Mary Through New Eyes

One reason good Bible Christians are wary of the early creeds is because at the same time Athanasius was hammering Arius over Christ's divinity, there were many silly proto-Roman Catholic practices developing around Mary. I've seen some RC sources attempt to assert a great antiquity to Marian devotion, but they really can't show anything of much substance very early.

Of course, how soon an error appears does not change the fact that it is error. Claiming support for an argument by citing the Church Fathers is of little help, since the Church Fathers are hardly monolithic. Some of them argue strongly *against* things like icons and Roman primacy, things that the EO's and RC's want to establish by citing Tradition.

So the conversation is not a simple one; I distrust those from any side who simply wave a hand and say the antique church is all for their side.

And the conversation can be very interesting. One RC source was arguing for the perpetual virginity of Mary and offered this riff on the parallels between Luke's account of Mary's pregnancy and the captivity of Israel's ark by the Philistines:
That's the kind of observation I would expect from one of the Good Guys like Peter Leithart; it was surprising to see it offered by an RC in support of a teaching like Mary's perpetual virginity. (Which I really can't see how the parallel supports the point they're trying to make at all).