FOUR QUESTIONS ON MARY - Franciscan Institute Publications

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Introduction question. “Is Mary’s feast celebrated really by reason of her conception, not just her sanctification? After the introductory debates between the bachelor opponents and respondents participating in the dispute as part of their academic training, Henry as Master finally summed up the matter in by far the longest and most detailed of the fifteen questions he had fielded during the entire Quodlibet. He began by pointing out every liturgical feast is celebrated by reason of a person’s sanctity or sanctification. Hence it cannot be the act of conception but the hour, the moment, the time of conception that is being celebrated. “Conception,” however, could be understood in various ways. There is the conception of the seed when fetal life begins. 21 Some thirtyfive or forty-two days later, depending on the sex, 22 a rational soul is created and infused in the growing fetus. 23 This moment of animation, as all theologians agree, marks the conceptio hominis 24 “No rational mind,” St. Anselm had pointed out, “accepts the view that an infant has a rational soul from Omnis peccaverunt in Adam. Nullus autem invenitur dixisse de his quos audivimus auribus nostris, Virginem Mariam a peccato originali fuisse immunem. Sent. III, dist. 3, pars 1, Opera omnia (Quaracchi, 1887), tom. III, 68; see also A. B. Wolter, “Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in the Early <strong>Franciscan</strong> School,” Studia Mariana 9 (San Francisco: <strong>Franciscan</strong> National Marian Commission, 1954), 48-58. 21 Henry, op. cit., fol. 585r [V]: Non statim in hora conceptionis seminis fuit homo perfecta ex anima rationali et carne sicut nec alii; sed per temporis intervalla actione naturae ad illam perfectionem producta. 22 Ibid.: Et hoc 35 die a conceptu seminis nudi si sit foemina, 42 dies si sit masculus. Et hoc quia fortiori et ampliori digestione maturatur mas quam foemina. 23 After discussing the views of physicians like Hippocrates and others on fetal development, Henry concludes: Ista autem membrorum divisione completa in ultimo instanti illius perficitur totius corporis organizatio et generatur a forma corporeitatis humanae, atque anima rationalis creando a Deo infunditur, ut actus et perfectio illius extrema; a quo in unione cum illo propter morbidam dispositionis fomitis contractam, anima rationalis in eodem instanti contrahit maculam peccati originalis, et concipitur in peccato homo perfectus informa humana formata ex semine (Ibid.). 24 Henry, op. cit., fol. 584v [T]: Distinguo: quia est quaedam conceptio seminis: et est quaedam conceptio hominis formati ex semine secundum formam corpoream. 9
John Duns Scotus: Four Questions on Mary the moment of his conception.” 25 Hence, he concludes, 26 there is no will, and consequently no question of either sin or sanctification. If the moment of animation marks the “conception as regards the world,” Henry explained, then the moment the soul is sanctified may be called a “conception as regards God.” Basing his computations on the date of Mary’s birthday (September 8), Henry points out that December the 8th, the day the Normans celebrate the feast, must be the conceptio nudi seminis (the conception of the bare seed). Since there is nothing sacred about this biological event, “conception” in this sense cannot be precisely what is being commemorated. “If they celebrate this day ‘by reason of conception,’ it must be some other sort of conception they have in mind,” 27 namely, the date of animation by the rational soul on Jan. 11 when her soul was created and infused in her body. This moment could be also called her nativity within the womb. 28 But inasmuch as the seminally conceived flesh has this qualitas morbida, the soul in contacting it contracts original sin automatically as it were. But once sin is present, sanctification, by definition, 29 becomes possible. Since sanctification is what is being celebrated, the real question the inquirer who posed it wants answered, there- 25 Anselm, De conceptu virginali et de originali peccato, c. 7, (ed. Schmitt, vol. II, 148): Quod autem mox ab ipsa conceptione rationalem animam habeat, nullus humanus suscipit sensus. Henry agrees with Anselm; see note 21 supra. 26 Ibid.: [Ergo] in eo non est peccatum originale mox cum conceptus est. 27 Henry, op. cit., fol. 585r [T]: Sed si celebrant illud ratione conceptionis, debent intendere quod rationis alicuius alterius conceptionis, ut iam videbitur. 28 Ibid. [V]: Si ergo loquamur de ista conceptione virginis qua concepta est homo perfectus 11 die Ianuarii, scilicet 3 Idus Ianuarii, qua concepta fuit eius nativitas in utero. 29 Sanctification has a technical meaning, as Alexander of Hales explains: Dicimus quod sanctificatio secundum quod communiter vel generaliter accipitur, prout scilicet communiter est in omnibus sanctificatis, est mundatio ab originale culpa, nec plus habet sanctifiatio de ratione sua communi quam huiusmodi mundationem. Quaestio de sanctificatione (Codex Vat. lat. 782, fol. 60c; see also Thomas Aquinas, Summa theol. III, q. 27, art. 2: “The sanctification of the Blessed Virgin cannot be understood as having taken place before animation ... because the sanctification of which we are speaking is nothing but the cleansing from original sin.” (ed. cit., vol. II, 2164). 10
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FOUR QUESTIONS ON MARY - Franciscan Institute Publications

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