[224] He says: 'Piety must confess that the mother of our Lord and Saviour was sinless' (as quoted by Augustine, De nat. et gratia, cc. 36, § 42: 'quam dicit sine peccato confiteri necesse esse pietati'). Pelagius also excludes from sin Abel, Enoch, Melchisedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, Samuel, Nathan, Elijah, Elisha, Daniel, Ezekiel, John the Baptist, Deborah, Anna, Judith, Esther, Elisabeth, and Joseph, the husband of Mary, who 'have not only not sinned, but also lived a righteous life.' Julian, his ablest follower, objected to Augustine that, by his doctrine of hereditary sin and universal depravity, he handed even Mary over to the power of the devil (ipsam Mariam diabolo nascendi conditione transcribis); to which Augustine replied (Opus imperf. contra Jul. 1. IV. c. 122): 'Non transscribimus diabolo Mariam conditione nascendi, sed ideo quia ipsa conditio solvitur gratia renascendi,' i.e., because this condition (of sinful birth) is solved or set aside by the grace of the second birth. When this took place, he does not state.
[225] It is characteristic that the Dominicans and Jansenists, who sympathized with the Augustinian anthropology, opposed the Immaculate Conception; while the Franciscans and Jesuits, who advocated it, have a more or less decided inclination towards Pelagianizing theories, and reduce original sin to a loss of supernatural righteousness, i.e., something merely negative, so that it is much easier to make an exception in favor of Mary. The Jesuits, at least, have an intense hatred of Augustinian views on sin and grace, and have shown it in the Jansenist controversy.
[226] The predicate immaculate was sometimes applied to other holy virgins, e.g., to S. Catharine of Siena, who is spoken of as la immaculata vergine, in a decree of that city as late as 1462. See Hase, l.c. p.§336.
[227] See A. V. Mouravieff on the dogma, in Neale's Voices from the East, 1859, pp. 117-155.
[228] 'Virgo regia falso non eget honore, veris cumalata honorum titulis. . . . Non est hoc Virginem honorare sed honori detraher. . . . Præsumpta novitas mater temeritatis, soror superstitionis, filia levitatis.' See his Epistola 174, ad Canonicos Lugdunenses, De conceptione S. Mar. (Op. ed. Migne, I. pp. 332-336). Comp. also Bernard's Sermo 78 in Cant., Op. Vol. II. pp.1160, 1162.
[229] . . . 'et sic tenderetur in infinitum, et festorum non esset numerus' (Ep. 174, p. 334 sq.).
[230] 'Si igitur ante conceptum sui sanctificari minime potuit, quoniam non erat; sed nec in ipso quidem conceptu, propter peccatum quod inerat: restat ut post conceptum in utero jam existens sanctificationem accepisse credatur, quæ excluso peccato sanctam fecerit nativitatem, non tamen et conceptionem' (l.c. p. 336).
[231] Anselm, who is sometimes wrongly quoted on the other side, says, Cur Deus Homo, ii. 16 (Op. ed. Migne, I. p. 416): 'Virgo ipsa . . . est in iniquitatibus concepta, et in peccatis concepit eam mater ejus, et cum originali peccato nata est, quoniam et ipsa in Adam peccavit, in quo omnes peccaverunt.' To these words of Boso, Anselm replies that 'Christ, though taken from the sinful mass (de massa peccatrice assumptus), had no sin.' Then he speaks of Mary twice as being purified from sin (mundata a peccatis) by the future death of Christ (c. 16, 17). His pupil and biographer, Eadmer, in his book De excellent. beatæ Virg. Mariæ, c. 3 (Ans. Op. ed. Migne, II. pp. 560-62), says that the blessed Virgin was freed from all remaining stains of hereditary and actual sin when she consented to the announcement of the mystery of the Incarnation by the angel.' Quoted also by Perrone, pp. 47-49.
[232] Summa Theologiæ, Pt. III. Qu. 27 (De sanctificatione B. Virg.), Art. 1-5; in Libr. I. Sentent. Dist. 44, Qu. 1, Art. 3. Nevertheless, Perrone (pp. 231 sqq.) thinks that St. Bernard and St. Thomas are not in the way of a definition of the new dogma, 'because they wrote at a time when this view was not yet made quite clear, and because they lacked the principal support, which subsequently came to its aid; hence they must in this case be regarded as private teachers, propounding their own particular opinions, but not as witnesses of the traditional meaning of the Church.' He then goes on to charge these doctors with comparative ignorance of previous Church history. This may be true, but does not help the matter; since the fuller knowledge of the Fathers in modern times reveals a still wider dissent from the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
[233] The other Popes, who taught that Mary was conceived in sin, are Gelasius I., Innocent V., John XXII., and Clement VI. (d. 1352). The proof is furnished by the Jansenist Launoy, Proescriptions, Opera I. pp. 17 sqq., who also shows that the early Franciscans, and even Loyola and the early Jesuits, denied the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Perrone calls him an 'irreligious innovator' (p. 34), and an 'impudent liar' (p. 161), but does not refute his arguments, and evades the force of his quotations from Leo, Gelasius, and Gregory by the futile remark that they would prove too much, viz., that Mary was even born in sin, and not purified before the Incarnation, which would be impious!
[234] Duns Scotus, Opera, Lugd. 1639, Tom. VII. Pt. I. pp. 91-100. One of his arguments of probability is that, as God blots out original sin by baptism every day, he can as well do it in the moment of conception. Compare Perrone, pp. 18 sqq.
[235] Related by Wadding, in his Annal. Minorum, Lugd. 1635, Tom. III. p. 37, but rejected by Natalis Alexander, in his Church History, as a fiction, and doubted even by Perrone (p. 163), who says, however, that Duns Scotus refuted all the arguments of his opponents 'in a truly astounding manner.'
[236] Sessio V.: 'Declarat S. Synodus, non esse suæ intentionis, comprehendere in hoc decreto, ubi de peccato originali agitur, beatam et immaculatam Virginem Mariam, Dei genitricem; sed observandas esse constitutiones felicis recordationis Sixti Papæ IV. sub poenis in eis constitutionibus contentis, quas innovat.'
[237] 'Ejus (sc. Mariæ),' says Alexander VII., in the bull Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum (Bullar. Rom. ed. Coquelines, Tom. VI. p. 182), 'animam in primo instanti creationis atque infusionis in corpus fuisse speciali Dei gratia et privilegio, intuitu meritorum Christi, ejus Filii, humani generis Redemptoris, a macula peccati originalis præservatam immunem.' Compare the decree of Pius IX. p. 110, which substitutes suæ conceptionis for creationis atque infusionis (animæ) in corpus, and ab omni originalis culpæ labe for a macula peccati originalis.
[238] L.c. p. 33.
[239] Perrone, ch. xiv. pp. 102 sqq.
[240] As to the time of the creation and infusion of the soul, whether it took place simultaneously with the generation of the body, or on the fortieth day (as was formerly supposed), there is no fixed opinion among Roman divines.
[241] So the matter is explained by Perrone at the beginning of his Treatise, pp. 1-4; and this accords with the bull of Alexander VII. (in primo instanti creationis atque infusionis in corpus, etc.), see p. 125.
[242] The profounder schoolmen, however, represented by St. Thomas, had a deeper view of original sin, nearer to that of Augustine and the Reformers. The same is true of Möhler, who speaks of a 'deep vulneration of the soul in all its powers,' and a 'perverse tendency of the will,' as a necessary consequence of the Fall.
[243] . . . 'intuitu meritorum Christi Jesu, Salvatoris humani generis.'
[244] . . . 'doctrinam . . . esse a Deo revelatam,' etc.