Roman Catholic theology includes four Marian dogmas, each proposed as divinely revealed, conscience-binding truths necessary for belief and religious devotion. In this series, we examine each dogma by submitting it to the supreme authority of holy Scripture, which alone is the rule of faith and worship. In the first article, we contrasted the authority of holy Scripture with Rome’s claim to magisterial authority as competing foundations for ruling the Christian conscience. With the biblical foundation in place, we now turn to the Immaculate Conception of Mary, asking whether it is taught by the Word of God.

The Immaculate Conception of Mary

Dogma defined by Rome:

The Immaculate Conception is the belief that Mary was conceived without sin and therefore that she never committed any sins. In 1854, Pope Pius IX declared:

“By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit… by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: ‘We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.’

Hence, if anyone shall dare — which God forbid! — to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he thinks in his heart.”¹

Protestant belief:

Mary was one of the most humble, blessed, and holy Christians to have ever lived, and an exemplary model of a pious Christian we should all imitate (1 Cor 11:1). But there is no reason to believe she was conceived sinless nor that she never sinned. On the contrary, the Word of God teaches otherwise.

Only the Lord Jesus Christ was conceived and remained “without sin” his entire life (Heb 4:15; John 8:46; 1 Peter 2:2); “in him is no sin” (1 John 3:5); he “knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21). Christ alone is “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Heb 7:26), and entirely “without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19). Ascribing such a characteristic to Mary, like most Marian dogmas, is tantamount to putting her on par with the Lord Jesus. This is why most Christians, when they first hear of “the Immaculate Conception” innocently think it must be about Christ. 

Not only does the Bible ascribe sinlessness to Jesus Christ alone, it also goes on to exclude everyone else from this sinlessness. Scripture is clear that “there is no man that sinneth not” (1 Kings 8:46), “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23), and “as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom 5:12)—Mary included. Jesus, being “without sin” (Heb 4:15), was made of Mary’s substance “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom 8:3), those he came to redeem, including his mother. Mary would not have needed a Savior if she had not been a sinner. As the angel told Joseph, Jesus Christ “shall save His people from their sins” (Matt 1:21)—Mary included. Mary herself confessed her need for salvation: “And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour” (Luke 1:46-47). Since Mary was a godly woman, she would affirm with the Apostle John, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8-10). Since Mary was a follower of Christ, she would likewise have prayed as he taught us, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matt 6:12-13a).² For Mary and every regenerate believer, “sanctification is imperfect in this life” and some remnants of corruption still abide in us (Rom 7:18, 23; Phil 3:12; 1 John 1:10) resulting in “a continual and irreconcilable war” between flesh and spirit (Gal 5:17; 1 Pet 2:11).³

The angel Gabriel tells Mary that she is “highly favored” by God (Luke 1:28-30). The original Greek word kecharitōmenē literally means “one who has been given much grace by God.”⁴ It does not mean “full of grace,” as they superstitiously pray in the Hail Mary (Ave Maria). In fact, it “indicates that she is an unworthy recipient of God’s grace, just like the rest of us.”⁵ “Just as with all sinners, Mary needed the atoning work of God in order to be restored to a favorable position with Him. Mary was not the dispenser of God’s grace but a receiver.”⁶ The Hail Mary prayer comes from a Latin mistranslation of the original Greek, as Leonardo De Chirico explains:

“The Vulgate translates this Greek expression as ‘gratia plena’ (full of grace), thus opening up all sorts of misconceptions as if Mary possessed the fullness of grace in herself. This translation has been taken as implying that she was so full of grace that she must have been conceived without original sin and that the grace she is full of can overflow to those who pray to her. There is no hint in the text about this fullness. No moral or spiritual reason grounds the choice in Mary’s character: the decision is entirely God’s.”⁷

Additionally, this dogma is not an historically catholic (universal) belief. William Perkins, citing numerous early church fathers, demonstrates that “it was the common opinion of the fathers and writers until Lombard’s time (which was in the year 1150), that the virgin Mary was conceived in original sin.”⁸ Further, many early church fathers observed specific sins of Mary documented in the Bible. According to John Chrysostom, Jesus had to “repel” and “correct” Mary’s “vainglory” when she and his brethren tried to pull him aside privately while he was teaching (Matt 12:46-50).⁹ Mary, “because she had borne Him, claimed, according to the custom of other mothers, to direct Him in all things, when she ought to have reverenced and worshiped Him.”¹⁰ At the wedding of Cana, Jesus had to gently and respectfully reprove her misplaced pushiness. “She desired both to do [the guests] a favor, and through her Son to render herself more conspicuous; perhaps too she had some human feelings, like His brethren, when they said, ‘Show thyself to the world’ (John 7:4), desiring to gain credit from His miracles. Therefore He answered somewhat vehemently, saying, ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come’ (John 2:4).”¹¹ He states that Mary’s faith in Jesus at this early stage in his ministry was weak and insufficient, “none of these, not even His mother nor His brethren, knew Him as they ought.”¹² Historian JND Kelly summarizes how Mary’s alleged sinlessness was viewed in the first 400 years of church history:

“In contrast to the later belief in her moral and spiritual perfection, none of these theologians had the least scruple about attributing faults to her. Irenaeus (Haer. 3.16.7) and Tertullian (De carne Chr. 7) recalled occasions on which, as they read the gospel stories, she had earned her Son’s rebuke, and Origen (Hom. in Luc. 17; GCS 49, 105-7) insisted that, like all human beings, she needed redemption from her sins; in particular, he interpreted Simeon’s prophecy (Luke 2:35) that a sword would pierce her soul as confirming that she had been invaded with doubts when she saw her Son crucified… Almost all Eastern theologians, so far from acknowledging her spiritual and moral perfection, followed Origen in finding her guilty of human frailties. Basil, for example, reproduced (Ep. 260.9) Origen’s interpretation of the sword prophesied by Simeon as signifying her loss of faith at the crucifixion.¹³ Chrysostom went much further, pointing out (e.g. hom. in Mat. 44.2; in John 21.2) that her pushfulness at Cana and her desire to make a show of the authority she had over Jesus had brought down on her His well deserved censure… Hilary… took it for granted (Tract in Ps. 118.3.2) that Mary would have to face God’s judgment for her sins… Augustine… did not hold (as has sometimes been alleged) that she was born exempt from all taint of original sin (the later doctrine of the immaculate conception). Julian of Eclanum maintained this as a clinching argument in his onslaught on the whole idea of original sin, but Augustine’s rejoinder (Opus imperf. c. Jul. 4.122: cf. enarr. in Ps. 34.3) was that Mary had indeed been born subject to original sin like all other human beings, but had been delivered from its effects ‘by the grace of rebirth.’”¹⁴

These perspectives are stated matter-of-factly by these early theologians, and in such a way that it does not appear to have been controversial. This couldn’t be the case if this third Marian dogma existed at the time, even in an undeveloped form. By the 13th century it was more common, but even then we find opposition.

“This dogma of the Immaculate Conception was the object of a long and fierce controversy within the Church at a relatively late stage in the history of dogma. ‘St. Anselm, St. Bernard, Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventura, Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas, though tenderly devout to God’s Holy Mother and ever ready to defend her many privileges and prerogatives, nevertheless taught quite definitely that she was conceived in sin, as all the rest of mankind.’¹⁵ Duns Scotus, however, taught the doctrine and the Franciscan order tended to follow him, whereas the Dominicans generally followed St. Thomas in denying it and sometimes went so far as to accuse their opponents of heresy. In 1439 the Council of Basle, after it had become schismatical, declared that the doctrine was conformable to faith and reason. Sixtus IV gave the doctrine some support, but pronounced excommunication against those who joined in the dispute on either side if they charged their opponents with heresy. Later the doctrine came to receive a very general assent. The Council of Trent approved the constitutions of Sixtus IV and great theologians like Suarez and Bellarmine devoted themselves to its defence. After the doctrine had been denied by Baius, the papacy began to move in its support. Pius V condemned the teaching of Baius, and in his constitution Solicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum, declared that the object of the feast of Mary’s conception was that she was preserved from original sin in the first moment of her soul’s creation. Such support from the Holy See culminated in the pronouncement of 1854.”¹⁶

While Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) wrote many things that cannot be proven from the Bible, such as that Mary was sanctified in the womb and didn’t commit actual sin,¹⁷ it is significant that he argued so strongly against the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which would be dogmatized by Rome about 600 years later. Aquinas (and many other Medieval Scholastics¹⁸) argued that Mary was conceived in original sin and needed Christ’s sacrifice to pardon and sanctify her.¹⁹ He argues that God sanctified the Tabernacle (Ps 45:5; Ex 40:31-32), of which he claims Mary is the antitype, thus God also had to sanctify her after he created her body and soul. He also argues that it is absurd to speak of sanctifying someone whose soul was not yet infused into her body, since only a rational soul can be the subject of sanctification. And lastly, it is absurd to speak of sanctifying someone who had not already “incurred the stain of original sin.” When Scripture states that Jesus Christ “shall save His people from their sins” (Mat 1:21) and that he is the “Saviour of all men” (1 Tim 4:10), that includes Mary herself. Aquinas goes on, “If the soul of the Blessed Virgin had never incurred the stain of original sin, this would be derogatory to the dignity of Christ, by reason of His being the universal Saviour of all.” Amen! Christ being the Savior necessitates that everyone, Mary included, are conceived in sin and need to be redeemed by his merits and redemptive work.

The solution to how Jesus could be free from original sin despite having been conceived of a sinful woman has been satisfactorily answered, without recourse to positing Mary’s sinlessness, in a few ways, or a combination of these: 1. Original sin propagates by the “ordinary generation” of intercourse between a man and woman. Jesus was not conceived by ordinary generation, but by a miracle of the Holy Ghost, not allowing Mary’s original sin to pass onto him, therefore he is without sin.²⁰ Some qualify this by suggesting that ordinary generation from a man and a woman, being a sensual act, propagates sin, or that original sin is passed down from the father.²¹ 2. The Holy Spirit prepared and cleansed a part of Mary’s substance in his work of creating the human nature of Jesus (Heb 10:5).²² 3. Jesus was not imputed with Adam’s guilt because he was a divine person, and therefore did not receive a corrupt nature of original sin.²³

Further Corruptions Attached to this Dogma:

Since Rome teaches that Mary is sinless, she is also deemed fit to collaborate with Jesus in our redemption to some degree.²⁴ The Vatican teaches that Mary has a “subordinate role to Christ in the work of Redemption” and she is to be extolled “as the first and foremost collaborator in the work of Redemption and grace” (MPF 22). While officially discouraging use of the term “Co-redemptrix” for Mary (since Nov. 2025), regardless, this idea of her “participating,” “cooperating,” and “collaborating” in the accomplishment and application of Redemption is the substance of the doctrine of Mary as a subordinate Co-redeemer with Christ. Rome teaches “Mary’s unique participation as the one who said ‘fiat’ to the Annunciation, who suffered alongside her Son at the foot of the cross as a mother, and who is given to us as Mother of the Church.”²⁵

In Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary (Luke 1:26-38), she willingly and humbly submitted to God’s plan for her to bear the Son of God by saying “Let it be unto me according to thy word” (v. 38). “According to Rome, however,” Sproul explains, “Mary’s statement was far more—it was a command.”

“When Mary said ‘let it be,’ the Latin word used there is fiat, which is the imperative sense of the verb ‘to be.’ According to this view, Mary was saying, ‘Let it be so.’ She was making the command, and if she had not, then, at least according to the so-called maximalist position within the Roman Catholic Church, there would be no redemption. The whole act of redemption in Jesus Christ, the very incarnation itself, hung on Mary’s response. Protestants might admit that God would never have violated Mary, that she could have said no theoretically. But her refusal certainly would not have shattered all hope for the redemption of God’s people. However, from the Roman Catholic perspective, Mary had to be the one to bear the Savior. Why? Because she was the only sinless woman in the world.”²⁶

Connected with her sinlessness, Mary is also portrayed by Rome as the Second Eve, just as Jesus is described by the Apostle Paul as the Second Adam (Rom 5:12-19). In 1943, the Pope issued an encyclical stating, “It was she, the second Eve, who, free from all sin, original or personal, and always more intimately united with her Son, offered Him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father for all the children of Adam, sin-stained by his unhappy fall, and her mother’s rights and her mother’s love were included in the holocaust.”²⁷ It is not a coincidence that this resembles the Scriptural declaration that “Christ… through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God” (Heb 9:14). Rome is ascribing divine works to Mary, works that God’s Word ascribes to the Son of God and the Holy Spirit. Such attribution of divine works to a creature is itself an act of worship and is forbidden by God: “thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Ex 34:14). Rome believes that the first gospel in Genesis 3:15, where Christ is prophesied to crush the head of the serpent, is actually referring to Mary crushing Satan’s head (due to another Latin mistranslation²⁸). This plays into Mary as the Second Eve, “Helper,” and being “full of grace” she has extra to give to others as the “Mediatrix of all graces” (CCC 969; MPF fn 46). In Roman Mariology, “cooperation” is repeatedly described in ways that, practically and devotionally, elevate Mary’s role to one that practically functions like a necessary adjunct to Christ’s redeeming work. Martin Luther acutely responds:

“How amazing, how damnable, that through the agency of foolish exegetes Satan has managed to apply this passage, which in fullest measure abounds in the comfort of the Son of God, to the Virgin Mary!… But Scripture teaches us otherwise and declares (Rom. 4:25): “Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification”; likewise (John 1:29): “Behold the Lamb of God, which bears the sins of the world.” Therefore let the Blessed Virgin keep her place of honor. Among all the women of the world she has this privilege from God, that as a virgin she gave birth to the Son of God. But this must not be permitted to deprive her Son of the glory of our redemption and deliverance.”²⁹

Finally, Roman Catholic theology presents Mary as sinless and “full of grace,” and therefore possessing superabundant merits that contribute to Rome’s “Treasury of Merit.” From this treasury, grace may be dispensed to penitents through indulgences for the remission of temporal punishment in Purgatory: “This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God…” (CCC 1477). Joel Beeke responds:

“How have Roman theologians twisted Christ’s perfect satisfaction for our sins into the idea that he gives us the power to make satisfaction for ourselves? John Murray said, ‘In opposition to every such notion of human satisfaction Protestants rightly contend that the satisfaction of Christ is the only satisfaction for sin and is so perfect and final that it leaves no penal liability for any sin of the believer.’ We may imitate the saints, but must not look to them for expiation and merit. As Thomas Aquinas rightly said, Christ alone is properly called our Redeemer, and ‘the sufferings of the saints are beneficial to the Church, as by way, not of redemption, but of example and exhortation.’”³⁰

In our next post we will examine the fourth Marian dogma: Mary’s bodily Assumption into Heaven.

---

1. Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854). “Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, ‘full of grace’ through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854: ‘The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin’” (CCC 491). ↩︎
2. Cf. J.H. Heidegger, Short Instruction On The holy & highly lauded Virgin Mary (1673), Q&A 33-34, pp. 18-20. ↩︎
3. Westminster Confession of Faith 13.2 ↩︎
4. Reformation Heritage Study Bible, note on Luke 1:28. Huldrych Zwingli, following Erasmus, likewise corrected the Latin translation with the original Greek and the analogy of faith: “Here you should notice that the phrase ‘full of grace’ is the translation of the Greek word kecharitōmenē, which means ‘beloved’ or ‘filled with grace’ or ‘favored one.’ We learn from this that the phrase ‘full of grace’ should not be understood in the sense that she was full of grace from herself but that all the grace with which she was richly filled came from God. For to be ‘full of grace’ means nothing else than to be the most beloved of God, to be made worthy and to be chosen from among all other women. For grace is the good will of God alone. And if I say, ‘God gave much grace to someone,’ all that means is, ‘God has granted him much and given him many blessings’… God is the cause and wellspring of grace, and he pours his grace into us freely without our merit but rather bestows his benefits on us out of his pure liberality and goodness. For a person is not said to find grace when he seeks it, but rather it is offered to him without him seeking it.” (Reformation Commentary on Scripture III: Luke, IVP 2015). ↩︎
5. Leonardo De Chirico, Was Mary Born Without Sin?, Ligonier, 26 May 2025. ↩︎
6. Reformation Heritage Study Bible, note on Luke 1:28. ↩︎
7. Leonardo De Chirico, A Christian’s Pocket Guide to Mary, pp. 8-9. ↩︎
8. William Perkins, The Problem of Forged Catholicism, Works VII, pp. 397-399. Perkins cites Augustine, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Eusebius of Emesa, Maximus, Bede, Remigius of Auxerre, Anselm, Rupert of Deutz, Peter Lombard, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Antoninus of Florence, Nicholas of Lyra, John of Torquemada, and Malchior Canus. Andre Rivet likewise makes the historical case against the Immaculate Conception in De Patrum Autoritate, ch. 7. See section 6 of this synopsis of Jean Daille’s Treatise on the Right Use of the Fathers about how “Rome Cherry-Picks the Fathers,” using this dogma as but one example. ↩︎
9. John Chrysostom, Homily 44 on Matthew 12:46-49; NPNF 1.10, pp. 271-277. ↩︎
10. John Chrysostom, Homily 21 on John 1:49-50; NPNF 1.14, p. 73. ↩︎
11. John Chrysostom, Homily 21 on John 1:49-50; NPNF 1.14, p. 73. ↩︎
12. John Chrysostom, Homily 22 on John 2:4; NPNF 1.14, pp. 75-6. ↩︎
13. Some attempt to argue that Mary’s doubt didn’t constitute sin. Gavin Ortlund explains why that is not the case: 1. Origen links Mary’s being scandalized with the Apostles being scandalized, e.g. Peter’s denial of Christ. 2. Origen states that Mary’s doubt is a reason why Jesus had to die for her sins, quoting Romans 3:23 that “all have sinned.” 3. He describes this sword piercing her heart as “the sword of infidelity.” 4. Even John Henry Newman admits, “St. Basil imputes to the Blessed Virgin not only doubt, but the sin of doubt.” (Letter to Pusey, 1). (Truth Unites, The Immaculate Conception: A Protestant Evaluation, YouTube, 30 Aug 2023). ↩︎
14. JND Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 493, 495-497. ↩︎
15. BJ Otten, SJ, Manual of the History of Dogmas, vol. 2, p. 403. ↩︎
16. Raymond Winch & Victor Bennett, The Assumption of Our Lady and Catholic Theology (15 Aug 1950), pp. 75-6. ↩︎
17. For example, Aquinas states that just as Jeremiah and John were regenerated in the womb (Jer 1:5; Luke 1:15), so was Mary (Summa Theologica III Q. 27, A. 1), which is speculative and not able to be proved from Scripture. Also, he denied that Mary committed any actual sins (ST III Q. 27, A. 4). This is not just absent from Scripture, but it is positively opposed to Scripture, which says “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23), and “as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom 5:12). ↩︎
18. In addition to Thomas Aquinas, William Perkins cites Bonaventure, Cajetan, Anthony of Padua, Alexander of Hales, Hugo of Saint Victor, Richard of Saint Victor, John Capreolus, Albertus Magnus, Gregory of Riminy, Durandus of Saint-Pourçain, Bartolomé de Medina, and “very many Dominicans,” concluding, “So that it is no such catholic doctrine to hold that Mary was conceived and born without original sin.” (The Problem of Forged Catholicism, Works VII, p. 398). “St. Anselm, St. Bernard, Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventura, Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas, though tenderly devout to God’s Holy Mother and ever ready to defend her many privileges and prerogatives, nevertheless taught quite definitely that she was conceived in sin, as all the rest of mankind.” (BJ Otten, SJ, Manual of the History of Dogmas, vol. 2, p. 403). ↩︎
19. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica III Q. 27, A. 2. ↩︎
20. E.g. Westminster Confession of Faith 6.3 & 8.2; Larger Catechism Q. 26 & 37. ↩︎
21. E.g. Augustine wrote that Jesus was “begotten and conceived, then, without any indulgence of carnal lust, and therefore bringing with Him no original sin…” (Enchiridion 41, NPNF 1-3.251). Herman Witsius quotes Cocceius & Cloppenburg debating this particular aspect (Economy of the Covenants 2.4.11, vol. 1, p. 197). And John Calvin specifically argues against the idea that “there is no impurity in the seed of women, but only in that of men,” in Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.13.4. ↩︎
22. E.g. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology XIII.xi.10-11, 15, vol. 2, p. 342-3. ↩︎
23. E.g. Girolamo Zanchi gives a fourfold causation of Jesus’ sinless conception: From 1) the efficient cause, the Holy Spirit without the seed of a man; 2) the matter from which, the prepared and sanctified substance of Mary; 3) the person in whom, the divine person of the Son, “This nature was conceived, not outside the person of the λόγος (Word), but in the very person of the λόγος, as above I said. This, however, was not capable of sin. Therefore it could not be conceived in sin.” And 4) the effect and final cause, which is to redeem the very nature he assumed. (De Incarnatione Filii Dei (1593), pp. 155-157). Cf. Edward Leigh, Body of Divinity 4.2 on the simultaneous creation of the soul with the imputation of Adam’s guilt, which thereafter causes natural corruption. For an approachable overview of this subject, see Jason Walter, By Ordinary Generation – The Origin of the Soul, SCRBPC 2019, 05 Nov 2019. ↩︎
24. Cf. R.C. Sproul, Are We Together? A Protestant Analyzes Roman Catholicism, p. 105. ↩︎
25. Joshua Mazrin, Is Mary Still Mediatrix of Graces?, Catholic Answers, 06 Nov. 2025. “This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfilment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation…. Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix (LG 62).” (CCC 969). ↩︎
26. R.C. Sproul, Are We Together? A Protestant Analyzes Roman Catholicism, p. 112. ↩︎
27. Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, “The Mystical Body of Christ” (1943), section 110. ↩︎
28. “The Hebrew pronoun (hu’) is masculine. For some reason, the reading “she” (ipsa) came into the Latin Vulgate rendering of Gen. 3:15 instead of the masculine “he” (ipse), leading some medieval and Roman Catholic writers to take it as a reference to the virgin Mary.” (Joel Beeke, Systematic Theology vol. 2, ch. 18, fn. 38). ↩︎
29. Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, Luther’s Works, vol. 1, pp. 191-2. ↩︎
30. Joel Beeke, Systematic Theology vol. 2, ch. 51. ↩︎