Despite what our evangelical (and other Christian) brethren might suggest (sola scriptura), the ‘Immaculate Conception’ (a bit of an unfortunate term) is more than implied in scripture since the young Mary of Nazareth is greeted by Gabriel as ‘full of Grace/highly favoured’ and she is told the ‘Lord is with you’ (Luke 1:26–28). In the prophecies of Isaiah 7:14 we are told, ‘Behold, the almah shall conceive and bear a son and will call his name Immanuel’. Most modern scholars agree that almah refers to a woman of childbearing age and has nothing to do with virginity. When Matthew comes to write his ‘Infancy Narrative’ he uses the Isaiah prophecy as one of his ‘fulfilment passages’ (these words were spoken in order that might be fulfilled the words of the prophet... Matthew 1:22–23). The Isaiah prophecy is used by Matthew to show that the promises made to Judah by God are now fulfilled in Jesus in whom God is with his people. At the end of Matthew’s gospel the prophecy is referred to obliquely when Jesus says, ‘Go teach all nations … and know I am with you.’ While ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ scripture scholars debate the precise meaning of almah and how it might be applied to Mary, there is no doubt that all believe Mary was a young woman of marriageable age, that is, capable of childbirth, and that she bore a Child whom Joseph, following divine instruction named, as Jesus. By the time Matthew came to write his gospel (sometime after ad 70) the Israelite Jews no longer spoke Hebrew and so Isaiah had to be translated into Greek and Aramaic the spoken languages of the time. The Greek translation, the Septuagint, mistranslated the word almah, meaning a young woman of childbearing age who had not yet given birth, as parthenos, which means virgin. This gave the author of Matthew the opportunity to interpret Jesus as the fulfilment of prophecy: he makes Jesus Immanuel, ‘God is with us’(Matthew 1:23), the divine representative on earth, and underlines Jesus’ status as ‘Son of God’ by asserting that Joseph did not have relations with Mary before she gave birth (Matthew 1:25). This Jesus is the only son of Mary, the Incarnate Only Son of God.
Whatever way we use to translate almah, what is clear is that in relation to the conception of Jesus, Mary was a virgin. Matthew does not ask how or why, or where that tradition comes from; he simply accepts it and moves on. If the almah is to bear the ‘God with us’, this claim to being Immanuel is made by the son she bears, ‘I am with you to the end of the ages’, that is, eternally, which is certainly a reference to immortality which is possessed by the Divine. Mary, therefore, is a young woman of childbearing age when she is betrothed to Joseph, who bears a son who, at least as Matthew presents him, from the beginning of his gospel is the one who fulfils and brings to completion the Law of God and whose final words indicate that he was and ever will be Immanuel: ‘Know that I am with you even to the end of the ages’ (Matthew 28:20).
While Matthew is emphasising the identity of Jesus, he makes it clear that Mary and Joseph are not mere passive bystanders. Joseph is the one who is ‘righteous’ before God, and obedient to his word; Mary is young open, embracing, and freely accepting and giving, and the mother of Immanuel. Mary, then is not some numinous abstract concept whose only function is to be the source of controversy and contention to those who do not accept the Immaculate Conception. Though mentioned sparingly in the four gospels, Mary of Nazareth is a remarkable woman, who fears, doubts, is filled with anxiety about her son’s mental health and stability, but is yet loyal, steadfast, accepting and mourns her loss at the cross. Whatever non-Catholics may feel about the doctrines and dogmas associated with her, this is a woman who is anything but ordinary. Although various texts in both the Old and the New Testaments have been cited in defence of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, it seems to have arisen from a general acceptance in the early church of Mary’s holiness. Especially after Mary had been solemnly declared to be the mother of God at the Council of Ephesus in 431, most theologians doubted that one who had been so close to God could have actually experienced sinful acts.
However, before we get into rooting around the ‘Immaculate Conception’ (‘rooting around’ is a much more thrilling term than ‘analysing’, ‘considering’, ‘discussing’, ‘examining’, great words for academic purposes and expositions, and I will be using one or two in a moment, but in a reflection such as this ‘rooting around’ means we can peer into the nooks and crannies of scripture, history, theology so that we do not get overwhelmed by the ‘grandeur and solemnity’ of the Infallible dogma. We are the theological equivalent of urban explorers). Anyway, getting back to the proper construction of sentences, subject, object, verb, and any other grammatical and syntactical device to convey our meaning, we need to have a root around what most Protestant commentators think is a ‘mic drop’ moment for rejecting the Immaculate Conception (as well as Romans 3:23–24, which I shall refer to again later) and that is their preference for the translation ‘highly favoured’ rather than ‘full of grace’. This is the first of our root around the ‘nooks and crannies’ and it is a linguistic one.
Luke 1:28 describes the Angel Gabriel’s salutation to Mary as ‘Rejoice so highly favoured!’ As Catholics, we are told this is the source of ‘Hail Mary, full of grace’ in what is regarded as the quintessential Catholic prayer, the Hail Mary. How do we get ‘full of grace’ from ‘highly favoured’? Translation is more an art than a definite science. Sometimes it is difficult to translate terms or phrases in modern languages from one language to another Old Testament language, from one culture to another. This is even more problematic with ancient languages, here specifically New Testament Greek. The literal wording of ‘full of grace’ is pleres charitos (πλήρης χάριτος) also used of Jesus in John 1:14 and of Stephen in Acts 6:8. It should be noted that here ‘full of grace’, when used of Jesus, is not the same as ‘full of grace’ when used of Stephen, since the contextualities are different. It might also be noted that technically, anyone who was baptised or received the sacrament of confession was pleres charitos (full of grace).
The term Luke uses to designate Mary’s state at the moment of Gabriel’s greeting (1:28) is kecharitōmenē [ke-kar-ee-taw-men-eh] (κεχαριτωμένη) which does not literally mean ‘full of grace’ but the Greek root of this term is the verb χαριτόω = charitoaw (aw is phonetically the broad sounding ω) [char/kar-ee-to-aw] which means to ‘make graceful’, ‘to endow with grace’, ‘to freely bestow grace’. The tense is the perfect middle passive (vocative feminine singular). This means that action of giving grace has already taken place and here we are not being unreasonable in accepting that God is the one who has given the grace. God, therefore, has already graced Mary before Gabriel greets her, the visit from Gabriel does not confer it. This means that kecharitōmenē [ke-kar-ee-taw-men-eh] (κεχαριτωμένη) is being used as a title. Gabriel does not greet Mary with, ‘Hail Mary, you are kecharitōmenē’ but rather ‘Hail kecharitōmenē’. The term, therefore, is not only a participle or even an action; it is also an identity.
The teenage virgin at Nazareth is kecharitōmenē and this is what makes the translation of the term difficult because it is a unique use of the word. The word is variously translated as ‘full of grace’, ‘graced one’, ‘one who has been made graced’ and ‘highly favoured’. When ‘highly favoured’ is used, the translator is using the idea that to be graced by God is to be ‘highly favoured’. Any translation should use the noun ‘grace’ since it is the root word. ‘Highly favoured’ may sound more ‘title bearing’ than ‘full of grace’ and there is nothing theologically incorrect in that, but the teenage Mary is highly favoured precisely because she is ‘full of grace’. In this light a better descriptor for ‘Immaculate Conception’ is what the Franciscan scholar Eric Doyle OFM+ termed the ‘All Gracing of Mary’.
‘Rooting around’ Luke 1:26–28 allows us to peer into the nooks and crannies of the Greek used by Luke which is important since it allows us to understand (insofar as such a mystery is understandable by the human mind) the concept that Mary of Nazareth, from the very instant of her conception, was preserved from sin and all its effects through no merit of her own but by a singular grace of God. This focus on the action of God in bestowing this grace allows us to understand that the Immaculate All Gracing of Mary is an act of liberality freely willed on the part of God. And while it may indeed say wonderful things about the young virgin (and rightly so) it says much, much more about the God who wills that it be so. I shall return to this in a moment.
Aside from issues around the Petrine Ministry and Infallibility coupled with ‘hard core’ issues such as justification (by faith), the nature of transubstantiation and real presence, the Church’s understanding of Mary, especially the All Gracing and the Assumption, are controversial contentious elements in ecumenical dialogue. The contentiousness of both these are compounded by the fact that they were proclaimed as infallible dogmas, so triggering some anti-papal feelings. We can, of course, acknowledge the difficulty that some Christians might have with the All Gracing of Mary (and other doctrines related to her) but that is not a difficulty shared by the Church whose ancient tradition of venerating Mary of Nazareth stretches back to her earliest foundations, culminating in Mary being proclaimed Mother of God at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Contrary to the perspective of other groups that identify as Christian, the Church makes it quite clear that the doctrines and dogmas related to Mary of Nazareth are not ‘novelties’, ‘theological travesties’, ‘total rejection of the sole authority of scripture’ or ‘idolatry’ but the fruit of hundreds of centuries of scriptural, theological, and doctrinal reflection which come to their apex at Vatican II in chapter eight of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, which is devoted entirely to Mary.
But it must also be admitted that the path to the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX in the papal bull Ineffabilis Deus in 1854 was not an easy one. Some of the ‘nooks and crannies’ of the scriptural foundation have been examined, and a brief ‘root around’ the tradition of the Church and the opinion of the Church Fathers on this doctrine, may once again throw a little light into some more of those ‘cobwebbed’ nooks and crannies of our wonderful doctrinal tradition, for let’s be honest, who among us, unless we are professional theologians or teachers of Patristics read the Fathers of the Church? Before going any further it has to be clearly stated that the ‘Immaculate Conception’ or the All Gracing of Mary, understood as her being preserved from original sin and all its effects, was not universally held or understood in that vein.
Although various texts in both the Old and the New Testaments have been cited in defence of the doctrine, it seems to have arisen from a general acceptance in the early church of Mary’s holiness. Especially after Mary had been solemnly declared to be the mother of God at the Council of Ephesus in 431, most theologians doubted that one who had been so close to God could have actually experienced sinful acts. The principles by which the early Church Fathers justified their beliefs that the Virgin Mary was ‘all-holy’, ‘spotless’, ‘immaculate’, and ‘without any stain of sin’ likened unto Jesus Christ, would have easily justified the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Those familiar with the debates which took place in the Latin Church on the subject of the Virgin’s conception in the womb of St Anne will be aware of the difficulty of trying to say whether she must have been sanctified at the precise moment of her conception, effectively preserving her from any and all contact with sin, or perhaps a moment after that. It should be kept in mind that no party in this debate ever questioned the Virgin’s absolute sinlessness, nor her preservation from all actual sins. The theologians were already of one mind on this question — Mary was sinless.
The Fathers of the Church taught that Mary received a number of distinctive blessings in order to make her a more fitting mother for Christ and the prototypical Christian. These blessings included her role as the New Eve (corresponding to Christ’s role as the New Adam), her Immaculate Conception, her spiritual motherhood of all Christians, and her Assumption into heaven. These gifts were given to her by God’s grace. The key to understanding all these graces is Mary’s role as the New Eve, which the Fathers proclaimed so forcefully. Because she is the New Eve, she, like the New Adam, was born immaculate, just as the First Adam and Eve were created immaculate. Because she is the New Eve, she is mother of the New Humanity (Christians), just as the first Eve was the mother of humanity. And, because she is the New Eve, she shares the fate of the New Adam. Whereas the First Adam and Eve died and went to dust, the New Adam and Eve were lifted up physically into heaven.
The Fathers of the Church, especially the Eastern Fathers, say that one day we will all be rendered immaculate (sinless), but Mary, as the prototypical Christian, received this grace early. God granted her freedom from sin to make her a fitting mother for his Son. Even before the terms ‘original sin’ and ‘immaculate conception’ had been defined, early passages imply the doctrines. Many works mention that Mary gave birth to Jesus without pain. But pain in childbearing is part of the penalty of original sin (Gen 3:16). Thus, Mary could not have been under that penalty. By God’s grace, she was immaculate in anticipation of her Son’s redemptive death on the cross. Among the Fathers who spoke about the Immaculate Conception in one way or another were: Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 100 (AD 155); Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3:22:24 (AD 189); 5:19:1;Tertullian, The Flesh of Christ 17:4 (AD 210); Ascension of Isaiah 11 (AD 70); Odes of Solomon 19 (AD80); Pseudo-Melito, The Passing of the Virgin 16:2–17 (AD 300); Ephraim the Syrian, Nisibene Hymns 27:8 (AD 361); Ambrose of Milan, The Virgins 2:2:6 (AD 377); Commentary on Psalm 118:22–30 (AD 387); Augustine, Nature and Grace 36:42 (AD415).
But how did Christians arrive at such an ‘aberrant’ perspective on this, asks the Protestant. The biblical authors, as well as the consensus of the Church Fathers, all testify to the fact that ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ (Rom 3:24). Christ’s mission to save sinners is universal, and therefore every human being who is to receive this salvation (and this includes the Virgin Mary) is certainly a sinner in need of it. St Augustine, above all others, was adamant on the universal depravity of the human race marred by its first parent, Adam. For Protestants, saving an exception to the mighty current of this universal rule of human sinfulness to anyone, whether it be the Virgin Mother of God or anyone else, would take quite an exceptional force. So clear and unmistakable, they say, are the words of scripture: ‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us’ (1 John 1:8) that the slightest idea that someone might not be subject to these decrees of Romans 3;24 and 1 John 1:8, would to them appear guilty of wanting people to be deceived.
It is only a sign of good health in the mind of a theologian to hold it as a given that Mary would be included in the universal contagion of original sin and its effects in the life of each individual (that is, enslaved to sin), unless some extraordinary grounds would provide for an exception. It was just the mind of St Augustine who, even amidst his arguments which demonstrated all humanity as subjugated under the power of sin, had ample reason in his own mind to save room for the Virgin Mary.
During the early middle ages, the data from Scripture and the Fathers was still not clear. The view that Mary had been spared also from the disposition to evil inherent in original sin was not clearly articulated until the twelfth century, when considerable debate was centred on an English celebration of Mary’s conception. The discussion was clouded by medieval views of the biological aspects of conception and by a concern that the belief in the universal redemption effected by Jesus should not be threatened. In addition, the understanding of original sin was not as clear as it should have been—it was often thought of as having a positive element, instead of merely being an original lack of the grace to which God calls us. This positive element was thought to be transmitted from parents to children through the marital act (which was itself thought to be somehow sinful, though pardoned by God), and so it was hard to see how there could be an immaculate conception. This conception had been found in some, though by no means all, of the Fathers. Now of course we know it to be false. Finally, it was not generally seen at this time how an immaculate conception of Mary would not take away from the universality of redemption through Christ.
It was this that made other great theologians (mainly of the West) hesitate or openly deny the ‘Immaculate Conception’. Among these were Albert the Great, St Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure, and St Bernard of Clairvaux. It was a legitimate concern: Thomas rejected it on the basis that unless Mary had at one time been ‘one of the sinful’ she could not justly be said to have been redeemed by Christ. St Bonaventure adopted a similar position. He believed that Mary was completely free from sin, but that she was not given this grace at the instant of her conception. The problem was readily understandable: Mary was a human being, she needed to be redeemed from sin; if she was conceived without sin, how could she be redeemed? This was when theological discussion and movement in relation to the All Gracing of Mary stagnated. That is, until the arrival of the Franciscan theologian Duns Scotus.
Scotus’ soubriquet is the ‘Subtle Doctor’ because of the detail, care, and caution he put into his thinking. But he is also named as the ‘Marian Doctor’ or ‘Mary’s Champion’ (because his work solved the problem that Albert, Thomas, Bonaventure and others had with the idea of an ‘immaculate conception’). I personally have always rejected this view of Scotus because it somehow implies (intentionally or otherwise) that those who opposed the Immaculate Conception were somehow impugning Mary herself, or denying her something which they felt was hers by right of being the Mother of God. Wrong. All those who contributed to the examination of this doctrine, indeed, who peered into much more obscure nooks and crannies than I have done, did so as devout men and women of faith seeking to understand the revelation of mysteries that challenge both the mind and the faith. They did this not with a view to undermining anything or anyone, least of all the Mother of God, but to better understand revelation and the God who was its author.
Scotus was the same. When he began his own ‘rooting around’ and ‘peering into the nook and crannies’ of the problem that lay at the heart of the All Gracing of Mary, he did so as a faithful son of St Francis and the Church, as had Bonaventure, and Albert and Thomas, faithful sons of Dominic, and not as some knightly champion coming to defend the besmirched honour of Mary in the ‘tourney arena’ of theological speculation. No. Scotus simply made a contribution to the ongoing debate on the possibility, certitude, or doubt in relation to what an ‘Immaculate Conception’ might look like. And it was a magnificent, brilliant, Spirit inspired definitive contribution that solved the problem its doubters had and which paved the way for the 1854 pronouncement.
First Scotus asked the standard question: was the Blessed Virgin conceived in sin, and he answers, no. He cites Augustine, ‘When sin is treated, there can be no inclusion of Mary in the discussion.’ Anselm says: ‘It was fitting that the Virgin should be resplendent with a purity greater than which none under God can be conceived.’ Scotus says that here ‘purity’ is to be taken in the sense of pure innocence under God, such as was in Christ. The contrary of this is asserted on two grounds, he says: firstly, the dignity of her Son, who, as universal Redeemer, opened the gates of heaven. But if blessed Mary had not contracted original sin, she would not have needed the Redeemer, nor would he have opened the door for her because it was never closed. For it is only closed because of sin, above all original sin.
Scotus answers this by saying, one can argue from the dignity of her Son qua Redeemer, Reconciler, and Mediator, that she did not contract original sin. For a most perfect mediator exercises the most perfect mediation possible in regard to some person for whom he mediates. So Christ exercised a most perfect act of mediation in regard to some person for whom he was Mediator. In regard to no person did he have a more exalted relationship than to Mary. Such, however, would not have been true had he not preserved her from original sin. The proof is threefold:
a) in terms of God to whom he reconciles
b) in terms of the evil from which he frees
c) and in terms of the indebtedness of the person whom he reconciles
Firstly, no one absolutely and perfectly placates anyone about to be offended in any way unless he can avert the offence. For to placate only in view of remitting the offence once committed is not to placate most perfectly. But God does not undergo offence because of some experience in himself, but only because of sin in the soul of a creature. Hence, Christ does not placate the Trinity most perfectly for the sin to be contracted by the sons of Adam if he does not prevent the Trinity from being offended in someone, and if the soul of some child of Adam does not contract such a sin; and thus it is possible that a child of Adam does not have such a sin.
Secondly, a most perfect mediator merits the removal of all punishment from the one whom he reconciles. Original sin, however, is a greater privation than the lack of the vision of God. Hence, if Christ most perfectly reconciles us to God, he merited that this most heavy of punishments be removed from some one person. This would have been his Mother. Further, Christ is primarily our Redeemer and Reconciler from original sin rather than actual sin, for the need of the Incarnation and suffering of Christ is commonly ascribed to original sin. But he is also commonly assumed to be the perfect Mediator of at least one person, namely, Mary, whom he preserved from actual sin. Logically one should assume that he preserved her from original sin as well.
Thirdly, a person reconciled is not absolutely indebted to his mediator, unless he receives from that mediator the greatest possible good. But this innocence, namely, preservation from the contracted sin or from the sin to be contracted, is available from the Mediator. Thus, no one would be absolutely indebted to Christ as Mediator unless preserved from original sin. Then Scotus offers this key sentence, which is typical of his Oxfordian logic: ‘It is a greater good to be preserved from evil than to fall into it and afterwards be freed from it.’ If Christ merited grace and glory for so many souls, who, for these gifts, are indebted to Christ as Mediator, why should no soul be his debtor for the gift of its innocence? And why, since the blessed Angels are innocent, should there be no human soul in heaven (except the human soul of Christ) who is innocent, that is, never in the state of original sin?
Therefore Mary also needed the passion of Christ in order for her to enter through the gates of heaven. The only difference between her and the rest of humankind was that the Virgin Mary was preserved beforehand from all guilt through the merits of the passion of Christ, whereas the rest of the human race was liberated from guilt only after Christ applied to them the merits of his passion through grace which works in an ordinary way through the sacraments. Scotus expresses his conclusion to all the arguments he brought forward to defend the privilege of the Immaculate Conception: ‘We can therefore say that it was possible that the Blessed Virgin was not conceived in original sin. This assertion does not diminish in any way the universal redemption of her Son, as we have outlined above. We can furthermore confirm this, since the passion of Christ was immediately and principally ordered to delete original guilt as well as actual guilt, in such a way that all the Trinity, since it had the foresight of the merits of the passion of Christ, applied them to the Virgin and preserved her from all actual sin, and also from all original sin.’
The rest as they say, is history. The dogma of the All Gracing of Mary is a prime example of how the Church comes to its decisions regarding doctrine. The doctrine of the All Gracing of Mary, regardless of its ancient tradition, was not accepted immediately. There was no vox populi vox dei for its proclamation. Instead there were at least fifteen hundred years of profound dialogue, discourse, dissension, diatribe, and finally decision. Great men put great minds to this problem either for it or against it because they all desired to know and above experience the truth. Duns Scotus is one such mind and can be described as a Franciscan theologian who provided the Church with the Christological basis for the doctrine on the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, in such a way that it could truly be seen as the result of divine revelation. His Christ-centred vision of creation and redemption proves that the primacy of God’s love in the mystery of the Incarnation is still at work in the Church and in the world. The mysterium iniquitatis, or mystery of evil, has been won over by Christ and his Immaculate Mother, whom Saint Francis salutes as the Virgo Ecclesia facta, the ‘Virgin made Church’.