“Untimely” (intempestivam
in Lat.Iren.) is how Irenaeus characterizes Mary’s haste in asking for the
miracle. This term was used in the beginning of the paragraph to say that in
God’s planning there is nothing “untimed.” All happens in due time: apto tempore. Mary’s action was, for
Irenaeus, not timed properly, not in tune with the plan God had originally
intended. Grabe (241, n. 11) and many others were quick to see in this
Latin term (the Greek is not extant) an argument from tradition that Christ’s
mother was not sinless, a reading carried on by Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 493; cf. Tertullian, De carne Christ, 7. This seems, however,
to refocus somewhat Irenaeus’s point of address. In his presentation, Mary
knows not a time that has not yet been revealed. The fitting time for beginning
Christ’s public miracles was known to the Father alone. For her this occasion
seemed propitious, but her haste need not imply imprudence. Jesus repelled her
haste not as sinful but simply as untimely. As Irenaeus explains, “He was
waiting for the hour that was foreknown by His Father.” (Dominic J.
Unger, St. Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies, Book 3 [Ancient
Christian Writers 64; Mahwah, N. J.: The Newman Press, 2012], 82)
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