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Original Sin and Immaculate Conception
Does anyone have good sources for learning about the Church's belief on the Immaculate Conception and Original Sin? I was going to read "Adam and Eve" by H.H. Pope Shenouda III, but it doesn't look like there is a translated version. Also, his writings on St. Mary don't go into detail about the arguments against the Immaculate Conception. Maybe something that brings up Catholic points vs. Orthodox points and refutes the Catholic ones. I've already heard about Mary calling Jesus her savior and that meaning she is not immaculate, but then I read something else that made me weary. And for Original Sin, I just wanted to read more about the topic since apparently H.H. wrote extensively about it in "Adam and Eve" and actually concluded that they committed 27 sins!
Comments
The immaculate conception is merely a way to try and explain how the perfect Christ took on flesh without sin. They reasoned that since Christ is perfect then St Mary His mother would have to have been born perfect. This makes little to no sense, if she was born perfect, then why not me or you? If God can will that anyone be born perfect then there is no need of Christ. How did Christ take flesh from an imperfect being while still remaining perfect? If I am not mistaken St. Mary was baptized in a way in the annunciation, thereby allowing for Christ to take her flesh.
nothing; but He gave us freely, by the Grace of the Word, a life in correspondence
with God. But men, having rejected things eternal, and, by counsel of the devil,
turned to the things of corruption, became the cause of their own corruption in
death, being, as I said before, by nature corruptible, but destined, by the grace
following from partaking of the Word, to have escaped their natural state, had
they remained good." St Athanasius, On The Incarnation Chapter 5.
It can be seen that man's transgression was that he turned from God who is Life and Incorruptibility itself. By severing this relationship man turned again to his own nature, mortal and corruptible. Without this relationship to the Divine, to elevate man to this state above their own inherent nature, they fall liable to corruptibility and death, not having immortality or incorruption by nature. We, being born from them, are born into this condition. Thus it is that Christ comes to save us from death and we sing triumphantly on Holy Pascha, "Christ destroyed death by death!"
But in order for salvation to be ours, Christ must have our humanity, He must become incarnate in the very same nature that is ailing and in need of salvation. St. Gregory the Theologian gives the axiom, "That which is not assumed is not healed, and what was united to God is saved."
Indeed the fathers repeatedly make statements like St. Cyril of Alexandria:
"Since the children have a fellowship of flesh and blood, he too
shared in flesh and blood so that by death he might destroy the one who has the
power of death, that is the devil, and might liberate all those who throughout their
lives were held in bondage by the fear of death. He did not take to himself descent
from angels but from the line of Abraham, which is why it was necessary for him
to be made like his brethren in all things’ (Heb.2.14-17). We maintain, therefore,
that since human nature was suffering corruption because of Adam’s
transgression, and since our intellect was being tyrannized by the pleasures or
rather the innate impulses of the flesh, then it was necessary that the Word of God
should be incarnated for the salvation of us who are on this earth. This was so
that he could make his own that human flesh which was subject to corruption
and sick with its desires, and destroy corruption within it since he is Life and
Life-giver, bringing its innate sensual impulses to order. This was how the sin
that lay within it was to be put to death, for we remember how the blessed Paul
called our innate impulses the law of sin (Rom 7.23). From the time that human
flesh became the personal flesh of the Word it has ceased to be subject to
corruption, and since he who dwelt within it, and revealed it as his very own,
knew no sin being God, as I have already said, it has also ceased to be sick with
its desires. The Only Begotten Word of God did not bring this about his own
benefit, for he is ever what he is, but evidently he did it for ours. And if we were
subject to the evils following from Adam’s transgression then Christ’s benefit also
must come to us, that is incorruption and the putting to death of sin." St. Cyril of Alexandria First Letter to Succensus chapter 9.
It is undeniable that Christ saves us by assuming all that is broken in our humanity. Where humanity was lacking the relationship with God to make it Immortal and Incorruptible, The Logos enters into THAT humanity to bring it to life again. Indeed St. Athanasius states that this takes place as the Virgin Mary is our sister in her humanity,
"So then, that which was derived from Mary was by nature human, according to the divine scriptures, and the body of the Lord was real, and was real because it was the same as our own, for Mary was our sister, since we are all from Adam." St. Athanasius of Alexandria Letter to Epictus tract 7.
The Virgin was not purified of any form of sin, personal, original, ancestral, whatever we wish to called it. We do not believe that her humanity was any different than ours (by nature I mean, of course her actions were much different than ours!), because the Logos took OUR humanity. As St. Paul says in Hebrews 2. Let us not use "Ancestral sin" and basically use it to mean "original sin". The forefatherly sin of our parents (Adam and Eve i mean) is why they became subject to the mortality and corruptibility inherent to their nature, and we receive this same humanity from them. Surely they cannot offer us a humanity different than theirs. The Logos assumes this humanity in order to deify it in Himself and to bring it to Life. He makes our humanity superior to death, He makes our humanity superior to the wiles of a hungry stomach, he makes our humanity ascend into Heaven at the right hand of the Father, etc etc etc.
I hope my ramblings here helped!
Please do pray for me, please.
"So then, that which was derived from Mary was by nature human, according to the divine scriptures, and the body of the Lord was real, and was real because it was the same as our own, for Mary was our sister, since we are all from Adam." St. Athanasius of Alexandria Letter to Epictus tract 7.