Probably
the best Orthodox answer to that question, ironically, is the
argument of Leo the Great, who was Pope long before immaculate
conception (or papal infallibility!) was announced as Roman Catholic
dogma.
"One
of the main arguments of Eutyches was that, if Christ had a real
human nature, He would also have inherited the stain of sin. Since
at that date Mary's immaculate conception was unknown, Pope Leo
could not argue from it, but had to make a distinction between the
nature, which Christ did indeed assume from Mary, and the guilt
which He did not assume, 'because His nativity is a miracle'...
Any idea of Mary's own preservation from original sin, however, is
ruled out not only in the Tome but also in Leo's sermons, for
example: In 62,2 we read "Only the Son of the blessed Virgin
is born without transgression; not indeed outside the human race,
but a stranger to sin... so that of Adam's offspring, one
might exist in whom the devil had no share." --
Hilda Graef, Mary, A History of Doctrine and Devotion
In other words,
in the fifth century the idea was unheard-of. It's an innovation.
But it's not only wrong because it's new; it's a symptom of a shift
in Western Christians' beliefs about sin, Christ, and humanity.
The
immaculate conception dogma is a response to a situation created by
the Roman Catholic dogma of original sin. Following Augustine, Rome
teaches that man inherits from Adam a "stain" of
original sin - primarily manifested in concupiscence , the
tendency to sin. So Rome is left with a need to explain how Christ
could be born of a human parent yet without sin. The immaculate
conception dogma tries to break this chain by making Mary the
exception, not Christ.
By contrast,
the Orthodox understanding is conveyed concisely in St Athanasius'
treatise On the Incarnation
(318 AD). When man (in the persons of Adam
and Eve from whom we all derive our human nature) first sinned,
he became separated from God. This separation from God is what Orthodox
understand to be original sin and it has two consequences: First,
separated from the source of all good, man becomes morally corrupt,
with an innate tendency to sin; secondly, separated from the source
of all Being, man begins to return to his original state, the nothing
from which God created him. Corruption and death come into the world.
In other words, original sin in the Orthodox understanding is not
a "stain" but an absence. And there is
no need to figure out how Christ failed to inherit it along with
His human nature from His mother, because the Incarnation itself
is the end of the separation. In Himself, from the moment
of Incarnation, Christ was both God and Man and therefore His Human
Nature never experienced the separation from God which all other
humans suffer since the sin in the Garden and which is original
sin. Christ does not give us life and righteousness as things apart
from Himself; Christ Himself is our life and righteousness.
It's not that the Imaculate Conception doctrine per se is wrong
- it's just that it makes no sense in a theology which
takes its understanding of original sin more from Athanasius than
from Augustine. In
other words, from an Orthodox perspective, the Roman Catholic dogmatizing
of the issue is something like their dogmatizing that "if 2+2=5
then 5+2=8". As a logical proposition, it may be correct -
but its correctness is irrelevant as the original proposition is
irrelevant.
The ancestry
of Christ shows that the lineage of Christ was not exceptional for
holiness. Quite the opposite; the lineage is not through the favored
son Joseph but through Judah, whose character is clear in his casual
sin with his daughter-in-law. Four women are mentioned in Christ's
legal genealogy in Matthew's Gospel. All the four women are of questionable
reputation. First is Tamar, who enticed her father-in-law into sleeping
with her. The second is Rahab, the prostitute. The third is the
former pagan Ruth. The fourth is Bathsheba the adulteress. Why were
these mentioned specifically? They teach us that it is
not Christ's ancestry that makes Him the Savior.
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