If Eve was created with grace, and Mary is the new Eve, then Mary must also have been
4 min • Digitized on May 3, 2023
From A Defense of the Teachings of Mary, page 47
By St. John Henry Newman
And now, I proceed to dwell for a while upon two inferences, which it is obvious to draw from the rudimental doctrine itself; the first relates to the sanctity of the Blessed Virgin, the second to her greatness.
1. Her sanctity. She holds, as the Fathers teach us, that office in our restoration which Eve held in our fall:—now in the first place what were Eve’s endowments to enable her to enter upon her trial? She could not have stood against the wiles of the devil, though she was innocent and sinless, without the grant of a large grace. And this she had;—a heavenly gift, which was over and above and additional to that nature of hers, which she received from Adam, as Adam before her had also received the same gift, at the very time (as it is commonly held) of his original creation.
This is Anglican doctrine as well as Catholic; it is the doctrine of Bishop Bull. He has written a dissertation on the point. He speaks of the doctrine which “many of the Schoolmen affirm, that Adam was created in grace, that is, received a principle of grace and divine life from his very creation, or in the moment of the infusion of his soul; of which,” he says, “for my own part I have little doubt.”
Again, he says, “It is abundantly manifest from the many testimonies alleged, that the ancient doctors of the Church did, with a general consent, acknowledge, that our first parents in the state of integrity, had in them something more than nature, that is, were endowed with the divine principle of the Spirit, in order to a supernatural felicity.”
Now, taking this for granted, because I know that you and those who agree with you maintain it as well as we do, I ask, was not Mary as fully endowed as Eve? is it any violent inference, that she, who was to co-operate in the redemption of the world, at least was not less endowed with power from on high, than she who, given as a helpmate to her husband, did in the event but co-operate with him for its ruin. If Eve was raised above human nature by that indwelling moral gift which we call grace, is it rash to say that Mary had a greater grace?
And this consideration gives significance to the Angel’s salutation of her as “full of grace,”—an interpretation of the original word which is undoubtedly the right one, as soon as we resist the common Protestant assumption that grace is a mere external approbation or acceptance, answering to the word “favour,” whereas it is, as the Fathers teach, a real inward condition or super-added quality of soul.
And if Eve had this supernatural inward gift given her from the first moment of her personal existence, is it possible to deny that Mary too had this gift from the very first moment of her personal existence? I do not know how to resist this inference:—well, this is simply and literally the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
I say the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is in its substance this, and nothing more or less than this (putting aside the question of degrees of grace); and it really does seem to me bound up in that doctrine of the Fathers, that Mary is the second Eve.