FOUR QUESTIONS ON MARY - Franciscan Institute Publications

John Duns Scotus: Four Questions on Mary
gave a sound theological argument for celebrating Mary’s
conception itself. If Jeremiah and the Baptist were sanctified
before birth, how much more should Mary as the Queen of
Angels and the tabernacle of the Son of God be completely
untouched by sin. 9
Eadmer’s interpretation, however, overcame one theological
difficulty at the expense of creating a far more serious one
based on a carefully worked out theory about the nature of
original sin and its transmission to Adam’s progeny by sexual
intercourse. It claimed when the newly created soul was
infused into a seminally conceived fetus it contracted original
sin. 10 It was only because concupiscence played no part
9 Si igitur Jeremias ... in vulva est sanctificatus, et Joannes ... Spiritus
sanctus ex utero Matris repletus, quis dicere audeat, singulare totius saeculi
propitiatorium, ac Filii Dei omnipotentis dulcissimum reclinatorium,
mox in sua conceptionis exordio Spiritus sancti gratiae illustratione destitutum
... Angelis aliis peccantibus, bonos a peccatis servavit, et feminam
Matrem suam mox futuram, ab aliorum peccatis exortus servare non valuit?
In aeternitate consilii fixum statuit, eam dominatricem et reginam fore
Angelorum, et nunc inferiorem Angelis natam est consortium acceptam esse
credemus omnium peccatorum? Tractatus de conceptione B. Mariae Virginis
(PL 159, 305, 307). Though the idea that since Mary was sanctified
in the womb, she may never have contracted original sin was expressed
earlier (cf. e.g., pseudo-Ildephonse [Radbertus], De partu virginis, PL 96,
211), the Benedictine monk, Eadmer of Canterbury (d. 1124), is generally
regarded as the first explicitly to connect her sanctification with the instant
of her conception and use it as the rationale for celebrating this as a
feast. As he was the secretary, disciple and biographer of St. Anselm, it is
not surprising that his treatise as late as the fourteenth century, however,
was mistakenly attributed to the Archbishop and Primate of England himself.
Migne printed the tract among the spurious works of Anselm (PL 159,
301-318; for a critical edition see Eadmeri monachii Cantuariensis tractatus
de conceptione S. Mariae, ed. H. Thurston and T. Slater (Fribourg im
Breisgau, 1904); for a study of his works as a whole and of his relationship
with St. Anselm, see R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm and His Biographer
(Cambridge: University Press, 1963).
10 Before the fall, concupiscence or the natural human desire for sense
pleasure was kept within the bounds of reason (see the following note);
after the fall, it became a drive that could be controlled only with difficulty
(cf. Rom. 7, 21-25). Concupiscence, as the insubordination of the flesh towards
reason, with the unavoidable propensity to all kinds of evil, largely
due to the influence of St. Augustine, came to be essentially identified with
original sin. Since sin was removed by baptism, while concupiscence was
not, Augustine’s theory was frankly insufficient and created more difficulties
than it solved. St. Anselm of Canterbury produced a more satisfactory
4