Pope Leo the Great on the Immaculate Conception

[rad314]

Thats what YOU think.

I went back to the context of your quote from Ghosty and it makes sense to me. Apparently, you think otherwise. Why?

 

[Isa_Almisry]

I went back to the context of your quote from Ghosty and it makes sense to me. Apparently, you think otherwise. Why?

Same way Pope Honorius and John XXII get off the hook.

As noted, John XXII was not a heretic. The definition of heresy per the Catechism:

2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."

Since the beatific vision was NOT something which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith, John XXII was not a heretic by definition.

Since this definition of heresy has been presented to you many times, I can only presume your answer to be a dishonest one.

 

[rad314]

Let me summarize the point I think Ghosty was making.

There are Catholic who believe Mary to the Mediatrix of All Grace and Co-Redemptrix. Some Orthodox call those beliefs heretical. However, St. Gregory Palamas, a great Orthodox saint, clearly believed both. So, the question is how can you call those Catholics heretics without also calling St. Gregory Palamas a heretic? You can, on the other hand, say that he and they are wrong, but that’s a very different matter – and it doesn’t mean you’re right.

Sounds like a good question to me.

Or am I missing something?

The only standard of heresy I know is the one I find in the Catechism. Someone who does not share my opinion is not thereby a heretic.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Let me summarize the point I think Ghosty was making.

There are Catholic who believe Mary to the Mediatrix of All Grace and Co-Redemptrix. Some Orthodox call those beliefs heretical. However, St. Gregory Palamas, a great Orthodox saint, clearly believed both. So, the question is how can you call those Catholics heretics without also calling St. Gregory Palamas a heretic? You can, on the other hand, say that he and they are wrong, but that’s a very different matter – and it doesn’t mean you’re right.

Sounds like a good question to me.

Or am I missing something?

The only standard of heresy I know is the one I find in the Catechism. Someone who does not share my opinion is not thereby a heretic.

Let’s assume that St. Gregory did believe in the “coredemtrix” (a point I don’t concede except for argument: flights of rhetoric in sermon are a poor choice to pin down systematic theology, which St. Gregory did wright too.). So? ALL Fathers have erred. If they never did, they would be the equal of Christ. St. Augustine’s writings are perhaps at best 30% Orthodox, someone has estimated. But it is the TOTALITY of the life, taken in the TOTALITY of Patristics that matters. Not individual Theologoumen. There is evidence that suggests that St. Maximos believed in some sort of universal salvation (Origin’s form of which the Church condemned), but he kept it mainly to himself, only spoke of it with his most mature and closest disciples. His sainthood is not in question.

 

[mpartyka]

I think the point was that if St. Gregory cannot be called a heretic for believing (if he indeed did) in these popular Marian doctrines, neither can Catholics who believe them be called heretics. I think that’s reasonable.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

I think the point was that if St. Gregory cannot be called a heretic for believing (if he indeed did) in these popular Marian doctrines, neither can Catholics who believe them be called heretics. I think that’s reasonable.

At this point, with filioque, the IC and Vatican I, co-redemtrix would be just icing on the cake.

 

[mpartyka]

At this point, with filioque, the IC and Vatican I, co-redemtrix would be just icing on the cake.

Well, yes, but let’s be clear – calling Catholics heretics for what they are required by Rome to believe is one thing, and calling them heretics for believing things that are not required of them to believe by Rome is another, especially when some of these “optional” beliefs appear to have been shared by certain prominent Orthodox saints. Let’s be as gracious as we can, shall we?

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Well, yes, but let’s be clear – calling Catholics heretics for what they are required by Rome to believe is one thing, and calling them heretics for believing things that are not required of them to believe by Rome is another, especially when some of these “optional” beliefs appear to have been shared by certain prominent Orthodox saints. Let’s be as gracious as we can, shall we?

It seems only a matter of time befoer co-redemptrix is added to that list. Actually I can excuse those who believe they have to believe IC, etc. because the pope says so: it is worse to believe in co-redemptrix prescisely because you are not so required, at present…

 

[mpartyka]

(Post 1 of 3)

From some near-contemporaries of Pope Leo, here’s some further corroboration of the dim view of sexual intercourse held by the Fathers at the time:

Augustine of Hippo, On the Holy Trinity, Book XIII, Chapter 18 – But God judged it better both to take upon Him man through whom to conquer the enemy of the human race, from the race itself that had been conquered; and yet to do this of a virgin, whose conception, not flesh but spirit, not lust but faith, preceded. Nor did that concupiscence of the flesh intervene, by which the rest of men, who derive original sin, are propagated and conceived; but holy virginity became pregnant, not by conjugal intercourse, but by faith,—lust being utterly absent,—so that that which was born from the root of the first man might derive only the origin of race, not also of guilt. For there was born, not a nature corrupted by the contagion of transgression, but the one only remedy of all such corruptions. There was born, I say, a Man having nothing at all, and to have nothing at all, of sin; through whom they were to be born again so as to be freed from sin, who could not be born without sin. For although conjugal chastity makes a right use of the carnal concupiscence which is in our members; yet it is liable to motions not voluntary, by which it shows either that it could not have existed at all in paradise before sin, or if it did, that it was not then such as that sometimes it should resist the will. But now we feel it to be such, that in opposition to the law of the mind, and even if there is no question of begetting, it works in us the incitement of sexual intercourse; and if in this men yield to it, then it is satisfied by an act of sin; if they do not, then it is bridled by an act of refusal: which two things who could doubt to have been alien from paradise before sin? For neither did the chastity that then was do anything indecorous, nor did the pleasure that then was suffer anything unquiet. It was necessary, therefore, that this carnal concupiscence should be entirely absent, when the offspring of the Virgin was conceived; in whom the author of death was to find nothing worthy of death, and yet was to slay Him in order that he might be conquered by the death of the Author of life: the conqueror of the first Adam, who held fast the human race, conquered by the second Adam, and losing the Christian race, freed out of the human race from human guilt, through Him who was not in the guilt, although He was of the race; that that deceiver might be conquered by that race which he had conquered by guilt.

Augustine of Hippo, Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, Book I, Chapters 30-33 – …to wit, that from the intercourse of male and female those who are born derive no sin to be put away by the laver of regeneration,—this is false and heretical…the sexual impulse, and…virility, without which there can be no intercourse, was so appointed by God that there was in it nothing to be ashamed of. For it was not fit that His creature should blush at the work of his Creator; but by a just punishment the disobedience of the members was the retribution to the disobedience of the first man, for which disobedience they blushed when they covered with fig-leaves those shameful parts which previously were not shameful…they were so suddenly ashamed of their nakedness, which they were daily in the habit of looking upon and were not confused, that they could now no longer bear those members naked, but immediately took care to cover them; did not they—he in the open, she in the hidden impulse—perceive those members to be disobedient to the choice of their will, which certainly they ought to have ruled like the rest by their voluntary command? And this they deservedly suffered, because they themselves also were not obedient to their Lord. Therefore they blushed that they in such wise had not manifested service to their Creator, that they should deserve to lose dominion over those members by which children were to be procreated. This kind of shame—this necessity of blushing—is certainly born with every man, and in some measure is commanded by the very laws of nature; so that, in this matter, even virtuous married people are ashamed. Nor can any one go to such an extreme of evil and disgrace, as, because he knows God to be the author of nature and the ordainer of marriage, to have intercourse even with his wife in any one’s sight, or not to blush at those impulses and seek secrecy, where he can shun the sight not only of strangers, but even of all his own relatives. Therefore let human nature be permitted to acknowledge the evil that happens to it by its own fault, lest it should be compelled either not to blush at its own impulses, which is most shameless, or else to blush at the work of its Creator, which is most ungrateful. Of this evil, nevertheless, virtuous marriage makes good use for the sake of the benefit of the begetting of children…

 

[mpartyka]

(Post 2 of 3)

**Augustine of Hippo, Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, Book I, Chapters 34-35 **-- But, while maintaining, ye Pelagians, the honourableness and fruitfulness of marriage, determine, if nobody had sinned, what you would wish to consider the life of those people in Paradise, and choose one of these four things. For beyond a doubt, either as often as ever they pleased they would have had intercourse; or they would bridle lust when intercourse was not necessary; or lust would arise at the summons of will, just at the time when chaste prudence would have perceived beforehand that intercourse was necessary; or, with no lust existing at all, as every other member served for its own work, so for its own work the organs of generation also would obey the commands of those that willed, without any difficulty. Of these four suppositions, choose which you please; but I think you will reject the two former, in which lust is either obeyed or resisted. For the first one would not be in accordance with so great a virtue, and the second not in harmony with so great a happiness. For be the idea far from us, that the glory of so great a blessedness as that should either be most basely enslaved by always following a preceding lust, or, by resisting it, should not enjoy the most abounding peace. Away, I say, with the thought that that mind should either be gratified by consenting to satisfy the concupiscence of the flesh, arising not opportunely for the sake of procreation, but with unregulated excitement, or that that quiet should find it necessary to restrain it by refusing. But whichever you choose of the two other alternatives, there is no necessity for striving against you with any disputation. For even if you should refuse to elect the fourth, in which there is the highest tranquillity of all the obedient members without any lust, since already the urgency of your arguments has made you hostile to it; that will doubtless please you which I have put in the third place, that that carnal concupiscence, whose impulse attains to the final pleasure which much delights you, should never arise in Paradise except at the bidding of the will when it would be necessary for procreation. If it is agreeable to you to arrange this in Paradise, and if, by means of such a concupiscence of the flesh which should neither anticipate, nor impede, nor exceed the bidding of the will, it appears to you that children could have been begotten, I have no objection. For, as far as I am concerned in this matter, it is enough for me that such a concupiscence of the flesh is not now among men, as you concede there might have been in that place of happiness. For what it now is, the sense of all men certainly confesses, although with modesty; because it both solicits with excessive and importunate uneasiness the chaste, even when they are unwilling and are checking it by moderation, and frequently withdraws itself from the willing and inflicts itself on the unwilling; so that, by its disobedience, it testifies that it is nothing else than the punishment of that first disobedience. Whence, reasonably, both then the first men when they covered their nakedness, and now whoever considers himself to be a man, every no less modest than immodest person is confounded at it—far be it from us to say by the work of God, but—by the penalty of the first and ancient sin. You, however, not for the sake of religious reasoning, but for excited contention,—not on behalf of human modesty, but for your own madness, that even the concupiscence of the flesh itself should not be thought to be currupted, and original sin to be derived from it,—are endeavouring by your argument to recall it absolutely, such as it now is, into Paradise; and to contend that that concupiscence could have been there which would either always be followed by a disgraceful consent, or would sometimes be restrained by a pitiable refusal. I, however, do not greatly care what it delights you to think of it. Still, whatever of men is born by its means, if he is not born again, without doubt he is damned; and he must be under the dominion of the devil, if he is not delivered thence by Christ.

Severus of Antioch, Letter LXV – After the fall from Paradise and the’ destruction of immortality, Adam knew Eve, and she conceived and bare; and this unstable intercourse, intercourse befitting beasts, was given for the propagation of our race, it being a kind of healing of the sickness, that the race of men might not be cut off through death. The woman was not at first given to Adam for the sake of the procreation of children…For, as long as they kept the law, and rejoiced with one another without passion, and did not perceive one another’s nakedness, and also did not think of their union in marriage, they enjoyed the blessed life in Paradise itself.

 

[mpartyka]

(Post 3 of 3)

Compare with Pope Leo’s 1st and 2nd Sermons on the Nativity:

(1) Truly foreign to this nativity [of Christ]] is that which we read of all others, ‘no one is clean from stain, not even the infant who has lived but one day upon earth.’ Nothing therefore of the lust of the flesh has passed into that peerless nativity, nothing of the law of sin has entered. A royal Virgin of the stem of David is chosen, to be impregnated with the sacred seed and to conceive the Divinely-human offspring in mind first and then in body.

(2) And by a new nativity He was begotten, conceived by a Virgin, born of a Virgin, without paternal desire, without injury to the mother’s chastity: because such a birth as knew no taint of human flesh, became One who was to be the Saviour of men, while it possessed in itself the nature of human substance. For when God was born in the flesh, God Himself was the Father…The origin is different but the nature like: not by intercourse with man but by the power of God was it brought about: for a Virgin conceived, a Virgin bare, and a Virgin she remained…For the uncorrupt nature of Him that was born had to guard the primal virginity of the Mother, and the infused power of the Divine Spirit had to preserve in spotlessness and holiness that sanctuary which He had chosen for Himself…And to this end, without male seed Christ was conceived of a Virgin, who was fecundated not by human intercourse but by the Holy Spirit. And whereas in all mothers conception does not take place without stain of sin, this one received purification from the Source of her conception. For no taint of sin penetrated, where no intercourse occurred. Her unsullied virginity knew no lust when it ministered the substance. The Lord took from His mother our nature, not our fault…the crafty foe was taken off his guard and he thought that the nativity of the Child, Who was born for the salvation of mankind, was as much subject to himself as all others are at their birth…

The point I’m trying to make here is that the Fathers of Pope Leo’s time, including Pope Leo himself, believed that Christ’s conception was free from original sin precisely because there was no lust, no passion – basically, no sex – involved in His conception. Therefore, these Fathers would have considered it inconceivable (pun intended) that the conception of the Virgin Mary could have been free from sin or “immaculate” in any meaningful way, given that sexual intercourse was directly involved in her conception.

–Mike

 

[Alethiaphile]

mpartyka- I’m just going to say that you are on to something. The ancient and patristic Church differed over whether Mary the Theotokos was guilty of any actual sin or not, but never asserted that she was conceived free of original sin. Quotations, such as those by Ephraim the Syrian, that speak of her as being “without blemish” could easily refer to her cleansed state after she committed herslef entirely to God at the Annunciation. I would remind those here that when someone is cleansed of their sins, scripture makes clear it is as if they never sinned. So the Theotokos was indeed without belmish or stain of sin, but that does NOT mean she was conceived without original sin.

The ancient Christian tradition is that it is in Christ that our human nature was redeemed; Christ was the first New Man. Yet there has been a long tendency in western Catholicism to shift the ancient and patristic beliefs about Christ onto Mary. You’ve seen it here when one poster talked about the Holy Spirit as the “source” of Mary’s conception, when the Creed itself says that it was Christ who was “conceived by the Holy Spirit”. Another poster referred to Mary as “the Wisdom of God”, a title more appropriate to the Holy Spirit, either considered by Himself or speaking through Christ. Notice also how ancient feast of the Annunciation has been almost entirely supplanted in the west by the Immaculate Conception. How many Catholics even know what the Anuunciation refers to or when it is celebrated, much less commemorate it.

 

[Chaldean_Rite]

How many Catholics even know what the Anuunciation refers to or when it is celebrated, much less commemorate it.

why does this matter on whether or not the majority of catholics could tell you the difference. Thats their problem. They will be judgeed accordingly for their indifference towards Scripture. Aside from these forums, all the Orthodox Christians i have met haven’t a clue what Orthodox faith is about but we shouldn’t let that determine if any particular Orthodox apologetic is good or not.

 

[Alethiaphile]

why does this matter on whether or not the majority of catholics could tell you the difference. Thats their problem. They will be judgeed accordingly for their indifference towards Scripture. Aside from these forums, all the Orthodox Christians i have met haven’t a clue what Orthodox faith is about but we shouldn’t let that determine if any particular Orthodox apologetic is good or not.

First of all, what you say about Orthodox Christians is 100% against my years of exprience with them, and I take it with a HUGE grain of salt.
Second, my point is that the ignorance concerning the Annunciation is a direct result of the proclaimed dogma of the IC, and, yes, the RC hierarchy is responsible in large part for that ignorance and neglect.

 

[Chaldean_Rite]

First of all, what you say about Orthodox Christians is 100% against my years of exprience with them, and I take it with a HUGE grain of salt.
Second, my point is that the ignorance concerning the Annunciation is a direct result of the proclaimed dogma of the IC, and, yes, the RC hierarchy is responsible in large part for that ignorance and neglect.

The bolded part above makes no sense to me. In fact, if you think about it, those who are familiar with dogmas, especially about this one, would undoubtedly be familiar with Scripture on this matter because being “full of grace” leaves no room for sin.

 

[Alethiaphile]

The bolded part above makes no sense to me. In fact, if you think about it, those who are familiar with dogmas, especially about this one, would undoubtedly be familiar with Scripture on this matter because being “full of grace” leaves no room for sin.

I don’t follow your entire point, but, as I said in my earlier post, Mary could have been accurately called “full of grace” without having been immaculately conceived. She was the reversal of Eve; Eve was born in a state of innocence and fell into sin. Mary, conversely, was born into the same state of imperfection that we all are and, through grace, was able to grow into a state of sanctity, culminating in her giving herself completely at the Annunciation. At the time of the Annunciation she was, truly, “full of grace” or “highly favored”.

 

[GailMac]

Dear Partyka - you state:“All this suggests is that Mary was purified by the Holy Spirit before conceiving Jesus in her womb, but it doesn’t require that she have been purified from the moment of her own conception.” Great! You got far enough to think that Mary was actually free of sin BEFORE God became flesh in her womb, but not far enough to be Catholic. Instead you prefer to think that the conception of God in her womb somehow rendered her less pure? impure? Or are you trying to say she had personal sin in her life? Can not God do all He willed for her? Or do you prefer that God only do what you will and are backpeddling into varying heresies to try and support you personal view? I think so.

I repeat Can not God do all He willed for her? And what about you? How much of His will for you have you allowed Him to have in your own life? Some? None? What’s up with that?

You poor thing. You cannot contemplate the Mother of God without sinful reasoning entering in. How do you expect to spend any of eternity with her? Or are you also stuck thinking only men get to heaven and all the women in the whole wide world are tossed aside like used dish rags? Your thinking is very distorted by the heresies you swallow. I wish it were otherwise for you. You could try this little prayer: Lord, I do believe, heal my unbelief…several times a day, each time your thinking tries to go backwards.

Peace,

Gail

 

[mpartyka]

Great! You got far enough to think that Mary was actually free of sin BEFORE God became flesh in her womb, but not far enough to be Catholic.

No, what I said was that it was potentially in the mind of the Fathers that Mary was purified from sin by the Holy Spirit before or at her conception of Christ. I myself could care less whether she had original sin, personal sin, venial sin, etc. What matters to me is that it was evidently not in the mind of the Fathers that a person could possibly have been conceived free from original sin if that conception took place as a result of sexual intercourse. Rather, the Fathers tesitfy that God introduced a new means of conception that was spiritual, not carnal, in order to bring His Son into the world as the only human being free from original sin.

Can not God do all He willed for her?..I repeat Can not God do all He willed for her?

From whence comes this assumption that God willed her to be free from the stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception?

You cannot contemplate the Mother of God without sinful reasoning entering in. How do you expect to spend any of eternity with her?

Actually, I’ve never spent much time thinking about spending eternity with the Mother of God or with any other saint (except perhaps St. Paul, whose conversion, life, and writings have always fascinated me). When my thoughts turn to eternity, my focus is almost always on God Himself. Even were I to deliberately turn to a more human focus for my contemplations of eternity, my thoughts would turn to Jesus, not Mary. I mean, if you’re going to focus your thoughts on a particular human being, why settle for anyone less than God incarnate?

(This has always been a point of confusion for me about the veneration of saints and of the Virgin Mary in particular. I have often been told by Catholics, “I focus on Mary because she points me to Jesus.” I generally reply, “Why not just focus on Jesus, then? Why settle for a signpost when you can have the destination?” Plus there’s the fact that there’s astonishingly little written about Mary after which we could pattern ourselves, whereas there abound scriptural examples from the lives of Jesus and other biblical saints such as Joseph, Peter, and Paul.)

Or are you also stuck thinking only men get to heaven and all the women in the whole wide world are tossed aside like used dish rags?

This remark fascinates me most of all. If God had made Mary the Mother of God without cleansing her from all stain of sin, original and personal, from the first moment of her conception, would that be, in your eyes, the equivalent of God’s using Mary like a dish rag and then tossing her aside?

–Mike

 

[mpartyka]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Here’s another near-contemporary of Pope Leo I who connects original sin with conception via sexual intercourse:

And we do not confess that the body of our Lord is from heaven; indeed we excommunicate everyone who says so; but we confess that it is by the Holy Ghost and the power of the Highest which overshadowed the holy Virgin Mary, the Theotokos. But if the Virgin did not bear God, then she who remained undefiled is not deserving of admiration. But if the voices of the prophets foretelling the incomprehensible nature of our mystery, cried out, ‘Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is, God with us,’ why do they take away from the glory of His mother, seeing that He Who was born in lowly fashion is God over all ? But perhaps the objectors will raise this objection, that truly every one who is born is of the same nature as the mother who bore him; if, then, she who bore him was human, it necessarily follows that he who was born was human also. Ye say well, O vain babblers! but then the child is of the same nature as she whom the birth-pangs smite when he who is born comes according to the natural course; however, the naturally-born child is corrupt from the beginning, because copulation precedes corruption. But where this reproach did not even enter the mind, but there was an ineffable miracle, the birth having been supernatural, there He that was born was God. – from The Letter of Proclus, Chief Priest of Constantinople, to the Armenians [against Nestorius]

Source

–Mike

 

[Chaldean_Rite]

Actually, I’ve never spent much time thinking about spending eternity with the Mother of God or with any other saint (except perhaps St. Paul, whose conversion, life, and writings have always fascinated me). When my thoughts turn to eternity, my focus is almost always on God Himself. Even were I to deliberately turn to a more human focus for my contemplations of eternity, my thoughts would turn to Jesus, not Mary. I mean, if you’re going to focus your thoughts on a particular human being, why settle for anyone less than God incarnate?

So lets throw Mary out of the picture, along with all the saints and angels!