Hi, I'm David Bercot and today we're going to be talking about what the early Christians believed about Mary. Or to put it another way, what did Christians originally believe about Mary? Probably no other doctrines divide the visible or institutional church as much as the doctrines about Mary. The doctrines about Mary put an insurmountable wall between Catholics and Protestants. And by Catholics, I mean Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, the Coptic churches, and other similar churches.
And by Protestant, I mean basically all of the churches that have come directly or indirectly out of the Reformation. But Christ doesn't want His church to be divided. If the Catholic doctrines about Mary are what Christians originally believed, then Protestants need to swallow their pride and embrace them. On the other hand, if the Catholic doctrines about Mary are not what the Church originally taught, then the Catholic churches need to admit their error and return to the original faith.
Now what do I mean by Catholic doctrines? Well, here are the primary ones about Mary. One, that Mary is the Mother of the Church. Two, that Jesus obeys whatever Mary tells him to do. Three, that Mary was sinless. Roman Catholics believe in the immaculate conception that she was born without even adamic sin. The Eastern Orthodox Church do not believe the immaculate conception, but they do believe that Mary had no actual sin. All right. Four, that Mary was forever virgin.
Five, that Mary serves as a co-mediatrix for fallen mankind. Again, Eastern Orthodox would not normally use that term. It is used very frequently in Roman Catholic writings. All right, number six, that we can pray to Mary. And finally, seven, that Mary is Queen of Heaven. Now both Catholics and Protestants believe in the incarnation and in the virgin birth. Those doctrines separate liberals from conservative but not Catholics from Protestants.
Now to examine what the Church originally believed about Mary, I want to encourage you to, first of all, read the entire New Testament. Now that might sound like a huge assignment, but actually it isn't. A fast reader can read the New Testament in one evening. Even a slow reader can read the entire New Testament in five or six evenings. So I'm only asking you to give up some of your evenings after work for one week or less so that you can see what the evidence says on this subject.
And I really can't imagine any better way that you could spend those evenings. Now I'm about to tell you what I have found for reading the New Testament, but I encourage you to go and read it for yourself to verify that what I'm seeing is accurate and complete. Now let's look at these doctrines that we've been talking about that divide the church. We'll start with Mary is the mother of the church.
Now what you're going to find when you read the New Testament, certainly what I found is that nowhere in the New Testament is Mary ever referred to as the Mother of the Church. After Jesus returned to heaven, no one ever addressed Mary as mother, period. In fact, her name is mentioned only one time after Christ's ascension. And that's in the very first chapter of Acts, where it only mentions that Mary was among the group in Jerusalem who met together for prayer after the Ascension. And that's it.
After that, no further reference is made to Mary. In fact, what you'll find when you read the Scriptures is that other than in the account of the birth and childhood of Jesus, Mary is not a prominent character in Scripture at all. Now this is significant because I've noticed that in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox literature, the name of Mary typically appears almost as frequently as the name of Jesus, sometimes it's there more often.
But in Scripture, Mary is mentioned less than 20 times, but there are nearly 1,100 references to the name Jesus. And as I said, outside of the four Gospels, the name of Mary appears only once, and that's in the very first chapter of Acts, the next book after the Gospels. No further mention of her whatsoever appears in the Scriptures after that.
Now, if she were really the mother of all Christians, the Queen of Heaven or the Mediatrix, surely there would be some mention of that in Scripture, and surely there would be more mention of her in the Scripture. Now there is one passage in the New Testament that some person's claim does support the view that Mary is the mother of the church. And this is in John 19:25 through 27. Let me read that passage to you.
It says," Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene." When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, he said to his mother," Woman, behold your son." Then he said to the disciple," Behold your mother." And it says," And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home." Now the claim is made by some that in those words, Jesus was saying that Mary is the mother of all Christians.
But is that what Jesus said? The account doesn't indicate that at all because John wasn't the only one standing there. He mentions these two other Mary's who were there. Now, if Jesus was saying that Mary is the mother of all Christians, he would have said that collectively to the group," Behold your mother." Now in English, the pronoun" your" can be singular or plural. You can't tell in English if you're talking to one person or to several. It's not that way in Greek.
In Greek, the pronoun is either singular or plural. And here it's singular. He's talking only to John," Behold your mother." He doesn't say that with reference to the other women who were standing right there. And what was the significance of it?
Well, verse 27 says," John took her to his home." So in other words, Jesus was saying," John, you are to take care of Mary as if she were your own mother." Even at the hour of death, Jesus loved and honored his mother and made sure she would be taken care of after his leaving. Now, if the apostles had understood that Mary was now the mother of all Christians, surely there would be some reference to that in their writings. But they never say anything about Mary being our mother or anything about her period.
Instead, what it says in Galatians 4:26 is this:" The Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all." Now from the very beginning, Christians have understood this to be talking about the church, the Jerusalem above, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is referred to in the Scriptures as the Bride of Christ. Now you may be wondering, is it possible that Mary being the mother of all Christians was part of the oral apostolic tradition that was never included in the New Testament? Well, first, let me say this.
Are we to believe that the Holy Spirit would have neglected to make sure that such an important teaching would be placed in the inspired New Testament? I mean, what kind of teachers were the apostles if they neglected to teach such a basic fundamental doctrine in their writings? As I've mentioned, it's hard to pick up a book or a magazine article written by a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox or Coptic that doesn't talk about Mary. I mean, she plays a central figure in the theology and practice of those churches.
So how could it be that she plays no role at all in the New Testament, that the apostles don't talk about her in their letters? In the book of Acts, all the history that happened after Jesus died and was resurrected, nothing is said about Mary. Could Mary really have played such a central role in Christianity at the beginning and yet not even be mentioned by the apostles in their letters? I don't think that's very reasonable.
But actually, the period of the church from the year 100 AD to 325 AD has been my special field of study for some 20 years now. Now, if there were any oral doctrines that are not found in the Scriptures, surely some mention of them would have been made in the volumes and volumes of writings we have from those whom the Catholic Church refers to as the Church Fathers.
I prefer to refer to them as the early Christian writers, but for the purpose of this message, I'll use that term church fathers as it's more familiar to Catholics. But there is no writer or church father prior to the year AD 325 who ever refers to Mary as the mother of the church. Instead, the early church fathers uniformly follow Paul in referring to the church as our mother. Let me read to you just some very representative quotations.
Clement of Alexandria, writing about the year 195 says," The mother draws the children to herself, and we seek our mother, the church." Tertullian, writing about the year 198, said," Nor is even our mother of the church passed by." Cyprian, who wrote about the year 250, said," I gladly rejoice and am thankful most brave and blessed brethren at hearing of your faith and virtue by which the church our mother glories." Again, in one of his letters he wrote," We begin to be gathered together once more into the bosom of
the church, our mother." In the mid-third century work known as" The Treatise on Rebaptism," it says this:" This is the desire and purpose of all heretics to frame as many attacks of this kind as possible against our Most Holy Mother, the Church." So that is the only reference you'll find to the mother of all Christians is the Church in the writings before the year 325.
Never do any of the fathers in that period refer to Mary as our mother. Now let's move to the second doctrine that Jesus obeys whatever Mary tells him to do. Again, when you read the New Testament, you're not going to find any such teaching in any of the epistles of the Apostles. There's nothing written in the Book of Acts that would give anyone that impression.
As I said, the only mention of Mary in the Book of Acts is in chapter 1 where just lists her among other people who were present and praying there in Jerusalem after the ascension. But there is one passage in the New Testament that is sometimes cited to support this idea that Jesus obeys whatever Mary tells him to do. And this was the occasion at the wedding feast in Cana in the region of Galilee. Let me read that passage to you.
It says," And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus was called and His disciples to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said unto him," They have no wine." Jesus said unto her," Woman, what am I to do with you?
Mine hour has not yet come." His mother said unto the servants," Whatsoever he says unto you, do it." Now there were there six water pots of stone according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. Jesus said unto them," Fill the water pots with water," and they filled them to the brim. And He said to them," Draw some out now and take it to the master of the feast," and they took it.
When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine and did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom, and he said to him," Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now." Now let me ask you, does that passage say that Jesus does whatever his mother says?
Actually, I see it suggesting just the opposite because Jesus rebukes his mother when she turns to him and says they have no wine. He says," Woman, what do I have to do with you?" Now, that expression," What do I have to do with you?" occurs several times throughout the Old and the New Testaments, and it's always a form of rebuke, a form of saying," You and I have nothing in common," or" You and I are not in agreement because what you're saying is wrong." I'll give you two of the examples.
2 Samuel 16:9 says," Then Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, said to the king,' Why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king? Please let me go over and take off his head. But the king said,' What do I have to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? So let him curse." Another example, Mark chapter 1 verses 23 and 24, it says," Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out saying,' Let us alone. What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth?
Did you come to destroy us?'" So the expression," What do I have to do with you?" is an expression showing," You and I are worlds apart. We are not thinking the same." So we don't know what Mary had in mind when she said to Jesus," They have no wine." But whatever it was, Jesus in effect said that you and I have nothing in common. We are not in agreement. Now, some persons imagine that Mary is asking Jesus to perform a miracle there when they run out of wine. But Jesus had performed no miracles before.
Mary didn't know he had the power to do that. Nothing up to that time would have suggested he could have changed water into wine or to do anything like that. After all, if she was asking him to do the very thing that he ended up doing, why would he rebuke her and say," Woman, what do I have to do with you?" That doesn't make sense, does it? He would have instead said," Woman, that's a good idea. I'll take care of it," or something like that.
None of us would have responded to our earthly mothers that way, particularly if we were in agreement with them. But whatever the reason is for the rebuke, this passage is hardly evidence that Mary runs Jesus' life and he does whatever she asks. Knowing this passes, Jesus is distancing himself from his mother and making it clear that he doesn't do her bidding. And what was Mary's response to the rebuke? Well, she backed off and she said to the servants," Whatever he says unto you, do it." Okay, she submits herself.
Whatever he says, do whatever he says, and she backs out of the picture. Now you may have noticed that when I read that passage, that Jesus doesn't even address Mary as mother. Instead, he addressed her only as woman. Woman, what do I have to do with you? Now, if you've never read the New Testament before, you maybe don't realize that that is the only way he ever addressed his mother. He always simply refers to her as woman, never as mother.
Now, calling her woman wasn't a discourteous form of address, but is not a very tender one either. No one else in the Bible addresses their mother simply as woman. So Jesus didn't even treat Mary the same way that most humans treat their own earthly mother. He distanced himself from her by you say not even addressing her as mother, but only as woman. Now, some persons have claimed that addressing her as woman was some kind of mystical, exalted form of address, Mary as the cosmic woman or as the ultimate woman.
But that's not true. Jesus addressed other women the same way. I'm going to read you three passages from the New Testament. Matthew 15:28. He's speaking to a Phoenician woman.
And he says," Oh woman, great is your faith." Luke 13:12," He's healing a woman." He says," woman, you are loosed from your infirmity." John chapter 4:21," He's speaking there to a Samaritan woman at a well, and he says,' Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father." So Jesus typically addressed females by saying," woman." He gave no special reverence or veneration to Mary in that regard.
And by doing that, what I think Jesus was saying was," Even though you're my earthly mother, I am your Creator. I am your Lord. I am your God." Nipping in the bud any tendency that Mary might have had to want to run Jesus' life for his ministry. He was also setting an example to nip the tendency that he knew other humans would have to exalt Mary and to even worship her. Actually, the Scriptures seem to go to great length to make sure we don't exalt Mary or that we don't get the idea that Jesus does her bidding.
Let me read to you an example. While he was still talking to the multitudes, behold his mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with him. Then one said to him," Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak with you." But he answered and said to the one who told him," Who is my mother and who are my brothers?" And he stretched out his hand toward his disciples and said," Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." That's from Matthew 12:46 through 50. You know I've heard some person say," Jesus has never said no to Mary yet." Well, there you have it. Jesus not only rejected her request to come out and speak to her, but he did it publicly. And not only that, he distanced himself from her saying," Who is my mother and my brothers?" He says," Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my mother." Tank, this is very typical.
Every time someone sought to venerate Mary, Jesus directed their attention elsewhere. For example, Luke chapter 11 verses 27 and 28. It says," And it happened as he spoke these things that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to him,' Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts which nursed you.' But he said,' Yeah, rather, blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it?' So the Scriptures say nothing to give us the impression that Jesus is some kind of cosmic mama's boy.
Rather, the Scriptures go out of their way to give us the exact opposite impression. And there are a number of examples, for example, at the Last Supper. Now, a Passover meal was normally a family event, yet Jesus didn't invite His mother Mary to be present there. The first person that Jesus appeared to after His resurrection wasn't His mother, but rather Mary Magdalene. And he didn't tell Mary Magdalene to go run and tell her mother that he was raised from the dead.
Rather, he told her to run and tell the 11 disciples. Later on there in the Gospel of John, after His resurrection, Jesus gave the 11 the power to forgive sins, but He did not give Mary that power. I assume at some point Jesus appeared to His mother Mary after the resurrection, but if so, there's no mention made of it in Scripture. And in Acts 1, Mary was not invited to be present when he ascended into heaven.
So this idea that," Oh, if we pray to Mary, and then she'll tell Jesus what to do, and he'll always do his mother's bidding," that's not at all what we see in the Scriptures. That was not part of the original faith, what Christians originally believed. Mary played a very key role in the incarnation that God's Son, who is truly divine, was born in her. But after that, she plays no further role in the gospel message.
When he's speaking to the multitude, Mary and his brothers, who are not believers, they're on the outside. They're not part of the multitude hearing Jesus preach. They're on the outside. And rather than dropping everything and says," My mother wants to talk to me, so I better go see what she wants," he ignored her and just went on preaching and saying," Who is my mother?
It's the one doing the will of my father." And nobody can claim oral apostolic tradition for this teaching because none of the early church fathers ever say any such thing about it. Again, when I say church fathers, I'm referring to the ones who lived and wrote prior to the year 325. After all, if we can't find a doctrine anywhere in the first 300 years of the church's history, we can hardly claim that it's the historic faith or that it's what Christians originally believed.
Just as Mary plays no central role in the New Testament after the birth of Christ, Mary plays no central role in the writings of the early church fathers either. The vast majority of the references to Mary in the early Christian writings, and there aren't a whole lot of them, are references to the virgin birth of Christ. Let's move to the next doctrine about Mary, that Mary was sinless.
Again, when you go through the entire New Testament, looking at every single verse, you will find no such teaching in the New Testament. In fact, there's a teaching that directly contradicts that. In Romans 3:23, Paul wrote and said," All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Death spread to all men because all sinned. Now you notice he didn't say," All have sinned except Mary." Rather, he makes no exception. All have sinned.
If you go to the second chapter of Luke, it describes Mary bringing the sacrifice of two doves to the temple after Jesus' birth. Now if you go back to the 12th chapter of Leviticus, you will find that this sacrifice was a sin offering. Now why would Mary have been bringing a sin offering to the temple if she were sinless? So that's what the New Testament has to say about sinlessness, that Jesus alone was the one without sin. There are no exceptions made anywhere.
Well, could Mary being sinless be part of the oral apostolic tradition? Before we go any further, I should probably clarify this concept of oral apostolic tradition. As I said, I have been studying the early Christian writings for some 20 years now, and I have not been able to find one single doctrine that was universally taught by the early Christian writers or the early church fathers prior to the year 325 that cannot be found in the New Testament.
So it's a myth to think that there is oral tradition that goes beyond the New Testament and provides doctrines that aren't in here or even doctrines that contradict what is in the New Testament. Now there is oral apostolic tradition that clarifies some of the practices of the early church, such as the mode of baptism or how often they celebrated communion, but there's no oral tradition that was universally taught by the early Christian writers that gives us any new theological doctrines.
And so what we find in the early church writings about Mary is the same thing we find in the New Testament. None of the early church fathers teach that Mary was sinless, and none of them ever say anything about immaculate conception. They have no concept of that whatsoever. For example, Clement of Alexandria wrote, this is from the year 195," Christ alone is sinless.
However, as far as we are able, let us try to sin as little as possible." And again, he says," I know of no one among men who is perfect in all things at once, as long as he is still human." The only exception is he alone who clothed himself with humanity for us.
Tertullian, writing about the year 197, said," To the Son of God alone was it reserved to persevere to the end without sin." He went on to say," The Lord knew Himself to be the only guiltless one, and so He teaches us to beg to have our debts remitted us." Again, he says God alone is without sin, and the only human without sin is Christ, since Christ is also divine.
Origen, writing about the year 248, says," If by the phrase" those who were without sin, the pagan critic Celsus means those who have never at any time sinned," we reply that it is impossible for a human to be without sin in that manner. In saying this, we except, of course, the man understood to be in Christ Jesus who did not sin. And Cyprian writing about the year 250 says," No one is without stain and without sin.
In the epistle of John, it says," If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Now, if the early church fathers knew of some oral tradition that Mary was without sin, surely they would have mentioned that.
Because when they say no one is without sin, they quickly say," Well, there is one exception, and that's Jesus Christ." So if they believed the way that the Roman Catholic Church teaches today, they'd have to say," Well, except Jesus Christ and except Mary." But they don't say that. In fact, Tertullian even wrote about Mary's sin of unbelief.
He said," A certain mother of the company exclaims," Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts which you have sucked." But the Lord said," On the contrary, blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it." Now he had in precisely similar terms rejected his mother and brothers while preferring those who heard and obeyed God.
Again, Tertullian wrote," There is some basis for thinking that Christ's answer, that is to his mother and brothers, denies His mother and brothers for the present." For now quoting from Scripture, he says the Lord's brothers had not yet believed in Him. This is contained in the gospel that was published before Marcion's time. Marcion was a heretic. At the same time, there is also a lack of evidence of his mother's adherence to Jesus, although the Marthas and the other Mary's were in constant attendance on Him.
Indeed, in this very passage, their unbelief is evident. Jesus was teaching the way of life, preaching the kingdom of God. But meanwhile, while strangers were intent on hearing Jesus, his very nearest relatives were absent. They preferred to interrupt him. They desired to call him away from his great work.
Tertullian continues," In whatever sense he adopted as his own, those who adhered to him, in that same sense he denied as his own, those who kept aloof from him." How strange then would it certainly have been if while he was teaching others not to esteem mother, father, or brothers as highly as the Word of God, he were himself to leave the Word of God as soon as his mother and brothers were announced to him. He denied his parents then in the sense in which he has taught us to deny ours for God's work.
But there is also another view of the case. In the mother whom he denied, there is a symbol of the synagogue. In the unbelieving brothers, there is a symbol of the Jews. For as a group, Israel remained outside. On the other hand, the new disciples who kept close to Christ within, hearing and believing Him, represented the Church. Jesus called these disciples His mother in a preferable sense, and He called them a worthier brotherhood. In doing so, he repudiated the fleshly relationship.
It was in just the same sense indeed that he also replied to that other exclamation, not denying his mother's womb and breast, but designating those persons as more blessed who hear the Word of God. Now, if a person in Catholic circle said those things today, it would cause quite a bit of ire, and he would be immediately denounced. And yet, Tertullian's comments there raised no uproar. Nobody objected to it. No one wrote against Tertullian for saying those things.
What he said was in harmony with what other Christians believed in his day. And it's certainly in harmony with what we see in the New Testament. Now let's look at the fourth doctrine about Mary, that she remained forever virgin. Well, again, if you read the New Testament, you will find no such teaching anywhere in the New Testament, not even a hint of it. In fact, there is a strong indication just to the contrary in Matthew chapter 1 verses 24 and 25.
It says," Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took to him his wife, and did not know her until she had brought forth her firstborn son." So it said he did not know her or have relations with her until after she brought forth her firstborn son. That would in normal language mean that he did have relations with her after the birth of the first son. Now, some persons have made the argument that" until" can sometimes mean never.
For example, he never drank until the day he died. Well, we don't mean that he drank on the day that he died. We mean he never did drink. Or it has remained that way until this day, meaning that nothing has changed. But there's a big difference between the phrase until now or until the day he died and until she brought forth her firstborn son. And in this respect, Greek and English are very similar. If that passage meant he never had relations with her, it would have been so easy to say that.
Why would it say until after she had her firstborn son? So really, Matthew 1:24 and 25 would seem to clinch that and resolve any issue about it. And remember in the passages that we've read earlier, it talks about Jesus' mother and his brothers. Now I realize people say," Well, those are really his cousins," or," Those were sons of Joseph." Of course, if they were sons of Joseph, they wouldn't be Jesus' brothers. They would have been his stepbrothers. But the scriptures don't say that Joseph was a widower.
When we read the account there in the book of Matthew about the birth of Jesus, the journey to Egypt, and back to Nazareth, no mention is made of any other children of Joseph being present.
For example, Matthew 2:13 says," An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying,' Arise, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt and stay there until I bring you word." He says," When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt." Doesn't say he took his other children with him as well. So the scriptures give every indication that Joseph and Mary had normal relations after the birth of Jesus, that they had other children.
In fact, the argument that's usually made is, well, since Joseph and Mary were aware that God incarnate had been inside of Mary, then they would not have wanted to have relations after that. But the Scriptures give us no such indication that Joseph and Mary ever had that awareness, at least not until long after Jesus had begun His ministry. For the angel Gabriel, who spoke to Mary only said this:" Then the angel said to her,' Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. Then Mary said to the angel," How can this be since I do not know a man?" And the angel answered and said to her," The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you.
Therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God." Now he did not explain that the Son of God who was already in existence was going to become incarnate and would be born in her. She knew she was giving a miraculous birth, but that's all that she knew. That passage was Luke chapter 1 verses 30 through 35. Go to Luke chapter 2, the event of the temple when Jesus was 12. It says," When they saw Him, they were amazed, and His mother said to Him,' Son, why have you done this to us?
Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously.' And he said to them,' Why is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business? But they did not understand the statement which he spoke to them. So the scriptural evidence is that Mary and Joseph did not have an understanding of the incarnation. Nobody did until Auguste well into Jesus' ministry, and it took His apostles a long time to grasp it.
So in summary, the Scriptures do not at all support the teaching that Mary was forever virgin. What about oral tradition? Well, there are no references to Mary being ever virgin in the writings of any of the church fathers before the year 200. However, somewhere in the late second or perhaps early third century, someone wrote a fictitious work called The Gospel of James or the Book of James. It's not the same thing as the Epistle of James in our Bibles.
Today, this work is generally known by the title The Proto-Evangelium of James. Now, this was not an authentic work written by James or by any of the apostles. It was not written in the first century, but it purports to have been written by James. And this work received a fairly wide distribution. In fact, many Christians innocently thought that this was a genuine New Testament work, or at least an accurate historical work.
Now, according to this fictitious work, Joseph was much older than Mary, and he was a widower at the time he married her. And it says that Joseph had children from his first marriage who were the brothers of Jesus who are mentioned in the Scripture. And it goes on to say that Mary remained a virgin and that she and Joseph lived in a celibate marriage.
But both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox and every other church has rejected the Proto-Evangelium of James from being included in the New Testament canon. In fact, it was never a contender. When they had discussions about which books should be in the New Testament and which should not, that wasn't even one of the ones that received any consideration because it was well known to be a fictitious or spurious work.
It pretends to be written by James when, in fact, it wasn't, so it's a dishonest book, pretending to be something it isn't. Now, there are no references in the writings of the Church Fathers about the doctrine of this book, that Mary remained a virgin and that she and Joseph lived in a celibate marriage, until the year 245 AD, and the first reference I've been able to find is in Origen's commentary on Matthew.
And he says this," Some say basing it on a tradition in the gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled or the Book of James," and he's talking about the Proto-Evangelium of James that the brothers of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now, those who say so wish to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end so that her body might not know intercourse with the man after the Holy Spirit came into her and power from on high overshadowed her.
And I think it is in harmony with reason that just as Jesus was the first fruit among men of the purity that consists in chastity, so was Mary among women, for it was not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the first fruit of virginity. So the doctrine that Mary remained ever virgin was not something handed down by the apostles, but rather it's something that we can pinpoint exactly when and how it started.
As I said, it appears to have been sometime in the early third century, maybe the late second century, from this fictitious work, which then influenced other people and Origen, for example, picked up on that. Now, he certainly does not indicate that it was the teaching of the church or even that most Christians believe that because he said," Some say." But then he gives his authority to it. And Origen had quite a lot of influence in the 3rd century, so it began to flower after that.
By the time you get to the 4th century, it appears to be the main view among Christians, although it's still not a dogma of the Church. The problem with it is that it directly contradicts Matthew 1:25. He did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn son. It certainly would sound to, I think, any reasonable person that he did know her or have relations with her after the birth of her firstborn son. And the fact that it says her firstborn son, again the implication that she has other sons.
But of course, whether or not Mary was ever virgin is purely a matter of history. It has no effect on salvation or our relationship with God. It doesn't make Mary the mother of all of us, or mediatrix, or the person who controls Jesus or any of these other things. If people want to believe the spurious work of the Proto-Evangelium of James, so be it, it doesn't change anything in the Christian life. It was simply a matter of history, was Mary the first one to take on celibacy or virginity.
Now, the next two doctrines we'll just consider together, that of referring to Mary as co-mediatrix or addressing prayers to her? Well, again, when you go through the New Testament, you will find no prayers whatsoever addressed to Mary. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He said," Pray this way, our Father who art in heaven." He taught us to address our prayers to the Father, not to Mary. And there's no deviation from that in the New Testament.
And the New Testament says nothing about any other mediator other than Jesus Christ alone. For example, 1 Timothy 2:5 says," There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." The whole book of Hebrews goes into detail about how Jesus serves as our mediator before God. For example, in chapter 4, beginning with verse 14, it says," Seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Jesus had taught us to ask in His name when we asked the Father in prayer. He didn't say to ask Mary for anything. The idea in Catholic circles is that Mary is more merciful than Jesus. So go to her. She's more apt to say yes, and then she'll talk Jesus into it.
But nobody is more merciful than Jesus Christ and His Father. The Scriptures say that all power has been entrusted in Jesus Christ to rule over man and to be the judge. No mention made whatsoever of Mary. The heavens aren't run by Mary, but by the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. Well, what about in the early church? Is this another doctrine that we can find at least some reference to before the year 325? No, it is not.
In the early church before the year 325, you'll find no prayers whatsoever addressed to Mary, no mention of anybody ever praying to her. The only mediator the early church knew was Jesus Christ. Tertullian wrote," When then you cast yourself at your brethren's knees, you are handling Christ. You are entreating Christ.
In like manner, when they shed tears over you, it is Christ who suffers, Christ who prays the Father for mercy." Origen said," We offer our petitions to the God of the universe through His only begotten Son. To the Son we first present them. We beseech Him as the propitiation for our sins and as our High Priest to offer our desires, sacrifices, and prayers to the Most High. Our faith therefore is directed to God through His Son. See, no mention of any other mediator or mediatrix.
Cyprian wrote," The martyrs cannot be the authority for the bishops doing anything against God's command. Is anyone greater than God or more merciful than God's goodness?" The apostolic constitutions that were compiled around the year 390 say," Neither may we address ourselves to Almighty God, but only through Christ." And there is no deviation from that. Every early Christian writer expresses the same view who talks about this subject.
No mention whatsoever of Mary playing any kind of role as a mediatrix or even an intercessor on our behalf. Now let's move to the final doctrine about Mary that she is the Queen of Heaven. Again, you can read through the entire New Testament and you will never find that teaching anywhere. There is quite a bit of teaching about the kingdom of God and the rulership of it, and it only mentions Jesus Christ is sitting at the right hand of the Father.
No mention made of Mary being on a throne of ruling heaven or earth or anything else. But the Scriptures have been used to support this idea of Mary being queen of heaven. And the passage is taken from the book of Revelation. Revelation chapter 12, and I'm going to read to you the first 17 verses. It says," Now a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of 12 stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
And another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth, and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. She bore a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God in his throne.
Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God that they should feed her there for 1,260 days. And war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought. But they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven," Now salvation and strength in the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who has accused them before our God day and night has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them.
Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you having great wrath because he knows that he has a short time. Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness to her place where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time from the presence of the serpent.
So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went off to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Now, as I said, many Catholics say," Well, see, this is talking about Mary there." But there's no antecedent in the Scripture that would suddenly elevate Mary to such a position. As I've mentioned over and over again in our discussion, Mary is mentioned less than 20 times in the Scriptures, and all but one of those are in the gospels talking about the birth of Jesus and occurrences during his lifetime.
And then the one brief reference in the book of Acts, the very first chapter that says she was among the ones praying there in Jerusalem after Jesus had ascended. Nothing after that. So how could you possibly jump from a person who plays no central role whatever in the church beyond being the source of the incarnation of giving birth to Jesus Christ, which, I mean, that's about as great a role as anyone could imagine. But then, like I say, after that, she is a relatively unimportant figure in the Scriptures.
And then suddenly, in the book of Revelation, we're to believe that she's the queen of heaven, that everything centers on her. You know Paul said that the Jerusalem above is our mother, not Mary. But how could this be talking about the birth of Jesus? Revelation 1:1 says that these things in Revelation are" things which must shortly take place." They're not things that had already taken place decades before.
Furthermore, Jesus is portrayed in the 11 chapters of Revelation as the heavenly ruler who sits at the right hand of the Father, not as someone who hasn't yet been born. Furthermore, if chapter 12 of Revelation is talking about Mary, then we would have to say that she was in heaven before she ever gave birth to Jesus. Because verse 1 of that chapter says," Now a great sign appeared in heaven." Verse 5 says that her child was caught up to God in his throne. But that didn't happen after the birth of Christ.
Verse 7 says that war broke out in heaven and Satan was cast out of heaven. Did that happen when Jesus was born? The scriptures say nothing about that. Verse 11 says that the brethren had overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb. So when we get to Revelation chapter 12, Jesus has already died and has been resurrected? Or how can they overcome by the blood of the Lamb? Verse 13 talks about the dragon persecuting the woman. But did Satan persecute Mary? There's no record in Scripture of Mary ever being persecuted.
No, the woman who was persecuted was the church, the one that the early Christians referred to as our mother. Let me read to you how all of the church fathers understood this passage before the year 325.
Let me read to you from Hippolytus, first of all, writing about the year 200, he said," By the woman clothed with the sun, he most obviously meant the church, endued with the Father's Word, whose brightness is above the sun." He says," And she brought forth a male child who is to rule all the nations." By this, this has meant that the Church, always bringing forth Christ, the perfect male child of God, who is declared to be God and man, becomes the instructor of all the nations.
Another writer who wrote about Revelation was Victorinus, writing about the year 280.
He said," The woman clothed with the sun and having the moon under her feet is the ancient church of fathers, prophets, saints and apostles." Methodius, writing about the year 290, says," The woman who appeared in heaven clothed with the sun is certainly according to the accurate interpretation, our mother, whom the prophets have sometimes called Jerusalem, sometimes a bride, sometimes Mount Zion, and sometimes the temple and tabernacle of God.
It is the church whose children will come to her with all haste after the resurrection. And as I said, nobody says anything different from that. Not one single person interpreted that as talking about Mary. In fact, in all of my research, I've only found two areas where the early Christians go beyond what we find in the New Testament. One is concerning Mary being ever virgin, and we've pinpointed the source of that.
The other one is a fairly innocent analogy, and that is several of the early Christian writers or church fathers saw a parallel between Mary and Eve that Mary's obedience counteracted the disobedience of Eve. For example, Justin Martyr noted," He became man by the virgin in order that the disobedience which began with the serpent might receive its destruction in the same manner in which it derived its origin.
For Eve who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the Word of the Serpent brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her. Now, that is as far as he goes. He doesn't exalt Mary, venerate her, call her mediatrix, or queen of heaven or anything like that. He just notices that there is a parallel between Mary and Eve. They were both virgins.
And through one, sin entered the world, and through the other, the answer to sin entered the world. Irenaeus wrote, and this would be about the year 170 or 180," Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying,' Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord, be it unto me according to your word." In contrast, Eve was disobedient, for she did not obey when she was still a virgin. Having become disobedient, she was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race.
Correspondingly, Mary, who was also a virgin, although betrothed to a man, by yielding obedience became the cause of salvation both to herself and the whole human race. This demonstrates the corresponding reference from Mary back to Eve. So it was that the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the Virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the Virgin Mary set free through faith. And Tertullian says pretty much the same thing.
Now the Scriptures never make any such parallel between Eve and Mary. I personally think it's safer to just stick with the teaching of Scripture. If Scripture doesn't make that parallel, then I don't know that God wanted us to think of it in those terms. Yet, like I say, it's innocent enough and it's not unreasonable, but that is as far as the early church fathers ever went.
So if these doctrines about Mary didn't originate in Scripture, if they weren't what Christians originally believed, then they're not part of the historic faith. And Protestants or non-Catholics have had every right to reject them. Well, where did the doctrines come from then? You've heard me mention the year 325 quite a few times tonight. Church historians would view it as an extremely pivotal date in the history of the church.
That was the date of the Council of Nicaea, where Constantine, the Roman Emperor, who professed Christianity but was still unbaptized at that point, presided over the council and suggested the wording of the decree that was drawn up there. And Constantine sponsored the church. He paid salaries to the ministers. He built church buildings. And as a result, in a span of only about 50 to 75 years, nearly all of the people in the Roman Empire converted to Christianity or at least purported to convert to Christianity.
Now, I sincerely doubt that most of those converts were anything other than nominal Christians. They were simply getting on the bandwagon. If you wanted to advance your career, you needed to be a Christian. And yet, this sudden mass of people who were flooding into the church had been used to always having female deities in their religion. In fact, one of the primary deities of the Romans was a goddess that was known simply as the Great Mother.
In fact, when I was in Rome several years ago, I remember seeing statues of her in various places. The Israelites were fairly unique among all of the ancient people of not having a female deity. And even they repeatedly turned to worshiping Ashtoreth, who was a female deity. And Jeremiah talks about some of the women among the Israelites burning incense to the Queen of Heaven.
That's the exact term he uses" queen of heaven." So when this mass of people flooded into the church with a desire for a female deity, the church allowed these people to transfer their sentiments for a mother goddess over to Mary. Now, the church never taught that Mary was a goddess or our Savior or anything like that, but the church did allow these people to venerate Mary to the point of practical worship, even going so far as to give Mary the pagan title of Queen of Heaven.
Interestingly, around the year 365 AD, an Eastern bishop named Epiphanius wrote against this growing trend to worship Mary, and he described what people were doing in his day. This is just 40 years after the Council of Nicaea. He writes," What happens is that certain women decorate a chair or square stool, spread out upon it a cloth, and on a certain day of the year put out bread and offer it in Mary's name.
All the women partake of the bread." And he goes on to say," Let such women be silenced by Jeremiah and let them not alarm the world. Let them not say we honor the queen of heaven." So he draws a parallel between what those purported Christian women were doing and what the unfaithful Israelite women were doing when they were burning incense to the Queen of Heaven.
And yet before long, it was the Church itself that gave Mary the title" Queen of Heaven." Well, the title of this message was what the early church believed about Mary, and I think I've shown you from the scriptures and from the writing of the church fathers what the early Christians believed about her. All of these other doctrines that you perhaps grew up with if you are Catholic or Orthodox are not part of the historic faith.
And if Mary wasn't Queen of Heaven in the year, say, 50 AD, if she wasn't Mediatrix in the year 50 A.D. If she was not sinless in the year 50 AD, then she couldn't be any of those things in the year 400. I mean, either those were foundations of the faith from the very beginning or they are man-made additions. You can't have it both ways. The Book of Jude refers to the faith that was once for all handed to the saints. The faith was complete before the end of the first century.
Any doctrine that's been added after the year 100, which was about the year that the Apostle John died, is not part of the apostolic faith, and we can't say it was apostolic tradition either. It's man-made tradition. But I want to conclude by challenging you to do the homework I mentioned at the beginning of this message. If you've never read the New Testament, go and read it for yourself. See what it has to say about Mary. See if what I have been telling you is correct or not.
Because all of us who embrace the name Jesus Christ should be teaching the same doctrine. But the doctrine that we should teach is the historic faith, the apostolic faith that was once for all handed to the church.