[209] The statue of the Virgin is said to have come out of the Roman fabric with a hideous crack, which was clumsily patched up. See Hase, Protest. Polemik, 3d ed. p. 341, and Preuss, l.c. p. 197 (English edition).
[210] Why should the fiction of the Assumption of Mary to heaven (as it is called in distinction from the Ascension of Christ) not be proclaimed a divinely revealed fact and a binding dogma, as well as the Immaculate Conception? The evidence is about the same. If Mary was free from all contact with sin, she can not have been subject to death and corruption, which are the wages of sin. The silence of the Bible concerning her end might be turned to good account. Tradition, also, can be produced in favor of the assumption. St. Jerome was inclined to believe it, and even the great Augustine 'feared to say that the blessed body, in which Christ had been incarnate, could become food for the worms.' The festival of the Assumption, which presupposes the popular superstition, is older than the festival of the Immaculate Conception, and is traced by some to the fifth or sixth century.
[211] Dr. Kenrick, of St. Louis, in his work on the 'Holy House,' a book which is said to be too little known. See Smith, l.c. p. 279.
§ 29. The Argument for the Immaculate Conception.
The importance of the subject justifies and demands a brief examination of the arguments in favor of this novel dogma, which is one of the most characteristic features of modern Romanism, and forms an impassable gulf between it and Protestantism. It is a striking proof of Romish departure from the truth, and of the anti-Christian presumption of the Pope, who declared it to be a primitive divine revelation; while it is in fact a superstitious fiction of the dark ages, contrary alike to the Scriptures and to genuine Catholic tradition.
1. The dogma of the sinlessness of the Virgin Mary is unscriptural, and even anti-scriptural.
(a) The Scripture passages which Perrone and other champions of the Immaculate Conception adduce are, with one exception, all taken from the Old Testament, and based either on false renderings of the Latin Bible, or on fanciful allegorical interpretation.
(1) The main (and, according to Perrone, the only) support is derived from the protevangelium, Gen. iii. 15, where Jehovah Elohim says to the serpent, according to the Latin Bible (which the Romish Church has raised to an equality with the original): 'Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, et semen tuum et semen illius; Ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo ejus' (i.e., she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt assail her heel). Here the ipsa is referred to the woman (mulier), and understood of the Virgin Mary. [212] And it is inferred that the divinely constituted enmity between Mary and Satan must be unconditional and eternal, which would not be the case if she had ever been subject to hereditary sin. [213] To this corresponds the Romish exegesis of the fight of the woman (i.e., the Church) with the dragon, Rev. xii. 4 sqq.; the woman being falsely understood to mean Mary. Hence Romish art often represents her as crushing the head of the dragon.
But the translation of the Vulgate, on which all this reasoning is based, is contrary to the original Hebrew, which uses the masculine form of the verb, he (or it, the seed of the woman), i.e., Christ, shall bruise, or crush, the serpent's head, i.e., destroy the devil's power; it is inconsistent with the last clause, 'and thou shalt bruise his (i.e., Christ's) heel,' which contains a mysterious allusion to the crucifixion of the seed, not of the woman; and, finally, the Romish interpretation leads to the blasphemous conclusion that Mary, and not Christ, has destroyed the power of Satan, and saved the human race. [214]
(2) An unwarranted reference of some poetic descriptions of the fair and spotless bride, in the Song of Solomon, to Mary, instead of the people of Jehovah or the Christian Church, Cant. iv. 7, according to the Vulgate: 'Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te.' In any case, this is only a description of the present character.
(3) An arbitrary allegorical interpretation of the 'garden inclosed, and fountain sealed,' spoken of the spouse, Cant. iv. 12 (Vulg.: 'hortus conclusus, fons signatus'), and the closed gate in the east of the temple in the vision of Ezekiel, xliv. 1-3, of which it is said: 'It shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince; the prince he shall sit in it, to eat bread before the Lord.' This is a favorite support of the doctrine of the perpetual virginity. Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) was perhaps the first who found here a type of the closed womb of the Virgin, by which Christ entered into the world, and who added to the miracle of a conception sine viro the miracle of a birth clauso utero. [215] Jerome and other Fathers followed, and drew a parallel between the closed womb of the Virgin, from which Christ was born to earthly life, and the sealed tomb from which he arose to heavenly life. But none of the Fathers thought of making this prophecy prove the Immaculate Conception. Such exposition, or imposition rather, is an insult to the Bible, as well as to every principle of hermeneutics.
(4) Sap. i. 4: 'Into a malicious soul wisdom shall not enter; nor dwell in the body that is subject unto sin.' This passage (quoted by Speil and others), besides being from an apocryphal book, has nothing to do with Mary.
(5) Luke i. 28: the angelic greeting, 'Hail (Mary), full of grace (gratia plena),' according to the Romish versions, says nothing of the origin of Mary, but refers only to her condition at the time of the incarnation, and is besides a mistranslation (see below).
(b) All this frivolous allegorical trifling with the Word of God is conclusively set aside by the positive and uniform Scripture doctrine of the universal sinfulness and universal need of redemption, with the single exception of our blessed Saviour, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost without the agency of a human father. It is almost useless to refer to single passages, such as Rom. iii. 10, 23; v. 12, 18; 1 Cor. xv. 22; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15; Gal. iii. 22; Eph. ii. 3; 1 Tim. iv. 10; Psa. li. 5. The doctrine runs through the whole Bible, and underlies the entire scheme of redemption. St. Paul emphasizes the actual universality of the curse of Adam, in order to show the virtual universality of the salvation of Christ (Rom. v. 12 sqq.; 1 Cor. xv. 22); and to insert an exception in favor of Mary would break the force of the argument, and limit the extent of the atonement as well. Perrone admits the force of these passages, but tries to escape it by saying that, if strictly understood, they would call in question even the immaculate birth of Mary, and her freedom from actual sin as well, which is contrary to the Catholic faith; [216] hence the Council of Trent has deprived these passages of all force (omnem vim ademit) of application to the blessed Virgin! This is putting tradition above and against the Word of the holy and omniscient God, and amounts to a concession that the dogma is extra-scriptural and anti-scriptural. Unfortunately for Rome, Mary herself has made the application; for she calls God her Saviour (Luke i. 47: epi to theo to soteri mou), and thereby includes herself in the number of the redeemed. With this corresponds also the proper meaning of the predicate applied to her by the angel, Luke i. 28, kecharitomene, highly favored, endued with grace (die begnadigte), the one who received, and therefore needed, grace (non ut mater gratiæ, sed ut filia gratiæ, as Bengel well observes); comp. ver. 30, heures charin para to theo, thou hast found grace with God; and Eph. i. 6, echaritosen hemas, he bestowed grace upon us. But the Vulgate changed the passive meaning into the active: gratia plena, full of grace, and thus furnished a spurious argument for an error.
Nothing can be more truthful, chaste, delicate, and in keeping with womanly humility and modesty than both the words and the silence of the canonical Gospels concerning the blessed among women, whom yet our Lord himself, in prophetic foresight and warning against future Mariolatry, placed on a level with other disciples; emphatically asserting that there is a still higher blessedness of spiritual kinship than that of carnal consanguinity. Great is the glory of Mary--the mother of Jesus, the ideal of womanhood, the type of purity, obedience, meekness, and humility--but greater, infinitely greater is the glory of Christ--the perfect God-man--'the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace (pleres charitos not kecharitomenos) and of truth.'
2. The dogma of the sinlessness of Mary is also uncatholic. It lacks every one of the three marks of true catholicity, according to the canon of Vincentius Lirinensis, which is professedly recognized by Rome herself (the semper, the ubique, and the ab omnibus), and instead of a 'unanimous consent' of the Fathers in its favor, there is a unanimous silence, or even protest, of the Fathers against it. For more than ten centuries after the Apostles it was not dreamed of, and when first broached as a pious opinion, it was strenuously opposed, and continued to be opposed till 1854 by many of the greatest saints and divines of the Roman Church, including St. Bernard and St. Thomas Aquinas, and several Popes.
The ante-Nicene Fathers, far from teaching that Mary was free from hereditary sin, do not even expressly exempt her from actual sin, certainly not from womanly weakness and frailty. Irenæus (d. 202), who first suggested the fruitful parallel of Eve as the mother of disobedience, and Mary as the mother of obedience (not justified by the true Scripture parallel between Adam and Christ), and thus prepared the way for a false Mariology, does yet not hesitate to charge Mary with 'unseasonable haste' or 'urgency,' which the Lord had to rebuke at the wedding of Cana (fcJohn ii. 4); [217] and even Chrysostom, at the close of the fourth century, ventured to say that she was immoderately ambitious, and wanting in proper regard for the glory of Christ on that occasion. [218] The last charge is hardly just, for in the words, 'Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it,' she shows the true spirit of obedience and absolute trust in her Divine Son. Tertullian implicates her in the unbelief of the brethren of Jesus. [219] Origen thinks that she took offense, like the Apostles, at our Lord's sufferings, else 'he did not die for her sins;' and, according to Basil, she, too, 'wavered at the time of the crucifixion.' Gregory of Nazianzus, and John of Damascus, the last of the great Greek Fathers, teach that she was sanctified by the Holy Ghost; which has no meaning for a sinless being.
The first traces of the Romish Mariolatry and Mariology are found in the apocryphal Gospels of Gnostic and Ebionitic origin. [220] In marked contrast with the canonical Gospels, they decorate the life of Mary with marvelous fables, most of which have passed into the Roman Church, and some also into the Mohammedan Koran and its commentaries. [221]
Mariolatry preceded the Romish Mariology. Each successive step in the excessive veneration (hyperdulia) of the Virgin, and each festival memorializing a certain event in her life, was followed by a progress in the doctrine concerning Mary and her relation to Christ and the believer. The theory only justified and explained a practice already existing.
The Mariology of the Roman Catholic Church has passed through three stages: the perpetual virginity of Mary, her freedom from actual sin, and her freedom from hereditary sin.