216. The Immaculate Conception
216. THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
In St. Thomas’ day Mary’s Immaculate Conception was a long-believed popular theological opinion, but not yet a Church-defined dogma. Mary had always been venerated as the holiest of creatures, but the dogma that she was conceived in her mother’s womb without Original Sin by a miracle of divine grace was not defined until seven centuries after St. Thomas. His opinion was that her holiness was best explained in other ways than that. This opinion was shown to be wrong; but what can we learn from him here?
Nothing is handed down in the canonical Scriptures concerning the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin Mary as to her being sanctified in the womb; indeed, they do not even mention her birth. But as Augustine, in his tractate on the Assumption of the Virgin, argues with reason, since her body was assumed into heaven and yet Scripture does not relate this, so it may be reasonably argued that she was sanctified in the womb. For it is reasonable to believe that she, who brought forth the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, received greater privileges of grace than all others; hence we read (Lk 1:28) that the angel addressed her in the words: Hail, full of grace! (III,27,1).
The angel said to her: Hail, full of grace (Lk 1:28), which words Jerome expounds as follows, in a sermon on the Assumption: Full indeed of grace; for to others it is given in portions, whereas on Mary the fullness of grace was showered all at once (III,27,5).
St. Thomas begins by mentioning the fact that Scripture does not mention anything about Mary’s birth or conception. This is one of the premises of the Protestant argument against this Catholic doctrine, the other premise being that nothing that is not explicitly taught by the Bible can be an infallible dogma of the Church and divine revelation. But St. Thomas does not accept this second premise. So the first premise alone did not lead to his conclusion that Mary was not immaculately conceived.
Indeed, St. Thomas explicitly contradicts the Protestant principle, as does St. Augustine, who, together with the Church as a whole, believed in Mary’s Assumption into Heaven even though that was not mentioned in Scripture either. Both saints also believed, together with the whole Church until the Reformation, that Mary “received greater privileges of grace than all others”. For this is indeed taught in the Bible when the angel called her “full of grace”. (See St. Thomas’ last paragraph.)
So the basic principles behind the dogma of the Immaculate Conception were in place for many centuries before the dogma was defined. The newly defined dogma only explained the old, traditional principles: it explained the how and the why of Mary’s holiness: that it was a miracle of divine grace whereby Christ’s merits, which are necessary for every human’s salvation, including Mary’s, were applied to her in a different way and at a different time in her life than to others: in her mother’s womb before she ever sinned, to prevent her from sinning, rather than after sinning. There are two ways to save someone from falling into a pit: before their fall, by preventing it, and after their fall, by getting them out. God saved Mary before she could fall into sin and saved us after we fell into it. But she, like us, needed a Savior.