Just as I Lauded CMI

Yeah, the other day I was saying:

So, I daily read some CMI. This is taken as disloyalty to Catholicism by people who don't get that they don't do "Catholic bashing".

Now, up come Lita Cosner and Robert Carter:

Mary: the biblical woman behind the cultural legend
by Lita Cosner and Robert Carter
First published: 25 December 2017 (GMT+10)
Re-featured on homepage: 19 December 2019 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/historical-mary

We can see in church history that unbiblical traditions started to accrue about Mary, the mother of Jesus, as early as the second century.

Thank you for the "as early as" part!

This leaves you with two options : either the ideas are at least Bible compatible, or the Church ceased to have Christ as guarantee for maintaining Biblical truth many centuries and nearly two millennia ago, well before the not yet occurred Second Coming. Contrary to Matthew 28:18-20.

The command was teaching the nations to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and the promise that went with the command was and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. Now, the world did not end in the second century.

Now, to the part saying "unbiblical". It is a somewhat woolly and elastic term, since it comprises anything from "not Bible warranted" to "counter-Biblical". Note, if it were true that the Catholic ideas about the Blessed Virgin were not Bible warranted, but still not counter-Biblical, would one not want to keep the ideas on the terms of tradition of a Church with above-mentioned promise? As Lita and Robert go out of their way to actually "correct" these ideas, we can conclude they at least suspect the ideas are counter-Biblical.

Her first reaction to the angel was to be very troubled—given that terror or misplaced worship is a common reaction to angelic appearances in Scripture (e.g. Judges 6:22; Judges 13:22; Matthew 28:4; Luke 1:12; 2:9; Revelation 19:10; 22:9), this isn’t unusual.

Let's seen what troubled her?

And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. Luke 1:28-29

Who had been called in any way even restricted manner "blessed among women" before?

And Ozias the prince of the people of Israel, said to her: Blessed art thou, O daughter, by the Lord the most high God, above all women upon the earth. Judith 13:23

Blessed among women be Jahel the wife of Haber the Cinite, and blessed be she in her tent. Judges 5:24

You may dispute or not that Judith 13 gives a canonic parallel to Judges 5, but you cannot dispute that at least there is Judges 5 and that gives a very war like context to the meaning of such a greeting. There are no exact parallels to the phrase in peaceful contexts. Imagine being a girl between 12 and 15 and basically hearing you cut off the head of an enemy of Israel, and a very major and dangerous one.

She had arguably never lifted a knife against any man ever.

And when does She get what it means?

Well, St. Elisabeth gives a clarification:

And she cried out with a loud voice, and said: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

Oh, that extremely old enemy ...

God speaking to the serpent (Genesis 3:15):

I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.

According to Haydock, there have been diverse translations in the Hebrew about "she" or "it" - but according to Heinz-Lothar Barth, the Hebrew as such has a feminine pronoun for either "woman" or "seed".

Crushing the head of a serpent was what the angel had referred to. Not of Holophernes, not of Sisera, but of Satan. How do you do that when Satan has no body? Well, the victory of Satan was Adam's sin and the preliminary victory was Eve's sin. His defeat is therefore someone's sinlessness.

How exactly does the Blessed Virgin know God is Her Saviour? Well, God has obviously kept Her away from what had been Her worst nightmare all of Her life : sinning. She does not say God has just then saved Her and She does not say God has taken pity on the poverty of Her sins. On the contrary, He has regarded the humility of his handmaid.

Humility is the opposite of the sin of pride. Handmaid is the opposite of rebel. She was not singing "amazing grace" if you see what I mean. The author of that song had been a rebel, She had not.

The opposite of "enmities" is harmony, and the deepest harmony one can have with the Devil is sinning. He enjoys glutting in advance on your sufferings in Hell whenever you are not in a state of grace. He never knew that feeling about the Blessed Virgin. God indeed set enmities between them.

And enmity with the Devil means not to sin.

The question has been posed how we know Mary is "the woman".

Well John 2:4 and John 19:26 Christ calls His Mother that.

Several years later, Jesus had to correct her at a wedding in the town of Cana (John 2:1–11). His gentle rebuke (“Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”) seems to indicate that she misunderstood their relationship.

St. John puts two uses of the word "woman" to Her at the very beginning and the very end of Christ's public life.

I saw it in Mark Shea, but here I find it again in another Catholic writer:

GENESIS 3:15
THE PROTOEVANGELIUM OR "FIRST GOSPEL”
https://biblescripture.net/First.html

St. John in his Gospel was the first to implicitly refer to Mary as Eve, the woman of Genesis 3:15. St. John refers to Mary, the mother of Jesus, as woman at the wedding feast at Cana (John 2:1-5). When Mary informs Jesus that they have no wine, he calls his mother woman, that his “hour has not yet come.”

As Jesus was dying on the cross, he called out to his mother, "Woman, behold your son" (John 19:26) .

Father George Montague notes that woman was not the customary way for a semitic son to call his mother, so that together in these two scenes, woman suggests much deeper symbolism. Jesus is the offspring of the woman, and by naming Mary with this title, Jesus is suggesting that the earlier promise of salvation is being fulfilled. Montague sees this motif of the conquest of satan through the woman’s son in Revelation 12. St. John continues in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation to refer to the "woman clothed with the sun." One can trace development from the “seed of the woman” and painful birth in Genesis 3:15-16 to the concept of the “woman in travail” in Micah's prophecy of the Messiah coming from Bethlehem to the "woman in travail" in Revelation 12:2-5. He further notes that the word "offspring" in Revelation 12:17 is the same word used in Genesis 3:15 for the "seed" of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent.

It is also noted in Father Thomas Devlin, Why Mary?

Now, Lita and Robert claim Christ is "correcting" His Mother. Let's see ...

Then Bethsabee came to king Solomon, to speak to him for Adonias: and the king arose to meet her, and bowed to her, and sat down upon his throne: and a throne was set for the king's mother, and she sat on his right hand. And she said to him: I desire one small petition of thee, do not put me to confusion. And the king said to her: My mother, ask: for I must not turn away thy face. III Kings 2:19-20

As we know, King Solomon does not do his mother's wish.

However, Christ does the opposite, He seems to refuse - and then grants. She asked with faith - and received. Certainly, faith in God, but also faith in the tenderness of Her Son.

Even later, after Jesus began his main ministry and after he had performed multiple amazing miracles and had proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, she was present with his brothers when they came to try to bring him home (Mark 3:21, 31–35; Luke 8:19–21). They apparently thought He had gone too far, maybe even having lost His mind. Did she fail to completely understand the nature of His ministry, or of his divinity?

No, but Her stepchildren (sons of Joseph in a previous marriage, according to Proto-Gospel of St. James) were so failing, with the exception of the youngest, James, the Brother of God.

Note what Christ answered:

“But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:48–50).

Since He had more than one female disciple, and since disciples doing the will of His Father could be referred to as His sisters if female, the fact He notes "mother" in the singular is striking. Underhand, He is telling His Mother He understands Her plight and does not count Her coming with them as a sin against Him. She was the handmaid in Her own Magnificat, and now He chimes in that yes, She is still doing the will of the Father.

Now, this brings us to the idea these guys were Her sons ...

In the Jewish view of the day, having many children would have been seen as a great blessing and a sign of God’s favor on Mary. It may have also been a comfort to have so many other children after having to relinquish the special mother-son relationship she may have expected to have with Jesus.

A comfort when Her - children or stepchildren? - were plotting to shut Her Son up?

So much of a "comfort" that at Calvary He gave Her another son. Whether the beloved disciple was the Son of Zebedee or whether he was a Cohen (as a thesis recently suggested), She now had peace from any - child or stepchild? - who would want to consider Jesus badly. This argues for them being only stepchildren.

But the Jewish view has a "quiverfull" reference, namely a psalm of Solomon:

As arrows in the hand of the mighty, so the children of them that have been shaken. Blessed is the man that hath filled the desire with them; he shall not be confounded when he shall speak to his enemies in the gate. (Ps 126:4-5)

The Matthew 12 event, She was indeed speaking with Her enemies (in the guise of stepsons) and the one "arrow in the hand of the mighty" was Her "firstborn" Son - a title related to Exodus 34:19 All of the male kind, that openeth the womb, shall be mine. Of all beasts, both of oxen and of sheep, it shall be mine.

Apart from the Protestant ideas She had sins and that She had other children, and similar hiding of Her very clear privileges with God (if you know how to read the Gospel), there is not much to say against their article.

However, I nearly forgot one more of their arguments:

Jesus makes a few statements that should give us pause if we seek to elevate Mary too high:

“As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:27–28).

That is a very important statement from Jesus. He directly parries an attempt to elevate Mary beyond her proper position.

Actually this text, continued with one from next chapter (she chose the better part, about a namesake of Her's, taken in this context as an allusion to Herself) is the Gospel text for all Marian feasts in the Orthodox Church.

Why? He is not saying the woman put His Mother too high. He is putting Her "Heights" in proper perspective : as first of all a Height in obedience to God.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Ivry
St. Timothy Deacon
19.XII.2019

In Mauritania sancti Timothei Diaconi, qui ob Christi fidem, post diros carceres, in ignem conjectus, martyrium consummavit.

PS, two days later Jonathan Sarfati brings on this The Virginal Conception of Christ - where he resuscitates Helvidius:

The fact that Jesus’ brethren (ἀδελφοί adelphoi) were with Mary (Mt. 12:46–50) suggests that they were his half brothers, sons of Mary and Joseph (taught by Helvidius [4th century] and Protestants).

Here he needs to count Luther and Calvin out from the Protestants, for one, but apart from that, between Helvidius who was not a bishop of the Church and the Protestants, you have at least 1000 years of not only Catholics and Orthodox but also Copts, Armenians and Nestorians maintaining perpetual virginity (ante partum, in partu et post partum). So, if Helvidius and Protestants are not just in fact right, but their being so is the least important, how come Jonathan Sarfati takes an issue?

The Eastern Orthodox view is that they were sons of Joseph by a previous marriage (first asserted in the 3rd Century and defended by Epiphanius in the 4th).6 The Roman Catholics view them as cousins (first asserted by Jerome6 (331–420)), although the word συγγενής (syngenēs, kinsman, cousin, used of Mary and Elizabeth in Lk. 1:36) could have been used to teach this, as could another Greek word ἀνεψιός (anepsios, Colossians 4:10).

Partly true, Eastern Orthodox quasi dogmatise St. James Proto-Gospel in which St. James (same as first lone bishop of Jerusalem, same as author of Epistle) is youngest son of St. Joseph's first wife. But Roman Catholics may have personal preferences for St. Jerome's cousin view, but the Proto-Gospel is not outlawed and agreeing with EO on this is perfectly licit. Most Uniates, for one, do so, I think. They are Roman Catholics whose rituals are closer to EO than to Latin rite Catholics.

It is true that adelphoi may sometimes mean ‘cousins’, but the meaning ‘brothers’ follows "a basic, but often neglected hermeneutical principle. It is this: in the absence of compelling exegetical and theological considerations, we should avoid the rarer grammatical usages when the common ones make sense."

The fact of a universal tradition of the Church pointing opposite is a compelling theological and exegetical consideration.

Now, as with "first born" also for "adelphoi" there is a technical sense of the law which also makes perfect sense and which on top of that fits tradition like a glove.

When brethren dwell together, and one of them dieth without children, the wife of the deceased shall not marry to another: but his brother shall take her, and raise up seed for his brother: And the first son he shall have of her he shall call by his name, that his name be not abolished out of Israel. But if he will not take his brother's wife, who by law belongeth to him, the woman shall go to the gate of the city, and call upon the ancients, and say: My husband's brother refuseth to raise up his brother's name in Israel: and will not take me to wife. And they shall cause him to be sent for forthwith, and shall ask him. If he answer: I will not take her to wife: The woman shall come to him before the ancients, and shall take off his shoe from his foot, and spit in his face, and say: So shall it be done to the man that will not build up his brother's house: And his name shall be called in Israel, the house of the unshod.

As we know from the book of Ruth, in absence of full sibling brothers, more removed relatives would do. Neither the nearer kinsman nor Boaz were brothers of Elimelech, Ruth's deceased husband, yet both behaved as if this law applied to them./HGL

PPS, missed giving reference for the "when brethren are together" passage, but it's Deuteronomy 25:5-10./HGL

PPPS - Lita Cosner's essay on two genealogies is good./HGL

PPPPS, it can be added that Sarfati's piece polemised against the translation "ipsa conteret" in Genesis 3:15. For one, "blessed among women" as being a warlike decoration for a woman, confirms it. For another, it seems that Haydock had found ipsa in interlinear as being older Hebrew text. And for a third, the Blessed Virgin cooperating in the defeat of Satan does not constitute "Mariolatry" despite a Protestant prejudice./HGL