Commenting on the Mariology of John Chrysostom (349-407), Luigi Gambero noted:
[H]e interprets certain Gospel passages in such a way as to attribute defects to the Virgin such as unbelief or vanity. Commenting on the episode of the Mother and brothers of Jesus (cf. Mt 12:46-50), John explains that the Master meant to reprove his relatives for their unbelief, seeking to correct them:
Jesus cared about his Mother so greatly that, on the Cross, he entrusted her to the disciple whom he loved more than all the others, showing his great solicitude for her. However, in this case he acts differently, in order to care for his Mother and his brothers. For, since they thought that he was a mere man, giving in to vainglory, he drives this disease out of them, not reproving them, but correct them . . . Jesus did not want to cause his Mother to doubt; he acted to free her from that tyrannical disease, to induce her, little by little, to form a fitting idea of who he was, persuading her that he was not only her Son but also her Lord. (Homily on Matthew 44, 1; PG 57, 465)
At the wedding at Cana, Chrysostom sees Jesus’ words to his Mother as another reproof:
“They have no wine” (Jn 2:3). By asking for his favor, Mary was trying to win the guests over but also to render herself more conspicuous. And perhaps Mary gave in to a purely human feeling, just as his brothers did when they said: “Manifest yourself to the world” (Jn 7:14), desiring to gain glory for themselves through his miracles. For this reason Jesus answers her rather brusquely, saying: “Woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come” (Jn 2:4). (Homily on John 21, 2; PG 59, 130)
In his commentary on the Gospel of the Annunciation, our author makes a rather serious inference about the possible reaction of the Virgin when she discovered her pregnancy. Considering the problem of why God had the mystery of Christ’s conception announced to Mary before it happened, Chrysostom gives this answer:
He did it to spare her serious unease and great distress. There was cause or fear, lest she, not knowing the true reason for her pregnancy, imagine that there was something wrong with her and proceed to drown or stab herself rather than endure disgrace. (Homily on Matthew 4, 5; PG 57, 45)
Apparently, Chrysostom pictures Mary as an ordinary woman, with ordinary qualities and weaknesses; presumably, the Christian communities of Antioch and Constantinople were not startled by statements like this. In other settings, such as Alexandria, the reaction would probably have been quite different. (Luigi Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought [trans. Thomas Buffer; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999], 172-73)
Such shows that the Immaculate Conception was (1) not believed even as late as the fifth century and (2) is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an "apostolic tradition."
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