Part I Chapter I: Mary the Mother of God — Theotokos

Part I: Mary’s Divine Motherhood as the Source of All Her Prerogatives

Chapter I: Mary the Mother of God

/ CHAPTER I MARY THE MOTHER OF GOD i. The Heresy of Nestorianism. — The Ebionites, Photinus, and Paul of Samosata had undermined the dignity of Mary by attacking the Divinity of Jesus Christ; Nestorianism directly assailed the dogma of her divine motherhood. a) Nestor ius was a pupil of Theodore of Mopsuestia,8 who held that the Incarnation involved a complete transformation of the Logos, and that, consequently, Mary was the mother not of God (^cotoicos), but of a mere man, though this man was the bearer of the Divine Logos.4 This Mariological error naturally developed into the Christological heresy that there are two physical persons in Christ. b) The Third Ecumenical Council, which met in Ephesus on Whitsunday, 431, under the presidency of St. Cyril of Alexandria,5 defined it as an article of faith that Mary is really and truly the 8 Theodore of Mopsuestia was * Cf r. Pohle-Preuss, Christologyt born about the year 350. On his pp. 89 sq. life and writings cfr. Bardenhewer- 5 Cfr. Funk-Cappadelta, A ManShahan, Patrology, pp. 318 sqq., ual of Church History, Vol. I, pp. Freiburg and St. Louis 1908. 156 sq., London 1910. 4 mother of God. To emphasize this truth the Council employed the dogmatic term 0ot6kos9 which was destined to become a touchstone of the true faith and, like o/aoovW^ transsubstantiatio, and ex opere operato, played an important part in the history of dogma. The very first of the anathematisms pronounced by the Council of Ephesus reads: “If any one does not profess that Emmanuel is truly God, and that consequently the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God — inasmuch as she gave birth in the flesh to the Word of God made flesh, according to what is written : ‘The Word was made flesh’ — let him be anathema.” 6 This important definition was reiterated and confirmed by several later councils, notably those of Chalcedon (A. D. 451) and Constantinople (A. D. 553). 7 2. The Dogma of Mary’s Divine Motherhood Proved from Sacred Scripture. — The dogma that Mary is the mother of God is clearly and explicitly contained in Holy Scripture. a) True, the Bible does not employ the formal term “Mother of God,” but refers to the Blessed t”Si quis non confitetur, Deum ridion Symbolorum, Definitionum esse veraciter Emmanuel et propterea et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei Dei genitricem (0€Ot6kov) sanctam et Morum, n. 113, nth ed. Friburgi virginem: peperit (yey evvrjice) enim Brisgoviae 191 1. We shall refer to secundum carnem factum Dei Ver- this indispensable collection through. bum (a&pica yeyovSra rbv £k Oeou out this treatise as * Dcnzinger\6yov)» secundum quod scriptum Bannwart. est: Verbum caro factum est, 7 Cone. Constantinop. II (Oecum, anathema sit,** (Syn. Ephes., can. V), apud Denzinger-Bannwart, n. I, apud Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchi- 218. Virgin merely as “the mother of Jesus” 8 or at most as “mother of the Lord.” 9 However, since Jesus Christ is true God, all texts that refer to Mary as His mother are so many proofs of her divine maternity. And such texts abound. Thus, while Sacred Scripture represents St. Joseph 10 merely as the foster-father of our Lord,11 it attributes to Mary all the ordinary functions of motherhood — conception, gestation, and parturition.12 The motherhood of the Virgin had been foretold by Isaias: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel [i. e., God with us] .” 13 The fulfilment of this prophecy was announced in almost identical terms by the Archangel Gabriel. Luke I, 31 : Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb,14 and shalt bring forth a son,15 and thou shalt call his name Jesus ; and the heavenly messenger expressly added: “Therefore the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” 16 Since Mary gave birth to the Son of God, she is really and truly the mother of God. St. Paul says in his Epistle to 8Cfr. John II, i; XIX, 26. 9 Cfr. Luke I, 43. 10 Cfr. Matth. I, 25; Luke I, 34 sq. 11 Cfr. Luke III, 23: * Et ipse Iesus erat incipient quasi annorum triginta, ut putabatur (j ivofilfrTo) filius Ioseph.* 12 Cfr. Matth. I, 18 sqq.; Luke II. 5 sqq. 18 Is. VII, 14. Cfr. A. J. Maas, S. J., Christ in Type and Prophecy, Vol. I, pp. 351 sqq., New York 1893. 14 * Concipies in utero (,

the Galatians (IV, 4) : When the fulness of time was come, God sent his son, made of a woman.” 17 If the man Jesus, “made of a woman,” is the Son of God, then that “woman” must be the mother of a Divine Son, and, consequently, mother of God.18 b) The argument from Tradition is most effectively presented by showing from the writings of the Fathers who flourished before the time of Nestorius that Nestorianism and not the Council of Ephesus was guilty of innovation. a) The primitive Christian belief in the divine motherhood of Mary is evidenced by certain pious practices common at a time when the faithful had hardly yet begun to make their faith the subject of reflection. Such practices were: the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed, which was also the early form of baptism, and the liturgical prayers employed in public worship. The Apostles’ Creed professes faith in “Jesus Christ, His [God the Father’s] only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.” This is an unequivocal assertion of two truths: (1) that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the mother of Christ, and (2) that she is really and truly the mother of God. The ancient liturgies expressly refer to her as Ocotoko or Deipara.19 17 t6p vlbp avrov yev6pevov 1900. Engl. tr. by Brossart, New ix yvvaucSs. York 19 13, pp. 89 sqq. ment is fully developed by Bishop A. ment see Renaudot, Collect, Liturg. Schaefer, Die Gottesmutter in der Orient., t, I, pp. 36, 42, 72, 112, HI. Schrift, pp. 83 sqq., Munster 150, 507, etc, Parts 1716. 18 Rom. IX, s. The Biblical argu19 For the proofs of this state 

P) There is direct Patristic evidence to the same effect. In spite of a few dissenting voices (e. g., Theodore of Mopsuestia and other teachers of the Antiochene school), the orthodox contemporaries of Nestorius confidently appealed to the early Fathers in support of their contention. The word Ocotoko* itself originated at Alexandria in the third century.20 St. Cyril freely admits that it does not occur in the New Testament. But he hastens to add : ” However, they have handed down to us the belief [itself], and in this sense we have been instructed by the holy Fathers [= sacred writers] 21 — ” This name Ocotoko?” he says in another place, ” was perfectly familiar to the ancient Fathers.” 22 There is a treatise ” On the Mother of God ” 23 mentioned in the extracts of Philippus Sidetes,24 and ascribed by him to Frierius, a priest of Alexandria in the time of Bishop Theonas (281-360) ; but its authenticity is doubtful. We know for certain, however, that, at about the same time, Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, who had ordained St. Athanasius to the diaconate in 319, employed the term Oeotoko? in a letter addressed to Alexander of Constantinople in reference to the heresy of Arius. We also have the undoubtedly genuine testimony of Theodoret of Cyrus, the most violent and at 20 It first occurs in the works of Origin. On the history of the term see Newman, Select Treatises of St, Athanasius, Vol. II, pp. 210215, 9th ed., London 1903. 21 Ep. ad Monach. Aegypti, I. 22 De Recta Fide ad Regin., c. 9. 28 Hepl rijs 6€ot6kov. 24 On Philippus Sidetes and his writings cfr. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, p. 377. the same time most learned opponent of St. Cyril, to the effect that ” The first step towards innovation was the assertion that the holy Virgin, who, by the assumption of flesh from herself, gave birth to the Word of God, must not be called mother of God (0€otokos), but only mother of Christ (xpmttotokos), whereas the most ancient heralds of the orthodox faith taught the faithful to name and believe the Mother of the Lord dtoroKos, according to the Apostolic tradition.” 25 John, Patriarch of Antioch, who sided with Nestorius at the Council of Ephesus and did not make peace with St. Cyril till 433, observes : ” No ecclesiastical teacher has put aside this title [0coto#cos] ; those who have used it are many and eminent, and those who have not used it have not attacked those who used it.” 26 This statement can be easily substantiated from the writings of St. Athanasius, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Ignatius of Antioch, and others of the early Fathers. Thus St. Athanasius (+373) says: “We confess that the Son of God became man by the assumption of flesh from the virgin mother of God.”27 St. Gregory Nazianzen declares: “Let him who will not accept Mary as the mother of God be excluded from God.” 28 The word Ocotoko? must have readily suggested itself to the later Fathers when they noted such expressions as this in the Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Ephesians: * Our God Jesus Christ was borne (iKvofoprjOri) by Mary in her maternal womb.* 29 It is not necessary for our present purpose to cite the 25 Theodoretus, “Compendium of Migne, P. G., LXXVII, 1455. Heretical Fables” (AJperurijf /co/co- (Cfr. Newman, /. c, p. 211.) fiv0la$ imro/i-ji), IV, 12. We use 27 iK irapdivov rijs 0€ot6kov» Newman’s translation (Athanasius, Orat. contra Arianos, IV, n. 32. II, 210). 28 Epist. 101 ad Cledon., c 1. 26 Ep. ad Nestor., I, reprinted in 29 Epist. ad Ephes., 8.

io MARY’S DIVINE MOTHERHOOD Fathers who wrote after the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus. The teaching of the Greek Fathers was sifted with Scholastic thoroughness by St. John of Damascus in the third part of his famous ” Fountain of Wisdom.” 80 3. Theological Discussion. — For a deeper understanding of the dogma let us consider in what motherhood essentially consists, and howChrist’s eternal yiwyns from the Father is related to His temporal birth from the Virgin Mary. a) Nes tonus’ chief objection grew out of a radically false idea of motherhood. He contended that Mary could not have been the mother of God because this would necessarily entail the pagan fallacy that God begot a divine son from a human mother, or that a human mother endowed her son with a divine nature. This inference is based on a misconception of the Hypostatic Union and of the nature of generation. To become truly the mother of God it was not necessary for Mary to communicate to her Son a divine nature. All that was required was that the Son whom she conceived and brought forth, was the Divine Person of the Logos. Every mother, when she gives birth to a child, brings forth a person, not merely the body of a person. In the case of the Blessed Virgin Mary this person was the Son of God. Hence, though 80 De Fide Orthodoxa, III, a Alter de Titels OcotSkos,* in and 12. Cfr. Petavius, De In- the Katholik, of Mayence, 1903, I, carnatione, V, 15; V. Schweitzer, pp. 97 sqq. MARY THE MOTHER OF GOD Mary did not bring forth the Godhead as such, but merely a Divine Person, she is truly the Mother of God. The fact that she conceived and gave birth to the body but not to the spiritual soul of her son in no way derogates from her motherhood. “No one will say of Elizabeth,” observes St. Cyril to Nestorius, “that she is the mother of St. John’s flesh, but not of his soul ; for she gave birth to the person of the Baptist, i. e., a human being composed of body and soul.” 31 Mary not only gave birth to the Divine Logos, she also conceived Him. If it could be shown that she conceived a mere man, even though this man was subsequently, before his birth, transformed into a Godman, Nestorius would have been justified in denying her the title of Ocotokos, for in that hypothesis she would indeed have been a mere avOponroTOKos, since motherhood is founded on the act of conception. It was with a view to safeguard the dogma of the Hypostatic Union that the Church dogmatically defined the temporal coincidence of Christ’s conception with the Hypostatic Union.32 The conception of Christ includes three simultaneous events: (i) the formation of His human body from the maternal ovum; (2) the creation and infusion into that body of a spiritual soul; and (3) the Hypostatic Union of body and soul, per modum unius, with the Divine Person of the Logos. When Mary said : ” Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me accord31 Epist, ad Monach. 32 Qfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christ ology, pp. 166 sqq. 2

MARY’S DIVINE MOTHERHOOD ing to thy word,” 83 the mystery of the Incarnation was consummated. From the fact that these three events occurred simultaneously, the medieval Scholastics concluded that our Lord’s body was informed by the spiritual soul from the first moment of its existence, and that it was at once complete and perfectly organized.34 The last-mentioned of these conclusions was based on the false Aristotelian theory that the human embryo is at first inanimate and becomes quickened by the spiritual soul only after it has reached a certain stage of physiological development, — a process which in the male was believed to require forty, in the female, sixty days from the instant of conception. As this principle was manifestly inapplicable to Christ, the Scholastics had recourse to a miracle and simply denied the existence of successive stages in the embryological evolution of the Godman. It is more in conformity with modern science to assume that the spiritual soul informs the human embryo from the moment of conception and gradually builds up the body and its organs, until the child becomes normally capable of living outside the uterus. Applying this theory to Christ, we hold that Christ’s spiritual soul was infused into the inchoate embryo at the moment of His conception. This is but another way of saying that the sacred humanity of our Divine Lord was subject to the ordinary laws of human development, and that He became like unto us in all things except sin.85 The objection that a being composed of a spiritual soul and an incomplete body would not be a true man, S3 Luke I, 38. 34 Cfr. Suarez, De Myst. Vitai Christi, disp. n, sect. 2. 35Heb. IV, 15.

may be dismissed with the remark that such a being falls squarely under the philosophical definition of animal rationale. If we except Christ from the general law of nature and postulate unnecessary miracles, we divest the motherhood of the Blessed Virgin of its true meaning and teach a refined Docetism. For the gradual development of a child under the influence of the plastic powers of nature constitutes one of the essential notes of maternity. b) As there are two natures in Christ, a distinction must be made between His eternal generation from the Father and His temporal birth from the Virgin Mother. This basic dogma of Christology 36 necessarily entails a twofold sonship. By His eternal ycmyns from the Father, Jesus is the true Son of God; by His temporal birth from the Virgin He is the true Son of Mary. Being one undivided person, the Son of God is therefore absolutely identical with the child of the Virgin, and Mary is consequently in very truth the mother of God. It follows that the dogma of Christ’s twofold sonship does not involve the Nestorian and Adoptionist implication that there are two Sons of God. Theologians have raised the question whether the relation between Christ’s Divine Sonship and the motherhood of Mary is real or merely logical.87 86 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, Thomas, Summa TheoL, 3a, qu. 35, pp. 61 sqq. art. 5; Suarez, De Myst, Vita* 87 On this subtle problem cfi> St. Christi, disp. 12, sect. 2. l4 MARY’S DIVINE MOTHERHOOD Christ’s relation as a man to His human mother is no doubt as real as Mary’s relation to her Divine Son. Christ’s relation as Son of God or Logos to His human mother, on the other hand, is purely logical, because, as a self-existing and absolutely independent Being, God cannot stand in any real relation to a creature. Hence St. Thomas teaches : ” From the temporal birth there arises no real, but only a logical sonship, though Christ is really the Son of the Virgin. God is really the Lord of His creatures, despite the fact that His dominion over them is no real relation. He is called Lord in a real sense, because of the real power which He exercises. Similarly Christ is in a real sense the Son of the Virgin, because of His real birth from her.*88 88 Quodlib., IX, art. 4, ad z: * Ex nativitate temporali ft on innascitur filiatio realis, sed rationis tantutn, quamvis Christus realiter sit filius virginis; sicut Deus realiter est Dominus creaturae, quamvis in eo dominium non sit relatio realis; dicitur enim realiter’ Dominus propter realem potestatem, et sic dicitur Christus realiter filius virginis propter realem nativitatem.” Cfr. G. B. Tepe, Institutiones Theologicae, Vol. Ill, pp. 683 sqq., Paris Z896.