Whose Heel Is It Anyway?

 

To My Readers: For the first time since COVID, I'm away on business. Thankfully, my wonderful guest poster, A Simple Man, is filling in with one of his always enjoyable, educational, and edifying posts! I will respond to all comments when I have a few moments, but it may take me a little longer than normal this week.  A Simple Man will also respond as he always does, so please be patient with me! I will be back with my next post in the "When Strangers Come Knocking" series on May 3, 2021--the month dedicated to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.

God bless you all, my dear readers---Introibo

Whose Heel Is It Anyway?

By A Simple Man

Of the many Scriptural passages ascribed by the Catholic Church to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her capacity as the Mother of Our Lord, few are more memorable than the passage from Genesis 3:14-15, wherein God – in an act of His Divine Omniscience – proclaims what will happen to the Devil because of his role in the Fall of Man: “And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” (Douay-Rheims, retrieved on March 9, 2021 from drbo.org)

However, if one were to investigate other translations (Protestant or otherwise), they would show a certain change of emphasis for Genesis 3:15 (bold is emphasis mine; all subsequent citations were retrieved on March 9, 2021 from biblegateway.com):

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (New International Version)

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.” (New American Bible, Revised Edition)

“I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (King James Version)

“[:] and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (American Standard Version)

“I will put contempt between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. They will strike your head, but you will strike at their heels.” (Common English Bible)

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (English Standard Version)

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Revised Standard Version)

“I shall set enmities betwixt thee and the woman, and betwixt thy seed and her seed; she shall break thine head, and thou shalt set ambushes to her heel.” (Wycliffe Bible)

This naturally leads to a sensible question: whose heel is God talking about? Whose heel shall crush the head of the serpent?

First, some background. Per the old Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on the Blessed Virgin Mary, we have the following citation (bracketed footnotes have been redacted): 

The Old Testament refers to Our Blessed Lady both in its prophecies and its types or figures.

Genesis 3:15 

The first prophecy referring to Mary is found in the very opening chapters of the Book of Genesis (3:15): "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." This rendering appears to differ in two respects from the original Hebrew text:

(1) First, the Hebrew text employs the same verb for the two renderings "she shall crush" and "thou shalt lie in wait"; the Septuagint renders the verb both times by terein, to lie in wait; Aquila, Symmachus, the Syriac and the Samaritan translators, interpret the Hebrew verb by expressions which mean to crush, to bruise; the Itala renders the terein employed in the Septuagint by the Latin "servare", to guard; St. Jerome maintains that the Hebrew verb has the meaning of "crushing" or "bruising" rather than of "lying in wait", "guarding". Still in his own work, which became the Latin Vulgate, the saint employs the verb "to crush" (conterere) in the first place, and "to lie in wait" (insidiari) in the second. Hence the punishment inflicted on the serpent and the serpent's retaliation are expressed by the same verb: but the wound of the serpent is mortal, since it affects his head, while the wound inflicted by the serpent is not mortal, being inflicted on the heel.

(2) The second point of difference between the Hebrew text and our version concerns the agent who is to inflict the mortal wound on the serpent: our version agrees with the present Vulgate text in reading "she" (ipsa) which refers to the woman, while the Hebrew text reads hu' (autos, ipse) which refers to the seed of the woman. According to our version, and the Vulgate reading, the woman herself will win the victory; according to the Hebrew text, she will be victorious through her seed. In this sense does the Bull "Ineffabilis" ascribe the victory to Our Blessed Lady. The reading "she" (ipsa) is neither an intentional corruption of the original text, nor is it an accidental error; it is rather an explanatory version expressing explicitly the fact of Our Lady's part in the victory over the serpent, which is contained implicitly in the Hebrew original. The strength of the Christian tradition as to Mary's share in this victory may be inferred from the retention of "she" in St. Jerome's version in spite of his acquaintance with the original text and with the reading "he" (ipse) in the old Latin version.

As it is quite commonly admitted that the Divine judgment is directed not so much against the serpent as against the originator of sin, the seed of the serpent denotes the followers of the serpent, the "brood of vipers", the "generation of vipers", those whose father is the Devil, the children of evil, imitando, non nascendo (Augustine). One may be tempted to understand the seed of the woman in a similar collective sense, embracing all who are born of God. But seed not only may denote a particular person, but has such a meaning usually, if the context allows it. St. Paul (Galatians 3:16) gives this explanation of the word "seed" as it occurs in the patriarchal promises: "To Abraham were the promises made and to his seed. He saith not, and to his seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to his seed, which is Christ". Finally the expression "the woman" in the clause "I will put enmities between thee and the woman" is a literal version of the Hebrew text. The Hebrew Grammar of Gesenius-Kautzsch establishes the rule: Peculiar to the Hebrew is the use of the article in order to indicate a person or thing, not yet known and not yet to be more clearly described, either as present or as to be taken into account under the contextual conditions. Since our indefinite article serves this purpose, we may translate: "I will put enmities between you and a woman". Hence the prophecy promises a woman, Our Blessed Lady, who will be the enemy of the serpent to a marked degree; besides, the same woman will be victorious over the Devil, at least through her offspring. The completeness of the victory is emphasized by the contextual phrase "earth shall thou eat", which is according to Winckler a common old-oriental expression denoting the deepest humiliation. 

However, no less an authority than St. Irenaeus of Lyons utilizes the masculine verbiage in his famous book Against Heresies; in two particular sections, this Early Church Father writes as follows (English translation and punctuation is as cited from New Advent; bold is emphasis mine):

“The Lord, indeed, sowed good seed in His own field; and He says, "The field is the world. " But while men slept, the enemy came, and "sowed tares in the midst of the wheat, and went his way." Matthew 13:28 Hence we learn that this was the apostate angel and the enemy, because he was envious of God's workmanship, and took in hand to render this [workmanship] an enmity with God. For this cause also God has banished from His presence him who did of his own accord stealthily sow the tares, that is, him who brought about the transgression; but He took compassion upon man, who, through want of care no doubt, but still wickedly [on the part of another], became involved in disobedience; and He turned the enmity by which [the devil] had designed to make [man] the enemy of God, against the author of it, by removing His own anger from man, turning it in another direction, and sending it instead upon the serpent. As also the Scripture tells us that God said to the serpent, "And I will place enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." Genesis 3:15 And the Lord summed up in Himself this enmity, when He was made man from a woman, and trod upon his [the serpent's] head, as I have pointed out in the preceding book.” —(Paragraph 3, Chapter 40, Book IV)

“[Christ] has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as you can perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for (observabit ) your head, and you on the watch for His heel." Genesis 3:15 For from that time, He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. This is the seed of which the apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians, "that the law of works was established until the seed should come to whom the promise was made." Galatians 3:19 This fact is exhibited in a still clearer light in the same Epistle, where he thus speaks: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." Galatians 4:4 For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of a woman who conquered him. For it was by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first, setting himself up as man's opponent. And therefore does the Lord profess Himself to be the Son of man, comprising in Himself that original man out of whom the woman was fashioned (ex quo ea quæ secundum mulierem est plasmatio facta est), in order that, as our species went down to death through a vanquished man, so we may ascend to life again through a victorious one; and as through a man death received the palm [of victory] against us, so again by a man we may receive the palm against death.” —(Paragraph 1, Chapter 21, Book V)

Does this imply a true discrepancy exists between the Patristic Tradition and later biblical exegesis? By no means.

It is to our great fortune that a great deal of legwork has been done already.

Richard F. Quigley was a Catholic layman, a Knight of Columbus, and Canadian barrister-at-law (with an LL. B. [i.e. a Bachelor of Legal Letters, an undergraduate law degree still in use in common law jurisdictions worldwide, though it has largely been phased out of the USA in favor of the J.D. degree] from Harvard and Boston Universities; a Doctor of Philosophy degree from “Leo XIII” [which is how his alma mater is referred to in the materials I’ve been able to find. Given the status of pontifical schools in North America in the late 19^th century, this probably refers to either the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, OH, to the College of Ottawa {now known as Saint Paul University} in Canada, or to the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., as all three received their charters during the pontificate of Leo XIII. However, I am open to correction on this matter]; and a D.Lit [i.e. a Doctor of Letters] from Laval University) who had attended a lecture (in late 1887) on the subject of copyist errors and misprints in historical documents by the Anglican bishop Hollingworth Tully Kingdon, of Fredericton, New Brunswick. When the lecture was reported on in the November 23, 1887 edition of the St. John Globe (a local Canadian newspaper that ran from 1866 – 1927 before merging with another paper, and still continues today as the Saint John Times Globe), Mr. Quigley – before he had received either of his doctorate degrees – submitted a Letter to the Editor regarding their report, criticizing Dr. Kingdon’s historical errors and his misapprehension of Catholic dogma regarding the Immaculate Conception.

What ensued from that was a series of back-and-forth letters, largely between R.F. Quigley and an Anglican priest by the name of John M. Davenport. These letters, and the arguments assembled by Mr. Quigley, were eventually compiled and published in 1890 by Fr. Pustet & Company as IPSE, IPSA: Ipse, Ipsa, Ipsum: Which? (The Latin Various Readings, Genesis iii. 15.). Controversial Letters in answer to the above question, and in Vindication of the Position assigned by the Catholic Church to the Ever-Blessed Mother of the World’s Redeemer in the Divine Economy of Man’s Salvation, IN REPLY TO the Right Reverend Dr. Kingdon, Coadjutor (Anglican) Bishop of Fredericton, New Brunswick, and “John M. Davenport, Priest of the Mission Church,” Ritualist Minister, St. John, New Brunswick. (Quite the mouthful!)

However, so thorough and comprehensive was R.F. Quigley’s treatment that a second edition was published in 1892 under the new title Mary, the Mother of Christ in Prophecy and its Fulfilment, with a third edition being published in 1907 [ASM’s note: I’ve been unsuccessful in finding an online copy of the third edition (I should have a physical copy by the end of March 2021), but the first edition and second edition have online scans available in the public domain]. This work did not escape the eyes of the various Catholic journals in America, who spoke of the book in rather glowing terms: 

BOOK REVIEW. IPSE, IPSA: IPSE, IPSA, IPSUM: WHICH? By Richard F. Quigley, LL. B., (Harvard and Boston Universities), Barrister at Law, St. John, New Brunswick, Canada.

This is a remarkable book. Remarkable as a specimen of uncompromising polemics, but more remarkable as a most lucid exposition of a well-known subject of theological controversy in which its author displays an astonishing amount of erudition in view of the fact that he is not an ecclesiastic, but a lawyer.

The book is composed, chiefly, of letters to the St. John Globe by Mr. Quigley and the Rev. John M. Davenport, a Ritualistic minister of that city. These letters were occasioned by “a lecture on ‘Misprints,’ delivered by the Right Reverend Dr. Kingdon, Coadjutor Bishop of Fredericton, New Brunswick.” That is to say the Protestant Bishop of St. John.


…Whoever reads the volume—and we are sure that few can read it without adding materially to their knowledge—will, doubtless, be impressed with the severity of language which Mr. Quigley applies to his opponent, and it may be that some will regret it. But this must be said in justice to Mr. Quigley. He is answering a man who calls himself a “Catholic priest,” and who uses the most outrageously insulting and disrespectful language of her who is to every true Catholic the first of all created beings.

Again, as Mr. Quigley so well says—“there is one obligation of honesty and decorum imposed on a Catholic and quite another on a Protestant.”

But, after all, all that is personal in the book is only accidental, and about its substance nothing can be said that is not in praise.

As an answer to Protestant objections to “extravagant language” about our Lady, it is complete. As a vindication of the belief in the Immaculate Conception, it is exhaustive.

Mr. Quigley’s style is, always, clear and cogent, and often he is eloquent. Space forbids much indulgence in detail here, but there are a few lines so beautiful, and so full of meaning that we can not forego to quote them. They occur at the bottom of p. 261 and are “I am, of course, aware that there are several of the ordinary, ridiculous objections to what I have just said, but they vanish if only looked at. It may, for instance, be said that a person loves the Blessed Mary too much if he loves her more than he loves God. Not at all. He sins very grievously, but not from his excess of love for her (he cannot possibly love her enough), but from his want of love for God. Or it may be said that a person who feels sure that the Mother of God will obtain from her Son the pardon of his sins, however careless he may be of his own salvation, has too much confidence in her intercession. By no means; he is guilty of the sin of presumption, precisely in the same way as if he hoped that God Himself would pardon him whether he repented or not. No one would, in the latter case, say that he had too much confidence in God’s power—which would mean that God’s power was less than he estimated it.”


It is with extreme reluctance that we abstain from indicating more in detail the many evidences that the book presents of Mr. Quigley’s knowledge of this sublime subject, and of the scholarly treatment that it receives at his hands.

To give it what it merits is to read it from beginning to end…

(Source: Fr. Pustet & Co., New York & Cincinnati. (1891) The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. V. pp. 231-233. Italics in original. Retrieved March 9, 2021 from Google Books)

[ASM’s note: all subsequent reviews cited are of the third edition, published in 1907.]

“Mary the Mother of Christ.” […] This valuable work is make [recte made] up of controversial letters vindicating the position assigned by the Catholic Church to the Ever-Blessed Mother of the world’s Redeemer in the divine economy of man’s salvation…[The original letter to St. John’s Globe] gives rise to an interesting correspondence of about 500 pages wherein Dr. Quigley tears to tatters the weak arguments of his opponents…The reader, we feel sure, will get from these letters a full and complete idea of the whole controversy. Catholics and fair-minded Protestants will find this volume most helpful and instructive. (Source: (May 1907) The Sacred Heart Review, Vol. 37, Number 20. Retrieved on March 9, 2021 from Boston College Libraries.)

Mary, the Mother of Christ, in Prophecy and Its Fulfilment. […] This is the third edition of a work that appeared originally under the title, “Ipse, Ipsa: Ipse, Ipsa, Ipsum: Which?” The author has rightly changed it to its present form, which better expresses the scope of the work and is not so puzzling to the layman…The present edition contains an excellent review of the work from the pen of an Anglican scholar, who shows that Mr. Quigley proved the error of the Protestant Bishop Kingdon’s statement that the substitution of ipsa for ipse in Gen. III, 15, was “the foundation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.” Though one may regret the vigorous language used here and there by its disputants, the book is full of useful matter that has not lost its timeliness, both on the main subject and on the incidental questions that arose. We call attention especially to the reprint in Appendix B of Bishop Strossmayer’s letter denouncing the calumnies circulated about his conduct at the Vatican Council, and in Appendix C of Dr. Lee’s crushing letter on Littledale’s “Plain Reasons,” a book that is still used by Protestants to deter people from entering the Church of God. (Source: Fordham University. (1907) The Messenger, Vol. 48. p. 104. Italics in original. Retrieved on March 9, 2021 from Google Books.)

MARY, THE MOTHER OF CHRIST. In Prophecy and Fulfillment. […] It is surely a sign of permanent value when a work so expensive as the one before us, and which was originally the result of a controversy, appears in a new and revised edition after twenty years; and the sign is not misleading. It was indeed a matter of surprise that a layman and lawyer should champion the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God against an Anglican Bishop. And the wonder grew as the controversy went on, far beyond the expectations of the contending parties, no doubt, until the case was complete, with a mass of evidence marshaled in true legal style by the barrister, on which every fair-minded judge has given him the verdict. If it could be done, it might be well some time in the future to condense the book into briefer form. Perhaps it is not possible. All controversies are more or less vocal, more or less personal and generally rather verbose. If the history of the controversy could be reduced to brief form, and the arguments thrown into concise shape, we should have a really valuable book on the subject under discussion, and one that would be much more extensively and profitably used. This is not said to disparage in any degree the work before us, but rather to enhance its value… (Source: Hardy & Mahony, Philadelphia. (1908) The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. XXXIII. pp. 173-174. Retrieved on March 9, 2021 from Google Books.)

MARY THE MOTHER OF CHRIST in Prophecy and Its Fulfilment. […] Readers of twenty years ago may remember that a certain book under the title Ipse, Ispa [sic]; Ipse, Ipsa, Ipsum: Which? made considerable stir in controversial circles, inasmuch as it took to task a rather prominent Protestant divine who had attacked the Catholic position on Our Blessed Lady’s Immaculate Conception. The attack had made pretensions to be based on critical Scriptural grounds, and the answer of the clever Canadian lawyer who felt called upon to vindicate not only Catholic dogma but Catholic scholarship as well, came with a peculiarly incisive emphasis. It was welcomed on all sides by those who were free from bias on the subject. The volume before us is a new edition, enlarged, of the same work. It is written in the form of a rejoinder, is in the main controversial, and splendidly illustrates the Catholic and Scriptural doctrine on the prerogatives of the Virgin Mother of Christ. The work was reviewed in these pages at the time of its first appearance. (Source: The Dolphin Press, Philadelphia. (1907) The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. XXXVII. pp. 102-103. Italics in original. Retrieved on March 9, 2021 from Google Books.) 

In terms of approbation, R.F. Quigley’s work has plenty of praise. A cursory look at the review placed in the front pages of the second edition succinctly summarizes the extent of the ground tread by the dogged barrister (bold is emphasis mine): 

Now the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is not founded on [Genesis 3:15]. The doctrine is wholly independent of it. The indirect support which it gives to the doctrine appears in the first clause rather than in the last clause of the verse…Where “enmities” are placed between these two persons, it is plainly implied that neither shares in the essential characteristics of the other. But sin is the essential characteristic of Satan. Therefore sin is wholly absent from the Blessed Virgin. Even if this verse had never formed a part of the inspired volume, the doctrine would still have constituted from the beginning a part of the faith once delivered to the saints, although it has only been defined in an explicit form in modern times.

As Eve before the fall was clothed in a garment of righteousness, so the Blessed Virgin, by a special interposition of divine favor, was created in precisely the same sinless state by reason of the merits of Christ Jesus, the Saviour of the human race. The Evangelist, by quoting the statement of the Virgin, sets upon it the seal of truth: “All generations shall call me blessed, for He that is mighty hath magnified me.” Is it possible to cite any similar inspired utterance relating to Eve? Can any Christian attribute to Eve, at any period of her life, a state of sinless purity which he denies to the mother of our Lord?

Having defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, it remains to consider whether the formidable indictment which the Coadjutor Bishop has drawn up against the Church is sustained by the arguments and authorities upon which his defender, the Rev. Mr. Davenport, relies. Mr. Quigley’s contention in answer to the indictment may be thus defined. He undertakes to prove the Church is not committed to one reading “Ipsa” She, but accepts as of equal authority the reading “Ipse” Christ, or “Ipsum” It—the seed, which is Christ. He contends that there is no difference in meaning between these three readings. Now, if in manuscripts, Bibles, and commentaries without end, the reading is various—“he,” “she,” or “it”; if the acknowledged leaders of theological opinion, Protestant and Catholic, adopt all three; if the dogma of the Immaculate Conception does not rest upon any one of the three, but is consistent with them all, then the charge of the Bishop that the Church recognizes one reading only “Ipsa,” and builds the dogma on that reading alone upon the authority of corrupt manuscripts, must be held to be disproved, to state it mildly, at the bar of public opinion.

Can it be said after an attentive examination of the book that Mr. Quigley has made out his case? He declines…to confine the discussion to Latin manuscripts…Now the Hebrew text is the source. Upon turning to the reference made to Gen. iii. 15 by Maimonides, the greatest of all Jewish scholars, it will be seen that “Ipsa” “she” was the received reading among those who cannot be suspected of a leaning to any form of Christianity. The Hebrew Bible by Plantin, 1572, two editions of the Hebrew Bible at Venice, 1776, and several others have “Ipsa.” Arabic and Chaldaic authorities might be added. It would appear from the book before us that the Rev. Mr. Davenport made no attempt whatever to controvert these statements. The Hebrew manuscripts cast no light upon the reading “Ipsum,” for there is no neuter gender in the Hebrew language. The Greek and Latin manuscripts were necessarily copied from the Hebrew. Mr. Quigley proves not only from Catholic theologians of the highest eminence, but from Protestant Biblical critics, that the reading in the Greek manuscripts is various, “autos, aute, auto,”—“he, she, it.” The writers of these manuscripts must have considered that the Hebrew pronoun was capable of a neuter interpretation.

Cardinal Bellarmine, who himself was one of the Revisers of the Vulgate, says: “The Vulgate is various here, for some Codices have ‘Ipse,’ some ‘Ipsa’; and besides it is not contrary to the Vulgate should one be convinced that he ought to read ‘Ipse’ or ‘Ipsum.’” The gravamen of the Bishop’s charge was that while the word “Ipse” was in the manuscripts from which the Vulgate was copied, the Church had changed it to “Ipsa” in order to sustain a doctrine which was wholly devoid of truth. Why then challenge Mr. Quigley to prove that the Vulgate contains “Ipsum”? Mr. Quigley has proved his case when he cites other Bibles and manuscripts to prove that the Church accepts “Ipse” and “Ipsum” as of equal authority with “Ipsa,”…The Virgin crushes the serpent’s head, as St. Bernard says,—“by her co-operation in the mystery of the Incarnation, and by rejecting, with horror, the very first suggestion of the enemy to commit even the smallest sin”; and, in the words of the Bull Ineffabilis,—“by that virtue with which she was endued from on high.”

Mr. Quigley may adopt by “accommodation” the language which Baronius applied to himself, “I have trodden the winepress alone.” Without the assistance of any learned friends, he has traversed the whole field of Catholic theology. He has examined the original authorities in all the great American libraries—the Astor, Lennox, Harvard, Boston, and that of Georgetown, Washington. He has added to his own extensive collection of books the great works on the subject from Europe. The readers of his work possess in it a golden key with which to unlock the treasures of Biblical and Patristic learning. He has shown that all Catholic doctrines bear the notes of the Vincentian Canon—Antiquity, Universality, Consent; that when heresy has arisen, the Church has suppressed it by defining what has been the faith from the beginning. The dogma always existed. Heresy has but drawn it out in an explicit form. Thus the Church is ever the same. The addition to the confession of the faith is not an addition to the faith itself. If the result of his efforts shall be to strengthen the faithful, and to comfort the doubtful, and to restore the erring, and to remove misconceptions from the minds of those who are without the fold of the Catholic Church, he will not have labored in vain.

(Source: Fr. Pustet & Co., New York and Cincinnati. (1892) Quigley, Richard F. Mary The Mother of Christ in Prophecy and its Fulfilment, pp. i-viii [pp. 7-14 of the PDF]. Italics in original. Retrieved on March 9, 2021 from http://strobertbellarmine.net/books/Quigley--MarytheMotherofChrist.pdf) 

In conclusion, although the discrepancies in grammatical gender seem to be unsettling when first glancing at the various translations of Genesis 3:15, they need not be feared as such. As shown by the voluminous references compiled by R.F. Quigley, the Church’s doctrine on the Blessed Virgin is not so shaky as to be undone by such interpretive disagreements.

One could even say that the teaching of the Church is as strong and steadfast against falsehoods as the heel (whether it belongs to Our Lady or to her Divine Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the former has cooperated most excellently with the latter in His Salvific mission; truly, she is Co-Redemptrix, and He is Our Redeemer) is against the head of the serpent.