The Singular Participation of Mary Immaculate in the Merits of Christ

I have deliberately placed before us, as a guiding text, the lengthiest one on this subject in the entire scotisic corpus, as far as I can tell. Scotus is clearly attributing to our Lady as meriting beyond any of the other saints, and as one who is highest among them (summe). This is entirely in accord with the unique privileges that our Lord earned for Her in His Redemption and the manner in which He mediated uniquely on Her behalf (i.e. the Immaculate Conception). He comes extremely close here to suggesting a coredemptive role, even though, as Fr. Peter Fehlner notes, he never uses the Latin term "Coredemptrix."¹

Let me speculate a bit more on what some of the principles Scotus uses in his account of our Lord's knowledge and Passion might mean (as well as the ones we have already seen regarding the Immaculate Conception) for the role of our Lady in the Passion. Let's begin with our Lord's knowledge. Following a long-standing tradition in medieval theology, Scotus distinguishes between the knowledge that Christ has through his human faculties and that which He has through the Word. Scotus understands the former through his own epistemological categories of abstractive and intuitive cognition. Regarding abstractive cognition, he argues that Christ, as sinless, had an intellect that could be prompted by the singular as such, in accord with Scotus' view that the singular is intelligible as such, though not by us in the present life, owing (in all probability) to original sin.² As to intuitive cognition, Scotus claims that, if we set aside His knowledge in the Word, Christ did not have proper knowledge of things save as they came to be successively in the order of time.³ When treating of Christ's Passion, Scotus distinguishes (for the most part) dolor from tristitia, assigning the former to the sense passion, and in particular the sense of touch, while retaining the latter term for the negative passion found in the will. The pain Christ suffered physically was acute, perhaps the most painful felt by any human being because of the perfection of Christ's composite nature.⁴ Yet Scotus' location of sadness in the will, leads him to claim that sadness was only found in the lower part of Christ's rational faculty, inasmuch as it was intuitively aware of his physical pain and suffering or the injustice and injury done His person in the temporal order; the upper part of Christ's rational faculty, knowing and enjoying the eternal reasons, perceived the fittingness between the suffering and the eternal life won for us sinners.⁵

What this means for our Lady's condition at the Passion is, I believe, the following: Like Christ, our Lady is sinless; hence, on Scotistic principles, Her intellect is capable of being prompted by the singular as such, so as to achieve abstractive cognition of the singular. This would imply that not only at the Passion, but throughout Her life our Lady had a unique kind of intellectual awareness akin to, though not identical, on a large scale, to the knowledge that Adam possessed in the prelapsarian state. Yet, like our Lord in terms of his human knowledge, She, too, did not have intuitive cognition of things, save as they unfolded in the order of time, but, unlike Him, had no possibility-apart from a special grace-of seeing things in the Word. This implies, I think, that She was keenly aware of our Lord's Passion, and this would explain how She would be capable of suffering along with Him, though, of course, by participation and by way of His own merits pre-applied to Her. Furthermore, though She did not share in the dolor of Christ in the strict sense, inasmuch as this had to do with His physical suffering and injuries, She certainly did have tristitia in the lower portion of Her rational faculty, a sadness that must have been quite intense since, unlike Christ, the upper portion of Her reason would not have been so closely joined to the eternal reasons and She would not have perceived the intimate connection between His suffering and the salvation of the elect.

A final reflection is in order, in regard to the merits of Christ. Scotus' explanation of how they are pre-applied to our Lady so as to render possible the Immaculate Conception provides a model for obviating a potential difficulty, perhaps one still to be advanced by a modern counterpart of Godfrey of Fontaines. In order for our Lady's conduct to be meritorious at the Passion, our Lord's merits must be pre-applied to Her, just as much as they need to be pre-applied to Her at Her conception to prevent her from contracting original sin. Yet here, too, there must be a certain order for us to understand how She can participate in the way seemingly hinted at, in the guiding text introduced above. First, Christ's salvific act must be foreseen eternally; second, Mary, though sinless through those merits, must be rendered with the grace to have Her actions be meritorious at the foot of the Cross; third, Her suffering along with Christ, functions meritoriously for Her, and through Her, for us. This, of course, would be a further extension of the scotistic device of the instants of nature but, unless I am much mistaken, one that is necessary in order to have made clear, our Lady's unique participation in the merits of Christ. Let me close by saying that it has been a delight to speak to you today of what I take to be key elements in Scotus' thinking that might help to advance the cause of the Coredemptrix. If I have said anything inappropriate or unsuitable, please correct me. I am, after all, a practitioner of the lower science, the ancilla theologiae, and not theology itself.

Text Appendix

The Singular Participation of Mary Immaculate in the Merits of Christ, Her Son and Redeemer, According to Scotus: Continued Reflections on a Theological Breakthrough

Text 1: Popular Piety and the Immaculate Conception: Excerpt from the Sermon "Tota pulchra es" of Robert Grosseteste, first teacher of theology to the Oxford Franciscan Friars:

You are altogether beautiful and there is no stain in you.

There was no stain of original sin in the Virgin Mary at the time of Her birth. For how could Holy Church celebrate Her birth if She were still in sin at the time of Her birth? And so we believe that She was cleansed of original sin in the womb of Her mother. Such a cleansing could have taken place, however, in one of two different ways. In one way, it could have taken place so that She truly had original sin for some time after the infusion of Her rational soul but was cleansed and sanctified through the working of the Holy Spirit sometime before Her birth from the womb of Her mother. In another way, however, the cleansing could have taken place in such a way that She was cleansed and sanctified at the time of the infusion of Her rational soul. In the latter case, the cleansing would be from sin that actually was present for some time, but rather from sin that would have been present if Mary had not been sanctified at the time of the infusion of Her rational soul.⁶

Text 2: Scotus on the Implausibility of the Incarnation Being Solely for the Sake of Redemption:

Nor is it probable that the highest good in things only finds its occasion solely on account of the lesser good (... nec est verisimile tam summum bonum in entibus esse tantum occasionatum propter minus bonum solum).⁷

Text 3: Mary's Need for the Redeemer even Greater than Others':

For Mary would especially have needed Christ as Her Redeemer; She would, after all, have contracted original sin by reason of the ordinary manner of propagation unless She had been prevented from doing so through the grace of the Mediator. And just as other people need Christ so that through His merit their sin, already contracted, may be remitted, so She all the more needed the Mediator preventing Her sin so that the sin would not be contracted and so that She would not contract it.⁸

Text 4: Guiding Text for Extending Scotus' Mariology:

[Fourth Objection]: Again, She suffered pains and this cannot be for any other reason than because of original sin since such pains were not inflicted upon Her unjustly; therefore, they must have been because of original sin. Or they would have to be because She took them up voluntarily, but this cannot be true because this belongs to Christ alone.⁹

Scotus' reply:

To the fourth argument, when the argument is made regarding Her suffering because She underwent hunger, thirst, sadness, and death, I say that these points are not conclusive. For the truth is that She did not take on such sufferings voluntarily to redeem us in the way that Her Son did, but rather the Redeemer merited for Her lack of the weightier punishment, namely, lack of original sin, but did not merit for Her lack of the lesser punishment, since this was useful for Her and in this category are Her hunger, thirst, Her sorrow at Her Son's own passion, and the punishment of Her own death. That is why, even though Christ could have merited for her continuous glorification, since it is nonetheless more praiseworthy to have glory from one's own merits than without any such, She was not preserved from such meritorious punishments inasmuch as they were useful for Her. Therefore, Christ merited for His Mother most perfectly as far as the lack of the greater punishment, but not the lesser, namely, because it was useful for Her in terms of merit. That is why it is believed that on the occasion of the passion of Her Son, She merited in the highest degree because of Her suffering along with him.¹⁰

This article was excerpted from Mary at the Foot of the Cross – VIII: Coredemption as Key to a Correct Understanding of Redemption, Academy of the Immaculate, 2008.