Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Sacrae Theologiae Summa on the Marian Interpretation of Genesis 3:15 and John 19:27

  

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)