On Gen 3:15:
N. B. On the Proto-gospel.
The traditional opinion of Catholics, which, intended and expressed by the Holy
Spirit as the true and genuine meaning of that text, is taught by the Supreme
Pontiffs Pius IX and Pius XII and maintains the Mariological meaning of the
Proto-Gospel, although not just in one way. For some find Mary in that text
only in an eminent sense, some in a typical sense, some in a fuller sense, and
others in a literal sense. To make a theological argument these views are
accidental; for the meanings either typical or literal or fuller are truly
biblical meanings. It is more probable that the typical meaning is excluded,
and it concerns the meaning which the Holy Spirit wished to express with those
words of the hagiographer and so expressed, whether it is found from the words
alone, or from the work of tradition, of the Magisterium, of the analogy of
faith. But it is possible to dispute whether this meaning should be called
simply literal or a fuller sense.
It is also accidental to the argument
whether Mary is included in “woman” or in “seed,” although the prior hypothesis
seems to be more probable. (Iesu Solano and J. A. de Aldama, Sacrae Theologiae
Summa, 4 vols. [trans. Kenneth Baker; Keep the Faith, Inc., 2014], 3-A: 361-62)
On John 19:25-27 as a “proof-text” for Mary’s “spiritual maternity”:
The entire strength of this argument
depends on the question whether in the text John acts only as his own private
person, or he represents in person the whole human race, and this not in some
accommodated sense, but in a true sense. Of course, there are many exegetes who
hold for the accommodated sense only. However this often repeated teaching of
the Holy Pontiffs seems to demand something more than a mere sense of accommodation.
Moreover, because from Benedict XIV the Church accepts it as “instructed by the
teaching of the Holy Spirit,” and from Leo XIII that “the Church has constantly
taught” that John was designated the person of the human race . . . it is
necessary to investigate how actually such a meaning is found in the text.
Surely after Rupert Tuitiensis
(before Gregory of Nicomedia and perhaps also Origen), this interpretation was
quite common. This interpretation, from an analysis of the context, whether the
immediate context (because everything that immediately precedes or follows has
a more universal meaning), or the mediate context (because the whole Gospel of
John abounds in narrations, which, beside the historical sense, also have
another symbolic meaning), seems to be much more probable.
However, these words of Christ do
not formally constitute the spiritual maternity itself, but declare it as
already fully constituted. (Ibid., 431-32)
