Magyar Egyház, 1954 (33. évfolyam, 2-12. szám)
1954-12-01 / 12. szám
22 MAGYAR EGYHÁZ MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS by Stephen Benko, Th. D. II. Now, what is the Protestant standpoint and what should be our attitude towards the whole Mary problem? The New Testament Our standpoint is that of the Bible. The New Testament does not speak much about Mary. Her figure retires behind her son, Jesus and after the four Gospels soon completely disappears. Apart from the Christmas stories, her name is being mentioned only three times in the Gospels, in St. Mark 6, 3; St. Matthew 13, 55 where the Pharisees mention her as mother of Jesus; and in Acts 1, 14 where she was seen with the Apostles and with several other women m Jerusalem, after the ascension of Christ. Reading tbe New Testament, we are under the impression that Mary did not understand the activities of Jesus, at least while He was on earth. At the wedding of Cana, Jesus admonishes her in a very firm tone and reminds her of His heavenly mission (St. John 2. 4). But Mary was unable to understand the consequences of this mission and was willing to consider the activities of her son as of a demoniac (St. Mark 3,21; 3,31; etc.). Perhaps, she was ashamed of the fact that her son attracted a great deal of attention and wanted to withdraw him from the crowd (St. Mark 3,31). Therefore Jesus, spiritually speaking, separated himself from his mother when — pointing at the multitude around himself — said: “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister and mother.” (St. Matthew 12,50; St. Mark 3,35; St. Luke 8,21). It happened only once during his life that a woman seeing the glory of Jesus wanted to attribute part of it to Mary; Jesus rejected the attempt at its very beginnings. (St. Luke 11, 27-28). After one of Jesus’ sermons a certain woman in the crowd cried out: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the paps which you have sucked!” Jesus immediately answers: “Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it!” With these words Jesus himself prevented even the possibility of a Mary-cult. Mary joined the community of the believers only after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. This is all that we know about Mary from the pages of the New Testament. The letters of Apostle Paul and the other books of the Bible do not even mention her. Are the R. C. Doctrines of Mary True? The Roman Catholic doctrine that Mary became free from the original sin in the moment of her conception is not being mentioned in the Bible. It is a proven fact that during the first few centuries nobody even thought of it. The same is true of the second R. C. doctrine that Mary remained virgin in all her life. The Bible does not teach it; on the contrary, on the ground of the Gospel we can assert with certainty that after the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph had several other children. This fact was known by the greatest authorities of the early Christian church. About the newest R. C. doctrine of the assumption of Mary we can declare that it is simply not true. There is no witness who could say that Mary rose from the death, that she came out of the grave, and that she has been lifted up to heaven. Nobody saw this “fact” and nobody knew of it, or heard of it for 500 long years. If this legend, or at least part of it would have been true, it could not have remained “in secret” for 500 years and the entire Christian literature would not have been silent about it. One can not make an actual fact of something which really did not happen merely by solemnly declaring it as a “doctrine”. Roman Catholic theology asserts that the Mary doctrines are results of “logical conclusions”. One of these logistics, for example, runs as follows: Since Mary gave birth to Jesus in a sinless state, then, in order to be able to bear Jesus without sin, she herself must have been conceived without sin. If Mary was conceived without sin (which is a logical prerequisite of the sinless birth of Jesus), then it is quite illogical to assume that her body remained in the grave, — because death is the punishment of the original sin, from which Mary was free. Consequently, to be logical,, one has to believe that the corpse of Mary did not remain in the grave but was lifted in heaven. — The following is another “logical conclusion”. Jesus’ body is of Mary’s flesh because He was born of her. Consequently, Mary’s body could not corrupt in the grave just the same as Jesus’ body did not see corruption. This absurd idea has been developed by a Roman Catholic theologian as far as to saying that in the host of the Holy Communion the believers take and eat Mary’s as well as Jesus’ flesh. — It is needless to say that all R. C. doctrines are in sharp contradiction to each other. That is, if Mary was perfectly sinless why did she have to die at all? — since death is the punishment of sin. Thus, Mary was either not sinless or she did not die or her body was not raised to heaven. All three put together make a theological impossibility. Besides, where is it written that what ever the Roman Catholic theologians find “logical” is also logical for God? The Mary-doctrines are results of very human logics and this is exactly what cannot be accepted as basis for a doctrine. The essence of a doctrine is the revelation of God and not the logics of men. R. C. theology asserts that the sinless conception of Mary is a preliminary condition to the sinless conception of Jesus. But this is an error and exactly the opposite is the truth. The reason for the divine nature of Jesus is not the sinlessness of Mary but the very fact that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit. If the doctrine of the sinlessness of Mary, her super-human nature were true, it would then shake one of our chief convictions at its very foundations, that is, that Jesus was also a real human being because he was born of a human being, Mary. The Mary-cult in Practice As to the practical side of the Mary-cult, it is a remarkable eruption of naiv paganism and primitiv superstition. Pagan imagination is in-exhaustible in producing ever new miracles, appearances and relics
