Are the Immaculate Conception and Assumption Post-Reformation Innovations?

Diego Velazquez,
Immaculate Conception (1618)

An Anglican reader with a love for Mary described her concerns about the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption:

I appreciate that Mariology grounds our understanding of Christ's human nature, and that without her assent the incarnation could not have happened. We should call her blessed. 

Out of obedience to that call, I have given much time and thought to Marian devotion. I appreciate that doctrine develops over time from principles embryonically present in scripture. However, the post reformation doctrines of the immaculate conception and assumption puzzle me, not because they inherently contradict scripture, but because I cannot find their embryonic form. The barrier that this presents to Christian unity saddens me.

This is a reasonable question, and it deserves a straightforward answer. It's also a question that I'm sure many Catholics have wondered as well: do we find a belief in the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary, at least in an embryonic form, in the early Church? Yes and yes. Let's look at each doctrine in turn.

I. The Immaculate Conception of Mary

This is the doctrine that Mary was preserved from original and actual sin from the moment of her conception. I've written before on the way that Scripture depicts Mary as the New Eve, the Ark of the New Covenant, the Temple Gate, and the builder of the Temple.

All of these are images of purity and sinlessness, and total consecration to God:

• Eve was without original or actual sin while she was still named “Woman,” 
• the Ark and the Temple were made with the finest materials, and consecrated totally to the Lord, and
• the builder of the Temple had to have hands free of blood (which is why David couldn't build the Temple). 

Theotokos Panachranta (c. 1050)

This is also why Mary is a Virgin: her Virginity is a symbol of her sinlessness, and of her unadulterated devotion to God. Yesterday, I talked about another Marian image that the early Christians pointed to: that she's an Icon of the Church, which is also a Virgin, Bride, and Mother.

The Church Fathers immediately pick up these things, as I've noted before in the context of the Eve imagery. By the time St. Augustine lays out the doctrine of original sin, he's careful to exempt the Virgin Mary, and doesn't feel any need to explain why. The early Church already knew she was sinless.

This was the universal belief of the Church, and hardly a post-Reformation development of some sort. Even Luther believed in Mary's sinlessness (although he was contradictory on whether or not he believed in the Immaculate Conception). It would be much more accurate to say that the post-Reformation development was Protestantism diminishing Mary more and more. If you don't believe me, read the immediate pre-Reformation writings on Mary, and tell me which Church would be comfortable proclaiming those things today.

Where, prior to the Reformation, there was resistance to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, much of it centered around two issues: (1) the doctrine of original sin, and (2) the point at which the soul enters the body. On the first of these, you'll occasionally find those (like many Eastern Orthodox today) who admit that Mary never sinned, but believe she still suffered the taint of original sin. This raises broader questions about how the East and West tend to understand original sin. On the second, you'll occasionally find those, like St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed that “the Blessed Virgin was sanctified before her birth from the womb,” but believed that this occurred after conception, at the moment of “ensoulment,” in which a rational soul was infused in her body.

This is all a far cry from Protestantism for two reasons. First, even these objections presuppose that Mary never sinned. But second, Protestants tend to agree with Catholics (rather than Orthodox) about original sin, and don't believe in the idea of post-conception “ensoulment.”

II. The Assumption of Mary

Jean Fouquet, Death of the Virgin (c. 1455)

As for the Assumption, there are passages that are understood as prophetic of this event.  For example, in John 14:3, Jesus says of the Church, “if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” If Mary is the icon of the Church, as the early Christians believed, the Assumption is a fulfillment of this promise.

But it should be admitted up front that it's true that Scripture doesn't record it happening, in the sense of describing it as a historical event.  But this makes sense: it probably occurred after the Gospels and Acts were written, and was certainly outside of the time period covered by those writings.   This is true of other significant early-Christian events: namely, the Destruction of Jerusalem, which was of enormous impact for the Church, but which is never described (only prophesied). 

There's a decent chance that the only Book of the New Testament written after the Assumption was the Book of Revelation.  In Revelation, we see what appears to be Mary, in her glorified body, enthroned in Heaven (Rev. 12:1). I don't think it takes eisegesis to conclude that the woman of Revelation 12, depicted as the Mother of Jesus (Rev. 12:5), is Mary.

So Revelation 12 seems to assume the truth of the Assumption, although I can certainly see the ambiguity. In any case, we're not believers in sola Scriptura. It's enough to say that Scripture is consistent with the doctrine of the Assumption, and that the doctrine is of Apostolic origin. Within the early Church, the Feast of the Assumption (or Dormition) was celebrated in art and Liturgy throughout various parts of the global Church.  Again, it's impossible to write this off a post-Reformation development, because the Feast is celebrated by Catholics, Orthodox, and Copts alike, and we haven't been in a unified Church since the mid-400s.

Is it possible that the Catholics, Orthodox, and Copts are all wrong on this? I'd say no: to claim that every part of the Apostolic Church is in error is to simply cut oneself from the Apostolic Church.

Conclusion

There's a common misunderstanding that because the Church didn't dogmatically define the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption until a later date (1854 and 1950).  But an honest examination of the evidence shows quite clearly that innumerable early Christians held firmly to these dogmas.  True, as with every Christian doctrine, there was occasional dissent.  The very reason it's necessary for the Church to make the effort to settle a particular topic is precisely because dissent and confusion arises from time to time.  But the idea that these are some sort of post-Reformation innovations is historically false.

Update: I'm going to be on Son Rise Morning Show next week, talking about this post.  More details later.