Sect. 185The Human Sonship of Christ as Assumed Sonship of the God Logos; and the Corresponding Maternity as Divine MaternityThe Human Sonship of Christ as Assumed Sonship of the God Logos; and the Corresponding Maternity as Divine Maternity

I. Christ, and more particularly the Man Christ, is the Son of the Virgin Mary, so that, notwithstanding His Divine Origin, a human sonship must be attributed to Him. And inasmuch as on the part of Mary everything was done that nature requires of a human mother, the human sonship of Christ is natural. But it is supernatural also, inasmuch as it refers to no human father. If Christ is called the “Son of David,” or of any other ancestor of the Virgin, the paternity of these patriarchs implies only that of their race came the matter of Christ’s body; or, in a higher sense, that the Son of God was sent in answer to their desires, and in recompense of their faith in the promised Messias. Human sonship must be predicated of the Divine Person of the Logos as well as of the Man Christ: the Word Incarnate is the Son of Mary by maternal generation as truly and properly as any human person is son of his mother. This truth is evidently contained in the other, viz. that “Christ” is the Son of Mary. For Christ is the Incarnate Word, the Word made flesh, or the Man whose personality is that of the Logos; hence the Mother of Christ is the Mother of the Logos, and reciprocally the Logos is Son of Mary. That Mary is Mother of God (Θεοτόκος, Deipara) has been dogmatically defined in the Council of Ephesus (can. ii.); in the sixth canon of the Fifth Council, and again in the third canon of the Lateran Council, A.D. 649. Holy Scripture nowhere uses the expression “Mother of God;” but its equivalent is found in the prophecy of Isaias, and in the words of the Annunciation, “that the Virgin should conceive and give birth to the Emmanuel (= God with us)” and to “the Son of God.” Again, in Rom. 1:2, and Gal. 4:4, and in the salutation of Elizabeth, “Whence is this that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43.)

The title “Mother of God,” given to Mary long before the Council of Ephesus, sufficiently shows the tradition of the early Church. It is worthy of remark that those who have dropped this title from their Liturgy, or only used it with a kind of reserve, have by degrees lost the idea of the Divinity of Christ Himself. The Fathers often observe that the term Theotokos is dogmatically as important in the doctrine of the constitution of Christ, as the term Homoousios in the doctrine of the Trinity.

II. The terminus, or result of this maternal activity, may be considered as a child, or specially as a son. Considered as Child of Mary, Christ appears as the ἄνθρωπος Θεωθείς, the Man deified, of the Greek Fathers, or as “the Holy that shall be born of thee” in the message of the angel. Viewed as Son, that is, strictly as a Person, Christ appears as the Θεὸς ἐνανθρωπήσας, the God made Man, the Emmanuel of the prophecy.

I. As Child of Mary, Christ appears first and directly as man. But this Man is the fruit of generation, and is truly a child only inasmuch as He is a being independent of the mother, i.e. subsisting separately. Now the principle of His subsistence is Divine; therefore He is Child of Mary only because He subsists in a Divine person. Mary, then, is the Mother of a Divine Child,—of a Child personified by the Logos,—as really and truly as ordinary mothers are mothers of children informed by spiritual souls. Again, the maternal generation of Mary directly and formally went to produce a “Holy Child,” in the same degree as ordinary maternal generation tends to produce an ordinary child. For, in the production of the child, the mother acts only in co-operation with the father, who, being the principal agent, determines and directs her activity. But the supernatural influence of God directed the maternal activity of Mary towards the union of the Logos with the flesh ministered by her; the direct and formal terminus of the Divine action being the personal (hypostatic) completion of the flesh, in the same way as the action of the natural father terminates in the union of a spiritual soul with the maternal flesh. Nay, in the Incarnation the Paternal influence excels the natural action of the father in this, that it is the efficient cause of the union of the flesh with its hypostatic Principle; and again in this, that here the union of the Logos with the flesh is logically prior to the infusion of the soul. In other words, in natural generation God creates the soul in order to complete the action of the father; in the Incarnation the Paternal action itself comprises the infusion of the personal Principle, and the flesh (or human nature) is formed in order to accomplish the previously intended Hypostatic Union.

2. If we consider Christ as a Son given to His Mother by God, this Son is indeed first of all Eternal God and Eternal Son of God, but precisely as such He becomes directly and formally the terminus of Mary’s maternal activity, even more so than a natural son. For here the God Logos Himself is the subject-matter of the maternal conception, inasmuch as He assumes flesh in and of His Mother, and inasmuch as the procreative action of the Mother is from the beginning, and uniquely intended to clothe the Logos with flesh. From this point of view Mary is directly and formally the Mother of the Divine Person of the Logos, because the Logos is the Holder of the flesh taken of her; and even in holding or assuming this flesh He asserts the full extent of His Personality or independence in existing. Whence the title “Mary Mother of the Word” (Mater Verbi) is fully justified: it points out the proper terminus of Mary’s maternity, and correctly characterizes this maternity as “spiritual relation to a Person spiritual by essence.”

The relation between Mary and Christ, viz. the maternity of Mary and the filiation of Christ, receives new light from the above explanations concerning the terminus of the Divine Maternity.

III. In what respect is Christ the Son of Mary? Some theologians reply: Inasmuch as He is man and born of Mary. This answer is at least incomplete, and certainly too shallow, for it considers Christ only as the fruit or the child of a human mother. The complete and only correct answer is, that Christ is the Son of Mary as Divine Person, or as Logos; He is the subject of filiation just as He is the subject assuming and possessing human nature. From this point of view, the human sonship of the Logos no longer implies a dependence on His Mother; it is a relation of reason, the foundation of which lies in the real possession of humanity by the Logos, and in its origin from Mary. Like other relations of God to creatures, it implies a real dependence of the creature on God: Mary is made Mother by the Logos, but the Logos is not made Son by Mary.

The relation between the two filiations or sonships of Christ clearly and fully appears in the above manner of considering His human filiation; by attributing both filiations to the same Divine Person as their immediate subject, they are at the same time sharply distinguished and harmoniously joined. They are sharply distinguished, inasmuch as the Divine Sonship alone is set forth as real relation (i.e. intrinsic and founded on His origin), whereas the human is only a relation of reason; they are harmoniously united, inasmuch as through this very distinction it is impossible to consider the human sonship as attribute of a second person or as complement of the Divine Sonship. For these and other reasons the princes of scholastic theology (St. Thomas, 3, q. 35, a. 4, 5; and St. Bonaventure, In. III., Dist. 8) have most strenuously upheld this doctrine, and the other great Schoolmen of the thirteenth century also seem to have adopted it.

IV. The fact that the Logos is really and truly the Son of Mary, confers upon the Mother the highest dignity to which a created person can attain, viz. a participation in the dignity of her Son. Fully to appreciate this feature of the Divine maternity, it is necessary to consider it from a twofold point of view: as founded upon the natural operations of the Mother, and as the work of the spiritual and free operation of the Son.

I. The natural operation of the Mother results in the production of the absolutely most perfect fruit that can be produced; it “reaches the confines of the Godhead” by furnishing God with a new nature, whereas all other created activity reaches God only by knowledge and love; it is a co-operation with God’s own internal activity, whereas the co-operation of other mothers in the production of the human soul by God, is only a co-operation with God’s external creative activity. Hence the maternity of Mary is the highest ministry to which a creature can be elevated by God.

2. Again, the Mother of Christ is a relation by blood to Christ as man, and a “relation by affinity” to God Himself as pure Spirit. Man is related by affinity to persons who marry his blood relations, because such persons become morally or juridically one with the blood-relations. Now, the humanity of Christ, related by blood to Mary, is united to the Logos more intimately than wife to husband; hence the affinity to God, contracted by Mary, is more intimate and perfect than any affinity among men.

The connection with God, based upon Mary’s maternity, may also be conceived as an eminent and unique Divine filiation. Her title to a share in the good things of God, in His Life and Beatitude, is not merely owing to grace, as in the case of God’s adopted sons: it arises from her substantial relations with the Divine Family. The “Seed of the Word of Truth,” out of which the sons of adoption are born, is itself infused into Mary. The Fathers, from this point of view, speak of Mary as ἡ θεόπαις (the child of God), ἀμνάς and agna Dei (the little ewe-lamb of God), and as the only-beloved and only-begotten daughter of God. See Passaglia, De Immac. Conc. sect. vi. cap. iii. a. 5; and on the whole of this section, Franzelin, thes. xxxix.