Non-Bogus Roman Catholic Meme #1

 

After a barrage of bogus Roman Catholic memes on the Mariology of the early Reformers appearing online, I decided to join the wacky world of meme-ing and make my own... or rather, augmenting one of theirs! I decided to do this because no matter how many comments I've left under bogus memes, very few people seem interested in the actual facts about the bogus quotes used in their memes. I think now people largely only have the attention spans to engage pictures and short comments. There's a sense in which I understand this. I too do not enjoy wading through long rambling posts... even my own!

To present a counter view opposing that the early Reformers were Mariologists, the quotes in my meme were intended to demonstrate that Rome's defenders cherry pick content and ignore what doesn't fit. The quotes I picked out purposefully do not fit their paradigm! What I'll be doing here is breaking down the content of the meme with documentation. I do this so that anyone using my meme has a direct line to the context of where the quotes are from.

Martin Luther:"We are just as holy as Mary and the other saints, no matter how great they are, when we only believe in Christ." I chose this quote to demonstrate the clear contrast between the way Roman Catholics consider Mary to be holy and the way Martin Luther did. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states,

492 The "splendour of an entirely unique holiness" by which Mary is "enriched from the first instant of her conception" comes wholly from Christ: she is "redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son". The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person "in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" and chose her "in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love".

Luther on the other hand stated we are just as holy as Mary! This quote comes from the same sermon Rome's defenders use in which they claim Luther held, "The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart." In context, the "veneration" quote is not a positive affirmation of Marian piety from Luther. Rather, the quote is part of a collection of sermons intended to wean people away from venerating the saints (including Mary). In the "veneration" context, Luther's point is that whatever respect Mary was due, the church of his day had collectively gone far beyond it. A full break down of the "veneration" quote can be found here.

The context of the quote in the meme can be originally found in WA 10.III:315. This sermon is sometimes referred to as "Sermon on the Day of Mary's Birth, 8 Sept. 1522." It was part of Luther's Kirchenpostille (festival sermons).

This text was brought into English in The Festival Sermons of Martin Luther, translated by Joel R. Baseley, p.158. He entitles the sermon, The Day of the Nativity, September 8. While the German text appears to me to be much fuller (and also provides two different renderings of the same sermon), Baseley captured the essence of the context for English readers:

John Calvin: "To speak of the Mother of God instead of the Virgin Mary can only serve to harden the ignorant in their superstition." I chose this quote to highlight the historical fact that John Calvin purposefully shied away from positively using the phrase, "Mother of God." The original exploration I did on this quote can be found here.

Contrarily, some Roman Catholics are overt that John Calvin used the phrase, "Mother of God." To cite a few examples: John Pasquini states in his books Catholic Answers to Protestant Questions and True Christianity the Catholic Way, "Even John Calvin recognized the reality of Mary as the Mother of God!" EWTN hosts a web-page that states, "The French reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) also held that Mary was the Mother of God."  Raymond De Souza presents proof that "Luther, Calvin and Zwingli preserved it intact in their systems of distorted doctrines" that "Protestantism, unhesitatingly called the Holy Virgin 'Mother of God (theotokos).'" The Seekers Guide to Mary says, "Calvin also held that Mary was the Mother of God." These are but a few examples from a seemingly endless pool of Google hits. 

In actuality, I've never found John Calvin positively using the phrase, "Mother of God." The quote from John Calvin used in my meme is compliments of the Roman Catholic scholar Thomas O'Meara. He writes, "Calvin nowhere calls Mary Theotokos or the Mother of God." O'Meara states further, "...the reason for his hesitancy on the use of the term 'Mother of God' seems to be based upon a fear of falling into what he saw as the excesses of the past." O'Meara then refers to a letter Calvin wrote "to a French Calvinist community in London in 1552."  Calvin wrote September 27, 1552 to the French Church in London. They had written to him and asked, "Is it lawful to call Mary the Mother of God?" Calvin responds, 

Concerning the other debatable points, I doubt not but there may have been somewhat of ignorance in their reproving the way of speaking of the Virgin Mary as the mother of God, and together with ignorance, it is possible that there may have been rashness and too much forwardness, for, as the old proverb says, The most ignorant are ever the boldest. However, to deal with you with brotherly frankness, I cannot conceal that that title being commonly attributed to the Virgin in sermons is disapproved, and, for my own part I cannot think such language either right, or becoming, or suitable. Neither will any sober-minded people do so, for which reason I cannot persuade myself that there is any such usage in your church, for it is just as if you were to speak of the blood, of the head, and of the death of God. You know that the Scriptures accustom us to a different style; but there is something still worse about this particular instance, for to call the Virgin Mary the mother of God, can only serve to confirm the ignorant in their superstitions. And he that would take a pleasure in that, shews clearly that he knows not what it is to edify the Church.

O'Meara makes this conclusion,

It is not an explicit rejection of Ephesus—for which Calvin has great respect—but rather the effect which this title had on devotional life in the past that explains why Calvin preferred other titles for Mary.

The original letter can be found here: CR 42:363. 

This is exactly why John Calvin avoided the term "Mother of God" and why many within Protestantism do today. Dr. James White once described this title as "the single most misused theological term around." Contemporary Protestants distance themselves from the title, "Mother of God," for good reason. The term has evolved in its usage. What was once a rich theological term expressing a doctrinal truth about Christ developed into a venerating praise to Mary. The gist of the term became heavily Mariological in popular medieval piety, abandoning its Christological heritage (see my old comments here on this).  Calvin rightly says, "...for to call the Virgin Mary the mother of God, can only serve to confirm the ignorant in their superstitions."

Ulrich Zwingli:"Our only access to God is Christ, and that the hope [in the saints] which has been taught to creatures is pure deception, falsehood, and idolatry."  Out of these three early Reformers, Ulrich Zwingli is the most "Marian" of them all and it is much harder to locate his explicit Marian comments, either affirming or denying. The quote I chose is from Zwingli's Explanation of his 67 Articles.  These 67 Articles were presented as a public disputation January 27, 1523. This explanatory text was presented July 14, 1523 (half a year later). The text in question is in regard to Article 20: "That God desires to give us all things in his name, whence it follows that outside of this life we need no mediator except himself."  Zwingli specifically denied the intercession of the saints, including Mary. Roman Catholics seem to treat this denial like it's no big deal. However, all the distinctive Roman Catholic Marian attributes (Perpetual Virginity, Assumption, Immaculate Conception, etc.) are symbiotically related to her ability to intercede. Take away Mary's ability to intercede, whatever is left really becomes a curiosity of history rather than something profoundly meaningful.

As far as I know, the treatise I've utilized has not been translated into English. The original can be found in the Corpus Reformatorum. This is a largest collection of writings from some of the popular sixteenth century Reformers. The quote can be found here: CR 2, 198.

DeepL A.I. English translation:

Accordingly, and as is sufficiently demonstrated in this and the preceding article, our only access to God is through Christ, and the hope that one has learned in creatures is a pure deception, falsehood, and idolatry, it will also be necessary to tear the writings that they have used dishonestly from their hands and denounce them wherever they have misused or misunderstood them.