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Mary's Purification in the Early Christian (and Christian-esque) Writers
Tatian (120 – 180) produced the Diatessaron as an early Gospel harmony, which ended up being widely used in certain Syriac-speaking churches, oddly enough apparently to the displacement (or substitution) of the actual gospels. Tatian’s Diatessaron, Section II (as preserved in an Arabic translation) states: And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they took him…
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Early Thomas Aquinas contra the Immaculate Conception
Thomas Aquinas is one of the most notable theologians of the medieval period. One of Thomas’ earlier works was his commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences. At Sentences, III, D3, Q1, Thomas considers “the Sanctification of the Blessed Virgin,” and specifically, “Concerning the first question, two things are to be looked into: first, the time of her…
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Responding to Elijah Yassi's use of Theoteknos of Livias in support of the Immaculate Conception
The following is an approximately 20 second clip from Elijah Yassi’s opening argument (the second speech for the side in favor of the immaculate conception). All my references to Daley and his introduction to and translation of Theoteknos of Livias sermon are from On the Dormition of Mary (Popular Patristic Series, no. 18, St. Vladimir’s Seminary…
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John of Shanghai and San Francisco aka "St. John the Wonderworker" contra the Immaculate Conception
According to an article by Aidan Kimel (available here), John of Shanghai and San Francisco aka Mikhail Borisovich Maximovitch aka St. John the Wonderworker (June 4, 1896, to July 2, 1966), rejected the immaculate conception on the following grounds: “The teaching of the complete sinlessness of the Mother of God does not correspond to Sacred…
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Catherine of Siena contra the Immaculate Conception of Mary
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) is one of the few female Doctors of the Church in Roman Catholicism. Suzanne Noffke, O.P. is the editor of a collection of 26 prayers of Catherine of Siena (published by Paulist Press in 1983). I refer to the translation she provides: Prayer 16 (lines 10-28)(p. 141): We are weak because…
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The χαριτόω (Charito'o) Argument
A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, aka BDAG (3rd edition), p. 1081, explains the meaning of χαριτόω thus: One of the techniques of those arguing that Mary was immaculately conceived is to load the word, χαριτόω, with special significance. We will take a broader look at the use of…
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Sword of Pain/Bereavement/Doubt in Mary's Heart?
John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, Chapter 14 But this blessed woman, who was deemed worthy of gifts that are supernatural, suffered those pains, which she escaped at the birth, in the hour of the passion, enduring from motherly sympathy the rending of the bowels, and when she beheld Him,…
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Jesus as the New Eve? Mary as the New Adam?
Ephrem the Syrian (AD 307-373), Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron, Carmel McCarthy trans., Chapter II, Sections 2-3 (pp. 60-61)(footnotes omitted, brackets and italics are McCarthy’s): §2. [Mary] gave birth without [the assistance of] a man. Just as in the beginning Eve was born of Adam without intercourse, so too [in the case of] Joseph…
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The Description, "Blessed Among Women," in the Angelic Address
Reading through the writing of one of the Latin speaking fathers, I encountered a point that I had not previously considered in terms of the testimony of the Scripture regarding Mary, the mother of my Lord. If I recall correctly, the author was considering the question of why does Paul say, “made of a woman,”…
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Jerome on Galatians 4:4-5
St. Jerome, Commentary on Galatians, Fathers of the Church Series, transl. Andrew Cain, (pp. 156-157), at Galatians 4:4-5 4-4-5. But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman and put under the Law to redeem those under the Law, so that we might receive the full rights of [adopted]…