herself; and therefore she was free not only from the stain of sin, but from all stain both in body and soul.1 Then the effect of the words, ab omne labe precluded all danger of contradiction, and raised Mary to a plane above and beyond the power of Satan; so that she had no debitum passibilitatis, no more than she had a debitum mortis or a debitum concupiscentiae. Or to put it Or to put it plainly, her very presence inspired purity and the love of it; and her sufferings and death were voluntary and had nothing to do with Adam's sin, except perhaps in atonement, but never as a penalty. It is no use in quoting Suarez's distinction : 'Some penalties were becoming to the dignity, and some were not.' No penalty is 'becoming,' especially when it is contracted'; and we shall see what that means when we now come to ask ourselves what is a debitum at all, and what has it to do with the corporal Assumption. II A debitum, according to theologians, is a liability to be created in sin; and hence it is called a debitum peccati. Hurter called it a necessity of contracting original sin, and proximate, if it included the potential sinner in the will of Adam; or remote, if it merely meant inclusion in the nature derived from Adam. Like Suarez, when he tried to prove the Virgin was 'obnoxious to original sin,' Hurter begs the question in this definition.' He takes it for granted that Mary had the fallen nature; and then, like Suarez, he triumphantly proves she is Immaculate! How many others have done likewise, in spite of the repeated declarations of Pius IX, which seemed to have fallen on deaf ears? For it is not the first time he said, in the Constitution Ineffabilis, that the flesh of Mary derived from Adam did not admit the 1 'Anima B. Virginis ita fuit plena quod ex ea refudit gratia in carnem ' (St. Thomas, Opusc. 8). 2 St. Ambrose, De instit. Virg., c. 7: 'Si quos inviseret integritatis insigne conferret.' De Myst. Vit. Christi, disp. 3, s. 45, n. 34. 4 Ibid., disp. 3, s. 4, nn. 7 and 8. 5 Mariol. 587. stains of Adam': Carnem Virginis ex Adam sumptum maculas Adae non admisisse.' And how many, too, seemed to have forgotten that the dial of Achaz,1 a type of the Immaculate Conception, did not merely stand as the sun moved on, but went backwards; and so did nature when it came as far as Mary. For otherwise, how could her Son have received His human nature from her in that purity in which it existed in the state of innocence? Accepit enim,' says St. Thomas, naturam humanam . . . in illa puritate in qua erat in statu innocentiae.' ' There is only one conclusion to all this: Mary must have a debitum peculiar to herself and not because of herself, but because of her dignity. The only kind she could have as prospective Deipara is a debitum gratiae, or liability to be created in grace. But grace is not grace if it were due; how, then, can the Blessed Virgin have a debt of grace and not a debt of sin? It was not due to her because she was simply Mary, the daughter of Joachim, but it was in a broad sense due to the prospective divine motherhood: God, as it were, owed it to Himself and His Mother.' ' And hence just as the flesh, in the words of Pesch, is the deficien and instrumental cause of propagating Adam's sin, so, with all respect to Pesch in the case of Joachim and Anne alone the flesh, by virtue of the merits of Christ, was the instru mental cause by which the fountains of the deep wer broken up, and the flood-gates of Heaven were opened,' and the pent-up graces that were prepared from Eternit were rained down on the Immaculate. Thus, God Wa able to adorn the soul with all manner of charismata, whe about to unite it with a body that was sprung even fro fallen Adam. And herein was the miracle of grace-na the masterpiece of the Gratia Christi Salvatoris-that, again all fixed and ordinary laws, a germ of grace should ha sprung, verdant and flourishing, from an infected and rupted root. 'Non irae sed gratiae germen quod semp 1 Isaias xxxviii. 8. 2 Summa, 3, 14, 1 ad 2. 4 De Deo Creante, n. 277, p. 180 Genesis vii. 11. virens ex corrupta infectaque radice singulari Dei providentia praeter statas communesque leges effloruit.' In the solemn formula, the words, Gratia Salvatoris are used, not Redemptoris, as the same Cardinal Cagiano also proposed. Every word had a meaning, and the word Salvatoris implied, of course, that the Virgin's grace was eminently preservative; and that she was never subject to the curse: 'Nunquam maledicto obnoxia.' One can, indeed, in a true sense' admit a very remote liability to sin, in the undoubted sense that she had a nature derived from Adam by 'active' generation. But the fact of her singular preservation shows that even then the danger was entirely avoided by Omnipotence. For HER preservation meant she was not only free from sin but also from all liability and all danger, 'Nunquam maledicto obnoxia.' For only under these conditions could she exist. 2 But someone might ask: What does that all amount to, when she did not contract the stain? Father Harper will clearly show us what he means by that expression, capable of a certain true sense, debitum remotum, and its effects on the doctrine of the Assumption. He was evidently writing for prospective converts. He was one himself, and he wished to smooth their difficulties and allay their qualms by excogitating seven differences between the Son and the Mother, who, according to the words of Pius IX, 'were bound by an indissoluble chain.' 'Mary, on the contrary,' writes the eminent Jesuit,' was subject to the common law BY VIRTUE OF HER NATURAL GENERATION FROM ADAM. She could only, therefore, have been delivered from the liability to sorrow, suffering, and FINAL DISSOLUTION by a positive decree of the Divine Will, like to that which exempted her from original sin. As God DID NOT MAKE THIS EXEMPTION, she paid the debt she contracted by her descent from our common PROGENITOR.' The words in italics describe the effects of the harmless 1, 2 i.e., as a daughter of fallen Adam, not as prospective Deipara. * Dr. Pohle, Mariology, p. 62. Imm. Concept., edited by Father Rickaby, S.J., p. 39. debitum remotum peccati on the question of the Assumption. And the reader will remark there is not a word about a special preparation on the part of God and the Holy Spirit for her 'natural' generation; and what is worse, Father Harper says that she CONTRACTED sorrow, suffering, and final dissolution like everyone else. He was But Father Harper was not to be blamed. simply following one whom Benedict XIV styled the Doctor Eximius. And the editor gives the words of Suarez in a footnote: Alias non contraxisset mortem aliasve corporis poenilitatis ex Adam.' But, alas! it was a case of the blind leading the blind; and both fell into the same pit when they used the fatal word 'contracted.' For, as St. Jerome said of the term 'hypostasis' in his day,1 there is poison in the word 'contract'; and St. Thomas will tell us the reason why: 'In the word to contract,' he says, 'is the relation of effect to cause. The cause of death and such like defects in human nature is sin, as by sin death entered the world, and hence those who incur these defects are said to contract them. Therefore,' he concludes that 'Christ did not contract but ASSUMED suffering and death, otherwise He would be said to have sinned.' 'But because, he says again, the Blessed Virgin was not Immaculate, she contracted death and suffering.' ' 3 Now that it is de fide that the Blessed Virgin is Immaculate, could any theologian, writing since 1854, be justified in saying she CONTRACTED death and suffering, o any other penalty? But did the Blessed Virgin not suffer and really die, and did she not then contract passibility and death? No; her sufferings and death could never b the results or effects or penalties of sin. For again the Angelic Doctor says: The nature or idea of a penalty i that it be punitive and inflicted for some fault.' Ther 1 Summa, i. 29, 3 ad 3. 2 Ibid. iii. 14, 3. 3 P. iii. 14, 3 ad 1: Ergo dicendum quod caro Virginis concepta fuit i originali peccato et ideo hos defectus corporales contraxit sed caro Christi e Virgine assumpsit naturam absque culpa et similiter potuisset natura absqu poena assumere.' was only one fault, and if Mary the Immaculate incurred any penalty or ill effect resulting from that fault, then she contracted the guilt as well: 'De ratione poenae quod sit afflictiva et pro aliqua culpa inferatur."1 According to this shining interpretation, given by Father Harper, of the remote debitum peccati theory, the Blessed Virgin is supposed to have lost supernatural gifts by reason of her natural descent, in spite of the fact that she was declared to be free from all stain of sin. Call it macula or labes, I repeat again, a stain is a privation of grace. Immortality, impassibility, corporal integrity (or freedom from corruption) were graces-for certainly they were not due to Adam's nature. They were supernatural gifts that he lost for himself and his posterity, who contracted his stain. But someone might urge: even supposing that a certain person did not contract the guilt, did that one not inherit at least some of the defects when naturally descended from Adam? No; for the only One coming in the ordinary way who did not contract his sin was declared to be free from all privation of grace resulting from the guilt of that sin. Can anyone deny that is the plain meaning of the words, ab omni originalis culpae labe preservatam immunem'? Then, how would it be possible for the Blessed Virgin to contract sorrow, suffering, and death, as Father Harper and similarly remote debitists say; or how was she able to merit to such a degree as to surpass all angels and men, if suffering and death in her case were not voluntarily accepted or assumed ? III I think it is St. Gregory who says: The Holy Ghost teaches the Church little by little.' Surely under His guidance it is time for us to cease thinking and speaking like children (1 Cor. xiii. 11), for we have far advanced since the days of St. Thomas. But it seems not, if we may judge the mentality of many very modern theologians, by 1 Summa, i. 2, 46 ad 2. |