SOLEMNITY OF MARY, MOTHER OF GOD....JANUARY 1 The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them. When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. ------ Luke 2:16-21 The official, dogmatic proclamation of this dogma was made at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431, in response to the heresy of Nestorianism, which expressly denied that Mary was Theotokos (literally, “God-bearer”), and held, rather, that Mary was only the mother of the man Jesus (Christotokos). The term Theotokos had been used at least as early as Origen (c. 254) and was in common use soon after his lifetime. The Council of Ephesus officially approved the Second Letter of Cyril of Alexandria to Nestorius as its definition on this matter. It reads in part as follows: “It was not that an ordinary man was born first of the holy Virgin, on whom afterward the Word descended; what we say is that, being united with the flesh from the womb, [the Word] has undergone birth in the flesh, making the birth in the flesh His own…Thus [the holy Fathers] have unhesitatingly called the holy Virgin “Mother of God” [Theotokos]. ----- Dave Armstrong, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 03:39:40 +0000