www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Why is the Immaculate Conception considered Ex-Catherda?

Not at all. Read all I said in context. A complicated topic summarized in a short paragraph is of necessity a simplification: it is providing the reference frame for the quoted words. Or are you telling me that the LXX is NOT a translation of the original Hebrew and Aramaic as stated?

Note what I said about the authority of the LXX and specifying "scholarly" editions and the complicating factor of textual criticism.

When Jesus read from the scroll in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:17-21)do you think it was the Greek of the Septuagint?

Well said! Sadly most modern English translations of the Bible use the Masoretic text for the Old Testament instead of the Septuagint, and this usage causes discrepancies between the Old Testament and New Testament when the latter is quoting the former (compare Hebrews 10:5-7 to Psalm 40:6-8 RSV).

There were versions of the LXX and Jerome translated from THEM and available manuscripts in Hebrew as would be expected of a translator. Here and in another post in this thread -- maybe one of the lost posts -- Jerome's name in used in vain. This is especially odd and uninformed since, as I noted previously -- and what actually pertains to THIS thread -- the old vulgate (relative to the current version), follows the LXX:

It depends on which version of the versions of the LXX is consulted. This was discussed here in March 2008. The NAB Note quoted sums it up rather well.

No matter how venerable, the LXX is a translation. Greek and other languages are unable to do complete justice to the way the Hebrew uses, for instance, the words Adam and Eve. This is seen, for instance, in considering how Chavvah/Zoe/Eve/Life is rendered by the LXX where a choice, not needed in the Hebrew, must be made of either translating of transliterating; cf. Gen 3:20 and Gen 4:1. That choice is even more apparent with the name Adam.

This is interesting but quite off topic. I reply only because it has been brought up (unfortunately here) and I felt it needed correction.

No matter how venerable, the Masoretic text postdates the LXX by some four to six centuries, and the Masoretes were making their translation choices as well--unless you think that Hebrew from the ninth century BC at all resembled Hebrew from the fourth century AD. They also made choices based on exegetical and apologetic considerations. They had many texts from which to choose, and who is to say if the Masoretes made better choices than the translators in Alexandria?

The simple fact is this: when the Apostles wanted to refer to the Old Testament, invariably they went to the LXX. When the Fathers wanted to refer to the Old Testament, they also went to the LXX. Unless you want to go around correcting Holy Tradition--including the liturgical texts, the acts of the Councils and the works of the Fathers--you have to accept the LXX as the Old Testament of the Church, and the work of the Seventy (or Seventy-Two) as divinely inspired in its own right.

Well, they're your words and I repeat them: "...who is to say if the Masoretes made better choices than the translators in Alexandria?" I never claimed they did. YOU here state the issue about the very strawman that YOU have created. Again, go back and read what I actually wrote and you will find I spoke of standard and scholarly texts in a way that is factual and noncommittal. The only deference I did give was to the LXX. Also, the dates above don't bear directly on the dating or quality of actual manuscripts, scrolls, etc.

Often, mostly, but NOT always.

Again, which one. Do all LXX manuscripts and versions agree exactly? [Answer: No, they don't.]

No, I don't "have to accept." For someone who can so easily dismiss the Catholic dogma that actually is the subject of this thread, the Immaculate Conception, you proclaim your own about the LXX with the greatest of ease.

May we please return to the subject of the thread.

Glory to Jesus Christ!


I know how you feel. It's unusual it seems for a thread to stay on track for long lol.

Kyrie eleison,

Manuel

These offers may help.




Speaking of textual criticism, in this our age of information, it is ironic that information can still get lost, even when precautions to prevent loss are in place. It would be interesting to see how well, to what degree, a recovery of all the posts, in certain form, could be made.

Based on what I'm reading in this thread, I honestly have no idea what the view of original sin is.

It all comes down to perspective. This whole thread has been an argument about which particular lense of viewing original sin is right, or is better, or is closest to the most ancient traditions.

The west focuses on sin as breaking the divine law of God. Original sin is then cast in a negative view of a stain of something missing. Baptism is seen as the rememdy to the violation of the law that we are born into.
The east focuses on sin more like a sickness that breaks our relationship to God. Original sin, then is seen as mortality as a result of that sickness. Baptism is seen as the way in which we are brought into that relationship in the covenant with God.

The Immaculate Conception can be seen from both frameworks and can be reconciled in both. The problem is that neither side is willing to accept the fact that the catholicity of the Church means that something received from the part is meant for the entire whole. We're too interested in our own particular interpretation and what we see as faulty in the other guy. That is why we've seen comments about the Roman pontiff cast in suich an uncharitable light in this thread.

Perhaps once we see the gift that east and west brings in illuminating the truth about God in any belief, we will stop competing for our own particular tradition to have to one-up the other. Both sides, east and west, have terrible track records in this regard.
Such is pride that has brother argue against brother without realizing the gift that both brings.

I appreciate your sentiments, and the general tone of your post. However, if one side decides to dogmatize its belief that puts an entire new paintjob on the question. I think most people on the eastern side don't have a problem with the IC as such, but have a concern with rising it to the level of dogma. A dogma that puts one outside the church if they should question it.

But we don't seem to ahve this problem with other things that have been dogmatized. For instance, transubstantiation was dogmatized, yet it poses no real problem for anyone. It is understood as a truth as expressed in western terms. The same type of approach can be used for the I.C. in my honest opinion.

There has been a lot said about an apparent contradiction between the East's call to embrace their own traditions and the call to affirm the developments recognized in the Latin Rite Catholic Church. This doesn't have to be problematic, IMO. Maybe it becomes an issue of hair-splitting in which we recognize the tension between the two views (East and West), and realize that they are parts of a whole.

It really is the dogmatization of *these* issues that creates the polarization. That is not to say that any dogma creates discord, as you note with transubstantiation. That is just going into further detail than the East is comfortable with, but not *wrong* per se.

However, stating an understanding to be infallibly true at pain of anathema is something else, especially when the understanding just doesn't "go into further detail" i.e. transubstantiation, but potentially breaks from a view that the East may hold entirely (as many are very open to the idea that Mary sinned with no problem to their Christology). So we aren't just talking about "going into further detail" but taking one understanding of many, and proclaiming it to be inerrant and the Word of God, as if anybody who believes differently does not just disagree with the Western church, but with God Himself. That's a pretty big difference.

It's the same mindset that led to this original post in the first place: is the IC even infallible at all? If the "whole Church" must believe it to be true for it to be infallible, is the "whole Church" only the Roman Catholic church? Then what of those who are of the East?

One does not have to accept the theory of transubstantiation, which is predicated upon the metaphysics of Aristotle, in order to believe that the Eucharistic elements are the true body and blood of Christ. In fact, Pope St. Gelasius denied the idea of a "substantial" change in the Eucharistic elements in his treatise De Duabis Naturis, for as he said: "Certainly the sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ that we receive are a divine reality, because of which and through which we are made sharers of the divine nature. Nevertheless the substance or nature of bread and wine does not cease to exist. And certainly the image and likeness of the Body and Blood of Christ are celebrated in the carrying out the Mysteries" [Edward J. Kilmartin, The Eucharist in the West, page 41].

Is Pope St. Gelasius a heretic because he did not believe in transubstantiation?

Which just tells me there is no actual agreed upon view of Original Sin, even within Catholicism itself. That is one of the things I have gotten out of this thread.

To base a dogma on something to which there is no agreement, does not make sense to me. It is not something that I personally have to grapple with, since it isn't my church, but I find it puzzling.