If the biblical foundation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary  is inaccurate

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Question

Dear Father Angelo,

given your clarity and competence, I turn to you for clarification on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (even if we are closer to the feast of the Assumption!).

Blessed Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus, to “demonstrate” the dogma, also refers to the so-called Protoevangelium contained in Genesis (“I will put enmity between you and the woman…”), saying that Mary crushed the head of the serpent.

However, the exegetes say that, according to the Hebrew text of the Bible and not the Vulgate, it was not the woman who crushed the head of the serpent, but her son.

Now, given that the Vulgate, in which the subject appears to be the woman, also influenced the thinking of the Fathers regarding the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and in the same way the Fathers influenced the thinking of the Church in regard to the dogmatic definition, could you explain to me why the dogma is not affected?

I know very well and believe that the dogma remains true and remains a dogma, that is, I do not intend to question it. I just wish I had the explanation too.

In other words, I ask you: if some of the arguments which are used to “validate” a dogma (any dogma, not just that of the Immaculate Conception), turn out to be incorrect, how come that it remains a dogma?

I greet you and thank you very much for the numerous answers that you patiently share with everyone.

David

Priest’s response

Dear David,

1. The reference that Pius IX makes to the ProtoGospel is not inaccurate.

The Bull “Ineffabilis Deus” which proclaims the dogma of the Immaculate Conception reports three times Genesis 3,15: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your lineage and her lineage”.

And it comments: “In this oracle the ecclesiastical fathers and writers saw Christ and his mother prefigured, and the hostility of the two against the devil.”

Mary’s perfect hostility is due to the absence of stain.

We read in the preamble of the definition: “And it was certainly entirely fitting that such a venerable mother should always shine adorned with the splendors of the most perfect sanctity and entirely immune from the stain of original sin, should bring about the most complete triumph over the ancient serpent.”

2. This verse is called ProtoGospel (first Gospel) because it contains the first promise of the liberating Messiah.

The Christian and Jewish tradition is unanimous in recognizing that here we are talking about the Messiah.

3. The problem comes from “it” will crush your head.”

This “it” refers to her lineage, that is, to Christ, to the Messiah.

While in common tradition “it” meant the woman.

The Latin “ipsa conteret” (she will crush) was attributed to the woman.

And this is why Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, in the final part, urges us to have “the most confident hope in the most blessed Virgin who, completely beautiful and immaculate, crushed the poisonous head of the cruel serpent, and brought salvation to the world ”.

4. But upon closer inspection it is not an error that completely changes the meaning, because Mary is intimately associated with the work of Christ.

The lineage, namely Christ, is linked to that “woman”.

For this reason, John Paul II in a splendid catechesis on the Madonna said: “We have already had the opportunity to recall previously how this version does not correspond to the Hebrew text, in which it is not the woman, but rather her lineage, her descendant, who tramples on the head of the serpent.

This text therefore attributes the victory over Satan not to Mary, but to her Son.

However, since the biblical conception places a profound solidarity between the parent and his offspring, the representation of the Immaculate Conception crushing the serpent, not by her own virtue but by the grace of the Son, is consistent with the original meaning of the passage” (30 May 1996).

Therefore, due to the intimate solidarity between Christ and his mother, in which the holy Fathers wanted to see the new Adam and the new Eve, this work is accomplished by both.

Not at the same level and as autonomously, because “the Immaculate crushes the serpent, not by her own virtue but by the grace of the Son“, as we will see.

5. However, Our Lady’s immunity from original sin is not based only on this verse, but much more on the words that precede it.

The verse begins like this: “I will put enmity between you and the woman”

Therefore here is established between the perfect enmity between the Madonna and sin.

John Paul II further says in the aforementioned catechesis: “In the same biblical text, the enmity between the woman and her offspring on the one hand and the serpent and his offspring on the other is proclaimed.

This is a hostility expressly established by God, which takes on singular importance if we consider the problem of the personal sanctity of the Virgin.

To be the irreconcilable enemy of the serpent and his lineage, Mary had to be free from any dominion of sin. And this from the first moment of its existence” (Ib.).

6. John Paul II takes up the teaching of Pius XII who in the encyclical Fulgens corona, published in 1953 to commemorate the centenary of the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, said: “If at a given moment the most blessed Virgin Mary had remained deprived of divine grace, because contaminated in her conception by the hereditary stain of sin, there would have been no more – at least during this period of time, however brief – that eternal enmity which is spoken of from the primitive tradition up to the solemn definition of the Immaculate Conception, but rather a certain subjugation”.

And he concludes: “The absolute hostility established by God between the woman and the devil therefore postulates the Immaculate Conception in Mary, that is a total absence of sin, from the beginning of life” (Ib.).

7. This must also be noted: that the Immaculate Conception, even before being a privilege and perfection of Mary, is an amazing victory achieved by Christ.

Because Mary too was redeemed.

She was redeemed because she was “preserved by special privilege and in view of the merits of her Son” because she was to be worthy of the Mother of God.

It was such a great and portentous redemption for which Christ allowed Mary not only to always and everywhere gain victory over sin but also to be his companion – albeit in a subordinate and derivative form – in the work of redemption.

This is why Mary is co-redemptrix and this is why together with Christ and with the strength deriving from Christ she crushes the head of the serpent.

8. And here is the conclusion of John Paul II: “The Son of Mary achieved the definitive victory over Satan and made his Mother benefit from it in advance, preserving her from Sin. 

Consequently, the Son granted her the power to resist the devil, thus realizing in the mystery of the Immaculate Conception the most notable effect of his redemptive work” (Ib.).

9. Finally, you ask me another question: if the reasons given to support a dogma turn out to be inaccurate, in what account should the dogma be taken?

We have seen, in the light of John Paul II, that Pius IX’s interpretation is not inaccurate.

And yet, even if it were inaccurate, it must be said that the Magisterium of the Church has an authoritative character.

This means that the Magisterium of the Church binds regardless of the reasons given.

These will always be perfectible and sometimes their inadequacy may even be shown.

Nonetheless, the sentence of the Magisterium  remains unchanged.

I thank you for the question, I remember you to the Lord and I bless you.

Father Angelo