Commentary on Scripture: Romans 16

I commend to you our sister Phoebe... that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you.

Romans 16:1-15 ~~ Paul offers greetings to various individuals known to him personally. Most of the names are unfamiliar to us, though some of them are referenced elsewhere. Also note the number of female names in the list.

Romans 16:3-4 ~~ Prisca and Aquila are referenced in Acts 18, worked with Paul as tent-makers, and apparently risked their own necks to save Paul's life.

Romans 16:5 ~~ "Epaenetus... who is the first convert to Christ from Asia." Whoa. Nice credentials.

Romans 16:6 ~~ "Mary, who has worked hard for you." There are six other people known by that name in the New Testament; nothing is known about this Mary beside this one cryptic reference.

Romans 16:17 ~~ Paul exhorts the Romans to be wary against those who teach against the apostolic teaching and would lead them astray.

Romans 16:18 ~~ Paul is specifically addressing the heretics in Rome that were slaves to their appetites and who deceived themselves and others with smooth rhetoric.

Romans 16:19 ~~ Rome was apparently famed for their obedience to the apostolic tradition.

Romans 16:20 ~~ Here again, Paul concludes the letter. See also 15:33, 16:24 and 16:27.

Romans 16:21-22 ~~ Paul sends greetings from his companions, including a personal salutation from his scribe Tertius.

Romans 16:25-27 ~~ Here at last Paul offers a brief and impromptu doxology. "To Him... be the glory forever." Paul is awesome, and here ends his epistle to the Romans.

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the eternal God has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.

What Do I Ask?

As the year began I discovered, much to my own surprise, that even though I was Protestant a full half of my theology was wholly and unreservedly Catholic.

This led me to investigate Catholicism in much greater depth, and within a few months each of my objections had fallen away.

By the middle of Lent I realized I was becoming Catholic, and had spoken to the priest, parochial vicar, and head catechist about joining the Church.

After the Easter Vigil, I began participating in the Inquiry meetings, in preparation for joining the RCIA program: that is, the "Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults."

I will officially enter RCIA on July 10th during the "Rite of Welcome" conducted at my parish's morning Mass.

As part of the Rite of Welcome, I will be asked two questions by the presiding priest or deacon. These questions are:
1) "What do you ask of God's Church?" and
2) "How can this faith community help you?"

How shall I answer? I ask for your advice and feedback, my friends and fellow Christians.

The second question strikes me as more personal, speaking to myself as an individual and my parish as a community. But even this I hardly know how to answer. I have some idea of my own needs, but how can I ask to receive unless I know what others can willingly give? I should be ashamed to request a mite only to be receive it from the hands of the widow. What can I ask for?

With regards to the first, I find there is a more pressing question: what should I ask of God's Church?

For I believe that the Church is the one holy and spotless Bride of Christ, mystically united in the Body of Christ, and bearing apostolic witness to the Life of Christ, the words and deeds of God. Next to that, I got nothing.

I would hardly present St. Peter with a list of demands as I passed through the Pearly Gates. It would hardly do to enter into the visible Church with a similar gesture. What can I request, knowing I receive all things (even my life) through the very grace of God?

Non Sola Scriptura

Thinking back over my shift to Catholicism, I find that there were four discrete steps. First, I discovered (much to my surprise) I was already mostly Catholic in my theology. Second, when I investigated further, I found that my objections were falling faster than the price of tulips in February 1637, and realized that the remaining few wouldn't last long. Third, I learned the truth of "you can't go home again" when I found that I could no longer assent to the tenets of Protestantism, most notably the five "Solas." Fourth, those final few objections to Catholicism were overcome and I entered RCIA.

I found that the process went quite swiftly, though not because of my own merits or demerits. I don't think of myself as intellectually fickle, and I'm sure that my persistence in doggedly seeking answers only slightly accelerated my pace. Rather, I believe the process went quickly simply because the foundation was already laid: I was already grounded in the Apostolic Tradition, I just hadn't given it enough though to see how it "fit together" with the other elements of my faith and theology. Once I made those connections, the dominoes started tumbling.

One of those key turning points was on the issue of tradition.  Tradition has long had a bad name among Protestants. Scripture is the heart of our faith and tradition is treated as a distraction, an unhealthy accretion of human error. Despite this, I had already become a traditionalist of sorts (thanks largely to my study of history and philosophy, and thanks specifically to C.S. Lewis). I also saw how absurd the Protestant distaste for tradition was, since Protestants have dozens of entrenched traditions among ourselves: the altar call, the Sinner's Prayer, the order of service, etc. Calvin's Institutes might even make the cut. Protestants intuitively grasped that such things have value, even as we derided them in the abstract.

The other thing that struck me was that the dichotomy between Scripture and Tradition was untenable. The Bible itself is an artifact of tradition -- it did not descend from On High, inscribed by divine printing press on pages of vellum. It is the product of humans, written by individuals with very distinctive backgrounds and personalities, though they all operated under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Jesus didn't write anything, but His legacy was preserved in the witness of the apostles. It is from those Apostles, from their testimony and their authority, that we inherit both Scripture and Tradition. The only difference is whether the witness of the Apostles were conveyed in written or in oral form. I think it's safe to rank Scripture as the preeminent instance of Tradition, but it remains primus inter pares: "first among equals."

Digging deeper, I stumbled across a third truth: the infallibility of Scripture is not self-evident. Admittedly, Scripture often speaks of the Words of God being complete and without error; the New Testament often references and corroborates the authority of the Old; and there are references even within the New Testament to other books in the NT canon (cf. 2 Peter 3:15-16, not to mention Luke 1:1-2 and the whole Synoptic tradition). But in no instance does Scripture provide us with its own canon; at no point does the Bible list the books of the Bible. Nor does it ever define Scripture as the sole infallible foundation of our faith to the exclusion of all else. Moreover, if Scripture did define itself as an exclusive authority, such a statement would be clearly tautological: simply as a matter of logic, the argument would be circular. If we ever wanted to mount a serious case for sola Scriptura, we would be obligated to rely on sources and an authority outside Scripture in order to demonstrate it.  We must identify what preceded Scripture, to establish how it proceeded from there.

In my next note, I'll return to this issue, of identifying the primary source of Scripture's authority. In the meanwhile, for an insightful analyses of Scripture and tradition, I'd recommend checking out Anthony Layne's six-part series on "The Sola Scriptura Problem" at his blog Outside the Asylum. His arguments have an impressive pedigree within the Catholic Church, so I'll probably borrow some of the same points. Nevertheless, it's still a great resource, and more comprehensive than I expect my posts will be.

In Defense of Tradition

"Apology" was originally derived from the Greek ἀπολογία, transliterated as the Latin apologia. The word is translated "speaking in defense," and it is from this root that we speak of "apologetics" as a discipline of argumentation and rhetoric. Nowadays, "apology" is much more often used as an expression of regret or remorse, an acknowledgement of shortcomings.

In this case, I feel both meanings are particularly apt. On the one hand, especially in a modernist society that attaches great value to individuality and originality, it sometimes seems necessary to apologize for advocating the ideas and institutions of the past. On the other hand, especially in a modernist society that has little respect for the wisdom and experiences of its predecessors, it must always be necessary to defend the ideas and institutions of the past.

A few days ago I posted G.K. Chesterton's famous defense of tradition as "the extension of the franchise" and as "the democracy of the dead." I think this approach is both necessary and effective. But the case for tradition extends far beyond mere egalitarian sentiment.

Tradition is not just democratic; it is essentially rational.

It should be obvious that every person has their own unique strengths and weaknesses. It should be equally obvious that this applies to both the whole as well as the part. Every society and culture carries certain advantages and disadvantages. This is not to say that all cultures are created equal -- I doubt anyone would volunteer to live among the Aztecs or Spartans -- but it is to say that no culture is perfectly utopian nor totally dystopian.

It also follows that every culture has its own peculiar blind spots. Certainly there is true of the early American republic, which preached freedom for all while enslaving the few. I think this principle can be safely applied for all people and for all times.

The only way to see past a blind spot is to change perspective. In order to be rational we must distrust our own reasons, and seek to view ourselves through the lens of other cultures, whether distinguished by time or by distance.. We who belong to the West ought to moderate our sometimes extreme individualism with the communal orientation of the East. Likewise, we who belong to the modern age out to recall the mores and traditions we inherit from the medieval ages.

It is wise to view our own culture through the lens of another, and that is the essence of tradition.

It often strikes us that many conventions and customs we inherit from the past seem to be quite non-rational. In the Whit Stillman film Metropolitan, the characters play a game where the loser must answer any question put to them, even if it betrays a secret. When one character, Audrey, objects, the others tease her and say they can't think of why they shouldn't place such a game. Audrey responds: "You don't have to! Other people have, and that's why it became a convention."

It is wise to abide by social customs, even when (and especially when) you cannot think of the reasons for it, and that is the essence of tradition.

On the other hand, it must be conceded that many of the ideas and institutions of the past are positively irrational, with something approaching contempt for reason. Yet this is not in itself an argument for their abolition. As a matter of history, almost all governments arose by an arbitrary concentration of power and prestige. Recorded instances of a "social contract" are vanishingly rare. Yet anarchists are few and far between. Despite the modern appetite for chaos in our art and originality in our ideas, stability is an essential good. In economic terms, it enables technological progress and capital accumulation; in personal terms, it allows us to plan for and anticipate the future.

It is wise to organize a society around the principle of stability, and that is the essence of tradition.

Finally, traditions are not limited to merely the realm of social convention. Traditions exist within intellectual disciplines and fields as well. The same principles above apply here as well, with still further benefits.

On the whole, intellectual traditions do not arise out of the input of common minds. Indeed, they do not even grow out of above-average minds. The paradigms of thought and the defining insights are almost always the product of geniuses.

We receive philosophy from the minds of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Bacon and Descartes, among many many others. It is for this reason that my professional interest in economics began in the history of economic thought: by following the intellectual innovations through history, I trained myself to identify with and think like the great economists of history. I learned from the Greeks, from the Schoolman, from the Physiocrats, from the classical economists of Scotland and France, and from the modern economists of Chicago, Oxford, and Vienna.

In social circles, anyone and everyone contributes to tradition: that is its great democratic virtue. But in intellectual circles, only the brightest luminaries contribute to Reason's vast estate: that is its great aristocratic virtue. In such matters we follow tradition as the students of the medieval University would follow a teacher, eagerly seeking to learn from it, avidly scrounging for every scrap of wisdom it might dispense.

Tradition is not the sole good in the world. But I cannot deny that it is a very great good, and one that has been tragically underrated for far too long. This is my apology; here rests my defense.

"Tradition... is the democracy of the dead"

But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up been able to understand. I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. The man who quotes some German history against the tradition of the Catholic Church, for instance, is strictly appealing to aristocracy. He is appealing to the superiority of one expert against the awful authority of a mob. It is quite easy to see why legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. the legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad. Those who urge against tradition that in the past men were ignorant may go and urge it... along with the statement that voters in the slums are ignorant. It will not do for us. If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils.

G.K. Chesterton. Orthodoxy. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995 [1908]. Pp. 52-53. (Chapter 4: "The Ethics of Elfland").

Mary, Full of Grace

In my last post, on Mary's perpetual virginity, I discussed the typological significance of the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the law of Moses -- the written Word -- as a prefiguration of Mary, who would bear the Word made flesh.

Exodus 34:29 tells us that when God wrote the words of the Law on the stone tables and gave them to Moses, "the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with" God. Moses' face shone so greatly from His Presence that he was obliged to wear a veil, to avoid blinding his terrified countrymen who gathered at the base of the mountain. 2 Samuel 6:7 reminds us that when these words were placed in a vessel of acacia wood, the resultant Ark of the Covenant was so unimaginably Holy that to touch it meant instant death.

With such passages in mind, what should we then think of the Jewish girl in whose womb the immortal Word (from whom the words of the Law had been derived) was made present in the flesh? What words can possibly begin to express the holiness of this, the Mother of God, the Ark of the New Covenant?

Catholics understand two categories of honoring a person or thing.  Latria is the worship and adoration due solely to God, and dulia the respect and veneration proper to created things. Mary obviously falls under the latter category, and yet she outranks almost everything else. No prior consecration of the patriarchs, the judges, the kings, the prophets, or the nation of Israel itself can compare to the honor and distinction bestowed on Mary, the Mother of God. She is utterly unique in Scripture. It is for this reason that Catholics consider Marian devotion to be hyperdulia -- proper to a created being, but beyond what would be accorded to almost anything else.

Even the angels accorded her exceptional honors. When the archangel Gabriel appeared at the Annunciation, the closest literal translation of his greeting is: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord with you." This is why "she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was" (Luke 1:28-29). Mary may be the only individual who isn't immediately struck dumb at the sight of an angel, and for whom the immediate reassurance of "Do not be afraid" isn't actually necessary. She is certainly the only one to be greeted by a title rather than a name.

The title itself is a linguistic mouthful. The original text, in Greek, is kecharitomene, which is the perfect passive participle of charitoo (grace, blessing, favor). The perfect tense has a pretty specific meaning in Greek: it connotes a present state of completeness, contingent upon a past action. Thus the phrase "it is written" uses the perfect tense: it was written in the past, but brought to perfection in the present (in the person of Jesus Christ). For those who want to research further, I found this article to be particularly valuable. Essentially, the salutation kecharitomene indicates a state of unique and perfected grace which had already been bestowed upon Mary and which would now be brought into completeness.

Confused?  So was Mary.

To understand this unique grace which had been bestowed, and was about to be brought to fruition, it's necessary to understand another typology with which Mary is usually associated. Jesus Christ often referred to Himself as "the Son of Man" and is often compared to the first Man, Adam. Indeed, Romans 5:14 explicitly states that "Adam... is a type of Him who was to come" -- that is, that Adam is a typology of Christ. "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:22).

Just as Adam was a type for Jesus Christ, so the early Church treated Eve as a type for Mary

Consider again the significance of the Annunciation. God sought to come into flesh, to incarnate Himself and redeem humanity as Man. But this could not occur without the consent of Mary. By the very principle of free will that had caused Adam's fall in the first place, the divine plan of redemption was placed at the mercy of the young Jewish girl from Nazareth.

When Adam sinned, it was Eve who preceded him. Her sin led to his Fall. Thus, by that same typology, it would be the second Eve's faithfulness that would anticipate the second Adam's sacrifice. Her obedience at the Annunciation would enable His obedience in Gethsemane, even unto death.

Can we begin to fathom the cosmic pyrotechnics that accompanied her response to Gabriel? "Behold, the bond-servant of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word." Her justly-celebrated fiat is one of the defining moments of Creation: the pinnacle of all the patriarchs, of all the prophets, and all the people of God. By the free will of the first Adam, man separated himself from the Presence of God. Now, by the free will of the second Eve, God was made Present to again walk among men. This is the meaning of St. Jerome's dictum: "Death came through Eve, but Life has come through Mary."

This typology should explain Gabriel's salutation of Mary. She was full of grace, given in anticipation of this very moment. Eve had chosen the apple of her own free will, in a state of innocence. In this moment, this second chance for humanity, Mary was endowed with the same grace and freedom.

This is the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Protestants, take note: the Immaculate Conception refers to the conception of Mary, not the conception of Jesus (an event celebrated as the Annunciation or the Incarnation). I'm rather ashamed at how long it took me to recognize the distinction.

The history of this dogma is particularly interesting. Though it was defined in 1854, the teaching that Mary had by the grace of God lived a sinless life had been held long before that time, arising from the early Church and recognized by both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians. The reason it took so long to define dogmatically is because, for most of its history, this teaching appeared exclusively in the liturgy of the Church, and wasn't discussed in academic settings.

When Eadmer, companion to St. Anselm, published a tract on the subject in the early eleventh century, the long-standing teaching moved from the realm of doxology to the field of theology. This was especially the case at the University of Paris, where the doctrine was subject to heated debates between the Dominicans (best represented by the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas) and the Franciscans (notably the Blessed John Duns Scotus).

The debate focused primarily on three questions.  First, in what way was Mary sinless? Was she preserved from "original sin" (sin nature in toto) or merely from "actual sin" (that is, sinful deeds)?  It is for this reason that the Eastern Orthodox Church recognizes Mary as "spotless" without agreeing to the Immaculate Conception as Catholics define it. Second, what were the consequences of this sinlessness? This discussion mostly focused on whether Mary was subject to the usual sufferings of humanity -- especially the labor pains of childbirth -- and whether she ever entertained sinful thoughts or temptations.

The third question, however, was the bigger point of contention: at what point did her sinlessness take effect? Virtually everyone agreed that this sanctifying grace was endowed to Mary before her birth, but there was a good deal of controversy whether it was given at the moment of physical conception, or some indeterminate time after conception but before birth. Ultimately, the scholarly consensus arrived at a middle position. Relying on the insights of medieval scholasticism, and in contrast to the sometimes dualistic approach of the post-Enlightenment West, Catholic theology defines man as a holistic union of body and soul.  For this reason, Catholic theology distinguishes between "conception" simpliciter, in the purely physical sense, and "conception" in the broader sense, the moment at which the body is fused with a rational soul. Mary's immaculate conception is therefore interpreted as applying to the latter (sometimes called "animation"), since original sin is transmitted by flesh but pertains to our souls.

Once this consensus was reached, the dogma was solemnly defined by the Council of Basel, held between 1431–1449, and was recognized by all Catholic theologians. However, some time later it was determined that the Council of Basel was not a proper ecumenical council according to canon law, and therefore unable to promulgate dogma, and so the question was left up in the air for some time.  It wasn't until the mid-nineteenth century that, with the nearly unanimous consent of the College of Cardinals and the bishops of the Catholic Church, Pope Pius IX defined the dogma in his apostolic constitution of 1854, Ineffabilis Deus:

We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful.

By the atoning blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross, Mary was conceived and born free of original sin. This was not accomplished out of her own power, for she was still in need of a Savior (Luke 1:47), but was accomplished by the timeless and eternal God, in anticipation of the momentous choice she would face.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception is considered theologically necessary not only in light of her role as the New Eve, but also in light of her role as Theokotos, Mother of God. Christians profess that Jesus Christ was a single person with two natures, human and divine. His divine nature was inherited as the only begotten Son of God. His human nature was inherited from His conception in the womb of Mary. If Mary existed in a state of original sin, that stain would have been inherited through the flesh by her son Jesus.

We might hypothesize that Jesus was Himself the subject of the sanctifying grace, to be preserved from original sin, but that would be tautological: could Jesus' blood have preserved His own state of sinlessness in vitro? Moreover, such a teaching would greatly diminish His humanity, since He would only be human in a cleansed and rarefied manner.

Rather, the Church teaches that God preserved Mary from conception in a state of innocence -- though it should be noted that this preservation was not yet perfection. By allowing her the chance to recapitulate Eve's fateful decision, to triumph in the face of temptation, Mary's humanity was glorified, as human nature would have been but for the Fall. It was this amplified and renewed form of human nature -- fully endowed with the sanctifying grace of God and perfected in the cooperative merit of Mary's faithful fiat -- that was inherited by Jesus Christ.

Mary, Ever Virgin

The miracle of the Virgin Birth is a lynch-pin of orthodox Christian faith. If you deny that Christ was born of a virgin, you deny that He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and thereby deny that He was born the Son of God.  You reject the miracle of the Incarnation, you reject the purpose of His life on earth, and you reject the meaning of His death on the cross. The Church stands united on this issue, overcoming all schismatic division: the Virgin Birth is one of the essential truths of the faith.

But many Christians are content to leave it at that. Most Protestants in my experience defend the virgin birth, but don't find anything particularly objectionable in the idea that Mary went on to marry Joseph and have other children (citing the brothers of Jesus, to which Scripture sometimes refers). As a Protestant I too wondered why Catholics insisted on her perpetual virginity.

There are some indicators of this doctrine even in the Scriptural account. At the Annunciation, the archangel Gabriel informs Mary: "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus." Mary's response is perplexing: the literal translation reads "How will this be, since I know no man?" As St. Gregory of Nyssa (younger brother to Basil the Great) pointed out, we should wonder why Mary didn't make the connection to her impending marriage to Joseph. The archangel only told her that she would conceive, in the future, and her response is to wonder how that would be possible -- even in the future. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox understanding is that Mary had pledged herself as a lifelong virgin, and that her betrothal to Joseph was in fact his pledge of guardianship.

It should be noted that this doctrine does not conflict with other passages in Scripture. There are several oft-quoted proof-texts that cite the "brothers of Jesus" (Matthew 28:10, Mark 6:3, Luke 8:19, and John 20:17, among others) as clearly contradicting this doctrine. But this reading fails to recognize that the Hebrew word translated as "brother" (adelphoi) was in fact a catch-all word for male kinsmen, which would include half-brothers, stepbrothers, first cousins, and quite possibly third cousins once removed.

As a brief side note, I sometimes marvel at those who think any verse could be an authoritative rebuttal to the dogma of perpetual virginity (or any other dogma, for that matter). Given the brilliance of the Fathers and the exegetical rigor of the Doctors who gave us Catholic tradition, don't we imagine that the early church would have noticed any obvious contradictions and not made such claims in the first place? Isn't it rather absurd to imagine that it took nearly two millennia for Christians to notice such verses?

The dogma of perpetual virginity arose out of the tradition of the early Church. The earliest reference to the dogma appears, somewhat obliquely, in a letter from Ignatius of Antioch (circa 108 AD). The earliest defense to the dogma appears in the second century, in a pseudo-epigraphical text now referred to as "The Protoevangelium of James." While the work is not canonical, it is cited approvingly by Origen in the third century as confirmation that the perpetual virginity of Mary was an accepted doctrine in the early church. Before this point, the only recorded dissent was voiced in the second century by Tertullian, who denied that Mary's virginity was preserved in partu (during birth), in order to affirm the physical reality of the Incarnation against the Docetist heresy. However, even the fact that Tertullian had to actively deny Mary's perpetual virginity would seem to corroborate Origen's conclusion that it was a widely held belief. By the fourth century, the dogma was attested by most of the Church Fathers, including Athanasius, Ambrose, and Jerome, and it would not be questioned until well after the Protestant Reformation.

None of this, however, addresses the question of how the early church arrived at this dogma in the first place. The answer to that relies primarily on a particular mode of Scriptural exegesis called "typological." This hermeneutic is best understood by St. Augustine's well-known dictum: "The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New."

If there is a single defining characteristic of the Jewish faith during the time of Christ, it was the Temple.  The original Temple was built by Solomon, the archetypal son of David, as the center of religious observance for the nation of Israel. But the Temple was not considered holy in and of itself. Its holiness was rather derived from the object it was built to house: the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was placed in the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple that only the High Priest could visit only once a year to offer a single sacrifice of blood and incense.

What then was this Ark of the Covenant? According to Hebrews 9:4, it was a vessel "covered on all sides with gold, in which there was a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron's rod which budded, and the tables of the covenant." The Ark was constructed by Moses to hold the bread which gave life to Israel in the desert (Exodus 16:32), the rod of the the Priest who stood before God on behalf of the people (Numbers 17:10), and the stone tables on which the Word of God was written (Deuteronomy 10:1-5). Scripture and tradition confirm that the early church treated these three items as typologies of Jesus Christ. He is "the bread of life" (John 6:35), "the High Priest of our confession (Hebrews 3:1), and "the Word made flesh" (John 1:14). The Ark of the Covenant bore within itself the typologies of Jesus Christ.

If true, then by the same typological reading, the Ark of the Covenant would itself be a typology for the one who bore Jesus Christ come in flesh.  The Ark of the Covenant prefigures the Virgin Mary.

Do we begin to understand why the early church insisted on Mary's perpetual virginity? To borrow an analogy from Scott Hahn, a Presbyterian-turned-Catholic apologist, Catholics believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary for the same reason that most people wouldn't bring their fine china on a picnic. It's a matter of propriety.

For a period of nine months, the womb of Mary was quite literally the Ark of the New Covenant, the vessel which bore God in bodily form. Mary herself may be considered the Holy of Holies, as she was overshadowed by the power of the Most High (Luke 1:35). Yet, by the typology of the Temple, only one person was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies, and that was permitted only for a single purpose. That purpose was fulfilled when the Holy Spirit came upon her to conceive the Son of God.

It would have been inappropriate, then, for Joseph to perform the same duties as a husband, for this would have diminished the living Temple that was his virgin wife. The logic of this teaching does not imply, as some have said, that marriage is not a sacrament or that sex is not a blessing. It merely recognizes the specifically sacred function of this particular woman and this particular womb.

Mary, Mother of God

Of all the practices and principles in the Roman Catholic Church that are objected to by modern Protestants, the centrality of Marian devotion will almost always top the list. Not even the doctrine of papal infallibility can compete for that dubious honor. In the centuries following the Protestant Reformation, cries of "popery" and "Romanism" among anti-Catholic groups were often accompanied by accusations of "Mariolatry," and the charge is repeated to this day.

At the very least, a Christian organization that is distinguished primarily in public perception by devotion to a human woman cannot be as effective a witness for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Moreover, if the members of that Christian community mark their own faith principally by such devotions, I consider it a near-certainty that their faith would suffer as a result.

And yet... none of the above says anything against the truth of Catholic teachings on Mary nor against the moral quality of actual Catholic practice. Growing up in a Protestant community, I have often been concerned by the appearance of idolatry in certain Catholic dogma. But I had no way of knowing whether such teachings are informed by a genuinely Christ-centered attitude.

For the Ten Commandments direct to us to place no other god before the One God, and to not fashion idols for ourselves.  If idolatry is elevating a created thing above the Creator, then that definition would not apply to an offering of respect or devotion to a created thing as such, when offered to the extent it reflects the glory of its Creator.  Indeed, such respect may indeed be quite wholesome as spiritual practice: witness the Protestant devotion to the written Word of God.

The question thus remains: is this indeed the case with Catholic devotions to Mary?

One of the earliest title applied to the virgin girl from Nazareth was officially recognized by the Church at the First Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. Nestorius, the Archbishop of Constantinople, was on record supporting a recognition of Mary as Christotokos -- that is, as the "bearer" or "birth-giver of Christ." This was part of his broader theological platform, in which he argued that the human person of Jesus Christ was distinct from (but unified with) the divine person of the Son of God.

Nestorius' teachings were declared heresy and anathema by the Council at Ephesus, because it tried to separate the twin natures of Jesus Christ into two distinct persons, almost as a inversion of the Docetist heresy. Rather, the Council asserted, Christ is identified with the Son of God, the human and divine natures being unified in a single person.

Therefore, Mary's role cannot be limited to that of birth-mother of merely the human component, but must be treated in light of the entirety of her Son's being. In sum, Mary could not be merely Christotokos, but must be treated and recognized as Theotokos, the "bearer" or "birth-giver of God."

This conciliar decision defined a Marian dogma which was already in common circulation: the earliest known usage is in Origen's commentary on Romans in the third century, and the term appears throughout the works of the early Christian Fathers, including St. Athanasius and St. Augustine . It is an apostolic tradition in the sense most recognizable to a Protestant audience: it originated out of the common understanding of the early church, was defended by the highest bishops of the Church, and was declared to be dogma by conciliar degree.

This particular dogma should point those of us from the Protestant traditions to two particular realizations.  First, the doctrine that Mary was indeed the Mother of God should go a long way in elevating her in our eyes.  She was a young peasant girl from Nazareth who by God's grace was permitted to bear the immortal, inscrutable, transcendental Word Made Flesh. Her distinction is unique in Scripture, her role utterly unique in all of Creation, yet most Protestants don't seem to pay her that much attention.

Second, this dogma of Theotokos should help Protestants understand that every Catholic teaching on Mary arose out of a similar process, from consideration of her relationship to her Son, Jesus Christ.

Over the next several posts, I hope to considering Roman Catholic devotion to Mary from several perspectives.  Each post will explore a particular Marian dogma defined or set forth in the Catholic Church.  Each post will consider this dogma in light of a particular title accorded to Mary.  Each post will cover Mary's actual role in various New Testament passages, especially those considered important to the early Church. Finally, and crucially, each post will look at her typological role foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament. Most of these exegetical readings were unknown to me until recently, but they are the furthest thing from original, for they flow from the traditions of the early Church. I only hope I may do justice to them.