sin, the gate would never had been closed to her, and then Christ did not open it to her. But redemption has for its special purpose the taking away of original sin.” 34
Turning their attention to Mary, the opponents of Scotus objected: ’‘The Blessed Virgin was born according to common law and therefore her body was propagated and formed from infected seed. There was, then, the same reason for infection in her body as in the body of anyone else thus propagated. And since from an infected body the soul is infected, there was the same reason for infection in her soul as was found in the souls of others thus commonly propagated.” 35
“Moreover,” they continued, “Mary had the common sufferings of human nature, such as thirst, hunger, and those penalties which are inflicted upon us on account of original sin. These penalties were not voluntarily assumed by her, because she was not our Reparatrix or Redemptrix, for then her Son would not have been the Universal Redeemer of all. Therefore, they were inflicted upon her by God. Nor were they unjustly inflicted; consequently, they were inflicted on account of original sin. In other words, she was not innocent.” 36 Such was the maculist position.
Scotus declined to accept these reasons as conclusive. The argument that Mary’s privilege of the Immaculate Conception would derogate from the dignity of Christ as Universal Redeemer he rejected. On the contrary, he said that in defending Mary’s Immaculate Conception he was in fact attributing a more exalted and perfect role of Redeemer to Christ. In his own words: “The very opposite conclusion would seem to follow from the reasons
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