"Orthodoxy" and Original Sin

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

I disagree. If Mary was immaculately conceived -- i.e., in the state of Sanctifying Grace -- how can she be subjected to certain effects of Original Sin, since she was conceived without Original Sin? Does not make sense. "Death" of Our Lord and Our Lady cannot be equated with the death fallen nature experiences. Our Lord had to die  because death is what was exacted to pay the ransom of sin.  Mary did not have to die but she chose to.

"What God revealed to the Blessed Virgin Mary spiritually, without words or concepts, at her Immaculate Conception, is unimaginable. Mary advanced in grace from the moment of her conception through gifts lavishly bestowed upon her by her Creator. Mary herself testifies, He Who is mighty has done great things for me (Lk.1:49).  --Fr. Louis Campbell

"Our tainted nature's solitary boast"  said William Wordsworth.  

What we need to discuss is -- what if Eve did not disobey and thus sin did not enter the world.  

There were still effects, not arising from Original Sin, but still a consequence (i.e., the withdrawal of the extraordinary gifts of the physical body); after all, Our Lady suffered, whereas before Adam and Eve sinned, the human race didn't suffer any pains whatsoever.

[Han]

Dilexisti--

 

The old Catholic Encylopaedia article on the Immaculate Conception can be found here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07674d.htm

 

What have I written about the Immaculate Conception is contradicted by this digest of Catholic tradition about the dogma?  Or is it that the Catholic Encyclopaedia is also heretical?

[Dilexisti]

Dilexisti--

The old Catholic Encylopaedia article on the Immaculate Conception can be found here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07674d.htm

What have I written about the Immaculate Conception is contradicted by this digest of Catholic tradition about the dogma?  Or is it that the Catholic Encyclopaedia is also heretical?

Han,

I will not say the C.E. is heretical, but it does contain errors.  A compendium of errors (actually, fallible opinions) has been noted down by some interested parties, of which I had a copy (though through a couple of hard drive crashes, I lost it).  

Let me give you an example:

". . .was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin. . ." The formal active essence of original sin was not removed from her soul, as it is removed from others by baptism; it was excluded, it never was in her soul. Simultaneously with the exclusion of sin. The state of original sanctity, innocence, and justice, as opposed to original sin, was conferred upon her, by which gift every stain and fault, all depraved emotions, passions, and debilities, essentially pertaining to original sin, were excluded. But she was not made exempt from the temporal penalties of Adam -- from sorrow, bodily infirmities, and death.

What does the writer mean by "The state of original sanctity, innocence, and justice, as opposed to original sin, was conferred upon her, by which gift every stain and fault, all depraved emotions, passions, and debilities, essentially pertaining to original sin, were excluded"?  But then it seems she was not fully exempted, because of the temporal penalties of Adam.  Doen't "emotions," "passions," and "debilities" from which she is exempted have to do with "sorrow, bodily infirmities and death"?  There's a contradiction here.  God it seems did not create the perfect woman in Mary, and this is our contention, was Mary perfect in that sense of the word or not?  The new Eve a woman of human frailties?

The writer of the above quotation is simply putting forth his opinion.  Well, you may as well say that of everybody making his statements here in this forum.

[Han]

What does the writer mean by "The state of original sanctity, innocence, and justice, as opposed to original sin, was conferred upon her, by which gift every stain and fault, all depraved emotions, passions, and debilities, essentially pertaining to original sin, were excluded"? But then it seems she was not fully exempted, because of the temporal penalties of Adam. Doen't "emotions," "passions," and "debilities" from which she is exempted have to do with "sorrow, bodily infirmities and death"? There's a contradiction here. God it seems did not create the perfect woman in Mary, and this is our contention, was Mary perfect in that sense of the word or not? The new Eve a woman of human frailties?

It seems to me that the writer of the article is making use of the Scholastic distinction, adopted at Trent, between Sin, Concupiscence and Death.  Thus we have:

Sin = privation of sanctifying grace

Concupiscence = disordered appetites (a 'nous' which does not always seek the good)

Death = death (and by extention bodily infirmity)

While the latter two are a result of Original Sin, the absence of Original Sin does not necessarily mean the absence of the latter two.  It is, after all, generally acknowledged that a person is still subject to concupiscence and death notwithstanding Baptism.  I keep metioning this because Catholic theology, unlike Lutheran, holds that justification is not merely forensic--that is, the soul is actually freed from sin, not simply that God's righteousness is attributed to the believer.  Therefore, a newly-baptised person has NO Original Sin.  Nevertheless, this person still has concupiscience and mortality.

 

We also know that holy persons while alive are able to triumph over concupiscence, not just sin, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (and consequently, progress in the spiritual life).  Nevertheless, these people still die.   Therefore it stands to reason that concupiscence and death are two distinct processions (if one may say) from Original Sin and have no necessary connection to each other.  Arguably (although St. Thomas would disagree), a rightly-ordered nous is natural to Man since God created Man as a noetic creature in His own likeness and image whereas physical immortality is not since only God is immortal by nature and furthermore God is pure spirit (and so Man's physicality is not part of the image and likeness of God).

 

What the author of the article seems to be saying is that (1) According the the definition, the Theotokos was preserved from Original Sin, and so therefore had no Original Sin, (2) that she also was free from concupiscence, but (3) that she was subject to death.  Logically, the dogmatic definition makes only point (1) necesssary, the rest falls within the realm of theolgoumena.

 

Nevertheless, I would like to defend the author of the article here and argue that this theory is not contradictory.  The existence of death is a consequence of the fall, and therefore simply part of the fallen world.  Mary was part of the fallen world--she had to be.  If it were otherwise, the flesh that Jesus assumed from her would not be our flesh, and consequently, redemption did not happen (this is where we get into the realm of the Monophysite heresy).  Mary's perfection comes not from natural immortality, but rather her all-holiness--her freedom from concupiscence.  Pace St. John of Shanghai, freedom from concupiscence does not deprive the Theotokos of all her virtues, because a rightly-ordered nous takes away neither free will nor temptations.  Eve, after all, was created with a rightly-ordered nous and afree will, but she still sinned, whereas Mary did not.  Just as the greatest saints eventually reach a level of relationship with God that they become free from concupiscence, the Theotokos was created this way so as to be the living Ark.  Sure, she suffered temptation, physical malady and death--this does not detract from her perfection, it only makes her human.

[Dilexisti]

Ineffabilis Deus -- God ineffable -- The opening words of Ven. Pope Pius IX's Apostolic Constitution on the Immaculate Conception. God's ineffabilility: He is incapable of being expressed or described in words.

The first paragraph of the Apostolic Constitution states:

God ineffable -- whose ways are mercy and truth, whose will is omnipotence itself, and whose wisdom "reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly" -- having foreseen from all eternity the lamentable wretchedness of the entire human race which would result from the sin of Adam, decreed, by a plan hidden from the centuries, to complete the first work of his goodness by a mystery yet more wondrously sublime through the Incarnation of the Word. This he decreed in order that man who, contrary to the plan of Divine Mercy had been led into sin by the cunning malice of Satan, should not perish; and in order that what had been lost in the first Adam would be gloriously restored in the Second Adam. From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world. Above all creatures did God so lover her that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully. [emphasis mine]

An Apostolic Constitution carries the most weight of all papal documents. The pronouncement on the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception is final, yet men propose to express their opinions and put forward their interpretations. As Peter has warned about interpreting Scripture, so it is also for Dogmas promulgated ex cathedra.

Ineffabilis Deus states precisely that the Blessed Virgin Mary was "preserved free from all stain of original sin." What proceeded from this "all stain"? The corruption of humanity. We merely have to look at what was before Original Sin and what has come about after Original Sin. It is totally a different concept. Before the Fall, our first parents were imbued with Original Righteousness, which carried innumerable supernatural gifts: God created Adam and Eve in all perfection. After the Fall, they lost all of this. Does it follow, therefore, that the Blessed Virgin Mary, who came after the Fall, was subject to Original Sin, except for a few (or majority, but NOT all) supernatural gifts? Or, was she created outside Original Sin, as in before the Fall, and therefore was the creature that God intended when he created Adam and Eve? That much is what Ineffabilis Deus states.

Everybody may wish to say what they will -- Mary was subjected to some consequences of Original Sin because she was of the human flesh, etc., or abide by not only what the Pope declared but also what the Patristic Fathers, the Council, and lastly, what is in the Deposit of Faith, Holy Scriptures and Sacred Tradition.

What I'm merely stating is that the C.E. and some other statements from holy persons are not infallible. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is not a subject to be debated any longer. The Orthodox are simply in error about their belief in the immaculate conception of Mary and their interpretation of Original Sin.

[obscurus]

An excerpt from The Byzantine-Slav Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Fr. Casimir Kucharek, Alleluia Press, 1971, pp. 354-357 (This is arguably the definitive work on the Byzantine Liturgy):

From Chapter XXXIV: The Final Commendation of the Ektenia
 

Mary's other titles derive from her position as Mother of God. Her eminent holiness, for example. The Byzantine Church calls her παναγια, “the all-holy one,”¹² because she is the supreme example of synergy, the cooperation between God's will and man's freedom. Forever respecting the free will of man, God became incarnate through the free consent of the person he chose as his Mother. She could have refused, but she did not. “So the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed through the obedience of Mary,” says Irenaeus, “for what Eve, a virgin, had bound through her unbelief, Mary, a virgin, unloosed through her faith.”¹³ Jerome puts it more succintly: “Death by Eve, life by Mary.”¹⁴ And Cabasilas: “The Incarnation was not only the work of the Father, of his Power and his Spirit... but also that of the will and faith of the Virgin.... Just as God became incarnate voluntarily, so he wished that his Mother should bear him freely and with her full consent.”¹⁵

 

 

Also, from end to end of the Byzantine world, both Catholic and Orthodox greet the Mother of God as αχραντος, “the immaculate, spotless one,” no less than eight times in the Divine Liturgy alone. But especially on the feast of her conception (December 9 in the Byzantine Church) is her immaculateness stressed: “This day, O faithful, from saintly parents begins to take being the spotless lamb, the most pure tabernacle, Mary...”;¹⁶ “She is conceived...the only immaculate one”;¹⁷ or “Having conceived the most pure dove, Anne filled....”¹⁸ No sin, no fault, not even the slightest, ever marred the perfect sanctity of this masterpiece of God's creation. For hundreds of years, the Byzantine Church has believed this, prayed and honored Mary in this way. Centuries of sacred tradition stand behind this title.¹⁹ Even during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when some Western theologians doubted or denied the truth of her immaculate conception, Byzantine Catholic and Orthodox theologians unanimously taught it.²⁰ Two of Thomas Aquinas' most ardent disciples among the Greeks disagreed with him on one point only, his failure to admit the immaculate conception of the Mother of God.²¹ Demetrios Kydones (fourteenth century) translated some of Aquinas' works into Greek, but vehemently opposed Thomas' views on the immaculate conception.²² No less did the other great Thomist, George Scholarios (fifteenth century), in his synopsis of the immaculate conception.²³

 

 

The Greek Orthodox Church's belief in the immaculate conception continued unanimously until the fifteenth century, then many Greek theologians began to adopt the idea that Mary had been made immaculate at the moment of the Annunciation.²⁴ Among the Eastern  Slavs, belief in the immaculate conception went undisturbed until the seventeenth century, when the Skrizhal (Book of Laws) appeared in Russia,²⁵ and proposed what the Slavs considered the “novel” doctrine of the Greeks. The views proposed in the Skrizhal were branded as blasphemous, especially among the Staroviery (Old Believers), who maintained the ancient customs and beliefs, however small or inconsequential.²⁶ This reaction confirms the ancient Byzantine and Slav tradition of the immaculate conception. Only after Pope Pius IX defined the dogma in 1854 did opposition to the doctrine solidify among most Orthodox theologians.²⁷ The Orthodox Church, however, has never made any definitive pronouncement on the matter. Its official position is rather a suspension of judgment than a true objection. When Patriarch Anthimos VII, for example, wrote his reply to Pope Leo XIII's letter in 1895, and listed what he believed to be the errors of the Latins, he found no fault with their belief in the immaculate conception, but objected to the fact that the Pope had defined it.²⁸

=======================================================================================================

 

12Origen may have been the first to call her παναγια (cf. I. Ortiz de Urbina, La Mariologia nella Patrologia Orientale, O.C.P. 6 [1940], p. 59).

 

13Irenaeus, Ad. Haeres., III, 22, 4 (PG 7, 959).

 

14Jerome, Epist., 22, 21 (PL 22, 408).

 

15Cabasilas, On the Assumption, 4-5 (PO 19, p. 488).

 

16From the Office of Matins, the Third Ode of the Canon for the feast.

 

17From the Office of Matins, the Stanzas during the Seating, for the same feast.

 

18From the Office of Matins, the Sixth Ode of the Canon for the same feast.

 

19The very vastness of available testimony precludes listing. Two excellent surveys may be consulted: A. Ballerini, Sylloge monumentorum ad mysterium conceptionis immaculatae virginis deiparae spectantium (Rome, 1854-1855), and C. Passaglia, De immaculato deiparae semper virginis conceptu commentarius (Rome, 1854-1855).

 

20Among the better known ninth to thirteenth century Byzantine theologians: Patriarch Photius in his homilies De Annuntiatione and De Nativitate Deiparae (S. Aristarchis, Φωτιου λογοι και ομιλιαι,, Vol. II [Constantinople, 1900], pp. 230-245, 368-380); George of Nicomedia in his homilies (PG 100, 1336-1504), especially Conceptione deiparae and Presentatione Mariae virginis; Michael Psellos in the recently discovered and edited homily De Annuntiatione (PO 16, pp. 517-525); John Phurnensis, Oratione de Dormitione (G. Palamas, Θεοφανους του κεπαμεως ομιλιαι, [Jerusalem, 1860], append., pp. 271-276); Michael Glykas, Annales, III (PG 158, 439-442); Germanus II, Patriarch of Constantinople, In annuntiationem (edit. Ballerini, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 283-382); Theognostos the Monk, In dormitionem (PO 16, pp. 457-562); Nicetas David, In nativitatem B.M.V. (PG 105, 16-28); Leo the Wise, In dormitione and In presentationem (PG 107, 12-21); Patriarch Euthymius of Constantinople, In conceptionem B. Annae (PO 16, pp. 499-505); Bishop Peter Argorum, In conceptionem B. Annae (PG 104, 1352-1365); John Mauropos, In dormitionem B.M.V. (PG 120, 1075-1114); James the Monk, In nativitatem et in praesentationem B.M.V. (PO 16, pp. 528-538). Cf. Jugie, L'Immaculee Conception dans l' Ecriture Sainte et dans la tradition orientale [Rome, 1952], pp. 164-307, for others.

 

21Aquinas seems to have been in error in this point, cf. Summa Theologica, III, q. XXVII.

 

22Demetrios Kydones, Hom. In annuntiationem deiparae, contained in Cod. Paris gr., 1213 (cf. Jugie, op. cit. pp. 276-279).

 

23George Scholarios, In dormitionem (PO 16, p. 577); cf. Petit-Siderisdes-Jugie, (Œuvres completes de Georges Scholarios, Vol. I [Paris, 1928], pp. 202-203; also Petit-Siderides-Jugie, op. cit., I, p. 501; also Jugie, Georges Scholarios et l'Immaculee Conception, Echos d'Orient (Paris-Istanbul, 17 [1915], pp. 527-530).

 

24Nicephorus Callixtus, however, expressed doubt during the fourteenth century (cf. Jugie L'Immaculee Conception dans l”Ecriture Sainte et dans la tradition orientale, p. 213), but the great Cabasilas' (1371) teaching on the immaculate conception (In nativitatem [PO 19, pp. 468-482]; In dormitionem [PO 19, pp. 498-504]) still had great influence in the subsequent centuries. Perhaps even more influential was Patriarch Gregory Palamas (1446-1452) whose homilies on the Mother of God are second to none even today (De hypapante; De annuntiatione; De dormitione [PG 151]; also In Christi genelogiam and In presentationem [edit. K. Sophocles, Του εν αγιος πατρος ημων Γρεγοριου του Παλαμα ομιλιαι κβ, Athens, 1861]).

 

25The Skrizhal is the Russian version of John Nathaniel's 'H θεια λειτουργια.

 

26Cf. N. Stubbotin, Materialy dlja istorii Roskola, Vol. IV (Moscow, 1878), pp. 39-50, 229, and Vol. I (Moscow, 1874), p. 457.

 

27Most of them seem to have objected on the grounds that it was unnecessary to define it.

 

28'Εκκλησιαστικη 'Αληθεια (Constantinople, 1880-1923, Vol. 15 (1895), p. 244.

 

 

 

   

    

[jovan66102]

This is actually a test of PhotoBucket, but since it's an Eastern Icon of the Immaculate Conception, this seems a likely place to put it.

 

 

It worked!

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

From the CE article on Original Sin:

Death and Suffering.- These are purely physical evils and cannot be called sin. Moreover St. Paul, and after him the councils, regarded death and original sin as two distinct things transmitted by Adam.You must remember that even in Paradise, Adam and Eve would have died, but their souls and bodies would be in Heaven as well. Since, however, Adam and Eve sinned, our bodies die and lie in the earth until the Last Judgment.

[Kephapaulos]

From the CE article on Original Sin:

Death and Suffering.- These are purely physical evils and cannot be called sin. Moreover St. Paul, and after him the councils, regarded death and original sin as two distinct things transmitted by Adam. You must remember that even in Paradise, Adam and Eve would have died, but their souls and bodies would be in Heaven as well. Since, however, Adam and Eve sinned, our bodies die and lie in the earth until the Last Judgment.

They would not have died then if their souls and bodies would have gone to heaven, that is if theoretically they did not commit the original sin. Our Lord and our Lady were not subject to death. Our Lord though subjected Himself to death for our sins, and our Lady died because she desired to undergo death like her Son, wanting to be with her Son in heaven.

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

Sorry, that is what I meant to say. However, both weren't free from suffering, as we both know from the Bible.