Category Archives: Protestantism

The Visible Church

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Sacred Tradition is, and always has been, a great obstacle for Protestants to overcome.  There is an utter incongruity between the Christianity of history and Protestantism that requires much mental gymnastics to avoid.  St. John Henry Newman put it another way: “if ever there were a safe truth, it is this…To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.”  The early Protestants, because they were drawn from the ranks of Catholics, knew this so that their theological acrobatics required them to discredit, or at least mitigate the role of the Catholic Church during the first fifteen centuries of Christianity, while still maintaining the revealed truth that the Church could not totally fail.  From this they developed the idea of the “Invisible Church” as the true Church.  This “spiritual” society was to be comprised of all the just men and women.  It would only be made visible to the extent that the various religious communities more or less perfectly realize the ideal proposed by Christ.  All of this leads to the notion that one Church is as good as another and only the “heart” of the individual believer really determines whether they are a part of the true, invisible Church.

We must admit at the outset that this ecclesiastical sleight of hand by the original Protestant revolutionaries was deliberate.  But for Protestants today, it is simply an unquestioned maxim upon which the entire façade of Protestantism rests.  This is why Newman thought, especially from his own personal experience, that studying the Church Fathers would lead one to the conclusion that the Protestant Fathers invented a new Christianity that was, at least in theory, based on the Bible alone.  But prior to this study it is often necessary to raze the foundation upon which the entire building of Protestantism rests—the invisible Church.

That Christ intended to form a single Church is clearly testified to in Sacred Scripture.  The one mustard seed, the one field, the one Bride of Christ and telling it to the Church all put this unity on display.  He prayed to the Father before making His sacrifice that all believers would be one.  Of these facts both Catholics and Protestants can agree.  But in order for this unity to real, there must be certain characteristics among the body of believers.

For any society to exist there must be a true union of minds and wills between members.  This unity in intellect means that the same doctrines are known and professed by each of the members.  Likewise, the union of wills means, not just that they do the same things, but that there is submission to a common authority.  Because man is not just a mind and will however, there must also be a third characteristic.  This third characteristic is a set of external signs that symbolizes this internal unity. 

Unity in Visible Government

In merely human societies, this unity is usually realized imperfectly.  Nevertheless, there are some core set of beliefs, recognition of authority and visible signs that mark members of a society as belonging to that society.  In the supernatural society that is the Church, these are necessarily realized perfectly.  No mere core set of beliefs will do because of the Divine promise of being given “all truth” (Jn 16:13).  There are no “core beliefs” in Christianity because the Truth is one.  This unity of doctrine likewise means a unity of acceptance and a unity of government. 

The Truth must be guarded and protected so as to avoid corruption.  Protestantism bears this aspect out.  Because there is no unity of belief, there can be no unity in government and thus we have thousands of “denominations.”  Protestantism, rather than leading to the unity willed by Christ, has led in the opposite direction.  This government must not only be one, but it must be visible.  The Government of the Church, because of the nature of man and the nature by which men are cooperators, must be something visible and external. 

As Leo XIII said in Satis Cognitum:

The Apostles received a mission to teach by visible and audible signs, and they discharged their mission only by words and acts which certainly appealed to the senses. So that their voices falling upon the ears of those who heard them begot faith in souls-“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the words of Christ” (Rom. x., 17). And faith itself – that is assent given to the first and supreme truth – though residing essentially in the intellect, must be manifested by outward profession-“For with the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. x., 10). In the same way in man, nothing is more internal than heavenly grace which begets sanctity, but the ordinary and chief means of obtaining grace are external: that is to say, the sacraments which are administered by men specially chosen for that purpose, by means of certain ordinances.

SG, 3

Unity in Visible Worship

But this visibility in government is not the only aspect by which the Church must be visible.  Since it is a religious society, there must be a unity in worship.  It is this unity of worship that signals to the world that the Church is one. 

Man, on his own, is incapable of worshipping God in a fitting manner.  For that, God must reveal the form of worship that is pleasing to Him. Throughout salvation history, God always makes a covenant with Israel that includes regulation of a concrete form of worship that God seeks.  The New Covenant is no different in that regard.  The worship that God seeks, the only worship that is pleasing to Him is the Mass.  This is exactly the point that St. Paul makes to the Corinthians.  First, he reminds them that the liturgy is their source of unity: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?   Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (1Cor 10:16-17).  Then he tells them that the form of the liturgy, including the manner in which they participate, is regulated by Christ Himself: “In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” (1Cor 11:25-26).

Practically speaking then there can be no true Christian Unity without unity of Faith, government and worship.  True Ecumenism then must always have as its purpose conversion because until we have unity in the True Faith, governed by the True Church and worshipping with the True Sacrifice, we remain a divided society.

God’s Authority and the Modern State

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Pope St. Pius X once said that all errors in the practical and social realm were founded upon theological errors.  The Saintly Pontiff’s maxim seems almost common-sensical, so much so that, we can easily overlook it.  Ideas have consequences and bad ideas, especially bad ideas about Who God is and who man is, have bad consequences.  As a corollary then we might say that it is impossible to fix the bad consequences without rectifying the bad thinking.  One such bad idea, namely that all authority in the political realm comes from the people, has had the devastating consequence of erecting a “wall of separation between Church and State” leading to the loss of many souls.

The Source of Secular Authority

The properly Christian understanding about the source of secular authority is that it comes from God Himself.  This is made clear by Our Lord during His trial in which He tells Pilate that “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above” (John 19:11).   In his usually blunt manner, St. Paul echoes the same principle when he reminds the Christians in Rome to “Let every person be subordinate to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God” (Romans 13:1).  God as Creator and Sustainer of all Creation is also its supreme authority.  All authority is exercised in His name and flows from Him.  Kings, emperors and presidents all derive their power to rule from Him and it is only for that reason that they also have the power to bind consciences for just laws. 

Summarizing the Church’s understanding of secular authority, Pope Leo XIII instructs the faithful that “all public power must proceed from God. For God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world. Everything, without exception, must be subject to Him, and must serve him, so that whosoever holds the right to govern holds it from one sole and single source, namely, God, the sovereign Ruler of all. ‘There is no power but from God’” (Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, 3).

This view of authority flies in the face of countries such as the United States.  Rather than authority from above, it is based on authority from below.  Known as popular sovereignty, this founding principle is first articulated in the Declaration of Independence where Jefferson told the King that legitimate governments are those ‘‘deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.’’ 

Luther’s Error and Its Modern Consequences

So ingrained in the modern mind, we might not even realize that it is opposed to the correct understanding of the source of secular authority.  It would be easy to blame this on the Enlightenment, but the error pre-dates even the Enlightenment and Social Contract Theory.  Instead the error is rooted in Luther’s revolution in which he rejected the authority of the Church.  Leo XIII points this out in his encyclical Diuturnum  by drawing a line from the so-called Reformation to Communism and nihilism: “…sudden uprisings and the boldest rebellions immediately followed in Germany the so-called Reformation, the authors and leaders of which, by their new doctrines, attacked at the very foundation religious and civil authority; and this with so fearful an outburst of civil war and with such slaughter that there was scarcely any place free from tumult and bloodshed. From this heresy there arose in the last century a false philosophy – a new right as it is called, and a popular authority, together with an unbridled license which many regard as the only true liberty. Hence we have reached the limit of horrors, to wit, communism, socialism, nihilism, hideous deformities of the civil society of men and almost its ruin” (Leo XIII, Diuturnum, 23).

If we follow the logic we will see why this is a necessary consequence.  Animated by a Protestant mentality, each person treats directly with God without any intermediary.  Each person becomes an authority in himself and therefore any authority that is to found in a social body is by his consent.  In essence then it eliminates the Kingship of Christ in the temporal realm and completely privatizes religion. 

This helps to explain why most Protestants see no problem in the current belief in a “Wall of Separation” between Church and State. It was Luther himself that was the intellectual predecessor: “[B]etween the Christian and the ruler, a profound separation must be made. Assuredly, a prince can be a Christian, but it is not as a Christian that he ought to govern. As a ruler, he is not called a Christian but a prince. The man is a Christian, but his function does not concern his religion. Though they are found in the same man, the two states or functions are perfectly marked off one from the other, and really opposed.”  Both the Christian Prince and the Christian citizen were to live their lives in two separate realms and, ironically enough, not submitting to God in either since they also rejected His Kingship in the Catholic Church.  Once the divorce is complete, all types of political errors begin to take hold.  Luther’s insistence on individual and private judgement leads directly to Locke, Rousseau, and Marx.  One theological error leads to many political errors. 

The Church then will always find conflict with the modern state until this error is corrected.  The modern State hates the Catholic Church because it is an existential threat because it seeks, or at least ought to seek, to acknowledge God’s authority in the temporal realm.  It is also the reason that Catholics ought to make the best citizens.  They see no conflict between Church and State because both have their authority rooted in God Himself and to obey either is to obey God.

Taking Down the Firewall

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When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg Cathedral, the Augustinian priest ignited a firewall that continues to separate Catholics and Protestants down to this day.  At the heart of his question was the abuse of indulgences, but he ultimately attacked the firewall upon which the doctrine was built—Purgatory—in order to make his point.  Unfortunately, the debate still rages today, not necessarily because of Purgatory itself but because of all of the ancillary issues attached to it: Atonement, Penance, Tradition, Development of Doctrine, and Authority.  In an age of exaggerated ecumenism, we tend to ignore those doctrines like Purgatory that ultimately lead to division.  Ignoring the truth is never a good idea, especially when the truth is a practical one.  Purgatory is perhaps the most practical of doctrines; many of those who don’t believe in it now will experience it first-hand in the not too distant future.  But it also is important to have a ready explanation for it because it is also a “head-pin” doctrine; knock it down and many of the aforementioned obstacles will fall with it.

The most common argument against it is that it is not Scriptural.  We have spoken any number of times in the past about the rule of faith being implicit within Sacred Scripture and the need for Tradition to make it explicit.  In other words, doctrines like Purgatory need not be explicit in Scripture only implicit.  We will not traverse that well-worn path yet again.  It is mentioned because we need not necessarily have this discussion regarding Purgatory.  If we dig a little deeper into Scripture then we will find that Purgatory is a common theme, so much so that we can offer a strictly Scriptural defense of it.

St. Thomas said that, when arguing with an opponent, we should always argue using terms and sources of authority that they agree with.  For example, when discussing some aspect of morality with a non-Christian, we should not cite the Bible but instead Natural Law.  We can certainly show how the Bible agree with that source of authority, but to obstinately stick to the Bible when they think it mythical is foolish.  A similar thing happens with Catholics and the doctrine of Purgatory.  Second Maccabees (2 Maccabees 12:39-46) clearly points to a belief in Purgatory.  The problem is that Protestants don’t accept that book as inspired.  By referencing them it seems to only prove their point that Purgatory is a Catholic fabrication, yet it still remains the go-to texts from the Old Testament.

St. Francis de Sales and the Argument from Scripture

Throughout post-Reformation history, there is perhaps no one better than St. Francis de Sales at converting Protestants.  Some estimate that he was responsible for over 70,000 conversions in his lifetime.  It is therefore instructive to look at how he presented this divisive doctrine.  He did not argue from Tradition or even mention 2Maccabees, but instead gave a strict Biblical defense using Protestant accepted texts.  Given his success rate and the fact that most of these texts are rarely cited, it is educative to review what he said (Catholic Controversy, Appendix II).

It without saying that Catholics and Protestants both agree that Christ’s Blood is the true purgatory.  But the question still remains how and when that purgation is applied.    For the saintly Bishop of Geneva and the thousands he converted there was a simple reasoning process: if there are passages which speak of purgation after death then there must be a place (call it Purgatory since the name is never given us) where this purgation occurs for purgation can happen neither in hell (where “the worm does not die” Mk 9:48) or in heaven (where “nothing unclean may enter it” Rev 21:27). 

St. Francis begins where many of the Fathers of the Church, those who spoke the great Amen to God’s Revelation, began, in Psalm 66.  There the Psalmist speaks of being led out into the spacious place by passing through fire (Ps 66:12).  Likewise, Isaiah 4:4 speaks of being cleansed by a spirit of burning. 

St. Francis also refers to Christ’s teaching on the Sermon of the Mount where he cautions about the punishments attached to anger (Mt 5:22-26).  Our Lord suggests different levels of punishment, with only the latter meriting hell.  For the other two, Jesus speaks of a prison of sorts that one can leave saying, “truly, I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny” (5:26).  Building on this theme, St. Paul refers to a man who is saved “as through fire”  (1 Cor 3:11-15).

Praying for the Dead

All of this points to a time and place of purgation, but, absent a connection to Tradition, one could argue that this purgation occurs in this life.  The problem with that interpretation however is the abundance of Scriptural examples of people praying for the dead.  St. Francis begins by referring to David’s prayer and fasting for Saul and Jonathan after their deaths—”And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the LORD and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword” (2 Sam 1:12).  Likewise, we find St. Paul praying for his departed friend Onesiphorous (1 Tim 1:16-18).

He also explains two other often problematic texts by referring to Purgatory.  The Mormons often justify their habit of literally vicariously baptizing the dead by referring to Paul’s text in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians (1 Cor 15:29).  St. Francis says that when Paul speaks of being baptized for the dead he does not mean it in the literal sense, but as an exhortation to offer sufferings for the dead.  He says that St. Paul is using Baptism in the same manner as Christ did when He speaks of His baptism of afflictions and penances undertaken in Luke 12:49-50—I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!  There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!”.  Notice how Our Lord references to a fire in this rather clear passage.

Perhaps his most convincing passage prooftext is the last one he refers to: Philippians 2:10.  St. Paul says that that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth”.   In particular, St. Francis is concerned with a proper interpretation of those “under the earth”.  To assume that refers to those in hell would contradict Scripture— ”For there is no one in death, that is mindful of thee: and who shall confess to thee in hell?” (Ps 6:5, c.f. Isaiah 38:18).  Instead those “under the earth” refers to “holy souls in Purgatory”, that is the Church Suffering.  St. Paul’s hymn is making reference to the Church in all her members in heaven, on the earth and in Purgatory.  Ultimately then, there is no firewall between the Church’s members nor should there be between Catholics and Protestants.

Kindred Spirits?

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Summing up why Sacred Scripture matters, St. Jerome once proclaimed that “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”  The famously acerbic Doctor of the Church knew that the Word Made Flesh could be found on every page of the Bible and therefore dedicated his life to studying the Scriptures and producing accurate translations of the books of the Bible.  Living in a time when many of the versions had become corrupt due to poor translation and copyist errors, he learned Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic just so that he could create the most accurate translation of the ancient books.  So gifted was he in this area that the pope at the time, Pope Damasus, asked him to produce an “official” translation in Latin that became known as the Vulgate.  It is this translation that remains the official translation of the Church to our day.

Like much of what the somewhat contentious Jerome did during his lifetime, his work was not without controversy in his day.  Little did he know that this controversy would be felt a millennium later when a former Augustinian monk stumbled upon some of his early thought and used his arguments to justify his own position.  The bulk of Jerome’s work was done when the Church did not have an official canon—official in the sense that the Church had authoritatively spoken as to which books were part of the Bible and which weren’t.  It was not until 382 that Pope Damasus produced a list of the canon that was later affirmed by the Council of Hippo (393) and the Council of Carthage (397).  Nevertheless, there was still widescale agreement among the Faithful as to which books could be used in the Liturgy (which was the home of Scripture) and which couldn’t.  There was still some question about a few books like the Book of James, Revelation, the Letter of Clement to the Corinthians and the Didache, but most agreed that the former two belonged and the latter did not.  But before officially closing the canon, Pope Damasus sought to produce an accurate translation of the entire canon of Scripture so that the Church could have a single collection of the books to rely on.

It is important to note however that the debated books never included what has become known as the Deuterocanon (or Apocrypha in Protestant circles).  This name, Deuterocanon, was used to distinguish books of the Old Testament that could be used for argumentation and evangelization with Jews from those that couldn’t.  For the Jews, once they realized that their books were being coopted by the Christians, had begun to build a wall around their Scriptures and rejected all those books that were not found in Hebrew.  A list that included the seven books (Baruch, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Sirach, Judith, Wisdom, and Tobit) and parts of two others (Daniel and Esther) of the Catholic canon.  But the Church still viewed both sets of books as inspired and we find those books included among all the early lists of the approved Scriptures by the Church Fathers. 

Jerome’s Line of Reasoning

The agreement in the Early Church regarding the Deuterocanonical books was unanimous except for one man—St. Jerome.  For Jerome made a mistake in his thinking, a mistake of which the aftershocks are still felt today.  As he gathered up the various translations of the books, he found that the copies of the Septuagint, that is, the ancient Greek translation of the books of the Old Testament, were various and not wholly consistent.  Translating them without finding an “official” text proved difficult to say the least.  He also found that the Hebrew texts, what he called the Hebrew Masoretic (HM) texts, had been widely circulated for several centuries and were much cleaner and consistent.  From these two facts, Jerome came to an incorrect conclusion.  He thought that the HM texts were the “correct” ones and not the Septuagint.  He called this the principle of “Hebrew Verity”.  And since the Deuterocanon did not appear in the HM texts he also concluded that they were not inspired.

Flash forward 1100 years and Martin Luther, whose theology, especially on indulgences and praying for the dead, is clearly contradicted by these books, is looking for a reason to throw these books out of the Canon.  He stumbles across Jerome’s reasoning and latches on to it.  The story of how he removed the books has been covered previously, so we won’t rehash that here.  What we will cover however is that Jerome was wrong in his line of thinking and therefore Luther merely resurrected his error and passed on a stunted Canon to his Protestant progeny.

Why Jerome was Wrong

We know that Jerome was wrong for two reasons.  The first is related to the findings in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  This sacred library was discovered in 1947 by Bedouin shepherds and contained the earliest translations of many of the books in the Old Testament.  These translations precede any of the earliest translations we had up to that point by almost 1000 years and precede Jerome’s HM text by almost 500 years in some case.  Why this is significant for the discussion at hand is that among the books that were found were the books of the Deuterocanon.  And not only were they in the library, but there were Hebrew and Aramaic translations.  These translations, as well as the translations of the other books that were found, are closer in substance to the Septuagint and not to the HM texts.  In short, the Dead Sea Scrolls show that Jerome erred in thinking that just because the HM texts were consistent, they were correct.  The problem was that the parts of the Septuagint were actually preserving the original Hebrew better than the currently existing Hebrew and the Dead Sea Scrolls show this.

While Luther might be excused for not knowing this, the second reason should have convinced him.  The reason we know Jerome was wrong is because Jerome said he was wrong.  In a letter Against Rufinus he said,

“What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the Story of Susanna, the Song of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume, proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I was not relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us.”

And this ultimately helps us to uncover not just the error Luther made but his motivation.  For he cites St. Jerome as his authority, but then does not do what Jerome did.  For Jerome, even though he had personal reservations against those books being included in the official canon, still translated them, and ultimately deferred to the authority of the Church.  He knew that his personal opinion could err, but the Church could not, especially when it comes to the Canon of Scripture.  He knew that a fallible list of infallible books leads to an absurdity, one that tugs at the seamless garment of the content of faith until it entirely unravels. 

It is not much of a stretch, especially when we read their writings, to see that Jerome and Luther were kindred spirits with one huge exception.  St. Jerome has the humility of a saint and deferred to the authority of the Church.  Luther had the pride of devil and decided to set himself up as his own authority.

Led into All Truth

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The digital age is nothing if not cacophonic.  We are inundated with words to the point that, in order to be heard over the din, hyperbole becomes the norm.  Our Lord and the Apostles, on the other hand, were neither cacophonic nor hyperbolic.  When He said something, the Word made Flesh was economical and precise in what He said and what He meant.  That is why when He promises the Apostles that the Holy Spirit “guide you to all truth” (John 16:13), he really means all truth.  The Apostles would be given full and perfect knowledge of God’s Revelation so that the Barque of Peter would never be steered off course.

One might be justified if his initial reaction to such a statement, even if true, is to conclude that, in the end, it has no practical bearing.  But as we shall see it is an especially important point that has practical implications.  So important in fact that when St. Irenæus, the second-degree disciple of the Apostle John through St. Polycarp, wrote his treatise Against Heresies, he included a proof of it in order to refute the Gnostics who claimed to have hidden knowledge.  Irenæus tells the would-be heretics that “after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge…”(St. Irenæus, Against Heresies, III-I, emphasis added).

The Amen of the Church

We look to early Church Fathers such as Irenæus  because they tell us how Divine Revelation was received.  God speaks and the people, in receiving His message, say “Amen”.  If someone like Irenæus interpreted Jesus’ words during His farewell discourse literally, then we can rest assured that it is the authentic interpretation.  This becomes even more obvious when we consider that it has to be true or else the Deposit of Faith will eventually decay.  And this is why he wrote what and when he did.  The Gnostics professed that the Apostles merely got the ball rolling and that men (especially men like them) would come along and add to it: “For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed perfect knowledge, as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles” (ibid).  If the Apostles did not have full and perfect knowledge then it necessarily allows for addition to it the deposit of faith, the position that Irenæus found “unlawful”. 

The practical implication that follows from this is the absolute necessity for the development of doctrine and the authoritative Church.  Development is not the same thing as addition, as we have discussed previously, but a result of the Word of God being living and active.  But the distinction between development and addition necessitates the presence of an authoritative Church.  But just because the Apostles had full and complete knowledge, it does not mean that they articulated all of it.  To grasp this we can turn to the Apostle of Development, Blessed John Henry Newman.

Newman on the Full Knowledge of the Apostles

Like Irenæus, Newman also took Our Lord at His word.  But he was more interested in how that could be, than that it could be.  In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (EDCD), Newman concludes that “Thus, the holy Apostles would without words know all the truths concerning the high doctrines of theology, which controversialists after them have piously and charitably reduced to formula, and developed through argument. Thus, St. Justin or St. Irenæus might be without any digested ideas of Purgatory or Original Sin, yet have an intense feeling, which they had not defined or located, both of the fault of our first nature and the responsibilities of our nature regenerate…Thus St. Athanasius himself is more powerful in statement and exposition than in proof; while in Bellarmine we find the whole series of doctrines carefully drawn out, duly adjusted with one another, and exactly analyzed one by one.” (Blessed John Henry Newman, EDCD, Ch.5, Section 4).

The knowledge “without words” meant that the “Apostles had the fullness of revealed knowledge, a fullness which they could as little realize to themselves, as the human mind, as such, can have all its thoughts present before it at once.  They are elicited according to occasion.  A man of genius cannot go about with his genius in his hand: in an Apostle’s mind great part of his knowledge if from the nature of case latent or implicit…”

In essence, the Apostles were infused with all knowledge of divine Revelation.  It was always in their mind.  But the communication of knowledge on a human level is always deficient.  No word necessarily encompasses a complete idea.  Development allows the idea to be looked at from multiple angles so that it can be fully articulated.  Instead then of fully articulating what they knew, they were guided by the Holy Spirit to have all of their knowledge spread implicitly.  It would then unfold over time, under the divine authority bestowed upon the Church.

Newman gives a good example when he asks whether St. Paul would have known about the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.  While he might not have initially grasped what the term Immaculate Conception meant, “if he had been asked whether our Lady had the grace of the Spirit anticipating all sin whatever, including Adam’s imputed sin I think he would have replied in the affirmative.”  The explication may have been foreign but as soon as he knew what you meant he would have found it among the deposit of faith that he was given.

The practical implication then is that either way, the Protestant argument against the Church’s authority fails and ultimately is self-defeating.  If they take a reductive, rather than a literal meaning of Christ’s words, namely that the Apostles did not know all things, then there is no reason why the deposit of faith must be closed or must be included solely in the Bible.  In fact, if this is true then an authoritative Church is absolutely necessary as the guardian of divine revelation.  Likewise, if the Apostles did know all things and did not communicate them explicitly, then there must be an authoritative Church that guides the articulation of that knowledge.  There is a third option, namely that the Apostles were simply bragging about what they were given and were unwilling to hand it on, although that leads to an absurd conclusion.  Either way then, the existence of an authoritative Church is implicit in Christ’s promise that the Apostles would be led to all truth by the Holy Spirit.

Finding the Lost Ark

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One of the charges often leveled by Protestants against Catholics, especially when it comes to Marian doctrine and devotion, is that it has no grounding in Scripture.  The New Testament, it is argued, says very little that supports these dogmas.  There is perhaps no defined dogma that more demonstrates this than the most recent, the Assumption.  But when we look at Scripture as a whole, however, we find a completely different story.

When St. Paul goes to Ephesus, the same Ephesus where the Beloved Disciple settled would eventually settle with Our Lady, he encounters worshippers of the female fertility goddess Artemis (Roman goddess Diana).  This was hardly unique as many of the pagan religions had similar goddesses.  It is into this historical reality that the Mother of God, who was a real person that could still be touched and seen, lived.  So, the earlier New Testament writings had good reason to remain relatively silent about her role in salvation.  This helped to keep the message of the Good News focused on Christ and avoided any chance that the pagans would wrongly assume that Christianity was simply offering a new pantheon of gods (like when St. Paul speaks at the Areopagus, Acts 17:22-32).  Without great care, especially when she was alive, there would most certainly have arisen a cult that could have eclipsed or put her on par with her Son. 

How St. John Described Our Lady

If it stopped there, then perhaps the objections that Catholics merely resurrected those practices might be valid.  But it didn’t.  For after she left the earth, St. John, the man who next to her Son knew her best, left the Church all that was needed for the foundation of Marian devotion.  With surprising clarity, in what is an otherwise mystical and confusing book, John tells how he met Our Lady during his heavenly sojourn.  He found the Woman clothed with the Sun with a crown of twelve stars who gave birth to the male child who was to rule all nations of the earth (c.f. Rev 12:1-5).  Readers of John’s gospel would also know that when he uses the title “Woman” he is referring to Mary.       

To make it perfectly clear who he is talking about, he introduces this section by mentioning something that would have immediately grabbed his readers’ attention—the Ark of the Covenant.  “And the temple of God in heaven was opened, and there was seen the ark of his covenant in His temple…” (Rev, 11:19).  In other words, in John’s inspired understanding, Mary is the Ark of the Covenant.  And in calling her such, he now links everything that is said of the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament to the person of Mary. 

The Ark of the New Covenant

Recall that the original Ark of the Covenant held God’s Word written on Stone in the Ten Commandments.  Now, the true Ark of the Covenant carried the Word written in Flesh.  The original Ark of the Covenant held a piece of the heavenly bread manna.  The true Ark of the Covenant carried the Bread of Life. Finally, the original Ark of the Covenant held the staff of Aaron as a sign of the Old Covenant priesthood while the true Ark of the Covenant carried the new High Priest of the New Covenant. 

This connecting of Mary to the Ark of the Covenant was not lost on the early Church either.  The great defender of Christological orthodoxy, St. Athanasius in homily passed on the traditional link between the two when he said,

“O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness.  For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word?…O [Ark of the] Covenant clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides…You carry within you the feet, the head, and the entire body of the perfect God…you are God’s place of repose.”

Once the connection with the Ark of the Covenant is made, we can link it to another key text in the New Testament: the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth.  David took the Ark of the Covenant into the hill country of Judea where he leapt for joy and the Ark remained there for three months (2 Sam 6).  After the Annunciation, Our Lady, carrying the newly-conceived Son of God, travels into the same hill country where John the Baptist leaps for joy at the sound of her voice.  She also stays there for three months.  It is clear that St. Luke is deliberately evoking images of the Ark of the Covenant to suggest that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.

The eventual resting place of the Ark of the Covenant has been the subject of speculation and rumor for many centuries.  According to 2 Maccabees, the prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave and God would reveal its location at the appropriate time (c.f. 2 Macc 2:1-8).  When his followers despaired that he did not mark the path to it, he prophesied that “the place is to remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy.  Then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will be seen…” (2 Macc 2:7-8).  During the Annunciation, Mary was “overshadowed by the Holy Spirit,” the description of which would have evoked the return the “glory cloud” that overshadowed the Tabernacle (c.f. Ex. 40).  Now this same cloud is seen and announces that God has gathered the people together and shown them mercy.  This overshadowing then marks not just the presence of God, but the presence of the New Ark of the Covenant.  The Feast of the Visitation then is a celebration of the revelation of the place where the Ark of the Covenant can be found—wherever Mary went.

The connection between the Ark of the Covenant and the Assumption of Mary is made explicit by John during his heavenly vision.  But the Old Testament also teaches that the Ark was never meant to remain on earth or, God forbid rot in a cave, but to go to its resting place with God in heaven (c.f. Ps 132:8).  This is why when St. John Damascene, when marking the Feast of the Dormition of Mary, connects Our Lady’s Assumption with the Ark of the Covenant: “Today the holy, living ark of the living God, the one who carried her own maker within herself, comes to rest in the temple of the Lord not made by hands.  David—her ancestor and God’s—leaps for joy; the angels join in the dance” (St. John Damascene, On the Dormition of Mary, II).

The quest for the Ark of the Covenant is over.  It has been found and she is Our Mother Mary who brings Jesus with her everywhere she goes.