Oxford Handbook Topics in Religion

Oxford Handbooks Editorial Board

https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935420.001.0001
Published: 2014 Online ISBN: 9780199935420 Print ISBN: 9780199935420

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CHAPTER

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Mary and Mariology
Dorian Llywelyn

https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935420.013.62
Published: 02 June 2016

Abstract
The mother of Jesus is the most important female gure of Christianity. Mary appears in a small
number of biblical passages, but the vast Marian phenomenon includes Christian doctrine and a range
of cultural expressions. Interest in Mary emerged early in the Eastern Mediterranean, and spread into
the West. With slightly di erent emphases, Catholics and Orthodox Christians share a number of
beliefs concerning Mary and pray to her, but most forms of Protestantism reject Marian devotion.
While Catholic attention to Mary diminished in the global North following the changes wrought by the
Second Vatican Council, it has remained strong in other parts of the world, especially in Latin America.
Shrines such as sites where Mary is believed to have appeared draw millions of devotees annually.
Contemporary Mariology, the academic study of the gure of Mary, includes considerations from
almost all the liberal arts.

Keywords: Mary, Mariology, art, Jesus, Christianity, Catholic, devotion

Subject: Christianity, Religious Studies, Philosophy of Religion, Religion
Series: Oxford Handbooks
Collection: Oxford Handbooks Online
Introduction

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is without doubt the central female gure of Christianity ( g. 1), particularly in
its Catholic and Orthodox forms. The religious impact of Mary far transcends the comparatively few
passages in which she appears in the pages of the Christian Bible. As early as the late second century, Mary
emerges as a gure of interest in her own right. The object of theological speculation and doctrinal
statements, she begins, equally as important, to become the recipient of prayers seeking her intercession
( g. 2). Venerated as patroness by countless cities and countries and by billions as a tender maternal gure,
Mary has for almost two millennia and across the world’s cultures been the object of a ourishing popular
piety. As a product and producer of culture, the Marian phenomenon is of towering signi cance. This
immense, ubiquitous, complex, and multifaceted reality incorporates scripture, theology, worship, politics,

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psychology, and artistic expressions in architecture, painting, poetry, and music. As an archetypal gure par
excellence of the Christian art traditions of both East and West, she has probably been portrayed more than
any other person apart from Jesus.
Fig. 1

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Madonna and Child. Anon. follower of Filippo Lippi (1406‒1459).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Pseudo-Pier_Francesco_Fiorentino%2C_madonna_del_roseto.jpg
Fig. 2

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Book of Hours of Simon de Varie. Mary enthroned, holding the Christ-child, with Simon de Varie kneeling before her. Anon., 1455.
Royal Library, The Hague.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Prayer_to_the_Virgin_%288079764326%29.jpg

In its most technical sense, Mariology is the systematic exposition of Marian doctrine. This theological sub-
discipline is of seventeenth-century vintage and emerges in Roman Catholic circles. Today the eld of
Mariology is fundamentally cross-disciplinary, and Marian studies encompass not only theology and
religious studies but also many branches of the liberal arts including history, psychology, anthropology,
sociology, philosophy, history, literature, and gender studies.
Mary in Christian Scripture

Outside the Synoptic Gospels, Mary is not mentioned by name in the canonical Christian scriptures.
Chronologically, the various strata of the New Testament suggest an evolution of interest in the mother of
Jesus. The rst reference comes from the hand of Paul, who in Galatians 4 describes Jesus as “born of a
woman,” a reference that merely a rms his real humanity. In the Gospel of Mark, she appears only brie y
in 3:31‒35, accompanied by Jesus’s brothers, who come looking for him while he is preaching, an episode
which is retold by both Matthew and Luke. In Mark 6:3, Jesus is referred to by the inhabitants of Nazareth as
“the son of Mary.”

Matthew and Luke provide many of the details with which the Christian tradition has woven a composite

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portrait of Mary. She is named (1:16) in the Matthean genealogy of Jesus. Matthew too relates how Mary was
found to be pregnant “through the Holy Spirit” (1:18). Matthew’s application of Isaiah 7:14 (“behold, a
virgin shall conceive”) to illustrate the identity of Jesus is a key passage in the elaboration that subsequent
generations would make of the gure of Mary. Matthew also includes the events of the visit of the Magi ( g.
3) and the ight of Holy Family to Egypt ( g. 4), episodes which involve Mary, although she is a silent
presence in them.
Fig. 3

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Adoration of the Magi. Abraham Bloemaert. 1623‒24. Museé de Grenoble.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Adoration_of_the_Magi_1623-24_Abraham_Bloemaert.jpg
Fig. 4

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Flight into Egypt. Duccio di Buoninsegna (ca. 1255‒ca. 1318.) Museo dellʼOpera del Duomo, Siena.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Duccio_di_Buoninsegna_-_Flight_into_Egypt_-_WGA06766.jpg

It is in the Gospel of Luke that Mary most fully emerges as a central actor in the drama of salvation. Among
the Marian episodes unique to Luke is the Annunciation scene (Luke 1:26‒38) ( g. 5), which compactly
narrates the circumstances of Jesus’s conception. Gabriel’s greeting of Mary there as “full of grace” is
frequently referred to in the many discussions of Mary’s sinlessness during later centuries. In its Latin
version this salutation furnished the opening words of the medieval Marian prayer Ave Maria (“Hail Mary”).
Key too is at (“let it be done to me”), the expression with which Mary accepts her role. Luke provides the
account of the Visitation, in which Mary visits her pregnant cousin Elizabeth, and also puts into Mary’s
mouth the Magni cat, a hymn of praise based on Old Testament models and deriving possibly from Judeo-
Christian prayers. Mary also appears during the presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple ( g. 6), when
the prophet Simeon warns her that “a sword will pierce her heart” (Luke 2:35) and the episode of Jesus’s
disappearance and reappearance in the Temple when he was twelve (Luke 2:39‒52). The Lucan Mary returns
brie y in the Book of Acts 1:14, a vignette which mentions her praying with other members of the
community of the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem.
Fig. 5

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Annunciation. Anon., twel h cent. St Catherineʼs Monastery, Mount Sinai.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Annunciation_Icon_Sinai_12th_century.jpg
Fig. 6

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The Presentation in the Temple.Januarius Zick (1730-1797) Augsburg, Bruchsal, Ehrenbreitstein, Wiblingen bei Ulm.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Paintings_of_the_presentation_of_Jesus_Christ_at_the_Temple#/media/File:17
65_Zick_Darstellung_Christi_im_Tempel_anagoria.JPG.

Never mentioned by name in the Gospel of John, “the mother of Jesus” is nevertheless an important gure.
She speaks only brie y during the episode of John 2:1‒11, the rst of Jesus’s “signs,” when Jesus appears to
chide her for her apparent desire that he intervene during a wedding at Cana ( g. 7) and yet changes water
into wine. She then reappears at the end of Jesus’s life and ministry, at his cruci xion ( g. 8) when Jesus
addresses both her and the “beloved disciple,” establishing a new mother‒son relationship between them.
Given the symbolic nature of this Gospel, Christian thought and prayer has seen in these two brief scenes an
expression of Mary’s motherhood not only of Jesus but also of his disciples.
Fig. 7

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The Wedding at Cana. Cornelis Cort (1533‒1578). Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/The_Wedding_at_Cana_LACMA_M.88.91.174.jpg
Fig. 8

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Isenheimer Altarpiece. Mathhias Grünewald (1470‒1528). Unterlinden Museum.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Isenheim_Altarpiece_-
_Crucifixion#mediaviewer/File:Mathis_Gothart_Grünewald_022.jpg

Also of great import in the development of the cult of Mary is Revelation 12, a passage that relates the
threats to “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve
stars” (v. 1) and her child. While this apocalyptic text is more likely to be a reference to the Christian
community than to Mary, as early as the fourth century it was interpreted as referring to her, and would
centuries later be the source the standard iconography of the Immaculate Conception that emerged in the
art of the sixteenth century. It is also the textual referent for the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Despite their comparative brevity, these New Testament passages have been of huge import in the cult of
Mary, and they have been mined deeply by the Christian community which has found ever-richer veins of
meaning in their terse statements. While Catholic and Orthodox considerations to Mary do not depend, as
do the Reformed Christian churches, on a “scripture alone” approach to theological thought, the New
Testament verses mentioning Mary nonetheless provide all the main foundations of the Mariological
thought and practice of later generations.

The Development of the Marian Tradition

Given the sparse and fragmentary nature of the available evidence, we can make only tentative and
speculative assertions about the development of interest in the gure of Mary in the early centuries of
Christianity. A third- or fourth-century papyrus fragment containing part of a Greek version of a prayer
known to later generations by its Latin title Sub tuum praesidium (“under your protection”) is the earliest
extant witness of Christians addressing Mary and seeking her protection. Also dated to the third century are
the earliest known images of Mary: the Roman catacombs of Priscilla contain two frescoes commonly
identi ed as depicting he Annunciation and Mary nursing the infant Jesus ( g. 9).
Fig. 9

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Virgin Mary nursing the Infant Jesus. Third cent. Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Madonna_catacomb.jpg

Yet stronger evidence of interest in Mary predates both the frescoes and the papyrus: the Protoevangelium of
James, an apocryphal gospel dated by some scholars to about 145 C.E ., existed in a number of ancient
manuscripts in a variety of languages, suggesting a widespread interest in the mother of Jesus. With many
colorful details, the text gives an account of Mary’s conception, birth, upbringing, and marriage, along with
an elaborated version of the birth of Jesus that stresses Mary’s virginity. While this Gospel was always
extra-canonical, it was nevertheless highly in uential in the development of Marian tradition: the
Protoevangelium gives the names of Mary’s parents as Joachim and Anna. It is the source of the liturgical
feasts of the Birth and Presentation of Mary ( g. 10), the Orthodox iconography of the birth of Jesus ( g. 11),
and Western artistic representations of Mary’s conception and childhood frequently draw on the details
given in the Protoevangelium.
Fig. 10

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Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple and the Virgin of the Burning Bush. Russian, sixteenth cent. Walters Art Museum.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Russian_-
_Presentation_of_the_Virgin_in_the_Temple_and_the_Virgin_of_the_Burning_Bush_-_Walters_372664.jpg
Fig. 11

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The Nativity of Christ. St Andrei Rublev (ca. 1360‒1428). Cathedral of the Annunciation, Moscow.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/RozdestvoHristovo_RublevBlagSoborMK.jpg

In parallel with the way in which rst generations of Christians had sought to understand the meaning of
Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection by rereading the Jewish scriptures and nding there passages which
they identi ed as prophesying Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection, Christian thinkers also began to
identify in the gures and events of the Old Testament pre gurations of Mary. Among the most important
of these was the Eve‒Mary dyad. If Jesus was the “new Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45), then by analogy Mary was the
new Eve, who with her assent to God’s plan reversed Eve’s yielding to temptation. This idea was aided by the
contested translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible of the Hebrew original of Genesis 3:15 to read “ipsa (she) will
strike (the serpent’s) head” rather than ipsum (he, that is the o spring of the woman) ( g. 12). Emerging at
the turn of the second century, and promoted by Irenaeus of Lyons, “new Eve” entered into what would
become an apparently endless stock of Marian notions, images, and titles. The Eve‒Mary contrast would
also profoundly a ect Christian attitudes to women in the subsequent centuries.
Fig. 12

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Virgin Mary. Matthaeus Zehender. Hedingen Cathedral.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Wangen_Franziskanerkloster_Kapelle_Gemälde_Maria.jpg

Even more in uential and far-reaching was another title, Theotokos—literally “the birth-giver of God.”
Already in use in Egypt by the second century, the epithet probably originated in public prayer and could
possibly re ect the in uence of the cult of Isis, who was addressed as “the Mother of (the) God Osiris.” The
word became the object of erce doctrinal argument during the complex Christological controversies of the
fourth and fth centuries. Bishop Nestorius of Constantinople (386‒ca. 450) argued that the title Theotokos
meant that the Godhead had been born as a man, an idea he found repugnant. His suggestion that Mary be
addressed instead as Christotokos (Mother of the Christ) or Anthropotokos (Mother of the Man) was bitterly
opposed by Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria (376‒444), who saw in Nestorius’s claims a rejection not only of the
unity of the human and the divine in Jesus but also of what was by then in Egypt a venerable way of
addressing Mary. The ecumenical council at Ephesus of 431, convened by the Emperor Theodosius to calm
and cool the theological altercations, voted to condemn Nestorius’s position. As a result, the title Theotokos
(or its translation into other languages) remains the standard and most important way to refer to the
mother of Jesus in Eastern Christianity.

The Council of Ephesus acted as a spur to devotion to Mary throughout the Roman Empire, initially in the
East but spreading to the West. The Roman church of Santa Maria Maggiore ( g. 13), one of the rst
churches to be dedicated to Mary, was built by Pope Sixtus III only a few years after the conclusion of the
council at Ephesus. Mary’s unparalleled stature as a gure to whom the faithful sought recourse grew
through the slow accumulation of a complex matrix that included theological speculation, public and
private worship, legendary narratives, accounts of miracles, homilies and hymns, and material culture.
Expressed often in poetic rather than intellectual language, prayer and praise e ectively precedes and
underpins the theological elucidation of Mary’s role in salvation. Throughout the patristic period, homilists

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delighted in discovering intimations of Mary’s virginal motherhood in the phrases, images, objects,
episodes, and personages of the Hebrew scriptures. An ever-growing stock of inventive literary images and
elaborate phraseology embellished the liturgy. The most famous of early hymns to Mary, the Akathistos
(attributed to Romanos the Melodist, ca. 490‒556) addresses her with hundreds of titles that give her (or
rather, strictly speaking, her having given birth to the Savior) a central role in human history.

Fig. 13

Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/S03_06_01_023_image_2941.jpg

Mary’s intercession was sought not only by individuals but also by whole cities. She gured prominently in
the myths of the founding of Byzantium and was adopted as protectress of the Byzantine ( g. 14) ruling
dynasty. In image, word, and ritual Mary was early on given the attributes of sovereignty ( g. 15) in the new
Christian Roman Empire. The Byzantine emperors removed Nike, goddess of victory, from their imperial
seals and replaced her with an image of the Theotokos. The major churches dedicated to Mary in
Constantinople and the presence there of relics such as her veil led to the city seeing itself to be
Theotokoupolis, the City of the Mother of God. In 626, the pagan Avars besieged Constantinople. Since the
emperor was far away at another battlefront, the bishop placed the city under Mary’s direct protection by
having an image of the Virgin and Child painted on the west gates. The defeat of the attackers was attributed
to Mary’s direct intervention, con rming the convictions of the inhabitants of Constantinople that they
were the object of the particular mediation and protection of the Mother of God.

Fig. 14

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The Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus between Emperor John Comnenus II (1118–1143) and Empress Irene. First half of the twel h
cent. Hagia Sophia. Istanbul, Turkey.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Istanbul_2009_Comnenus_Mosaics.JPG
Fig. 15

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Enthroned Virgin and Child between Two Saints. Sixth cent. St. Catherineʼs Monastery, Sinai.

http://www.theworkofgodschildren.org/collaboration/images/6/6d/Encaustic_Virgin.jpg

Liturgical celebrations in honor of Mary, modeled on the feasts connected with the life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus, found their way into the liturgical cycles of the churches, in Jerusalem as well as
Constantinople, gradually spreading through the Christian world to create a calendar of Marian feasts that
included the Presentation of Jesus, the Annunciation, Mary’s conception, her birth, a commemoration of
her virginity, and her death. Through Byzantine in uence in southern Italy and the in ow of monks and
others eeing westward from Muslim invasions, many feasts gradually became established in the Western
church. Each feast developed its own liturgical texts and selections of relevant biblical passages that could
illuminate, directly or symbolically, what was being celebrated.

Marian devotion has historically often taken on strongly emotional tones, and the nervousness concerning
the potential excesses of popular religiosity or over-extravagant and misleading praises of Mary is an
ancient concern. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus (ca. 320‒403), condemned the practices of the
Collyridians, female devotees who o ered sacri ces of loaves to Mary. Sensitivity to criticism that too much
honor and power of intercession was being attributed to Mary would lead John of Damascus (675‒749) and
many others to defend and de ne the way in which Mary was to be honored and prayed to. The Fathers of
the Second Council of Nicea in 787 di erentiated between the correct attitudes to be taken toward the
Theotokos and God, a codi cation that would later travel to the medieval West, where Thomas Aquinas
(1225‒1274) distinguished between latria (worship) o ered to Christ, dulia (honor) accorded to the saints,
and hyperdulia (more than honor), which is reserved to Mary alone.

Marian Culture in the West

The cult of Mary began in the Eastern Mediterranean, and during much of the rst millennium of
Christianity, interest in her evolved in that geographic and cultural sphere. Western Christianity was,
however, to be the main locus of development of Marian doctrine, devotion, and culture for the next

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thousand years. Catholic theology inherited beliefs and practices from the early Church, but articulated
them with its particular emphases. Over the course of a thousand years, the cult of Mary in the West
developed its own religious practices, including devotions to Mary, the most important of which was the
rosary, a plethora of liturgical feasts, private and communal prayers, and pilgrimages. European Marian
culture also took a rich array of artistic forms—architecture, art ( g. 16), poetry, and music ( g. 17) among
them—and the processes of evangelization and imperial expansion spread the Marian imaginary to Asia,
Africa, and the Americas. At the same time, Europe was also to be the cradle of Protestantism, which
rejected elements of Catholic and Orthodox teaching on Mary, but especially the practice of venerating her.
Fig. 16

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Leaf from Book of Hours. Zanino di Pietro, mid-fi eenth cent. Walters Art Museum.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Zanino_di_Pietro_-_Leaf_from_Book_of_Hours_-_Walters_W32262V_-
_Open_Reverse.jpg
Fig. 17

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Musicians. Manuscript of the Cantigas de Santa María of King Alfonso X the Wise, thirteenth cent.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vihuela_de_arco_y_vihuela_de_péñola_en_las_Cantigas.jpg

To what do we owe the development of European medieval Western ideas of Mary? The Byzantine
iconography of Mary was largely Christocentric: Mary is invariably portrayed holding her son, in a hieratic
style that emphasizes her timeless dignity. As the conventions of the East spread westward, they took on
local color and accents. From about 1300 onward, Western Christianity began to place a new emphasis on
the humanity of Christ. As the conceptual and visual image of Jesus changed, Mary was portrayed less in the
guise of an impassive empress and increasingly as a tender, young, virgin mother ( g. 18), whose physical
appearance expressed her spiritual beauty, invoked the sentiments and invited a personal, lial response.
Mary too became associated with the tradition of courtly love, which intermingled erotic and religious
expressions.
Fig. 18

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Virgin of Niedermorschwir, ca. 1500. Musée dʼUnterlinden.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Alsace%2C_Haut-
Rhin%2C_Colmar%2C_Musée_d%27Unterlinden%2C_La_Vierge_de_Niedermorschwihr%2C_vers_1500.jpg

From the turn of the millennium, the powerful and rich vied with each other to build ever more elaborate
churches in Mary’s honor, each of which had to be decorated with appropriate stained glass, sculptures, and
painting, and music supplied for liturgies. Cathedrals such as Notre Dame or Chartres Cathedral ( g. 19) in
France or the Mariendom of Speyer in Germany left an indelible Marian imprint on the material and
spiritual culture of medieval Europe. Under harsh conditions that included the constant threat of famine and
warfare, and the spread of plague during the fourteenth century, nobles and peasant, women and men, all
sought the intercession and care of Mary ( g. 20), who could be appealed to in her many guises. As tender
Madonna, she was an approachable, tender gure; as sorrowing mother who stood at the foot of the cross or
cradled the dead body of her son, Mary was felt to understand at rst hand the vicissitudes of life; as Our
Lady of countless places and people, she could have a particular interest in her devotees, especially at the
end of their lives, when her intercession was more fervently sought. Pilgrim routes to shrines, many of
which were dedicated to Mary, crisscrossed medieval Europe. Mary was as much a gure of folklore and
high culture as the product of theology or the focus of church liturgy. Vernacular songs in praise of her and
accounts of Marian legends abounded in many languages. Her powers of intercession appeared boundless:
Mary could intervene miraculously in people’s lives, confounding the devil, and rescue souls from hell.
Fig. 19

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Stained glass window, Chartres Cathedral, twel h‒thirteenth cent.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Chartres_-_cathédrale_-_ND_de_la_belle_verrière.JPG
Fig. 20

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Mother of Mercy. Lippo Memmi (1291‒1356). Orvieto Cathedral.

http://www.theworkofgodschildren.org/collaboration/images/0/0e/Mother_of_Mercy_-_Madonna_della_misericordia_-
_Lippo_Memmi.jpg

The culture and faith of the European Middle Ages had a profoundly monastic imprint, and the gure of
Mary was central in the development of medieval monasticism, among the Benedictines and Cistercians
especially. The classic Marian prayers of the West, including the Salve Regina and the Memorare are products
of the monastery. The most in uential Marian thinker of the twelfth century, the Cistercian abbot Bernard
of Clairvaux (1090‒1153), sought to take up the re ection on Mary of previous centuries and to render it into
a coherent body, organized around two poles of interest: the greatness of Mary’s maternity of Jesus, the
incarnate God and the mediator par excellence, and what derived from that motherhood, her role as
mediatrix between God and humans. Monastic literature written in Latin, including books written in praise
of Mary, collections of homilies, and devotional literature, was an international intellectual currency.

Equally as important in thinking about Mary were the Franciscan theological schools and the medieval
universities. With the growth of scholastic theology in the thirteenth century, Christian thinkers attempted
to systematize the tenets of Christianity, and sought to understand Mary in a coherent intellectual grid,
founding their re ections on the key biblical texts and patristic writings on them. Already in the twelfth
century, Peter Lombard had attempted to locate Mary’s importance within the theme of the Incarnation.
Thomas Aquinas likewise placed his treatment of Mary at the end of his study of Christ. Among medieval
thinkers, the Franciscan Duns Scotus (ca.1266‒1308) exercised signi cant in uence on Marian theology and
practice. The question of Mary’s sinlessness had already arisen in the East and was largely accepted,
although not without demurral in the early centuries. In the West, it was contested for centuries. When the
belief of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (discussed later) was proclaimed as dogma in 1854, it was
Scotus’s subtle dialectic that provided the theological justi cation.

Art and Devotion

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The arguments of theologians represent only one aspect of Mariology. To a profound degree, Christian
beliefs concerning Mary have also both shaped and been shaped by art. A range of medieval and renaissance
painters and sculptors all contributed signi cantly to the composite image of the mother of Jesus—from
Giotto’s enigmatic Madonnas ( g. 21) to what is among the most famous representations of Mary,
Michelangelo’s Pietà ( g. 22). Artists have represented Mary in all the scriptural scenes in which she
appears, but episodes from the Protoevangelium and the apocryphal accounts of Mary’s death are also part of
the Western artistic canon. Uniquely Western are images of the two dogmas unique to Catholicism: Mary’s
Immaculate Conception ( g. 23) and her Assumption ( g. 24). Since neither of these has direct scriptural
evidence as a source for images, to express their theological content, artists had to develop a complex,
allusive system of symbols that drew on scriptural motifs or which could be adapted from representations of
Jesus.
Fig. 21

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Madonna and Child. Studio of Giotto di Bondone (ca. 1266‒1337). Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Bottega_di_giotto%2C_madonna_dell%27ashmolean_museum.jpg
Fig. 22

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Pietà. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475‒1574). St Peterʼs, Vatican City.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo%27s_Pietà_Saint_Peter%27s_Basilica_Vatican_City.jpg.
Fig. 23

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Statue of the Immaculate Conception. Anon., nineteenth cent. Menton.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Statue_de_l%27Immaculée_Conception_%28Menton%29.jpg
Fig. 24

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Assumption of Mary. Francesco Granacci (1469‒1543). Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Francesco_granacci%2C_assunta.jpg

Artistic representations of Mary are, of course, not limited to the Western “high art” canon. Much folk art,
especially in Hispanic contexts ( g. 25), continues to derive its inspirations from medieval and renaissance
images of Mary (as do many of the most popular modern visual motifs of Christmas, including Christmas
cards and the crèche).

Analogous to the interplay of “high” and “low” art is the relationship between, on the one hand, the o cial
liturgy and dogmatic statements of the Catholic (and Orthodox) Churches, and on the other, a proli c array
of popular Marian devotional practices. Each corpus has in uenced the other, and the boundaries between
o cial and uno cial, ecclesiastical and popular, are porous. The most widespread of devotions arising
from the medieval period is the rosary, which brings together the repetition of the Ave Maria with mediation
on the major events of Mary’s life. Other ancient devotions current among today’s Catholics include the
Angelus, a prayer of medieval origin that commemorates the Incarnation, and the “Litany of Loreto,”
probably composed in the sixteenth century, consisting of a chain of petitions to Mary under dozens of
biblical and patristic titles.
Fig. 25

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Votive painting dedicated to Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos, Mexico. Anon. Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Our_Lady_of_San_Juan_de_los_Lagos_votive_1935.jpg

Mary and Christian Division

At the heart of the image of Mary as one to whom believers can turn lie other relationships: between Mary
and her son, and between Jesus and the church. In day-to-day practice, for many believers in search of
comfort, the nurturing gure of the Queen of Heaven (as Mary was described) seemed more accessible than
Jesus, particularly when he was portrayed as stern judge. Catholic devotion to Mary, particularly in its more
superstitious and fantastic aspects, seemed to the sixteenth-century reformers to run counter to some of
their fundamental principles. Scripture did not allude clearly to some of the beliefs that popular piety and
the theological tradition alike held about Mary. Appealing to Mary appeared to deny the uniqueness of Jesus
as savior and mediator between God and humans. The practice of the rosary, or making pilgrimages as ways
of gaining indulgences appeared to be ways of attempting to buy salvation and denied the radical gratuity of
God’s grace, while the extravagant praises given to Mary, a mere human being—even one who had given
birth to the savior, dimmed the glory which was God’s alone. Yet the founding fathers of the Reformation
maintained their own personal reverence and a ection for Mary. Luther saw in her a model of faith and
Christian humility; Calvin’s Mary is an entirely passive recipient of grace. Both continued to believe that she
was without sin and gave birth virginally, even while coming to doubt or deny other doctrines. But the more
that Protestantism focused its understanding of redemption on the cross alone, the less importance was
attributed to the Incarnation and therefore Mary’s place in salvation. The change in theological focus led the
charge in the drive to cleanse the churches of what was increasingly seen by the Reformers as idolatry.
Venerating statues and making pilgrimages had been important practices of medieval Catholicism. Much
religious art was removed and destroyed ( g. 26), especially in Northern Europe and Great Britain. In those
countries, age-old folk practices and beliefs and the rich tradition of Marian art gave way to a word-based
Christianity in which Mary had a much reduced place.
Fig. 26

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Destruction of images in Zurich. Anon., 1524.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclasm#mediaviewer/File:Destruction_of_icons_in_Zurich_1524.jpg

In the eyes of Protestant theologians, many beliefs and practices involving Mary came to exemplify all that
was decadent and sacrilegious. In response, the Catholic Counter-Reformation mounted a vigorous defense
of its teaching and practice: in reaction to the Protestant belief in the unique mediation of Christ, the
Catholic side insisted on validity and importance of the cult of the saints and Mary’s cherished place in the
life of the faithful. The Baroque period saw the emergence of Mariology as a distinct and discreet theological
eld: the Jesuit Francisco Suárez was the rst writer to attempt a systematic exposition of Catholic beliefs
concerning Mary, an apologetical enterprise modeled on the patterns of scholastic theology. To convince
their audience other writers such as François de Sales (1567‒1622) and Robert Bellarmine (1542‒1621)
preached and published sermons. Over the course of the seventeenth century alone, authors published over
ve hundred pages of books on Mary. Continuing disputes concerning Mary’s Immaculate Conception
(discussed later) engendered even more. Images of Mary also provided a highly communicative form of
religious instruction and commentary, and represented a form of “silent preaching.” Baroque devotion to
Mary took concrete form in painting ( g. 27), sculpture, architecture, pilgrimages, and processions ( g.
28), not only in Europe but also in the colonial possessions of the New World (where Catholicism today
continues to show a distinctly Baroque and Marian cast).
Fig. 27

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The Triumph of the Immaculate. Paolo de Matteis (1662‒1728). Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque#mediaviewer/File:1710-15_de_Matteis_Triumph_of_the_Immaculate_anagoria.JPG

Fig. 28

Holy Week Procession of the Sorrowing Virgin, Salamanca, Spain. Statue created in 1939 in baroque style by Inocencio Soriano
Montagut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Week_in_Salamanca#mediaviewer/File:Procesion-cristo-agonia-11.JPG

Religious orders had long found inspiration in the gure of Mary. Her humble origins, her virginity, and her
willingness to accept the will of God all made her an obvious model for women and men who professed vows
of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and many religious orders attributed their particular charism to her
support. Lay organizations of Marian inspiration, including male and female confraternities and pious
associations such as the Marian Congregation, founded in 1563, promoted a spirituality in which personal
devotion to Mary was central. Louis de Montfort (1673‒1716) promoted going “to Jesus through Mary” as a
way for lay Catholics to live out their baptismal commitment. Personal consecration to Mary involved
depending habitually on her intercession and support, as a way of being united with Jesus.

During the age of the Enlightenment, criticisms of Marian piety began to grow. The voluminous Mystical City
of God: The Life of the Virgin Mary ( g. 29), which detailed the revelations to the seventeenth-century
Franciscan nun Sor María de Agreda (1602‒1665) was, for example, the object of Voltaire’s ridicule. In
reaction to the growing rationalization of the age, works such as the highly popular Glories of Mary (1786) of
Alphonsus Liguori (1696‒1787) promoted a Mariocentric and highly a ective piety that emphasized Mary’s
uniqueness and her mediation. Anti-Marian trends, and waning piety contributed to the hostility the
Catholic Church would face in the French Revolution.

Fig. 29

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Mystical City of God, Sor María de Agreda. Title page. Antwerp, 1722.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Maria_de_Jesus_de_Agreda_-_frontispiece.jpg
Apparitions

The link between Mary and the Church is an ancient one: in Luke, Mary is portrayed in terms which evoke
the whole history of the people of God, and in Acts she appears in prayer in company with the group of
followers. Since the time of Origen (182‒254), the gure of the beloved disciple has been interpreted as
symbolizing the whole Christian community, for whom Mary becomes a mother, following the cruci xion.
The woman of Revelation 12 has been held to refer to Mary and the Church alike. In the words of Francis of
Assisi, Mary is virgo ecclesia facta, the Virgin-Become-Church, a personi cation of the community.

This Mary‒Church nexus is the deep background against which apparitions of Mary—and indeed perhaps
the whole of the Marian phenomenon—must be understood. An oft-repeated claim is that where the

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Catholic Church is strong—or where it seeks to hold on to or regain a foothold—Mary is given prominence.
The many apparitions of Mary in nineteenth-century France, for example, need to be viewed in reference to
the vicissitudes of Catholicism following the French Revolution, church‒state skirmishes, the “culture
wars” that were closely associated with political revolutions, and the struggles of the papacy of the time to
establish independence from state control and regain lost authority.

Appearances of Mary to individuals and groups have a long history. According to legend, Mary appeared to
the apostle James the Great, in Zaragoza, Spain, in 39 C.E . Mary’s miraculous appearance to Origen’s pupil
Gregory the Wonder-worker (217‒270) is recounted in a sermon by Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335‒392). The
Eastern Orthodox calendar includes a feast of the Protection of the Theotokos ( g. 30) that commemorates a
tenth-century apparition of Mary to Andrew the Blessed Fool-for-Christ at the Blachernae, a church of
Constantinople associated with relics and icons of Mary and miraculous events. The Marienlegenden genre
chronicled Mary’s direct intervention in human events. This important category of pious medieval literature
included among its standard forms Mary’s apparition to an individual and her command that a chapel or
shrine should be constructed at the site of her appearance.
Fig. 30

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Protection of the Mother of God. Novgorod, Russia, 1399.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Pokrov_%28icon%2C_1399%29.jpeg

Marian devotion was intimately associated with the spread of Christianity in the imperial territories of the
Catholic crowns of Europe. The name of Mary gures on many aspects of Columbus’s voyages of discovery
and the conquerors of Mexico and South America were also devotees of the Virgin. While the literature of the
Conquest includes accounts of apparitions of Mary in battle against the native armies resisting the Christian
invaders, in the countries of today’s Latin America the gure of Mary has taken on the role of doughty
champion of national identity. Many of these “national” Marys are associated with stories of apparitions or
connected with legends concerning particular images. The image and apparition motifs are combined in the
most famous Marian devotion of Latin America, Our Lady of Guadalupe ( g. 31). The standard narrative
recounts the appearances in 1531 of a “young girl” to the Indian Juan Diego, the incredulity of the local
bishop, and the nal proof of the appearances in the image of a woman miraculously imprinted in the cloak
of Juan Diego. The spread of Christianity among indigenous peoples of Mexico is popularly attributed to the
image and the apparition: from a local cult, devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe has grown, not only in
religious terms but also in its political dimensions. During the Mexican War of Independence, the gure of
Guadalupe was painted on the ag of the independistas and Guadalupe has become a palladium of Mexican
patriotism and cultural identity. The rst known accounts of the events of the apparition were written well
over a century after the events they relate. Questions concerning the historical veracity of these writings
were rst expressed in the nineteenth century, but scholarly doubts have not made any dent on the strength
of the cult. The Basilica of Guadalupe, built on the site of the apparition in today’s Mexico City, remains the
most visited Catholic shrine in the world, and the devotion has spread internationally.

Fig. 31

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God the Father Painting the Image of Guadalupe. Anon., Mexico, eighteenth cent.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Eternal_father_painting_guadalupe.jpg

Other important pilgrimage centers are also connected with Marian apparitions. The apparition at the Rue
du Bac in Paris in 1830 to Catherine Labouré, a Daughter of Charity, included a dire warning of political
troubles to come but also engendered a new Marian devotion: the Miraculous Medal ( g. 32), the design of
which was shown in a vision to Catherine Labouré, has been worn by millions of devotees as a talisman. The
events at Lourdes ( g. 33) in 1858 have grasped the religious imagination probably even more rmly. The
eighteen appearances there of “a lady” to the young peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous, the emergence of a
spring, the accounts of miraculous healings, and the eventual revelation of the name of the lady as “the
Immaculate Conception” all appeared to be the heavenly con rmation of the formal declaration of the
Immaculate Conception as dogma four years earlier. The iconography of Mary in the Lourdes apparitions as
being dressed in a white robe with a blue sash, with a golden rose on each foot and carrying a rosary of
pearls, abides in the popular Catholic imagination, and has merged with the standard elements of paintings
of the Immaculate Conception developed by the Spanish artist Francisco Pacheco (1544‒1644). Today,
Lourdes attracts millions every year who come to bathe in the waters in hope of a miracle.
Fig. 32

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Miraculous Medal, designed by Adrien Vachette (1754‒1859) according to the descriptions given by Catherine Labouré.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Miraculous_medal.jpg
Fig. 33

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Pilgrims at Lourdes, France, published by Currier & Ives, London, second half of nineteenth cent.

http://www.theworkofgodschildren.org/collaboration/images/6/64/Our_Lady_of_Lourdes_Shrine_001.jpg

Apparitions may be thought of as a form of divine communication, and they may contain speci c messages.
The content of the Lourdes messages called for penance and requested that a church be built at the
apparition site. Many of the Marian apparitions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are
associated with apocalyptic admonitions. According to Lúcia Santos—the only one of the three child seers to
survive into adulthood and who subsequently became a Carmelite nun—in the apparitions at Fátima,
Portugal, in 1917 ( g. 34), Mary warned of potential cataclysm and requested that the Pope consecrate
Russia to her. Over the subsequent decades, devotion to the Fátima apparitions took on new aspects,
becoming associated with anti-communist sentiment and traditionalist Catholicism. Pope John Paul II
ascribed his survival from an assassination attempt in 1981 to the intercession of Our Lady of Fátima.
Fig. 34

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Page from Ilustração Portuguesa, October 29, 1917, showing people looking at the sun during the Fátima apparitions.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Newspaper_fatima.jpg

Apparitions have been reported in all continents of the world over many centuries. They can be located in a
broad spectrum of religiosity that includes the Catholic phenomenon of weeping and bleeding statues, and
its Orthodox counterpart of miraculous myrrh-streaming icons, all of which are subject to interpretations
that range from mockery to credulity. Marian apparitions must be understood at the very least as an
important, tense and often nexus between popular Catholic sentiment, doctrine, and church authorities.
Events such as those of Fátima and Lourdes have prompted important papal statements. At the same time,
given that the phenomenon of “private revelations” under which apparitions generally fall is easily prone to
deviations, the Catholic Church has also generally been cautious in asserting their veracity. Of the thousands
of claims that Mary has appeared on earth, very few have been given formal approval.
Dogma

Catholic and Orthodox beliefs concerning Mary emerge from a complex and mutually in uencing
relationship between, on the one hand, a volatile and a ective piety and, on the other, some highly
technical theological considerations. As a topic of theological discussion, the gure of Mary is common to
all Christian traditions, but these vary dramatically in their degrees of interest, emphases, and conclusions.
Protestant Christianity has consistently opposed beliefs and practices that could be interpreting as denying
the unique mediation of Christ (1 Tim 2: 5). The four Marian dogmas formally espoused by the Catholic
Church—beliefs that are held, though with di erent nuances, by Orthodox Christians—do not necessarily
represent all that many Catholics believe about Mary. The faith of individuals may well exceed what the
Church teaches o cially.

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The fundamental Marian tenet common to most Christians is the divine motherhood, that is, the belief that
Mary conceived Jesus through the Holy Spirit and that he is therefore divine in nature, and the phrase is
primarily a statement about Jesus rather than his mother. Matthew and Luke both a rm that Jesus was
born miraculously through the intervention of God, statements which the Christian tradition has taken to
a rm his divine nature. (Standard Christian tradition holds that he simultaneously has a human nature.)
Matthew relates that the child that Mary had conceived was “from the Holy Spirit” and cites Isaiah 7:14 to
illustrate the meaning of this event. Parthenos, the Greek word used in the Septuagint translation of Isaiah
and quoted by Matthew, designates technical virginity, whereas almah, its Hebrew original, can also be
translated as “young, unmarried woman.” Matthew’s sense is certainly that Mary’s child was not conceived
by normal means. The Lucan account of Jesus’s conception is more explicit, however, since Mary expresses
(1:34) puzzlement that she is to bear a child, since she is a virgin.

Belief in the virginal conception and birth of Jesus (not to be confused with the Immaculate Conception,
discussed later) is a rmed in the widely accepted Nicene and Apostolic Creeds, which describe him as being
“ begotten of the Father … born of the Virgin Mary.” More controversial and less universally accepted is the
assertion in the perpetual virginity of Mary, a belief held by Orthodox and Catholics, and some Anglicans.
The Protoevangelium details the birth of Jesus: an episode involving the midwife Salome and her doubts over
Mary’s virginity ( g. 35) serves to con rm the miraculous nature of her conception of Jesus. The text,
however, also goes on to make claims about Mary’s continued virginity following the birth of Jesus and
seems to be the rst attempt to explain the “brothers and sisters of Jesus” (Mark 6:3; Matt. 13:55‒56) as the
children of Joseph by an earlier marriage.
Fig. 35

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Salome and the Mother of God. Ivory panel, Throne of Maximian, Ravenna, sixth cent.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Nativity_%28Throne_of_Maximianus%29.jpg
The belief that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life was gradually consolidated over the rst ve
centuries of the Church, and largely without controversy. Admittedly, during the early patristic period some
writers and preachers understood Mary’s virginity to apply only before the birth of Jesus. However, from the
second century, important gures, including Irenaeus (130‒202) also refer to her with the Greek term
aieparthenos (ever-virgin), a title which found its way into standard liturgical formulas. The patristic
conceit of Mary as a holy vessel, and the deployment of the Old Testament imagery of the Holy of Holies and
the Temple to describe her, also played their part in the growth of consensus. Above all, the growth in the
belief re ects the in uence of monasticism with its ascetical practice of sexual continence. By the end of the
fourth century, Mary’s perpetual virginity during childbirth (in partu) and afterwards (post partum) had
become a generally accepted article of faith: the Second Council of Constantinople of 553 a rmed the use of
the title aieparthenos and the Lateran Council of 649, explicitly con rmed that Mary remained a virgin
before, during, and after birth.

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While continuing to a rm its reality, contemporary Catholic and Orthodox teaching does not explain the
precise physical nature of Mary’s perpetual virginity. Defenders of the belief explain the Greek term heos
(until) in Matthew 1:25 as not necessarily meaning that she and Joseph had marital relations subsequently,
and understand Jesus’s “brothers and sisters” to be close blood relatives, but not the biological children of
Mary. Protestant belief in this matter is less uniform: despite a lack of irrefutable scriptural support, early
Protestants including Luther and Zwingli believed that Mary did not have any children after Jesus and that
she did not have marital relations with Joseph. In today’s Protestant churches, however, those who believe
in the post-partum virginity of Mary are probably a substantial minority.

Although Mary’s virginity has sometimes been con ated with her sinlessness, the two qualities are distinct.
While the Roman Catholic Church simply holds Mary’s virginity to be an article of faith not requiring a
formal declaration, the belief that she is radically holy has been expressed as a dogmatic statement on the
immaculate (= sinless) conception of Mary by her mother. The belief that Mary never sinned was not
uncontested historically. Luke 2:48 and Mark 3:31‒35 appeared to suggest that Mary doubted her son. Some
weighty gures including Origen and John Chrysostom (347‒407) defended her perpetual virginity, but also
preached that she experienced a lack of faith, and even vanity.

However, the early identi cation of Mary with the Church suggested that many of the qualities of the
Church could and should also be applied to her. The Protoevangelium presents Mary as being holy from the
moment of her conception: the child Mary lives separately from the world in the Holy of Holies and is fed by
angels. Ambrose (ca. 340‒397) wrote that Mary’s faith was unwavering, even at the foot of the cross. His
disciple Augustine (354‒430) taught that Mary was victorious over sin, due to the abundant outpouring of
grace she received from her intimate relationship with her son.

Orthodox Christianity asserts simply that Mary is panagia (all-holy) and achrantos (unde led, spotless),
epithets found especially in liturgical texts. The idea seems to have taken root in the Eastern religious
psyche, to the point that it never needed theological clari cation beyond asserting the fact that Mary was
pure in all aspects. In the West, in contrast, the matter of Mary’s sinlessness was debated for much of the
second millennium C.E . The di erent opinions about Mary’s sinlessness centered on two questions: what
her holiness consists of and when it began.

The Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception represents a con uence of at least three sources.
First of all, at the level of grassroots faith, Mary’s holiness—and therefore closeness to her son and her
powers of intercession—seem never to have been in doubt to any meaningful degree. Second is the immense
impact of Augustine’s conception of original sin, as deriving from the Fall and transmitted from generation
to generation. Third, liturgical celebrations have played an instrumental role in the development of the
theology of Mary: as early as the sixth century, a feast of the birth of Mary is recorded as taking place
annually in Jerusalem, and the feast commemorating her conception appears in the church calendar there
only a century later.

In the West, the feast of Mary’s conception was particularly popular in England and spread to mainland
Europe after 1000 C.E . Precisely what was being celebrated was subject to di ering interpretations and
evaluations. Not all thinkers were convinced that Mary had been conceived without contracting original sin.
Bernard of Clairvaux argued that the marital union of Mary’s parents would inevitably have been marked by
original sin, and that she would thus necessarily have inherited it. Aquinas held that the theory of the
Immaculate Conception detracted from the unique dignity of Christ and taught that Mary, unlike Christ who
was indeed conceived without original sin, had in fact contracted it but that she was cleansed of it before
being born. This scheme thus tended to associate Mary’s freedom from sin with her virginity rather with her
conception.

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In the second half of the thirteenth century, theologians sought to present a more optimistic anthropology
and to rethink the interpretation of the Fall. Scotus rejected the traditional Augustinian model (in which
original sin was identi ed with concupiscence), and proposed a more optimistic anthropology in which
Mary could have inherited the physical condition of humanity after the Fall without necessarily contracting
original sin. The merit that Christ would go on to gain through his sacri cial death was, as it were, pre-
assigned to Mary before the event. Prevention being a greater good than cure, her soul was preserved or
protected from the diminution of original sin. To the objection that this would mean that Mary would not
need a redeemer, Scotus argues that even though Mary did not contract original sin, she was nonetheless
still in need of the union with God that humanity gains through the Incarnation: even sinless human nature
needs Christ. An omnipotent God certainly could have (potuit) arranged matters thus. Moreover, since it was
tting (decuit) that he should have done this, God did in fact act (fecit) to give Mary the unique privilege of
being kept from contracting original sin. In this way, God ensured her complete freedom to consent to his
plan for the Incarnation.

Acceptance of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception grew slowly but steadily. The Council of Basle
proclaimed in 1439 that the Immaculate Conception was a “pious doctrine” in accord with Catholic faith.
The degree of the Council of Trent on original sin (1546) did not include Mary in its conclusions, which left
the matter undecided. Among theologians, controversy continued, with the Jesuits and Franciscans
championing the Immaculate Conception, and the Dominicans continuing to oppose it, but gradually the
Immaculate Conception became a commonly accepted part of normal Catholic teaching. Having consulted
the world’s bishops, Pope Pius IX, in his Bull Ine abilis Deus (1854) declared that Mary, “from the rst
instant of her conception, by a unique privilege and the grace of almighty God, by virtue of the merits of
Jesus Christ, the Savior of humankind, was preserved pure from all stain of original sin.” The miraculous
events at Lourdes a few years later seemed to many to con rm the pope’s actions and the authority of the
Church.

The belief that Mary was preserved from original sin is unique to Catholicism: while fully accepting that
Mary did not sin personally, Orthodox Christians do not accept Augustine’s notion of original sin, and also
deny the right of a pope to make a dogmatic de nition binding on Christians in the absence of an
ecumenical council involving other bishops. Most Protestants also reject the belief as being unbiblical, the
fruit of human deduction rather than divine revelation, and as seeming to allow Mary to avoid the need for
the universal redemption wrought by Jesus’s death.

The other Marian dogma to receive a formal and infallible papal con rmation concerns the end of Mary’s
life. The New Testament says nothing about Mary after we last see her in Acts 1:14. A legend rst mentioned
in the fourth century tells that the apostle John took her to live with him in Ephesus. (An alternative
tradition also exists that Mary spent her last days in Jerusalem). The Ephesus tradition appeared to be
rati ed by the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774‒1824) concerning Mary’s last days on earth and
the subsequent discovery in Ephesus ( g. 36) of a ruin believed to match the descriptions of Mary’s house
related by Emmerich. Given that there was no place where Mary appeared to have been buried, by the fourth
century speculation grew that like Enoch and Elijah in the Old Testament, Mary had been taken up into
heaven. From the fth century onward, there developed in a number of languages a corpus of apocryphal
Transitus Mariae (On Mary’s transfer) accounts that related Mary’s death in Jerusalem, surrounded by the
apostles who had been miraculously brought back there. These narratives are the source of the standard
iconography of the Dormition (the “falling asleep” of Mary) ( g. 37) in the Eastern Church. References in
patristic homilies suggest that there were two traditions. According to one version, Mary died and her body,
separated from her soul but transported to a hidden realm, remains uncorrupted while awaiting the
resurrection of all, Alternatively, Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven without dying. Of the two,
the former appears to be more ancient, and continues to be the understanding of Orthodox Christians.

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Fig. 36

“Maryʼs House,” Ephesus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Virgin_Mary#mediaviewer/File:Ephesus_House.jpg
Fig. 37

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Dormition of the Virgin. Ivory plaque. Constantinople, late tenth cent.‒early eleventh cent.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Dormition_de_la_Vierge.JPG

Liturgical feasts commemorating the end of Mary’s life are recorded in Egypt and France in the sixth
century, followed a hundred years later in Rome, and Mary’s assumption became one of the major Marian
celebrations of the Catholic Church’s calendar. While the conviction that she was assumed into heaven
seems to have been largely uncontroverted, theologians worried at the question of Mary’s death: if the
Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin, would this not mean that she would have also been immune
from its gravest result, death? On the other hand, others argued that the intimate union with her son would
mean that she would have died as he did, but been resurrected immediately, without having to wait for the
general resurrection.

In 1946, Pope Pius XII enquired of all the world’s Catholic bishops whether the belief in Mary’s assumption
was universal, and to ascertain if it could and should be promulgated as dogma. The response was
overwhelmingly positive. On November 1, 1950, to great acclamation and the jubilation of the crowds that
had gathered in Rome, the Pope declared it to be a binding belief that “the Immaculate Mother of God, the
ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly
glory.” The de nition deliberately left open the question of Mary’s death for future deliberation.

To a Protestant “minimalism” concerning Mary there also corresponds a Catholic “maximalism” that is not
limited to these four dogmas and which goes beyond what is taught in the Catholic Catechism. The faith
instinct that Mary can and does intercede before God dates to at least the end of the second century: the Sub
tuum praesidium asks that Mary protect and rescue the petitioner. Over the centuries, popular religion,
liturgy, art and literature, homilies, and devotional writings gave increasing emphasis on Mary’s role in
mediation for humans before God: Bernard of Clairvaux referred to Mary as “the mediatrix of salvation,”
while the words of the Salve Regina call her “advocate.” Mediation—praying to Mary to ask that she pray for
others—is the essence of her cult.

But a more elevated role is suggested by the title co-redemptrix. The ancient Eve‒Mary parallel implies that
in salvation Mary has as active a role as did Eve in humanity’s fall from grace, Mary’s at being the rst act
of human cooperation in the redemption to be brought about by Christ. The theme of Marian co-redemption
rst emerges in Catholic writings of the sixteenth century and became widely applied to Mary in the
following century, nding its way into papal documents and allocutions. Some Marian enthusiasts of a
notably maximalist stripe champion the cause of a “ fth dogma,” hoping for a new, infallible declaration by
a pope. The Catholic hierarchy has resisted any new declaration as being inopportune in terms of its impact
on ecumenical relations, while at the same time continuing to a rm much of the content implied by the

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title co-redemptrix.

Vatican II and the Eclipse of Mariology

The period between the declarations of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary represents
a high-water mark of Marian maximalism in the life of the Catholic Church. Organizations such as the
Legion of Mary enriched parish life, the rosary was regularly practiced both privately and publicly,
Mariological congresses attracted many attendants, and few Catholic homes did not have at least one statue
or picture of the Virgin. In many quarters, therefore, expectations were high that the Second Vatican Council
would issue an important statement on Mary, even a new dogma to honor her. The preliminary discussions
as to precisely where and how the Council should discuss the mother of Jesus indicated a fundamental
question: What is the place of Mary in the scheme of salvation and her appropriate role in the life of the
Christian community?

A draft document bore the title About the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the People. By a
narrow and highly contested margin, the bishops at the Council decided not to treat Mary in a separate
document, but rather to incorporate Marian doctrine in a dedicated chapter of the Constitution on the
Church (Lumen Gentium, ch. 8). Bishops from majority-Catholic countries where devotion to Mary was of
national signi cance (such as Poland) voted against bishops from northwestern Europe, more sensitive to
relations with Protestants, and who urged a more restrained treatment. Moving determinedly away from
stressing Mary’s exceptional privileges, the chapter stressed her subordinate role with respect to her son,
and situated Mary “in the mystery of Christ and the Church,” portraying her as the believing member par
excellence and as the Church’s model and mother.

While Vatican II avoided formally granting Mary the title “Mother of the Church,” Paul VI used it in his
speech at the end of the third session of the Council. The roots of the idea of Mary’s motherhood of the
Church lie in Luke, Acts, and John, and as a theme it was made explicit by Ambrose and Augustine. As such,
the phrase perfectly re ected the Council’s desire to return to Christianity’s biblical and patristic roots.

In Europe and North America, the twenty or so years following the Council witnessed a notable and dramatic
decline in Marian theology and devotion. Throughout the world, the language of the liturgy changed from
Latin to the vernacular, and the importance of scripture and the centrality of the Eucharist in the life of
Catholics were emphasized. In tandem with these radical changes came a challenge: the very existence of
Mariology as an independent eld of inquiry seemed questionable and outdated. Theologians trained in a
preconciliar mindset sought to understand the relocation of the doctrine of Mary in relation to the Church
and Christ, but also the dramatic and often uneven changes in religious practice that happened as pastoral
leaders began to implement the recommendations of the Council. Papal teaching, however, continued to
stress the pastoral and theological value of venerating Mary. Marialis Cultus, the 1974 Apostolic Letter of
Paul VI concerning “the right ordering and development of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary” called for
veneration of Mary to be aligned with the o cial liturgy. John Paul II dedicated his papacy to her care, and
referred constantly to Mary in his many addresses and writings, especially in his encyclical Redemptoris
Mater, and his orienting of Catholicism to a distinctly Marian direction is an important part of his legacy.

New perspectives were also arising: a rst wave of feminist theologians from North America and Western
Europe rejected the traditional Marian paradigm that emphasized her unique privileges as pro ering an
impossible role model for women, and for bolstering female subordination by an exclusively male hierarchy.
At the same time, nonetheless, the post-conciliar period also gave birth to a renewed and diverse array of
images of Mary. While Catholic traditionalists were upholding their view of Mary, liberal Catholics were
beginning to champion her as a prophetic sign of hope for the oppressed facing systemic injustice. A rst
generation of Latin American liberation theologians had been skeptical of popular Marian devotion as being

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entirely too other-worldly and as only o ering solace in a world of su ering rather than motivating social
action to bring about an end to injustice. Yet their successors came to nd in the Magni cat a Mary who
could be read in a socioeconomic and political key as well as in a spiritual mode. In the same way, feminist
theologians of succeeding generations—particularly those from outside Europe and North America—have
found positive dimensions in Mary: in her free cooperation with God, she is a sister in faith who rather than
representing an idealized and passive motherhood, provides women with a model of courageous, spirit-
lled integrity. Others have sought to rediscover in Mary the symbol of the divine feminine that provides an
authentic model of women’s identity.

Popular piety, especially in the global South, seems on the whole, to be largely immune to the concerns of
academic theologians and the waxing and waning of intellectual fashions. The great Marian shrines on all
continents report continual increases in the numbers of pilgrims. In the Catholic world, Mary continues to
be one of the most salient emblems of a distinctly Catholic identity and is an inseparable, essential part of
faith. In the countries of Orthodoxy, Mary continues to occupy her historical place in the liturgy and also in
popular devotion. In 2011, over half a million Muscovites stood in line in subzero temperatures for days to
venerate and pray before a relic believed to be the belt of Mary, which had been brought to Russia from
Mount Athos in Greece.

Mary in the Twenty-First Century

The multifaceted phenomenon of Mary continues to thrive and evolve. Of particular note is the Protestant
“rediscovery” of Mary. Some sectors of Reform Christianity maintain a historic lack of interest in the
mother of Jesus and a deep suspicion of directing prayers and praise to her: the eminent theologian Karl
Barth (d. 1968), while fully accepting the virgin birth of Jesus and that Mary was indeed the mother of God,
identi ed in the practice of venerating Mary everything that was wrong with Catholicism. Yet toward the
end of the twentieth century, some Evangelical theologians and others from established Protestant
churches developed a renewed interest in the historical gure of the mother of Jesus, even coming to
understand that Mary can be approached in prayer in the same way as one might ask other people for their
prayers. In contrast, those currents of Anglicanism deriving from the Oxford Movement, along with some
parts of the Lutheran communion have maintained a historical focus in Mary, celebrating her feasts in the
liturgical calendar and accepting at least some of the beliefs of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. An
ecumenical Mariology, in which Mary is a bridge gure rather than a cause of intra-Christian division, is
already a reality.

A new Marian endeavor is also emerging in inter-religious relations. A long-standing interest in the “Jesus
of history” has led to a corresponding desire among Jews and Christians alike to understand the young girl
Maryam in her original Jewish context. Muslims see Jesus only as a prophet, rather than the Son of God, yet
Marīam (Mary), the mother of Isa (Jesus) is of particular importance in Islam. Marīam is the only woman
named in the Qur’an, which dedicates Sura 19 to her and mentions her over fty times, relating her birth to
Imran and Anna, the miraculous circumstances of her upbringing, the annunciation by the angel Gabriel,
and the virginal conception of Isa—passages, which suggest the strength of interest in Mary in sixth-
century Arabia. Devotion to Marīam, particularly among women, is well known in the Muslim world, and
Islam shares with Christianity a greater degree of common belief about Mary than it does about Jesus. An
inter-Abrahamic Mariology that can include Jewish, Christian, and Islamic di erences and convergences
promises to open up new horizons of practical dialogue as well as intellectual investigation.

Similar vistas may also open up in relations between Christianity and other Eastern religions. The Buddhist
Guan-Yin, the Bodhisattva of compassion, has iconographical features and characteristics that Christianity
associates with Mary: during the Edo period, Japanese Christians secretly venerated Mary under the guise of

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statues known as Maria Kannon (Guan-Yin) ( g. 38). In India, where Christians are a small and sometimes
beleaguered minority, devotion to Mother Mary is widespread among Hindus, who represent the majority of
pilgrims to the country’s many Marian shrines ( g. 39). Over the last two thousand years, the development
of Christian beliefs concerning Mary shows that the piety of ordinary believers may be in an ambivalent
relationship with its o cially espoused doctrines. The same may well be true in other religions, whose
beliefs and practices represent a new frontier for Mariological thought.
Fig. 38

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Maria Kannon. Japan, seventeenth cent. Salle des Martyrs, Société des Missions étrangères de Paris.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/The_Virgin_Mary_disguised_as_Kanon_Japan.jpg
Fig. 39

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Our Lady of Mylapore (Mylai Matha) procession. Chennai, India, December 2008.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Our_Lady_of_Mylapore_%28Mylai_Matha%29_seated_in_a_chariot_at
_the_end_of_a_chariot_procession.jpg

Orthodox theology has maintained a comparatively constant teaching and belief concerning the Mother of
God, being largely untouched by either religious reformation or the processes of modernity, and devotion to
Mary remains a central part of Orthodox identity in the homelands of Eastern Europe and in the diaspora.
Catholicism, on the other hand, is in a period of dramatic change as its demographic center (though not its
intellectual fulcrum) has shifted to the countries of the global South. In many parts of Western Europe,
institutional Christianity is in a period of steep decline, and the same underlying pattern characterizes
North American Christianity. These are precisely the geo-cultural regions which were central in most of the
developments in Marian thought and culture over the last millennium. Latin American devotion to Mary
has, it is true, been a ected by the spread of secularism and a signi cant growth in Evangelical and
Pentecostal Christianity, yet Mary continues to be a central part of the Latin American imaginary. For the
millions of Catholic immigrants to the United States, the gure of Mary is a reassuring, maternal presence,
an anchor of faith and culture in a new and unfamiliar environment.

Catholics from the global South do not necessarily share many of the experiences of their co-religionists in
North America and Western Europe and their religious practices were less a ected by the immediate
aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. The images of Mary that will emerge in the twenty- rst century
are therefore likely to draw on the rich and global heritage of faith and culture of European Catholicism. Yet
the Mary of the twenty- rst century and beyond will also re ect the concerns and realities of Christians
from those areas, who already represent a numerical majority. Whatever shape she takes, the gure of Mary
will likely continue to be, like her son, a “sign of contradiction” (Luke 2:34), a potent symbol for some of all
that is objectionable or outlandish about Christianity or forms of it. And at the same time, she will no doubt
continue to attract, fascinate, and compel many others.
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