John Scotus begins his defence of the Marian privilege, by presenting his arguments against the common opinion of theologians. He builds the first argument upon the figure of Christ as the most perfect mediator.
“Christ was the most perfect mediator. Therefore he exercised the highest degree of mediation in favour of another person. Now he could not be a most perfect mediator and could not repair the effects of sin to the highest degree if he did not preserve his Mother from original sin (as we shall prove). Therefore, since he was the most perfect mediator regarding the person of his Mother, from this it follows that he preserved her from original sin.” [7]
The key notion to understand Scotus’ theology in this paragraph, as indeed in all his arguments in this question on the Immaculate Conception, is the verb “to preserve”. Christ preserved his Mother from original sin, according to Scotus. In other words, the Blessed Virgin Mary, like every other human person, was bound to be conceived in original sin, but she was preserved from it through the merits of her Son.
Scotus goes on to show that the perfect act of mediation in favour of a person does not only concern that person’s liberation from the guilt of actual sins, but also the liberation from the guilt which is a result of original sin, which he calls culpa contracta (contracted guilt). In order to prove this he quotes an example given by Saint Anselm in his Cur Deus homo II, c. 16. A king is offended by a father, and punishes him and all his future sons by sending them into exile. But the king is drawn to love in a special way one of the sons born to that man, and he would have wanted to preserve him from exile. So what he does is to forgive that man and his sons from the punishment of exile, but in his anger he does not forgive them their culpa contracta, or acquired guilt. In order to speak of a perfect act of mediation and forgiveness, that man has to acquire for his son not only the king’s forgiveness of his acquired guilt but also the king’s benevolence. In the same way, through his death on the cross, Christ merited not only the forgiveness of any sin which his Mother could have committed without the help of grace, but even that of the acquired guilt in which she was to be conceived like every other human being.
Scotus therefore states that there cannot be a most perfect mediator and reconciler if he does not acquire the remission of the greatest guilt in favour of the one he is mediating for. Christ could not have been a perfect mediator if he did not permit that at least the soul of one single person would not have been deprived of rectitude in the fullest sense. Now the Virgin Mary was innocent to the highest degree. If her Son had to be her most perfect redeemer and reconcilator, he had to preserve her from original sin. The Holy Trinity, which could also foresee the merits of the passion of Christ, for this very reason, permitted that the Virgin Mary be preserved from all guilt, whether it resulted from actual sin or from original sin.
