New Eve

The tree of death and of life in the Salzburg Missal: Eve gives the representatives of the old covenant the fruit that brings sin and death from the tree of paradise. Mary, on the other hand, gives the faith hosts, the bread of life.

The New Eve (Latin: Nova Eva) is a devotional title for Mary, the mother of Jesus. Since the second century, numerous Eastern and Western Church Fathers have expressed this doctrinal idea of the new Eve as an analogy to the biblical concept of the New Adam in Jesus. The belief that Mary has a unique and necessary participation in the economy of salvation is expressed in the doctrine, particularly her faith at the annunciation of the archangel Gabriel, which facilitates the incarnation of Jesus Christ and human redemption.

Quotes

• The mutual relationship between the mystery of the Church and Mary appears clearly in the "great portent" described in the Book of Revelation: "A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (12:1). In this sign the Church recognizes an image of her own mystery: present in history, she knows that she transcends history, inasmuch as she constitutes on earth the "seed and beginning" of the Kingdom of God. 139 The Church sees this mystery fulfilled in complete and exemplary fashion in Mary. She is the woman of glory in whom God's plan could be carried out with supreme perfection.
  The "woman clothed with the sun"-the Book of Revelation tells us-"was with child" (12:2). The Church is fully aware that she bears within herself the Saviour of the world, Christ the Lord. She is aware that she is called to offer Christ to the world, giving men and women new birth into God's own life. But the Church cannot forget that her mission was made possible by the motherhood of Mary, who conceived and bore the One who is "God from God", "true God from true God". Mary is truly the Mother of God, the Theotokos, in whose motherhood the vocation to motherhood bestowed by God on every woman is raised to its highest level. Thus Mary becomes the model of the Church, called to be the "new Eve", the mother of believers, the mother of the "living" (cf. Gen 3:20).

• John Paul II, “Encyclical Evangelium vitae”, (March 25, 1995), 103; Archived October 27, 2014, at the Wayback Machine.

• Eve was condemned to sadness, to tears, to the pains of childbirth, to death, for having lent her ear to the evil suggestions of the hostile serpent; and it was just. But how would this blessed Virgin who has shown herself obedient to God, how would this Virgin united in all her being to God become the prey of death and the prisoner of the tomb?

• Saint John of Damascus, In dormit., Hom. II, 3, PG, 96, 728. As reported in Joseph Duhr, SJ, The Glorious Assumption of the Mother of God, translated by John Manning Frances, SJ, Pç.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, June 1950 (with nihil obstat by John M.A. Fearns, S.T.D., and imprimatur by Cardinal Francis Spellman given on September 18, 1950), p. 31 (of 153).

• The First-born of the Father is born of the Virgin, in order that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same manner in which it had originated. For Eve, an undefiled virgin, conceived word of the serpent, and brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary, filled with faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced to her the good tidings that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her, and therefore the Only One born of her would be the Son of God, she answered: "Be it done unto me according to thy word" (Lk. 1:35). And, indeed, she gave birth to Him, concerning whom we have shown so many passages of Scripture were written, and by whom God destroys both the serpent and those angels and men who have become like the serpent, but frees from death those who repent of their sins and believe in Christ.

• St. Justin Martyr (c. 155), Dialogue with Trypho, in PG 6. 709-712; tr. T.B. Falls, FC, St. Justin Martyr [New York, 1948], pp. 304-305. As reported in Father Paul Palmer, SJ, Mary in the Documents of the Church, pp. 11-12 (of 129), Lowe and Brydone (printers) Ltd, London L.W. 10, for Burns Oates and Washbourne Ltd, 28 Ashley Place, London, S.W.I. (with nihil obstat by E.A Cerny, S.S, D.D., and imprimatur by Franciscus P. Keough, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore, given on 23 November 1951). OCLC 3286267.

• For as Eve was seduced by the word of an angel to avoid God after she had disobeyed His word, so Mary, by the word of an angel, had the glad tidings delivered to the her that she might bear God, obeying His word. And whereas the former had disobbeyed God, yet the latter was persuaded to obey God in order that the Virgin Mary might be the advocate of the virgin Eve.

And as the human race was sentenced to death by means of a virgin [Eve], it is set aright by means of a virgin [Mary]. The balance is restored to equilibrium: a virgin's disobedience is saved by a virgin's obedience. For while the sin of the first man was emended by the correction of the First-born, the guile of the serpent was overcome by the simplicity of the dove [Mary], and we were set free from those chains by which we had been bound to death.

• Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, 5, 19, 1 (Harvey 2, 376; PG 7, 1175-1176). As reported in Father Paul Palmer, SJ, Mary in the Documents of the Church, pp. 13-14 (of 129), Lowe and Brydone (printers) Ltd, London L.W. 10, for Burns Oates and Washbourne Ltd, 28 Ashley Place, London, S.W.I. (with nihil obstat by E.A Cerny, S.S, D.D., and imprimatur by Franciscus P. Keough, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore, given on 23 November 1951). OCLC 3286267.

• For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had crept the Devil's word, the framer of death. Equally, into a virgin was introduced God's Word, the builder of life; so that what had been lost throught one sex might by the same sex be restored and saved.

Eve had believed the serpent, Mary had believed Gabriel. The fault which one committed by believing, by believing the other emended.

"But Eve at that moment conceived nothing in her womb from the DEvil's word!". Ah, but she did conceive. For her the word of the Devil was seed, that she might from that time forth give birth as an outcast, in sorrow give birth. As a consequence, she gave birth to a devil, his brother's murderer.

Mary, on the contrary, bore Him who was one day to save Israel, His own brother according to the flesh, His murderer. God, therefore, sent down into the Virgin's womb His Word, our good Brother, to blot out the memory of that evil brother.

• Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ, 17 (CSEL, 70, 233 (Vienna Academy; Vienna, 1866 ff). As reported in Father Paul Palmer, SJ, Mary in the Documents of the Church, pp. 14 (of 129), Lowe and Brydone (printers) Ltd, London L.W. 10, for Burns Oates and Washbourne Ltd, 28 Ashley Place, London, S.W.I. (with nihil obstat by E.A Cerny, S.S, D.D., and imprimatur by Franciscus P. Keough, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore, given on 23 November 1951). OCLC 3286267.

See also

• Adam and Eve
• Original sin
• Mother of the Church
• Co-Redemptrix
• Mediatrix of all graces
• Queen of Heaven