I read Aaron
J. K. . . . . .'s "Is Jesus of Nazareth the True Messiah" which you requested me
to analyse. I gladly respond, though more important tasks are awaiting my attention. There
is not much to say about the matter in the pamphlet that is properly related to the title.
It is a formal presentation of biblical texts and arguments which prove the author's
contention, that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. It is
matter that you will find dealt with in my letters, but more fully in the "Jewish
Panorama." While the declaration therein, that the influx of Jews into Palestine is a
sign of the second coming of our Lord, is something that we may speculate about, no
theologically responsible writer would set it down positively as a "present day
prophetic fulfillment" of the "return of the Messiah."
There is one thing in the pamphlet that shows the author's anti-Catholic
animus, the only thing therein that relates to the Catholic Church. It is the last part of
"Note IV on the Virgin," wherein the question of the Immaculate Conception is
dragged in, perhaps to get a whack in at the Catholic Church. I say dragged in, because
the question of the Immaculate Conception has no direct bearing whatsoever on the question
whether the Hebrew word "Alma" means a virgin or merely a maiden, which is the
subject of "Note IV."
No unbiased student of the Immaculate Conception would declare it to be a
"God-contradicting invention, first conceived and propagated by Pope Pius IX in the
year 1850 A.D., over 1800 years after the New Testament Scriptures were completed . . .
." Such a student would soon learn that the Pope has not, nor does he assume to
have the power to "invent" new doctrines. The Pope, or the bishops in union with
the pope, does assume the power, through the Holy Spirit indwelling in the Church, to
define doctrines of faith and morals that are explicitly or implicitly in Holy Scripture
or the tradition of the Church. Hence Pope Pius IX dogmatically defined and declared, but
did not "invent," the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. He said, at the
time, that in so doing he was yielding to the wishes of the entire Church; that his
"predecessors (Pope Alexander VII) and especially Popes Sixtus IV, Paul V, and
Gregory XV" had declared "in favor of the opinion that the Blessed Virgin Mary
was immaculately conceived." The solemn definition was as follows:
"We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds
that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary in the first instance of her conception, by the singular
grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Christ Jesus, the Saviour of
the Human race, had been preserved free from the stain of original sin, has been revealed
by God, and must, therefore, be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful."
If Mr. K. . . . . . had gone to the Catholic
Encyclopedia, instead of books written by persons who are hostile towards the Church, he
would have found that the question of the Immaculate Conception was discussed by the
foremost theologians of the Catholic Church throughout her history, as they were divided
on the subject from many angles until about the eighteenth century. Belief in this
doctrine was universal in the Church before 1854 (not "1850") when the doctrine
was defined ex-cathedra by Pope Pius IX. A full page of names could easily be cited of
foremost churchmen who favored the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of
our Lord many, many centuries before Pope Pius IX was born. One will suffice to prove that
such belief was proclaimed before 1854, when Mr. K. . . . . . assumes it to have been
"invented." St. Ephraem, the great theologian, teacher and poet in the Syrian
division of the Catholic Church, who was the first writer of Christian hymns, through
which he taught such Catholic doctrines as the Immaculate Conception, gave the world this
expression of praise in the fourth century of the Christian era, that is a thousand and
more years before the world ever heard of a Protestant Church:
"Most holy Lady, Mother of God, alone most pure in soul and
body, alone exceeding all perfection of purity . . .alone made in thy entirety the home of
all graces of the Most Holy Spirit, and hence exceeding beyond all compare even the
angelic virtues in purity and sanctity of soul and body....my Lady most holy, all-pure,
all-immaculate, all-stainless, all-undefiled, all-incorrupt, all-inviolate....spotless
robe of Him who clothes Himself with light as with a garment....flower unfading, purple
woven by God, alone most immaculate" (Precationes ad pediparem, in Opp. Graec,
Lat., III, 524-537).
Ex-cathedra pronouncements are rare, and they generally
come as a climax of a controversy, as doctrinal unity, one of the marks of Christ's
Church, is one of the virtues of the Church. There are universal beliefs in the Church
today that have never been declared officially to be acts of faith. For instance, every
fifteenth of August Catholics celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, holding that her body, which God preserved from corruption, was assumed, was taken
into heaven and reunited with her soul, yet that belief has never been proclaimed to be an
act of faith. If, as is possible, Pope Pius XII were to proclaim it ex-cathedra, say in
1945, it would be as far from correct for Mr. K. . . . to say in 1950 that it is an
"invention first conceived by Pope Pius XII in 1945" as it was to declare in his
pamphlet that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was an "invention first
conceived by Pope Pius IX in 1950."
I wonder does the author of the pamphlet know what the Immaculate Conception
means? as very few Protestants do. I wonder whether he believes that there is a stain upon
the soul of every person conceived by woman, which the Catholic Church says is wiped away
by baptism? If he denies that Catholic doctrinal belief, then must he hold that everybody
is immaculately conceived; then must we all be immaculate conceptions. The Catholic Church
holds that there has only been one person conceived by woman without the stain of original
sin upon his or her soul. That was the Blessed Mother of our Lord. She, the vessel from
which our Lord took his human body, was never tainted by sin. She was immaculately
conceived through the merits of her Divine Son.
Ah, says the pamphleteer, its "unscriptural." The answer is, so is
the Christian Sabbath unscriptural. The same Catholic Church that declared that the
ceremonial seventh day called for in the Commandments shall be reckoned from thirty hours
later than the Jewish reckoning, thus causing it to begin on Sunday morning instead of
Friday night, defined and declared that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without the
stain of original sin upon her soul, being protected from error in both instances by the
Spirit of Truth that abides in the Church. There is a suggestion of the Immaculate
Conception in the biblical text that tells of the "woman" at enmity with the
serpent whose temptation resulted in the commission of the sin that has stained the souls
of humans ever since. That woman is the Mother of the Redeemer. It was her
"seed," the promised Christ, who was to "crush the head" of the
serpent (Gen. 3:15). It is that Son, His merits, that saved His Blessed Mother
from the stain caused by the seduction in the Garden of Paradise. In St. Luke (1:28)
we find that God declared through the Angel Gabriel that Mary was "full of
grace," which warrants the belief that she was never devoid of the supernatural,
sanctifying grace that every soul has been devoid of at conception.
Of course, if Mr. K. . . . . . believes, as do all Protestants, that the
Bible is the only rule of faith, then is he logically compelled to reject belief in the
Immaculate Conception, and the Sunday Sabbath as well, as there are no direct, categorical
texts in the Bible to sustain either of these dogmas. But the New Testament is not first
in Christ's order. The Church came from Christ, and not the New Testament. It was the
Church, the Catholic Church, that made the Bible; and St. Paul could say that the
"faith of Christ is proclaimed all over the world" (Rom. 1:8) before
all the Books and Epistles in the New Testament were written. Therefore the Church must
have been the primary rule of faith, as it was absolutely impossible to have a
non-existent New Testament as a rule of faith. Pope Peter did not have to have a New
Testament to pronounce the ceremonial law of Judaism no longer binding; neither did Pope
Pius IX need to have a New Testament text upon which to base his pronouncement regarding
the Immaculate Conception. The maker is ever greater than the thing made, be He God, the
maker of the false concept of the Immaculate Conception, or the Church that made the
Christian Bible.
Christ commanded His Teaching Body, the Church, to teach all nations,
promising to remain with that Church until the end of the world. Christ promised to send,
and did send, the Holy Spirit to guide His Teaching Body (The Corporate Group, made up in
the beginning of Twelve) in its work of teaching "all things," and promised that
the Holy Spirit would bring "all things" to its "mind" that was to be
taught (St. John 14:26). The Immaculate Conception is one of those
"things" brought to the "mind" of the Church.
I purpose sending a copy of this analysis to Mr. Aaron J. K. . . . . .,
hoping that it will deter him from having any new printings made of the pamphlet with the
last part of "Note IV" in them. If he insists upon dealing with the
Immaculate Conception in future printings, I hope he will amend his concept of it so as
not to misrepresent the Catholic Church. |