family of your Church.

Some historical vignettes . . . .

Here is St. Irenaeus showing Mary as the New Eve by implication:

ST. IRENAEUS “As Eve by the speech of an Angel was seduced,
so as to flee God, transgressing His word,
so also Mary received the good tidings by means of the Angel’s speech,
so as to bear God within her, being obedient to His word.
And, though the one had disobeyed God,
yet the other was drawn to obey God;
that of the virgin Eve
the Virgin Mary might become the advocate.
And, as by a virgin the human race had been bound to death,
by a virgin it is saved, the balance being preserved,
a virgin’s disobedience by a virgin’s obedience.”
St. Irenaeus. Against Heresies. v. 19. St. Irenaeus Died in 202 A.D.

Also St. Irenaeus . . .

ST. IRENAEUS 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.

Here is St. Irenaeus showing Mary as the New Eve by implication:

.

ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR “We know that He, . . . .
. . . by means of the Virgin became man,
that by what way the disobedience arising from the serpent had its beginning,
by that way also
it might have an undoing.
For Eve , being a virgin and undefiled ,
conceiving the word that was from the serpent,
brought forth disobedience and death;
but the Virgin Mary , taking faith and joy,
when the Angel told her the good tidings,
that the Spirit of the Lord should come upon her
and the power of the Highest overshadow her,
and therefore the Holy One that was born of her
was Son of God, answered, 'Be it to me according to Thy word.”
— St. Justin to Tryph. 100. St. Justin died in 165 A.D.

.

Origin contrasting the Blessed Mother to Eve.

ORIGEN . . . “worthy of God, immaculate of the immaculate, most complete sanctity, perfect justice, neither deceived by the persuasion of the serpent, nor infected with his poisonous breathings.” - Origen. Origen died in 253 A.D.

You can see Origen comparing Mother Mary in the context of the Garden of Eden.

More typology. The Garden was a type of Mary in Origen’s evaluation.

Also concerning Origen is an interesting testimony concerning the Immaculate Conception of Mary from an Origen quote that also compares Mary to Eve . . . .

ORIGEN “She (Mary) has not been tainted with the breath of the venomous serpent. For why should the Blessed Virgin Mary have been deprived of this prerogative in her conception, with which not only the angels—even the bad-—were adorned in their original creation, but which our first parents, whom God created upright and innocent, also possessed?”

 

[Cathoholic]

EVEN the heretic-priest-historian Tertullian gets it right on Mary as the New Eve . . .

Listen to Tertullian who lived in the 200’s A.D. . . .

TERTULLIAN “God recovered His image and likeness, which the devil had seized,
by a rival operation.
For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had crept the word which was the framer of death.
Equally into a virgin was to be introduced the Word of God which was
the builder-up of life;
that, what by that sex (gender) had gone into perdition,
by the same sex (gender) might be brought back to salvation.
Eve had believed the serpent;
Mary believed Gabriel ;
the fault which the one committed by believing,
the other by believing has blotted out.”
Tertullian. – On The Flesh of Christ 17. Tertullian Died in 240 A.D.

Notice the stark contrast of Mary and Eve.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem and St. Ephrem likewise contrast Mary and Eve.

ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM (315-386 A.D.):
“Since through Eve, a virgin, came death,
it behooved (became necessary or proper),
that through a Virgin, or rather from a Virgin, should life appear; that,
as the Serpent had deceived the one,
so to the other Gabriel might bring good tidings.”
— St. Cyril of Jerusalem. Cat. xii. 15.

ST. EPHREM (St. Ephrem died in 378 A.D.)
“Through Eve, the beautiful and desirable glory of men was extinguished;
but it has revived through Mary.”
— St. Ephrem Opp. Syr. ii.

St. Ephrem contrasting Mary and Eve.

ST. EPHREM “In the beginning, by the sin of our first parents, death passed upon all men; today, through Mary we are translated from death unto life.
In the beginning, the serpent filled the ears of Eve,
and the poison spread thence over the whole body;
today, Mary from her ears received the champion of eternal happiness:
what, therefore, was an instrument of death, was an instrument of life also.”
— St. Ephrem Opp. Syr. iii.

Listen to St. Ephrem contrast Mary and Eve yet again.

ST. EPHREM . . . Mary and Eve, two people without guilt, two simple people, were
identical. Later, however, one became the cause of our death,
the other the cause of our life. (4)
— St. Ephrem. St. Ephrem died in 373 A.D.

 

[Cathoholic]

Likewise Saint Epiphanius (320-403 A.D.) had this to say . . .

ST. EPIPHANIUS “She it is, who is signified by Eve, enigmatically
receiving the appellation (designation or title) of the Mother of the living . . .
. . . It was a wonder that after the fall she had this great epithet (an epithet is a term used to describe what a person does. A title.
An epithet for King Solomon would be “Wise one”).
And, according to what is material, from that Eve
all the race of man on earth is generated.
But thus in truth from Mary the Life itself was born in the world,
that Mary might bear living things, and become the Mother of living things.
Therefore, enigmatically, Mary is called the Mother of living things . . .
. . . Also, there is another thing to consider as to these women,
and wonderful, as to Eve and Mary.
Eve became a cause of death to men …
and Mary a cause of life; … that life might be instead of death,
life excluding death which came from the woman, viz (viz = power, strength, life).
He who through the woman has become our life.”
St. Epiphanius Adv. Haer. 78. 18.

St. Jerome (331-420) summarizes a contrast of Mary and Eve this way . . .

ST. JEROME “Death by Eve, life by Mary.”
— St. Jerome Ep. xxii. 21, ad Eustoch.

St. Augustine (354-430) echoed these same contrasts also seeing Mary as the NEW Eve . . .

ST. AUGUSTINE “By a woman death, by a woman life” (Opp. t. v. Serm. 232);

Elsewhere St. Augustine enlarges on the idea of The Blessed Virgin Mary as the New Eve. In one place he quotes St. Irenaeus’s words as cited further above (in adv. Julian i. n. 5).

In another he speaks as follows:

ST. AUGUSTINE “It is a great sacrament that, whereas through woman death became our portion, so life was born to us by woman; that, in the case of both sexes, male and female, the baffled devil should be tormented, when on the overthrow of both sexes he was rejoicing; whose punishment had been small, if both sexes had been liberated in us, without our being liberated through both.”
— St. Augustine. Opp. t. vi. De Agon. Christ. c.24.

St. Peter Chrysologus (400-450 A.D.), Bishop of Ravenna, also teaches us the same thing . . . .

ST. PETER CHRYSOLOGUS “Blessed art thou among women; for among women, on whose womb Eve, who was cursed, brought punishment,
Mary, being blest, rejoices, is honoured, and is looked up to.
And woman now is truly made through grace the Mother of the living,
who had been by nature the mother of the dying . . . Heaven feels awe of God, Angels tremble at Him, the creature sustains Him not, nature sufficeth not; and yet
one maiden so takes, receives, entertains Him, as a guest within her breast, that,
for the very hire of her home, and as the price of her womb, she asks,
she obtains peace for the earth, glory for the heavens, salvation for the lost,
life for the dead, a heavenly parentage for the earthly,
the union of God Himself with human flesh.”
— St. Peter Chrysologus Serm. 140.