“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
Ps. 51:5
“And Mary said, ‘…my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”
Lk. 1:46-7
“And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto Him, ‘They have no wine.’ Jesus saith unto her, ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?'”
Jn. 2:3
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Order of Contents
Articles 5
Quotes 2
Romanism 1
Latin 4
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Articles
1500’s
Willet, Andrew – Synopsis Papismi, that is, A General View of Papistry... (1592), 9th Controversy, 2nd Part, 9th Question, ‘Concerning the Virgin Mary’
1st part, ‘Whether the Virgin Mary were Void of Original and Actual Sin?’
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Appendix, or pt. 5, ‘Of the Merits of the Virgin, and of the Ave Maria’
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1600’s
Du Moulin, Pierre – ch. 1, ‘In which the question is examined, whether there is original sin, in whom it exists, and whether it is removed by
Baptism. Only Christ is excepted from this stain. Not even the
Virgin Mary was immune from it’ in An Untying of Grave Questions (Leiden: Elzevirana, 1632), Treatise 5, on Original Sin, trans. AI Latin
Rivet, Andrew – Apology for the Most Holy Virgin (Leiden: Heger, 1639), bk. 1 Latin
4. Conception of Mary, whether exempt from original sin, argument from dignity of Mary 43
5. History of defining Mary’s conception 52
6. Papal history behind defining Mary’s conception: not expedient 60
7. Trying to get the Pope to give a definition on Mary’s conception 66
8. Competing parties in Romanism about providing a definition for Mary’s conception 71
9. Year and day of Mary’s birth cannot be known; etymology of “Mary” 78-86
Rivet (1572–1651), a French reformed minister and theologian, defends Mary from both Romanists and some Protestants.
Heidegger, Johann H. – ‘A Historical Theological Dissertation on the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary’ (1672) in Various Disputations tr. by AI by Onku (d. 1698), pp. 187-210 Latin
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2000’s
Barth, Paul – ‘Was Mary Assumed into Heaven? Rome’s Marian Dogma Examined’ (2026) at Purely Presbyterian
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Quotes
Order of
Tronchin
Holtzfus
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1600’s
Theodore Tronchin
Theological Theses on Original Sin trans. AI (Geneva: de la Planche, 1625), p. 6 Tronchin (1582-1657) was a professor of Hebrew and theology at Geneva.
“XX. The subject ‘to which’ it [original sin] happens are all men who are brought forth into the light by the common law of birth. And therefore, Christ alone was immune from this sin; and the Virgin Mary was subject to this evil, because she was propagated from Adam naturally. Then, since Holy Scripture convicts all of sin (1 Kn. 8:46; Eccl. 7:21; Rom. 11:32; Gal. 3:22, etc.), who can press forward and give exceptions to the general propositions of the Word of God, besides the Word itself? But it excepts only Jesus.”
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1700’s
Barthold Holtzfus
‘Theological Dissertation on Sin & its Distinctions’ (Frankfurt: Schwartz, 1712), ch. 2, ‘On Original Sin’, pp. 11-13 Latin
Ҥ33. Besides Christ, the doctors of the Roman school except Jeremiah and John the Baptist, but especially the blessed Mary. Augustine gave occasion to this controversy concerning the blessed Mary in A Book on Nature & Grace, ch. 36, with these words:
“With the exception of the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, on account of the honor of the Lord, I wish to have no question at all when we are dealing with sins,” etc.
He, however, is speaking not of original, but of actual sin, which is acknowledged, among others, by Dominicus à Soto, bk. 3, Of Nature & Grace, ch. 4, and Petavius, Dogmatic Theology, tome 4, pt. 2, bk. 14, ch. 1, §14. Wherefore Lombard’s annotator in bk. 3, dist. 3, ch. 2, and Boyvin in Theology of Scotus, pt. 2, On the Incarnation, ch. 3, quest. 1, p. 286, in vain extend these words to original sin. Thomas, indeed, in Summa, pt. 3, quest. 27, art. 2, teaches that Mary “incurred the stain of original fault,” otherwise:
“she would not have needed the redemption and salvation which is through Christ, which is unfitting, that Christ is not the Savior of all men.”
Likewise, to the 2nd:
“If the soul of the blessed Virgin had never been stained with the contagion of original sin, this would derogate from the dignity of Christ, according to which He is the universal Savior of all.”
Which Becanus candidly confesses in Scholastic Theology, tract 2, ch. 9, qest. 10, §5, where to the question, “Was the blessed Virgin conceived in original sin?” he responds:
“So think the ancient scholastics who were before Scotus, like St. Thomas (pt. 3, q. 27, art. 2), Bonaventure, Albert, Richard, Durandus, Paludanus Capreolus in pt. 3, dist. 3, and many of the more recent ones.”
§34. Scotus, therefore, was the first who, on the occasion of the Feast of the Conception of Mary, collected that it was fitting that the mother of Christ, who was to be the hospice of the Savior of the world and the victor over sin, should be immune from original sin, and in this respect be free from the power and dominion of the Devil, especially since by the power of God it could be done that she be conceived without the sin of origin. But the Franciscans believed that what Scotus had said could be done, had in reality been done, and hence they contended that the blessed Virgin was conceived without original sin.
The Thomists resisted them, especially the Dominicans, who, resting on the doctrine of Thomas, taught that the blessed Virgin was conceived in sin but was sanctified in the womb and born without sin. Meanwhile, at the Council of Basel, A.D. 1439, sess. 36, the opinion of Scotus and of his followers, the Franciscans, pleased, as pious. Wherefore it prohibited that anyone should dispute or preach against the immaculate conception of the blessed Mary. Consistent with which doctrine, Sixtus IV, formerly a Franciscan, in A.D. 1483, established that the Feast of the Conception of Mary should be called the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and at the same time threatened the penalty of excommunication to those who should dare to call the doctrine of the immaculate
conception false or heretical. Hence the Council of Trent, in A.D. 1546, Sess. 5, declared that it was not its intention, when dealing with original sin, to comprehend in that decree the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, the mother of God, but that the constitutions of Sixtus IV were to be observed. Because, however, among the dissenting Dominicans and Franciscans, to whom the Jesuits acceded, and their assenting followers on either side, most bitter quarrels, concertations and disputations arose; hence by the legations and prayers of kings and princes, which were called the legations of the
mother of God, some bulls of the pontiffs, Pius V, Paul V and Gregory XV, were published, by which the ardor of the disputants and quarrellers was repressed, until at
last in A.D. 1661, Alexander VII, having proposed grave penalties, would constitute it to be held and taught that the blessed Mary, by the preventing grace of the Holy Spirit, was
preserved from original sin, and that in this sense, the Festivity of her Conception was to be celebrated with a solemn rite. Heidegger exhibits this and the bulls of other pontiffs
verbatim in his Select Dissertations, vol. 1, diss. 8.
§35. That this opinion is less probable to us is due to the following reasons:
1. Because Scripture speaks generally, and without any exception, Rom. 512, “In whom all have sinned”; 1 Cor. 15:21, “In Adam all die”; and 2 Cor. 5:14, “all were dead: and that He died for all.” These sentences are general, from which it is not lawful to except anyone.
2. Because Christ is the universal Redeemer of all men; therefore, He also redeemed the blessed Virgin; but He could not have redeemed her unless she had been in the servitude of sin; therefore, she was in reality in the servitude of sin. The major is clear from that of 2 Cor. 5:14, “He died for all,” and 1 Tim. 2:6, “Who gave Himself a ransom for all.”
3. Because the penalty of original sin was in the blessed Virgin, namely death, disease and the like; therefore also original sin itself, because the penalty presupposes the fault. To this pertains that of Rom. 5:12, “By one man sin entered into this world, and death by sin.”
4. Because unless the blessed Virgin had contracted original sin, it would follow that she, if she had died before Christ, would have immediately seen God. But this is held to be false in the Roman Church, because Christ had to open the gate of the celestial kingdom for all.
5. Because it was a singular privilege of Christ that He was born without original sin, according to that of Lk. 1:35, “that holy thing which shall be born of thee.”
6. Because the predestination and reprobation of men was made from a foreseen mass of perdition [Rom. 9], as Augustine teaches everywhere; therefore, the predestination of the blessed Virgin presupposes that she was first in that mass.
7. Because Pius V took away the proper office of the conception, and for this reason, because in it the blessed Virgin was said to be immaculate and preserved.
8. Most of the fathers think thus, as Anselm (in bk. 2, Why God became Man, ch. 16; Bernard, Epistle 174; and Rupert the Abbot, bk. 1, in Cantica, near the beginning. These things Becanus relates in so many words in Scholastic Theology, tome 2, tract. 2, ch. 9, quest. 10, n. 3, concl. 3, p. 207. But the 4th Conclusion which he subjoins—that it is more probable that the blessed Virgin indeed sinned in Adam, and from the force of her conception had the debt of contracting original sin, but yet did not contract it, because she was preserved by divine grace—does not make it more probable to us, because most of the reasons for this opinion rest on human authority.”
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In Romanism
In Thomism
Cajetan, Thomas – On the Immaculate Conception tr. by AI by Onku in Works, containing Thirteen most usfeul Treatises (d. 1534), vol. 2
Following Augustine and Aquinas, the Dominicans (of whom Cajetan was a part) saw the need for the doctrine of the universal depravity of man in principle. Aquinas, in holding to a certain necessity of Christ’s redemption, argued against the immaculate conception. He held that Mary was sanctified in the womb after conception rather than being conceived without original sin, seeking to safeguard Christ’s unique role in redemption and in being conceived without sin.
Some Dominicans later began to reinterpret Aquinas’ teachings to accommodate the doctrine of the immaculate conception. They argued that Aquinas’s understanding of Mary’s sanctification could allow for a form of preservation from original sin (and hence Christ being her savior in that regard) that did not compromise the principle of the universality of original sin nor undermine the necessity of Christ’s redemptive act.
Cajetan (1469–1534), a cardinal and interpreter of Aquinas, as well as a leading opponent of Luther, is well-known for his stance against the immaculate conception. He rigorously upheld Aquinas’ position. Cajetan feared the doctrine of the immaculate conception could undermine both the universality of original sin and the need for all humans, including Mary, to be redeemed through Christ.
By the time Pope Pius IX formally defined the Immaculate Conception as dogma for Romanists in 1854, the Dominican Order had come to accept it.
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1. On the twofold way of discerning those things which are of faith,
or opposed to it 1
2. That the question of conception is not necessarily to be believed 3
3. Which opinion concerning conception is opposed to faith 4
4. How probable is the opinion holding that the blessed Virgin was
conceived in original sin 7
5. How much the arguments of those holding that the Blessed Virgin
was preserved from original sin are worth 10-15
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Latin
Articles
1600’s
Chamier, Daniel – bk. 5, ‘Of the Original Sin of those born of the Faithful & of the Controversy about the Virgin Mary’ in Panstratiae Catholicae, or a Body of the Controversies of Religion Against the Papists (Frankfurt, 1627-1629), vol. 3, pp. 55-79. The section begins to explicitly treat of Mary in ch. 2, on p. 55.
Du Mulin, Peter – 21. ‘Original Sin, part 1: Is there Original Sin? In Whom is it & is it Removed in Baptism? Nor is the Virgin Mary Immune from This’ in A Collection of the Theological Disputations Held at Various Times in the Academy of Sedan (Geneva, 1661), vol. 1, pp. 186-194
Du Moulin (1568-1658)
Heidegger, Johann H. – A Historical-Theological Disputation on the Conception of the Blessed, Virgin Mary, Nay, Rather, on that One, Gracious, Immaculate Lamb, Jesus Christ (Zurich, 1672) 35 pp.
Heidegger was a Swiss reformed professor.
Andrea, Samuel – p. 31, Corollary 3 in A Theological Disquisition on the Nativity of Immanuel from the Virgin, According to the Prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 (Marburg, 1679)
Andrea (1640-1699) was a German, reformed professor of rhetoric, history and theology at Marburg.
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“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”
Rom. 3:23
“And it was told Him by certain which said, ‘Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see thee.’ And He answered and said unto them, ‘My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it.'”
Lk. 8:20-21
“…and his mother said unto Him, ‘Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.’ And He said unto them, ‘How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?'”
Lk. 2:49-49
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Related Pages
On the Perpetual Virginity of Mary