Quick Question Concerning Mary

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Your "dogmas" are neither Biblical nor in line with Lutheran theology.

Um.... by dogmas do you mean pious opinion? Because I specifically stated that.

Oh, and tell that to Luther.

 

[DaRev]

Um.... by dogmas do you mean pious opinion? Because I specifically stated that.

Oh, and tell that to Luther.

Luther never said that Mary was "purpetually a virgin" and the dogma concerning the Assumption wasn't made until 1950. I think Luther was long dead by then.

 

[Melethiel]

Marian dogma according to GCC....

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the Theotokos, the God-bearer, Mother of God, and to be revered as such. To state otherwise is heresy.

The Blessed Virgin Mary was perpetually virgin and I venerate her as such but am perfectly comfortable with those who don't. Mere pious opinion.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the Queen of Heaven, as the mother of the Davidic King Jesus Christ, just as the mothers, not the brides, of Israelite kings were considered the queen. But while not merely pious opinion, I can understand how this can make people uncomfortable.

The Blessed Virgin Mary was not immaculately conceived and not without sin, as that violates the universality of Paul's statement that all have sinned.

The Blessed Virgin Mary was taken into heaven following her death and I venerate her assumption, but this is mere pious opinion and I am perfectly comfortable with those who feel otherwise.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is not Co-Redemptrix and not Co-Mediator. Christ alone is redeemer of our souls and mediator between us and the Father.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is to be venerated (dulia, not latria, the worship of God alone) in icons and hailed as queen (as in the rosary), but should not be saught out for intercessory prayer as that constitutes communion with the dead.

Anyway, that's my perspective.

Yeah, what GCC said.
DaRev - what you're thinking with the 1950 date was the RCC pronouncement on the Assumption. What GCC is talking about is what has been historically labeled the "Dormition" of Mary, celebrated on August 15.

 

[Tertiumquid]

"It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary's soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God's gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin."

Dear Q,

Please explain to me why the very quote was removed in reprints after 1529.

Sermon: "On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God," December [?] 1527; from Hartmann Grisar, S.J., Luther, authorised translation from the German by E.M. Lamond; edited by Luigi Cappadelta, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, first edition, 1915, Vol. IV [of 6], p. 238; taken from the German Werke, Erlangen, 1826-1868, edited by J.G. Plochmann and J.A. Irmischer, 2nd ed. edited by L. Enders, Frankfurt, 1862 ff., 67 volumes; citation from 152, p. 58

Sure by all means, get Grisar's book on this. look up what Grisar says of the quote:

“As Luther’s intellectual and ethical development progressed we cannot naturally expect the sublime picture of the pure Mother of God, the type of virginity, of the spirit of sacrifice and of sanctity to furnish any great attraction for him, and as a matter of fact such statements as the above are no longer met with in his later works.”

Regards,
James Swan

 

[Tertiumquid]

and this was interesting to read...

"Luther's own theory on that was quite interesting. Conceived with original sin, yes, but at the infusion of the soul there was a cleansing by the Holy Spirit. He preached on this on the day of her conception (1523 I think) and he also repeated the theory years later - toward the close of his life in the 1540's. We are not bound by Luther's opinions, of course, but by the Sacred Scriptures. But we recognize that pious opinion has long held that the Most Holy Virgin (as our Symbols term her) was sinless in regard to actual sins as a special grace of God, but subject to death through the contagion of original sin from her birth." (Pr. Weedon - LCMS)

No.

Luther's position is thus:

1. The Holy Spirit was present at Christ’s conception to ensure his sinlessness.


2. During Christ’s conception, the Holy Spirit sanctified Mary so that the child would be born with non-sinful flesh and blood.

Luther held:

"Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are…For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person."

Regards,
James Swan

 

[Qoheleth]

While it is true that Mary is the Mother of Jesus (she bore him and mothered him did she not?), this does not mean that we worship her, pray to her or make her to be more divine then she really is.

OK yet, this is not the tenor of the Confessions and many other writings of those that wrote the Confessions...that is where we find the context behind the words


Part I of the Smalcald Articles, Jesus Christ is confessed to have been

born of the pure, holy, and ever virgin Mary​

The Apology goes on to state that
Mary is worthy of the highest honors and desires to have her example considered and followed


"{Mary is the} highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ... She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough." [Martin Luther; sermon given on Christmas, 1531]

and so on and so on


Q

 

[Qoheleth]

Tert,

You present no conflict.

Is there anything else?


Oh well...this is different


1. The Holy Spirit was present at Christ’s conception to ensure his sinlessness

Please explain


Q

 

[Confess]

OK yet, this is not the tenor of the Confessions and many other writings of those that wrote the Confessions...that is where we find the context behind the words


Part I of the Smalcald Articles, Jesus Christ is confessed to have been

born of the pure, holy, and ever virgin Mary​

The Apology goes on to state that
Mary is worthy of the highest honors and desires to have her example considered and followed


"{Mary is the} highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ... She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough." [Martin Luther; sermon given on Christmas, 1531]

and so on and so on


Q

First, I went through all the Smalcald articles searching for Mary's name and found none. So you will have to help me there.
Second, calling Mary the highest woman etc is no different then how we Christians and Jews denoted Abraham. We even have Jesus illustrating Abraham as if he were God himself with Lazarus in his bossom. So to praise her so highly (which she deserves being that she was used by God is such an enormous way) is no big deal to me.

We also do not say that we preach, teach and confess Mary to be ever virgin which means that it is not a doctrine of the church although some do believe that she was ever virgin. That is fine. Our salvation does not depend on how long she was a virgin.

 

[Qoheleth]

The first quote is taken out of context and is not XXII of the Augsburg Confession which talks about the Lord's Supper, not of the Saints. The true text comes from XXI of the Augsburg confession. Correctly put it says:

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[/FONT] OK...

The Ap asserts that Mary prays for the Church, but does not receive souls in death, etc (Ap. XXI:27). In this, Mary is not unique, however, for the Ap. asserts that the faithful dead pray for the Church in general (Ap XXI:9) The Ap also notes that the AC argument is that our churches do not *require* invocation ("Our Confession affirms only this..." Ap XXI: 10) because it 1) has neither command; 2) promise; 3) nor example in the Sacred Scriptures. But the Ap also contains the enigmatic statement "This new invocation in the Church is unlike the invocation of individuals." (Ap XXI:13)

Dr. Piepkorn takes this later to imply that what the Confessors were objecting to was precisely forcing consciences to participate in invocation of the saints when this is practiced "in the Church" - that is, in her liturgy - vs. the private piety of individuals who may believe that the saints, who indeed no longer "know in part" and
who surround us as a "great cloud of witnesses" and whom we confess to be interceding for us anyway, may also be able to hear our requests for their intercessions. But to place invocation in the Divine Service makes those who do not share this pious opinion and who are unsure it is pleasing to God (or believe it is displeasing) actually sin by joining in what they do not believe. (This seems to be the sense of Ap XXI:10-13)

Further, we might also helpfully distinguish between the invocation of the saints that pleads their merits and asks them to do this or that (as though they were God!) with the invocation that consists merely in asking their intercessions on our behalf. (Cf. "Here we will show that the adversaries truly make the saints not just intercessors, but atonement makers, that is, mediators of redemption", Ap. XXI:16) From the standpoint of justification, the first is an abomination, not to mention a violation of the first commandment; the second, however, is no more of a danger to faith than asking you to pray for me, which, of course, I do ask you to do.






Q


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[Tertiumquid]

Tert,You present no conflict.
Is there anything else?

Yes, there is a conflict. The quote you provided stated:

"Conceived with original sin, yes, but at the infusion of the soul there was a cleansing by the Holy Spirit."

Luther, after 1527, did not believe that at MARY's birth, her soul was cleansed by the Holy Spirit.

Please explain

Well, I'm headed to bed. Feel free to read my blog entry on this here:

Research I Would Toss Into The Elbe: Luther Believed in the Immaculate Conception of Mary

Regards,
James Swan

 

[Qoheleth]

Our salvation does not depend on how long she was a virgin.

Yet ultimately this results in ecclesiological and Christological implications...no?

Q

 

[Tertiumquid]

"{Mary is the} highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ... She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough." [Martin Luther; sermon given on Christmas, 1531]

Produce a context. Thanks.

And... the next line of this quote says, "...Still honor and praise must be given to her in such a way as to injure neither Christ nor the Scriptures."

I have never seen a complete context for this quote. I'm tempted to say the quote found its way to cyberspace via a certain Catholic apologist.

That being said, it remains to be explained what Luther means by "holiness personified" and "honor her enough". Saying nice things about Mary does not equal the Immaculate Conception or Marian Devotion.


James Swan

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Luther never said that Mary was "purpetually a virgin" and the dogma concerning the Assumption wasn't made until 1950. I think Luther was long dead by then.

Really now? Funny thing that...

"Scripture does not quibble or speak about the virginity of Mary after the birth of Christ, a matter about which the hypocrites are greatly concerned, as if it were something of the utmost importance on which our whole salvation depended. Actually, we should be satisfied simply to hold that she remained a virgin after the birth of Christ because Scripture does not state or indicate that she later lost her virginity... But the Scripture stops with this, that she was a virgin before and at the birth of Christ; for up to this point God had need of her virginity in order to give us the promised blessed seed without sin." -The Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew

"It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a virgin. ... Christ, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact." -Luther's Works, vol. IV, pp. 319-320.

"Christ, our Savior, was the real and natural fruit of Mary's virginal womb . . . This was without the cooperation of a man, and she remained a virgin after that." -LW, vol. 1, pg. 30

" Christ . . . was the only Son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides Him . . . I am inclined to agree with those who declare that 'brothers' really mean 'cousins' here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers." -ibid

And I could provide quotes from Calvin, Zwingli, and Wesley as well. And I'm sure as not going to be more low church than them.

And the assumption? Mel's right. I'm refering to the celebration of her dormition and subsequent ascension, as testified as early as the fifth century.

Plus, Luther does indeed leave this option open: " There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know." from the Weimar edition, v. 10, pg. 268

I'm thoroughly within the bounds of Lutheranism. Indeed, on the point of perpetual virginity, I'm closer to Luther.

 

[DaRev]

Yeah, what GCC said.
DaRev - what you're thinking with the 1950 date was the RCC pronouncement on the Assumption. What GCC is talking about is what has been historically labeled the "Dormition" of Mary, celebrated on August 15.

I got it. I once again misread. I saw the word "assumption" and got all panicky and such.

 

[DaRev]

Part I of the Smalcald Articles, Jesus Christ is confessed to have been

born of the pure, holy, and ever virgin Mary​

Again, the term "semper virgo" or "ever virgin" do not appear in the original Smalcald Articles and thus is a straw man. You can stop quoting that now.

 

[DaRev]

Really now? Funny thing that...

"Scripture does not quibble or speak about the virginity of Mary after the birth of Christ, a matter about which the hypocrites are greatly concerned, as if it were something of the utmost importance on which our whole salvation depended. Actually, we should be satisfied simply to hold that she remained a virgin after the birth of Christ because Scripture does not state or indicate that she later lost her virginity... But the Scripture stops with this, that she was a virgin before and at the birth of Christ; for up to this point God had need of her virginity in order to give us the promised blessed seed without sin." -The Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew

"It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a virgin. ... Christ, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact." -Luther's Works, vol. IV, pp. 319-320.

"Christ, our Savior, was the real and natural fruit of Mary's virginal womb . . . This was without the cooperation of a man, and she remained a virgin after that." -LW, vol. 1, pg. 30

" Christ . . . was the only Son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides Him . . . I am inclined to agree with those who declare that 'brothers' really mean 'cousins' here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers." -ibid

And I could provide quotes from Calvin, Zwingli, and Wesley as well. And I'm sure as not going to be more low church than them.

OK. But show me in the Confessions, which is the teaching of the Church? We don't hold that everything Luther wrote is necessarily confessional.

(As much as I hate to do this, I have to quote Edial, "Luther was out of his element when he deviated from the Scriptures"... or something like that.)

 

[Confess]

Again, the term "semper virgo" or "ever virgin" do not appear in the original Smalcald Articles and thus is a straw man. You can stop quoting that now.

No wonder I had such a time finding it.

It was never there!!!

 

[Melethiel]

OK. But show me in the Confessions, which is the teaching of the Church? We don't hold that everything Luther wrote is necessarily confessional.

(As much as I hate to do this, I have to quote Edial, "Luther was out of his element when he deviated from the Scriptures"... or something like that.)

He DID state it was pious opinion. We're allowed to have those, right?

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

OK. But show me in the Confessions, which is the teaching of the Church? We don't hold that everything Luther wrote is necessarily confessional.

(As much as I hate to do this, I have to quote Edial, "Luther was out of his element when he deviated from the Scriptures"... or something like that.)

Hey, you said that Luther said nothing about it. I showed otherwise. Now you quickly dodge over to the confessions?

Regardless, its an opinion. Something I privately hold. You know, something about adiaphora and all that...

 

[DaRev]

He DID state it was pious opinion. We're allowed to have those, right?

Yeah, I guess people have those. But he referred to them as his "dogmas" which puts a little more emphasis than does "pious opinion."