Mary's immaculate conception and history

[Gorgias]

Jesus was never “under the law” as all Jews were. He came to fulfill the prophetic aspects of the law. How else will you spin this? She was a young Jewish girl under the law of Moses just like everyone else. Gal. 4:4.

You realize that Galatians 4:4 literally says that Jesus was born under the law, right?

ἐξαπέστειλεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν Υἱὸν αὐτοῦ, γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός, γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον,

γενόμενον is a masculine participle. γενόμενον of a woman, γενόμενον under the law. Both refer to Jesus.

 

[guanophore]

The Trinity was written about and defended by the 2nd century. However being able to accurately articulate all of the terms related to the Trinity is not essential to salvation.

It seems like you are moving the bar around, up and down. No one expects a believer, especially a neophyte, to be able to “accurately articulate the terms related to the Trinity”. In fact, such a task would be beyond human ability, despite the efforts of many brilliant theologians. We do expect, however, that a person embrace the Apostles’ Creed. This is a very different bar!

The teaching of the Apostles and the inspired Scriptures provided information to the Christians in the first century about the nature of God and Jesus.

Yes, but in some cases it took centuries to develop these concepts and apply them. The need to implement the word Trinity was a response to heresies. The same is true of the hypostatic union.

This is what I am wondering. Was the immaculate conception revealed to mankind by the Holy Spirit at some point in history?

Yes, beginning in Genesis!

Now I thought it had to be believed by all Catholics.

Unfortunately there are a great many truths that should be believed by all Catholics that are not!

 

[kainosktisis]

As I am fairly new to the Church, I ask my brothers & sisters for their (name removed by moderator)ut/correction on this matter.

It is my understanding that the woman in Revelation 12 is the Blessed Virgin. The Blessed Virgin represents the Church. It is not without justification if one considers typology in Scripture & considers that the Child Whom the woman delivers is “a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”a And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.” This is taken from Ps. 2:9, a Messianic prophecy, therefore it is reasonable to believe that the woman is the Blessed Virgin since she gave birth to Our Lord.

I’m not sure as to the reference to the 1,260 days. My guess would be that it is a reference perhaps to the departure to Egypt when the children were slaughtered in Herod’s rage to kill the newborn Messiah. Others may be better informed on the matter though.

The Blessed Virgin as given by Our Lord to St. John is Our Mother. Spiritual adoption has its blessings, & as He fulfilled the commandments perfectly, He honors both His Father & His Blessed Mother. His Mother becomes Our Mother. Mom’s look out for their children.

 

[kainosktisis]

I was about to quote this verse, but you beat me to it. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

 

[Benadam]

but I think it would be a sentimental error to then suggests what is fit for His wombly habitation, or what is fit for His mother, beyond any plain writ and right Jewish expectation.

It’s not like the doctrine about Mary is whipped up by brainstorming. I doubt the huiman mind could have come up with this stuff. Nobody sat down and considered what is ‘best fitting for Jesus’ ‘What kind of belief should it be?’ These are truths about Mary that the Holy Spirit revealed.

No, Christ became unglorified human flesh,

If He came as an unglorified (unfulfilled human life) human being how could He have been a human who is being God? His purpose, in that case, would have been to reach a human end not a divine end.

What you say about Mary and Jesus are mental concoctions. Not revelation from The Holy Spirit. We know the difference.

 

[Benadam]

As I am fairly new to the Church, I ask my brothers & sisters for their (name removed by moderator)ut/correction on this matter.

It is my understanding that the woman in Revelation 12 is the Blessed Virgin. The Blessed Virgin represents the Church. It is not without justification if one considers typology in Scripture & considers that the Child Whom the woman delivers is “a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”a And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.” This is taken from Ps. 2:9, a Messianic prophecy, therefore it is reasonable to believe that the woman is the Blessed Virgin since she gave birth to Our Lord.

I’m not sure as to the reference to the 1,260 days. My guess would be that it is a reference perhaps to the departure to Egypt when the children were slaughtered in Herod’s rage to kill the newborn Messiah. Others may be better informed on the matter though.

The Blessed Virgin as given by Our Lord to St. John is Our Mother. Spiritual adoption has its blessings, & as He fulfilled the commandments perfectly, He honors both His Father & His Blessed Mother. His Mother becomes Our Mother. Mom’s look out for their children.

kainosktisis, good work. Just to add, Jesus called His mother 'Woman" because He knew the truth of His mother the New Woman. Our Lady is the New Woman who fulfilled the intended end of the former Woman. Both have children who become the People of God… The former Woman’s children are Israel. Born of Woman in blood and truth. The New Woman’s children are the Church The New People of God… Below is the Church given the rod of iron to rule the nations.

Rev 2 26-28
26 To everyone who conquers and continues to do my works to the end,

I will give authority over the nations;
27 to rule[c] them with an iron rod,
as when clay pots are shattered—

28 even as I also received authority from my Father.

The former can be seen in the New. Eve and the twelve patriarchs and the 12 tribes.

And see the 12 eternal fruits of the Church

Rev 22

22 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb

This is a picture of the Trinity. The river of life flows from the throne because He is the Holy Spirit.

2 through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

This is a picture of the Church in the New Heaven on the New Earth. The tree of Life produces food for everlasting life… Jesus told the disciples about it .At the well after talking to the Samaritan Woman.

John 4
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’?

 

[Benadam]

In this is seen types of the former Woman Eve and the New Woman Mary.

Galatians 4
The Allegory of Hagar and Sarah
21 Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman. 23 One, the child of the slave, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise. 24 Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia[g] and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written,

“Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children,
> burst into song and shout, you who endure no birth pangs;
> for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous
> than the children of the one who is married.”

28 Now you,[h] my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac. 29 But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. 30 But what does the scripture say? “Drive out the slave and her child; for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.” 31 So then, friends,[j] we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman.

Edit to add:

With this we can see the beginning in Genesis and the end in Revelation. Abraham is a type of Adam. He is the father of two sons. One, the child of a slave by the flesh ( antichrist / Cain) and the other,
(Christ / Abel) both through the promise and by the flesh of Mary. So Mary is all as one Woman. The New Woman. (rev 12)

 

[gazelam]

Ephraim the Syrian

You alone and your Mother are more beautiful than any others, for there is neither blemish in you nor any stains upon your Mother. Who of my children can compare in beauty to these? (Nisibene Hymns 27:8 [A. D. 361]).

Catholic scholars do not agree that this quote supports immaculate conception.

The first apparently explicit testimony is in the Nisibene hymns of St Ephraem, a fourth century Syrian writer: “Certainly you are alone and your mother are from every aspect completely beautiful, for there is no blemish in you, my Lord, ad no stain in your mother.” But there are other texts in the same author’s writings which, to put it mildly, call for subtle interpretation to maintain the doctrine—he spoke for example of Mary’s baptism. (Michael O’Carroll, CSSp, “The Immaculate Conception and Assumption of our Lady in Today’s Thinking” in Mary in the Church [ed. John Hyland; Dublin: Veritas, 1989], 44-56, here, p. 45)

Also Catholic Mariologist, Luigi Gambero, wrote the following on Ephrem the Syrian:

Ephrem’s insistence on Mary’s spiritual beauty and holiness, and her freedom from any stain of sin, has led some scholars to hold that he was aware of the privilege of the Immaculate Conception and to point to him as a witness to the dogma. Yet it does not appear that our author was familiar with the problem, at least not in the terms in which it was made clear by later tradition and the dogmatic declaration of 1854. In one passage he even used the term “baptized” to indicate her Son’s saving intervention in her regard:

Handmaid and daughter of blood and water [am I] whom You redeemed and baptized.

(Hymns on the Nativity 16, 10) (Luigi Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999], 110)

I hope this helps…

 

[guanophore]

Elizabeth comes to mind, just for one.

Mary’s kinswoman was blessed to bring John the Baptist, but this does not hold a candle to bearing the Son of God.

Then, O’ I don’t know, 120 in the upper room where she hung out in a prayer meeting…

She was there, but tgG, none of those 120 were the Theotokos. And all of them knew that she had a special role in salvation history that no one else filled. If you think they did not appreciate Mary as Jesus Mother, you are mistaken.

… All of the founders with the exception of Paul, were there to hear of her sinless state. Not a word or doctrine, only the opposite was revealed, “all have sinned…”

I think you have your focus in the wrong place, @tgGodsway. They were gathered there to wait for the Holy Spirit, the Spouse of Mary. They were focused on the promise of Christ to come, not the promise that had already occurred. The HS had already overshadowed Mary.

And as for your definition of “all”, you theology remains deficient when you cannot include infants in “all”.

 

[mcq72]

It’s not like the doctrine about Mary is whipped up by brainstorming

“Sentimental error” would be more of a heart thing, but yes, based upon a misconception, about what one might think (or feel) is fitting…

 

[mcq72]

If He came as an unglorified (unfulfilled human life) human being how could He have been a human who is being God? His purpose, in that case, would have been to reach a human end not a divine end.

No it was to reach a divine end thru himan flesh (of course being fully God also…but that doesnt make his flesh “glorified”, or any different tthan you and I.). He, Jesus, his flesh, became glorified after resurection, even ascension if i recall correctly.

 

[mcq72]

What you say about Mary and Jesus are mental concoctions. Not revelation from The Holy Spirit. We know the difference.

That you say that specifically, that I spoke not by unction of the Holy Ghost, actually to me reaffirms that it was.

But you are correct, indeed any correct utterances on this matter would have to be by the Holy Ghost.

For sure what i uttered about the incarnation, His flesh and what it did for us is correct, apart from any meddling about Mary’s state, other than what was universlly accepted before 1854

 

[Benadam]

flesh “glorified”, or any different tthan you and I.). He, Jesus, his flesh, became glorified after resurection, even ascension if i recall correctly.

What was seen at the Transfiguration?

 

[Benadam]

Sentimental error would make the Church indistinguishable from the world. The immaculate conception does the opposite for Mary and the Church. It is Doctrin that was revealed from an external source not internal sentiment.

 

[kainosktisis]

But that’s where the problem comes in: if He was no different than the rest of us, then that means He would need saving since He would’ve taken on sinful flesh. The reality is though that He had no sin (Scripture affirms that), the flesh He’d taken on would’ve had to have come from a sinless source - namely His mother.

He is One Person in the Godhead - God the Son, Whom Scripture reveals is the Word Made Flesh. His Holiness would not take on sinful flesh. While I can agree to some extent about His glorified body post-resurrection, how do you account for the Transfiguration, where “He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light”; “His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them”; & “…As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning…” (Matthew 17:1–8; Mark 9:2–8; Luke 9:28–36)? It calls to mind the vision Ezekiel’d had (from BibleHub):

27 I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him.

28 Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.

Or in Revelation 1 (BibleHub) as St. John had witnessed:

12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands,

13 and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man,d dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.

14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.

15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.

16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.

18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

Am thinking of the new wine needing new wineskins vs putting new wine into old wineskins…Or the priests, sons of Aaron, who’d offered unholy fire before the Lord, & fire consumed them…Or the man who’d reached out to touch the Ark when it’d stumbled so as to stabilize it, & died instantly…Or Isaiah’s impure mouth made holy by the burning coal taken from the altar in heaven…

 

[mcq72]

What was seen at the Transfiguration?

Maybe…good point…would have to read it

 

[Benadam]

Am thinking of the new wine needing new wineskins vs putting new wine into old wineskins…

I like this in this context because it points out a reason why the resurrection is exclusive to Jesus and Mary at this time in salvation history. Original sin= old wineskin Baptism = no sin= new wineskin

 

[mcq72]

Sentimental error would make the Church indistinguishable from the world. The immaculate conception does the opposite for Mary and the Church. It is Doctrin that was revealed from an external source not internal sentiment.

Maybe, maybe not.Dont see it as all or nothing,about being distinguishable…certainly Christ crucified,risen and coming again, and our love is still quite distinguishable, apart from IC or not.

Some critics have said some Marion views may have been influenced by some wordly or pagan female figures/mythologies…so not so “distinguishable” in their opinion. I dont know.

But i understand the pope in 1854 based his decree after claiming divine revelation on the matter…not sure what changed, for many other popes also also wrestled, prayed about the matter with different results…the only new information, or (name removed by moderator)ut, after centuries of “inquiry” was perhaps Mary beginning to make appearances…not sure i have that right…whole other topic

 

[Benadam]

Maybe, maybe not.Dont see it as all or nothing,about being distinguishable…certainly Christ crucified,risen and coming again, and our love is still quite distinguishable, apart from IC or not.

I don’t see it as black and white but it does get blacker or whiter relative to closer or farther from truth.
For example, a person with a secular mindset may have difficulty distinguishing what Protestants believe from what Catholics.believe. With a little inquiry they find belief in Mary distinguishing one from the other.
A person who is Protestant finds it difficult to not distinguish Protestants from Catholics.Because of Mary.

 

[Benadam]

Some critics have said some Marion views may have been influenced by some wordly or pagan female figures/mythologies…so not so “distinguishable” in their opinion. I dont know.

This is equally true about Jesus. This point unites Jesus and Mary into an exclusive two that supports the Catholic view of Mary.

But i understand the pope in 1854 based his decree after claiming divine revelation on the matter…not sure what changed, for many other popes also also wrestled, prayed about the matter with different results…the only new information, or (name removed by moderator)ut, after centuries of “inquiry” was perhaps Mary beginning to make appearances…not sure i have that right…whole other topic

That statement comes from a Protestant understanding of the Word of God and how it is expressed by the Church.The appearances of Mary would not be necessarily considered Divine Revelation. They are private revelation and not necessary to believe.