Immaculate Conception (Part 2)

Proof from Tradition

In regard to the sinlessness of Mary the older Fathers are very cautious: some of them even seem to have been in error on this matter.

• Origen, although he ascribed to Mary high spiritual prerogatives, thought that, at the time of Christ's passion, the sword of disbelief pierced Mary's soul; that she was struck by the poniard of doubt; and that for her sins also Christ died (Origen, "In Luc. hom. xvii").
• In the same manner Saint Basil writes in the fourth century: he sees in the sword, of which Simeon speaks, the doubt which pierced Mary's soul (Epistle 259).
• Saint Chrysostom accuses her of ambition, and of putting herself forward unduly when she sought to speak to Jesus at Capharnaum (Matthew 11:46; Chrysostom, Hom. xliv; cf. also "In Matt. ", hom. iv).

But these stray private opinions merely serve to show that theology is a progressive science. If we were to attempt to set forth the full doctrine of the Fathers on the sanctity of the Blessed Virgin, which includes particularly the implicit belief in the immaculateness of her conception, we should be forced to transcribe a multitude of passages. In the testimony of the Fathers two points are insisted upon: her absolute purity and her position as the second Eve (cf. I Cor 15:22).

Mary as the second Eve

This celebrated comparison between Eve, while yet immaculate and incorrupt -- that is to say, not subject to original sin -- and the Blessed Virgin is developed by:

• Justin (Dialog. cum Tryphone 100),
• Irenaeus (Contra Haereses III xxii 4),
• Tertullian (De carne Christi xvii),
• Julius Firm cus Maternus (De errore profan. relig xxvi),
• Cyril of Jerusalem (Catecheses xii 29),
• Epiphanius (Hæres lxxviii 18),
• Theodotus of Ancyra (Or. in S. Deip n.11), and
• Sedulius (Carmen paschale II 28).

The absolute purity of Mary

Patristic writings on Mary's purity abound.

• The Fathers call Mary the tabernacle exempt from defilement and corruption (Hippolytus, Ontt. in illud, Dominus pascit me);
• Origen calls her 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 (Hom. i in diversa);
• Ambrose says she is incorrupt, a virgin immune through grace from every stain of sin (Sermo xxii in Ps. Cxviii);
• Maximum of Turin calls her a dwelling fit for Christ, not because of her habit of body, but because of original grace (Nom. viii de Natali Domini);
• Theodotus of Ancyra terms her a virgin innocent, without spot, void of culpability, holy in body and in soul, a lily springing among thorns, untaught the ills of Eve nor was there any communion in her of light with darkness, and, when not yet born, she was consecrated to God (Orat. in S. Dei Genitr.).
• In refuting Pelagius St. Augustine declares that all the just have truly known of sin "except the Holy Virgin Mary, of whom, for the honour of the Lord, I will have no question whatever where sin is concerned" (De naturâ et gratiâ 36).
• Mary was pledged to Christ (Peter Chrysologus, Sermo cxl de Annunt. BMV);
• it is evident and notorious that she was pure from eternity, exempt from every defect (Typicon S. Sabae);
• she was formed without any stain (Saint Proclus, Laudatio in S. Dei Gen. ort. I 3);
• she was created in a condition more sublime and glorious than all other natures (Theodorus of Jerusalem in Mansi, XII, 1140);
• when the Virgin Mother of God was to be born of Anne, nature did not dare to anticipate the germ of grace, but remained devoid of fruit (John Damascene, Hom. i in BV Nativ. ii).
• The Syrian Fathers never tire of extolling the sinlessness of Mary. Saint Ephraem considers no terms of eulogy too high to describe the excellence of Mary's grace and sanctity: "Most holy Lady, Mother of God, alone most pure in soul and body, alone exceeding all perfection of purity ...., alone made in thy entirety the home of all the graces of the Most Holy Spirit, and hence exceeding beyond all compare even the angelic virtues in purity and sanctity of soul and body ... my Lady most holy, all-pure, all-immaculate, all-stainless, all-undefiled, all-incorrupt, all-inviolate spotless robe of Him Who clothes Himself with light as with a garment . ... flower unfading, purple woven by God, alone most immaculate" (Precationes ad Deiparam in Opp. Graec. Lat. III 524-37).
• To Saint Ephraem she was as innocent as Eve before her fall, a virgin most estranged from every stain of sin, more holy than the Seraphim, the sealed fountain of the Holy Ghost, the pure seed of God, ever in body and in mind intact and immaculate (Carmina Nisibena).
• Jacob of Sarug says that "the 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. " It seems, however, that Jacob of Sarug, if he had any clear idea of the doctrine of sin, held that Mary was perfectly pure from original sin ("the sentence against Adam and Eve") at the Annunciation.

Saint John Damascene (Or. i Nativ. Deip. n. 2) esteems the supernatural influence of God at the generation of Mary to be so comprehensive that he extends it also to her parents. He says of them that, during the generation, they were filled and purified by the Holy Ghost, and freed from sexual concupiscence. Consequently according to the Damascene, even the human element of her origin, the material of which she was formed, was pure and holy. This opinion of an immaculate active generation and the sanctity of the "conceptio carnis" was taken up by some Western authors; it was put forward by Petrus Comestor in his treatise against St. Bernard and by others. Some writers even taught that Mary was born of a virgin and that she was conceived in a miraculous manner when Joachim and Anne met at the golden gate of the temple (Trombelli, "Mari SS. Vita, " Sect V ii 8; Summa aurea II 948. Cf. also the Revelations of Catherine Emmerich which contain the entire apocryphal legend of the miraculous conception of Mary.

From this summary it appears that the belief in Mary's immunity from sin in her conception was prevalent amongst the Fathers, especially those of the Greek Church. The rhetorical character, however, of many of these and similar passages prevents us from laying too much stress on them, and interpreting them in a strictly literal sense. The Greek Fathers never formally or explicitly discussed the question of the Immaculate Conception.

The Conception of Saint John the Baptist

A comparison with the conception of Christ and that of Saint John may serve to light both on the dogma and on the reasons which led the Greeks to celebrate at an early date the Feast of the Conception of Mary.

• The conception of the Mother of God was beyond all comparison more noble than that of Saint John the Baptist, whilst it was immeasurably beneath that of her Divine Son.
• The soul of the precursor was not preserved immaculate at its union with the body, but was sanctified either shortly after conception from a previous state of sin, or through the presence of Jesus at the Visitation.
• Our Lord, being conceived by the Holy Ghost, was, by virtue of his miraculous conception, ipso facto free from the taint of original sin.

Of these three conceptions the Church celebrates feasts. The Orientals have a Feast of the Conception of Saint John the Baptist (23 September), which dates back to the fifth century, is thus older than the Feast of the Conception of Mary, and, during the Middle Ages, was kept also by many Western dioceses on 24 September. The Conception of Mary is celebrated by the Latins on 8 December; by the Orientals on 9 December; the Conception of Christ has its feast in the universal calendar on 25 March. In celebrating the feast of Mary's Conception the Greeks of old did not consider the theological distinction of the active and the passive conceptions, which was indeed unknown to them. They did not think it absurd to celebrate a conception which was not immaculate, as we see from the Feast of the Conception of Saint John. They solemnized the Conception of Mary, perhaps because, according to the Proto-evangelium of Saint James, it was preceded by miraculous events (the apparition of an angel to Joachim, etc.), similar to those which preceded the conception of Saint John, and that of our Lord Himself. Their object was less the purity of the conception than the holiness and heavenly mission of the person conceived. In the Office of 9 December, however, Mary, from the time of her conception, is called beautiful, pure, holy, just, etc., terms never used in the Office of 23 September (sc. of Saint John the Baptist). The analogy of Saint John's sanctification may have given rise to the Feast of the Conception of Mary. If it was necessary that the precursor of the Lord should be so pure and "filled with the Holy Ghost" even from his mother's womb, such a purity was assuredly not less befitting His Mother. The moment of Saint John's sanctification is by later writers thought to be the Visitation ("the infant leaped in her womb"), but the angel's words (Luke 1:15) seem to indicate a sanctification at the conception. This would render the origin of Mary more similar to that of John. And if the Conception of John had its feast, why not that of Mary?