On December 8th 1854, Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the papal bull, Ineffabilis Deus, which reads, in part:
… To the honor of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, to the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, to the exaltation of the Catholic Faith and the increase of the Christian religion, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, and by Our own, We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine, which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary at the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in virtue of the merits of Christ Jesus, the Savior of the human race, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and on this account must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful. Wherefore, if any should presume to think in their hearts otherwise than as it has been defined by Us, which God avert, let them know and understand that they are condemned by their own judgment; that they have suffered shipwreck in regard to faith, and have revolted from the unity of the Church; and what is more, that by their own act they subject themselves to the penalties established by law, if, what they think in their heart, they should dare to signify by word or writing or any other external means. (DS: 2803-2804)
Catholic theologians and apologists are fond of pointing to Luke 1:28 as evidence, whether implicit or explicit, of Mary being free from both original sin and personal sin. The text reads in the Greek as follows:
καὶ εἰσελθὼν πρὸς αὐτὴν εἶπεν· χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ὁ κύριος μετὰ σοῦ
I would translate it as follows:
And he [Gabriel] came to her [Mary] and said, “Greetings, favoured one, the Lord is with you.”
The pro-Catholic bias of the Douay-Rheims translation comes out when it renders it:
And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
The DR is dependent upon the Vulgate which renders κεχαριτωενη as plena gratia, which means “full of grace.”
The Greek term κεχαριτωμενη is often pointed out as evidence for Mary being immaculately conceived. Catholic theologian, Ludwig Ott in his book, The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma offers the following comments on this verse on page 203 of his book:
Mary’s sinlessness may be deduced from the text: Luke 1:28: “Hail, full of grace!”, since personal moral defects are irreconcilable with fullness of grace.
Let us examine this Greek term.
Κεχαριτωμενη is the feminine, vocative present-passive participle form of the verb χαριτοω which means “to bestow grace/favour upon.” It has the Greek root-word χαρις “grace” contained in it. Because of its relationship to χαρις and it being in the present-passive form, Catholic apologists point to its morphological form as evidence (if not proof, as Karl Keating does in his book, Catholicism and Fundamentalism) of the Immaculate Conception. However, there are many exegetical problems with this argument.
Firstly, the Greek text of Luke explains why Mary is “favoured” (or “graced” if one prefers), viz. that she was chosen by God to be the mother of the Messiah. In Luke 1:30-32, we read:
And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou has found favour (χαρις) with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.
Any meaningful exegesis of Gabriel’s words in 1:28 will incorporate the text’s own explanation as to why Mary was “graced/favoured”—her being the mother of the promise Messiah and eschatological Davidic King. Nothing is said about her personal sinlessness, something that is without biblical warrant.
Furthermore, the same morphological form of χαριτοω is used in Sirach 18:17 (LXX), a volume accepted as being canonical in Catholic dogma (cf. the Council of Trent’s 1546 definition of the canon). The Greek of Sirach 18:17 reads:
οὐκ ἰδοὺ λόγος ὑπὲρ δόμα ἀγαθόν καὶ ἀμφότερα παρὰ ἀνδρὶ κεχαριτωμένῳ
The NRSV translates it as:
Indeed, does not a word surpass a good gift? Both are to be found in a gracious person.
κεχαριτωμένῳ is the present-passive participle form of χαριτοω; the only difference between this and κεχαριτωμενη is that the former is in the masculine dative form, but there is no significant difference. There is nothing in the context, or in the meaning of κεχαριτωμένῳ that hints that this man spoken about was free from all sin (whether person or original). By only engaging in both eisegesis and question-begging can one claim that Luke 1:28 teaches Mary’s sinlessness and Sirach 18:17 does not.
Furthermore, the patristic evidence for Mary being sinless is also wanting in the earliest texts. Irenaeus of Lyons is often cited as evidence for early Church fathers holding to Mary being sinless due to his identification of her as the new/second Eve (Against Heresies 3.22.4). However, if one reads this text, Irenaeus only parallels Eve and Mary due to the former’s disobedience (eating the fruit) resulting in sin coming into the earth and the latter’s act of obedience leading to the birth of the Messiah and the destruction of sin. Further, Irenaeus, based on John 2:4, explicitly stated that Mary was guilty of sin in the very same work he draws this parallel between Mary and Eve (Against Heresies 3.16.7):
With Him is nothing incomplete or out of due season, just as with the Father there is nothing incongruous. For all these things were foreknown by the Father; but the Son works them out at the proper time in perfect order and sequence. This was the reason why, when Mary was urging [Him] on to [perform] the wonderful miracle of the wine, and was desirous before the time to partake of the cup of emblematic significance, the Lord, checking her untimely haste, said, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come"-- waiting for that hour which was foreknown by the Father.
John Chrysostom in his Homilies on the Gospel of St. John, XXI also accused Mary of personal sin. Speaking of John 2:4, he writes the following:
To prove that He greatly respected His mother, hear Luke relate how He was "subject to" His parents (Luke ii. 51 ), and our own Evangelist declare how He had forethought for her at the very season of the Crucifixion. For where parents cause no impediment or hindrance in things belonging to God, it is our bounden duty to give way to them, and there is great danger in not doing so; but when they require anything unseasonably, and cause hindrance in any spiritual matter, it is unsafe to obey. And therefore He answered thus in this place, and again elsewhere, "Who is My mother, and who are My brethren?" ( Matt. xii. 48 ), because they did not yet think rightly of Him; and she, because she had borne Him, claimed, according to the custom of other mothers, to direct Him in all things, when she ought to have reverenced and worshiped Him. This then was the reason why He answered as He did on that occasion. For consider what a thing it was, that when all the people high and low were standing round Him, when the multitude was intent on hearing Him, and His doctrine had begun to be set forth, she should come into the midst and take Him away from the work of exhortation, and converse with Him apart, and not even endure to come within, but draw Him outside merely to herself. This is why He said, "Who is My mother and My brethren?" Not to insult her who had borne Him, (away with the thought!) but to procure her the greatest benefit, and not to let her think meanly of Him. For if He cared for others, and used every means to implant in them a becoming opinion of Himself, much more would He do so in the case of His mother. And since it was probable that if these words had been addressed to her by her Son, she would not readily have chosen even then to be convinced, but would in all cases have claimed the superiority as being His mother, therefore He replied as He did to them who spake to Him; otherwise He could not have led up her thoughts from His present lowliness to His future exaltation, had she expected that she should always be honored by Him as by a son, and not that He should come as her Master.
[3.] It was then from this motive that He said in this place, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" and also for another reason not less pressing. What was that? It was, that His miracles might not be suspected. The request ought to have come from those who needed, not from His mother. And why so? Because what is done at the request of one's friends, great though it be, often causes offense to the spectators; but when they make the request who have the need, the miracle is free from suspicion, the praise unmixed, the benefit great. So if some excellent physician should enter a house where there were many sick, and be spoken to by none of the patients or their relations, but be directed only by his own mother, he would be suspected 1 and disliked by the sufferers, nor would any of the patients or their attendants deem him able to exhibit anything great or remarkable. And so this was a reason why He rebuked her on that occasion, saying, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" instructing her for the future not to do the like; because, though He was careful to honor His mother, yet He cared much more for the salvation of her soul, and for the doing good to the many, for which He took upon Him the flesh.
Suggested Reading:
Eric D. Svendsen, Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism (Amityville, N.Y.: Calvary Press, 2001)
John McHugh, The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1975)
