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Calling Mary “Mother of God” Tells Us Who Jesus Is
CE ^ | January 2, 2010 | Marcellino D'Ambrosio

Posted on 01/02/2010 4:59:08 AM PST by NYer

The mother of the messiah has been called many things in the last 2000 years — the Virgin Mary, Our Lady, the Blessed Mother. But call her “the Mother of God” and you’ll see some Christians squirm.

This is nothing new. One day in the early fifth century, a priest preached a stirring sermon in the presence of the patriarch of Constantinople. His subject was the holy mother of Jesus. The preacher continually referred to Mary as the “Theotokos” meaning “God-bearer” or mother of God. This was no innovation — Christians had invoked Mary under this title for at least two hundred years. Nevertheless, at the close of the sermon, the patriarch ascended the steps of the pulpit to correct the preacher. We should call Mary the Mother of Christ, said Patriarch Nestorius, not the Mother of God. She was the mother of his human nature, not the mother of his divinity.

His comment sparked a riot. And the dispute rocked not only the congregation, but the entire empire. Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt, immediately recognized that Nestorius’ Marian theology was a symptom of a much deeper problem, a problem with the incarnation itself. For to deny Mary the title “Mother of God” makes of Jesus a dichotomy, a split personality. It would mean that God had not really embraced our humanity so as to become human. Rather, the humanity of Christ is hermetically sealed off from the divinity, as if Jesus were two persons, as if human nature was so distasteful that God, in Christ, had to keep it at arm’s distance. It is okay, according to Nestorius, to say that in Jesus, God raised Lazarus, or multiplied the loaves, or walked on water. But it is not okay to say that in Jesus God is born or that God died.

Cyril, aware that this was a challenge to the heart of our faith, demanded that an ecumenical council be called to settle the matter. So in 431, the Council of Ephesus met, under Cyril’s leadership, and solemnly proclaimed that Mary is indeed rightly to be honored as the Theotokos, the Mother of God. It proclaimed that from the moment of his conception, God truly became man. Of course Mary is a creature and could never be the origin of the eternal Trinity, God without beginning or end. But the second person of the blessed Trinity chose to truly become man. He did not just come and borrow a human body and drive it around for awhile, ascend back to heaven, and discard it like an old car. No, at the moment of his conception in the womb of Mary, an amazing thing happened. God the Son united himself with a human nature forever. Humanity and divinity were so closely bound together in Jesus, son of Mary, that they could never be separated again. Everything that would be done by the son of Mary would be the act both of God and of man. So indeed it would be right to say that a man raised Lazarus from the dead and commanded the wind and waves, that God was born that first Christmas day and that, on Good Friday, God died.

The Council of Ephesus, once confirmed by the Pope, became the third ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, and its teaching in this matter is dogma, truth revealed by God which all are bound to accept.

So why does the Roman liturgy celebrate the Octave of Christmas as the Feast of Mary the Mother of God? Because this paradoxical phrase strikes at the very heart of Christmas. The songs we sing and the cards we write extol the babe of Bethlehem as Emmanuel, God-with-us. He is so with us that after Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin of Nazareth, the Divine Word can never again be divided from our humanity. What God has joined, let no man separate.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; History; Theology
KEYWORDS: constantinople; nestorius; theotokos
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To: editor-surveyor
"Creeds are the work of sinful men, not the Word of God."

Ah, so am I safe in concluding that you reject Nicea? That would explain your less than orthodox Christian position and apparent lack of understanding of the Trinitarian theology of The Church, a theology, btw, shared by all the Reformers of the Protestant Revolutionso as far as I know.

41 posted on 01/04/2010 4:12:53 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: editor-surveyor; Petronski
"If you should ever become a member of the Body of Christ, you will see how feckless and irrelevant the classifications you live by are."

Did someone tell you this or did you come to this conclusion all by yourself? If the latter, what did you base this conclusion on...the Scriptures The Church canonized and gave you? If the former, please, do tell us who this person was and what his/her qualifications were to make such a sweeping, and rather presumptuous, statement. Did he bring his own snake along when he preached this?

42 posted on 01/04/2010 4:19:46 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: Kolokotronis

Written by Nicolaitans for their pleasure, and power.

I accept the Word of God; need little else.


43 posted on 01/04/2010 4:20:43 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Democracy, the vilest form of government, pits the greed of an angry mob vs. the rights of a man)
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To: Kolokotronis

I think Petronski is afraid of snakes.


44 posted on 01/04/2010 4:23:07 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Democracy, the vilest form of government, pits the greed of an angry mob vs. the rights of a man)
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To: editor-surveyor
"Written by Nicolaitans for their pleasure, and power."

The Creed? Do you know who the Nicolaitans were?

45 posted on 01/04/2010 5:06:22 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: editor-surveyor; Petronski
"I think Petronski is afraid of snakes."

I sincerely doubt that. In context they are an object of derision, not fear.

46 posted on 01/04/2010 5:08:11 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: editor-surveyor

I’m afraid of you. Are you a snake?


47 posted on 01/04/2010 5:37:27 PM PST by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: Kolokotronis
"Do you know who the Nicolaitans were?"

Yes, those that created a false humanist hierarchy to rule over the Lord's church. He said that he hated them. All men that call themselves "priests" are the Nicolaitans. There is no one between the saints and the Lord; he is our only priest. Each of us answers to him only.

48 posted on 01/04/2010 9:28:14 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Democracy, the vilest form of government, pits the greed of an angry mob vs. the rights of a man)
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To: Petronski

You’re afraid of all of us that read the word, and know the truth. You didn’t need to tell me that.


49 posted on 01/04/2010 9:30:00 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Democracy, the vilest form of government, pits the greed of an angry mob vs. the rights of a man)
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To: editor-surveyor
You’re afraid

Reading the mind of another Freeper is a form of "making it personal."

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

50 posted on 01/04/2010 10:04:43 PM PST by Religion Moderator
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To: editor-surveyor
"Yes, those that created a false humanist hierarchy to rule over the Lord's church."

Nope. They weren't 4th century either, though if you are a "Bible Believing Christian", you should know that. You should also know why they were condemned. So here's a question for you. Why would you want lurkers here to think that the Nicolaitan heretics were extant in the 4th century and wrote the Creed when that is demonstrably untrue. Is there a point to such foolishness or are you simply attracted to the heresy of the Nicolaitans?

51 posted on 01/05/2010 3:35:57 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: editor-surveyor
You’re afraid of all of us that read the word, and know the truth.

The vast majority of Christians do not share your hatred of the Catholic Church. Do not try to pull hundreds of millions of good Christians into your gutter.

52 posted on 01/05/2010 5:16:17 AM PST by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: Kolokotronis

You are the heresey of the nicolaitans. They are the owners of all the churches today.

Real churches meet in homes, not palaces, just like in the first century.


53 posted on 01/05/2010 9:14:48 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Democracy, the vilest form of government, pits the greed of an angry mob vs. the rights of a man)
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To: Petronski

Your definition of “Christian” clearly includes the tares.


54 posted on 01/05/2010 9:16:13 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Democracy, the vilest form of government, pits the greed of an angry mob vs. the rights of a man)
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To: Kolokotronis
That's simply unnecessary papal propaganda which detracts from the central truth proclaimed by the Council which all Protestants need to understand and embrace, namely that Mary is the Most Holy Theotokos.

We do not need to understand nor do we or you have to embrace any such notion...

Whether I believe your theory or not in no way diminishes my standing with God...

God was here before Mary...She could not under any circumstances be the Mother of God...Jesus (God) was not created in Mary's womb...

Did the only begotten Son enter into Mary's womb as a little baby??? As a Godly sperm???

When you guys baptize a baby and the baby is filled with the Holy Spirit, does the Holy Spirit become a little baby, or is the Spirit fully grown as we might perceive Him to be...

The fact is, it doesn't matter...It's a mystery God didn't reveal to you, me, or anyone else...

55 posted on 01/05/2010 10:01:58 PM PST by Iscool (I don't understand all that I know...)
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To: Iscool
"Whether I believe your theory or not in no way diminishes my standing with God..."

I didn't say that it did. I have no idea what your "standing with God is". If, however, you want to be within The Church, you should accept the dogmatic declarations of the Ecumenical Councils. It is 100% your choice.

"God was here before Mary...She could not under any circumstances be the Mother of God...Jesus (God) was not created in Mary's womb..."

God was indeed here "before" Mary. Tell me, I, was there a time when God was "not"? As for what happened in Mary's womb, the Creed says that the Logos, born of the Father before all ages, the Son of God, was "Enfleshed" (or Incarnated) by the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary and "became Man". So you are right, the Son of God, the Logos, was not "created in Mary's womb", but He was "enfleshed" there and was born True Man from there. This is the theology of a mystery, I.

"Did the only begotten Son enter into Mary's womb as a little baby??? As a Godly sperm???"

We only know and proclaim what the Gospel says in that regard, I. The Holy Spirit came over her.

56 posted on 01/06/2010 3:28:57 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: editor-surveyor
"Real churches meet in homes, not palaces, just like in the first century."

When the Orthodox in Greece under the Turkokratia met in secret caves to worship, or when under some communist regimes other Orthodox throughout Eastern Europe did the same, or when it happens these days in Turkey and throughout the Mohammedan world, is the Orthodox Church then a "real church" but not when the oppression ends?

57 posted on 01/06/2010 3:32:30 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: Kolokotronis

Opression does tend to purify the church; ask the Chinese!

They certainly have no ‘Laodicean’ corruption in their congregations.


58 posted on 01/06/2010 3:40:50 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Democracy, the vilest form of government, pits the greed of an angry mob vs. the rights of a man)
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To: editor-surveyor

These are the Holy Chinese Martyrs of the Boxer Rebellion who died for their Faith at the hands of the pagans.


59 posted on 01/06/2010 5:27:05 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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