mariologydogmati00pohl - Carmel Apologetics

MARY THE MOTHER OF GOD 7
the Galatians (IV, 4) : "When
the fulness of
time was come, God sent his son, made of a
woman." 17
If the man Jesus, "made of a
woman," is the Son of God, then that "woman"
must be the mother of a Divine Son, and, conse-
quently, mother of God. 18
b) The argument from Tradition is most ef-
fectively presented by showing from the writings
of the Fathers who flourished before the time of
Nestorius that Nestorianism and not the Council
of Ephesus was guilty of innovation.
a) The primitive Christian belief in the divine mother-
hood of Mary is evidenced by certain pious practices
common at a time when the faithful had hardly yet
begun to make their faith the subject of reflection.
Such practices were: the recitation of the Apostles'
Creed, which was also the early form of baptism, and the
liturgical prayers employed in public worship. The
Apostles' Creed professes faith in " Jesus Christ, His
[God the Father's] only Son, our Lord, who was con-
ceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary."
This is an unequivocal assertion of two truths: (1)
that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the mother of Christ,
and (2) that she is really and truly the mother of God.
The ancient liturgies expressly refer to her as deoroKos or
Deipara. 19
1 7 top vlbv avrov yevofievov 1900. Engl. tr. by Brossart, New
iic yvvaiKOS' York 1913, pp. 89 sqq.
18 Rom. IX, 5. The Biblical argu- 19 For the proofs of this statement
is fully developed by Bishop A. ment see Renaudot, Collect. Liturg.
Schaefer, Die Gottesmutter in der Orient., t. I, pp. 36, 42, 72, 112,
Hl. Schrift, pp. 83 sqq., Münster 150, 507, etc., Paris 1716.