Mother of God sinless?

[Aaron Wake]

I note that for the most part, the Theotokos is considered to have never sinned. I have heard several different beliefs on this subject. However, I can't help but wonder why in our hymnography, we often hear of Jesus as the Only sinless One. Is this an error in our hymnography or in our view of the Theotokos? Can anyone shed some light on this?

[Michael Stickles]

I note that for the most part, the Theotokos is considered to have never sinned. I have heard several different beliefs on this subject. However, I can't help but wonder why in our hymnography, we often hear of Jesus as the Only sinless One. Is this an error in our hymnography or in our view of the Theotokos? Can anyone shed some light on this?

I've also heard different views, and don't know which is more "correct". However, a belief that the Theotokos never sinned does not contradict the claim that Christ is the "only sinless One". I can't put it any better than Herman did in a post last month:


The Apostle Paul commands us to be perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect. Is he demanding the impossible? Do we not know that in God ALL THINGS are possible? We CAN be partakers of God's Divine energies, we can even choose NOT to sin. Sin is a sickness that can be cured by Christ. Even the Theotokos was born in the same condition as we were, including a sinful nature. But she is proof that in Christ we can choose not to sin in as much as we have Christ in us and we are willing to cooperate with Christ. It was her "yes" to God that brought salvation to the world. She is not the source of that salvation, but certainly a conduit for it. But as a mortal, subject to the consequences of sin, she also needed Christ.

She is holy, she is set apart for God, "humanity's singular true boast". Did the Theotokos sin? We we certainly like to think she did not. There is good reason to believe she did not, and no real evidence that she did.

But again we also get into that whole area of "what is sin". Orthodoxy has a much different definition than many Protestants. You really need to look at the whole picture. One little piece examined in isolation cannot tell the whole story. Or so it seems to this bear of little brain

Herman the Pooh

In Christ,
Michael

[Robert Hegwood]

I note that for the most part, the Theotokos is considered to have never sinned. I have heard several different beliefs on this subject. However, I can't help but wonder why in our hymnography, we often hear of Jesus as the Only sinless One. Is this an error in our hymnography or in our view of the Theotokos? Can anyone shed some light on this?

I cannot speak with any authority on this, so the following is strictly my opinion based on my limited observation, readings, and experience within the Orthodox fold.

Though the absolute at all times from birth to repose belief that the blessed Theotokos never sinned in the slightest has not always been held by all...though by most, St. John Chrysostom for example stated she may have sinned in small ways a very few times in her life, at least prior to Pentecost. However that belief while it has never entirely gone away it has never gained much traction. The general consensus...at least by our time is that she had no personal sin even in thought throughout her life. Such notable saints as St. John the Wonderworker, and St. Silouan were ... and presumably still are of this mind.

If this is the case then, your question does demand some answer. Indeed it was something that I have wondered about as well. Part of the problem I think is how we as converts tend to think about sin...namely that it is a juridical defect...a failing to keep the rules God has given us. But Orthodox gives much more weight to the idea of sin as a defect of spiritual health...a moral weakness...a deformation...an illness that predisposes us to overt thoughts and acts of sin.

The Theotokos then we may regard as free from personal sin not because she lacked the same weakness of nature we all share to one degree or another, but rather that from earliest childhood she clove closely to God, depending on His strength and grace to support her in her weakness and in time heal her of it. In this regard her life has strong parallels with that of the Prophet Samuel. She was free from yielding to that propensity to sin but not from having that propensity which to be fought and checked.

Christ however as the New Adam was free from this propensity. He did not sin nor was He by reason of the weakness that came to us through the First Adam's fall inclined to sin. He was not at war with His nature as a man as we are...for our humanity is fallen His was not. Hence, Christ by nature is the only sinless One. The sinlessness of the Theotokos is relative and derivative.

The remaining part of the problem I think lies with lifting snippets of the Liturgy and examining them apart from the fulness of their context. For example, it is common to hear appeals to the Theotokos to save us in various hymns and prayers...but those hymns and prayers belong to a body of liturgical worship material which if we are present at other times we also hear the same request enlarged to "save us through your prayers/intercessions". So if we bear in mind the whole context of our hymnography to the Panagia we see she is not some alternate Saviour horning in on Christ's responsibilities...rather she is the supreme expressor of His saving work laboring to save us through her prayers to Him Who is the Savior.

So texts on the sinlessness of the Theotokos likewise need to be examined in a much larger context to grasp what Orthodox belief is and is not regarding her. The snippets that strike us as odd are good points to drive to examine our faith more deeply so that we may discover the richness and depth of its integration and expression.

[Kosta]

Orthodoxy does not define when or how the Theotokos is sinless. In the matinal canon of the Annunciation it says she was purified body and soul when the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. Other hymns imply something else.

The Theotokos reached a level of Theosis far beyond any mortal. The sinlessness of the Theotokos differs from Christ in that Christ was not under the curse of ancestral sin, while the Theotokos was.

[Aaron Wake]

"Christ however as the New Adam was free from this propensity. He did not sin nor was He by reason of the weakness that came to us through the First Adam's fall inclined to sin. He was not at war with His nature as a man as we are...for our humanity is fallen His was not. Hence, Christ by nature is the only sinless One. The sinlessness of the Theotokos is relative and derivative."



It doesn't take much to get my wee little brain confused but I am at that point right now.:)

Why then, would Christ Jesus, being completly God yet in the same Person being completely man, tempted by Satan.

I was always under the impression that He "took on" humanity in our present state, though not deserving the pentalty of sin (death). That He took on our nature through the Virgin birth of the Theotokos, being completely human and God at the same time.

When you said "for our humanity is fallen His was not" are you saying that it was a different "kind" of humanity that He took on in order to break the chains of Hades?


Forgive my ignorance.

[Michael Stickles]

"Christ however as the New Adam was free from this propensity. He did not sin nor was He by reason of the weakness that came to us through the First Adam's fall inclined to sin. He was not at war with His nature as a man as we are...for our humanity is fallen His was not. Hence, Christ by nature is the only sinless One. The sinlessness of the Theotokos is relative and derivative."

... I was always under the impression that He "took on" humanity in our present state, though not deserving the pentalty of sin (death). That He took on our nature through the Virgin birth of the Theotokos, being completely human and God at the same time.

When you said "for our humanity is fallen His was not" are you saying that it was a different "kind" of humanity that He took on in order to break the chains of Hades?

As I understand it, He took on the same nature of humanity that we have, but that nature was transformed in the very act of His assuming it. As St. Athanasius puts it (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/athanasius/incarnation.iii.html):


Had it been a case of a trespass only, and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough; but when once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the Image of God. No, repentance could not meet the case. ...

The Word perceived that corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and the Father's Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, through belonging to the Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all, and, itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling, might thereafter put an end to corruption for all others as well, by the grace of the resurrection. ... Naturally also, through this union of the immortal Son of God with our human nature, all men were clothed with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection. For the solidarity of mankind is such that, by virtue of the Word's indwelling in a single human body, the corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all.

In Christ,
Michael

[Paul Cowan]

Why then, would Christ Jesus, being completly God yet in the same Person being completely man, tempted by Satan.



I read a play on words here. Just because he was tempted (an act) by satan, does not mean he was tempted (an agreement to act) by satan.

I can tempt you with a cigarette. I am doing the tempting. But unless you want the cigarette or are trying to quit smoking and play with the idea in your mind to take it, YOU are not being tempted by the offering of the cigarette. It is when you entertain the idea is when YOU are tempted with he cigarette.

I read alot of this word play in the holy fathers in their explanation fo the passages of the Bible.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Paul Cowan wrote:


I can tempt you with a cigarette. I am doing the tempting. But unless you want the cigarette or are trying to quit smoking and play with the idea in your mind to take it, YOU are not being tempted by the offering of the cigarette. It is when you entertain the idea is when YOU are tempted with he cigarette.

In all of this there is something extremely profound for it touches to such a degree what we mean by salvation through Christ.

After all our Patristic starting point is that 'what Christ has assumed is healed'; He assumes the whole man except for sin. But this then leads to the question of how can we be saved if that which is most in need of healing, ie our passions, are not also assumed by Christ?

Here I think we see an incredible mystery and paradox in how Christ assumes human nature. For us as you say temptation is mostly overcome by not entertaining the provocative thought or enticement towards the cigarette. However Christ overcomes the temptation by allowing it to present itself to Him in its most basic form and by transforming its desire in a Divine way. Thus Christ by allowing Himself to encounter and indeed experience temptation in its actual reality as a pull towards death transforms this as doorway to Life.

Here Christ heals the passions in as much as He transforms them to their original intent as inherent impulses towards that which is of God.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Peter S.]

St. Silouan doubted that the Theotokos was sinless, but heard that his thougths were false, changed his mind, and became a saint.

Peter

[Aaron Wake]

Paul Cowan wrote:



In all of this there is something extremely profound for it touches to such a degree what we mean by salvation through Christ.

After all our Patristic starting point is that 'what Christ has assumed is healed'; He assumes the whole man except for sin. But this then leads to the question of how can we be saved if that which is most in need of healing, ie our passions, are not also assumed by Christ?

Here I think we see an incredible mystery and paradox in how Christ assumes human nature. For us as you say temptation is mostly overcome by not entertaining the provocative thought or enticement towards the cigarette. However Christ overcomes the temptation by allowing it to present itself to Him in its most basic form and by transforming its desire in a Divine way. Thus Christ by allowing Himself to encounter and indeed experience temptation in its actual reality as a pull towards death transforms this as doorway to Life.

Here Christ heals the passions in as much as He transforms them to their original intent as inherent impulses towards that which is of God.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

Thank you Fr Raphael.

So Christ being human was able to experience temptation, but was not able to sin as He is God.

Now, concerning the Mother of God; why does our hymnography say that Jesus Christ is the only sinless One? Why then would she be excluded? Trust me, I am not trying to stir things up here I am just trying to understand this. I am not saying that I don't believe it to be impossible for one to be that obidient to God. But I feel that I am hearing conflicting statements.

Kissing your right hand,

Aaron

[Aaron Wake]

Orthodoxy does not define when or how the Theotokos is sinless. In the matinal canon of the Annunciation it says she was purified body and soul when the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. Other hymns imply something else.

The Theotokos reached a level of Theosis far beyond any mortal. The sinlessness of the Theotokos differs from Christ in that Christ was not under the curse of ancestral sin, while the Theotokos was.


Wouldn't Jesus Christ being completely God and completely human, be under that same curse (or rather take on that curse)? Is it that Jesus Christ could not sin, whereas the Theotokos could? Maybe I just answered my own question:)

Aaron

[Alex Michael Rusanen]

Thank you Fr Raphael.

So Christ being human was able to experience temptation, but was not able to sin as He is God.


Actually Christ was able to sin in His humanity but He didn't.

[Michael Stickles]

Wouldn't Jesus Christ being completely God and completely human, be under that same curse (or rather take on that curse)?

The second is more accurate - He took on the curse for us. As St. Athanasius writes (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxi.ii.iii.vi.html) (emphasis added):


For, as when John says, ‘The Word was made flesh,’ we do not conceive the whole Word Himself to be flesh, but to have put on flesh and become man, and on hearing, ‘Christ hath become a curse for us,’ and ‘He hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin,’ we do not simply conceive this, that whole Christ has become curse and sin, but that He has taken on Him the curse which lay against us (as the Apostle has said, ‘Has redeemed us from the curse,’ and ‘has carried,’ as Isaiah has said, ‘our sins,’ and as Peter has written, ‘has borne them in the body on the wood’); so, if it is said in the Proverbs ‘He created,’ we must not conceive that the whole Word is in nature a creature, but that He put on the created body and that God created Him for our sakes, preparing for Him the created body, as it is written, for us, that in Him we might be capable of being renewed and deified.

In Christ,
Michael

[Michael Stickles]

Now, concerning the Mother of God; why does our hymnography say that Jesus Christ is the only sinless One? Why then would she be excluded?

I tend to read "sinless" in that context as meaning "without sin by nature", not as "having never committed sin." In other words, Christ, in taking on our human nature, by virtue of His divine nature transformed and healed that human nature, rendering it "sinless" in Himself. The Theotokos, even if she never actually committed sin, still was not sinless in her human nature by nature, but was dependent for that on Christ's redemption.

In Christ,
Michael

[Aaron Wake]

I tend to read "sinless" in that context as meaning "without sin by nature", not as "having never committed sin." In other words, Christ, in taking on our human nature, by virtue of His divine nature transformed and healed that human nature, rendering it "sinless" in Himself. The Theotokos, even if she never actually committed sin, still was not sinless in her human nature by nature, but was dependent for that on Christ's redemption.

In Christ,
Michael

So, if the Theotokos was sinless, is it the human nature that was sinful (or rather cursed) which Christ took on for us. I was under the impression that one is not born sinful. But rather one is born of a cursed nature due to the fall, rather than inheriting the guilt.

So in order to save us from the curse due to the fall, it took Christ Jesus, being both man and God to destroy that curse. Not a mere human (Theotokos), though she may have been sinless. Is this correct?

Thank you all for being patient. But it is just hard to understand why in so much of our hymnography we refer to Christ as the only sinless One. Even in the new Orthodox study Bible it states this. Is it that she never comitted any serious personal sin? I believe I've heard that explanation before as well.

[Kosta]

Your on the right track. The Theotokos recieved the fruits of Ancestral Sin which is Death.
In the Service of the Dormition of the Theotokos we chant , "O pure Virgin sprung from mortal loins, Your end was comformable to thy nature".

Christ on the other hand was the only perfect one, without blemish. In Orthodoxy theology, Christ VOLUNTARILY went to the cross. He was not subject to death except thru violence and that was an option he chose. As scripture teaches:
"Therefore My Father loves me, because I lay down my Life that i may take it again. No one takes it from me, but i lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down and and I have power to take it again. This command i have recieved from My Father."(John 10.17-18)

The fact that Christ was not subject to the fruit of Ancestral Sin which is death was even the tradition of the Jews (based on Micah 4.7): "The people answered Him, We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever, and how can you say, The Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is the Son of Man?(John 12.34)

[Andreas Moran]

When the temptations of Christ are mentioned, there is meant those temptations in Matthew 4:3-10 and Luke 4:3-11. In Luke 4:13, though, it says the devil left Jesus 'for a season' (KJV) or until some other time. That other time was at the Crucifixion. The devil had said, 'If thou be the Son of God', trying to sow doubt in Christ's mind. The same words of temptation are used by the crowd at the Crucifixion when they cried, 'If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross' (Matthew 27:40). Remarkably, the centurion declares, 'Truly this man was the Son of God' (Mark 15:39). The temptation of Christ on the cross seems more cruel than when Christ as a man was very hungry. But as Christ answered the devil's earlier temptations with quotations from scripture, so too, even on the cross, He met His tempters by quoting from scripture, from psalm 21/22: 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'

[Ryan]

I was looking at Blessed Theophylact's commentary on St. Matthew's gospel, and I came to 12: 47-50 (page 109 of the Chrysostom Press edition). This is where Christ's mother and brethren stand outside, trying to speak with him, and he says "...whosoever shall do the will of My Father Who is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother."

Theophylact's comment is this: "He did not say this to offend his mother, but to correct this vainglorious and human thought of hers." If he says the Mother of God possessed vainglory, isn't this saying she sinned in some way?

[Christopher Dombrowski]

My understanding of the typical teaching of the Eastern Orthodox tradition is such:

Mary was born with our nature in a way that was really no different from our own. She was not only born with the consequences of the Fall (death, disease, etc.) but also with the fallen nature itself, that is that spiritual separation from God and the removal of His sanctifying grace that is called the "ancestral sin". In spite of this, the Most Holy Mother of God, through co-operation with God, achieved a level of holiness that involved no personal committing of sin.

The Incarnation, beyond this, is viewed as a big step in her sanctifying. The Incarnation effected, beyond her personal sinlessness, a reversal of the ancestral sin, by which she was spiritual reunited to God and inherited His sanctifying grace. Thus, as an effect of the Incarnation, the Mother of God was removed from all sin, including the ancestral sin, though not yet all of the consequences of the Fall.

As to the Incarnate Word, the status of His nativity is distinct. While He was personally sinless as well, distinct from His Mother, the Lord Jesus was born without inheriting the "ancestral sin" that His Mother was afflicted with before the Incarnation. Thus, with respect to ancestral sin, Jesus was born sinless to a degree that His Mother was not. I am guessing this is what the fellow a number of posts before me meant when He said that the Word did not inherit the fallen nature as the Theotokos did.

But, the last point that must be affirmed (lest we fall into the heresy of Julian of Halicarnassus) is that aside from the personal sin and ancestral sin, the Lord inherited the various other consequences of the Fall. He inherited our very humanity, along with all of its weaknesses that had become manifest by the removal of sanctifying grace. And exactly because it was impossible for the Lord Jesus to be separated from God and removed from His sanctifying grace as was found in ancestral sin, this is exactly how the Lord Jesus was able to gradually overcome the consequences of the Fall and return humanity to its incorruptible state that God had intended for it.

Now, I hope everyone remembers that while I am portraying this as my understanding of the most traditional and typical perspective in the EOC, I am not laying claim to this being the dogmatic and final word of Holy Tradition.

-Kirill

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Christopher Dombrowski wrote:



In spite of this, the Most Holy Mother of God, through co-operation with God, achieved a level of holiness that involved no personal committing of sin.

The Incarnation, beyond this, is viewed as a big step in her sanctifying. The Incarnation effected, beyond her personal sinlessness, a reversal of the ancestral sin, by which she was spiritual reunited to God and inherited His sanctifying grace. Thus, as an effect of the Incarnation, the Mother of God was removed from all sin, including the ancestral sin, though not yet all of the consequences of the Fall.

Just two quick comments:

Concerning the above quote- I do not think that the Fathers saw the Theotokos in such a 'structured' way in relation to Christ's Incarnation. Their main emphasis at all times is on her holiness (eg see St Gregory Palamas' homilies on the Entry of the Mother of God into The Temple). In this regard their focus is on her willing ascetic effort which centers on a divine union. It is from this, from her life as already lived that culminates in the Incarnation.

As far as the issue of sin applies here then it is to how this effort reverses the movement of Eve towards sin. In other words the Theotokos is the doorway to that heavenly life which reverses the Fall into sin & death. It is in the sense of how her life to such a preeminent degree reflects the life of her Son that she reverses the ancestral sin.

In other words what we are talking about here not a cosmic quid pro quo but rather the result of lives led in union with the divine.



As to the Incarnate Word, the status of His nativity is distinct. While He was personally sinless as well, distinct from His Mother, the Lord Jesus was born without inheriting the "ancestral sin" that His Mother was afflicted with before the Incarnation. Thus, with respect to ancestral sin, Jesus was born sinless to a degree that His Mother was not. I am guessing this is what the fellow a number of posts before me meant when He said that the Word did not inherit the fallen nature as the Theotokos did.

But, the last point that must be affirmed (lest we fall into the heresy of Julian of Halicarnassus) is that aside from the personal sin and ancestral sin, the Lord inherited the various other consequences of the Fall. He inherited our very humanity, along with all of its weaknesses that had become manifest by the removal of sanctifying grace. And exactly because it was impossible for the Lord Jesus to be separated from God and removed from His sanctifying grace as was found in ancestral sin, this is exactly how the Lord Jesus was able to gradually overcome the consequences of the Fall and return humanity to its incorruptible state that God had intended for it.

Mainly the Fathers (especially St Cyril of Alexandria which is the major influence on us) speak of Christ's adoption of humanity. This adoption refers to Christ taking on the fullness of human nature and also the effects of the Fall but in a sinless way. Thus He feels hunger but without greed, He experiences fear of death but without running from it. In other words what is a crucial focus here (along the same lines as with the Theotokos) is the role of will. Christ willingly adopts the fullness of human nature and Christ willingly experiences the results of the Fall on this humanity. But the manner in which He does this (again the will) is how this willing adoption involves no sin.

In light of this then I would say that the Patristic focus is on how Christ adopts human nature rather than on the concept of inheritance which especially in our context would imply unwillingness.

In Christ- Fr Raphael