A reader of ApologeticaCatolica.org sent the following inquiry:
“A Protestant friend has sent me an article giving several biblical arguments against the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. They state that Mary had sin and that she herself acknowledged it. I am sending you now the parts that have confused me so that you may give me your opinion on the matter, for which I thank you in advance.”
Response:
Dear Manuel, I will now analyze the most relevant arguments from the article you have sent us.
1. The “lowliness” of Mary.
The argument in question states:
“Mary plainly acknowledged what she was before God. She acknowledged her own ‘lowliness’ and her need for Christ as ‘her Savior.’ That ‘lowliness’ of which Mary speaks in the Magnificat was not a manifestation of great modesty on Mary’s part, as Rome says. If Mary had truly been sinless and perfect like Jesus, she would never have spoken of her ‘lowliness,’ for she would not have had it; this would have been plain and simple false humility, and such false humility could never have arisen if Mary had truly been ‘conceived without sin.’ True humility is acknowledging what one is, as well as what one is not.”
It is important to begin with a more accurate translation of the Magnificat text to which this comment refers:
“for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.”[1]
The word used here in the Greek text is ταπείνωσις (tapeinosis), which can be translated as “humiliation” or “humble state”[2] and refers to the condition of a person who recognizes herself as small or makes herself small.
We all must acknowledge our smallness before God, but such smallness does not in any way imply a sinful state; rather, it is the natural relationship that exists between the creature and its Creator. Angels also humble themselves before God, and they have no sin.
Many Protestant Bibles translate this word here as “lowliness” (the various versions of the Reina-Valera), and although the translation is not entirely incorrect (another possible rendering of the word is “low condition”), it does not seem to me the most adequate translation here.
In Acts 8:33 the same word ταπείνωσις is used to refer to the condition of Christ.
““As a sheep led to the slaughter or a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken up from the earth.””[3]
In this text, the Protestant Bibles that translated “lowliness” in the Magnificat here translate “humiliation.” This manner of translating seems tendentious: when the word refers to Christ they use “humiliation,” when it refers to Mary they use “lowliness.”
The word ταπείνωσις (tapeinosis) comes from ταπεινόω (tapeinoo), which means “humble,” and this in turn from ταπεινός (tapeinos), the very word Christ uses to describe Himself when He says:
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”[4]
To assume that Mary had sin because she spoke of her humiliation or humility is like affirming that Jesus also had it, because Scripture uses the same words to speak of His condition.
In the Magnificat Mary is speaking of her humble condition (other exegetes interpret this as a reference to the humiliation suffered by her and her people), but this is far from acknowledging a sinful condition.
Another example is found in James 1:10, where ταπείνωσις is also used:
“Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like the flower of the grass he will pass away.”[5]
In verse 9, ταπεινός (tapeinos) is used to reflect the humble condition of the poor, while verse 10 uses ταπείνωσις (tapeinosis) to refer to the humiliation of the rich. This is another example showing that the word refers to the condition of humility or humiliation of the person, rather than a sinful condition. Were it otherwise, we would have to understand that James is commanding us to boast in our sinful condition; however, the context clearly points in the opposite direction.
2. If Mary committed no sin, does that mean she did not need Christ as her Savior?
“Since Mary is blessed among women (Lk. 1:28), an example of obedience and faithfulness to God, does this mean that Mary was perfect, sinless, and therefore did not require the salvation that Jesus was going to bring to the world through his sacrifice on the cross? No. Mary, like all human beings, could not save herself, neither by her works, nor by her own righteousness or holiness, because just like all the rest, she was human, and therefore a descendant of Adam and Eve. The Bible clearly says that Mary saw herself in need of the salvation that God alone by His grace can give; and He gives it through the only and sufficient merits of Christ Jesus. Mary exclaimed when she went to visit Elizabeth: ‘…my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden…’ (Luke 1:47, 48).”
“…As Miguel Angel Tiscar, a former Roman Catholic priest, says: ‘She says — and we cannot say that Mary is a liar or dishonest. She says: in God my Savior, therefore she was saved!’ If she was saved, it is because she was previously lost, is that not so? since one is saved from the perdition or condemnation that one deserves by justice (Rom. 3:23).”
In order to answer this objection we must first clarify what the Catholic faith actually holds with respect to the Immaculate Conception.
To the statement “Mary, like all human beings, could not save herself, neither by her works, nor by her own righteousness or holiness,” we answer: we agree. To the statement “Mary saw herself in need of the salvation that God alone by His grace can give; and He gives it through the only and sufficient merits of Christ Jesus,” we say: that is 100% Catholic doctrine.
We believe that Mary needed the salvation of Christ, and the difficulty of understanding how she was saved by the merits of Christ without having been conceived in sin is not new. Theologians such as Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Thomas Aquinas raised their objections on this point. Fray Nelson Medina explains:
“The objection ceases once we discover that what we are celebrating is precisely the singular way in which God’s salvation made itself first present in the life of Mary. God saves by raising up the one who falls, but also by preventing the fall. Not falling is a way of having been upheld, a way of having been saved. Mary is not the one who did not need salvation, but the one who was saved in a peculiar way, by reason of her particular mission… To be saved does not imply having sinned or having been under the power of sin.”[6]
Seen in this light, it cannot be denied that we Catholics believe that Mary did indeed need to be saved by Christ, but we believe she was saved in a peculiar way because of the unique and transcendent mission she was to fulfill: to harbor in her pure and spotless womb the Word of God. This was no ordinary mission; it would not be a flesh stained by sin and under the dominion of Satan that Christ would take to Himself. For us, the Immaculate Conception of Mary redounds to the benefit, rather than the detriment, of the dignity of the Redeemer.
Once this is understood, we can grasp the flaw in the former priest’s reasoning when he asks: “She says — and we cannot say that Mary is a liar or dishonest. She says: in God my Savior, therefore she was saved! If she was saved, it is because she was previously lost, is that not so?”
Here lies the imprecision of the Protestant reasoning, which can be illustrated with a simple example. Imagine a pedestrian struck by a car while crossing the street. Someone comes, assists him, and saves him. It can rightly be said that he saved him. But now imagine that he stops him before he crosses the street. He was never struck, but he was also saved.
3. But the Bible says that all have sinned…
“The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Roman Catholics apparently have not realized that ALL means ALL, and that includes Mary. The Apostle John himself declares in 1 John 1:10 that if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. By proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Roman Catholics have made God a liar.”
A common error is to take a text out of its context and from there draw doctrines in a reckless manner. We Catholics know those texts, but we do not believe that either Saint Paul or Saint John intended to include or make reference to the special case of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for here they are speaking of the general condition of the human being.
In this regard it is worth pointing out that in Scripture “all” does not always mean “absolutely all.” If we read Romans 3:23 carefully it also says that ALL were deprived of the glory of God; however, this is not true of absolutely all, since Enoch and Elijah were not. We have testimony of this in Scripture itself:
“Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.”[7]
“And as they still went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.”[8]
But how could there be a reference to absolutely all if Enoch and Elijah were taken up to heaven? Are we to think that Saint Paul did not know these biblical events? Or would it be more consistent to suppose that he was not making reference to exceptional cases?
Just as in that case he was not making such reference when speaking of being deprived of the glory of God, there is no reason to assume that when in the same sentence he claims that all have sinned he was specifically including the case of Mary. This is quite a reckless assumption.
Another example that in the Bible “all” does not always mean “absolutely all” is found in other texts:
“In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.”[9]
Applying the same Protestant reasoning, we would have to conclude that Zechariah and his wife had no sin, because Scripture affirms that they walked blamelessly in all the commandments and were righteous.
In the same way, we believe that the text of Saint John does not intend to make reference to the particular case of the Virgin Mary, since he is not treating that subject but rather the natural condition of all of us as sinners. A proof of this is that, unlike Romans 3:23, he is not referring to original sin but to sins committed. (Original sin is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” — we have contracted it by being descendants of Adam, but we did not commit it ourselves; Adam did.)
Note that Saint John says: “If we say we have not sinned…” When he refers to “having” sinned, he speaks of sins committed, not of original sin. Children, however, have not committed personal sins, so Saint John is not speaking of them either. A small child could say, with reference to the personal sins John mentions, that he has not sinned, and would not thereby make God a liar.
If when Saint John says this he is not contemplating the particular case of children, why should one suppose that he was making reference to the particular case of Mary — she who was to bear in her womb and give her flesh to the Word of God?
Moreover, the same John says further on:
“No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.”[10]
Based on this text, it would be reckless to affirm that there was a time in which Mary did not abide in Him, given that the angel proclaims her “full of grace” in a permanent state, and even before the Holy Spirit accomplished in her the work of the Incarnation. With this we may move on to the next argument.
4. What does it mean to call Mary “full of grace”?
“The other biblical text upon which Rome relies for its Marian dogma is Luke 1:28: ‘And he came to her and said, Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ (Luke 1:28). Now, ‘Hail,’ in Greek ‘Chaire,’ simply means Greetings! It is nothing more than a modern ‘Hello.’ ‘O favored one,’ in Greek: ‘Kecharitoméne’ — the participle to which Rome has clung to teach that Mary was ‘full of grace’ to the very brim, with no room for any sin, original or personal — has no foundation whatsoever, and to refute it one need only observe that Ephesians 1:6 uses the exact same Greek verb, without anyone suggesting that all believers are ‘full of grace’ in the way Rome says of Mary. Acts 4:33 says: ‘And with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all’ — that is, God’s favor for all, fulfilling the words of the angels in Luke 2:14: ‘…on earth peace, good will toward men.’”
Although “full of grace” is indeed a correct translation for the word κεχαριτωμένη (kecharitomene), to be precise, not even this translation captures the full depth of this word.
The word κεχαριτωμένη is an extension of three elements: χαριτόω (charitoo), μένη (mene), and κε (ke). χαριτόω (charitoo) means “grace”; κε (ke) is a prefix of χαριτόω indicating that the word is in the perfect tense, which denotes a present state resulting from a completed past action. μένη (mene) makes this a passive participle. “Passive” means that the action is performed upon the subject (in our case the Virgin Mary) by another person (in our case God). In summary, the word κεχαριτωμένη applied to Mary is a passive participle of χαριτόω (charitoo): it is God who is the author of her state of grace — she has been filled, overwhelmed with grace.
When the angel Gabriel uses κεχαριτωμένη to refer to Mary, he does so as a pronoun (a pronoun takes the place of a name or a title), which represents the identity of the person being spoken of. Thus Mary is identified by a single term, which is not her name (Mary).
On this basis, we interpret the angel as not saying that Mary is full of grace (at that particular moment) but rather as referring to her as the “full of grace” or “overwhelmed with grace.” Now, this state, being the product of a past action (since it is a perfect passive participle), indicates a perfection of grace that is both intensive and extensive. Mary’s state is one resulting from a past action of God toward her, by which He has overwhelmed her with grace, and she is thus identified.
It is worth noting that this word with which the angel identifies Mary is used of her alone throughout all of Scripture. κεχαριτωμένη is not conjugated in the same way as χαριτόω, and so the author of the Protestant article omits the enormous difference between χαριτόω and κεχαριτωμένη, the latter being a passive participle in the perfect tense, which suggests that Mary’s state of grace is total and permanent.
A similar case is found when the Bible speaks of Stephen. In Acts 6:8 it says that “Stephen, full of grace and power…”; however, here something similar occurs: it is an adjective “pleres” (full) followed by the genitive “charitos” (χαριτόω) (of grace). Adjectives reflect qualities of subjects, while pronouns substitute or identify the subject in a sentence. Thus there is a difference between the word used for Mary and the word used for Stephen, since the former implies a permanent state of grace, while the latter refers to a particular state of Stephen at that moment.
Pope John Paul II explained the meaning of the word κεχαριτωμένη:
“The expression ‘full of grace’ translates the Greek word ‘kecharitomene,’ which is a passive participle. Thus, to express more accurately the nuance of the Greek term, one should not simply say ‘full of grace’ but rather ‘made full of grace’ or “graced,” which would clearly indicate that it is a gift made by God to the Virgin. The term, in the form of a perfect participle, expresses the image of a perfect and lasting grace that implies fullness. The same verb, in the sense of “filling with grace,” is used in the letter to the Ephesians to indicate the abundance of grace the Father grants us in his beloved Son (cf. Eph 1:6). Mary receives it as the firstfruits of Redemption.”[11]
5. Mary fulfilled the rites of purification because she was “impure.”
“In Luke 2:22 it says that when the days of Mary’s purification were fulfilled, according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.”
“Luke 2:23-24: as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord,’ and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.’”
“If Mary were without blemish, there would have been no need to present the two turtledoves — one must not forget that blood is for remission, and in this case it was undoubtedly not shed for Christ, so it must clearly have been for Mary, who did indeed need to be purified.”
Of all the objections against the Immaculate Conception, citing Luke 2:22-24 is perhaps the most absurd, and it arises from the profound misunderstanding that some Protestants have of the Scriptures. An attempt is made to use Leviticus to justify the hypothetical sin of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Leviticus states:
“Say to the people of Israel, If a woman conceives, and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean.”[12]
If we look at the prescription of Leviticus, it speaks of whoever gives birth to a male child becoming unclean. We will not enter into detail about the nature of that state of impurity, though it is obvious that a woman does not commit any sin by giving birth, since sin implies disobedience to the divine law. Nor is menstruation a sin in a woman.
However, and without touching this point, we must first bear in mind that Mary did not give birth to a mere male child… she gave birth to the Son of God, just as the angel told her:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”[13]
Is that holy Being, the Son of God, a mere male child like the rest of us, such as to cause impurity in a woman?
For in that case we would be saying that Jesus is the cause of impurity, since He caused it in Mary. But no, the holy Being who will be born of the Virgin is the Son of God, and let us recall that of this same Son of God John the Baptist bore witness:
“The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’”[14]
Thus, ordering the facts, we have that first the author of the argument claims that Mary became impure by giving birth to a male child and from there assumes she was “in sin”; however, the angel assured that the Male who will be born of the Virgin is the holy Son of God, and moreover, John tells us that He takes away the sin of the world. The question would be: what kind of common sense could lead anyone to think that the Holy One par excellence, the Son of God who sanctifies souls, who at the mere touch of His garment purified the hemorrhaging woman and healed diseases, left Mary impure by His birth? How is it possible that He who takes away the sin of the world should have left, by His birth, a sin and impurity in Mary? To insinuate that Mary became impure and contracted some sin by giving birth to the Word of God is frankly absurd.
We must not forget that Jesus was born under the Law of Moses:
“But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.”[15]
Obviously, the Woman who gave birth to Jesus had to fulfill the legal prescriptions. Jesus Himself fulfilled them, since He was circumcised, this being a legal rite.
The fact that Mary presented the legal sacrifice is no proof of her “impurity,” much less that she sinned; quite the contrary, it is proof of her humility and obedience to God, since she who is all-pure, despite her holiness, did so in order to obey the Law of God.
And that immediately reminds us of the beautiful connection between Mother and Son, for Jesus Himself, the Humble of the humble, did the same:
“John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”[16]
And what did Jesus do? He did this:
“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.”[17]
We see here that Jesus received the baptism of John, which was for repentance and forgiveness of sins.
If Jesus was Immaculate and Most Holy… why did He submit to a baptism that was for sinners? Using the Protestant lens, we would have to think that Jesus was not immaculate either.
Now let us turn to the matter of the turtledoves.
Why did they bring the turtledoves? Because that is what the Law said, under which Jesus was born. Jesus fulfilled the Law fully; another example of this we find in the seventeenth chapter of Matthew.
“When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel tax went up to Peter and said, ‘Does your teacher not pay the tax?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ And when he came home, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, ‘What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their sons or from others?’ And when he said, ‘From others,’ Jesus said to him, ‘Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel; take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.’”[18]
According to the Law of Moses among the Jews, every adult male had to pay an annual temple tax; such a tax was two drachmas, that is, the wages of two days for a laborer. According to Jesus Himself, He did not have to do so, and that is why He says to Peter: “From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their sons or from others? And when he said, From others, Jesus said to him: Then the sons are free.” Being the Son of God, He nevertheless fulfilled that legal prescription. He was a Son, not a stranger, yet He complied with the Law all the same. In the same way it is no wonder that Mary also lived in conformity with the Law. So too the Blessed Virgin and the just Joseph: they offered the two turtledoves to fulfill the Law and not cause scandal to the Jews.
6. A woman cannot be the mother of all men.
“The famous passage of the Gospels where Jesus on the cross says to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son’ (John 19:26), and then says to John, ‘Behold your mother’ (John 19:27) is well known. Rome has taught that this is proof that Mary is ‘our Mother.’ However, Jesus always taught us about the Father who is in heaven, not about an earthly or heavenly Mother. They rightly say that ‘a text out of context is a pretext.’ The fact that Jesus told his mother that John, the disciple, would be ‘her son,’ cannot be extrapolated to all believers, since no woman can be mother of all.”
This argument does not really refer to the Immaculate Conception; rather, it is a rejection of Mary’s spiritual motherhood toward us Christians. Although it is not precisely the topic at hand, I will take the opportunity to make a few remarks on the matter.
Here, the reason the article gives to maintain that Mary cannot be mother of all Christians is that “no woman can be mother of all,” but it ignores the fact that what is spoken of there is not a fleshly motherhood but a “spiritual” motherhood. The concept of spiritual motherhood and fatherhood is not foreign to the Scriptures.
Abraham, for example, is called the father of the Jews according to the flesh:
“What then shall we say about Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?”[19]
But also the spiritual father of all believers through faith.
“…he received circumcision as a sign or seal of the righteousness which he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and likewise the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but also follow the example of the faith which our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.”[20]
“Know therefore that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham.”[21]
Now, if Saint Paul himself has no qualms about calling a man the “spiritual father” of all believers, why could Mary not also be called their mother in a spiritual sense? Would it have been consistent for someone to have replied to Saint Paul at that time that Abraham could not be the father of all, because a man could not be such?
Notes
- Luke 1,48 Biblia de Jerusalén ↩
- The New Testament Greek Lexicon ↩
- Acts 8,32-33 ↩
- Matthew 11,29 ↩
- James 1,9-10 ↩
- Fray Nelson Medina, Homilies at FrayNelson.com. ↩
- Genesis 5,24 ↩
- 2 Kings 2,11 ↩
- Luke 1,5-6 ↩
- 1 John 3,6. ↩
- Catequesis de John Paul II (8-V-96) ↩
- Leviticus 12,2 ↩
- Luke 1,35 ↩
- John 1, 29 ↩
- Galatians 4,4 ↩
- Mark 1,4 ↩
- Mark 1,9 ↩
- Matthew 17, 24-27 ↩
- Romans 4,1 ↩
- Romans 4,11-12 ↩
- Galatians 3,7 ↩
