Mary, as she was seen by the Early Church

In th first formative years of the church Mary was very much alive.   We read of her being with the Apostles in the Upper Room, working out what Jesus really wanted them to teach and preach in His Church.   She then apparently accompanied St John to Ephesus where she lived and was from there assumed into Heaven.    The Church then faced up to the question of Mary and what role she played in our salvation.  The theme they caught onto quickly was that since Jesus was the new Adam bringing about a new Christian humanity then Mary who gave birth to him was the new Eve and the mother of that new humanity.   Christians were people who now cast off the slavery of sin and lived in the grace of Jesus Christ.      Christians were called to redeem the rest of mankind from that slaery and redeem them in the grace of Baptism.    There was much speculation about the virginity of Mary in comparison to the virginity of Eve, for Eve was the virgin who was disobedient to God.   They taught that Adam and Eve went through a growing up process until they were mature enough to know they were naked, that is became aware that they were sexual beings.   Eve was born Immaculate like Mary but her disobedience as the Mother of the human race brought sin and death into the world, whereas Mary's obedience brought life.    Yes, she was given many gifts by God to make her fitting to be the mother of Jesus, but this did not stop her from being tempted.   She did not just sail through life, she had stood struggle to keep her Son safe and then surrender him to the will of God at his passion.   It was not easy path for her.

There was also the question of her being the there of God.  A priest called Nestorius argued that she could only be the mother of the human Jesus but o the divine nature.    At the great Council of Ephesus, the town where Mary had lived and was assumed into Heaven, the Church ruled that Mary was not the mother of nature but of a person.  And if that person had the nature of God and the nature of man then she was the Mother of the God just as much as the human  being.  

We owe so much to Mary.   How could a woman who give birth to the God child be just 'another woman'  

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