Leo I and Gregory I vs. the Immaculate Conception

In an earlier post (link), I provided evidence that the teachings of Leo I aka Leo the Great and Gregory I aka Gregory the Great at least implicitly contradict the modern dogma of the immaculate conception. Luigi Gambero's "Mary and the Fathers of the Church" has a section on Leo I (pp. 302-09) and a section on Gregory I (pp. 366-72). While Mr. Gambero can point to teachings by Leo I and Gregory I that we would not accept (such as Leo's and Gregory's apparent idea that Mary miraculously maintained the physical evidence of virginity despite giving birth), Mr. Gambero does not present any evidence from Leo I in favor of the dogma of the immaculate conception.

Mr. Gambero's subject matter index for the immaculate conception does not point us to any Roman bishop in the patristic period (i.e. up to the time of John of Damascus) as teaching the dogma. Jurgens' "The Faith of the Early Fathers" similarly fails to provide any allegation of teaching on this subject from any Roman bishop (also within that same time period).

In addition to the materials in my previous post, I also located these further examples from Leo's letters:

Letter 31:2 – “For if the New Man had not been made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and taken on Him our old nature, and being consubstantial with the Father, had deigned to be consubstantial with His mother also, and being alone free from sin, had united our nature to Him the whole human race would be held in bondage beneath the Devil's yoke , and we should not be able to make use of the Conqueror's victory, if it had been won outside our nature.”

Letter 35:3 – “For although the Lord’s nativity according to the flesh has certain characteristics wherein it transcends the ordinary beginnings of man’s being, both because He alone was conceived and born without concupiscence of a pure Virgin, and because He was so brought forth of His mother’s womb that her fecundity bare Him without loss of virginity: yet His flesh was not of another nature to ours: nor was the soul breathed into Him from another source to that of all other men, and it excelled others not in difference of kind but in superiority of power. For He had no opposition in His flesh [nor did the strife of desires give rise to a conflict of wishes]. His bodily senses were active without the law of sin, and the reality of His emotions being under the control of His Godhead and His mind, was neither assaulted by temptations nor yielded to injurious influences.”

Ultimately, while a few RC apologists may try to excuse Leo's or Gregory's remarks, a straightforward reading of their words is that they held Jesus to be the lone exception to original sin. Indeed, to the extent they tried to explain it, they did so by reference to the virgin birth. Mary, however, was not virgin born: she was conceived in the ordinary way. Thus, in the mindset of these writers, she would not have been an exception. She could be purified from that sin, but she would have automatically contracted it by the way she was conceived.

-TurretinFan