It has become fashionable of late to convert to Roman Catholicism, a phenomenon with which we interact occasionally in our podcast, The Diving Board. It is there that we examine, and then refute, the reasons the typical Protestant gives when deciding to convert. The problem of Mary is often the last stumbling block to fall, but when it does, the floodgates of hyperlatria open wide, and an embarrassing superfluity of worship is heaped upon her. After all, the Roman Catholic priest can “command God … and make Him come down to the altar” to be offered in the Sacrifice of the Mass, but has “no commands to give His holy Mother, who does as She pleases.” So taught the Apparition of Mary at La Laus, France in 1664. And on that basis, the apparitions were determined to be authentic. Not because “Mary” appeared as a humble handmaiden but because she had appeared as Virgin Most Powerful and Queen of the Universe, utterly free of any constraint to her will. Unlike her hapless “Son” who gets bossed around daily like a chump, nobody tells Mary what to do. That is why the Apparition of Mary at La Laus was considered authentic, and the curse of hyperlatria is the wretched misfortune that awaits the Protestant who stumbles into devotion to her.

In Roman Catholicism, Mary was not merely reverent and virtuous, but wholly and irreversibly sinless from the moment of conception—not only free of sin, but free of any inclination to sin. She was a virgin both at Jesus’ conception and at His birth—as the Scriptures teach—but Rome insists that she also retained the physical attribute of virginity even in childbirth. They allege she suffered neither sickness, nor tearing of the flesh, nor physical pain, nor even the slightest discomfort. Such humiliations of the weaker sex are reserved for the sinful. And because Jesus is God and Mary is His Mother, Roman Catholicism reasons that Mary is “the Mother of God,” the Theotokos. Rome also teaches that the Ark of the Old Covenant prefigured Mary—anointed in holiness (Exodus 30:26), overlaid in pure gold inside and out (Exodus 25:11), made of ostensibly imperishable acacia wood (Exodus 25:10), both immaculate in holiness and untouchable by men.  She contained within her womb the bread of heaven and the tables of stone (Hebrews 9:4)—figures of Christ Whom she had carried, and as Ark of the New Covenant, she is the perfect fulfillment of the typology.  Free of sin and its effects, she must have also escaped the curse of Adam, returning to Heaven at the end of her life, glorified in body, physically untouched by the ravages of decomposition, and certainly in no need of resurrection. “Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength” (Psalms 132:8). As Christ had ascended to His rest, so surely had Mary, His Ark, followed Him there. She is therefore said already to be enjoying resurrected glory in Heaven.

When trying to convince the gullible and the naïve of these teachings, the typical Roman Catholic will appeal to “two thousand years of historic Christian teaching” (Patrick Madrid, Answer Me This), alleging that the Church has always believed these things about Mary. When Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854 that Mary had been conceived without sin, he appealed to “illustrious documents of venerable antiquity, of both the Eastern and the Western Church,” saying that they “very forcibly testify” of Mary’s sinlessness (Ineffabilis Deus, 1854). When Pope Pius XII proclaimed in 1950 that Mary had been assumed body and soul into heaven at the end of her life, he appealed to “holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church” who have “since ancient times” taught “this fact” (Munificentissimus Deus, 16). The claims are so broad in their scope and sweeping in their claim that they nearly always produce the desired effect: to intimidate the timid and dissuade the pliable. The ignorant Protestant, shuddering at the mountains of evidence through which he is challenged to sift, simply capitulates without challenge.

The truth, however, is that there absolutely have not been “two thousand years of historic Christian teaching” on the fictional Roman Catholic Mary. And the ancient Eastern and Western Church most certainly did not “forcibly testify” of her immaculacy and assumption. Quite the opposite, in fact. In the ancient Church, Mary was believed to be sinful, Christ’s childbirth to be normal, her physical virginity compromised in a natural delivery that was enormously painful for both mother and Child. Her many sins were cleansed at the Cross rather than prevented at her conception. Far from unapproachable holiness and immaculate purity, Mary was not considered to be the Ark of the New Covenant, but an obstinate, unbelieving mother who came to faith in Christ late in life. Such a woman most certainly had not been assumed bodily into heaven. She would have to wait for the resurrection like the rest of us. It was Christ, His Church, and His Gospel, rather than Mary, Who had been foreshadowed by the Ark.

What we find in a review of the historical record is that the Mary of Rome’s imagination did not arrive on the scene until late in the 4th century. Until then, she was considered not only sinful, but obstinate, vainglorious and covetous, more appropriately a figure of the Synagogue that rejected Him than the Bride of Christ who celebrated His arrival. So remarkably candid were the early writers on Mary’s need for healing from her “disease” and cleansing from her sins, that the Roman Catholic Encyclopedia is forced to acknowledge those many “stray private opinions,” and the Roman Catholic Mariologist is forced to acknowledge the casual and “discourteous” familiarity with which the early writers discussed her:

… the older Fathers … seem to have been in error on this matter. … But these stray private opinions merely serve to show that theology is a progressive science.” (Catholic Encyclopedia, Immaculate Conception).

The pre-Ephesus portrait of Mary is paradoxical. … Before [the council of] Ephesus [in 431 A.D.], Oriental theology is apparently unaware of a problem in this regard. Where the literature touches the sanctity of Mary, it does so … with a disinterest which is disconcerting and at times a familiarity which borders on discourtesy. (Juniper Carol, Mariology, Vol. II, section IV Our Lady’s Holiness)

And here is where the Catholic apologist’s proud boasting of “two thousand years” of tradition and the Pope’s pious fabrication of ancient “forcible” testimony, come crashing against the rocky coastline of actual history: The early Church just wasn’t that into her.

They Believed Mary Was Sinful

Tertullian (160 – 225 AD)

When speaking of Jesus’ brethren (John 7:5), Tertullian observed that “neither did his brethren believe in him,” including Mary in the ranks of His immediate family’s unbelief. Even though Martha and other Marys were in constant attendance upon Him, “there is at the same time a want of evidence of His mother’s adherence to Him.” Her unbelief is the reason Mary could be no figure of the Church, but rather was a figure of the Synagogue:

In this very passage indeed, their unbelief is evident. … while strangers were intent on Him, His very nearest relatives were absent. … but they prefer to interrupt Him, and wish to call Him away from His great work. … When denying one’s parents in indignation, one [Jesus] does not deny their existence, but censures their faults.  …  in the abjured mother there is a figure of the synagogue, as well as of the Jews in the unbelieving brethren. In their person Israel remained outside, while the new disciples who kept close to Christ within, hearing and believing, represented the Church, which He called mother in a preferable sense and a worthier brotherhood, with the repudiation of the carnal relationship. (Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ, chapter 7)

Commenting on Matthew 12:46, in which “His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him,” Tertullian says that Jesus was “justly indignant” that “they wanted to call Him away from [His] solemn work.” For this reason “He transferred the names of blood-relationship (mother, brother, sister (Matthew 12:50)) to others whom He judged to be more closely related to Him by reason of their faith,” witholding those names from they “whom He refused because of their offense” (Tertullian, Against Marcion, Book IV, chapter 19). “Their offense,” included Mary’s unbelief.

Origen (185 – 254 A.D.)

When Simeon took Jesus in his arms in the Temple, he praised the Lord and then spoke ominous words of Mary. Origen, the first Church Father known to expound Luke 2:35, understood that the sword that “shall pierce through thy own soul also” was the sword of doubt and unbelief. He is explicit on this point, citing Romans 3:23 as proof, claiming that Mary, like the rest of us, had sinned, and that Jesus must have died for Mary’s sins:

If she did not suffer scandal at the Lord’s Passion, then Jesus did not die for her sins. But, if ‘all have sinned and lack God’s glory’ … then Mary too was scandalized at that time. (Origen, Homilies on Luke, 17.6-7)

Basil (329-379 AD)

Basil, likewise commenting on Luke 2:35, also concluded that even Mary “shall some doubt reach.” Using Origen’s words, he concludes that Jesus propitiated Mary’s sins on the cross:

Simeon therefore prophesies about Mary herself, that when standing by the cross, and beholding what is being done, and hearing the voices, after the witness of Gabriel, after her secret knowledge of the divine conception, after the great exhibition of miracles, she shall feel about her soul a mighty tempest. The Lord was bound to taste of death for every man — to become a propitiation for the world and to justify all men by His own blood. Even you yourself, who hast been taught from on high the things concerning the Lord, shall be reached by some doubt. This is the sword. (Basil, Letter 260.9)

Contrary to what Pius IX would define, Basil has Mary healed of her sins after Jesus’ death on the cross, not “in the first instance of her conception.” As Basil has it, only “after the offense at the Cross of Christ” did “a certain swift healing … come from the Lord … to Mary herself” (Basil, Letter 260.9).

Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300 – 360 AD)

Hilary of Poitiers, the historians reluctantly acknowledge, has Mary facing the severity of God’s judgment:

“A sword will pierce the soul of blessed Mary, so that the thoughts of many hearts might be laid bare. If this Virgin, made capable of conceiving God, will encounter the severity of his judgment, who will dare to desire this judgment?” (Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus in Ps 118; Patrologia Latina Volume 9 p. 523)

This is the same Hilary who taught that Christ was unique in this way: that His conception alone was immaculate:

For Christ had indeed a body, but unique, as befitted His origin. He did not come into existence through the passions incident to human conception: He came into the form of our body by an act of His own power. He bore our collective humanity in the form of a servant, but He was free from the sins and imperfections of the human body: that we might be in Him, because He was born of the Virgin, and yet our faults might not be in Him, because He is the source of His own humanity, born as man but not born under the defects of human conception. … though He was formed in fashion as a man, He knew not what sin was. For His conception was in the likeness of our nature, not in the possession of our faults.”(Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, Book X, chapter 25).

Rome’s argument is that Mary being the source of Christ’s humanity, must of necessity be sinless to give birth to a sinless Savior. Hilary was not so inclined. He simply assumed Mary was sinful, but that “our faults” were not in Him because He was “the source of His own humanity.” Elsewhere, Hilary wrote that Mary’s womb was hallowed by the Spirit at Jesus’ conception (not at Mary’s), and that by His conception, Jesus took on human flesh, “that through this commingling there might come into being a hallowed Body of all humanity” (Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, Book II, chapters 24 – 26). It was Jesus’ body, as it turns out, not Mary’s, that enjoyed the distinction of the first and only immaculate conception, and was the first “hallowed Body” in history.

John Chrysostom (c. 349 – 407 AD)

Commenting on John 2:1-11, Chrysostom has Jesus rebuking Mary, reproving her for her unseasonable questions and “correcting her weakness,” by which rebuke “He both healed the disease of vainglory, and rendered the due honor to His mother” (John Chrysostom, Homilies in Matthew, Homily 44.3). Commenting on the same passage, as well as John 17:4 and Matthew 12:48, Chrysostom has Mary attempting “to render herself more conspicuous” and “desiring to gain credit from His miracles,” wrongly believing according to custom that it was hers “to direct Him in all things, when she ought to have reverenced and worshipped Him” (John Chrysostom, Homilies in John, Homily 21.2). When He corrected her error, “instructing her for the future not to do the like,” He still showed her respect, yet nevertheless “He cared much more for the salvation of her soul” than for her feelings (John Chrysostom, Homilies in John, Homily 21.3).

Continuing in Matthew, Chrysostom berated her for her vanity and her pride:

For in fact that which she [Mary] had [tried] to do, was of superfluous vanity; in that she wanted to show the people that she has power and authority over her Son, imagining not as yet anything great concerning Him; whence also her unseasonable approach. See at all events both her self-confidence and theirs. Since when they ought to have gone in, and listened with the multitude; or if they were not so minded, to have waited for His bringing His discourse to an end, and then to have come near; they call Him out, and do this before all, evincing a superfluous vanity, and wishing to make it appear, that with much authority they enjoin Him. (John Chrysostom, Homilies in Matthew, Homily 44, 1).

All her obedience as a handmaiden of the Lord was for nought, Chrysostom preached, if she lacked simple virtue. Commenting on the same passage in Matthew, he wrote,

… but today we learn in addition another thing, that even to have borne Christ in the womb, and to have brought forth that marvellous birth, has no profit, if there be not virtue. (John Chrysostom, Homilies in Matthew, Homily 44, 1).

In one of the most stunning retroactive character assassinations in history, Chrysostom, wondered, then answered, why the angel advised Joseph after Mary had conceived but addressed Mary before she had conceived. Far from Rome’s novel claim that Gabriel had come to ask Mary’s permission for God to be incarnated, Chrysostom had a much simpler answer, but no less stunning for its simplicity: if Mary had not been advised in advance, she might have contemplated suicide, killing not only herself, but her unborn Son with her:

Why then, it may be asked, did he not so in the Virgin’s case also, and declare the good tidings to her after the conception? Lest she should be in agitation and great trouble. For it were likely that she, not knowing the certainty, might have even devised something amiss touching herself, and have gone on to strangle or to stab herself, not enduring the disgrace.  … Now she who was of such perfect delicacy would even have been distracted with dismay at the thought of her shame, not expecting, by whatever she might say, to convince any one who should hear of it, but that what had happened was adultery. Therefore to prevent these things, the angel came before the conception. (Chrysostom, Homilies in Matthew, Homily 4.9)

Suicide, as Roman Catholics well know, is considered by the Church to be a grave moral offense, but orchestrating the murder of the Savior, orders of magnitude more so! The significance of Chrysostom’s characterization of Mary here is that if she were sinless, and completely free of concupiscence, then there should have been no danger of suicide, and Gabriel would have had no need “to prevent” Mary from “devising something amiss.” Yet as written, Chrysostom’s words show that he believed that if Gabriel had not taken countermeasures, Mary may well have killed herself, and the Christ child with her!

They Believed Mary Lost Her Virginity in Childbirth

Tertullian (160 – 225 AD)

The ancient Gnostics denied the incarnation, and therefore, without a body, Jesus’ birth would not have been a natural delivery. Tertullian was aghast: “he who represented the flesh of Christ to be imaginary was equally able to pass off His nativity as a phantom.”  If the Gnostics were right, the entire childhood narrative in the Scriptures was a lie: “so that the virgin’s conception, and pregnancy, and child-bearing, and then the whole course of her infant too, would have to be regarded as putative” (Tertullian, The Flesh of Christ, paragraph 1). To counter the argument, Tertullian insisted rather that Jesus’ birth had been normal, precisely because Christ’s flesh had been real, and therefore that Mary was a virgin until the Christ child physically opened her womb. At that moment her virginity ended:

… although she was a virgin when she conceived, she was a wife when she brought forth her son. … But it is marriage which opens the womb in all cases. … [S]he was “a virgin,” so far as (abstinence) from a husband went, and “yet not a virgin,” as regards her bearing a child. … Indeed she ought rather to be called not a virgin than a virgin, becoming a mother at a leap, as it were, before she was a wife. … Since it was in this sense that the apostle declared that the Son of God was born not of a virgin, but of a woman, he in that statement recognised the condition of the opened womb which ensues in marriage. (Tertullian, The Flesh of Christ, chapter 23)

Indeed, in describing His natural delivery, no detail was too graphic to be omitted, so invested was Tertullian in the full implications of the Incarnation. Indignant at the Gnostic assault on the Incarnation, he challenged them to speak plainly about their rejection of Christ’s natural delivery:

… it remains for you to repudiate and censure [a human body] as unworthy of Him. Come now, beginning from the nativity itself, declaim against the uncleanness of the generative elements within the womb, the filthy concretion of fluid and blood, of the growth of the flesh for nine months long out of that very mire. Describe the womb as it enlarges from day to day, heavy, troublesome, restless even in sleep, changeful in its feelings of dislike and desire. Inveigh now likewise against the shame itself of a woman in travail which, however, ought rather to be honoured in consideration of that peril, or to be held sacred in respect of (the mystery of) nature. (Tertullian, The Flesh of Christ, 4)

Origen (185 – 254 AD)

Like Tertullian, Origen argued that a woman’s virginity is normally lost through intercourse with a man, but Mary’s was lost through natural childbirth:

In the case of every other woman, it is not the birth of an infant but intercourse with a man that opens the womb. But the womb of the Lord’s mother was opened at the time when her offspring was brought forth …  (Origen, Homilies on Luke, Homily 14, paragraphs 7-8).

Eusebius (c. 260 – 340 AD)

Marvelling at the sufferings Christ endured at the Cross, Eusebius understood that the crucifixion was “no worse” than the tortures he had endured as He exited Mary’s virginal womb:

Such, then, was His prayer concerning the affliction that overtook Him. And since He knew that His original union with our flesh, and His birth of a woman that was a Virgin was no worse experience than the suffering of death. (Eusebius, Demonstration of the Gospel, Book X, Chapter 8 (c. 311))

That nativity, marvelous though it was, carried with it all the natural effects of the fall, painful for both mother and Child. He continued:

“For just as Thou wert My Succour,” He says, “when I took the body of man, when Thou, my God and Father, like a midwife didst draw the body that had been prepared for Me by the Holy Spirit from My travailing mother…”

Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300 – 360 AD)

As is evident from Hilary’s insistence on the shame Christ endured on our behalf, to embrace the Incarnation is to embrace all of its humiliations, including “common childbirth”:

Thus the invisible Image of God scorned not the shame which marks the beginnings of human life. He passed through every stage; through conception, birth, wailing, cradle and each successive humiliation. … He Who upholds the universe, within Whom and through Whom are all things, was brought forth by common childbirth; He at Whose voice Archangels and Angels tremble, and heaven and earth and all the elements of this world are melted, was heard in childish wailing. (Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, Book II, chapters 24 – 25)

John Chrysostom (c. 349 – 407 AD)

To Chrysostom, even men qualify for the title “Mother of Jesus,” for Jesus had said as much in His preaching: “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my … mother” (John 12:50). Thus, even men who obeyed Jesus’ words were considered superior to Mary. Indeed, not even her own birth pangs in childbirth could rob a man of that title:

For behold, He has marked out a spacious road for us; and it is granted not to women only, but to men also, to be of this rank, or rather of one yet far higher. For this makes one His mother much more, than those pangs did. So that if that were a subject for blessing, much more this, inasmuch as it is also more real.”(John Chrysostom, Homilies in Matthew, Homily 44, 2)

Jerome (342-420 AD)

In a widely circulated letter, Helvidius of Rome insisted that Christ’s delivery had been perfectly natural, and if there be no disgrace in that, then there ought be none in her physical union with Joseph thereafter. In fact, he wrote, it was inconsistent to affirm Christ’s natural delivery (as his detractors did) while also maintaining that Mary’s physical union with Joseph would have been a “disgrace”:

[A]re we bound to blush at the thought of Mary having a husband after she was delivered? If they find any disgrace in this, they ought not consistently even to believe that God was born of the Virgin by natural delivery. For according to them there is more dishonour in a virgin giving birth to God by the organs of generation, than in a virgin being joined to her own husband after she has been delivered. (Jerome, Against Helvidius, paragraph 20)

Jerome, who believed Joseph and Mary had not consummated their marriage, responded (383 AD) in indignation at the accusation of inconsistency. Christ’s natural delivery was not only to be affirmed, he responded, but also that its “humiliations” ought rather inspire us to deeper devotion:

 “Add, if you like, Helvidius, the other humiliations of nature, the womb for nine months growing larger, the sickness, the delivery, the blood, the swaddling-clothes. Picture to yourself the infant in the enveloping membranes. Introduce into your picture the hard manger, the wailing of the infant, the circumcision on the eighth day, the time of purification, so that he may be proved to be unclean. We do not blush, we are not put to silence. The greater the humiliations He endured for me, the more I owe Him. And when you have given every detail, you will be able to produce nothing more shameful than the cross, which we confess, in which we believe, and by which we triumph over our enemies..” (Jerome, Against Helvidius, paragraph 20)

Ten years later, Jerome succumbed to the times and reversed course, not only insisting that Mary maintained her physical virginity in childbirth, but so convinced of it that he was under no obligation to defend it! (Jerome (393 A.D.) Epistle 48 to Pammachius, 21). But in his initial exchange with Helvidius, the ancient and longstanding embrace of Christ’s natural delivery is apparent, as also evident in Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, Hilary and Chrysostom.

They did not Believe Mary was Ark of the New Covenant

Since Roman Catholicism sees in the Ark of the Covenant objects that prefigure Christ — the manna and the tables of Stone —they therefore see in Mary a “New Ark”, holy and pure and untouchable as the Old, holding within her for nine months the Bread of Heaven and the Word of the Father. But the ancient writers actually understood the Ark of the Covenant to prefigure Christ, not Mary.

Irenæus (c. 130 – c. 202 AD)

Irenæus taught that the Ark referred to Christ’s body:

For as the ark was gilded within and without with pure gold, so was also the body of Christ pure and resplendent…  in order that from both [materials] the splendour of the natures might be clearly shown forth. (Irenæus, Fragments, Fragment 8)

This particular citation is attributed to Irenæus by Leontius of Byzantium (c. 600 AD), but because Leontius does not mention which of Irenæus’ works he was citing (Schaff, Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus, Fragment 8, n1,  AnteNicene Fathers, Volume 1), we cannot certify the authenticity of the reference. In any case, based on teaching of those who came after him, including his own disciple, Hippolytus, it is certainly not an anachronism.

Tertullian (160 – 225 AD)

Tertullian taught that Christ’s apostles were foreshadowed by the twelve stones “set up for the ark of the covenant.” “To him will appertain the event in whom is discovered the preparation for the same” (Tertullian, Against Marcion, Book IV, chapter 13). The twelve stones erected for the Ark thus prepared, by way of type, for the twelve apostles selected by Christ.

Elsewhere, Tertullian mentions that “the ark of the testament,” along with the tabernacle, altar and candlestick “were figures of us (for we are temples of God, and altars, and lights, and sacred vessels)” (Tertullian, De Corona, chapter 9).

Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235 A.D) 

The Ark of the New Covenant, according to Hippolytus (disciple of Irenæus) was Jesus Christ Himself, the imperishable wood of the Ark signifying His body:

And, moreover, the ark made of imperishable wood was the Saviour Himself. For by this was signified the imperishable and incorruptible tabernacle of (the Lord) Himself, which gendered no corruption of sin. For the sinner, indeed, makes this confession: ‘My wounds stank, and were corrupt, because of my foolishness.’ But the Lord was without sin, made of imperishable wood, as regards His humanity; that is, of the virgin and the Holy Ghost inwardly, and outwardly of the word of God, like an ark overlaid with purest gold. (Hippolytus, Fragments, On the Psalms, Oration on ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’)

And that the Saviour appeared in the world, bearing the imperishable ark, His own body… (Hippolytus, Fragments, of the visions of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, 6).

Victorinus (270 – 310 A.D.)

When Victorinus interpreted Revelation 11:19, instead of seeing Mary’s assumption prefigured by the Ark in the heavenly temple (as Roman Catholics do), he saw instead the contents of that Ark to be the preaching of the Gospel and Christ’s ministry of reconciliation. Here he implies that Christ Himself was the new Ark, for it contained the gifts “that came with Him”:

“And there was seen in His temple the ark of the Lord’s testament.” The preaching of the Gospel and the forgiveness of sins, and all the gifts whatever that came with Him, he says, appeared therein.” (Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse, from the eleventh chapter)

Gregory Nazianzen (329 – 390 A.D.)

Gregory taught that when Christ was conceived in Mary, the Ark had finally arrived, or come to rest, which makes the Ark to signify Christ’s body, rather than Mary’s:

Now then I pray you accept His Conception, and leap before Him; if not like John from the womb, [Luke 1:41] yet like David, because of the resting of the Ark. (Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 38, On the Theophany, paragraph 17).

Ambrose (340 – 397 A.D.)

Ambrose uses the image of David dancing before the Ark as a figure for the way we should honor Christ:

But the dancing is commended which David practiced before the ark of God. For everything is seemly which is done for religion, so that we need be ashamed of no service which tends to the worship and honouring of Christ. (Ambrose, On Repentance, Book II, chapter 42)

John Chrysostom (349 – 407 A.D.)

Lamenting the sin of Theodore, Chrysostom has Christ signified by the Ark within the “temple” of Theodore’s soul:

in proportion as the pledges deposited in your soul were far more precious than those. This temple is holier than that; for it glistened not with gold and silver, but with the grace of the Spirit, and in place of the ark and the cherubim, it had Christ, and His Father, and the Paraclete seated within. (Chrysostom, Two Exhortations to Theodore After His Fall, Letter I, paragraph 1)

John Cassian (360 – 435 AD)

Cassian uses the figure of the Ark to refer to the heart of the Christian who meditates on the Scripture:

Next you must by all means strive to get rid of all anxiety and worldly thoughts, and give yourself over assiduously or rather continuously, to sacred reading, until continual meditation fills your heart, and fashions you so to speak after its own likeness, making of it, in a way, an ark of the testimony, [Hebrews 9:4-5] which has within it two tables of stone, i.e., the constant assurance of the two testaments; and a golden pot, i.e., a pure and undefiled memory which preserves by a constant tenacity the manna stored up in it, i.e., the enduring and heavenly sweetness of the spiritual sense and the bread of angels; moreover also the rod of Aaron, i.e., the saving standard of Jesus Christ our true High Priest, that ever buds with the freshness of immortal memory. (John Cassian, Conferences, Conference 14, chapter 10)

Theodoret of Cyrrhus (393 – 458 A.D.)

In his Dialogues, citing Hippolytus authoritatively, Theodoret indicates that the Ark foreshadowed Christ:

Testimony of the Holy Hippolytus, Bishop and Martyr, from his discourse on The Lord is my Shepherd: “An ark of incorruptible wood was the Saviour Himself, for the incorruptibility and indestructibility of His Tabernacle signified its producing no corruption of sin.” (Theodoret, Dialogues, Dialogue 1)

Cyril of Alexandria (412 – 444 A.D.)

Cyril states plainly that the ark signifies Christ:

The ark then, Pallas, I feel, is the image and symbol of Christ.”(Cyril of Alexandria, de Adoratione in Spiritu et Veritate, Book 9 (Migne, Patrologia Graeca, 68, col. 597-598)

Emmanuel, God-with-us, is presented in figure and image when scripture says: “And you will place the ark of the testimony in the tabernacle and cover it with the veil.” [Exodus 40:3] …  Then even the ark itself was a symbol of him. (Cyril of Alexandria, In Joannis Evangelium, Book IV, (Migne, P.G. 73, col. 619-622))

Pope Gregory the Great (540 – 604 A.D.)

To Gregory, the plain significance of the Ark was the teaching ministry of the Church:

Gentleness … mingled with severity … is well signified by that ark of the tabernacle, in which, together with the tables, there as a rod and manna; because, if with knowledge of sacred Scripture in the good ruler’s breast there is the rod of constraint, there should be also the manna of sweetness. (Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule, Book II, chapter 6)

What but the holy Church is figured by the ark? To which four rings of gold in the four corners are ordered to be adjoined, because, in that it is thus extended towards the four quarters of the globe, it is declared undoubtedly to be equipped for journeying with the four books of the holy Gospel. (Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule, Book II, chapter 11)

For what is the priestly heart but the ark of the covenant? And since spiritual doctrine retains its vigour therein, without doubt the tables of the law are lying in it. (Gregory the Great, Register of Letters, Book VIII, Letter 30)

They did not Believe Mary was the Mother of God

Theotokos

Other attempts to find “Mother of God” in the ancient texts are even more fruitless. Hippolytus, ostensibly dated to 217 AD, is alleged to have written that the prophets foresaw “the advent of God in the flesh to the world, His advent by the spotless and God-bearing Mary (Θεοτόκου Μαρίας).” (Pseudo-Hippolytus, Discourse on the End of the World, 1; Migne, P.G. X, 905). However, the work is known to be spurious, a late seventh century product of a “pseudo” Hippolytus who had adapted the real Hippolytus’ Discourse On Antichrist. It is hardly evidence of an early use of the term, and we need not pursue it any further.

It is notable how careful these early writers were to distinguish between His progenitor in relation to His divinity and His progenitrix in relation to His humanity.  The term Theotokos was used to establish and maintain that bright line distinction.