Response to Protestant on Mary
The following is a reply to a text message that I received. My reply is too long and too thorough for it to be in a text message, so here it is on my blog, which I intend to send as a simple link. The issues are Marian virginity, sinlessness, and mediation.
Hey Tony!,
So thanks for the verses, I appreciate them. I have a question about the general tactic though. There are many Catholic dogmas which we could have begun this conversation, the two most important ones being on the nature of salvation and authority (and in my opinion, authority being the far greater issue of the two). Yet, you opted for Mary, which is, well, not really an important issue considering the grand scheme of things. Not much theologically rests on Mary, so, just wondering why you thought it was a good idea to discuss her. It’s funny, Protestants seem to be more concerned with her than us Catholics are.
But anyways, to the verses you mentioned. I make to make some preliminary comments, and give some background. These will be the building blocks and I’ll tie it all together when dealing directly with Matthew 1:24-25. First, I want to look at a few other translations. The Douay-Rheims says, “he knew her not” instead of consummate. So does the ESV. So does the 1599 Geneva Bible. So does Holmans. So does the KJV. And they all say that because that is what the word LITERALLY means. So, the NIV tries to modernize things, which is fine when it does so on issues that aren’t really contentious (but then, the NIV doesn’t have all that great of a wrap, it’s written to give a slight edge to the doctrine of Double Predestination, which is fine if you’re a Calvinist, but you don’t come off as Calvinist, so...yeah).
Second, I want to bring attention to the fact that Mary and Joseph were married and committed virgins throughout their marriage (actually, I can only strictly say that about Mary. Our Orthodox brothers in the East believe Joseph brought children from a previous relationship into that marriage). We know that Jesus was born of a virgin because that what the OT said would happen. And we know from Matthew 1:19 that Joseph was Mary’s husband. It is precisely because he was her husband that he (erroneously) wanted a divorce. No marriage, no divorce. So, we know they were married. But we also know they weren’t having sex. This is why Mary was shocked when the angel told her that she, a virgin, would bear a child. If she were having sex, or was planning on having sex, this wouldn’t be shocking. Another reason we know they weren’t having sex was the way Joseph wanted the divorce. He wanted to do it quietly, because of the suspicious that she was being unfaithful. But that is only a danger if they already committed to not having sex with each other, otherwise, a plausible case could have been made that he himself was the father, but since he couldn’t, he needed to do this quietly. So, we know that they were committed virgins even throughout their marriage.
Third, I want to just copy-paste something St. Jerome, a fantastic scholar of the Bible and its translations, said about this particular verse. He wrote,
“Now we have to prove that just as in the one case he has followed the usage of Scripture, so with regard to the word “till” he is utterly refuted by the authority of the same Scripture, which often denotes by its [“till”‘s] use a fixed time (he himself told us so) [and] frequently time without limitation, as when God by the mouth of the prophet says to certain persons, “Even unto old age I am He” [Is. 46:4]. Will He cease to be God when they have grown old?
And the Savior in the Gospel tells the Apostles, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” [Matt. 28:20b]. Will the Lord then after the end of the world has come forsake His disciples, and at the very time when seated on twelve thrones they are to judge the twelve tribes of Israel will they be bereft of the company of their Lord?
Again Paul the Apostle writing to the Corinthians says, “Christ the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ’s, at his coming. Then comes the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet” [1 Cor. 15:23-25]. Granted that the passage relates to our Lord’s human nature, we do not deny that the words are spoken of Him who endured the cross and is commanded to sit afterwards on the right hand. What does he mean then by saying, “for he must reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet”? Is the Lord to reign only until His enemies begin to be under His feet, and once they are under His feet will He cease to reign? Of course His reign will then commence in its fullness when His enemies begin to be under His feet [cf. Luke 1:33
, Rev. 11:15
].
David also in the fourth Song of Ascent [Ps. 123] speaks thus, “Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look unto the Lord our God till he has mercy upon us” [Ps. 123:2
] Will the prophet, then, look unto the Lord till he obtain mercy, and when mercy is obtained will he turn his eyes down to the ground? — although elsewhere he says, “Mine eyes fail for your salvation, and for the word of your righteousness” [Ps. 119:123
].
I could accumulate countless instances of this usage, and cover the verbosity of our assailant with a cloud of proofs; I shall, however, add only a few, and leave the reader to discover like ones for himself.
The word of God says in Genesis, “And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem, and lost them till this day” [Gen. 35:4].
Likewise at the end of Deuteronomy, “So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in the valley, in the land of Moab over against Beth-Peor. But no man knows of his sepulcher unto this day” [Deut. 34:5-6].
We must certainly understand by “this day” the time of the composition of the history, whether you prefer the view that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch or that Ezra re-edited it. In either case I make no objection. The question now is whether the words “unto this day” are to be referred to the time of publishing or writing the books, and if so it is for him to show, now that so many years have rolled away since that day, that either the idols hidden beneath the oak have been found, or the grave of Moses discovered; for he obstinately maintains that what does not happen so long as the point of time indicated by “till” and “unto” has not been attained, begins to be when that point has been reached.
He would do well to pay heed to the idiom of Holy Scripture, and understand with us (it was here he stuck in the mud) that some things which might seem ambiguous if not expressed are plainly intimated, while others are left to the exercise of our intellect. For if, while the event was still fresh in memory and men were living who had seen Moses, it was possible for his grave to be unknown, much more may this be the case after the lapse of so many ages.
And in the same way must we interpret what we are told concerning Joseph. The Evangelist pointed out a circumstance which might have given rise to some scandal, namely, that Mary was not known by her husband until she had delivered [her Son], and he did so that we might be the more certain that she, from whom Joseph refrained while there was room to doubt the import of the vision, was not known after her delivery.
So, basically, “till” and all its variants have a double meaning. Now we have to figure out, which meaning does it have in Matthew? Well, as seen by the background that I gave, that Mary and Joseph were married and committed virgins, the more probable choice is that they maintained that commitment even throughout the birth of Christ. So, given all that, we see why the word “consummate” is bad choice of word for this translation, which is fine considering you got this from a Protestant translation. But, hey, now we know better. You can read the rest of what St. Jerome said here, which I really recommend you read in its entirety.
Now, to your second passage. You quote Luke 1:46-47, and you head it with, “Mary was a sinner who needed a savior.” There are two parts: 1) Mary was a sinner and 2) Mary needs a savior. I don’t know if you knew this, because I think if you did you would have phrased this differently, but it’s orthodox Catholic teaching to say that Mary did need a savior. So, really, all you needed to say to contradict my belief was, “Mary was a sinner”. We can ask, why didn’t you know that? Where are you getting your information about Catholicism? Are you getting it from our documents? Our catechism? Our councils? Where? Or, are you getting them from sources who already believe what we believe is false? If that is the case, tsk tsk, you’re not being intellectually honest. Get your information from the horse's mouth.
So, concerning Mary’s sinlessness, first we should look at Ephesians 1:5-7, which reads, “
Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself: according to the purpose of his will: Unto the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he hath graced us in his beloved son. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of his grace,That God graced us results in the forgiveness of sins and adoption as His sons. The Greek word (or the form of it) here is charito. Protestant commentators have observed this, particular verse 6, as being really salvific. Peter T. Obrien says grace and salvation are virtually synonymous, and it rescues us from the state of sin. Frank Theilman says that those in verse have experienced redemption. Harold Hoehner says the same. So, the individual is a beneficiary of God's grace in which he is saved from his own sin, and the word charito is the word that emphasizes it. It is used only once here in Ephesians, and only one other time in the entire NT. It is used in Luke 1:28, which reads,
And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
Many Protestant translations will render this "Hail, highly favored one" but now we know this is a bad translation, since the word that we read in English as "full of grace" or in your case "highly favored one" is the same word used in Ephesians, Kecharitomene, which is a perfect passive participle, while the variant in Ephesians is passive third person. But it is still charito. So, a more literal translation of the word after having addressed someone, Mary in this case, directly, would be something like, "fully graced one" or "having been graced". What it could be translated precisely is neither here nor there, but that should give you a feel of the kind of ballpark that we're in. Mary had a special salvific grace when the Angel greeted her.
Even anti-Catholics like Eric Svendsen acknowledge this connection. As do James White, Ken Samples, and Norman Geisler (for whom I have much respect btw). Now, of course, they think that this shows that Mary is just like any believer, and in a sense, they're absolutely right. Mary has the salvific grace that is available to any other believer. But as we have already seen, the use of charito is a description of the act of God to confer NT grace on a believer which washes away not just ordinary sins, but original sin as well. This grace used to describe the grace of NT believers is used to describe the state in which Mary is already in when the angel greeted her. Mary was already in a state in which she had no transgressions, before the conception of our savior, which is precisely what the Catholic Church teaches.
Now, because that is a grace, that God saved Mary from the stain and the effects of original sin, it still must be said that Mary needed God to save her. For example, David says somewhere in the Psalms, and I think Jerome makes this point, but I'm not certain, that God saved David from damnation and doubly saved him by keeping him out. Jude 24-25 also talks about being preserved from falling into sin,so that we may be blameless, blameless like in Ephesians 1:4. So, if sin were like a mud puddle, I could save you by pulling you out of that puddle, or by having you avoid the mud puddle in the first place. Mary's salvific grace is like the latter, and the rest of us the former. So yes, Mary was without sin not by her own doing, but by the grace of God.
Finally, your statement that Mary is not a mediator. Unfortunately, this is just too ambiguous. You could be objecting to more than one thing here, depending on what you mean by "mediator". So, I'm going to have to put the ball back in your court now, and ask you, "What do you believe Catholics believe about Mary and mediation that you object to?" And maybe as an exercise, you can actually cite where you got that belief from.
Cheers.
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