THE DEVELOPMENT OF MARIOLOGY

    “Nothing is more distinctly Catholic that devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.”  So stated J. D. Conway in the authorized Catholic work, What the Church Teaches.  Those familiar with the outpouring of devotion toward Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the numerous doctrines concerning her in Roman Catholicism recognize the truthfulness of Conway’s statement.  Well do I remember my days as a student at St. John’s the Evangelist in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Each May one eighth-grade girl would be chosen from her class to receive the honor of placing a crown upon a statute of Mary that stood in the churchyard.  The entire school took part in the procession leading up to the climax, which was her crowing.  It was a marvelously inspiring ceremony, and as a child it never occurred to me to ask where it came from.  Yet, such a question is important.  Did God authorize in His Holy Word such devotion to Mary?  Did He teach the various doctrines concerning her therein?  Or is the entire system of Roman Catholic Mariology entirely man-made and without divine authority?

MARY IN THE SCRIPTURES

    Mary, the mother of Jesus, appears in the following New Testament passages: She is found in the narratives concerning the events surrounding Jesus’ birth—Matthew 1 and 2 and Luke 1 and 2; we read of Mary at the wedding feast in Cana, John 2:1-11; we read of her in the event described in Matthew 12:46, Mark 3:21-35; we read of her at the cross of Jesus in John 19:25-27; and finally we read of Mary in Acts 1:14 in the upper room in Jerusalem. The passage in the first chapter of Acts is the last time that we read of Mary. There she is said to be joined with the disciples and other women in prayer and supplication along with the brethren of Jesus. In the twenty-two books of the New Testament that follow the Acts of the Apostles, Mary is not mentioned. John, who was entrusted with her care by Jesus, does not mention her in any of his three epistles or in the book of Revelation. There is no place of prominence, no position of extraordinary honor, given to Mary in the pages of God’s word. At no time can we read of a prayer being offered to her or through her. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia gives this summation of what we can learn about Mary from the Biblical accounts concerning her. It says, “The sum of the matter concerning Mary seems to be this:

    The mother of Jesus was a typical Jewish believer of the best sort. She was deeply meditative, but by no means a daring or original thinker. Her inherited Messianic beliefs did not and perhaps could not prepare her for the method of Jesus which involved so much that was new and unexpected. But her heart was true, and from the beginning to the day of Pentecost, she pondered in her heart the meaning of her many puzzling experiences until the light came. The story of her life and of bet relationship to Jesus is consistent throughout and touched with manifold unconscious traits of truth. Such a narrative could not have been feigned or fabled.”

    There is absolutely no indication in God’s word of anything that even remotely resembles Roman Catholic Mariology. Where did it come from? How did this system of veneration grow into what it is today?

AS IT DEVELOPED

    It is safe and correct to say that the early church knew nothing of what has come to be called Mariology. Standing in sharp contrast to the Biblical account, there appeared certain apocryphal writings in the latter pert of the second century that greatly expanded upon Mary’s role and did so in legendary fashion. The most prominent of these was called The Protoevangelium of James. In this work, all sorts of things about Mary are stated, such as the names of her parents, that she stayed for a time in the temple as a little girl, a rather imaginative story about her birth, and it also states that she remained a virgin throughout her life. Roman Catholic authorities have rejected this work as spurious, and yet have absorbed many of its legends into their system of Mariology.

    As time went on, many other writers added other elements to the story. It is interesting to notice that a “church father” who is often quoted by Roman Catholic authorities as a Roman Catholic source raised his voice against these legends and denied that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life. His name was Tertullian and he died in 222 AD. There Is a picture of Mary found in a catacomb in Rome that is dated from the latter part of the second century. The necessary conclusion is that for at least 150 years after the establishment of the church, there was no special attention paid to Mary. It was not until the middle of the second century that legends concerning her began to appear.

    In the centuries that followed, various groups arose that denied the divinity of Jesus as born from Mary. They taught that the child conceived in Mary’s womb was solely man and not divine until after his birth. In response to this, the Council of Ephesus declared Mary the “mother of God” in 431 AD. From this decree the theologians engaged in all sorts of speculation. By 449 AD. we find Mary being referred to as a perpetual virgin. The reasoning behind this is not hard to understand. As the mother of God, surely purely human seed would not taint her womb. From here the process of elaboration continued with Mary being declared personally sinless and the teaching that she ascended bodily into heaven. This process has not stopped. Currently, strides are being taken to have Mary declared co-mediatrix with Jesus. Over the years, the Roman Catholic church has given her the title of Virgin of Virgins, Gate of Heaven, Queen of Heaven, Co-Redemptrix, Queen of Sorrows, Virgin Most Merciful, and many, many others. Th. whole system has no scriptural basis.

    Since there is no scriptural support for Mariology, as well as no historical evidence to sustain it either, how does the Roman Catholic church justify it? I think a quote from the Manual of Catholic Theology concerning just one doctrine in the system of Mariology will explain their approach. It says, “Mary’s corporeal assumption into heaven is so thoroughly implied in the notion of her personality as given by the Bible and dogma, that the church can dispense with strict historical evidence of the fact.” I suppose that if that’s the approach one chooses to take, then the facts make very little difference. In other words, the Roman Catholic authorities believe their system of Mariology to be true because they say it is true.

MARY - “EVER VIRGIN”

    In Isaiah 7:14 we find “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” Here is the prophecy concerning the miraculous character of the birth of Jesus. He would be born of a virgin. The gospel accounts of the events surrounding his birth demonstrate that this came to pass. Jesus was born of a virgin, meaning that Mary conceived Jesus in a miraculous way, by the Holy Spirit, without having “known” a man prior to the birth. This is what we have been told in the scriptures and all who respect the Word of God must believe it. 

    The Roman Catholic Church has a great deal to say about the virginity of Mary; indeed, much more than God ever did.  Not content with what has been revealed, Roman Catholic theologians and scholars have allowed their imaginations to run wild resulting in an elaborate doctrine that can be called “The Perpetual Virginity of Mary.”  This belief involves three stages of Mary’s virginity: her conception of Jesus without the cooperation of man, giving birth to Christ without violation her integrity, and remaining a virgin after Jesus was born.  This belief did not come into being in its entirety all at once, but rather gradually developed over a period of hundreds of years.  In this article, we will examine that development, notice exactly what these beliefs concerning Mary involve, and determine whether or not they are purely the speculation of man or if they have their basis in divine truth.

THE DEVELOPMENT

    Very early in the existence of the Church, Christians found it necessary to defend the virgin birth of our Lord because of its denial by various groups.  In the second century the Gnostics, under Cerinthus, voiced opposition to the revealed truth that Jesus was born of a virgin.  In the third century, opposition came from a group led by Celsus.  In response to these denials, the early Christians stood firmly upon the Word of God.  Such men as Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr uniformly defended the accounts of the virgin birth as given by Matthew and Luke in their gospels. What they defended has been revealed. Jesus had been miraculously conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit.  She was a virgin when this occurred and remained a virgin until the birth of our Lord. Had men been content with what God had revealed there would be no such thing as the doctrine of the “perpetual virginity of Mary.”

That they were not...

    As time went on, the revealed truth was taken a step further by uninspired men. Some began to teach that not only did Mary conceive without carnal intercourse, but her physical virginity was also not violated in giving birth to Christ. As early as 39O A.D., we can find the synod at Milan condemning the proposition that “a virgin conceived, but a virgin did not bring forth.”  ‘Without going into physiological detail, this proposition was not teaching that after the conception, but prior to the birth, mary had relations with Joseph.  Rather it was the teaching that, in the natural course of things, during the birth the passage was opened.  Uninspired men denied that this was true.

    Augustine wrote, “For as a virgin she conceived, as a virgin she gave birth, a virgin she remained” in Sermons. In DeTrinitate, he wrote, “For neither do we know the countenance of the Virgin Mary, from who, untouched by a husband, nor tainted in the birth itself, He was wonderfully born.”

    In Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed from the 5th century, Ruflnus wrote, “The gate which was shut (Ezech. 44:2) was her virginity. Though it the Lord God of Israel entered; through It He advanced into this world from the Virgin’s womb. And because her virginity was perserved intact, the Virgin’s gate has remained shut for ever.”

     Collier’s Encyclopedia, Vol. 15, tells us, “Ancient writers such as Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome employ various analogies - the emergence of Christ from the time sealed tomb, the penetration of light through glass, or human thought leaving the mind, to explain how Jesus could have been born and yet Mary remain intact.

    Having taken this step in their thinking, uninspired men took yet another one.  Since Mary conceived as a virgin, and since she remained “intact” in the birth of Christ, they reasoned that she surely must have remained a virgin for the rest of her life, never engaging in normal marital relations with her husband, Joseph.  From the 4^th century we find these words from Basil: “The friends of Christ do not tolerate hearing that the Mother of God ever ceased to be a virgin.”  By the Fifth General Council of Constantinople in 533, Mary had received the title “Perpetual Virgin.”  Today, the Baltimore Catechism says, “Mary, the Mother of God, remained a virgin not only in the conception of Christ but also in His birth and during the rest of her life.”

    Besides forcing Roman Catholic authorities to do a great deal of explaining concerning New Testament passages that speak of the “brethren of the Lord,” such as Matt. 12:46-50, the doctrine of the “perpetual virginity of Mary” raises another very serious question.  The Bible teaches that the marriage bed is undefiled (Heb. 13:4) and that a husband and wife have the God-given responsibility to tnd the the sexual needs of each other (I Cor. 7).  If Mary remained a virgin throughout her life, then she and Joseph were married in apperance only and were recreant to one another in clear violation of God’s decrees concerning this holiest of human relationships.  We can get an idea of the type of thinking that gave rise to this doctrine in a letter for the 4^th century from Siricius.  He wrote, “We surely cannot deny that you were right in correcting the doctrines about children of Mary, and Your Holiness was right in rejecting the idea that any other offspring should come from the same virginal womb form which Christ was born according to the flesh.  For the Lord Jesus would not have chosen to be born of a virgin if he had judged that she would be so incontinent as to taint the birthplace of the body of the Lord, the home of the eternal king, with the seed of human intercourse.”  Truly, there would have been absolutely nothing incontinent about Mary fulfilling her obligations as a wife.  Not to do so would have been sinful.

    It is interesting, and revealing, that the idea of the “perpetual virginity” of Mary is not found in the scriptures.  That Jesus was conceived in the womb of a virgin by The Holy Spirit is to be found there.  The rest of the Roman Catholic doctrine concerning her virginity springs, not from the mind of God but from the imaginations of men.

THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY

    On Nov. 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII issued the following declaration: “By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”  With these words the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary was formally defined and made an article of faith in the Roman Catholic Church.  How this idea ever reached the level of and “article of faith” is a tale of pure speculation, human reasoning, fanciful flights of imagination, and complete disregard for scriptural or historical evidence.

THE GROWTH OF A DOCTRINE

    I would like to present a question and answer from the book, The Question Box, by Rev. Bertrand L. Conway, bearing the Imprimatur of Patrick Cardinal Hayes.  The book was written in 1929, so it was before the official declaration of the Assumption by Pius XII, but it reveals a great deal about how such a doctrine came into being.

    Here is the question:  “Is there any Biblical or historical proof of the ascension of the Virgin Mary into heaven?  Is the Assumption a dogma of the faith?”  Answer:  “The dogma of the Assumption means the Blessed Virgin’s entrance into heaven, body and soul by the power of God.  The active term Ascension is used only of Jesus Christ’s entrance into heaven by His own divine power.  The doctrine has never been defined by the Church, although its wide acceptance since the sixth century renders it a certain doctrine, that cannot be denied by Catholics without rashness.

     “It cannot be proved from the Bible, or from contemporary historical witness, but it rests on such solid theological principles, that many Bishops have written the Apostolic See, requesting its definition as a dogma of faith.

     Some may think it strange that the Fathers of the first five centuries do not mention it. But as St. Augustine says:  “There are many things that the universal Church maintains and that we reasonably believe were preached by the Apostles, although they never have been put in writing"”(De Bapt., v. 23).  We can readily conjecture reasons for their silence.  Perhaps they feared that certain heretics, like the Valentinians, might cite this doctrine in proof of their errors concerning the Body of Christ.  Perhaps again they wished to keep the cultus of the Blessed Virgin in the background on account of the prevalent idolatry.  Moreover, when bitter controversy was being waged on such important dogmas as the Trinity and the Incarnation, less important doctrines might well be ignored. 

    It certainly seems most fitting that the body of the Immaculate Mother of God should not taste corruption, and that it should share in the triumph of her Son, the Risen Chist.  Kellner tells us that the feast of the Assumption in the East is older that the sixth century, for it was celebrated by the heretical sects that separated from Rome in the fifth century, viz., the Monophysites, the Nestorians, the Armenians, and the Ethiopians.  The most ancient writer to speak of it in the West is St. Gregory of Tours (539) who writes, "“he Lord has the most holy body of the virgin taken into heaven, where, reunited to her soul, it now enjoys with the elect, happiness without end.”

    From the quote just presented, we can see that as far as the Assumption is concerned, Roman Catholic authorities readily admit that there is not biblical evidence to support it, nor is there any contemporary historical evidence to support it.  Lack of substantive evidence proves no problem to them.  One Roman Catholic writer put it this way; “Mary’s corporeal assumption into heaven is so thoroughly implied tin the notion of her personality as given by Bible and dogma, that he church can dispense with strict historical evidence of the fact” in The Manual of Catholic Theology.

    Again in the statement from the Question Box, we find it admitted that the early church was silent on the subject for the first five centuries.  Several conjectured reasons were given for this silence, and yet the most obvious reason for the silence was left out-that being that the early church knew nothing of an Assumption of Mary and did not believe it.

    Finally, over 500 years after the establishment of the Church, Gregory of Tours mentions the Assumption of Mary in has book In Gloriam Martyrum. While nothing is said of thenature of Gregory’s book in the Question Box quote it is little more than a fairy tale.  The book tells of Mary laying dying with the apostles gathered around her bed.  Into this scene, Jesus appears with His angels and comits the soul of Mary to the care of Gabriel and her body is carried away in a cloud.  Of this story, Tanis remarks in What Rome Teaches, “There is no more evidence for the truth of this legend than for the ghost stories told by our grandfathers.”  It is utterly unbelievable that such a legend could have grown into an official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.

    The quote from the Question Box also told us that the doctrine rested upon solid theological principles.  What are those principles?  I want us to notice an amazing uniformity in approach.  In the Question Box quote we saw it stated, “It certainly seems most fitting…,”  John of Damascus, an 8th century writer, wrote in Homily 2 on the Assumption, “It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death.  It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a Child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles.  It was fitting that she, who has seen here Son upon the Cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to Him, should look upon Him as He sits at the right hand of the Father.  It was fitting that God’s Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the Handmaid of God.”

    Even Collier’s Encyclopedia says, “In the absence of a dogmatic pronouncement, modern theologians generally believe that Mary died.  Though they admit she was not bound by the law of mortality, because of her exemption from sin, (this is another subject altogether (g.l.), they believe it was fitting that Mary’s body should resemble that of her Son, who allowed Himself to die for the salvation of men.”

        I think that we can recognize the “solid theological principles” involved here.  They can be summed up with the words,  “It certainly seemed fitting…”  In other words, “It seems like it ought to be true, therefore it is.”  I wonder if any Roman Catholic theologian would like to be tried for a crime on the basis of “It certainly seems fitting that he did it, “ or if they would be willing to “dispense with the strict historical evidence of the fact?”

    Four years before defining the Assumption of Mary as an article of faith, Pius XII asked all of the bishops in communion with Rome whether or not they believed it and, if so, whether or not a solemn declaration was in order.  Practically the whole episcopate answered yes to both questions, so Pius XII decided tom make it official.  My friends, the basis for the declaration was, “We believe it, therefore it is true.”  It has been readily admitted that there is no scriptural or historical evidence to prove this doctrine, and the personal beliefs of the Roman Catholic bishops are not good enough.