Is Catholicism too Marian?

ArmyMatt

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Here is an example:

“Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honouring that matter which works my salvation.” - John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images

Indirect worship? Pure sophistry. I know I am using mainly John here, sorry, but it is evident the folly in these words. Not only is this ridiculous, but just reading this leads to theological problems as to what he worships through the image he depicts God with, the image of Jesus' humanity? His divinity isn't depicted here, and if it were it would be a false representation by a man's imagination. He is dividing the natures as separate.



Don't know enough about that.



Do you mean Herod's Temple? Where there images therein?

Images of men and of God for private/public worship isn't the same thing as an altar to burn offerings.

1. again, where does he say the icon is worshipped? and he is not dividing the natures, since the base of the union is still the one Christ. you need to read on what Nestorianism actually is before you accuse St John of Nestorianism.

2. alrighty.

3. yes and yes. images go back to the Tabernacle. and no one is talking about burning any offerings. no offering is made to an icon.
 
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Jonaitis

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This isn't an argument against honoring Mary from my standpoint. Mary herself said that she would be proclaimed blessed among women.

David is indeed the ancestor of God. Some Lutheran churches have him on their calendar, and people even name their children after him. And we read the story about how he was anointed to be king. So it seems to me, he is indeed honored for his role in salvation history.

People have to realize something, Mary, though blessed among women, stood as an private individual before God like the rest of us. Her being the bearer of Christ's flesh, yes united with his Godhead, was the only honor. For generations she will be remembered for this, but Romanists insist she has certain privileges and other statuses beyond these. Once she died in the body that carried Jesus, she remains a sinner who needed Christ. She was a regular person, blessed by God indeed, but regular. Luke gives the honor that is necessary, but ends it there. We no longer read her after that, she just makes cameos in the narrative before completely vanishing from the rest of the New Testament. Not even Paul had to give her recognition. In fact, he doesn't even name her, neither in 1 Corinthians 15 about whom Jesus appeared to after the resurrection, nor in Galatians 4:4 about him being born of a "woman." She is quickly forgotten, because her spotlight is for Jesus alone.
 
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FireDragon76

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St. John Damascene's logic is basically correct, and is nothing more than an extension of Nicene and Chalcedonian Christology to new pastoral circumstances, namely, the banning of icons by an emperor.
 
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FireDragon76

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People have to realize something, Mary, though blessed among women, stood as an private individual before God like the rest of us. Her being the bearer of Christ's flesh, yes united with his Godhead, was the only honor. For generations she will be remembered for this, but Romanists insist she has certain privileges and other statuses beyond these. Once she died in the body that carried Jesus, she remains a sinner who needed Christ. She was a regular person, blessed by God indeed, but regular. Luke gives the honor that is necessary, but ends it there. We no longer read her after that, she just makes cameos in the narrative before completely vanishing from the rest of the New Testament. Not even Paul had to give her recognition. In fact, he doesn't even name her, neither in 1 Corinthians 15 about whom Jesus appeared to after the resurrection, nor in Galatians 4:4 about him being born of a "woman." She is quickly forgotten, because her spotlight is for Jesus alone.

She isn't "quickly forgotten". Have you not read in the Gospel of John, "Son, behold your mother?" (John 17:26-27). She is one of the few disciples to not abandon Jesus and stands with John and Mary Magdalene at the foot of the Cross.
 
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Jonaitis

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She isn't "quickly forgotten". Have you not read in the Gospel of John, "Son, behold your mother?" (John 17:26-27). She is one of the few disciples to not abandon Jesus and stands with John and Mary Magdalene at the foot of the Cross.

One of my points was the she started to fade away after Luke...making appearances here and there.

I have come to believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, and that she didn't abandoned him because he was her only son, why would she not be there? Other than the fact she was a disciple? "Son, behold your mother," passing on the responsibility he couldn't continue while away to his beloved disciple John.

This actually was about Jesus, if you think about it. Mary is just another background character here, the spotlight is on Jesus.
 
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Jonaitis

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1. again, where does he say the icon is worshipped? and he is not dividing the natures, since the base of the union is still the one Christ. you need to read on what Nestorianism actually is before you accuse St John of Nestorianism.

2. alrighty.

3. yes and yes. images go back to the Tabernacle. and no one is talking about burning any offerings. no offering is made to an icon.

I know what Nestorianism is, in making an image of Christ you are depicting only his humanity. This would imply that he is two persons here...

How does icons, the way it is used in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, resemble the way Israel worshiped in the Temple? There is differences, unless you want to show me how not? Images made Solomon's Temple beautiful, not meant for it to be aids in their worship.
 
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FireDragon76

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I have come to believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, and that she didn't abandoned him because he was her only son, why would she not be there? Other than the fact she was a disciple? "Son, behold your mother," passing on the responsibility he couldn't continue while away to his beloved disciple John.

This actually was about Jesus, if you think about it. Mary is just another background character here, the spotlight is on Jesus.

To see Jesus through Mary is another facet of Jesus' transfigured humanity, it's not just background. Jesus is God embedded in human relationships that draw us to him and we commune with God through his humanity, which includes his relationship to his mother. Rowan Williams had a good little book that had meditations on icons, and that's one of the things he brings up discussing the icon of the Directoress. https://www.amazon.com/Ponder-These...illiams+icons&qid=1553052083&s=gateway&sr=8-2
 
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Jonaitis

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FireDragon76

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What in the world do you believe? You seem really all over the place in all of your posts.

I am an Evangelical Catholic, much like ViaCrucis. That means I'm Lutheran.


Lutherans do have religious images, we always have, and we even have icons of Mary:

Madonna of Stalingrad, 1942, Pr. Kurt Reuber:

stalingrad-madonna.jpg



St. Mark's Lutheran Church, ELCA, Baltimore


5ec8a3ad3cf1c87f5348292aff79ce7f--mary-and-jesus-church-building.jpg



Lutherans are sometimes indeed "all over the place". Our confession places us as a via media between Catholicism and Protestantism. We are both Evangelical and Catholic. In terms of some doctrines, we are more like Protestants. But like Catholics and Orthodox, we are sacramental realists and we agree to the creeds and conciliar conclusions of the early church as symbols of our faith.
 
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ArmyMatt

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I know what Nestorianism is, in making an image of Christ you are depicting only his humanity. This would imply that he is two persons here...

How does icons, the way it is used in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, resemble the way Israel worshiped in the Temple? There is differences, unless you want to show me how not? Images made Solomon's Temple beautiful, not meant for it to be aids in their worship.

1. if you knew what Nestorianism is, you wouldn't have said iconography is Nestorian. the champions against Nestorianism used icons. so unless you think you are more anti-Nestorian than the very people who proved Nestorianism is wrong (and are the only reason we know it is wrong), then icons are not Nestorian. Alexandria was the school which stood up against Nestorius. St Athanasius of Alexandria, before Nestorius, defended icons.

2. for one, Scripture does not say that the images are only to be beautiful. for two, the images clearly were not only beautiful, since there were cherubim over the mercy seat to mark where God would speak. and the mercy seat was in the Holy of Holies not visible to everyone. so those images were aides since they marked where God would speak to man.

so there really is no evidence to support this point.
 
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prodromos

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David isn't just another sinner, he's the Ancestor of God. That's pretty unique. God chose to have an ancestor, and that ancestor was David. \(-_-)/
David is just one of many ancestors of God, so he is by no means unique in that regard. Mary, on the other hand, is the only human in history to have carried God within her womb for nine months. Many people were healed of their infirmities by a single brief touch from Christ. Imagine what nine months of constant contact would do.
Your attitude, like many Protestants, is a reflection of defining yourselves as NOT Roman Catholic. In your opposition to Catholicism's perceived magnification of Mary, you go to the opposite extreme and try to minimise her significance to the extent that she is no better than anyone else. In my mind that is a far worse error.
 
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FireDragon76

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David is just one of many ancestors of God, so he is by no means unique in that regard. Mary, on the other hand, is the only human in history to have carried God within her womb for nine months.

As my pastor said last year, the Gospel for Christmas is God in diapers.
 
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prodromos

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Indirect worship? Pure sophistry.
I see nothing fallacious in his argument. Perhaps you have a different understanding of the word?
I know I am using mainly John here, sorry, but it is evident the folly in these words. Not only is this ridiculous, but just reading this leads to theological problems as to what he worships through the image he depicts God with, the image of Jesus' humanity? His divinity isn't depicted here, and if it were it would be a false representation by a man's imagination. He is dividing the natures as separate.
What do you understand the photostefano to depict in the icon of Christ if not His divinity?
 
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icxn

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You didn't read #75
I'm perplexed! One sees an image of a scriptural event or person and his mind is edified and offers thanksgiving and praise to God. Another hears the same preached by means of sounds and likewise glorifies God. Yet you say the former is sinful if done in Church and the latter is not. Imagine if I were deaf or illiterate... it would have been very difficult, impossible even, for me to worship in your Church.
 
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icxn

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“Photostefano”?

My apologies in interjecting, but I am not familiar with this term, and Google seems to have failed me...could you enlighten me as to its meaning, please?
It's the equivalent of the English word halo. It's a synthetic word comprised of light (φως) and crown or wreath (στεφάνι).
 
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ArmyMatt

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I need a source for this.

"We the faithful do not worship the images as gods, as did the heathen Greeks - God forbid! - but our only purpose and desire is to see in the image a reflection of the facial form of the beloved...so also the faithful do not embrace images for their own sake, but kiss them as we often embrace our children or our parents, to show affection in our hearts. So the Jew, when he venerated the tables of the Law, or the two cherubim, hammered from gold, did not honor stone or gold for its own sake, but for the Lord Who had ordered them made." -To Antiochus the Prefect
 
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