Thursday, July 27, 2023

Muna Tatari and Klaus von Stosch: Ephrem the Syrian Did not Teach the Immaculate Conception of Mary

  

Ephrem the Syrian in particular makes clear the extent to which Mary’s purity first requires the agency of Jesus Christ. Ephrem has been wrongly cited as the first Syriac Church Father to teach the doctrine of Mary’s immaculate conception. Certainly, just like Jacob he emphasizes how beautiful and pure Mary is from the start. But at the same time, Ephrem also expounds the idea that Jesus Christ is the only person wholly without sin, and stresses that Mary is first baptized in Christ and also that this baptism is essential in order to preserve her purity. In his writings, Mary emerges as the first individual to be absolved of sin through baptism, and Ephrem sees this baptism as residing in her conception of Jesus. In other words, Mary is born anew from her son, and cleansed of sin through him. In similar fashion, Jacob of Serugh also proceeds from the assumption that Mary is freed from sin, including original sin, from the moment she conceives Jesus, though for Jacob this is a necessary prerequisite for the conception for Jesus that the Holy Spirit effects prior to the event.

 

For all their mariological enthusiasm, therefore, the Mariology of Ephrem and Jacob remains emphatically Christocentric. And notwithstanding all her advantages, Mary does still require cleansing. At the same time, though, she is so pure by virtue of her connection with Christ that she can become the model for all human life per se. Yet it is not merely her status as a role model for human existence that the Syriac Church Fathers consider important, but also her virginity. (Muna Tatari and Klaus von Stosch, Mary in the Qur’an: Friend of God, Virgin, Mother [trans. Peter Lewis; London: Gingko, 2021], 48-49)