Pope Leo the Great on the Immaculate Conception

[rad314]

Likewise: . . .

Been around that block a few times.

We give you answers that conflict with the dogma of the Church of Mike and you don’t like it.

One wonders why you’re still here. . . .

 

[Monica4316]

Letter 35:3 – “For although the Lord’s nativity according to the flesh has certain characteristics wherein it transcends the ordinary beginnings of man’s being, both because He alone was conceived and born** without concupiscence **of a pure Virgin, and because He was so brought forth of His mother’s womb that her fecundity bare Him without loss of virginity: yet His flesh was not of another nature to ours: nor was the soul breathed into Him from another source to that of all other men, and it excelled others not in difference of kind but in superiority of power. For He had no opposition in His flesh [nor did the strife of desires give rise to a conflict of wishes]. His bodily senses were active without the law of sin, and the reality of His emotions being under the control of His Godhead and His mind, was neither assaulted by temptations nor yielded to injurious influences.”

I think that this quote doesn’t say anything against the Immaculate Conception.

The Catholic understanding of the original sin, involves a corrupted (not changed…but weakened) nature, and concupiscence. In this quote, he says that Our Lord was born without concupiscence but had the same nature… showing that being born without concupiscence (without original sin, by Catholic understanding) does NOT mean being born with a “different nature”. (I’m saying this because it’s one of the main EO arguments against the Immaculate Conception). Christ had the same nature, just not weakened by original sin.

If being born without original sin meant being born with a different nature, Pope Leo would not have said, that Christ was born without concupiscence but had the same nature, nonetheless.

1st Sermon on the Nativity – "…the Almighty Lord enters the lists with His savage foe not in His own majesty but in our humility, opposing him with the same form and the same nature, which shares indeed our mortality, **though it is free from all **sin.

thus including the original sin.

Truly foreign to this nativity 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."

as a side point, “no one is clean from stain, not even the infant who has lived but one day upon earth”… shows the doctrine of original sin… which the Orthodox don’t believe.

then, Pope Leo says: “Nothing of the law of sin has entered” - meaning that Christ didn’t have original sin… but the Pope also says that Christ had the same nature. Meaning that… being born without original sin doesn’t cause a new nature… using this logic, Christ could have been born without original sin, but was still fully human. This doesn’t say anything against the Immaculate Conception of Mary… the Pope doesn’t seem to mention it.

 

[Monica4316]

Pope Leo clarifies this in the next point:

And ‘ours’ we call what the Creator formed in us from the beginning and what He undertook to repair.

the Creator formed the first humans (“in the beginning”) without sin. This means again, that Christ could be born without original sin, and still have a nature that is fully “ours”. Previously, Pope Leo says that Christ took on our “old nature”, so that involves a nature that is capable of death, sickness, etc…with all the effects of original sin, except concupiscence (or original sin itself).

The Orthodox say that there’s no such thing as original sin, but Pope Leo (and many other ECFs) contradict that…

For what the deceiver brought in and the deceived admitted had no trace in the Saviour.

Another similar point

He came that He might cure every weakness of our corruptness and all the sores of our defiled souls: for which reason it behoved Him to be born by a new order, who brought to men’s bodies the new gift of unsullied purity. 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 this one

For when he observed that His nature was like that of all others, he thought that He had the same origin as all had: and did not understand that He was free from the bonds of transgression because he did not find Him a stranger to the weakness of mortality

For no taint of sin penetrated, where no intercourse occurred.

The Lord took from His mother our nature, not our fault.

here the Pope says that Christ was free from all sin (probably including original sin), but was still mortal… shared our nature… again clarifying that sharing our nature does not involve sharing in any of our sin. This could also be true of Mary, who is fully human, and mortal, but never sinned and was purified at her conception.

When, therefore, the merciful and almighty Saviour so arranged the commencement of His human course as to hide the power of His Godhead which was inseparable from His manhood under the veil of our weakness, 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…and knowing how he had poisoned man’s nature, had no conception that He had no share in the first transgression Whose mortality he had ascertained by so many proofs. The unscrupulous thief and greedy robber persisted in assaulting Him Who had nothing of His own, and in carrying out the general sentence on **original sin, **went beyond the bond on which he rested, and required the punishment of iniquity from Him in Whom he found no fault."

here again he mentions original sin… which the EO do not believe in

 

[Monica4316]

Now that we can see that Pope Leo believed in the concept of original sin… (and so did many other ECFs)

Consider these quotes:

Hippolytus

He [Jesus] was the ark formed of incorruptible wood. For by this is signified that His tabernacle [Mary] was** exempt from defilement and corruption **(Orat. In Illud, Dominus pascit me, in Gallandi, Bibl. Patrum, II, 496 ante [A.D. 235]).

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]).

Ambrose of Milan

Come, then, and search out your sheep, not through your servants or hired men, but do it yourself. Lift me up bodily and in the flesh, which is fallen in Adam. Lift me up not from Sarah but from Mary, **a Virgin not only undefiled but a Virgin whom grace had made inviolate, free of every stain of sin **(Commentary on Psalm 118:22-30 [A.D. 387]).

Gregory Nazianzen

He was conceived by the virgin, who had been first purified by the Spirit in soul and body; for, as it was fitting that childbearing should receive its share of honor, so it was necessary that virginity should receive even greater honor (Sermon 38 [d. A.D. 390]).

Augustine

We must except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord; **for from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her **who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin (Nature and Grace 36:42 [A.D. 415]).

Theodotus of Ancrya

**A virgin, innocent, spotless, free of all defect, untouched, unsullied, holy in soul and body, like a lily sprouting among thorns **(Homily 6:11[ante A.D. 446]).

Proclus of Constantinople

As He formed her without any stain of her own, **so He proceeded from her contracting no stain **(Homily 1[ante A.D. 446]). → Immaculate Conception

Jacob of Sarug

[T]he very fact that God has elected her proves that none was ever holier than Mary, if any stain had disfigured her soul, if any other virgin had been purer and holier, God would have selected her and rejected Mary[ante A.D. 521].