Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1996, Síða 142
132
plain, prior to Mary’s birth the Holy Spirit purified her from original sin
while she still lay in her mother’s womb.9 Since we cannot know pre-
cisely when this happened, the writer maintains that a celebration of the
occasion of the conception of Mary should not be permitted.
Unlike G. Turville-Petre, I do not interpret the author’s considera-
tions on the Immaculate Conception as a condemnation of the belief,
but rather as an attempt to make it more accessible to his public, to find
a compromise between the human experience of creation and the pa-
tristic view of any sexual intercourse as sinful.10 In his work De Nuptiis
et Concupiscentia (book I, chap. 12) Augustine considers the relation-
ship between Mary and Joseph as the best example of a chaste mar-
riage, stating: “Omnis quae de concubitu nascitur, caro peccati est” (All
that is generated through copulation is flesh of sin).11
In accordance with the patri stic idea of human conception, the Ice-
landic author cannot help stating that if the Virgin was actually begotten
by her parents in the same way as all other human beings, there was no
way to avoid original sin. Mary’s unique spiritual State, i.e. that she was
purified while still in her mother’s womb, made it possible for her,
however, to be born pure through divine intervention, whereas the rest
of mankind needs to be saved by Christ through baptismal water.
This attempt to make more acceptable or comprehensible what is
now dogma in the Catholic Church hardly sounds wholly convincing to
the modem reader. What is most remarkable, however, is the author’s
deliberate decision to affirm the spiritual chastity of Mary prior to her
birth. About 1250 the Church in Western Europe was still far from
unanimous in its acceptance of the Immaculate Conception, of which
no clear evidence is to be found in the Bible. Up to the 14th century
theologians wrote both in favour of and against the concept, which was
finally accepted by the Church of Rome with the Council of Basel in
the 15th century but did not become dogma until 1854.
It is possible that the author of Mari'u saga had some knowledge of
form pav (they) in the second sentence, the author refers to both Mary and John the Bap-
tist, whom an early Christian tradition also believed to have been purified from original
sin at the time of the Visitation.
9 “En af giptt heilags anda faa var Maria hreinsvd fra hinni gavmlv synd i modvr kvidi,
adr hvn væri fædd”. (But by the grace of the Holy Spirit Mary was purified from the old
sin in her mother’s womb, before she was born). Unger, op. cit., p. 3456'8 (623'25).
10 G. Turville-Petre, Origins of Icelandic Literature, Oxford 1953, p. 125.
11 Migne, Patrologia Latina XLIV, 421.