Author Topic: Marian Dogma (Read 1431 times)

jhfromsf68 · « **on:** January 15, 2013, 01:50:28 PM »

I have a theological question that I have been wondering about for some time. Did the apostles like St. Peter and St. Paul and others know and believe and teach the Marian dogmas like the the immaculate conception and the bodily assumption into heaven and how much did the laity in the early church know about these dogmas? How about Marian piety in general and her unique role as an intercessor? Was there just a vague understanding in the early church and that understanding needed to be developed through the centuries like the development of other doctrines?

Thanks
James

Capt McQuigg · « **Reply #1 on:** January 15, 2013, 02:09:53 PM »

Does understanding necessarily be "developed" or would it be better understood if you saw it as "being revealed".

brotherfrancis75 · « **Reply #2 on:** January 15, 2013, 03:24:20 PM »

Quote from: jhfromsf68

I have a theological question that I have been wondering about for some time. Did the apostles like St. Peter and St. Paul and others know and believe and teach the Marian dogmas like the the immaculate conception and the bodily assumption into heaven and how much did the laity in the early church know about these dogmas? How about Marian piety in general and her unique role as an intercessor? Was there just a vague understanding in the early church and that understanding needed to be developed through the centuries like the development of other doctrines?

Thanks
James

Good Brother James,

This question is much more subtle and complex than it may appear at first glance. But essentially they most assuredly did "know and believe and teach the Marian dogmas..."

First of all, there is poetic knowledge as well as discursive knowledge. Just because something isn't spelled out for the discursive intellect doesn't mean we don't know it. At the end of the day the imagination is much more powerful than the intellect (and hence the profound superiority of the male sex over the female -- as sexes, not as human beings or as good Catholics). So, for example, they knew all about Catholic motherhood and therefore had to know all about the Motherhood of Mary. We don't know anything about Catholic mothers if we don't know about the Mother of God!

Then there are some more subtle points. They had a very vivid and accurate sense of our Catholic understanding of ROME. In a very real sense for Catholics Holy Rome is Mary all around us on all sides. Rome is our Church, our State, our civilization. Rome is essentially born immaculate as God's Chosen City and People. Rome is assumed up towards Heaven with the martyrdoms of Sts. Peter and Paul. The Last Judgement will also be the completion of Rome's Assumption into Heaven, very like with the Mother of God. Through Rome divine grace spreads out to the entire world. Rome is the Catholic Church and State and People that unceasingly intercede for the human race on the natural level.

In a very real sense, and as the early Catholics were intensely aware, Mary is Rome and Rome is Mary. As the Holy Eucharist is the natural presence of Christ on earth, so Eternal Holy Rome, in her Church, State and People, is the natural presence of Mary on earth! Catholic Rome is Mary among us. Hence when the Romans, the white Europeans and their followers, finally liberate the world from its heavy Jєωιѕн yoke, then an Age of Mary dawns. Because the Romans (i.e., the Catholics!) are naturally Mary's children and Mary's own divine flesh, blood of her blood and bone of her bone.

We are she on earth! When the darkness of the Jєωs (not the Hebrews --the PHARISEE JєωS) is removed, as it must be in God's own good time, then the natural beauty and goodness of Mary in her Romans will stand revealed and the power of evil (Old Jerusalem) will be broken forever. Then Catholic Rome will appear as Mary and, in her immaculate beauty and power, naturally rule over God's Creation in universal justice and peace.

Or, to quote Our Lord's own words:

"I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify these things to you in the assemblies. I am the root and offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star!"

(Book of Revelation 22:16)

The above quote refers to the Age of Mary. Because Our Lord is above all things the root and offspring of MARY and, in men's eyes, the beauty and perfection of the Bright and Morning Star is none else than MARY, the Mother of God.

Above all the early Christians understood these things as what Father Basilio Meramo of Bogota, Columbia wisely refers to as Patristic Millennarianism, the specific teaching to the Early Catholic Church of St. John the Apostle and his immediate disciples that constitute the teachings of the Sacred Heart to His Beloved Disciple. The early Catholics, through their understanding of Catholic motherhood, Eternal Rome and Patristic Millennarianism, understood the Marian dogmas exceedingly well. Perhaps not so much with the discursive intellect and syllogisms, but they most definitely understood them in their own way, through the powers of poetic imagination.

They understood the Marian dogmas so well that many of them saw the Age of Mary, something now at our very doors, much more clearly and truly than most of us are able to do!

Your lowly and unworthy Franciscan Solitary,

Brother Francis

Sigismund · « **Reply #3 on:** January 15, 2013, 07:42:59 PM »

I am not sure that SS peter and Paul could have known about the Assumption, since the Blessed Virgin may have died after they did.

1st Mansion Tenant · « **Reply #4 on:** January 15, 2013, 07:55:54 PM »

Someone more learned has answered your question, but I thought this was cool.

The oldest known image of The Madonna and Child- 2nd century, Tomb of Pricilla

From Wikipedia:

2nd to 5th centuries
Christian devotion to Mary goes back to the 2nd century and predates the emergence of a specific Marian liturgical system in the 5th century, following the First Council of Ephesus in 431. The Council itself was held at a church in Ephesus which had been dedicated to Mary about a hundred years before.[48][49][50] In Egypt the veneration of Mary had started in the 3rd century and the term Theotokos was used by Origen, the Alexandrian Father of the Church.[51]
The earliest known Marian prayer (the Sub tuum praesidium, or Beneath Thy Protection) is from the 3rd century (perhaps 270), and its text was rediscovered in 1917 on a papyrus in Egypt.[52][53] Following the Edict of Milan in 313, by the 5th century artistic images of Mary began to appear in public and larger churches were being dedicated to Mary, e.g. S. Maria Maggiore in Rome.[54][55][56]

Anthony Benedict · « **Reply #5 on:** January 15, 2013, 07:58:42 PM »

Quote from: Sigismund

I am not sure that SS peter and Paul could have known about the Assumption, since the Blessed Virgin may have died after they did.

Well, here's a prime example ( my own, I mean ) of not taking enough notes when one ought: There are at least a few ancient stories, recounted for posterity ( by actual Saints? ) that at the time of Our Lady's final days on earth each Apostle was summoned from across the world to be with Her. Thomas, traveling farthest, from India, was not in time. He asked his brethren to show him where she had been laid to rest and when they arrived, a miraculous bed of lillies was found and the tomb empty.

Whatever did take place, considering the supreme sanctity of the Mother of God and the divine foreknowledge of all She would do for the rest of history for the Church, it most certainly had to be utterly supernatural and, I presume, of great edification to the first pope and his brethren.

brotherfrancis75 · « **Reply #6 on:** January 16, 2013, 04:44:26 PM »

Quote from: Anthony Benedict

Quote from: Sigismund
I am not sure that SS peter and Paul could have known about the Assumption, since the Blessed Virgin may have died after they did.

Well, here's a prime example ( my own, I mean ) of not taking enough notes when one ought: There are at least a few ancient stories, recounted for posterity ( by actual Saints? ) that at the time of Our Lady's final days on earth each Apostle was summoned from across the world to be with Her. Thomas, traveling farthest, from India, was not in time. He asked his brethren to show him where she had been laid to rest and when they arrived, a miraculous bed of lillies was found and the tomb empty.

Whatever did take place, considering the supreme sanctity of the Mother of God and the divine foreknowledge of all She would do for the rest of history for the Church, it most certainly had to be utterly supernatural and, I presume, of great edification to the first pope and his brethren.

Although none of this can be a matter of faith, surely the above statement must be true! Devotion is a great Catholic virtue, and none more so than True Devotion to Mary.

Sigismund · « **Reply #7 on:** January 16, 2013, 08:31:40 PM »

Very true. Now that you mention it, I remember seeing a movie about this along time ago. It ends with all the Apostles gathered and talking about her assumption. If anyone knows the name of the movie, I would be grateful if you would post it.

Nishant · « **Reply #8 on:** January 19, 2013, 09:36:24 PM »

The privileges and prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin Mary are writ large on the page of Holy Scripture, from the very beginning to the very end. A previous post of mine on this subject,

Start with the Angelic Salutation, in St.Luke's Gospel. Remember the Angel salutes her saying "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee". St.Thomas says that it was absolutely unheard of in antiquity that an Angel should reverently salute even a man, and the Old Testament instead shows us Abraham and Lot reverently saluting Angels, even prostrating in veneration. This shows us that Mary most holy incomprehensibly exceeds even the just of the Old Testament. It also indicates her Immaculate state, since where grace is full, there is no sin, and this even before, as the Angel describes next, the Holy Spirit indissolubly united Himself to her forever as His most glorious Spouse.

Continuing with the same Gospel, come to the Visitation. St.Elizabeth, much much elder to the Blessed Virgin, is amazed and humbled by the visit of the Mother of her Lord as she says when filled with the Holy Ghost. St.John whom Our Lord styled the very greatest of the Prophets, leaps for joy in his mother's womb. This again bears witness to the unspeakable greatness of Our Lady.

There is much more that could be said, for from Genesis through Revelation, there is scarcely a time when the good God, so greatly wounded by the transgression and malice of our first parents, was not thinking of Our Lord and Our Lady. For in the very day they sinned, it was said to them by the Father, in Genesis 3:15 "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." Note that Protestant translations typically corrupt this text, but the first part remains untouched, so that even they must confess that the fallen Angel Lucifer is to be conquered by a Woman and her offspring, who will be the new Adam and Eve. Who is this Woman if not she who is blessed among women? For, if the offspring is Christ, it is manifest the Woman can only be Mary.

Finally, come to the Assumption and Coronation. In St.John's Apocalypse, the last book of inspired Scripture, we see in the twelfth chapter, a Woman radiant with the splendor of the sun, with the moon under her feet, crowned in heaven with a majestic Crown of 12 stars, present there in body and in soul, unlike the disembodied souls we saw earlier in the same book awaiting the day of judgment patiently. She is the Mother of God (verse 5) and the Mother of all Christians (verse 18). St.John again recalls our mind to that ancient serpent as he shows the Woman and her offspring at enmity with him. He shows us that the dignity that Eve lost, to be the mother of humanity as such, was instead given to Mary, to be the Mother of redeemed humanity, that is to say, of Christians. Lest we did not understand the meaning of that action where Our Lord gave Mary at the Cross to be the Mother of the beloved disciple, St.John here explains it for us. Mary is to be the Mother of all Christians without exception. He cannot have God for his Father who will not have Mary for his Mother.

The last verse of the preceding chapter also calls her the new Ark of the Covenant in heaven, which is also important, since the Ark of the old Covenant was to contain the word of God, was greatly revered by the Israelites and irreverence to it was punished by death, as happened to Uzzah. Now, as the Fathers point out, Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, since she held the Incarnate Word of God Himself in her womb, and is therefore forever holy and unstained, and the slightest irreverence to her is therefore utterly intolerable to the divine Majesty.

So devotion to Mary began at the Cross, and to the Cross will it inevitably tend as to its last end. Devotion to Mary is the most perfect and excellent means to love Christ and Him crucified. Who else ever loved God as Mary did. She was first at the Cradle, She was last at the Cross. Let Protestants love Mary as Jesus loves Mary and only then will they come to love Jesus as Mary loves Jesus, and as He wishes to be loved, and then they will be drawn by Him into the one true and Catholic Church.

Neil Obstat · « **Reply #9 on:** January 21, 2013, 08:03:37 AM »

Quote from: Nishant

The privileges and prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin Mary are writ large on the page of Holy Scripture, from the very beginning to the very end. A previous post of mine on this subject,

Start with the Angelic Salutation, in St.Luke's Gospel. Remember the Angel salutes her saying "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee". St.Thomas says that it was absolutely unheard of in antiquity that an Angel should reverently salute even a man, and the Old Testament instead shows us Abraham and Lot reverently saluting Angels, even prostrating in veneration. This shows us that Mary most holy incomprehensibly exceeds even the just of the Old Testament. It also indicates her Immaculate state, since where grace is full, there is no sin, and this even before, as the Angel describes next, the Holy Spirit indissolubly united Himself to her forever as His most glorious Spouse.

Continuing with the same Gospel, come to the Visitation. St.Elizabeth, much much elder to the Blessed Virgin, is amazed and humbled by the visit of the Mother of her Lord as she says when filled with the Holy Ghost. St.John whom Our Lord styled the very greatest of the Prophets, leaps for joy in his mother's womb. This again bears witness to the unspeakable greatness of Our Lady.

There is much more that could be said, for from Genesis through Revelation, there is scarcely a time when the good God, so greatly wounded by the transgression and malice of our first parents, was not thinking of Our Lord and Our Lady. For in the very day they sinned, it was said to them by the Father, in Genesis 3:15 "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." Note that Protestant translations typically corrupt this text, but the first part remains untouched, so that even they must confess that the fallen Angel Lucifer is to be conquered by a Woman and her offspring, who will be the new Adam and Eve. Who is this Woman if not she who is blessed among women? For, if the offspring is Christ, it is manifest the Woman can only be Mary.

Finally, come to the Assumption and Coronation. In St.John's Apocalypse, the last book of inspired Scripture, we see in the twelfth chapter, a Woman radiant with the splendor of the sun, with the moon under her feet, crowned in heaven with a majestic Crown of 12 stars, present there in body and in soul, unlike the disembodied souls we saw earlier in the same book awaiting the day of judgment patiently. She is the Mother of God (verse 5) and the Mother of all Christians (verse 18). St.John again recalls our mind to that ancient serpent as he shows the Woman and her offspring at enmity with him. He shows us that the dignity that Eve lost, to be the mother of humanity as such, was instead given to Mary, to be the Mother of redeemed humanity, that is to say, of Christians. Lest we did not understand the meaning of that action where Our Lord gave Mary at the Cross to be the Mother of the beloved disciple, St.John here explains it for us. Mary is to be the Mother of all Christians without exception. He cannot have God for his Father who will not have Mary for his Mother.

The last verse of the preceding chapter also calls her the new Ark of the Covenant in heaven, which is also important, since the Ark of the old Covenant was to contain the word of God, was greatly revered by the Israelites and irreverence to it was punished by death, as happened to Uzzah. Now, as the Fathers point out, Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, since she held the Incarnate Word of God Himself in her womb, and is therefore forever holy and unstained, and the slightest irreverence to her is therefore utterly intolerable to the divine Majesty.

So devotion to Mary began at the Cross, and to the Cross will it inevitably tend as to its last end. Devotion to Mary is the most perfect and excellent means to love Christ and Him crucified. Who else ever loved God as Mary did. She was first at the Cradle, She was last at the Cross. Let Protestants love Mary as Jesus loves Mary and only then will they come to love Jesus as Mary loves Jesus, and as He wishes to be loved, and then they will be drawn by Him into the one true and Catholic Church.

That's pretty good stuff, Nishant. Are you the author?

I noticed something here:

"It also indicates her Immaculate state, since where grace is full, there is no sin, and this even before, as the Angel describes next, the Holy Spirit indissolubly united Himself to her forever as His most glorious Spouse."

---- The Holy Ghost took Our Lady as His spouse at the very
temporal moment of the Incarnation. That is to say: at the same
earthly time, when the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became
the Son of man, at that very moment in our time, the Blessed Virgin
Mary took the Holy Ghost as her spouse in eternity.

Our Lord Jesus stepped out of eternity into our time as Our Lady
stepped out of our time into eternity, almost, as it were, "passing
each other by" in the process.

Therefore the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as the beginning
in time of the being of God made man, occurs at one and the same
time as the beginning of the sacred union in time of the Blessed
Virgin Mary with the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. These two
events are both beginnings in time, but they are also beginnings in
eternity, which is outside of time. They are creations in time and in
eternity.

For there cannot be one without the other: there cannot be the
union as spouse in eternity of Our Lady with God the Holy Ghost,
without the Incarnation of God in time as Our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ.

These are two events that are distinguishable but they are not two
events that can be separated. We distinguish but we do not
separate.

It seems to be saying that the Divine Maternity of Mary and
Incarnation of God made man share an essential being together, that
they are interdependent, that they each require the other for their
very existence.

songbird · « **Reply #10 on:** January 21, 2013, 03:03:29 PM »

Question? Is the Assumption Dogma? My son brought this to my attention. He said he read from his missal (and it is trad. and approved Fr. L) that although the Immaculate Conception is Dogma, the Assumption is not. I was shocked. I thought that surely it was. You would think that She is Immaculate, no sin, death could not hold her down, and you would think that Assumption would be Dogma. Your input please.

Quo Vadis Petre · « **Reply #11 on:** January 21, 2013, 03:09:49 PM »

Your son must have read an earlier missal before the proclamation of Pius XII stating the Assumption was dogma, in 1954.

songbird · « **Reply #12 on:** January 21, 2013, 03:18:56 PM »

I thank you ever so graciously!

JohnAnthonyMarie · « **Reply #13 on:** January 25, 2013, 03:43:43 PM »

I understand that there are four Marian dogmas, perhaps you might have additional information (and I will add it to the webpage)
1) Divine Motherhood - Council of Ephesus (431)
2) Mary's Virginity
a) Virginal Conception through the Holy Ghost
b) Perpetual Virginity (virginal birth and no other children)
3) Immaculate Conception (Mary's freedom from original sin) - Pius IX, 1854
4) Mary's Assumption (body and soul) into heaven - Pius XII, 1950

http://traditionalcatholic.net/Tradition/Holy_Mary/index.html

Quo Vadis Petre · « **Reply #14 on:** January 25, 2013, 04:27:51 PM »

Quote from: Quo Vadis Petre

Your son must have read an earlier missal before the proclamation of Pius XII stating the Assumption was dogma, in 1954.

I made an error on the date. This dogma was promulgated in 1950; the newer Mass of the Assumption, Signum magnum, was made public in 1954.