The Immaculate Conception is the conception of the Virgin Mary "without stain," that is, exempt from original sin. It is a dogma of the Catholic Church that was proclaimed on by Pope Pius IX by the bull Ineffable God, but this belief already existed among certain Fathers of the Church in IVe century.
Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary
It is often mistakenly confused with the virginal conception of Jesus Christ, that is, the dogma of the Incarnation, but it only concerns the conception of Mary herself. The Immaculate Conception is celebrated by the Catholic Church on during the feast dedicated to him. It is a feast of precept.
The expression of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception took place very gradually. Its origins lie in the framework of doctrinal reflections on the conception and birth of Jesus developed in the continuity of literary traditions on the latter's childhood, stories which regularly oppose each other on the human or divine nature of Christ..
To IIe And IIIe centuries, if they agree to recognize in the mother of Jesus an admirable woman, theologians like Tertullian, Origen or even John Chrysostom consider that she is not exempt from having committed sins, certainly venial. With the growing importance of the cult of Mary, the "Marian imagination" of her holiness also developed, spreading the idea that the mother of Christ could not have committed any fault - even venial - against God, that she was "without stain or corruption.".
The question then arises for "Mariologists" as to when in her life this state of purity dates back to, and different answers are given: from her own conception, in her mother's womb, at her own birth, or even at the conception of Jesus. Moreover, the development around the same time of theology on original sin, supposed to taint every human being from conception, pushes the proponents of an integral holiness of Mary to defend the idea that she was preserved from it, which remains doubtful for Augustine of Hippo himself.
If devotion to the Immaculate Conception of Mary does not appear explicitly before the XIe And XIIe centuries, we nevertheless find, from the IVe century, a number of Church Fathers and ancient Christian authors who express positions evoking in the head of Mary, sometimes the absence of sin or "stain", sometimes her virginity, sometimes both.
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