Contents

MARIOLOGY

Copyright Information page

Dedication

Prefatory Note

By Way of Introduction

Mary in the Documents of the Magisterium

I. MOTHER OF GOD

II. EVER VIRGIN

III. FULL OF GRACE

IV. IMMACULATE

V. ASSUMED INTO HEAVEN

VI. MEDIATRIX WITH THE MEDIATOR

VII. SPIRITUAL MOTHER

VIII. QUEEN

Mary in the Old Testament

I. MARY IN PROPHECY

II. MARY IN TYPE

Mary in the New Testament

By Michael J. Gruenthaner, S.J.

PARENTAGE

EDUCATION

BETROTHAL

ANNUNCIATION

VISITATION

JOSEPH’S ORDEAL

BETHLEHEM

PRESENTATION AND PURIFICATION

THE MAGI

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT

RETURN TO NAZARETH

THE HIDDEN LIFE

THE CHILD JESUS IN THE TEMPLE

CANA

THE PUBLIC LIFE

BENEATH THE CROSS

THE RISEN CHRIST

THE WOMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE

Mary in Western Patristic Thought

I

II

III

IV

V

Mary in Eastern Patristic Thought

I. THE NEW EVE

II. PERPETUAL VIRGINITY

III. MARY’S MOTHERHOOD

IV. OUR LADY’S HOLINESS

V. DEATH AND ASSUMPTION

Mary in the Apocrypha of the New Testament

Mary in the Eastern Liturgies

I. MARY IN THE BYZANTINE LITURGY

II. MARY IN THE ALEXANDRIAN AND ETHIOPIAN LITURGIES

III. MARY IN THE ANTIOCHENE LITURGY

IV. MARY IN THE ARMENIAN LITURGY

V. MARY IN THE CHALDEAN LITURGY

Mary in the Western Liturgy

LITURGY IN RELATION TO FAITH

MATERNITY

SANCTITY

VIRGINITY

ASSUMPTION

QUEENSHIP

MEDIATION

IN GENERAL

FEAST OF THE PURIFICATION

SEVEN DOLORS

VISITATION

HOLY NAME

PRESENTATION

LITTLE OFFICE

MARIAN ANTIPHONS

Outline History of Mariology in the Middle Ages and Modern Times

I. MEDIEVAL MARIOLOGY (TWELFTH TO SIXTEENTH CENTURIES)

MODERN MARIOLOGY (SIXTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES)

III. CONTEMPORARY MARIOLOGY (1854-1954)

APPENDIX: The Holy Name of Mary

MARIOLOGY

VOLUME 1

Edited by

Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M.

Mediatrix Press

MMXVIII

Copyright Information page

Nihil Obstat:

John M. A. Fearns, S.T.D. Censor librorum

imprimatur:

✠ Francis Cardinal Spellman Archbishop of New York

July 21, 1954

The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or
moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat and
imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed.

©Mediatrix Press, 2018

Mariology, vol. 1 is in the public domain. The typesetting and editorial changes made in
this volume ©Mediatrix Press. No part of this work may be reproduced in print or
electronically except for quotations in articles, blogs, and educational works.

Dedication

To His Excellency

The Most Reverend John J. Wright, D.D.

Bishop of Worcester

Episcopal Chairman of

The Mariological Society of America

Outstanding Promoter of Marian Studies

This Mariology Set Is Dedicated

With Sentiments of Profound Gratitude

Prefatory Note

THE Marian Year proclaimed by Pope Pius XII has seen widespread and intense increase
of devotion to the Blessed Mother of Christ. Programs at home and pilgrimages abroad have
focused the attention of millions on the resplendent figure of her who is our life, our
sweetness, and our hope in a sense which every Catholic Christian understands.

The deepening and development of our understanding of the dogmas respecting the
Blessed Mother must necessarily be a principal accomplishment of the Marian Year if its
fruits are to endure and its purpose is to be achieved. Catholic devotion does not spring
from poetry, but from that love which is born of knowledge. Nil amatum nisi prius
cognitum applies also to the objects of our piety and religious cult. Neither is devotion
nourished, substantially at least, by sentiment or emotion; it is made strong by theological
science and by the strict truth which the scholar unfolds for the admiration and the profit
of even the saints, those actual and those to be.

That is why we may properly hail the publication of the present collection as a major
event of the Marian Year, a praiseworthy and enduring contribution to the observance of
the hundredth anniversary of the first of the solemn pronouncements of the Church
concerning Mary in these modern times which seem destined to be dedicated in a special
way to her.

The credit for this work, its conception and execution, belongs in more than usual
degree with the editor, Father Juniper Carol. Father Juniper brings unique qualifications
of spirit and skill to a work of editing so ambitious. By ancestry he is heir to the blood of
Spain and therefore lightens his labor with that ardent love for the Queen of Heaven which
has warmed the songs of Spain and fired the speculations of her great theologians. By
spiritual genealogy he is a son of the Franciscan family, a kinsman of those friars who, in
every age and land, have preached love of Mary together with love for her Son. Out of the
blend of these temperamental and spiritual influences there has come the predilection for
reflection on and study of the mysteries surrounding Mary which has dominated his priestly
work.

It is, however, on the scholarly and scientific side that Father Juniper pre-eminently
qualifies for the work of research and orderly presentation reflected in this ponderous work.
First president of the Mariological Society of America, he has long and energetically sought
to rear solid dogmatic bastions for the growing devotion to Mary. A specialist in the
extensive bibliography and current development of Mariology, he makes available to other
scholars by lecture and by writing the results of his own painstaking and patient studies as
he now furnishes them with the collection of the work of many. His theological training
featured Mariological branches and his citation in 1952 for the Award of the Mariological
Society was universally approved and applauded.

It is, then, with grateful admiration for the editor and for all who have had a part in the
work he has compiled and organized that I accept the honor of presenting this Mariological
anthology. May it give scholars outside the household of the faith some idea of the learning
behind our love for Mary and add to Our Lady’s convinced clients new reasons for the faith
that is in us!

✠ John Wright

Episcopal Chairman

The Mariological Society of America

By Way of Introduction

THE present Mariology traces its origin to a series of informal conversations held between
the Editor and several Marian scholars in the Eternal City as early as the year 1938. One of
the topics of these discussions was briefly this: the definite need of a comprehensive
symposium, in the vernacular, covering the entire theological tract relative to Our Blessed
Lady. As a result of these preliminary deliberations, the Editor undertook to elaborate a
suitable program to meet this deficiency as far as the English-speaking public was
concerned. While the global conflagration which followed in 1939 virtually shattered any
hopes of immediate action in this respect, nevertheless the original idea continued its
process of development during the war years until it reached the desired maturity. The
establishment of the Mariological Society of America in 1949 may be credited with having
contributed considerably toward carrying the original plans into effect. By stimulating
interest in Mariology and, at the same time, co-ordinating the efforts and talents of its
members, this national organization soon furnished the most important element in an
undertaking such as this, namely, willing and able contributors. Finally, the approaching
one hundredth anniversary of the dogmatic definition of Our Lady’s Immaculate
Conception seemed to the Editor a most propitious opportunity to launch the publication
of at least the first volume of the contemplated trilogy and thus pay a humble tribute to Our
Blessed Lady as patroness of these United States.

That there is at present a growing demand for a work of this nature, has been evidenced
in recent years by the enthusiastic reception accorded in other lands to similar projects,
such as the Katholische Marienkunde, edited by Paul Sträter, S.J.;
1 Maria. Études sur la
Sainte Vierge, edited by H. du Manoir, S.J.;
2 and La Madonna secondo la fede e la teologia,
written by G. M. Roschini, O.S.M.
3 English-speaking Catholics should be—actually are—just
as eager to broaden their knowledge concerning the Mother of God as their brethren in
continental Europe. Hence we feel that they, too, will welcome the publication of a work
containing up-to-date, solid, and authoritative information on the entire field of Marian
theology and cult.

The theological tract known as “Mariology” is vast and complex indeed, as the reader
will gather from a mere perusal of this symposium. The rich Marian patrimony bequeathed
to us as part of the faith of our fathers, and integrated by not a few biblical texts and
countless patristic, papal, and liturgical documents, constitutes a varied and almost
inexhaustible fund of knowledge. The patient culling of the Mariological data scattered
throughout these “sources” is the task undertaken in the first volume of the present set. It
is here that both the research-loving scholar and the devout client of Mary will discover
abundant, and perhaps even unsuspected, material for study and meditation. Once this
necessary foundation has been laid, the systematic treatment of Our Lady’s singular
prerogatives will be attempted in a forthcoming volume. And since an adequate appraisal
of Mary’s position in the scheme of salvation has ever prompted her children to express
outwardly their inner sentiments of gratitude and dependence, our project would be
incomplete if it failed to gather in a third volume the multiple manifestations of Marian cult
and devotion as found in the various spheres of Catholic life. Against the rich background
furnished by this vast panorama, the alluring figure of Our Heavenly Mother will stand in
all its splendor and beauty, giving us an idea, however faint, of the exalted mission assigned
to her by the Almighty.

So much concerning the appropriateness of this publication and its contents in general.
As to the contributors selected for the various papers, the Editor feels that they need no
special introduction. Most of them are seasoned writers in the various branches of the
sacred sciences and all have shown sufficient familiarity with contemporary Mariological
problems and with the solutions to meet these problems. The criteria adhered to in the
preparation of their papers have been determined with a view to reaching the widest
possible circle of readers. For this reason, while the contributions are written according to
accepted standards of scientific methodology, their style of presentation is never abstruse
or excessively technical.

The symposium, then, is offered, first of all, to the members of the Catholic clergy, who
will find in it not only a refreshing and stimulating review of their previous theological
studies, but likewise a clear and accurate exposé of more recent currents of thought in the
field of Mariology. Second, to the lay members of religious orders and congregations, to our
seminarians, and to the large group among our Catholic laity, always eager to broaden and
deepen their knowledge of Marian doctrines. Finally, to non-Catholic groups earnestly
seeking the justification for our teaching relative to Our Blessed Lady. It should prove
rather revealing to them, especially when brought into comparison with the offensive
caricatures of Marian doctrines drawn at times by some of their less enlightened
coreligionists. It should serve as a timely antidote against the recriminations of such pseudo
critics as Dr. Karl Barth who contends that Catholic Mariology is, in fact, “a pathological
conception of theological thought,” a cancerous growth which ought to be immediately
excised.
4 May we note, with a feeling of relief, that not all our separated brethren share the
distorted views of this misguided theologian. Indeed, it is consoling to observe in this
connection that among contemporary Protestant scholars there are not a few engaged in an
honest and sincere endeavor to re-evaluate their former position and reconstruct a “non-Roman” Mariology on a more orthodox basis. Witness, for example, the commendable work
of Dr. Hans Asmussen in Germany,
5 the Dialogue sur la Vierge, compiled by Paul Couturier
in France,
6 and the symposium The Mother of God, edited by E. L. Mascall in England.
7
While the net result gathered from these essays of rapprochement is not as yet totally
satisfactory, nevertheless, the very effort which inspired them represents a significant step
in the right direction and hence deserving of our praise. May the pages that follow be of
some help to these and many other sincere non-Catholics in their search for the fullness of
God’s revelation concerning His Immaculate Mother.

On the appearance of this first volume the Editor takes occasion to express his heartfelt
gratitude to all who have in any way assisted him in this difficult enterprise. He is
particularly thankful to His Excellency, the Most Reverend John J. Wright, Bishop of
Worcester, for having enhanced the prestige of this publication by writing its preface; to the
various contributors for their erudite and highly informative dissertations; and to the
publishers for their valuable co-operation and many courtesies.

Rev. Dr. J. B. Carol, O.F.M.

Editor

New York

December 8, 1953

Preface to the Mediatrix Press Edition of Mariology

It has been over 70 years since the initial publication of Mariology, and yet it remains
perhaps the best and most exhaustive treatise of the subject in English, even in our own
times.

The confusion following the close of the Second Vatican Council has given rise to many
false teachings in regard to the Blessed Virgin which arise both among the clergy and among
Catholic laity. In many places, these errors have arisen not on account of malice, but
ignorance of the sources of Mariology in both the Church Fathers, and the Scholastics, and
Baroque theology. The republication of these volumes seems essential to provide an
antidote, as it were, to the confusion that reigns at present on a number of points even
among Catholics who might otherwise be described as faithful.

We wish to especially acknowledge the work of Ben Douglass, whose editing of the scan
for retypesetting has proven invaluable to producing a text in conformity with the original
in all points. Moreover, at his suggestion, we have integrated certain essays in the order
which Fr. Carol originally intended, but was prevented from due to time constraints.

We offer these volumes again to the English speaking public for the glory of Almighty
God, and the Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ, Who took flesh from the Ark of the New
Covenant, the incomparable Virgin Mary. May it be profitable to all Catholics to reconnect
with the fruits of the whole tradition in praise of God’s Virgin Mother.

Post Falls, ID

Winter, 2018

Mary in the Documents of the Magisterium

By EAMON R. CARROLL, O.Carm., S.T.D.

ALL these with one mind continued steadfastly in prayer with the women and Mary, the mother
of Jesus, and with his brethren” (Acts 1:14). Our Lady’s last appearance in the historical books of
the New Testament shows her at the very heart of the apostolic band. “She it was,” Pope Pius XII
writes, “who through her powerful prayers obtained the grace that the Spirit of Our Divine
Redeemer, already given to the Church on the Cross, should be bestowed through miraculous gifts
on the newly founded Hierarchy on Pentecost.”
8 Before Our Lord ascended into heaven He had
promised, “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach
you all things, and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you” (Jn. 14:26).

The prayerful preparation in the Cenacle for the coming of the Advocate was not the first time
Our Lady had awaited His coming. The Holy Spirit had come upon her in the mystery of the
Incarnation when the Son of God was made man in her virginal womb. She well knew the Spirit
of truth; under His influence the Blessed Virgin’s brilliant mind manifested itself in the Magnificat.
The many mysteries she pondered in her heart were truths that she would confide to the Church’s
care.

The presence of Mary in the Gospels is a sign of Christ’s presence—at the Crib, in Cana, on
Calvay. Her presence before Pentecost was a sign that the Holy Spirit was at hand. Our Lady’s
presence through the history of the Church is still the guarantee that her divine Son is there.
Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the history of Catholic doctrine. The body of Catholic
truth is a unified whole. If the divine personality of Christ is attacked, then His Mother is no
longer the Mother of God. If the full humanity of the God-Man is denied, the true and perfect
motherhood of Mary is its defense. When Our Lady’s God-given privileges are rejected and
ridiculed, how sadly history shows that her Son soon fares no better.

A. The magisterium

Mary in the Documents of the magisterium is a gathering of the principal teachings of the
Church about the Blessed Mother of God.
9 Christ was not only Priest and King, He was also the
divine Teacher. He conferred all three powers on His Church. The term magisterium means the
right and office of teaching truths revealed by God with that supreme authority to which all must
assent. The word magisterium is used in two ways: first, for the power of teaching; second, for
the persons themselves who possess the teaching authority.

In the present article, only what the Papal magisterium has taught about Mary will be
examined; this will include the decisions of ecumenical councils, i.e., general assemblies to which
all the bishops of the world are invited, with the Pope calling or at least approving the assembly.

Another necessary distinction is between solemn magisterium and ordinary magisterium.
Solemn magisterium refers to definitions given by General Councils in union with the Pope, or also
by the Pope alone when he speaks ex cathedra. The Holy Father speaks ex cathedra (Latin for “from
the chair,” i.e., from St. Peter’s Chair, as his successor) when as the supreme shepherd and teacher
of all Christians he proposes by his supreme apostolic authority a doctrine of faith or morals to
be believed by the universal Church.
10

The ordinary magisterium includes the teaching of the Papal encyclicals, of the ordinary
documents of the Congregations (e.g., the Congregation of the Holy Office in Rome), and of the
body of bishops. Humani generis, encyclical letter of August 12, 1950, thus explains the authority
of the ordinary magisterium:

Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent,
since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority.
For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: “He who
heareth you, heareth Me” (Lk. 10:16); and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical
Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their
official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious
that that matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered
a question open to discussion among theologians.
11

If the Holy Father declares by the extraordinary exercise of his teaching authority that a
certain doctrine is a revealed truth, as occurred, for example, in 1950 about the Assumption, the
truth is technically known thereafter as a dogma, and the Pope’s action recalled as a dogmatic
definition. In such ex cathedra definitions he is infallible; the Holy Ghost protects him from error.

But even before any solemn definition, it may be clear from the ordinary magisterium that a
doctrine is a truth revealed by God and forming part of the Deposit of the Faith. Thus, the
Assumption was already a matter of faith before the definition of November 1, 1950. But the
Church’s proposal of the doctrine, by dogmatic definition, puts it beyond doubt and discussion.
According to Munificentissimus Deus:

From the universal agreement of the Church’s ordinary teaching authority we have a certain and firm
proof, demonstrating that the Blessed Virgin Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven—which surely no
faculty of the human mind could know by its own natural powers, as far as the heavenly glorification
of the virginal body of the revered Mother of God is concerned—is a truth that has been revealed by
God and consequently something that must be firmly and faithfully believed by all the children of the
Church.
12

The popes issue many kinds of documents: some are Apostolic Constitutions
(Munificentissimus Deus, for example), some are encyclicals addressed to the universal Church,
some are radio messages to particular places or to the whole world. Still others are letters to
bishops and superiors of religious orders. Modern communications bring the Pope’s words, even
short addresses to small groups of pilgrims, to the whole world. Particular or local
pronouncements frequently explain more general documents.

B. Deposit of the Faith

The phrase “Deposit of the Faith” (depositum fidei), or simply the Deposit, means public
Revelation, intended by God for all men, complete and entire, such as it is contained in Holy
Scripture and in divine and apostolic tradition. This Deposit of the Faith was closed with the death
of the last Apostle, so that the whole content of truths revealed by God was entrusted to the
Church before St. John died. Some of them were written in Scripture, many others were passed
on by word of mouth to subsequent generations. The Church, called by St. Paul “the pillar and
mainstay of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), is the custodian of the Deposit of the Faith. As custodian, it
neither adds to nor alters the truths revealed once for all in the Deposit. “The Church,” declares
Pius XI, “never adds anything to the sum of truths which are contained at least implicitly in the
revealed deposit which it has received from God.”
13

But the Church is a living dynamic thing, the Mystical Body of Christ. And so the unchanging
conservation of the Deposit does not prevent a real progress in the understanding of the contents
of the Deposit by individuals and by the whole Church. This progress is known as the
development of doctrine. It is a gradual flowering under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whereby
doctrines that were but dimly perceived in early times are now seen as part of the harmonious
pattern of revealed truth. As Newman describes it, “What the Church once had she never has lost.
… She has not changed possessions, but accumulated them.” In the course of time, both the
teaching and the taught Church discover, by prayer and study, a doctrine that has been there
beneath the surface all along. In Newman’s words: “Even centuries might pass without the formal
expression of a truth which had been all along the secret life of millions of souls.” At length the
Church, infallible interpreter of Revelation, may judge a doctrine to be part of revealed truth, and
by dogmatic definition or by the ordinary magisterium so declare it.
14

In the Gospels Our Lord speaks of the householder who brings forth from his storeroom things
old and new (Mt. 13:51-52). In like manner the Church is forever producing from its treasure of
revealed wisdom truths old and new; the treasury is of inexhaustible richness, a reflection of the
substantial truth of the Divine Word.
15 There is no better example of this development than to
survey the Church’s teachings on the Virgin Mary from her divine motherhood to her coronation
as Queen of heaven.

I. MOTHER OF GOD

A. Creeds

After the New Testament, no form of early Christian literature is more ancient than the
primitive Creeds. By these early symbols catechumens committed to memory a brief summary of
the principal doctrines of Christianity. The teaching Church, under the guidance of its bishops and
Supreme Pastor, presented to the believing faithful a compendium of theology in the succinct form
of a set of articles of belief. Although our present Apostles’ Creed is not earlier than the sixth
century, an ancient Roman Creed appears at the end of the second century, and in its essential
content comes from the age of the Apostles. Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition, c. 215, quotes this
question from the Roman Rite of Baptism: “Dost thou believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who
was born by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary … ?”
16

The Virgin Mary’s true motherhood of the Son of God is set forth as the Church’s teaching in
these first formulas of faith. Our Lady appears in the first pages of the Gospel as the Mother of
Jesus; with the same right and clarity her maternal office is mentioned in the earliest Creeds of
the Church. The first symbol listed in the Enchiridion Symbolorum, that of Rufinus, the old Roman
Creed form, has: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Christ Jesus His only Son, Our Lord,
who was born from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
…”
17

The Nicean Symbol, 325, does not directly refer to the Virgin Mary, although it says that Our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God “for us men and for our salvation came down and was made
flesh, and became man, suffered, and rose on the third day. …”
18 In defending the divinity of the
Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Council of Nicea was implicitly protecting Mary’s
privilege as Mother of God.

B. Council of Ephesus

The Nicean Symbol was called forth by the need to defend the divinity of the Son of God. The
first Council of Constantinople, 381, affirmed the existence of the human soul in Christ, against
Apollinaris, who said that the Word took the place of the soul. Its Creed said that the Son of God
“was made flesh by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary.”
19 Neither at Nicea nor at Constantinople
was there a direct attack on the Virgin Mary. But the error of Nestorius revealed itself precisely
in relation to Mary as the Mother of God. The controversy that raged between Nestorius, Patriarch
of Constantinople, and St. Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, centered on the term Theotokos (Mother
of God). Nestorius at an earlier date had himself used this term indifferently with Christotokos
(Mother of Christ). But the battle lines were clearly drawn when a follower of his openly denied
the title Theotokos to the Virgin Mary. It was no mere quarrel about words. “Mother of God” was
refused to the Virgin Mary on the basis that there were two distinct persons in Christ—one God
the Word, the other Jesus—and that they were united only by a moral union. Mary was said to be
the mother of the man Jesus, but not of the other Person, God.

Cyril openly challenged Nestorius in 429, and informed Pope St. Celestine of his action. At the
Ecumenical Council of Ephesus, 431, convened with the Pope’s permission, Cyril presided.
Nestorius was condemned, and Cyril’s second letter to Nestorius, 430, read out and approved:

Nor was He first born of the holy Virgin as an ordinary man, in such a way that the Word only
afterwards descended upon Him; rather was He united [with flesh] in the womb itself, and thus is said
to have undergone birth according to the flesh, inasmuch as He makes His own the birth of His own
flesh. … For this reason [the holy Fathers] have boldly proclaimed the holy Virgin Theotokos.
20

Pope Celestine sent two delegates with orders to put into effect his decision that Cyril’s
interpretations, including Theotokos, were the true faith of Nicea and binding on all. The Papal
legates arrived two weeks after the Council had already condemned Nestorius. A second meeting
was called, and the delegates confirmed the decision already taken. The voice of Rome had been
heard: the matter was now settled for all Christianity and for all time. The cornerstone had been
placed by this definition of dogma for the subsequent development of Mariology. The intimate
bond between the Theotokos and the God-Man was indicative of the trend the developing
Mariology would take. The belief embodied in the term Theotokos was at once the glory of Mary’s
divine Maternity and the affirmation that God Himself became man, the son of Mary, took to
Himself a human nature without prejudice to the unity of His divine person. The Church in ages
to come would discover the deeper treasures of the divine Maternity, for in the words of Pius XII,
“from this sublime office of the Mother of God seem to flow, as it were from a most limpid hidden
source, all the privileges and graces with which her soul and life were adorned in such
extraordinary manner and measure.”
21

Ephesus also showed clearly the Roman Primacy. In word and act the Papal participation in
the Council called by the Emperor was the intervention of the Supreme Pastor. Cyril, even when
he convened the Council, June 22, 431, before many of the bishops and the Roman delegates
arrived, did so as “holding the place of the Bishop of the Church of Rome.” The legates on their
arrival demanded and received without question a complete review in a new assembly of the
bishops. Philip the Priest addressed them in words that have become a classic expression of the
primacy of authority of Peter’s successor.
22 The Mariology of Ephesus can be said to come directly
from the Supreme magisterium of the Church. Here again a pattern has been set: in the subsequent
development of doctrine about Our Lady, the decision will ever rest with Rome. For Philip stated
that the Council had been reunited to carry out the decisions made by Rome. The members of the
Church are joined to the head, and the blessed Apostle Peter is the head of the faith and the head
of the Apostles.
23

C. After Ephesus

Many popes and councils in the centuries immediately after Ephesus reaffirmed the divine
maternity. The Council of Chalcedon (fourth ecumenical), 451, made its own the word Theotokos:
“as regards His Godhead, He was begotten of the Father before the ages, and as regards His
manhood He was for us and for our salvation born in these last days of the Virgin Mary, the
Mother of God.”
24

The second Council of Constantinople (fifth ecumenical), 553, defended the word Theotokos
against false interpretation. It also accepted and thereby conferred dogmatic value on St. Cyril’s
anathemas against Nestorius. There is no evidence that these anathemas were read and approved
at the Council of Ephesus itself. The first anathema concerns the divine Maternity: “If anyone does
not confess that Emmanuel is in truth God, and that the holy Virgin is, in consequence, Theotokos
(Mother of God), since she brought forth according to the flesh the Word of God who has become
flesh, let him be anathema.”
25

D. Lux veritatis

The outstanding document of modern times on the divine motherhood is Pius XI’s encyclical
commemorating the anniversary of Ephesus, Lux veritatis, December 25, 1931.
26 Lux veritatis
reviews the history of the Nestorian heresy and the events at Ephesus, considering both the
defense of the traditional faith, and the authoritative position of the Roman Primacy recognized
on that occasion. The central dogma of the Incarnation—that Christ is true God and true man, the
divine and human natures existing unconfused in the hypostatic union (the union of the one
divine Person with the human nature)—is explained. The divine Maternity is shown as the
corollary of Christological doctrine. From this truth the Pope derives also the belief that Mary is
our spiritual Mother. He concludes by a double gesture to commemorate the Ephesian anniversary:
the restoration of the mosaic in St. Mary Major of the Theotokos, first placed there after the
triumph of Ephesus by Pope St. Sixtus III in 432; and the extension to the universal Church of the
feast of the Divine Maternity on November 21.

II. EVER VIRGIN

The early Creeds not only affirm with St. Paul that Christ was “born of a woman” (Gal. 4:4);
they specify “born of the Virgin Mary.” And the Council of Ephesus used St. Cyril’s words to state
that the holy Virgin was truly Theokotos, Mother of God. The challenge to the divine Maternity
had sprung from Nestorianism, an Eastern heresy. The West was less disturbed by speculative
errors. Its more practical bent manifested itself in a vigorous defense of Mary’s perpetual virginity.
Some have asserted that Mary’s perpetual virginity was invented as a spur to asceticism, but such
an opinion is contradicted by the Creeds accepted in the East and the West, and is contrary to the
Gospels themselves.
27 Asceticism, e.g., the respect for clerical celibacy, did play a part in the
acknowledgment of Mary’s perpetual virginity, but it was not the leading role. It was rather the
part of an agent, working effectively to present to the teaching Church an adequate formula to
state its doctrine precisely. The Ecclesia docens, the teaching Church, made the final decision.
28

Pope St. Siricius (384-399), on the occasion of a dispute about Our Lady’s perpetual virginity,
intervened in 392 with a letter to Anysius, Bishop of Thessalonica. The Bishop had taken Bonosus,
a bishop in Illyria, to task for saying Our Lady had other children.

… you had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another birth might issue from the same
virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh. For the Lord Jesus would never have
chosen to be born of a virgin if He had ever judged that she would be so incontinent as to contaminate
with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of the Lord’s body, that court of the Eternal King.
To assert such a view is to do nothing less than to accept as a basis that Jewish falsehood which holds
that He could not have been born of a virgin.
29

The attack on Mary’s virginity—especially on her virginity after the birth of Christ—was
motivated by practical rather than by dogmatic reasons. Helvidius wished to show that the state
of virginity was no better than marriage, and proposed Mary as an example of both states—of
virginity until Christ’s birth, of the motherhood of a large family in later life. At Rome Christian
asceticism was emphasizing the superiority of virginity. The young St. Jerome wrote his vigorous
Adversus Helvidium (Against Helvidius) in 383, demonstrating from Scripture and tradition that
Mary was ever a virgin. That was under Pope Damasus, who died in 384. The enemies of
asceticism reformed their ranks under the ex-monk Jovinian. Pope Siricius had his clergy examine
and condemn their propositions and excommunicate Jovinian.

When Jovinian fled to the safety of the court at Milan, Pope Siricius advised the Bishop, St.
Ambrose, of the attempt Jovinian might make to misrepresent true asceticism as Priscillianism,
a kind of Manichaeism with its teaching that the body comes from Satan, and its condemnation
of marriage as evil. St. Ambrose, by a clever counterstroke, obtained the expulsion of the Jovinian
party by the civil authorities, on the charge of Manichaeism. Jovinian’s denial of Our Lady’s
virginity in the actual bringing forth of the Christ Child was answered by Ambrose.

The Bonosus case next occupied Ambrose’s attention. About 390, this Illyrian bishop, living
in an area of Asia Minor where earlier in the same century even prominent and orthodox
preachers had not considered Mary’s virginity after Christ’s birth a matter of faith, said Mary had
other children.
30 His neighboring bishops condemned him. Ambrose, appealed to from both sides,
suggested to the Council of Bishops of Illyria the norms by which they might defend Mary’s
perpetual virginity, the greatest argument being the demands of the divine Maternity. The
episcopate of Illyria, under Anysius, to whom Pope Siricius had written, reaffirmed the
condemnation of Bonosus.

Fifty years later, Monophysitism under Eutyches taught that the divine and human natures
blended so perfectly in Christ that He had only a single nature (hence the name: Mono-phusis or
“single- nature”). Against this denial of the true and perfect humanity of Christ, Pope St. Leo I
(440-461) wrote the Archbishop of Constantinople, Flavian, in 449,24 after the following series of
events: Eutyches concealed his teaching under the mask of opposition to Nestorianism, and even
wrote to Pope Leo I in 448. The Pope replied in praise of Eutyches’ zeal, but said he was not well
enough informed about the Eastern controversy. The same year Eutyches was hailed before an
episcopal council under Flavian and, refusing to retract his teaching, was condemned as heretical.
Eutyches appealed to Rome, and accompanied his appeal with a letter from Emperor Theodosius.
Pope Leo wrote back that he was still not well informed on events. But when the case was laid
before him in full he confirmed the judgment against Eutyches.

Meantime the Emperor convened another council at Constantinople and the Pope sent three
delegates to it, one of them the deacon Hilary, later to become pope himself. Among the letters
they brought, dated June, 449,
31 was one to Archbishop Flavian, containing a complete résumé of
Leo’s doctrinal position, since famous as the “Tome of Pope St. Leo I.” The document reaffirms the
truth of two natures in the one Person of Christ, each with its proper faculties. In the same tone
Our Lady’s perpetual virginity — before Christ’s birth, in childbirth, afterward (ante partum, in
partu, post partum) — is presented as the Church’s doctrine:

Unquestionably, therefore, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit within the womb of His Virgin
Mother. She brought Him forth without the loss of virginity, even as she conceived Him without its
loss. …

The Son of God, therefore, came down from His heavenly throne without relinquishing the glory
of His Father, and entered this lower world by way of a new order and a new mode of birth. … By way
of a new mode of birth, insofar as virginity inviolate which knew not the desire of the flesh supplied
the material of flesh. From His Mother the Lord took nature, not sin. Jesus Christ was born from a
virgin’s womb, by a miraculous birth. And yet His nature is not on that account unlike to ours, for He
that is true God is also true Man.
32

The council met at Constantinople in 449. From the first assembly it was evident that the
meeting had been arranged with the connivance of the Emperor for the advantage of Eutyches
alone. It well earned the title Pope Leo later gave it — latrocinium, den of thieves. The Pope’s
letters were ignored, his legates protesting in vain. Eutyches was restored, Flavian charged with
heresy and jailed. Emperor Theodosius died in 450 and was succeeded by Empress Pulcheria. Both
she and her consort, Marcian, favored the Faith.

The truly universal council that Pope Leo desired was summoned, and met at Chalcedon,
October, 451, with over five hundred bishops present. First the Nicean Creed and St. Cyril’s letters
to Nestorius were read, then Pope Leo’s tome. When the tome was read, the assembly accepted
it unconditionally and enthusiastically: “Behold the faith of the Fathers! the faith of the Apostles!
So do we too, all of us, believe, all who are orthodox believe the same! Anathema to whoever
believes otherwise! Thus through Leo has Peter spoken!”
33

It remained for the first Lateran Council, held in 649 under Pope St. Martin I, to give the
dogmatic definition of the perpetual virginity of Mary. The occasion was the condemnation of
Monothelism, still another attack on the full reality of Christ’s humanity. The heresy held there
was only one will (mono-thelema) in Christ, namely the divine will.

If anyone does not in accord with the Holy Fathers acknowledge the holy and ever virgin and
immaculate Mary as really and truly the Mother of God, inasmuch as she, in the fulness of time, and
without seed, conceived by the Holy Spirit God the Word Himself, who before all time was born of God
the Father, and without loss of integrity brought Him forth, and after His birth preserved her virginity
inviolate, let him be condemned.
34

The Lateran canon just quoted expressed the belief of East and West alike; and although the
council was not ecumenical, the canon embodies a true dogma. In 681, the Sixth Ecumenical
Council, the third to be held at Constantinople, accepted the canon of the Lateran on Our Lady’s
virginity without question.

Professions of faith and symbols formulated by later popes contain the same doctrine: among
them, Leo III’s profession of faith of Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, 811;
35 Innocent III’s
profession of faith prescribed for the Waldensians, 1208;
36 the formula for the union of the Greeks
of the second Council of Lyons (fourteenth ecumenical) under Gregory X;
37 and the Council of
Florence in the Decree for the Jacobites, 1441.
38

Paul IV in 1555 thus answered the Unitarians, who denied the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the
virginity of Mary:

In a spirit of paternal severity we are anxious to admonish each and everyone who has heretofore
asserted, taught or believed … that the same most Blessed Virgin Mary is not truly the Mother of God
or that she did not always retain the integrity of her virginity, that is, before birth, during birth, and
continuously after birth. …
39

III. FULL OF GRACE

Once the divine Maternity and the perpetual virginity of Mary had been proposed by the
Church’s teaching authority as true Catholic doctrine, the way was open for further development.
Chalcedon was a stimulant to progress in Mariology. The doctrinal defense of the true flesh, the
full humanity of Christ, emphasized more than ever the importance of the glorious Virgin Mother.
Similarly, Christian writers were inspired to develop the theme of the tender love the Mother of
God had for the Son truly born of her very substance.
40

For the East the decisions of Ephesus seem to have consecrated the notion of “ever Virgin”
along with “Mother of God.” And by the time of St. Augustine’s death in 431, the perpetual
virginity was also a pacific possession in the West. The Tome of Pope St. Leo expressed the
common belief about it; and finally the Lateran Council, under Pope Martin I, defined the
perpetual virginity. In the light of these two truths, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, the
Church would now penetrate into the mystery of Mary’s sanctity. First, we will consider freedom
from personal sin through fullness of grace, leaving to the next section freedom from original sin.

Belief in Mary’s virginity led to emphasis on her holiness. The experience of the ascetics first
showed the connection between a life of perpetual virginity and holiness. But still deeper
reflection was needed to appreciate the full treasure of Mary’s sanctity, and this came through
reflection on the divine Maternity. From the divine motherhood had come the awareness of perfect
virginity; now Christian thought saw that God would make His Mother all-perfect, by gifts of
grace beyond compare.

In his controversy with Pelagius, who denied original sin and held the natural perfectibility
of man even without supernatural aid, St. Augustine emphasized the universality of sin. Yet he
exempted Our Lady from the universal law:

Now with the exception of the holy Virgin Mary in regard to whom, out of respect for the Lord, I do
not propose to have a single question raised on the subject of sin — after all, how do we know what
greater degree of grace for a complete victory over sin was conferred on her who merited to conceive
and bring forth Him who all admit was without sin — to repeat then: with the exception of this Virgin,
if we could bring together into one place all those holy men and women, while they lived here, and ask
them whether they were without sin, what are we to suppose that they would have replied?
41

St. Augustine’s opinion is the real attitude of Christian antiquity. There were occasional
Fathers, even after Ephesus, who said Mary was guilty of the venial sin of vainglory,
misinterpreting the Gospel incidents of her charitable request to Christ at Cana (Jn. 2:1-12), and
her presence with those relatives of Our Lord who interrupted a sermon in order to speak to Him
(Mt. 12:47). Newman says of the harshest of these, St. John Chrysostom, “his whole passage is as
much at variance with what we hold, as it is solitary and singular in the writings of antiquity.”
42

The magisterium did not speak on Mary’s holiness, her freedom from even venial sin, until the
Council of Trent. Direct attacks on Our Lady were not among the many points the theologians of
Trent felt pressed to refute. Yet Trent, in its teaching on justification, 1547, under Paul III, refers
to Our Lady’s freedom from sin as an exception to the general rule:

If anyone shall say that a man once justified … can through the whole of life avoid all sins,
even though they be venial, except by a special privilege of God, as the Church holds to have
been the case with the Blessed Virgin, let him be anathema.
43

St. Pius V safeguarded this teaching in his condemnation of an error of Baius in 1567:

Error 73: No one, with the exception of Christ, is without original sin. Therefore, the Blessed Virgin
died because of the sin contracted from Adam, and all her afflictions in this life, no less than those of
the rest of the just, were the punishment of actual or original sin.
44

Mary’s holiness was protected again under Alexander VIII in 1690 by the condemnation of the
Jansenist opinion that Mary’s purification in the temple showed she needed it:

Error 24: The offering which the Blessed Virgin Mary made in the temple on the day of her purification
with two young turtledoves, one as a holocaust, the other as a sin offering, is sufficient evidence that
she needed purification, and that Her Son, who was presented, was also marked with the stain of His
Mother, according to the words of the Law.
45

It is noteworthy that here again the honor of Mother and Son are a common cause.

The recent popes say much in praise of Our Lady’s sanctity. Pius IX will serve as a good example:

He [God], therefore, filled her, far more than all the angelic spirits and all the saints, with an abundance
of all heavenly gifts from the treasury of His divinity, in such a wonderful manner that she would
always be free from absolutely every stain of sin, and that, all beautiful and perfect, she might display
such fullness of innocence and holiness that under God none greater is known, and which, God
excepted, no one can attain even in thought.
46

Our Lady’s freedom from personal sin has never been defined, as has her lifelong virginity and
her freedom from original sin, but it is nevertheless an article of faith, as Trent states — “as the
Church holds.”
47 It is a step further to say that Mary could not sin — that she was confirmed in
grace and impeccable (unable to sin). This is an opinion defended by many theologians, again on
the grounds of her divine motherhood.

IV. IMMACULATE

A. The Beginnings

If the fact that St. Augustine did “not propose to have a single question raised on the subject
of sin in regard to the holy Virgin Mary out of respect for the Lord” virtually settled the question
of Mary’s freedom from personal sin, the same author’s insistence on the universality of original
sin proved a deterrent to the development of belief in Mary’s Immaculate Conception.
48 Although
some writings of Pope Leo the Great and Pope Gregory the Great would seem to exempt Mary
from original sin, many more centuries of thought and prayer were required before the Church
would realize that the Immaculate Conception was among the gifts God provided for His Mother.
And still more centuries would elapse before the supreme magisterium would solemnly declare
the doctrine of Mary’s freedom from original sin to be a revealed truth, i.e., contained in the
original Deposit confided to the Apostles.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is a classic example of the development of
doctrine.
49 Theologians distinguish three stages in the progressive awareness of a revealed truth
not explicitly contained in the sources of revelation. The first stage is implicit acceptance, the
period of tranquil possession. The second stage in the development of a dogma is the period of
discussion and controversy, during which the precise meaning of the doctrine is clarified, as well
as its relationship to Revelation and to other doctrines. In the third stage, the doctrine is received
by the entire Church, is the common teaching of the ordinary magisterium, or finally even
solemnly defined.

In the present case, the first stage was the tranquil acceptance of the unique graces and
privileges of Mary, which, as we now know, imply the Immaculate Conception. The early
Christians accepted Mary’s singular position as Mother of God, as ever a virgin, as all-holy, as the
New Eve. Thereby they implicitly accepted the Immaculate Conception, which is implied by the
divine motherhood. During the first period of undisputed acceptance, the first liturgical evidences
appear: feasts of the “Conception of St. Anne,” hymns, homilies.

B. Period of Discussion

The second phase, that of controversy, began with St. Bernard’s (d. 1153) opposition to the
spread of the feast of the Conception of Mary. The controversy raged through the age of
Scholasticism, dividing into two camps the greatest doctors of theology, some of them saints and
all of them loyal to Our Lady.

Many thought it impossible to reconcile freedom from original sin with the fact that Mary was
born of human parents through natural generation. Some were against a feast of the conception
of Mary, because they misunderstood it to refer to the active conception, namely to the generation
of Mary by her parents Joachim and Anne. In reality, the feast concerned the passive conception
of Our Lady, the union of her soul and body in her mother’s womb. This confusion of active and
passive conception still occurs, just as even Catholics sometimes confuse Mary’s Immaculate
Conception with Christ’s Virgin Birth. Other opponents considered an immaculate conception
incompatible with the universality of the Redemption of Christ. The Scholastic Doctors of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, e.g., St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albert, St. Bonaventure, were more
commonly against the belief in a sinless conception. The Franciscan John Duns Scotus (d. 1308),
perhaps under the influence of his confrere, William of Ware (d. 1300), showed that a preservation
from original sin by the merits of Christ would be an even more perfect form of Redemption than
to be rescued from already contracted sin. By the mid-fifteenth century the greater number of
theologians were in favor of the Immaculate Conception, and the liturgical celebrations had widely
spread. But still there had been no approval on the part of the magisterium.

A dogmatic decision on Mary’s freedom from original sin was proposed at the Council of Basel,
but the definition of 1439 was invalid because the Council had fallen under the excommunication
of Pope Eugene IV.

C. Decisions From Rome

Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484), a Franciscan (Conventual), was the first officially to encourage the
doctrine.
50 His constitution Cum praecelsa of 1477
51 approved and indulgenced the feast of the
Conception of the Immaculate Virgin:

When, with that deep insight that comes of devout contemplation, we search and discover the sublime
proofs of those merits which cause the Queen of heaven, the glorious Virgin Mother of God, raised
upon her heavenly throne, to outshine like the morning star all other Constellations … We deem it
fitting, and even our duty, to invite by means of indulgences and the remission of sins all the faithful
of Christ to offer thanks and praise to God … for the wondrous Conception of this same Immaculate
Virgin, and to celebrate or to be present at Masses and at other divine functions which have been
instituted for this purpose.
52

During Sixtus’ reign, the long-standing controversy between the Dominicans, on one side, and
the Franciscans, Carmelites, and Servites, on the other, flared anew when Bandelli, later General
of the Dominicans, wrote two books against the Immaculate Conception, implying in the second
that the Pope had not truly intended to make the object of the feast Our Lady’s conception, but
rather her sanctification (like St. John the Baptist).

Two Bulls, both titled Grave Nimis, appeared in reply, one in 1481, directed to Lombardy where
Bandelli was preaching: it specified that Mary’s conception, not merely sanctification, was the
object of the feast. The second, of September 4, 1483, was directed to the entire Church. It forbade
either side to call the other heretical; but the adversaries of the belief were threatened with
excommunication not only if they called the defenders heretics, but even if they charged the
defenders with error and falsity.
53 Yet, in spite of such signs of favor to the belief, the Pope
concludes by saying “since the matter has not yet been decided by the Roman Church and
Apostolic See.”
54

Sixtus IV’s successors continued to favor the feast. Many contented themselves with simply
repeating his constitutions, as Leo X (in 1502 and 1515). So also Julius II (1503-1513), Pius IV (1559-1565), and Sixtus V (1585-1590). The question was discussed at the Council of Trent, but the
determined opposition of a small group defeated definite decision on it. Nevertheless, the Council
declared in the session on original sin (fifth session, June 17, 1546, under Pope Paul III):

This same holy Synod declares that it is not its intention to include in this decree, where there is
question of original sin, the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God. Rather, the
constitutions of Sixtus of happy memory are to be followed. …
55

Pius IX interprets the action of Trent as follows:

Indeed, considering the times and circumstances, the Fathers of Trent sufficiently insinuated by this
declaration that the Blessed Virgin Mary was free from the original stain; and thus they clearly
signified that nothing could be reasonably cited from the Sacred Writings, which would in any way
be opposed to so great a prerogative of the Virgin.
56

Trent also indirectly advanced the eventual acceptance of the belief by clarifying the notions
of original sin, of grace, and of the supernatural life.

Pope St. Pius V (1566-1572) included the feast of the Conception in the reformed Missal, 1568,
for the whole Latin Church, and likewise condemned the error of Baius which stated, “No one,
with the exception of Christ, is without original sin. Therefore the Blessed Virgin died because of
the sin contracted from Adam. …”
57 He likewise forbade debates before the public on the subject.
Paul V renewed this prohibition in 1617. In 1622 Gregory XV further forbade, except among the
Dominicans themselves, even private writings and sermons against the Immaculate Conception.
The celebration of the feast was enjoined on all, with a warning against replacing the word
“Conception,” by any other word, as “Sanctification.”

Controversy continued nonetheless. Pope Alexander VII (1655-1657), appealed to for an
authentic statement of the true object of the feast, issued his constitution, Sollicitudo, December
8, 1661. The document determines the object of the feast as understood by the common sentiment
of the Church, pastors and faithful alike.

Ancient is the piety of the Christian faithful toward our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary. They believe
that her soul, in the first moment of creation and infusion into her body, was, by a special grace and
privilege of God, and in consideration of the merits of Jesus Christ her Son, the Redeemer of the human
race, preserved free from the stain of original sin. And it is in this sense that the faithful cherish and
celebrate with solemn rites the feast of her Conception… [Alexander VII then renews the decrees of
Sixtus IV, Paul V and Gregory XV] … in favor of the doctrine asserting that the soul of the Blessed
Virgin, at its creation and infusion into the body, was endowed with the grace of the Holy Spirit and
preserved from original sin. …
58

D. Definition by Pius IX

It remained for Pius IX to take the final step. Crowned pope in 1846, he personally signed the
decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of September 30, 1847, authorizing a new Mass and
Office of the feast, extending it on February 2, 1849, to the whole world. Our present Mass and
Office is from 1863, also by order of Pius IX. In 1848 a commission of theologians was named to
study two questions: Can the Immaculate Conception be defined as a dogma? and: Is such a
definition opportune? On February 2, 1849, the encyclical Ubi primum was sent to the bishops of
the world, seeking their views on the definability.

The replies from the bishops were better than nine tenths (546 out of 603) favorable. Some did
not consider the definition then opportune because of attacks on the Church; only four or five
were quite against any dogmatic definition. Another commission was appointed to draw up the
Bull of definition; they worked over a year on it. The document was not only to promulgate the
dogma, but also to include arguments in its favor. It was then submitted to the cardinals and
finally to members of the hierarchy assembled in Rome from the whole world. The result of the
long process was a precisely phrased presentation of the belief of all Catholicism, the Church
learning (Ecclesia discens) as well as the teaching Church (Ecclesia docens).

On December 8, 1854, in the presence of 200 cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, the Holy
Father invoked the Holy Spirit, and then read the words that settled forever all dispute about Our
Lady’s privilege:

… To the honor of the holy and undivided Trinity, to the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God,
to the exaltation of the Catholic faith, and the increase of the Catholic religion, We, by the authority of
Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, and by Our Own, declare, pronounce, and
define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her Conception,
by a singular privilege and grace of the omnipotent God, in consideration of the merits of Jesus Christ, the
Savior of mankind, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and
therefore is to be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful.
59

In these words of the dogmatic definition, the Pope is speaking ex cathedra, that is, by his
supreme infallible authority as Vicar of Christ. The terms are similar to Alexander VII’s, yet so
carefully chosen that it is clearly Mary’s person, body and soul, that is the subject of the privilege.
From the very first moment of union of soul and body, in view of the merits of Christ, Mary was
kept free from original sin by the grace of God — a unique exception to the common lot of
mankind. Moreover, this doctrine is revealed by God; therefore it belongs to the original Deposit
of the Faith. And so the Catholic’s “I believe” now extends to the privilege of the Immaculate
Conception just as truly as it does to the divine motherhood — on the authority of God Himself,
who cannot deceive.

The rest of Ineffabilis Deus, the document of the definition, makes a worthy setting for the
dogmatic definition. The various arguments in the development of belief in the sinless conception
of Mary are cited; the traditional interpretation of Sacred Scripture, especially of the
Protoevangelium (Gen. 3:15), and of the greetings of Gabriel and Elizabeth (Lk. 1:28, 42); the
evidence of the liturgy; and finally the proximate preparation when with one voice clergy and
faithful entreated the Pope to define with his supreme judgment the Immaculate Conception. The
bishops had been heard, indeed their advice had been first sought, but the final act was the Pope’s
alone.
60

Pius IX mentions in Ineffabilis Deus some benefits hoped for from the definition: that the “most
powerful mediatrix and conciliatrix of the whole world” win peace for the Church, “pardon for the
sinner, health for the sick, strength of heart for the weak, consolation for the afflicted, help for
those in danger.”
61 The century of development in Marian doctrine and devotion is the evidence
of how graciously Our Lady accepted Pius IX’s prayers.

Inspired by the fiftieth anniversary of the definition, Blessed Pius X gave the world the
encyclical Ad diem illum, about Our Lady’s part in the restoration of all things to Christ (Eph. 1:10)
which the saintly Pope made the rule of his pontificate. According to Blessed Pius X, these were
the lessons of the Immaculate Conception definition:

Let the nations believe and profess that the Virgin Mary, in the first moment of her conception was free
from all stain, and they must admit original sin, the redemption of mankind by Christ, the Gospel, the
Church and even the law of suffering. … This plague [the rejection of all authority] which is equally
destructive of civil and Christian society, is destroyed by the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of
the Mother of God. For by it we are all constrained to recognize in the Church a power to which one
must submit not only the will but also the intellect, since it is through this subjection of the reason that
the Christian people sing to the Mother of God: “Thou art all fair, O Mary, and there is no original stain
in thee.” So again we conclude that the Church rightly attributes to the august Virgin this that she by
herself destroyed all the heresies in the whole world.
62

V. ASSUMED INTO HEAVEN

A. Present State of Belief

“Studies were undertaken with new enthusiasm, which gave due prominence to the dignity
and sanctity of the Mother of God.”
63 These words from the Marian Year encyclical, Fulgens
Corona, describe one of the results produced by the definition of the Immaculate Conception. The
Pontiff also recalls that it was his privilege to define,

… that the Mother of God was assumed body and soul into heaven; and thus to satisfy the wishes of
the faithful, which had been more urgently expressed after the solemn definition of the Immaculate
Conception. For then, as We Ourselves wrote in the Apostolic Letter Munificentissimus Deus, “the
faithful were moved by a certain more ardent hope that the Dogma also of the corporal Assumption
of the Virgin Mary into heaven should be defined as soon as possible by the Supreme magisterium of
the Church.”
64

What the belief of the faithful and the studies of the scholars had held and hoped for became
a reality on November 1, 1950, when the Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, in his office as supreme
teacher of the universal Church solemnly defined:

For which reason, after we have poured forth prayers of supplication again and again to God, and have
called upon the Spirit of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished His special affection
upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the ages and the Victor over sin
and death, for the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of
the entire Church; by the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul,
and by Our own authority, We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: 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.
65

Munificentissimus Deus does not neglect the past history of Papal favor to the Assumption, but
the theological principle invoked to justify the proclamation of the dogma is the present uniform
faith of the whole Church. The Holy Father appeals, first of all, to the “concordant teaching of the
Church’s ordinary doctrinal authority and the concordant faith of the Christian people which the
same doctrinal authority sustains and directs” as manifesting the bodily Assumption to be a
revealed truth.
66

B. The Assumption in History

The documents of the magisterium before the reign of Pius XII do not exhibit any official Papal
statement clearly stating Our Lady’s bodily Assumption. There has never been any doubt that her
soul is in heaven. For example, Benedict XII authoritatively declared in 1336 that the souls of the
saints enjoy the beatific vision.
67 Pope Pius XII’s first express mention of Our Lady’s presence,
body and soul, in heaven is in the encyclical on the Mystical Body, 1943. Yet, as Munificentissimus
Deus relates, “Various testimonies, indications and signs of this common belief of the Church are
evident from remote times down through the course of the centuries.”
68

What are some of these signs? How have the popes shown their approval of belief in the
Assumption in the history of the Church? Munificentissimus Deus looks first to the law of prayer
(lex orandi), saying that the sacred liturgy “because it is the profession, subject to the supreme
teaching authority within the Church, of heavenly truths, can supply proofs and testimonies of
no small value for deciding any individual point of Catholic doctrine.”
69 Lex orandi, lex credendi
(the law of praying is the law of believing) is an old motto, based on the close connection between
sound doctrine and true devotion. The Church’s care of cult is not a merely disciplinary matter;
in approving its liturgy the Church acts infallibly. The official prayers of the Church, particularly
the Mass and Divine Office, are a practical school of Christian doctrine. The Apostolic See has
used its authority to encourage the feast of the Assumption and to explain its true sense. Nor does
the Pope neglect the Rosary in the attitude of the faithful, for he adds, “Nor can we pass over in
silence the fact that in the Rosary of Mary, the recitation of which this Apostolic See so urgently
recommends, there is one mystery proposed for pious meditation which, as all know, deals with
the Blessed Virgin’s Assumption into heaven.”
70

Pope St. Sergius I (687-701) prescribed the litany or stational procession to be held on the four
Marian feasts: the Nativity, Annunciation, Purification, and Dormition.
71 Under Pope St. Adrian
I (772-795) appears for the first time in the West the title “Assumption” for the feast earlier called
the “Dormition” or “Falling Asleep” of Our Lady. The Pope sent Charlemagne the Gregorian
Sacramentary, a liturgical book containing the prayer Veneranda, in which occur the words, “this
day on which the holy Mother of God suffered temporal death, but still could not be kept down
by the bonds of death, who has begotten Thy Son Our Lord incarnate from herself.”
72

Pope St. Leo IV (847-855), again according to Munificentissimus Deus, “saw to it that the feast,
which was already being celebrated under the title of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother of
God, should be observed in even a more solemn way when he ordered a vigil to be held on the day
before it and afterwards prescribed prayers on the octave day. When this had been done, he
decided to take part himself in the celebration. …”
73

Pope Innocent IV (1243-1254) counted the Assumption an opinion that could be held or not
held, for the Church had not yet decided.
74 Many theologians were strongly in favor of the
doctrine, among them St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, Scotus. The
Assumption never met the strong scholastic opposition found in the case of the Immaculate
Conception.

Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries a series of gradual changes in the Mass for the
Assumption and its vigil emphasized more and more the glorious resurrection of Mary; less
emphasis was placed on her death. St. Pius V (1566-1572) removed from the second nocturn of
Matins the lessons wrongly attributed to St. Jerome. These readings, in an excess of prudence
against the apocryphal stories of Mary’s death and resurrection, had counseled an attitude of
reserve toward the bodily Assumption. Pius V put in their place lessons explaining the bodily
Assumption.
75

C. Pius IX to the Present

From Pius IX to Pius XII, the popes have spoken more often of Mary in heaven. They have at
the same time received petitions and encouraged the movement for the dogmatic definition. May
we not then see in their references to Our Lady in heaven an implicit affirmation of her bodily
Assumption?

Pius IX (1846-1878), in Ineffabilis Deus, emphasized the close bond that linked the Mother of
God with her Son Jesus Christ: “from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one
and the same decree of predestination.”
76 Munificentissimus Deus connects the sinless conception
and anticipated resurrection as parts of the same victory over sin and its consequences. “[Mary]
by an entirely unique privilege completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as
a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not
have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body.”
77

In 1864 Pius IX received a petition for the definition of the Assumption from Queen Isabella
II of Spain. Although the Pope judged the time not yet opportune for the definition, he wrote in
reply, “There is no doubt that the Assumption, in the sense commonly believed by the body of the
faithful, follows from the Immaculate Conception.”
78 A petition was presented in 1870 at the
Vatican Council.
79

Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) gave his explicit approval to the program of studies of the
International Marian Congress held at Fribourg, Switzerland, 1902. The topics included the
dogmatic study of the Assumption. Among Leo XIII’s many Marian documents, especially the
Rosary encyclicals, some references seem to concern the Assumption, especially those treating of
Our Lady as Queen. For example, Iucunda semper (1894) thus describes the glorious mysteries of
the Rosary: “… We behold her taken up from this valley of tears into the heavenly Jerusalem, amid
choirs of angels. And we honor her, glorified above all the saints, crowned with stars by her Divine
Son, and seated at His side, the sovereign Queen of the universe.”
80

Blessed Pius X was already interested in the Assumption when he was Patriarch of Venice. He
was one of the instigators of the petition sent to the Fribourg Congress. As Pope he encouraged
the movement for the definition, sending congratulatory messages concerning the Congresses of
1906 at Einsiedeln, Switzerland, and Valencia, Spain. Both conventions submitted petitions for the
proclamation of the Assumption as a dogma. On another occasion, in 1908, he said, “There is still
need for many studies, and for serious ones.”
81 The same year he ordered the definability
thoroughly studied.

Some consider that Ad diem illum of Blessed Pius X alludes to the Assumption in its
interpretation of the Woman of the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. “A great sign appeared in
heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon was under her feet, and upon her head a
crown of twelve stars” (Apoc. 12:1). After quoting this text, Blessed Pius adds: “No one is ignorant
that this woman signified the Virgin Mary, who remained inviolate when she brought forth our
Head. … So John saw the most holy Mother of God already enjoying happiness …”
82

Benedict XV, like his two predecessors, decreed that all the petitions for the Assumption be
kept. During World War I he requested that the sending of petitions be deferred until peace came
again.

Pius XI encouraged the movement for the definition. On March 2, 1922, he named Our Lady
under her title of the Assumption principal Patroness of France; and on May 31, 1937, gave his
approval to the third-centenary celebrations of Louis XIII’s solemn consecration of the kingdom
to Our Lady, a vow that was annually commemorated on the feast of the Assumption.

The pontificate of Pius XII is distinguished by a whole series of statements and writings about
the Assumption, before as well as after the definition. To list or attempt to analyze them would
require a book. A few selected examples must suffice here.

In Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943, there is the first explicit mention in a Papal document of Our
Lady’s bodily Assumption into heaven:

May she, then, most holy Mother of all Christ’s members, to whose Immaculate Heart We have
trustingly consecrated all men, her body and soul refulgent with the glory of heaven where she reigns
with her Son — may she never cease to beg from Him that a continuous copious flow of graces may
pass from its glorious Head into all the members of the Mystical Body.
83

Meantime, the Holy Father was taking active steps toward the definition. He issued special
orders commanding more advanced inquiries into the matter, and likewise ordered the publication
of the petitions since Pius IX’s time.
84 Following the same procedure which Pius IX had used before
defining the Immaculate Conception, by the letter Deiparae Virginis Mariae, May 1, 1946, the Pope
asked all the bishops,

… to make known to Us how much devotion is manifested by the clergy and the faithful entrusted to
your care toward the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin, in accordance with the faith and the piety
of each. Above all, We desire to know if you, Venerable Brethren, in your outstanding wisdom and
prudence, are of the opinion that the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin can be proposed and
defined as a dogma of faith, and if, with your clergy and people, you so desire.
85

D. “Munificentissimus Deus”

The replies of the bishops showed the “outstanding agreement of the Catholic prelates and the
faithful.”
86 On November 1, 1950, in the fullest exercise of his supreme teaching authority,
speaking infallibly as Vicar of Christ, the Holy Father defined the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, body and soul, into heavenly glory, as a truth revealed by God.

The dogmatic definition concerns the Assumption alone: “… a divinely revealed dogma: 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.”
87 In the precise words of the definition are
mentioned, in addition to the Assumption, only the three privileges of Our Lady defined as dogmas
in earlier centuries: Mother of God, ever Virgin, Immaculate. Nothing is said of when or where or
in what manner the Assumption occurred. Nor does the actual formula say anything about Mary’s
Mediation, her Queenship, or other privileges.

Munificentissimus Deus provides a rich background for the better understanding of the newly
defined dogma. The theological principle of the universal consent of the Church is explained, and
new light shed on the role of the supreme magisterium. A survey is given of the belief across the
ages, both in the liturgy and in patristic and theological writings.

The marvelous harmony between Mary’s gifts is described: “God … put the plan of His
providence into effect in such a way that all the privileges and prerogatives He had granted to her
in His sovereign generosity were to shine forth in her in a kind of perfect harmony. … The
wonderful harmony and order of those privileges which the most provident God has lavished upon
this revered associate of our Redeemer …”
88 The Assumption is compared with the Immaculate
Conception; with Mary’s association in her Son’s victory over the devil, sin, and death; with her
virginity in the birth of Christ. The common fountainhead of all Mary’s privileges is the divine
motherhood. The scriptural foundations are examined in the light of traditional interpretation:
especially the Protoevangelium — the Woman of Genesis 3:15; the “full of grace” of Luke 1:28; and
“that Woman clothed with the Sun, whom John the Apostle contemplated on the island of Patmos”
(Apoc. 12:1 ff.).
89

At the close, the Holy Father expresses his confidence:

… That this solemn proclamation and definition of the Assumption will contribute in no small way to
the advantage of human society, since it redounds to the glory of the Most Blessed Trinity, to which
the Blessed Mother of God was bound by such singular bonds. It is to be hoped that all the faithful will
be stirred up to a stronger piety toward their heavenly Mother, and that the souls of all those who glory
in the Christian name may be moved by the desire of sharing in the unity of Christ’s Mystical Body
and of increasing their love for her who in all things shows her motherly heart to the members of this
august Body. … In this magnificent way all may see clearly to what a lofty goal our bodies and souls
are destined. Finally it is our hope that belief in Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven will make our
belief in our own resurrection stronger and render it more effective.
90

VI. MEDIATRIX WITH THE MEDIATOR

A. Mediation in General

Cardinal Mercier of Belgium began the movement to petition the Holy See for the definition
of the doctrine of Our Lady’s Mediation of all graces. On January 12, 1921, Pope Benedict XV,
91
permitted a special Office and Mass in honor of Mary Mediatrix on May 31. In 1922, Pius XI
organized three commissions of theologians (in Rome, Spain, and Belgium) to make a serious study
of the question. There is in the writings of the recent Popes, especially the encyclicals from Pope
Pius IX to the present day, a mine of material about Mary’s role in the gaining and distribution of
divine graces.

Today many theological writers hold that this belief is contained implicitly in divine revelation
and could be defined as a dogma. There is no Catholic theologian who denies to Our Lady the title:
Mediatrix of all graces. But since the term “mediation” has many shades of meaning, the sense in
which the Mother of God is called Mediatrix must first be explained.

A mediator is a person who stands in the middle and unites individuals or groups which are
opposed. Our blessed Lord, the God-Man, was uniquely fitted to be the Mediator between God and
man. St. Paul says, “For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, himself man,
Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all …” (1 Tim. 2:5-6). By offering Himself, through His
whole life and the sacrifice of the cross, Christ, our Mediator, destroyed the middle wall between
God and ourselves, wiped out the handwriting against us, brought His human brothers back to full
friendship with God the Father. The Lord fulfilled His mission of mediation by becoming our
Redeemer or “Ransomer.”

The Redemption or mediation Christ accomplished on earth did not end there. The divine
grace won by the Redemption must be applied to individuals through the means determined by
Christ, that is, through His Church, by faith, the Sacraments, etc. The first phase of Our Lord’s
mediation was the work of Redemption perfected on the cross; the second phase is the individual
application of the fruits of this work.

Where, then, is there place for another Mediator? In what sense is the Mother of Christ
associated with her Son in His work of mediation? Does her association extend to both phases of
His redemptive work? What has the Church’s magisterium said on these topics?

If there is only “one Mediator,” as St. Paul writes, then any other Mediator can only be such
in strict dependence and in a secondary sense. Pope Leo XIII quotes St. Thomas Aquinas on the
possibility of other mediators:

… As the Angelic Doctor teaches, “there is no reason why certain others should not be called in a
certain way mediators between God and man, that is to say, insofar as they co-operate by predisposing
and ministering in the union of man with God.” Such are the angels and saints, the prophets and priests
of both Testaments; but especially has the Blessed Virgin a claim to the glory of this title. For no single
individual can even be imagined who has ever contributed or ever will contribute so much toward
reconciling man with God. She offered a Saviour to mankind, hastening to eternal ruin, at that moment
when she received the announcement of the mystery of peace brought to this earth by the angel, with
that admirable act of consent — and this, “in the name of the whole human race.” She it is from whom
Jesus is born; she is therefore truly His mother, and for this reason a worthy and acceptable “Mediatrix
to the Mediator.”
92

St. Thomas Aquinas’ phrase “in the name of the whole human race” recalls what is the oldest
idea about Mary found in Christian literature after the New Testament itself. By representing all
humanity in consenting to the Incarnation and in offering the Victim on Calvary, Our Lady, like
a new Eve, repaired the harm in which the first Eve was involved. Some writers claim the parallel
between the first Eve and the second Eve goes back to the Apostles themselves.
93

Cardinal Newman showed in the writings of St. Justin (d. 165), St. Irenaeus (d. 200), and
Tertullian (d. 240), Mary’s association with Christ the new Adam. Adam called his helpmate and
wife “Eve,” meaning Mother of the living. Adam’s fall introduced original sin into the world, but
Eve had an intimate personal share in “that awful transaction” (Newman’s phrase). Yet even in the
hour of punishment God promised a Redeemer, and warned the serpent, “I will put enmity
between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed” (Gen. 3:15). The woman who
would crush the serpent’s head was the obedient Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer.

Newman concluded from his investigations: “St. Justin, St. Irenaeus, and others, had distinctly
laid it down, that she [Mary] not only had an office [i.e., of motherhood], but bore a part, and was
a voluntary agent in the actual process of redemption, as Eve had been instrumental and
responsible in Adam’s fall.
94 St. Irenaeus’ idea of the “Virgin who regenerates us” shows the close
parallel between Eve, mother of all the living, and Mary, the new Eve, mother of those born again
through Christ’s redemption. “By the time of St. Jerome (331-420), the contrast between Eve and
Mary had almost passed into a proverb. He says, ‘Death by Eve, life by Mary.’”
95

In the order of history the belief of the faithful and the writings of the Church’s theologians
were expressly directed to Our Lady’s share in Christ’s work of mediation even before such
doctrines as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption were explicitly held.
96 Newman saw
the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as “an immediate inference from the primitive doctrine
that Mary is the second Eve.”
97

A common term to describe Mary’s participation in Christ’s redemptive work is
“Coredemptrix.” By it is meant the association of the Mother of Christ in the properly redemptive
work which Our Lord performed on earth, principally through His Passion and death. In the
second phase of Our Lord’s mediation Our Lady is called the “dispensatrix of all graces” or often
simply “mediatrix.” Some writers divide the two phases of mediation into the objective
Redemption and the subjective Redemption.

Our consideration of the teaching of the popes on both Coredemptrix and Dispensatrix will
be restricted to the past century, from Pius IX to the present. Earlier evidences do exist of Papal
statements on Mary as mediatrix, but the many Marian writings and discourses of the recent Popes
are more than sufficient expression of the ordinary magisterium of the Church. We say “ordinary”
magisterium because up to the present the Church has not yet used its teaching authority to give
a dogmatic definition of Mary’s Mediation.

B. Coredemptrix

In interpreting statements of recent popes concerning the Coredemption, the advice of
Bittremieux is opportune. Namely, we should presume that the popes have followed a consistent
line in their teaching, the more so when they quote their predecessors, even though a predecessor
may not have taken so clear a stand as his successor. This was the case in the history of the
Immaculate Conception. The Coredemption seems to enjoy a similar development, with successive
popes speaking ever more favorably.
98 What, then, do the popes tell us about Mary’s share in her
Son’s redemptive work?

The title “Coredemptrix” first received Papal sanction under Pope Pius X, by his approval of
its use in a decree of the Congregation of Rites concerning the feast of the Seven Dolors.
99 Pius XI
used the term on several occasions, for example, in the radio address to Lourdes, 1935, which will
be quoted later.
100 The word Coredemptrix is now accepted almost universally, for its use by Pius
XI and by theologians has shown that Coredemption is still only a subordinate, secondary,
dependent collaboration in Christ’s all-perfect, self-sufficient work of salvation.

Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus wrote of the association of Mary with her Son:

… Just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted out the
handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the Cross (Col. 2, 14),
so the Most Holy Virgin, united with Him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with Him
and through Him, eternally at enmity with that poisonous serpent, and most completely triumphed
over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot.
101

Pius XI extends this union of Mother and Son to the Redemption: “The most blessed Virgin,
conceived without original sin, was chosen to be the Mother of God so that she might be made an
associate in the Redemption of mankind.”
102 Our Lady’s acceptance of the Annunciation was her
consent to become Mother of the Redeemer. From this standpoint alone Mary had at least a remote
part in the Redemption. Whether she had a proximate, immediate, direct share in the actual
Redemption is a disputed question among Catholic scholars. Those who defend the Coredemption
in the strict sense appeal to the following Papal statements about Mary’s role in Calvary; the
adversaries (a small but strong minority) interpret the same documents differently.
103

Pius X in Ad diem illum stated:

… The most holy Mother of God had not only the honor of “having given the substance of her flesh to
the only begotten Son of God, who was to be born of the human race,” whereby a victim was prepared
for man’s salvation, but she was also entrusted with the task of tending and nourishing this Victim and
even of offering it on the altar at the appointed time.
104

Leo XIII wrote that Mary was a “co-worker with Christ in His expiation for mankind,” and that
on Calvary “she offered up her Son to the divine justice dying with Him in her heart.”
105

Benedict XV said it more clearly: “Thus, she [Mary] suffered and all but died along with her
Son suffering and dying; thus, for the salvation of men she abdicated the rights of a mother toward
her Son, and insofar as it was hers to do, she immolated the Son to placate God’s justice, so that
she herself may justly be said to have redeemed together with Christ the human race.”
106

Pius XI in Miserentissimus Redemptor, 1928, wrote, “[Mary] by giving us Christ the Redeemer,
and by rearing Him, and by offering Him at the foot of the Cross as Victim for our sins, by such
intimate association with Christ, and by her own most singular grace, became and is affectionately
known as Reparatrix.”
107

Pius XII has also spoken of Our Lady’s part in the Redemption. The epilogue to Mystici
Corporis tells us: “Free from all sin, original and personal, always most intimately united with her
Son, as another Eve she offered Him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father for all the children of Adam
sin-stained by his fall, and her mother’s rights and mother’s love were included in the
holocaust.”
108

Munificentissimus Deus shows the connection between the truths of the Assumption and the
Coredemption, by stressing the close association between Mary and the Redeemer.
109 Our Lady
is called the alma socia Redemptoris, “revered associate of our Redeemer.”
110 The belief in the new
Eve is recalled: the struggle and victory common to the Blessed Virgin and her Son. Finally Mary
is again called “the noble associate of the divine Redeemer (generosa Divini Redemptoris socia) who
has won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences.”
111

C. Dispensatrix

In Doctor Mellifluus, May 24, 1953, the encyclical on the 800th anniversary of St. Bernard’s
death, Pius XII repeats the great Marian writer’s phrase on Our Lady’s Mediation: “It is the will
of God that we should have nothing which has not passed through the hands of Mary.”
112

St. Paul teaches that “… He [Christ] is able at all times to save those who come to God through
Him, since He lives always to make intercession for them” (Hebr. 7:25). Mary’s share in this second
phase of Christ’s mediation, namely the dispensing of the graces of the Redemption to individuals,
has been believed in the Church from earliest times. The Gospels show Our Lady as the channel
of divine grace, first of all through her divine motherhood, but also on other occasions. In the
mystery of the Visitation, the unborn John was filled with grace through Mary’s charitable visit.
“Her only Son,” says Mystici Corporis, “yielding to a mother’s prayer in ‘Cana of Galilee,’
performed the miracle by which ‘His disciples believed in him’ (Jn. 2:11).”
113 Iucunda semper
describes the scene in the Cenacle: “Mary is … there, praying with the Apostles and entreating for
them with sighs and tears, she hastens for the Church the coming of the Spirit, the Comforter, the
supreme gift of Christ, the treasure that will never fail.”
114

Mary’s office of dispensatrix of graces is the consequence of her part in the Redemption.
Adiutricem populi says that after her Assumption

she began, by God’s decree, to watch over the Church, to assist and befriend us as our Mother; so that
she who was intimately associated with the mystery of human salvation (sacramenti humanae
redemptionis) is just as closely associated with the distribution of the graces which for all time will flow
from the Redemption. The power thus put into her hands is all but unlimited.
115

Pius XI spoke by radio to Lourdes, April 28, 1935, at the conclusion of the Jubilee Year of the
Redemption. “O Mother of pity and mercy, who as Co-sufferer and Co-redemptrix (compatiens et
corredemptrix) assisted thy most dear Son, as on the altar of the Cross He consummated the
Redemption of mankind … preserve in us and increase each day, we beg of thee, the precious fruits
of the Redemption and of thy Compassion. …”
116

How great is Mary’s power when she intercedes in our behalf? The popes set no limit on it;
they speak of a truly universal Mediation — of all graces and for each individual, even for those
who through forgetfulness or ignorance fail to ask her help. For Pius IX, “with her Son, the Only-begotten, she is the most powerful Mediatrix and Conciliatrix of the whole world.”
117 Leo XIII in
encyclical after encyclical on the Rosary extols Mary’s Mediation; e.g., in Magnae Dei Matris: one
of many similar passages reads:

When we have recourse to Mary in prayer, we are having recourse to the Mother of mercy, who
is so well disposed toward us that, whatever the necessity that presses upon us, especially in attaining
eternal life, she is instantly at our side of her own accord, even though she has not been invoked; and
dispenses grace with a generous hand from that treasure with which from the beginning she was
divinely endowed in fullest abundance that she might be worthy to be the Mother of God.
118

Pius X: in Ad diem illum says:

By this community of pain and will between Christ and Mary “she merited to become in a most worthy
manner the Reparatrix of the lost world,” and consequently, the Dispenser of all the gifts that Jesus
acquired for us by His Death and Blood. … Who knew better than all others the secrets of His Heart,
and who by maternal right distributes the treasures of His merits.
119

After saying that Mary “may justly be said to have redeemed together with Christ the human
race,” Pope Benedict XV continues: “for this very reason, every grace we receive from the treasury
of the Redemption is given to us as by the hands of the same sorrowing Virgin.”
120

Even the favors for which we thank the other saints come through the Queen of All Saints.
Thus Pius XI in Ingravescentibus Malis (encyclical on the Rosary) mentions his gratitude for the
recovery of his health: “This grace … We attribute to the special intercession of the virgin of
Lisieux, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, but we know nonetheless that all things are given to us by
the great and Good God through the hands of His Mother.”
121

VII. SPIRITUAL MOTHER

Our Lady’s Mediation is the proof of her motherly love for men. Pius XI wrote in Lux veritatis,
“She, by the very fact that she brought forth the Redeemer of the human race, is also in a manner
the most tender Mother of us all, whom Christ Our Lord deigned to have as His brothers (Rom.
8:29).”
122 The belief of Catholics that Mary is our spiritual Mother has never been solemnly
proclaimed by the magisterium of the Church. Nor does the invocation of Mary as Our Mother
occur in these words before the Middle Ages, but the spiritual motherhood was equivalently
believed in the patristic phrases, “second Eve, new Eve, Mother of the living.” The doctrine, as
recent popes have told us, is implicit in the Gospels: in Mary’s fiat at the Annunciation, and in
Christ’s legacy on Calvary “Behold thy mother” (Jn. 19:27). The popes by their ordinary teaching
authority have been preaching Mary’s spiritual motherhood with ever increasing emphasis. Papal
statements on the “Mother of grace” are at least as old as Sixtus IV, who used this term in Cum
praecelsa, 1477.
123

Benedict XIV (1740-1758) wrote in approval of the Marian sodalities: “The Catholic Church,
schooled by the Holy Ghost, has always most diligently professed, not only to venerate Mary most
devoutly as the Mother of the Lord and Redeemer, the Queen of heaven and of earth, but also to
honor her with filial affection as the most loving Mother who was left to her with the last words
of her dying Spouse.”
124

Pius IX (1846-1878) frequently referred to Mary as Our Mother. The encyclical Ubi primum,
February 2, 1849, asking the bishops’ mind on the Immaculate Conception, speaks of “the most
holy Mother of God, and the most loving Mother of us all, the Immaculate Virgin Mary.”
125
Ineffabilis Deus calls Our Lady “the dearest Mother of mercy and of grace.”
126 Addressing a group
of pilgrims September 17, 1876, Pius IX said, “There on Calvary, at the foot of the Cross,
represented by St. John we were placed under the protection of Mary as our Mother. The last
words of the testament which Jesus pronounced … ‘Woman, behold thy son.’”
127

The ten Rosary encyclicals and the Quamquam pluries on the patronage of the Blessed Virgin
and St. Joseph give us Pope Leo XIII’s teaching. Mary “is our Mother not in a human way but
through Christ.”
128 She is “at one and the same time God’s Mother and our Mother.”
129 “Just as the
most holy Virgin is the Mother of Jesus Christ, so she is the Mother of all Christians.”
130 Indeed the
“whole human race was entrusted” to her motherly care.
131

Pope Leo’s Marian doctrine pictures Mary’s spiritual Maternity under a double aspect: first,
because she is Mother of Christ; second, because of her association with the Redeemer even to
Calvary.

By the very fact that she was chosen to be the Mother of Christ, Our Lord, Who is at the same time our
brother, she was singularly endowed above all other mothers with the mission of manifesting and
pouring out her mercy upon us. Moreover, if we are indebted to Christ in that He has shared with us
in some way the right, peculiarly His own, of calling God our Father and possessing Him as such, to
Christ’s loving generosity we are similarly indebted for sharing in His right to call Mary Mother and
to possess her as such.
132

Just as the most holy Virgin is the Mother (Genetrix) of Jesus Christ, so she is the Mother of all
Christians, whom indeed she bore (generavit) on Mt. Calvary amid the supreme throes of the
Redeemer; also, Jesus Christ is as the first-born of all Christians, who by adoption and Redemption are
His brothers.
133

Blessed Pius X in Ad diem illum (1904) has a magnificent passage on Mary Our Mother. The
reader is urged to consult the whole encyclical:

For is not Mary the Mother of Christ? She is therefore our Mother also … as the God-Man He acquired
a body composed like that of other men, but as the Saviour of our race He had a kind of spiritual and
mystical Body, which is the society of those who believe in Christ. “We, the many, are one body in
Christ” (Romans 12,5) … Mary, bearing in her womb the Saviour, may be said to have borne also all
those whose life was contained in the life of the Saviour. All of us, therefore, who are united with
Christ and are, as the Apostle says, “Members of His body, made from His flesh and from His bones”
(Ephesians 5,30), have come forth from the womb of Mary as a body united to its head. Hence, in a
spiritual and mystical sense, we are called children of Mary, and she is the Mother of us all … the Most
Blessed Virgin is at once the Mother of God and of man. …
134

The final phrase in Latin is: “Dei simul atque hominum parens est.” The word parens (parent),
earlier used by Pius VII,
135 implied a genuine maternity. It is used by Pius XI, in his first encyclical,
Ubi arcano, December 23, 1922: “The Virgin Mother of God and the most loving Mother of all of
us.”
136

The new Code of Canon Law was promulgated under Pope Benedict XV. Canon 1276 tells us:
“It is good and useful to suppliantly invoke the Saints of God, reigning together with Christ … but
above the others let all the faithful show the Most Blessed Virgin Mary filial devotion.”
137 The letter
Inter Sodalicia (to the Sodality of Our Lady of a Happy Death) contains these words:

… she, having been constituted by Jesus Christ as the Mother of all men, received them as bequeathed
to her by a testament of infinite charity, and since with maternal tenderness she fulfills her office of
protecting their spiritual life, the Sorrowful Virgin cannot but assist, more zealously than ever, her
most dear sons by adoption at that moment when their eternal salvation is at stake.
138

Pope Pius XI spoke or wrote of the spiritual Maternity on more than 50 occasions. Bertetto well
calls him, “The Pope of the Spiritual Maternity and of the Rosary.”
139 Rerum ecclesiae, the encyclical
on the Propagation of the Faith, February 28, 1926, says: “… since on Calvary all men were
commended to her motherly affection, she loves and cherishes no less those who do not know of
their Redemption by Jesus Christ than those who happily enjoy the benefits of the Redemption.”
140

On the occasion of the jubilee year of the Redemption, Pope Pius XI made frequent references
to the dying Saviour’s words proclaiming His Mother as Mother of Men, for example, an allocution
of August 19, 1933: “The nineteenth centenary of the Redemption … is also … the centenary of the
universal Maternity of Mary, officially proclaimed by the Divine King from His throne, the
Cross.”
141

On November 30, 1933, the Pope gave a discourse to pilgrims: “It is precisely under the cross,
in the last moments of His life, that the Redeemer proclaimed her our Mother and universal
Mother: ‘Behold thy Son,’ He said to St. John who represented us all; in the same Apostle we, all
of us, received those other words: ‘Behold thy Mother.’”
142

The radio address to Lourdes, April 28, 1935, begins: “Let us all pray to our common Mother.
… Preserve in us and increase each day, we beg of thee, the precious fruits of the Redemption and
of thy Compassion, and, thou who are the Mother of all, grant that … we may finally enjoy
untroubled the gifts of peace.”
143

Mystici Corporis of Pius XII, June 29, 1943, condenses in a few paragraphs of exact and beautiful
phrases the Marian teachings of the Church. What recent popes have said about the spiritual
Maternity is said here still more forcefully:

… She who corporally was the mother of our Head, through the added title of pain and glory became
spiritually the mother of all His members. … Bearing with courage and confidence the tremendous
burden of her sorrows and desolation, truly the Queen of Martyrs, she more than all the faithful “filled
up those things that are wanting of the suffering of Christ … for His Body, which is the Church” (Col.
1,24); and she continued to show for the Mystical Body of Christ, born from the pierced Heart of the
Saviour, the same mother’s care and ardent love, with which she clasped the Infant Jesus to her warm
and nourishing breast.
144

The Latin term used for “Mother of all His members” is genetrix — the first time in a Papal
document that this word is used for spiritual motherhood. It was previously used only in reference
to the divine Maternity.
145

Pius XII relates the mysteries of the Annunciation and of the Crucifixion to the spiritual
motherhood:

But when the little maid of Nazareth uttered her fiat to the message of the Angel and the Word was
made flesh in her womb she became not only the Mother of God in the physical order of nature, but
also in the supernatural order of grace she became the Mother of all, who through the Holy Spirit
would be made one under the Headship of her divine Son.
146

(Mary) became our Mother when the Divine Saviour was accomplishing His sacrifice of Himself, and
thus, under this title also, we are her children.
147

In the homily delivered immediately after the solemn definition of the Assumption the Pope
said: “We are all children of the same Mother, Mary, who lives in Heaven, the bond of union for
the Mystical Body of Christ and new Eve, new Mother of the living, who wishes to lead all men
to the truth and grace of her divine Son.”
148

The souls in purgatory still benefit from Mary’s motherly care: “And certainly this most gentle
Mother will not delay to open, as soon as possible, through her intercession with God, the gates
of Heaven for Her children who are expiating their faults in Purgatory — a trust based on that
Promise known as the Sabbatine Privilege.”
149

VIII. QUEEN

A. In Popes of the Past

For centuries, the Church has called Our Lady “Queen.” Yet it comes as a surprise to many to
discover that the magisterium, through the statements of the recent popes, and most of all through
His Holiness, Pius XII, has presented a strikingly complete picture of Mary’s Queenship in
harmonious relationship with her other privileges.
150

As early as Pope St. Martin I (d. 655) there are references to Mary as Queen and Empress.
151
Under Pope Adrian I (d. 795), the Seventh Ecumenical Council (second of Nicea) defended the use
of sacred images, those of Our Lord (Dominus) God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and of our
Immaculate Lady (Domina — a word with royal significance), the holy Mother of God.
152

Boniface IX (1389-1404) calls Mary “perfect Queen, royal Virgin, Queen of the heavens.”
153
Sixtus IV’s Cum praecelsa of 1477 speaks of the glorious Virgin Mother of God as “Queen of
heaven” and also of her tireless intercession with “the King whom she bore.”
154 Benedict XIV in
Gloriosae Dominae, September 27, 1748, not only recalls the long tradition in the Church of
venerating Mary “as Mother of the Lord and Redeemer, Queen of heaven and of earth,” and of
honoring “her with filial affection as the most loving Mother,” but also adds, “For this is the most
beautiful Esther, whom the supreme King of Kings so loved that for the salvation of His people
He seems to have given her not merely half his kingdom, but in some manner to have
communicated to her His whole rule and power. This valiant woman is that Judith, whom the God
of Israel permitted to gain victory over all the enemies of His people.”
155

Ineffabilis Deus
156 of Pius IX exalts Mary in these words, “… she has been appointed by God
to be the Queen of heaven and earth, and is exalted above all the choirs of angels and classes of
Saints.” “Queen conceived without original sin” was placed in the Litany of Loreto after 1854.

Leo XIII frequently called Our Lady “Queen of the Most Holy Rosary.”
157 The encyclical
Magnae Dei Matris recalls Mary’s continual association with her Son:

It is thus that the crown of the kingdoms of heaven and of earth will await her because she will be the
invincible Queen of martyrs; it is thus that she will be seated in the heavenly city of God by the side
of her Son, crowned for all eternity, because she will drink with Him the cup overflowing with sorrow,
faithfully through all her life, most faithfully on Calvary.
158

Ad diem illum of Blessed Pius X mentions Mary’s Queenship in the context of her association
with Christ in the work of human salvation and in the ministration of graces. “Christ ‘has taken
His seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high’ (Heb. 1:3), and Mary as Queen stands at His
right hand. …”
159 In a similar setting Mary is called “Queen of Martyrs”: “With Mary present and
witnessing it, that divine sacrifice was perfected by which we have been redeemed, and she shared
in it to such an extent that the Queen of Martyrs both brought forth and nourished the most
sacred Victim.”
160

Benedict XV’s war-torn pontificate is full of his pleas to the “Queen of Peace.” In adding the
prayer “Queen of peace, pray for us” to the Litany of Loreto, the Pontiff said, “Will Mary, who is
Queen not of wars and slaughter, but of the kingdom of peace, disappoint the trust and the prayers
of her faithful children? … Faith and history alike point to the one succor, to the omnipotence of
prayer, to the Mediatrix, to Mary. In all security and trust we cry, Regina pacis, ora pro nobis.”
161

Pius XI, in at least three encyclical letters, begs the Queen of the Apostles to grant unity to the
Church, (1) In Ecclesiam Dei, November 2, 1923, on the third centenary of the martyrdom of St.
Josaphat, Pius XI urges us — like St. Josaphat — to go to Our Lady, who is also loved by the
schismatics. “Let us invoke this most kind Mother, especially with this title, Queen of the pastures,
that the straying brothers may return to the life-giving pastures, where Peter, ever living in his
successors and Vicar of the Eternal Shepherd, feeds and guides all the lambs and sheep of the
Christian flock.”
162 (2) Rerum Ecclesiae, February 28, 1926. “May Mary, the most Holy Queen of the
Apostles, graciously second our common undertakings; Mary, who since she holds in her mother’s
heart all men who were committed to her on Calvary, cherishes and loves, not only those who
happily enjoy the fruits of the Redemption, but those likewise who still do not know that they
have been redeemed by Jesus Christ.”
163 (3) Lux veritatis, December 25, 1931, in commemoration
of Ephesus. “Under the auspices of the heavenly Queen, We desire all to beg for a special favor of
the greatest importance, that she who is loved and venerated with such ardent piety by the people
of the East, may not permit that they should be unhappily wandering and still kept apart from the
unity of the Church and thus from her Son, Whose Vicar on earth We are.”
164

B. Pius XII on the Queenship

Pius XII, the Pope of the Assumption, the Pope of the consecration of the world to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, is also the Pope of Our Lady’s Queenship. More than any of his
predecessors, Pope Pius XII has brought into relief the fuller meaning of Our Lady’s power as
queen. Mary is Queen not alone in the sense of excelling all other creatures; she is Queen also in
a proper sense, that is, with real power, with true association in her Son’s kingdom of grace. The
foundations of her Queenship are the divine Maternity and her cooperation in the work of the
Redemption. Mary’s kingdom is coextensive with Christ’s; but the traditional title, Queen of
Mercy, indicates the special sphere of her interest. About the exact nature of her Queenship
theological writers are not agreed; some emphasize her Queenship as parallel (though subordinate
and dependent) to Christ’s kingship, through her conquest with Him; others insist on the feminine
character of Mary’s rule — through her mother’s power over the heart of Christ.

From the abundance of Pius XII’s documents on the Queenship we limit ourselves to a few
selections. Addressing the world by radio on October 31, 1942, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Our
Blessed Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, Portugal, the Holy Father “in the role of representative of
the whole human race” solemnly declared:

As the Church and the entire human race were consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus so that, in
reposing all hope in Him, He might become for them the sign and pledge of victory and salvation: so
We in like manner consecrate ourselves forever also to thee and thy Immaculate Heart, Our Mother
and Queen, that thy love and patronage may hasten the triumph of the Kingdom of God.
165

On Columbus Day, October 12, 1945, the Pontiff sent a radio message to the Mexican Marian
Congress for the fiftieth anniversary of the crowning of the miraculous image of Our Lady of
Guadalupe. The Pope addressed not alone the people of Mexico, recovering with Our Lady’s help
after the decades of persecution, but all America. His legate was Cardinal Villeneuve from Canada.

The most holy Virgin was the providential instrument chosen by the designs of the heavenly Father
to give to the world His beloved Son; to be the Mother and Queen of the Apostles who were to spread
his doctrine to the whole world. … [In conclusion the Pope speaks directly to Our Lady of Guadalupe.]
… We set again on your brow the crown, which places forever under your powerful patronage the
purity and integrity of the holy faith in Mexico and in the whole American continent. For we are
certain that as long as you are recognized as Queen and Mother, America and Mexico will be safe.
166

On May 13, 1946, the Pope delivered what he has since called his radio message on the
Queenship as his legate, Cardinal Masella, solemnly crowned the statue of Our Lady at Fatima.

He, the Son of God, reflects on His heavenly Mother the glory, the majesty and the dominion of His
kingship; for, having been associated to the King of martyrs in the ineffable work of human
Redemption as Mother and co-operatrix, she remains forever associated to Him, with an almost
unlimited power, in the distribution of the graces which flow from the Redemption. Jesus is King
throughout all eternity by nature and by right of conquest; through Him, with Him and subordinate
to Him, Mary is Queen by grace, by divine relationship, by right of conquest and by singular election.
And her kingdom is as vast as that of her Son and God, since nothing is excluded from her dominion.
And this queenship of hers is essentially maternal, exclusively beneficent.
167

Space limitations preclude discussion of the queenly phrases in Mystici Corporis: “Queen of
Martyrs” and “reigns in heaven with her Son.”
168

Munificentissimus Deus has several mentions of the Queenship in connection with the
Assumption. In commemoration of the dogmatic definition another queenly title has been added
to the Litany of Loreto: “Queen assumed into heaven.”
169 From his study of this topic, Father De
Roo concludes that the solemn proclamation of the bodily Assumption on November 1, 1950, has
been an invitation given us by His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, the great Marian Pope of the twentieth
century, to open a new chapter in Marian doctrine: Queen assumed into heaven!
170

Munificentissimus Deus contains a brilliant paragraph which is a striking summary of Marian
doctrine:

The revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one and the
same decree of predestination, immaculate in her conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine
motherhood, the noble associate of the divine Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and
its consequences, was finally granted, as the supreme culmination of her privileges, that she should be
preserved free from the corruption of the tomb and that, like her own Son, having overcome death, she
might be taken up body and soul to the glory of heaven where, as Queen, she sits in splendor at the
right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the ages.
171

A CLOSING WORD

There are many more teachings which the popes have given us about Our Blessed Mother; for
example, their recommendations of traditional Marian devotions like the Rosary and the Brown
Scapular, or their praise of Marian saints, like St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, St. Bernard,
St. Ephraem, St. Simon Stock, St. Bernadette. In preaching the imitation of the holy Mother of God;
in encouraging pilgrimages to her shrines, as Lourdes, Fatima, Loreto, La Salette; in extending
consecration to her Immaculate Heart; or in approving any form of veneration of Our Lady, the
magisterium at the same time reminds us that true devotion flows from sound doctrine. May the
serious study of Mary, Seat of Wisdom, bring home to us the truth which our supreme Teacher
underlines with these words: “Do not forget, Catholics of Mexico and of all America: true wisdom
is that which she gives you, that which she teaches you, in the name of the Incarnate Wisdom!”
172

Mary in the Old Testament

By ERIC MAY, O.F.M.Cap., S.T.D., S.S.L.

INTRODUCTION: “THE MOTHER OF JESUS WAS THERE”

WHEN Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, came into the world, He was not very
particular about the kind of place where He was to be cradled, or the clothes He would wear or
the food He would eat. But on one point He was very definite. The woman who was to be His
Mother had to be perfect. And perfect she was — sinless, stainless, Virgin as well as Mother.

We cannot doubt that the God-Man was very proud of His Mother Mary. And that fact,
perhaps, emphasizes our astonishment at finding the Virgin Mary mentioned rather infrequently
in the pages of Holy Writ. We do not know when or where she was born, for instance; we do not
know when or where she finished the earthly course of her existence; and it is little enough that
we read of her apart from St. Luke’s infancy section. This comparative silence of Sacred Scripture
concerning the Mother of God has teased the minds of men for centuries. We can always answer,
as did St. Lawrence of Brindisi and Didacus Stella (concerning the Assumption), that divine
mysteries are far above us, so that a holy silence and quiet admiration praise them more than
fulsome words on tip of tongue or pen.
173 Ultimately, however, one must conclude that we know
everything about Mary that God thought it good for us to know.

How much do we know? That is to say, in how many passages does the written Word of God
speak to us of Mary? To satisfy this query, several prior questions must first be answered. The
difficulty lies not so much with the New Testament where disputed Marian texts are few (e.g., the
identity of the Woman in Apoc. 12), but rather with the Old Testament. Should we expect to find
references to Mary scattered through the history of the Old Covenant? If so, they would have to
be in the nature of a revelation and a prophecy. A priori, there is nothing against this inasmuch
as the same holds true for Old Testament messianic passages regarding the Person of Christ. And
one would almost expect to find the Messias and His Mother linked together in prophecy as in
reality.

Granting the possibility of Marian passages in the Old Testament, in what manner do these
texts refer to the Mother of God? Such a question draws one inevitably into a consideration of
biblical hermeneutics and the various senses of Sacred Scripture. This ground has already been
covered in scholarly fashion by other authors,
174 and since that is not our primary concern here, and
because the terminology involved is still open to dispute, we merely summarize our position in
the matter for our immediate needs. We accept, then, the customary pattern given in standard
manuals of Introduction to Sacred Scripture.
175 We accept the literal sense as a strict biblical sense
(whether this be properly literal, taking words or phrases in their obvious, etymological meaning;
or improperly literal, understanding words in their transferred, figurative meaning; or literal in
the fuller sense, i.e., taking words in their “developed” literal sense as known to God alone or those
to whom He reveals it). The typical sense (the meaning in which persons, things or actions directly
signified by a text, according to the intention of the Holy Spirit refer also to still other persons,
things, or actions) is likewise a strict biblical sense. Besides these strict scriptural senses
176 there is
the so-called consequent sense (not strictly literal, but derived from words of Scripture by a
reasoning process), and the accommodated sense (a meaning which one adapts to the words of
Scripture, intended neither by the human nor the sacred Author). These, then, are the senses we
take into consideration when investigating the Marian texts of the Old Testament.

Before proceeding to the Old Testament passages commonly considered as Marian, there are
several points to bear in mind. Despite the tons of ink and paper devoted to Mariology in recent
decades, agreement is still lacking on some fundamental concepts. Perhaps this is due mainly to
a vague and conflicting terminology; perhaps not. But it is still possible to find authors who refuse
outright, or at least hesitate to see literal references to Mary in the Old Testament because of a
mistaken notion that in interpreting early and primitive texts one may not go beyond whatever
the first readers could have understood.
177 Such an attitude surely exceeds the proper caution to be
observed lest one read something into a text not intended by its divine and human coauthors. The
attitude does less than justice to the strict scriptural senses, not excluding the fuller and the typical
senses.

This fact leads logically to another consideration. It is frequently taken for granted that
revelation, developing slowly as it did over the centuries before Christ, left those of the Old
Dispensation (even the sages and prophets) helpless to understand the messianic message. Hence,
some think a direct reference to the Mother of the Messias as early as the Protogospel (Gen. 3:15)
is out of the question. The same line of thinking governs their consideration of even the Virgin-Birth prophecy in Isa. 7:14. Too advanced a concept, they say; hence at best they grant a typical
reference to the future Baby and His Virgin Mother.

Must we patiently breathe “Amen” to such a view? May we not probe deeper and perhaps
come up with a different answer? Granted, that there is a gradual development of the messianic
theme in the Old Testament.
178 Granted, that according to St. Augustine’s famous dictum the New
Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament becomes manifest in the New.
179 Granted
further, that nothing of a supernatural nature in the Old Dispensation could be learned apart from
revelation. Is it not possible, however, that God may have revealed His mysteries more frequently
than we have supposed? Could Moses have appreciated that it was of the Messias’ Mother he was
writing in that Woman-Seed prophecy of Gen. 3:15? Did Isaias understand what he was really
saying when referring to the Virgin Mother (7:14) or the Suffering Servant (53)? The argument that
Jewish contemporaries seemingly did not comprehend does not appear to be sufficient warrant
to deny at least a possibility of knowledge to these men who stood in so intimate a relationship
to God.
180

Not yet has sufficient stress been placed on the fact that both Old and New Testaments had
the same divine Author. Not yet has enough been written about oral tradition as a second source
of revelation during the Old Dispensation. To give due consideration to this latter point, no doubt,
will lead one to a position not too far removed from that of Father J. Arendzen. This author, in
explaining Isaias’ Virgin-Birth prophecy, remarks:

Does the exclusive stress of the prophecy [of Isa. 7:14] lie on the miracle itself that it will be a virgin
who will conceive and thus that God in one unique instance will give the crown of virginity and
maternity to one person, making her mother and leaving her a maid? It would seem not. The miracle
is indeed plainly and unmistakably foretold, but rather as a thing taken for granted, as a thing already
known, something which needed not a repeated prophecy to bring it to the notice of Israel then living.
Divine revelation in the Old Testament was no more limited to the Written Word, or the Bible, than
it is in the New. It was then a living progressive revelation both by the spoken and the written Word,
as it is now a living completed revelation contained both in Scripture and Tradition and maintained by
the infallible Church. Hence there is no need to suppose or demand that Isaias then for the first time
brought to the notice of Israel the glories of the Mother of the Messias. … The prophets of Israel were
living people who prophesied with the living voice. Some of their prophecies have by God’s Will come
down in writing, some of them have not. There is nothing to force us to say that the mystery of the
Virgin birth must have been unknown to Elias or Eliseus, Amos, Osee or Joel because they preceded
Isaias. Though the immediate purpose of Isaias’ prophecy to Ahaz was the devastation of Palestine by
the Assyrians within a few years, he states with utmost clarity that the Mother of the Messias is to be
a Virgin as well as a Mother.
181

With the increased interest in Mariology during recent years, an interest given greater impetus
by the declaration of the dogma of the Assumption in 1950, authors are diligently re-examining
Sacred Scripture in its bearing on this special branch of theology. As one writer has put it, “Mary
is at the point of junction of the Old and the New Law, which means that one cannot realize the
whole significance of her vocation without replacing her in the Old Testament; a thorough
understanding of the passages in Matthew and Luke in their early chapters is impossible without
this constant reference to the biblical atmosphere which we have in common with Israel.”
182 We
just cannot afford to study the biblical era as merely human history, or the Sacred Text solely in
the light of literary criteria. To do so is to end up with what has been aptly called “minimum
Mariology.”

In recent Mariological research the trend has been toward an examination of biblical themes
rather than of isolated texts. Thus, as C. Moeller explains in an article for prospective catechists,
“the teacher should be aware of the general significance of the texts and, above all, of the Old
Testament themes which are the foundation of the Marian revelation in the New Testament. Mary
is placed at the turn of the old and new economy: on the one hand she is the supreme flowering
of this human preparation (although realized through grace) of the ‘cradle,’ destined to receive the
Messiah; on the other, after Jesus, Mary represents ‘the consent and cooperation of the Church.’”
183
The theme motif is not always invoked in precisely the same way. The basic idea, however, is to
consider the concatenation of Marian texts in both Old and New Testaments as bearing a unified
message, one text helping to explain the other.
184 To our way of thinking, this is not only a justified
approach — it is a necessity.

We have already seen that the Old Testament texts commonly recognized as Marian are
relatively few in number. Of these texts, not all refer to Mary directly, or in the strict literal sense.
It is disputed whether some refer to her at all. There are many Old Testament types which find
their fulfillment in the Mother of God. There are innumerable other passages accommodated to
Mary for homiletic or liturgical purposes. It shall be our main concern to determine which Old
Testament passages really refer immediately and formally to Mary. We shall discover that though
the texts be few, the Old Testament has quite a bit to tell us about the Blessed Mother.

I. MARY IN PROPHECY

1. Gen. 3:15

Context.

After the lamentable moral fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3)
they awaited their punishment. But before He punished Eve (v. 16) and Adam (vv.
17-19), almighty God meted out punishment to Satan who had seduced Eve under the guise of
a serpent (v. 14). As part of Satan’s punishment God addressed to him those momentous words
which have come to be known as the Protogospel.

Text.

“I will put enmity between you and the woman,

between your seed and her seed;

He shall crush your head

and you shall lie in wait for his heel.”

The number of recent books and articles on this verse is simply phenomenal and offers perhaps
the best indication of its importance to the study of Mariology.
185 Not that everyone agrees on the
exact interpretation of the verse. In fact, some Catholics still find it difficult to see how Mary is
concerned in the verse at all, except perhaps accommodatively.
186 How anyone can still question
Mary’s connection with Gen. 3:15 in a true scriptural sense, after the use made of the verse by
recent popes, is a mystery. Most recently, for example, in promulgating the Marian Year of 1954
His Holiness Pope Pius XII pointed out:

In the first place, the foundation of this doctrine [the Immaculate Conception] is to be found in Sacred
Scripture, where we are taught that God, Creator of all things, after the sad fall of Adam, addressed the
serpent, the tempter and corrupter, in these words, which not a few Fathers, Doctors of the Church and
many approved interpreters applied to the Virgin Mother of God: “I will put enmities between thee and
the woman, and thy seed and her seed” (Gen. III, 15). Now, if at any time the Blessed Mary were
destitute of Divine grace even for the briefest moment, because of contamination in her conception by
the hereditary stain of sin, there would not have come between her and the serpent that perpetual
enmity spoken of from earliest tradition down to the time of the solemn definition of the Immaculate
Conception, but rather a certain subjection.
187

However, interpretation of the verse remains an issue of dispute. Even those who agree that
Gen. 3:15 is Marian, disagree on the precise scriptural sense involved. Thus, some explain the text
as a reference first to Eve, then to Mary, and call it the typical sense.
188 In recent years more and
more authors are seeing a literal reference to Mary in the Protogospel. Some explain it as the
improper literal sense.
189 Others prefer to see here a verification of the fuller sense.
190 Still others
find a direct and properly literal reference to Mary in the verse,
191 and it is with this view that our
sympathy lies — for exegetical as well as traditional reasons.

A scriptural passage is the work of God as well as of man; and while the exegete will first
apply the principles of literary criticism to the text, he may not stop there. This is particularly true
of a disputed text. It is most especially true of a text that has been used so frequently in connection
with Marian dogma and Marian theology in general. Here the authentic interpretation of the
Church as manifested by the authority of the Fathers, the analogy of faith, papal encyclicals, and
the teaching magisterium must find place. Where Gen. 3:15 is concerned, we believe that the
teaching Church has said enough to provide a solid foundation for the directly literal Marian
interpretation of the verse. And we believe that there are good exegetical reasons for saying the
same.

Briefly, the two most cogent reasons for holding that Mary alone is the Woman mentioned in
Gen. 3:15 are: (1) the fact that the total and perpetual enmity placed between the Woman and Satan
was verified in Mary alone; (2) the fact that the Woman’s Seed, at total and perpetual enmity with
Satan’s seed, crushed Satan’s head. Jesus Christ was the one who did this. He is the Woman’s
Seed; Mary is His Mother.

We proceed to positive proof. It was a complete and perpetual enmity predicted between the
Woman and Satan. The Hebrew word for “enmity,” ’êybâh, means just that, as we can gather from
its use elsewhere in the Old Testament (e.g., Num. 35:21 where it means a personal enmity that
leads to murder; Ezech. 25:15 where it signifiesa national destructive enmity), as well as from the
very nature of the passage. Which woman of history qualifies for such an enmity with the devil
if not the Immaculate Mother of Jesus, who never for a moment fell beneath Satan’s power? Eve
surely does not. We know how Scripture speaks of her. She was the one who brought sin into the
world (Ecclus. 25:33; 2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:14). Never was she said to be “full of grace.” And even
though Eve did repent of the original sin, are we really to suppose that never again for an instant
did she yield to temptation until her dying breath?
192 Again, it will pay us to remember that Pope
Pius IX had this perfect enmity in mind when defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
193
The type of enmity predicted in Gen. 3:15 is perhaps the strongest reason for rejecting the view
that Eve, here, is a type of Mary.

It is the Woman’s Seed who crushes Satan’s power and is harmed somewhat in the crushing.
Of whom is this perfect victory, the Redemption, verified if not of Jesus the Messias who brought
salvation to the world by His bloody death on the cross? He and He alone brought about the
objective Redemption (although Mary co-operated in a secondary capacity). Need this be proved?
But if Christ is the individual to be identified through parallelism with the Woman’s Seed, then
surely the Woman herself can only be Mary His Mother.
194

These reasons do not appeal to everyone, it is true. There are numerous objections, mainly on
exegetical grounds. One widespread objection holds that Mary cannot be the Woman of Gen. 3:15,
at least not primarily and directly, because the context is against it. Throughout Chapter 3 only
one woman is mentioned: Eve. Therefore, the woman in verse 15 must also be Eve, according to
the (literary) principle of hermeneutics that a word is determined by its context. This is more
certain (say the objectors) in that the word for woman in Hebrew has the definite article (hā’iššâ),
which by anaphoric usage refers to previously mentioned Eve. In reply, we may point out that
there are very good reasons for identifying the Woman of verse 15 without reference to the
immediate context. The surrounding verses, 14 and 16, are also prophetic it is true, but they are
not messianic as is verse 15. And wherever else in the Old Testament the Woman appears in a
messianic text (as we shall see), that Woman is Mary, Mother of the Messias. Therefore,
considering Gen. 3:15 in its remote context, i.e., the Old Testament — and indeed the entire Bible,
we are to identify this Mother of the Perfect Victor with Mary. Then, too, the fact that the Hebrew
word for Woman has the article does not by any means prove an anaphoric usage. There are many
similar phrases in the Old Testament where use of the article is not anaphoric.
195 The reference
here, then, is to a certain Woman who with her Son will be victorious over Satan.

If this is true, what did the prophecy mean to Adam and Eve? So runs another line of objection.
From the words of verse 15 alone, it is said, our first parents could not have understood a reference
to a personal Messias (and His Mother). In answer, one may note in all justice that the time
sequence of punishment was not necessarily immediately successive. There is nothing in the text
to force us to believe that Adam and Eve even heard the original punishment of Satan.
196 True, at
some time they must have learned of the prophecy. In any case, however, where is the necessity
for Adam and Eve to have understood the prophecy in its fullness, inasmuch as even we of the
twentieth century a.d. are not perfectly clear on all the messianic prophecies? For the rest, it is at
least quite possible that Adam and Eve had had a revelation of the Incarnation prior to the fall, in
which case there would have been no difficulty in recognizing the Woman and her Seed,
regardless of when they learned of the Protogospel.
197

Another objection looks to the precise meaning of the word “seed.” Some argue thus. The seed
of Satan in verse 15 is certainly a collective noun (because of scriptural passages which speak of
Satan’s offspring in the plural); but by parallelism the Seed of the Woman, then, is also a collective.
But if it is collective, then we do not have here primarily a reference to the individual Messias, and
consequently His Mother Mary is not primarily the Woman. However, it is not at all certain that
Satan’s seed is a collective noun. Why could it not very well be a metaphorical reference to the one
thing the devil had spawned in Eden, and for which he was now being punished — original sin,
which after all was that which necessitated the Redeemer?
198 Even granting, however, that the seed
of Satan does refer to a collectivity, this does not demand that the Woman’s Seed equally refer to
a collectivity. The parallelism in this part of the verse is already weakened, to the extent that a
metaphorical generation is certainly indicated regarding Satan, true physical generation in the
case of the Woman. The Woman’s Seed is an individual, and parallelism seems equally well served
by the generic idea of offspring against offspring.

In view of the solid arguments proving that Mary is certainly the Woman of Gen. 3:15, and
even that she alone is the Woman directly intended by the Author and (through revelation) the
coauthor of the verse, it is not surprising to see the fruitful use made of it in modern Mariology.
199

2. Isa. 7:14-16

Context.

In 734 b.c. the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel, and Damascus, were seeking to
force the southern Jewish kingdom of Juda into an alliance against Assyria. To
have a more pliable instrument at the helm of Juda, they plotted to replace King Ahaz with their
own choice. In the face of this pressure Ahaz was assured by the prophet Isaias that all would go
well, provided that the King of Juda spurned the human assistance of Assyria against Israel and
Damascus and placed his entire trust in God. Then Isaias foretold the collapse of the Israel-Damascus project. King Ahaz was not to be afraid of their threats; their plan would fail (7:4-9). To
help the King’s faith Isaias offered him a sign, a miracle, as proof that he spoke in God’s name (vv.
10-11). When King Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, on a flimsy pretext, Isaias gave him the
providential and prophetic sign of the Virgin Birth.

Text.

“Behold a Virgin [the Virgin] shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be
called Emmanuel. He shall eat butter and honey, that he may know to refuse the evil
and to choose the good. For before the child know to refuse the evil and to choose the good, the
land which thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of the face of her two kings.”

Again, as befits a text of this kind, very much has been written concerning it.
200 Unlike most
Protestant authors,
201 Catholics are agreed that the prophecy refers to Jesus Christ the Messias.
Pope Pius VI condemned the proposition that the prophecy does not refer to Christ in any way.
202
However, whether the words of Isaias are a literal or typical reference to the Messias (and to Mary
His Mother) remains a point of disagreement among Catholic writers. How the Virgin Birth of
Christ could be a sign to King Ahaz when it would only occur 700 years later remains the major
difficulty to be explained. For our part, we believe that Isaias’ momentous prophecy refers
properly, directly, and exclusively to the Virgin Birth at Bethlehem; and this represents the much
more common opinion among Catholic expositors.

The Hebrew prophecy reads literally: “Behold, the Virgin is pregnant and bearing a son, and
she shall call his name ‘God-with-us.’” The Hebrew word translated by “virgin” is ‛almāh. Biblical
Hebrew had several words to designate a young woman. Na‛ărâh was applied to a young lady,
married or not. Bethûlāh was used only for a virgin, young or old. ‛Almāh, in its etymology,
implicitly although not necessarily, supposed the state of virginity (something like the German
Jungfrau or the English “maiden”). In its usage, ‛almāh was quite similar to the more rigid Hebrew
word bethûlāh and explicitly signified a young virgin of marriageable age.
203 In the light of the
immediate scriptural context (the promise of an extraordinary sign) and the remote scriptural
context (Mt. 1:23), the word ‛almāh in Isa. 7:14 must definitely be understood in the sense of
“virgin.” Confirmation of this is found in the Septuagint Greek translation, parthenos (virgin). It
is noteworthy that the Jews were not scandalized at the translation parthenos until the Christians
used it against them. The Messias, then, was to have a Virgin Mother.

Verses 15-16 of the prophecy are explained traditionally in this wise: the Child shall eat butter
(or curds) and honey (i.e., shall be reduced to eating the natural products of the land, as an
indication of His poverty —and this is confirmed by the subsequent verse 22); thus he was to learn
from experience the exercise of virtue (refusing the evil life). For before that time (i.e., Christ’s
time, 700 years later) the land of Israel (Israel and Aram) was to be laid waste.

Fr. F. Peirce, S.J., reviewing an article by Feuillet on this question, has some enlightening
remarks in modification of the “traditional” view.
204 It is a false supposition, he maintains, that in
verse 16 there is an immediate time link between the two halves of the verse. All that the verse
says is that at some time prior to the advent of the Child (whether this be sixty-five years or seven
centuries) the Israel-Damascus combine will have ceased to be. It does not state that the Child is
close at hand, or that He is a sign of an approaching liberation, much less that He will precede
Juda’s liberation. The Messianic Promise, when first given (Gen. 3:15) contained no reference to
temporalities. Even when first given to Abraham (Gen. 12:3) it was without a temporal note and
was absolute, independent of human wills. Later, because of Abraham’s fidelity (Gen. 26:3-4)
temporal prosperity was added to the picture. From then on the Messianic Promise held a twofold
note, an absolute promise that Messias would come, and an additional promise of prosperity
conditioned upon the obedience of the Chosen People. At the close of the patriarchal period, Jacob
in his deathbed blessing (Gen. 49) conferred the Messianic Promise upon Juda (v. 10) and the
blessing of special prosperity upon Joseph (vv. 25-26). In the days of David, who was king of all
the Jews, this prosperity was stressed again (3 Kings 2:3-4). From King David on, fidelity and
infidelity succeeded one another, so that at the time of King Ahaz infidelity loomed large in the
history of the nation; and in God’s designs the time had come for a definite stand. Ahaz and the
House of David were put to the test: “If you will not believe, you will not continue” (Isa. 7:9). The
sign is not merely (though it is primarily) the Virgin Birth, but the Virgin Birth in poverty; a sign
therefore with a twofold aspect, one desirable and the other unpleasant. As verse 13 shows, the
sign was directed not only to Ahaz but to the whole House of David. Since King Ahaz was out of
favor with God, the unpleasant aspect of the sign was directed toward him. Though the Birth in
poverty was still far in the future, within a short time the reasons for that poverty would begin
to manifest themselves, in the gradual dissolution of the temporal power of David’s House.
Damascus and Israel would soon feel the power of Assyria; Juda herself would suffer, and all
within the lifetime of Ahaz. And scion of the House of David as he was, although a faithless one,
the King could not fail to recognize the sign of the divine displeasure in the constant incursion of
enemy forces from the north and south into his borders, incursions far different from the hitherto
sporadic attacks of small nations along its borders. This explanation of Fr. Peirce seems worthy
of anyone’s consideration; and it helps to set the marvel of the Virgin-Birth prophecy into its
historical milieu.

It is hard to see how the typical sense could be verified in Isa. 7:14. Yet some Catholics imagine
that Isaias was referring to his own wife and son as types of Mary and Jesus. The essential
similarity necessary between a true type and its antitype is lacking here. No woman conceiving
and bearing according to the normal laws of nature can represent the Mother of Emmanuel in that
respect wherein the type and antitype should be really similar. Furthermore, the titles given to
Emmanuel in Isa. 9:6, especially that of ’Ēl Gibbôr — “Mighty God,”
205 cannot be applied
metaphorically to any child other than the Messias.

Isa. 7:14-16, then, is Marian as well as messianic, and the reference to the Virgin Mother of the
Saviour is at once directly and properly literal.

3. Mich. 5:2-3

Context.

The prophet Micheas, like his contemporary Isaias, warned that Israel was to be
reduced to a remnant before she could again be worthy of God’s promised mercy.
Not only would the Northern Kingdom of the Jews be taken into exile; Jerusalem itself was
destined for destruction. But the final gathering together of the scattered people would be
accomplished by a Mighty Ruler from a humble little town — a Ruler whose antecedents are
mysteriously eternal, and who is born of a Woman.

Text.

“And you, Bethlehem Ephrata, are a little one among the thousands of Juda: out of you
shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel: and his going forth is from
the beginning, from the days of eternity. Therefore will he give them up even till the time wherein
she that travaileth shall bring forth: and the remnant of his brethren shall be converted to the
children of Israel.”

The exact relationship between the prophets Isaias and Micheas has not been fully
determined,
206 but Catholics commonly agree that the Nativity prophecies of both refer as with one
voice to Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
207 We know that at Christ’s time, Jews of all classes understood
Mich. 5:2-3 in a messianic sense, the learned (Mt. 2:4-6) as well as the unlearned (cf. Jn. 7:40-42).
Micheas foretold that a new Ruler was to emerge in Israel, i.e., was to be born in David’s humble
birthplace, Bethlehem. Yet this same Ruler to be born in Bethlehem was considered as having had
existence from eternal days. Hence, a double origin: one eternal, one temporal. God would permit
Israel’s enemies to oppress her until “she that travaileth shall bring forth (the Saviour).” This
mother, thus introduced suddenly as known and determined (Hebrew: yôlēdāh, yālādāh) but
without mention of a husband, was to be understood in the same sense as the Virgin Mother of
Isa. 7:14 who bears Emmanuel. This Ruler would gather together His brethren (the dispersed Jews)
and form a blessed people at last secure from enemies, because He would be endowed with the
majesty and authority of Yahweh.

Perhaps no one has brought out the Marian significance of this messianic passage better than
Fr. K. Smyth, S.J. He writes:

Because it is God’s plan to raise up a Saviour, not from royal Sion, but from Bethlehem, he will leave Israel
at the mercy of her enemies, till a Mother bears Child. Then begin God’s blessings, with the return of the
Child’s exiled brothers. Abrupt and succinct, this prophecy evidently supposes a great current of Messianic
prophecy then familiar to all. It harmonizes perfectly with Isaias 7:14. There is the same sign of deliverance:
the appearance of a Mother, the coming of the Child, then the return of the exiles; cf. Is 7:3 ‘A Remnant will
Return.’ Through the centuries which prophetic vision has to pierce, only figures gigantic in their import
can be distinguished. But, however indistinctly perceived, a Woman looms large throughout the great
prophecies of Redemption. In the Proto-Evangel, Gen 3, in Isaias and in Micheas salvation comes through
one who always associates with himself a Mother. Thus the Catholic Church follows out fundamental lines
of revelation in the honour paid to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and in acknowledging her significance
in the economy of Redemption.
208

We agree with the view that Mich. 5:3 is a proper literal reference to Mary, the Mother of
Christ, and another important part of the Marian picture in the Old Testament.

4. Jer. 31:22

Context.

Chapter 31 of Jeremias’ prophecy holds out the hope of the restoration of the Jews
(vv. 1-14). At present, Rachel (the mother of Joseph, i.e., Ephraim) is pictured in the
prophet’s imagination as watching from her tomb at Rama, and bemoaning the ruin of her
children. But she need not grieve, says the prophet; Ephraim will yet repent (vv. 15-20), and both
Ephraim and Juda will be restored together (vv. 21-30). In confirmation of this, a great sign is
promised (v. 22).

Text.

“How long wilt thou be dissolute in deliciousness, O wandering daughter? for the Lord
hath created a new thing upon the earth: a woman shall encompass a man” (Douay
Version).

As with the preceding texts, there seems little room for doubt that we are dealing here with
a messianic text in a messianic context.
209 That raises once more the interesting question: Who is
the Woman concerned in this messianic text? Could it be Mary? Is this in some way another Old
Testament reference to the Virgin Birth? There is no unanimity among Catholics on the matter.
Some say no;
210 some say yes;
211 the views of others are more or less in between.
212

The exegetical arguments usually brought against a Marian interpretation of Jer. 31:22 are
these. The Hebrew reads: neqēbāh (a female) tesôbēb (shall surround) gāber (a male). But (it is
claimed) the word for “female” is never used in Sacred Scripture for a virgin; the word for
“surround” is never found in the Bible in the sense of childhearing. As for the “traditional”
interpretation of the text, say these authors, the Virgin-Birth analysis of the passage seems to have
been something personal to St. Jerome.

The case in favor of the Marian character of the verse has been well stated by Fr. Cuthbert
Lattey, S.J., as follows:

And then a great sign is promised, so great that it is even called a creation. The verb is in the perfect
tense (“hath created”), but it is generally admitted that this is merely another example of the well-
known idiom, the “prophetic perfect,” a vivid manner of presenting a prophecy as already fulfilled. The
present writer accepts Knabenbauer’s explanation in CSS [Cursus Sacrae Scripturae] which he regards
as far more plausible than any other, but of course it presupposes that miracle and prophecy are
possible. Instead of the initiative being taken by the man, as is usual in human generation, the physical
process on the purely human side will be set on foot by the woman, who will “press round” a man (a
meaning given by BDB [Brown, Driver and Briggs] to the verb in this passage, but with a different
implication). The miracle is emphasized by the word used for “woman” being an unusual one, which
stresses the sexual character. The word for “man” (that found in Gabri-el “man of God”) is also an
unusual one, implying strength and power; a cognate word (a fact significant in the present context)
is applied as a name to the Messias in Is 9:6 (“God the Mighty”), and directly to God Himself in Ps 23:8
(twice); Deut 10:17; etc. This explanation of the passage is confirmed by the fairly obvious reference
which it contains to Is 7:14, which can reasonably be supposed to have been familiar to Jeremias’
hearers and readers, as to those of Mic 5:3, immediately after the mention of Bethlehem. Like Isaias,
Jeremias passes easily by a process of compenetration from the temporary deliverance to the full
Messianic deliverance of which it is a type.
213

It is very interesting to note that authors like Lattey, Smyth, Schaefer-Brossart, and Scholz do
not hesitate to attribute a wide knowledge of previous Old Testament Marian texts to the
contemporaries of Isaias and Jeremias. Scholz, for example, confesses that for him Jer. 31:22 is a
paraphrase and interpretation of Isa. 7:14; and he adds significantly: “Such explanations may be
well assigned to the already existing knowledge in Scripture, down to the time of Jeremias, abused
by pharisaism.”
214

True, one does not have quite the same confidence in referring this text literally to Mary as
he would, say, the Proto-Gospel. But because of the striking similarity between this sign in
Jeremias and the Virgin-Birth sign of Isaias; because, again, of the remote scriptural context, we
see no serious reason to doubt that Jer. 31:22 presents yet another high light in the over-all Marian
picture in the Old Testament. We concur with Frs. Knabenbauer and Lattey.

5. Canticle of Canticles

The Canticle of Canticles is a love song. It tells of an espousal. The interpretation of the book
and the identification of the scriptural sense intended therein are well-known difficulties. Leaving
aside for our present purpose all the ramifications found in biblical introductions to the book, we
hold as the more probable view that the Canticle cannot be understood in a proper literal sense;
that it embodies elements of both parable and allegory; that in God’s intention it represents first
in point of time the relationship between Yahweh and the Chosen People (cf. Osee 2:16-20; Isa.
54:6, 62:5; Jer. 2:2, 3:1 ff.; Ezech. 16:32-38), then the union of Christ with His Church (cf. Mt. 22:1
ff., 25:1ff.; Jn. 3:29; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:23-32; Apoc. 21:9). Whether or not this last meaning is a
verification of the fuller sense is a matter of opinion. The important further question that concerns
us here is: did Almighty God also intend in the Canticle to refer to the close union between Christ
and His Blessed Mother? Is this a Marian book in any sense?

From patristic times down to our own day there have been commentators who extended (if
that is the correct word) the parabolico-allegoric understanding of the Canticle to an ascetico-mystical interpretation. Jesus is the Bridegroom, and the individual Christian soul is the bride.
Since the Virgin Mary is the holiest of the Church’s members; since her union with Christ is the
most intimate imaginable; since after Christ she occupies the main position in the economy of
salvation, in a special way Mary is the Bride discussed in the Canticle.
215 And for our part, we do
believe that Mary was included in the mind and intention of God when He inspired the sacred
author to write the Canticle of Canticles. Be this the “fuller” sense or the “fullest” sense (if you
will), Mary’s role as Sponsa Verbi is too evident within the remote context of both Testaments to
cast serious doubt on a Mariological interpretation of the Canticle. Here we have one of those
biblical themes mentioned earlier, a theme aptly indicated according to its general line of
development by Charles Moeller when he writes:

This first line of explicit biblical themes [i.e., espousals in the Old Testament; Church-Bride in the New]
being thus recalled to mind, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, a second series can be discerned, renewing
the former in its emphasis and revealing Marian implications. This second series of themes is to be
found in the Johannine revelation, which, to our mind, together with the Canticle of Canticles for the
Old Testament, represents the peak of the New. The Marian texts in St. John’s Gospel (II, 1-11; XIX, 25-27) linked on the one hand to verse 13 of the prologue [John 1] and to Genesis III, 15 and on the other
to Apoc. XII, sheds a flood of light on Mary the Bride of the Word, associated in the redemption, and
the spiritual mother of the faithful. It is necessary to note that we are here using a literal exegesis
founded on the secret connections placed by St. John himself between the different parts of his gospel
and between that gospel and Genesis and the Apocalypse.
216

The Canticle of Canticles, then, looked ahead in a fuller sense to the special relationship that
would exist between the Word of God and His Bride, Mary — even though the author’s
contemporaries, perhaps, would not have plumbed the depths of the Canticle’s meaning.

6. Other Texts

A passage from another of the major prophets is frequently mentioned in connection with the
Virgin Birth. Ezech. 44:1-3 reads: “And he brought me back to the way of the gate of the outward
sanctuary, which looked toward the east: and it was shut. And the Lord said to me: This gate shall
be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it: because the Lord the God of
Israel hath entered in by it, and it shall he shut for the prince. The prince himself shall sit in it. …”
The prophet refers to a prince who rules for Yahweh. Among his privileges is a special place for
sacrificial meals, the eastern gate of the grand Temple in Jerusalem. This gate was never to be
opened by another, inasmuch as Yahweh had entered through it. Now, it is true that a goodly
number of the Church Fathers and writers and preachers have seen in this sealed gate a figure of
Mary’s perpetual virginity.
217 But was this merely by way of homiletic accommodation and not
intended as the strict scriptural sense? We think so. There seems to be no good exegetical reason
for thinking otherwise.

There are not wanting authors who imitate St. Jerome and see in Isa. 11:1 a reference to Mary
along with her Messias Son.
218 But they do so without adequate foundation. The text reads: “And
there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.”
Isaias contrasts the figure of a sprout from Jesse’s root with the forest metaphor of the preceding
verse. The forest (symbolizing Assyria) is utterly destroyed, but the stump of Jesse (the royal
family of Juda) envisions a shoot springing up: the Messias. By parallelism the subjects of verse
1 “rod … flower” both refer to the Messias — not one to Him, the other to His Mother.
219

Still another passage is sometimes referred to Mary in a direct scriptural sense. It is the second
half of Ps. 44 (45). This psalm, the nuptial song of the king, is certainly messianic. But (so the
argument runs), if the first half of the psalm concerns the Messias, an individual, why should not
the second half also refer to an individual Queen — Mary?
220 The more common view, however,
seems to see in Ps. 44 either a reference to the espousals between Christ and the Church directly,
or a literal reference to some royal wedding (Solomon’s?) which is then a type of the messianic
espousals (cf. Eph. 5:25-27). As for our opinion, we must confess to more than a little interest in
the Marian interpretation through the fuller sense. We have here almost the same setup as in the
Canticle of Canticles. When we note how consistently the Church and Mary are brought together
in explanation of passages like Ps. 44, the Canticle of Canticles, and Apoc. 12, as by a kind of
interrelationship, it seems difficult to restrict Mary’s presence in Ps. 44 to one of mere
accommodation.

II. MARY IN TYPE

Among the many beautiful things Monsignor Ronald Knox has written is a short article
wherein he treats Esther of the Old Testament as a type of Mary. He asserts that “there is a
mystical significance in the Old Testament everywhere; and that, above all, the history of the
Jewish people foreshadows and typifies the glories of our Blessed Lady.” Remarking that there is
much that is violent and some things which are dull in the Old Testament, the distinguished
author adds:

But through this tangled skein runs a single golden thread; between these soiled pages lies, now and
again, a pressed flower that has lost neither its colour nor its sweetness. That thread, that flower, is the
mention, by type and analogue, of her whom all generations of Christendom have called blessed, the
Virgin of Virgins, the Queen of Heaven, the holy Mother of God. It is not wonderful that it should be
so. For our Lady is, after all, the culmination of that long process of selection, of choosing here and
rejecting there a human instrument suited to his purpose, which is so characteristic of God’s dealings
with his ancient people.
221

Many years ago His Holiness Pope Pius IX pointed out the same truth even more vividly in his
incomparable Bull Ineffabilis Deus, wherein he solemnly defined the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception. He took great pains to list many of the persons and objects in the Old Dispensation
which, according to the Fathers, typified or prefigured the all-pure Mother of Christ. The pertinent
passages read:

This illustrious and singular triumph of the Virgin [mentioned in Gen. 3:15], together with her most
excellent innocence, purity, holiness and freedom from every stain of sin, as well as the unspeakable
abundance and greatness of all heavenly graces, virtues and privileges — these the Fathers saw
[typified] in that ark of Noe, which was built by divine command and escaped entirely safe and sound
from the common shipwreck of the whole world (Gen. 6-9); also in that ladder which Jacob saw
reaching from earth to heaven, by whose rungs the angels of God ascended and descended, and on
whose top the Lord Himself leaned (Gen. 28:12-13); also in that bush which Moses saw in the holy place
burning on all sides, but which was not only not consumed nor injured in any way but grew green and
blossomed beautifully (Ex. 3:1-3); also in that impregnable tower before the enemy, from which hung
a thousand bucklers and all the armor of the strong (Cant. 4:4); also in that garden enclosed on all sides,
which cannot be violated nor corrupted by any deceitful plots (Cant. 4:12); also in that most august
temple of God, which, radiant with divine splendors, is full of the glory of God (3 Kings 8:10-11); and
in very many other types of this kind. By them the Fathers have handed down the tradition that exalted
things have been signally predicted of the Mother of God and of her spotless innocence and holiness
which was never subject to any blemish.
222

The Holy Pontiff then goes on to demonstrate how the Fathers used the words of the Prophets
of old to describe Mary’s sinlessness and great gifts. Spotless dove, they called her (Cant. 6:8), and
the Holy Jerusalem, the exalted throne of God, the ark and house of holiness which eternal
wisdom built for herself (Prov. 9:1). They addressed Mary as that Queen who, full of delights and
leaning on her Beloved (Cant. 8:5), came forth from the mouth of the Most High (Ecclus. 24:5),
entirely perfect. And a little later in the encyclical the Pope brings together still further examples
of how the Fathers appealed to Scripture in describing Mary’s purity and holiness.

Hence, the Fathers have never ceased to call the Mother of God the lily among thorns, or the earth
entirely intact, virginal, undefiled, immaculate, ever-blessed and free from all corruption of sin, from
which was formed the New Adam; or the flawless, brightest and most pleasant paradise of innocence,
immortality and delights planted by God Himself and protected against all snares of the poisonous
Serpent; or the incorruptible wood that the worm of sin had never corrupted; or the fountain ever clear
and sealed by the power of the Holy Spirit; or the most divine temple; or the treasure of immortality;
or the one and only daughter not of death but of life, the child not of anger but of grace, which by the
singular providence of God has always blossomed, though it sprang from a corrupt and infected root,
contrary to the ordinary and fixed laws.
223

To the thorough list of His Holiness might be added other inanimate objects of the Old
Dispensation which have been considered as types of Mary. Aaron’s rod, for example (Num. 17:8).
Only Aaron’s rod, among many others, blossomed forth; so Mary is the one flower of innocence
that sprang from our corrupt nature. Gideon’s fleece is another example (Judges 6:36-40). At one
time the fleece was wet with dew while the surrounding ground remained dry; then again the
fleece remained untouched by dew though the earth around was soaked. Thus Mary was filled
with God’s grace from the first moment of her conception while all others remained deprived of
it; she alone was preserved from sin while the whole world succumbed to it.

Nowhere is Marian typology more in evidence than with regard to certain Old Testament
personages. Just a few pertinent examples.
224 Eve heads the list. She is the mother of all the living
on the natural plane, Mary on the supernatural level. Respha the daughter of Aia, who mourned
for her crucified sons (2 Sam. 21:8-10) and the mother of the Machabean martyrs who so generously
offered up the martyrdom of her sons (2 Macc. 7), are types of Mary mourning for the death of her
crucified Child after generously assisting Him in His sufferings. Bethsabee (3 Kings 2:19), seated
on a throne at the right hand of her son Solomon, shared his glory and power. Mary, seated in
heaven at the right hand of her Son Jesus, shares with Him our love and veneration. By her charms
Rachel (Gen. 29) won the heart of Jacob; so Mary won the heart of God. Rachel’s son Joseph,
having been sold by his brethren, attained great honor and saved his people. Mary’s Son Jesus, sold
by His brethren, saved the world and reached an infinite glory. Esther, Judith, Debbora, and Jahel
were all types of Mary in that they were instrumental in the salvation of their people. More
specifically, Esther who was of lowly birth won the favor of a most powerful king and became his
spouse; so Mary, a poor and humble Jewess, won the heart of God and shares with Him the empire
of the world. Esther alone was exempted from a law which bound everyone else; Mary alone was
exempted from the law of original sin. As for Judith, whereas she saved her fellow Jews from harm
by cutting off Holofemes’ head, Mary played her grand role of Coredemptrix by crushing the head
of the serpent. Judith’s praises were on every tongue; so are the Blessed Mother’s, as foretold in
the Magnificat.

The question naturally arises whether these Old Testament persons, events, things are genuine
scriptural types intended as such by Almighty God, or whether they fall into the class of mere
accommodation. The question is very difficult to answer. Scripture itself seems to be silent on the
matter (except for the generic reminder of St. Paul in 1 Cor. 10:6, 11 that the typology of the Old
Testament was intended for us); and from the wording of the Fathers it is not always clear just
how these Old Testament realities refer to Mary. Surely it places no strain on our credence to see
in many of these types a deliberate anticipation on God’s part of the tremendous role to be played
by His Mother in the New Dispensation. The difficulty is where to draw the line between the strict
biblical sense known as the typical, and mere accommodation.

Here, the relationship between Mary and the Wisdom literature calls for special consideration.
Some remarks of Pope Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus are pertinent. “From the beginning and
before the ages,” he says, “God chose and appointed a Mother for His Only-Begotten Son, from
whom this Son would take His flesh and be born when the blessed fullness of time would arrive.”
A little later in the encyclical the Holy Father states that since the Church on the feast of the
Immaculate Conception uses those passages of Sacred Scripture which speak of the origin of
Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom, by that fact the Church implies that Mary’s origin and conception
was sacred and immaculate.
225 And the Holy Father concludes: “For her origin was preordained by
one and the same decree with the Incarnation of divine Wisdom.”

The Wisdom passages utilized in Church liturgy for the vigil of the Immaculate Conception
are taken from Ecclus. 24:23-31 and Prov. 9:1. On the great feast day itself, the epistle is taken from
Prov. 8:22-35 which reads (Douay Version):

I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made.

The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived, neither had the fountains of waters as yet
sprung out:

The mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills was I brought
forth:

He had not yet made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the world.

When he prepared the heavens, I was present: when with a certain law and compass he enclosed the
depths:

When he established the sky above, and poised the fountains of the waters;

When he compassed the sea with its bounds, and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their
limits: when he balanced the foundations of the earth;

I was with him forming all things: and was delighted every day, playing before him at all times;

Playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of men.

Now therefore, ye children, hear me: Blessed are they that keep my ways.

Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not.

Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of
my doors.

He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord.

Despite the aptness of the accommodation of these words to Mary, we believe that such
passages are not Marian in a scriptural sense. Not in the proper literal sense, inasmuch as the text
refers to Hypostatic Wisdom;
226 not in the typical sense, because it would not be proper to make
the more dignified (the Incarnate Word) a type of the less dignified (Mary).

For the rest, there are a multitude of Old Testament texts which the Church in her liturgy, and
the Fathers in their homiletic works, have accommodated to Mary by extension or allusion. We
have already mentioned some of these accommodations (e.g., the closed eastern gate of the
Temple, Jesse’s root, etc.). Pope Pius XII mentions more of them in his recent encyclical Fulgens
Corona. There he notes that the Fathers, to support their belief in Mary’s Immaculate Conception,
claimed for her such titles as “Lily Among Thorns,” “Land Wholly Intact,” “Unfading Tree,”
“Fountain Ever Clear,” and the like.
227 Other accommodations are contained in the Litany of Loreto,
and in the Marian praises of medieval theologians and preachers.
228 Beautiful as such
accommodations to Mary undoubtedly are, they were intended neither by the Holy Spirit nor by
the human authors of Sacred Scripture. They do not constitute the biblical meaning of the text in
any sense and hence may never be proposed as such; nor can they be used (as a scriptural proof)
to prove Marian doctrine.

CONCLUSION

The scattered threads of our research have still to be tied together. As we have discovered, the
Old Testament does not tell us all we would like to know about the Blessed Virgin, any more than
does the New Testament; but it reveals a loving preparation on God’s part for the advent of His
Mother. In the key periods of Old Covenant history, beginning with the very dawn of revealed
religion, the promise of the Mother as well as her Saviour Son is manifest — now in the bold tones
of direct prophecy, now in the more subdued tones of type and figure.

Man’s fall in paradise can indeed be called the felix culpa, bringing in its wake so grand a
promise of salvation, a promise that associates Mary, “the woman,” with her Messias Son in the
redemption of mankind, a promise that implies her extraordinary purity and virtue. As time passed
and the Holy Spirit in His great wisdom inspired more and more men to write the books of the Old
Testament, He included many references to the Messias, His Kingdom, His Mother, in the form
of minor incidents or major personages who served to prefigure the grand realities of a later
century. These types no doubt were essentially obscure to the Jews of old and perhaps to the
sacred writers themselves; by and large they achieve their full recognition and significance only
in the light of the more complete New Testament revelation. But God did not rest content with
type and figure. In the turbulent age of the prophets He saw to it that the men who spoke for Him
would once again refer directly to His wonderful Mother. And He added a new, distinctive note.
The Mother of the Messias was to be a Virgin Mother! Thus, the startling sign given the reluctant
King Ahaz, entrusted to the lips and pen of Isaias. This news was fully confirmed by a
contemporary, Micheas, and reasserted at a later date by the great Jeremias. In all of these major
prophetical announcements the Woman concerned is Mary — Coredemptrix, Immaculate Virgin
Mother of Jesus Christ. Not yet did these texts exhaust the Old Testament references to the
Blessed Mother, for when the Holy Spirit inspired that intimate and beautiful composition known
as the Canticle of Canticles which describes the vast bond of love and union between Yahweh and
His Chosen People, Christ and His Church, likewise included in the meaning — and that by God’s
intent — was the ineffable bond of union between the God-Man and His Mother.

“The New Testament lies hidden in the Old, the Old Testament stands revealed in the New.”
How true those words are of Mary’s presence within the pages of the Old Testament. Pope Pius
XII makes a particularly practical observation in the middle of his encyclical Fulgens Corona. He
says:

Just as all mothers are deeply affected when they perceive that the countenance of their children
reflects a peculiar likeness to their own, so also our Most Sweet Mother wishes for nothing more, never
rejoices more than when she sees those whom, under the cross of her Son, she has adopted as children
in his stead, portray the lineaments and ornaments of her own soul in thought, word and deed. … The
commemoration of the mystery of the Most Holy Virgin, conceived immaculate and immune from all
stain of original sin, should, in the first place, urge us to that innocence and integrity of life which flees
from and abhors even the slightest stain of sin.
229

Sincere devotion to Mary, then, is a means of acquiring virtue. It is well to note again that the
basic truths underlying devotion to Mary, though brought to fulfillment in the New Dispensation,
were all prophesied with an astonishing degree of clarity already in the Old Testament. God could
do no less for His Mother.

Mary in the New Testament

By Michael J. Gruenthaner, S.J.

SINCE the Annunciation took place in Nazareth and most of Mary’s relatives resided there, she
was most probably born in that village. It is situated in the hill country of southern Galilee,
bordering upon the great plain of Esdraelon. Though not a great religious, political or social center,
it must not be conceived as an isolated settlement of a remote corner of northern Palestine. The
great caravan routes to Egypt and the Mediterranean were within easy reach. Sepphoris, which
Herod chose as the capital of Galilee from 4 b.c. to about 18 a.d., was a few miles north of
Nazareth. The last stretch of the road from Jerusalem to Sepphoris passed through Nazareth. From
the heights of Nazareth one could, looking southward, obtain a view of the scenes of not a few of
Israel’s exploits.

According to tradition, the house where Mary was born was located on the site where the
Basilica of the Annunciation now stands. This is built over some caves or grottoes one of which
is venerated as the scene of the Annunciation. Even in modern times Nazareth contains homes
consisting of two parts: a small wooden flat-topped house fronting the street and an adjoining
cave hollowed out by human hands or by nature. A home of this type may well have been the
place of Mary’s birth. This would be an additional proof that Mary’s parents lived in modest
circumstances, without being paupers.
230

PARENTAGE

The Church venerates Mary’s parents as Joachim and Anna. These names may be authentic
but they are not guaranteed to be such, since they are derived from the apocryphal
Protoevangelium of James,
231 which goes back to the second century but embodies much that is pure
fantasy. Nothing historically trustworthy is known about Joachim and Anna, but they must have
been persons of superior sanctity, for they have been virtually canonized by the Church and we
may rest assured that God must have chosen parents worthy to educate a child of such high
destiny and singular holiness.

St. Paul emphasizes the fact that Christ is carnally descended from David. Writing to the
Romans, he declares that Jesus is of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom. 1:3). At
Antioch, in Pisidia, he tells his audience that Jesus, the Saviour, was brought to Israel from the
seed of David (Acts 13:23). He exhorts Timothy: “Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, of
the seed of David according to my gospel” (2 Tim. 2:8). St. John calls Jesus “the root of David”
(Apoc. 5:5) and represents Him as saying: “I am the root and the offspring of David” (Apoc. 22:16).
There cannot be the least doubt, then, that Mary was of Davidic lineage, at least through Joachim,
her father, and perhaps through Anna, her mother, as well. The bodily origin of the Messias from
David had been predicted by Isaias (11:1), Jeremias (23:5; 33:15), and Zacharias (3:8; 6:12).

Joachim and Anna named their daughter Miryam, after the valiant sister of Moses (Exod.
15:20). In the Septuagint this was rendered Mariam. Hence Mary’s name is occasionally given as
Mariam in the Gospels, although the Greek form Maria is more frequent. This has been Anglicized
into Mary.

Did Joachim and Anna have other children beside Mary? St. John tells us that “beside the cross
of Jesus were standing His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene”
(Jn. 19:25). Since it would be quite unusual for two sisters to have the same name, we must
probably distinguish four persons with the Syriac Peshitto, which clarifies the text by inserting
the conjunction “and” before “Mary of Clopas.” Who, then, was this anonymous sister of the
Lord’s Mother? St. Matthew, omitting the Mother of Jesus, names three women as witnessing the
crucifixion: Mary Magdalene, Mary, the Mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons
of Zebedee (27:56). St. Mark mentions the same three with slight modifications: Mary Magdalene,
Mary, the mother of James the Less and of Joses, Salome.

If we assume that the Johannine list enumerates four women, it follows from a comparison
with the Synoptic list that Salome was the sister of the Mother of Jesus and that James and John,
the sons of Zebedee, were His cousins. It is possible, however, that “sister” is employed by St. John
in its broader Semitic sense of cousin or relative.

If, on the other hand, we suppose that St. John enumerates but three women, so that “His
mother’s sister” is the title of Mary of Clopas, we must conclude that she was the sister of Our
Lord’s Mother. According to Hegesippus
232 (c. 180), this Mary was the wife of Clopas, the brother
of Joseph. Hence she was the sister of the Lord’s Mother in the sense of being her sister-in-law.
In addition, she may have been related to Mary by blood. Consequently, it is not clear that Mary
had a sister in the proper sense of the word.

EDUCATION

While there were elementary and advanced schools for boys, there was no provision for the
education of girls. The majority of the Jewish rabbis were hostile to female education, although
this was endorsed by a few. Accordingly, if she acquired the arts of reading and writing, she did
so at home under the guidance of her father or mother. That this was not impossible is shown by
the fact that some Jewish women became distinguished scholars in the early centuries of the
Christian era.
233

Despite her lack of formal education, Mary must have acquired a familiarity with the history
of the Chosen People and the messianic prophecies of which it was the recipient and custodian.
This familiarity was assured by her attendance at the synagogue on the Sabbath and the Jewish
festivals. In the morning and evening services held on these occasions selections from the Law and
the Prophets were publicly read and translated into Aramaic, the current language of the common
people. A discourse, also, was delivered on some text of Scripture. Certain psalms were chanted.
234
If, as seems likely, she accompanied her parents on pilgrimages to Jerusalem, she heard and
learned the Psalms of Degrees sung by the pilgrims on their way to the holy city and listened to
the chanting of the psalms in the liturgy of the Temple.
235

Her spiritual life, also, was nurtured by private devotions. Every Jew was encouraged to pray
often: he was expected to begin and end the day by lifting up his heart to God; grace was said
before and after meals; certain psalms were recommended for private recitation; every
contingency of life was to be met by suitable prayer. It seems reasonable to suppose that Mary
even exceeded these high ideals and that she was, in fact, gifted with the highest forms of mystic
prayer.

BETROTHAL
236

We read in Mt. 1:18 that Mary was espoused to a man named Joseph and we glean from Lk.
1:27 and from the genealogies of the Gospels that he was a scion of David (Mt. 1:1-17; Lk. 3:23-38).
But his illustrious origin did not imply social prominence. After the demise of Zorobabel (after 515
b.c.), the house of David seems to have declined steadily in wealth and influence. It is mentioned
for the last time in the Old Testament in 1 Par. 3:1 f. So we find that Joseph was no more than a
carpenter of Nazareth not famed for his erudition (Mt. 13:55; Mk. 6:3). This again is a sign that
Mary’s parents belonged to the artisan class, for, according to Jewish opinion, bride and
bridegroom were supposed to be of the same social and economic status.
237

That Joseph sought a wife does not surprise us, for marriage was obligatory for a Jew; an
unmarried man was stigmatized by the rabbis as not a man and as devoid of joy, blessing, and
well-being.
238 But that Mary, who was resolved to preserve perpetual virginity (Lk. 1:38), should
consent to espousals seems strange. She may have yielded to pressure from her parents or
guardian to conform to the prevailing custom, leaving it to Divine Providence to safeguard her
resolution. Perhaps she disclosed her resolve to Joseph and persuaded him to consent to a virginal
marriage. It is possible, also, that Joseph entertained the same ideals, so that he needed no
persuasion to accept the kind of espousals contemplated by Mary.

A young man usually became betrothed between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four; a girl,
between twelve years and one day and twelve years six months, the period when she was
classified as a maiden (na‘arah). The obligation to secure a husband for her was considered urgent
when she became a bogereth, that is, when she reached the legal state of puberty, after the age of
twelve and a half.

But these were standards set up by the rabbis; in practice, girls sometimes became betrothed
at a more advanced age, although most probably not as late as twenty, as it was thought
calamitous to postpone marriage so long.
239

A great disparity in age between the bride and bridegroom was deprecated, but widowers
sometimes were forced to marry young girls.
240 Hence Mary and Joseph were both youthful at the
time of their betrothal, unless Joseph was a widower. Many of the apocryphal gospels and some
Oriental writers believed that he was such and that the brothers and sisters of the Lord mentioned
in the canonical gospels were Joseph’s children by a first, deceased wife.
241 In the West, St. Jerome
gave the deathblow to this opinion by asserting in his reply to Helvidius the perpetual virginity
of Joseph.
242 This has been the unanimous belief of the Catholic Church ever since.

Jewish nuptials consisted of two steps: betrothal and marriage proper. After certain financial
arrangements concerning the bride had been signed, the bride and bridegroom were betrothed to
one another in the house of the bride. The bridegroom gave her a small object having the value
of a peruta, the smallest coin, in the presence of two witnesses, saying: “By this you are betrothed
to me.” Betrothal could also be accomplished by a written document and by intercourse with the
expressed intention of betrothal.
243

Betrothal was in every respect equivalent to our marriage. The betrothed girl was called the
man’s wife; she became a widow if her betrothed died; she was subject to levirate marriage; when
widowed or divorced, she could claim the financial settlement accorded to a wife in the same
circumstances; in case of infidelity she was liable to the same punishment as an adulterous wife;
like a wife she could not be dismissed without a bill of divorcement. Marital relations were licit
in Judea during betrothal. This does not seem to have been customary in Galilee.
244

If the betrothed woman had not been married previously, she usually waited a year before the
second step, the marriage proper, was taken. On the day set for the ceremony the bridegroom
conducted his betrothed in solemn procession from her parental home to his own. Thereupon the
wedding was celebrated for a week.
245

ANNUNCIATION

Not long after her betrothal,
246 Mary received an epoch-making revelation while she was at
prayer in her home. The angel Gabriel appeared to her, probably in visible form, as he had to
Zachary in the Holy Place of the Temple (Lk. 1:11). He greeted her with the words: “Hail, full of
grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women” (Lk. 1:28). Some think that the Greek
word for “hail” (chaire) represents the salutation shalom, meaning “peace,” “prosperity,” in
common use among the Jews. But the literal sense of chaire, “rejoice thou,” may be intended. For
this exhortation is repeatedly found in the Prophets and rendered chaire in the Septuagint (Soph.
3:14-17; Joel 2:21; Zach. 9:9; Lam. 4:21). In this supposition the very first word uttered by the angel
suggests that he is a herald of spiritual happiness.
247

“Full of grace” translates kecharitomene, the perfect passive participle of charitoō. It denotes
one who has been and still is the object of divine benevolence, one who has been favored and
continues to be favored by God, one who has been granted supernatural grace and remains in this
state.
248 Verbs ending in oō, such as haimatoō (turn into blood), thaumatoō (fill with wonder),
spodoōmai (burn to ashes) frequently express the full intensity of an action. Hence kecharitōměnē
has been felicitously rendered “full of grace” by the Vulgate and the Peshitto. This rendering
expresses the conviction of the Church that the divine favor was fully bestowed upon Mary, in the
sense that she was ever immune from the least stain of sin and that she abounded in the graces
of the supernatural life and in all the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit which flow from that life.

“The Lord is with thee”
249 continued the angel, enunciating the fact that she enjoyed the
effective divine assistance in all her endeavors for God’s glory, like Gedeon, to whom a similar
declaration was made and who crushed the foes of Israel as one man (Judges 6:12, 16). Gabriel
concludes his address with “blessed art thou among women,” indicating that she occupied a
unique position among the women of all nations and ages (Lk. 1:28, 29).

Mary was much perturbed by this salutation, far more than Zachary had been by the
apparition of the angel in the Holy Place of the Temple.
250 The cause of her perturbation was not
the eulogistic character of Gabriel’s greeting, which her profound humility must have borne with
equanimity, but the intimation conveyed by his words that she was selected for some great task
the difficulty of which she viewed with apprehension. While she was pondering on the possible
import of the message, the angel reassured her, addressing her familiarly by her name, bidding her
not to fear and reaffirming the fact that she had found favor in God’s sight (Lk. 1:30). Then he
recounted the nature of the grace conferred upon her: “And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy
womb and give birth to a Son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be
called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of David, his father.
And he shall reign over the house of Jacob throughout the ages and his kingdom shall have no
end” (Lk. 1:30-33).

This announcement of the dignity destined for Mary alludes to several messianic prophecies
which she may have recollected from her attendance at the synagogue or from her private perusal
of Scripture. First, there is a reference to the prediction of Isaias: “Behold, a virgin will conceive
and bear a son, and she shall call his name Emmanuel” (7:14). Emmanuel (God is with us) is
equivalent in meaning to Jesus (the Lord saves). “He shall be great” recalls the appellation El
Gibbor (Strong God) bestowed upon the messianic Child by Isaias (9:6). “Son of the Most High”
reminds us of the words of the Psalm: “Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee” (Ps. 2:7).
His Davidic descent explains why the Messias was termed “The Branch of David” (Jer. 23:5; 32:15)
or simply “David” (Jer. 30:9; Ezech. 34:23; 37:24). His everlasting rule is a verification of the
promise made to David (2 Sam. 7:13; Ps. 88:4).

At this point Mary asked the angel: “How shall this be since I know not man?” (Lk. 1:34.) If
Mary had expected to have relations with her husband, the question would have been senseless.
It only becomes intelligible if we assume that she was inalterably resolved never to have such
relations. It is not unthinkable that she had taken a vow
251 of perpetual chastity even though we
cannot find a similar instance among the holy men and women of the Old Law. Since her union
with God was unparalleled among the saints of the Old Testament, her mental attitude cannot be
appraised by their standards. Her question was not prompted by incredulity, for she did not ask
for a proof of the angel’s words, nor is she charged with disbelief and punished as Zachary was
in similar circumstances. As a matter of fact, she is praised by Elizabeth for her faith (Lk. 1:45). Her
query did not spring from curiosity but from a legitimate desire to know what measures she must
adopt to attain the realization of the angelic promise, since the use of the natural means of
procreation were impossible to her.

Gabriel replied: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall
overshadow thee; wherefore, the Holy One who shall be born of thee shall be called Son of God”
(Lk. 1:35). The conception of the Child, therefore, will be due to a special intervention of God,
which, being an outward act, was the work of the Most Holy Trinity but is appropriated to the
Holy Spirit because it is a supreme expression of divine love and bears an analogy to His
procession from the mutual love of the Father and the Son.

This act of divine omnipotence is compared to a cloud casting its beneficent shadow upon an
object or covering and filling it with its presence.
252 The angel may be alluding to the miraculous
cloud which filled the Tabernacle at Mount Sinai. It symbolized the presence of God dispensing
benefits to His people (Exod. 40:34-38; Num. 9:22). Its action in filling the tabernacle is described
by the verb episkiazein in the Septuagint version of Exod. 40:35, the very verb used by St. Luke in
this passage and rendered “overshadow” in the English translation.

Gabriel closes his description of the coming Saviour with the words: “Wherefore the Holy One
who shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” This cannot mean that He will be
constituted Son of God in the proper sense of the term because of His virginal conception, for in
this sense He is the Son of God by virtue of His eternal generation. Consequently, it must signify
that His supernatural conception will be a sign or a proof enabling men to recognize Him as the
Son of God.

The angel concludes his discourse to Mary by a reference to the wonderful event which had
befallen her kinswoman Elizabeth (Lk. 1:36-37). The relation of this event was designed, first, to
gladden Mary: Elizabeth, advanced in years and sterile, unjustly suspected of being under a divine
curse as all barren wives were among the Jews, was declared to be in the sixth month of her
pregnancy. This marvel of divine goodness is said to be a proof that the incomparably greater
prodigy of the Incarnation will be accomplished: “For with God nothing will be impossible” (Lk.
1:36). This was the second and more important reason for revealing the blessing bestowed upon
Elizabeth to Mary.

Throughout her conversation with the angel, Mary displayed admirable virtues: simplicity,
prudence, wisdom. When Gabriel finished speaking, Mary was confronted by the supreme test of
her faith, obedience, and humility. Would she assent to the will of the Triune God, who did not
wish to save the world without Mary,
253 to become the Mother of the Divine Word in His human
nature? Would she satisfy the yearnings of mankind for salvation, the longing of the souls in
Limbo for liberation, the hope of the angels for the redemption of man? Her answer to Gabriel
was: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Be it done to me according to thy word” (Lk. 1:38). This
shows that her faith in the angel’s revelation was complete and unreserved, that her consent to
be the Mother of God was not passive but active, unforced, absolutely free, that her humility was
deep and her obedience wholehearted. At this moment the Incarnation took place, and the angel
departed.

VISITATION
254

After the Annunciation, Mary hastened to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth, who resided in an
unnamed town in the hills of Judea, which is most probably to be identified with Ain Karim, about
four miles west of Jerusalem. Various motives may be assigned for this visit, among which the
resolve to aid her aging relative with her domestic duties was the least important. Above all, she
must have desired to felicitate Elizabeth upon the extraordinary boon granted to her and to rejoice
with her over the Incarnation, of which this gift was a guarantee, as she had been told by the angel
Gabriel. She must, also, have been anxious to bring the blessing of the unborn Messias to Elizabeth,
her child, and her husband. This is true all the more if Mary knew that Elizabeth’s son was to be
the precursor of Jesus.

Elizabeth had a supernatural experience when Mary entered her house and greeted her: the
babe maturing within her womb leaped for joy (Lk. 1:41, 44). At the same time she was filled with
the Holy Spirit, who led her to understand this phenomenon. The child’s manifestation of joy was
due to the pre-eminence of Mary and her Son. As she expressed it in the resounding tones of
enthusiasm: “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb” (Lk. 1:42).
Elizabeth confessed herself quite unworthy to receive such distinguished guests: “Why this honor
to me that the mother of my Lord should visit me?” (Lk. 1:43.)
255 Then she disclosed the cause
which, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, brought her to the recognition of this mystery: “For,
lo! as the voice of thy salutation reached my ears the babe leapt in my womb for joy” (Lk. 1:44).
Since the Incarnation was in part due to the faith of Mary, Elizabeth concluded by extolling this
faith: “And blessed art thou who hast believed, for the message of the Lord to thee shall be
fulfilled” (Lk. 1:45).

On this occasion Mary, too, was inspired by the Holy Spirit. She improvised the poem known
to us as the Magnificat,
256 from the opening word of its Latin version. It is charged with
reminiscences of the psalms and other writings of the Old Testament, showing that Mary’s mind
was steeped in Holy Writ. In the first strophe (Lk. 1:46-50), she meditates with restrained
enthusiasm upon the mercy, power, and holiness of God, who had chosen her for so great a
dignity. She explains in the second strophe (vv. 51-53) that God is wont to exalt the weak and
depose the proud. In the third strophe (vv. 54-55), she praises God’s fidelity in fulfilling through
His Son the promises made to Abraham and his posterity.

The Gospel informs us that Mary stayed about three months with Elizabeth (Lk. 1:56). She may,
then, have assisted at the birth of John. Her name is not mentioned in connection with the
remarkable happenings at John’s circumcision. Hence she may have returned to Nazareth before
this took place.

JOSEPH’S ORDEAL

St. Matthew relates the following crisis in the life of Joseph before he took Mary to his house:
“When Mary, his mother, had been betrothed to Joseph, she was found to be with child from the
Holy Spirit” (1:18). We are not told when this discovery was made; it certainly occurred after the
Annunciation, and it may have happened before or after the Visitation. We are, also, left in
ignorance of the person who made the discovery. Most probably it was Mary herself who informed
Joseph about her miraculous conception. Why should she conceal so important a matter from her
husband? Joseph’s reaction to the discovery is described thus: “Joseph, her husband, being a just
man and unwilling to expose her, was minded to give her a private release” (Mt. 1:19). The thought
of being in such close proximity to the deity may have terrified Joseph and impelled him to divorce
Mary. To make the divorce public would have exposed Mary to obloquy, since many of her
acquaintances would not have readily believed in a conception wrought by the Holy Spirit. Being
a just man and reluctant to inflict an injury upon anyone, especially upon a maiden of such
sanctity, he was planning a secret divorce either by giving her a bill of divorcement or by leaving
the city.
257

While he was in this agonized state of mind, “an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,
saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, fear not to take to thyself Mary, thy wife, for what is conceived in
her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall give birth to a Son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for
he shall save his people from their sins’” (Mt. 1:20-21).

Thus Mary’s statement about the origin of her child was confirmed by a special revelation.
Joseph then completed the second and final stage of his marriage to Mary: he brought her to his
dwelling, which may have been situated on the site of the ancient Church of the Nutrition, now
pointed out as the workshop of St. Joseph. According to the Gospel, Joseph had no marital
relations with Mary “until she gave birth to her firstborn Son” (Mt. 1:25). The “until” in the original
does not signify that he knew her sexually afterward. It merely states what happened up to a
certain point without affirming or negating anything about the subsequent period (cf. Is. 46:4 in
the Septuagint; 1 Cor. 15:25; Ps. 71:7; 109:1).

In fact, the Church’s belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary can be traced back to the second
century.
258 It was impugned for the first time by Helvidius, an obscure heretic apparently residing
in Rome, with an insignificant following. He was refuted by St. Jerome, whose treatise on the
subject has become a classic of Catholic theology.
259 Nor does the appellation “firstborn” applied
by the Evangelist to Jesus imply other children. It was a technical term, showing that the son in
question was God’s property and had to be redeemed (Exod. 34:20; Num. 3:41; 18:16). In addition,
the first-born was especially esteemed because he was the first issue of a man’s strength (Deut.
21:17). After the decease of his father he was entitled to the leadership of the family and to a
double portion of the inheritance in case there were brothers (Deut. 21:15-17). Hence the brothers
and sisters of Jesus repeatedly mentioned in the New Testament (Mt. 12:46; 13:55-56; Mk. 3:31-32;
6:3; Lk. 8:19; Jn. 2:12; Acts 1:14; 1 Cor. 9:5; Gal. 1:19) were cousins or kinsfolk of Jesus since the
Hebrew and Aramaic words for brother and sister also have this broader sense.

St. Matthew stresses the fact that Mary’s conception is a fulfillment of Isaias’ prophecy:
“Behold the virgin shall be with child and give birth to a Son and they shall call his name
Emmanuel” (Mt. 1:25). It seems probable that Mary and Joseph also adverted to the
accomplishment of this prophecy at this time.

BETHLEHEM

As the time of Mary’s pregnancy was drawing to a close, she and her husband were faced with
a new problem. An edict of the Emperor Augustus was published ordering a census of all the
inhabitants of Herod’s kingdom. Similar enumerations had already been made in other provinces
of the Roman empire or were then in progress, so that, popularly speaking, the whole world
seemed to be in the process of enrollment (Lk. 2:1). This registration required each citizen to repair
to the home of his clan. Since Joseph was of Davidic lineage, he had to go to Bethlehem, the
birthplace of David and the center of his clan. The supervision of the census was entrusted to
Quirinius, who was either governor of Syria at this time (11-8 b.c.) or acted as deputy of
Saturninus, the governor of Syria in 7 b.c.
260

The journey to Bethlehem from Nazareth covered about ninety to ninety-five miles and must
have been arduous especially for an expectant mother. Mary accompanied Joseph either because
women had to be enrolled also or because she owned taxable land in Bethlehem or because she
wanted the companionship of Joseph in the hour of her destiny. Scripture does not enlighten us
about the details of the journey. The character of the persons involved suggests that it was made
without grumbling, with full trust in Divine Providence, and with complete submission to the will
of God. Their thoughts, as they escorted the unborn Son of God, were too hallowed to be described
here.

On their arrival, they met with a new bitter disappointment: they found that there was no
place for them in the inn (Lk. 2:7). The inn is usually thought to have been a caravansary. But the
Greek word translated “inn” does not necessarily have this meaning; it also denotes a lodging, a
guest room. Joseph may have expected to find this in the house of a relative or friend, only to
discover that all such rooms had already been taken by others. Somebody, perhaps the intended
host, then showed them a series of caves outside the city. Christian devotion has commemorated
one of these caves as the birthplace of Christ by converting it into a shrine and building the
Basilica of the Nativity over the site.

How long Mary resided here before Jesus was born is not known. His birth may have occurred
on the very night of their arrival or after some days. When the time of her delivery came, Mary
retired to the cave and gave birth to Jesus in utter solitude. It is an article of the Catholic faith that
she did so without suffering the usual lesions of the tissues which occur in ordinary childbirth, so
that she remained a virgin physically even in parturition. The passage of the child through her
body has been compared to the transit of light through crystal. Like all mothers of Palestine in
ancient and modern times, she wrapped her Babe in neat narrow bands of colorful material. Then
she laid Him diagonally on a square cloth and folded the corners of the cloth over His hands and
feet. Next she tied His hands to his sides with bandages, which in this case were plain, since only
the rich could afford embroidered ones.
261 These bands together with the cloth and the bandages
constituted the swaddling clothes to which St. Luke refers (Lk. 2:7).

The cave must at one time have been a shelter for animals, for, after swaddling the Babe, she
laid Him in a manger, a stone eating trough for domestic beasts set conveniently low on the floor.
Before placing the Child within it, she undoubtedly filled it with straw.
262 Thus the divine Infant
did not lack the essentials of child care required in the Near East from time immemorial, although
the articles used conformed in quality rather to the standards of a poor peasant than to those of
the middle and upper classes. The census was probably held in late summer, after the harvest, not
in winter, as is popularly supposed, when frequent rains and the cold make traveling extremely
difficult. Hence the child was not exposed to the inclemency of the weather, although even in
December the cave would have afforded some protection against wintry blasts.

While Mary and Joseph gazed in adoration, praise, thanksgiving, and supplication upon the
Incarnate Son of God, they must have reflected with some sadness upon the bitter poverty and
dereliction of Israel’s king. Their sorrow was mitigated by the sudden advent of the shepherds
seeking to adore the Child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. From their
enthusiastic story they learned that the birth of the Saviour was not without manifest splendor:
a supernatural radiance illuminated the nocturnal sky; an angelic herald proclaimed the joyous
tidings about Christ, the Lord, born in David’s city; choirs of angels sang of peace and God’s
benevolence to men (Lk. 2:8-17). After leaving, the shepherds spread the news of Christ’s nativity
among their acquaintances, filling all their listeners with wonderment (Lk. 2:18-21). It would be
odd, indeed, if at least some of these did not come to pay homage to the Child and His Mother. We
are told that Mary kept all these things in her heart, pondering them (Lk. 2:19). She treasured them
as precious testimonies to the dignity of her Son, compared them with previous revelations that
she had received, and so penetrated even more deeply into the mystery of the Incarnation. The
episode of the shepherds impressed upon her that wealth, learning, or any form of earthly honor
were welcome to her Son only if accompanied by the strong faith and moral integrity of the
shepherds.

At the end of eight days, she rejoiced over the rite of circumcision, which made Jesus a
member of her own people (Lk. 2:21; Gen. 17:9-19). At the same time she may have reflected that
this rite had lost its prophetic meaning: the promises made to Abraham and his posterity, of which
it was a sign and a seal (Rom. 4:11), were realized in her Son. On this occasion, Mary and Joseph
named the babe Jesus as they had been commanded (Mt. 1:21; Lk. 1:31). That the task of saving her
people intimated by the name Jesus would be toilsome was suggested to Mary by the hardships
of His infancy.

PRESENTATION AND PURIFICATION

The Mosaic Law decreed that a woman who had given birth to a male child should be ritually
unclean for forty days (Lev. 12:1 f.). During this period, she was prohibited from touching anything
hallowed and from entering the Temple. After the forty days she was obliged to go to the Temple
and rid herself of her uncleanness by certain prescribed sacrifices: a lamb a year old for a holocaust
and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. In case she could not afford a lamb, she could
substitute a young pigeon or a turtledove. If the male child was her first-born, she was also obliged
to redeem him from the Lord, whose property he was, by the payment of five shekels to the priests
(Exod. 13:13, 34:10; Num. 18:15, 16). Accordingly, Mary and Joseph, taking the Child, went up to
the Temple in Jerusalem from Bethlehem and carried out the prescriptions of the Law, offering
the sacrifices that were incumbent upon the poor (Lk. 2:22-24).

As they were proceeding to the gate of Nicanor, the eastern gate of the Court of the Women,
where women to be purified were required to assemble,
263 they encountered a just and devout man
named Simeon, to whom the Holy Spirit had revealed that he would not die before seeing the
consolation of Israel, the Anointed of the Lord, the Messias. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit
he recognized the long-awaited Saviour in Jesus. Attracted by his manifest piety and emotion,
Mary acceded to his desire and allowed him to take Jesus in his arms. Swayed by prophetical
inspiration, he exclaimed: “Now thou dost release thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, in
peace! Because my eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared in the sight of all
peoples — a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel” (Lk. 2:29-32).

This prophecy filled the parents with admiration: it brought home to them the fact that the
mission of Jesus would not be confined to the Chosen People but would extend to the other
nations as well. This reminded them of the similar predictions of Isaias concerning the Servant of
the Lord (42:6; 49:6).

That this mission would entail suffering not only for the Saviour but also for His Mother is
evident from the words which Simeon addressed to her after blessing her and Joseph: “Behold, this
child is set for the fall and rise of many in Israel and for a sign that shall be contradicted, and a
sword shall pierce through thy soul also, that the thoughts may be laid bare in many hearts” (Lk.
2:34-35).
264 Jesus will cause the spiritual downfall of many in Israel and the rise of many others to
a higher supernatural life. He will be a sign, a manifestation of the divinity which will be opposed
by some. In consequence of this opposition, Mary, too, will suffer anguish so intense that a great
sword will seem to pierce her soul. All this will bring to light the good or bad sentiments latent
in many hearts.

Mary was distracted from her forebodings of evil engendered by this prophecy by the advent
of Anna, a prophetess and a widow of venerable age, who worshiped day and night with fasts and
prayer, never leaving the Temple. On this occasion, she praised the Lord for His salvation. After
meeting the Saviour, she spoke about the Child repeatedly to those who looked forward to the
deliverance of Jerusalem (Lk. 2:36-38).

THE MAGI

A year or perhaps a year and a half after the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple, a
stately caravan halted one evening at the humble home of the Holy Family in Bethlehem. This
home is called a “house” by St. Matthew (2:11). Hence they may have exchanged the cave for a
more suitable dwelling, built perhaps by the skill of Joseph. The leaders of the caravan explained
that they were Magi, members of a priestly caste from far-distant Media, who had seen the newly
created star of the Messias in the East and had been told by Herod that the prophet Micheas had
predicted His birth in Bethlehem of Juda (5:1-3). They pointed to the star, which was sending
down its rays upon the house of the Holy Family. After appearing to them in their native land, it
had vanished as they traveled to Judea to adore the messianic King of the Jews. It had reappeared
on their journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, filling them with exceeding great joy and guiding
them to the goal of their longings, the house of the infant Saviour.

Their story revealed such palpable evidence of divine intervention and such extraordinary faith
that their request to see the Child and His Mother could not be denied. When they beheld Jesus
in His Mother’s arms, they prostrated themselves in silent adoration. Then they offered gifts
indicative of their faith: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These gifts suggest that they perceived in
the Child more than merely a human Messias: they were the kind of offerings which men of that
age presented to their gods. According to a common interpretation, the gold was a tribute to His
kingship; the frankincense, to His divinity; the myrrh, to His humanity.

Mary and Joseph recalled the prediction of Simeon that Jesus would be a light of revelation to
the Gentiles (Lk. 2:32) and the prophetic words of the Psalmist concerning the homage of the
nations to the Messias: “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles will render tribute; the kings of
Sheba and Seba will bring gifts; all kings will fall down before him, all nations serve him” (Ps.
71:10-11). They remembered also the parallel prophecy from Isaias: “All these from Sheba shall
come; they shall bring gold and frankincense” (60:6).

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT

Mary and Joseph were not allowed to enjoy the triumph of the Son of God for long. Herod was
determined to slay this Child, whom he falsely supposed to be an aspirant to his throne, and hoped
to discover His whereabouts through the Magi, whom he had urged to return, simulating a pious
desire to emulate their act of worship. Soon, therefore, after their arrival in Bethlehem, perhaps
that very night, they were told in a dream not to return to Herod but to take another road back
to their own country. Joseph, too, was warned in a dream about the murderous designs of Herod
and bidden to take the Child and His Mother and flee to Egypt (Mt. 2:12, 13). He was to remain
there until he was admonished to return. Joseph may have chosen the road which leads by way
of Ascalon and Gaza along the sand dunes of the Mediterranean coast to Egypt. Or he may have
taken the southern route by way of Hebron and Beersheba across the northern part of the Sinai
peninsula to the seacoast and into the Delta. Either way was laborious, demanding about two
weeks of exhausting travel. They were fortunate indeed if they owned a donkey or a camel upon
which Mary and the Child could ride at least at intervals.

On reaching Egypt, they most probably settled in some Jewish colony. Their journey seems
to have been without untoward incident, since nothing is recorded. But as they cast a retrospective
glance upon their past experiences, they must have realized that the service of the messianic King
could require heroic humility and obedience. If the news of the slaughter of the Innocents reached
them in Egypt (Mt. 2:16-18), they perceived that martyrdom might even be exacted from guiltless
children.

They were, no doubt, nauseated by the degrading idolatry of Egypt; it was a striking proof of
man’s crying need of a Saviour. Isaias had consoled Egypt with the words: “And the Lord will
make himself known to the Egyptians and the Egyptians will know the Lord” (19:21). That this
hour might be accelerated was undoubtedly the theme of Mary’s prayer.

RETURN TO NAZARETH

When Herod I died in 4 b.c., an angel appeared in a dream to Joseph and bade him to return
to the land of Israel with Mary and Jesus. In the course of his journey, he heard that Archelaus,
Herod’s older son by the Samaritan Malthace, had been appointed ethnarch of Judea; he hesitated
about going back to Bethlehem, fearing that this monarch might persecute Jesus as ruthlessly as
his father if he learned His identity. He was freed from all anxiety by another dream vision in
which he was directed to go to Nazareth of Galilee, which was ruled by Herod Antipas as tetrarch,
a full brother of Archelaus (Mt. 2:19-23). According to St. Matthew, who quotes Osee 11:1, the
exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and their entrance into the Promised Land were a prophetic
type of Jesus’ return to Israel (2:15). The same Evangelist likewise notes that the Saviour took up
His residence in Nazareth to fulfill the declaration of the prophets that He would be called a
Nazarene (2:23). It is doubtful that these truths were apparent to Mary and Joseph.

THE HIDDEN LIFE

Two sentences summarize the retired life of Jesus in Nazareth, which endured until about His
thirtieth year (Lk. 3:23). The first states that He rendered submission to His parents (Lk. 2:51).
Since Mary and Joseph knew that He was the Son of God, they were no doubt filled with wonder
and awe at the profundity of His abasement. The mainspring of His action was not the high
esteem which He felt for Mary and Joseph on account of the perfect performance of their parental
duties. His primary motive was the will of His Heavenly Father whenever and wherever it was
manifest. Mary fully appreciated this motive since it governed her own demeanor toward Joseph
as the head of the household.

The second sentence about the hidden life declares: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in
stature and in grace with God and men” (Lk. 2:52).
265 It is easy to understand how He increased in
stature: this means simply that His physical development kept pace with His age. How He
advanced in wisdom is more difficult to grasp. The knowledge which He possessed as the Divine
Word was infinite and not susceptible to change. But His human nature, also, was gifted with
knowledge, which was threefold in character: (1) intuitive, the continuous and immediate vision
of the divine essence, (2) infused, comprising the species of objects and persons impressed upon
His intellect by God, (3) experimental, acquired by the application of His senses and intellectual
faculties. Obviously, the last named alone could increase, for the first two were perfect from the
very first moment of His conception.

His advancement in knowledge, then, signifies that He gained and displayed an experimental
knowledge which was proportionate to every stage of His age and growth. Since His senses were
more acute and His intellect more keen than those of any boy that ever lived, His acquired
knowledge must have surpassed that of any youth with comparable opportunities. This mental
development unquestionably gave intense joy to Mary and Joseph; at the same time His humble
obedience in concealing His talents in an obscure village like Nazareth must have aroused their
unqualified admiration.

It is possible that He also revealed an ever increasing amount of His infused knowledge. The
progressive manifestation of this knowledge could also be termed an advancement of knowledge,
for so it would have appeared in the eyes of men. However, He seems to have given no evidence
of this supernatural knowdedge during the hidden life at Nazareth, at least outside the family
circle. For when He revisited Nazareth during His public life, its citizens were struck with
astonishment and said: “Where did this man acquire this wisdom and these powers? Is He not the
son of the carpenter?” (Mt. 13:54; Mk. 6:1-6; Lk. 4:14-30.)

Since Jesus was full of grace from the first instant of His conception, He could not increase in
grace internally. As He advanced in years, He performed acts of virtue in harmony with each
period of His life. Thus He progressed in grace with God, who was pleased with His actions and
with men, who noted His outward progress with ever growing approval. The peerless beauty of
Christ’s demeanor, as it unfolded itself before them, must have been a source of inspiration and
delight to His parents. They were rooted and grounded in the love of Jesus whose personality
dominated their work, their recreation, their prayer, their mutual regard, and their attitude toward
others.

THE CHILD JESUS IN THE TEMPLE

After completing his thirteenth year, every Jew was obliged to appear in the sanctuary at
Jerusalem on three major festivals of the year: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Women were
not bound by this precept, although they could make these pilgrimages if they so desired. Devout
parents introduced and habituated their sons to the observance of this law before the legally
prescribed age. Hence we find Mary and Joseph taking Jesus to the Passover in His twelfth year.
They may have done so on previous occasions, but this is the only instance commemorated in the
Gospels (Lk. 2:41-50).
266

Having fulfilled their religious duties at the Passover, Mary and Joseph joined one of the
caravans returning to Galilee. At the first stopping place, after a day’s journey, which may not
have exceeded thirteen miles,
267 they noticed to their consternation that Jesus was not with the
caravan. Fearing that some mishap might have befallen Him, they retraced their steps and combed
the groups of acquaintances and friends going back to Galilee. On reaching Jerusalem, they
searched all the localities where He might be tarrying. Finally they found Him on the third day
in the Temple listening to the doctors of the Law and asking them questions. It was customary at
this time for scholars to surround themselves with disciples and to encourage them to propose
queries and to debate doctrinal and moral problems. The circle which Jesus joined was assembled
either in one of the porticoes of the Temple or in the lecture hall of the synagogue attached to the
Temple. All those in attendance were amazed by the intelligence of Jesus and by His responses.

When Mary saw Jesus thus occupied she, too, was astonished not so much by His intellectual
brilliance as by the fact that He seemed oblivious of His parents and unconcerned about their
anguish. Accordingly, she asked Him: “My child, why hast thou treated us so? Indeed, thy Father
and I have been searching for thee in great distress.” Jesus’ reply indicates that their fears for His
safety were unfounded: “Why did you search for me?” Then He proposes the motive of His
seemingly unfilial conduct: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Lk. 2:49.)
“But they did not comprehend what he said to them” (Lk. 2:50).
268 They knew indeed that He must
be in His Father’s house but they did not understand that His Father’s call might involve the
abandonment of family ties even in boyhood, without permission of the parents, without previous
notification, and with the infliction of much sorrow. We need not be surprised that Mary did not
grasp the mysteries of Christ’s life at once. Just as she grew in love and grace, so could she
increase in understanding. That she stored up this and other incidents of the hidden life in her
memory for further meditation is expressed by St. Luke as follows: “And his mother kept all these
incidents in her heart” (2:51).

CANA

We read nothing further about Mary until the beginning of Our Lord’s public life. At that time
Jesus, Mary, and some of His disciples were invited to the wedding festivities of a young couple
in Cana of lower Galilee, situated, according to tradition, at Kefr Kenna, three and a half miles
northeast of Nazareth. Since nothing is said about Joseph on this occasion, it is reasonably
assumed that he died during the hidden life at Nazareth (Jn. 2:1, 2).

The newly wedded couple were expected to provide food and drink for the invited guests, who
streamed in from all sides in the course of the week. Owing to their poverty or to an unexpectedly
large influx of visitors, the supply of wine intended for the entertainment of the guests became
exhausted prematurely. Failure to provide this indispensable element of Jewish rejoicing would
have exposed the bride and bridegroom to humiliation. Mary learned of their predicament and in
the tactful kindness of her heart appealed to Jesus for alleviation. Having unbounded confidence
in His resourcefulness, she merely stated the fact, without adding a plea: “They have no wine.”
“Woman,” Jesus answered her, “what is there between me and thee?” (Jn. 2:3, 4.)

It is now recognized by scholars of all shades of thought that “woman” as a vocative does not
imply any rebuke or reproach, that it may, in fact, denote the highest esteem.
269 Still it is puzzling
that He chose this form of address in preference to the more affectionate “mother.” Perhaps He
wished to convey the idea that her maternal authority had ceased with the inception of the public
life and that His regard for her was dominated primarily by her spiritual merits and not by the
physical bonds of flesh and blood which united them.

The meaning of the question, “What is there between me and thee?” has been laboriously
investigated by scholars,
270 but a solution satisfactory to all has not been attained. It is used to deny
a petition (2 Sam. 16:10; 19:23) and to protest against a hostile measure (Judges 11:12; 1 Kings
17:18). It does not necessarily imply harshness of tone but may be friendly, as when David
dissented from the opinion of Abisai, his most ardent supporter (2 Sam. 16:10).
271

Jesus, then, seems to have rejected the petition of His Mother, giving as His reason: “My hour
has not yet come.” The expression “my hour” is obscure and has been the subject of exegetical
argument.
272 It seems to mean the time when He is to manifest His messianic mission in some
conspicuous manner.

But if He rejected her request, how are we to explain her directions to the servants which
denote consent: “Do whatever he bids you” (Jn. 2:5)? The explanation seems to be that He denied
her prayer at first in order to afford her an opportunity to gain more merit and greater glory by
making her petition more intense. This intensification of her supplication was not formulated in
words but occurred in the secrecy of her heart, where Jesus alone could read it. She who knew her
Son so perfectly read the affirmative answer in the expression of His face, in the light of His eyes,
in the smile of His lips, perhaps even by the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Thus her intercession resulted in a stupendous miracle, the transmutation of water into wine,
possible only to the omnipotence of God. She also revealed the kindness of her heart, which
intervened to save a relatively unimportant family of Galilee from a temporary social
embarrassment.

THE PUBLIC LIFE

St. John relates that Mary and the brethren of Jesus accompanied Him and His disciples to
Capharnaum (Jn. 2:12). This was for a time the center of His messianic ministry and the starting
point for expeditions to other parts of Galilee. She may have settled down there and so may have
listened to His discourses and witnessed some of His miracles. But she played no part in His public
life. She is not mentioned among the women who ministered to Him and His Apostles in Galilee
(Mk. 15:41). Only two incidents are recounted in which she is referred to. On the first occasion,
Jesus was so besieged and importuned by a crowd of visitors in a house which was presumably
in Capharnaum that He could not take necessary food. Then His brethren and His mother came
to take Him away, for some people even accused Him of being beside Himself (Mk. 3:20). If His
brethren shared this view, it cannot be attributed to His Mother, whose presence was motivated
solely by solicitude for His welfare. When Jesus was informed that His Mother and brethren were
without, He replied: “Who are my mother and my brethren?”
273 “Looking round on those who sat
about him, he said: ‘Behold my mother and my brethren! For whoever does the will of God, he is
my brother, sister and mother’” (Mk. 3:33-38; Mt. 12:46). This reply does not imply a
disparagement of His Mother; it merely exalts spiritual values above consanguinity.

The same doctrine was inculcated by Jesus on another occasion when a woman of His
audience exclaimed enthusiastically: “Blessed is the womb that bore thee and the breasts which
thou didst suck.” Jesus answered: “Yes, indeed, blessed are they who listen to the Word of God and
observe it” (Lk. 11:27-28). Mary’s role, then, during the public life of Jesus was prayerful
retirement. Jesus wished to avoid even the semblance of undue human attachment and to
concentrate the attention of men upon Himself.

BENEATH THE CROSS

We do not encounter Mary again in the Gospels until we find her standing beneath the cross
together with John, the beloved disciple, and the holy women (Jn. 19:25-27). Sorrow is in direct
proportion to our comprehension and love of the person over whom we grieve. But Mary
understood the prerogatives of Jesus and His relationship to herself more keenly than any other
human being; the intensity of her love harmonized with this understanding. Hence she was truly
the Queen of martyrs: every insult, every wound must have filled her with unparalleled anguish.
She knew that the consciousness of her grief increased the agony of her Son. Still she suffered
without flinching, in heroic silence, fully aware that the passion of her Son together with her own
sorrow were necessary for the redemption of mankind.
274

Amid the encircling gloom, which lasted from the sixth to the ninth hour (Mt. 27:45; Mk. 15:30;
Lk. 23:44), the voice of Jesus was heard for the third time (Jn. 19:26-27). Addressing His Mother,
He said: “Woman, behold thy son,” thereby commending John to Mary’s maternal solicitude. Then
speaking to John in correlative terms, He conferred the privileges and duties of sonship upon him:
“Behold thy mother.” The beloved disciple understood the words in this sense. “From that hour,”
we read, “the disciple took her into his home” (v. 27).

Was John our representative on this occasion, so that Mary was proclaimed our Mother also?
Various opinions have been expressed in this connection. Exegetes, in general, and a few
theologians claim that the text under discussion does not furnish any biblical proof (either in the
literal or the typical sense) for the doctrine of Mary’s spiritual motherhood.
275 Their main argument
seems to be that the Fathers of the Church do not interpret the text in this sense. However, the
vast majority of theologians, and not a few exegetes, appealing principally to the teaching of
recent pontiffs, consider the Johannine passage a valid scriptural argument in favor of that
doctrine. Of this group, some do not specify what biblical sense they have in mind;
276 others show
their preference for a literal sense (at least plenior),
277 while still others favor a Marian typical sense,
expressed at times in equivalent terms.
278

Our personal views on this matter may be summarized as follows: the doctrine of Mary’s
spiritual motherhood is not expressed in Jn. 19:26-27 according to the literal sense; the words
themselves do not suggest it. However, it is not excluded by the literal sense, and certainly not by
the typical or inclusive sense. If the declarations of the popes in this connection
279 are sufficient
proof that this meaning is contained in Jn. 19:26-27, then, of course, it must be found there. But
it would seem to us that the various Papal utterances relative to this point do not constitute true
declarations of doctrine.
280

Be that as it may, the truth of Mary’s spiritual motherhood is deducible from other passages
of the New Testament. Christ speaks of His disciples as His brothers (Mt. 28:10). St. Paul calls Him
the first-born among many brethren (Rom. 7:22). Therefore, the teaching of tradition that Mary
is our Mother, to which we must give credence, is not without scriptural foundation.

THE RISEN CHRIST

Scripture is silent about Mary’s participation in the burial of Jesus. How she spent the days
intervening before the Resurrection is likewise left to our imagination. She did not accompany the
holy women who went to the tomb on Sunday morning to anoint Him. Being so absolutely
convinced of His Resurrection, she considered this expedition useless. Great saints and scholars
consider it almost self-evident that the Risen Christ appeared first to His Mother, although no
apparition of this kind is narrated in the Gospels.
281 The forty days preceding the Ascension must
have been a season of indescribable joy for other reasons also: Mary Magdalen, the Apostles, and
others to whom Jesus appeared, must have given her glorious accounts of the glory of her Son.
After the Ascension she is said to have been present in the upper room, persevering unitedly in
prayer with the Apostles, the holy women, and the brethren of the Lord (Acts 1:13-14).
Consequently, we may reasonably infer that she accompanied her Son to Mount Olivet and
witnessed the glory of the Ascension. The great joy which filled the disciples on this occasion
must have been hers also, even in greater measure (Lk. 24:52). Since she was united in prayer with
the Apostles, she must have beheld the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and
the other stirring events inaugurating the promulgation of Christ’s Church (Acts 2:1; 3:26).
Nothing further is related about her in the Acts; the Epistles, too, are silent about her.
Nevertheless, by her prestige as the Mother of the Lord, by her holy life, her prayers, and her
encouragement, she must have exerted an inestimable influence upon the nascent Church. There
is no direct allusion to her Assumption, which was the culmination of her privileges and the
reward of her labors.

THE WOMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE

In the Apocalypse St. John describes a woman whom he saw in vision: she was clothed with
the sun, the moon was beneath her feet, and upon her head was a crown of stars. “And she was
with child and cried out in the pangs of birth and in pain to be delivered” (Apoc. 12:1, 2). The male
Child to whom she gives birth on earth, who is the Son of God, is caught up to God and His throne
(Apoc. 12:5). Then the dragon, or Satan, who was lying in wait to kill the Child pursues the woman
into the desert and attempts to destroy her but she escapes with divine help and abides securely
for three and a half years (Apoc. 12:6-9).

Now at Bethlehem Mary did not bring forth her divine Child in pain nor did she have to flee
to the wilderness after the Ascension. Hence the woman before the birth of the Child, most
probably represents the Israel of the Old Testament, whose heroes and heroines toiled to prepare
the way for the Messias. After the birth of the Child and His Ascension into heaven, the woman
symbolizes the Israel of the New Testament, the Church. Though periodically persecuted, she will
always be secure under God’s protection. Her persecution is said to last three and a half years to
indicate that it will be relatively short when compared to the eternity of her duration.

But Mary is also included in the symbolism of the woman. She certainly is the most
distinguished purely human person of the Old Testament: by her prerogatives, her prayers, her
good works, her consent, she pre-eminently prepared the way for the Incarnation. Moreover, she
physically gave birth to the Saviour, though without the pangs of childbirth. She is also the
brightest ornament of the New Testament. If the sun, the moon, and the stars represent the glories
of the Old and New Testaments, then her singular privileges and virtues must be included. Hence
the woman of the Apocalypse designates Mary in an inclusive and pre-eminent sense.
282 Finally,
the woman’s symbolism exhibits a feature which is borrowed from Mary’s personality; she
virginally conceives and bears, which reminds us of Isaias’ celebrated prophecy about the virgin
(7:14) and the similar prediction of Micheas about the woman in labor (5:3).

SUMMARY

The main elements upon which our devotion to Mary is based are contained in the New
Testament: her fullness of grace, her unique position among women, her virginity, her co-operation in the Redemption, her divine motherhood, her power of intercession. She is rarely
introduced as speaking but when she does speak, she charms us by her simplicity, her modesty,
her prudence, her obedience, her love of God and Christ, her kindness to others. Despite the fact
that she is kept in the background, it is easy to perceive that she shares in all the privations and
triumphs of Christ’s infancy and hidden life at Nazareth. Except at Cana, she is excluded from
active participation in the public life of Our Lord. But she suffers with Him beneath the cross and
tastes the joy of the Resurrection and Ascension. Her gifts and the virtues which she practiced are
so extraordinary that they merit our most serious and loving study in the special branch of
Theology called Mariology.
283

Mary in Western Patristic Thought

By Walter J. Burghardt, S.J.

THE present essay is a theological enterprise. It is a theological enterprise realized in a precise
way, which consists in exploring the data of one theological source, the Fathers of the Church, by
availing ourselves of aids proper to the historical discipline.

The enterprise is theological; therefore it will not lose sight of the first principle of theological
method, the achievement of truth in the light of revelation. The precise way in which the
investigation is conducted does not violate this fundamental theological law, because the Church
herself recognizes patristic consent as a valid expression of revealed truth.

And yet, though our precise approach does not fail to be theological, it nonetheless uses
conscientiously the tools of the historiographer. The historian has as his first task the achievement
of extant data in the highest degree of philologic purity. This we too attempt to do, and on this
score the historian of any religious persuasion or of none is in a position to accept our findings.
The historian’s second task is to construct the data achieved according to some theory freely
chosen. This the theologian is not free to do, for in his ultimate construction of the data he is led
by the living magisterium, which does not conjecture but in faith claims to know the doctrine
taught by patristic consent.

Individual Fathers are not patristic consent. They may, in principle, deviate from the consent.
It is the function of philology to discover whether they did. In the theologian’s use of philology,
however, he supposes that the individual Father is thinking and writing in the atmosphere of
patristic consent. This will not lead him to falsify the evidence, to put into a document what was
never there; but he will be prone to hear in ambiguous or obscure statements a vague echo at least
of the consent. Such an approach will not necessarily endear itself to the naturalistic historian,
who does not share the theologian’s supposition that patristic consent is directed in some fashion
by the Holy Spirit; but the supposition is, for the theologian, basic.

The following pages will essay some initial insight into the thought of the Western Fathers and
ecclesiastical writers of the first seven centuries on five prerogatives linked inseparably to Our
Lady in contemporary Catholic theology: the Second Eve, Mary’s perpetual virginity, her divine
Maternity, her holiness, and the corporeal Assumption. In each instance the fundamental task will
be to present the evidence in the light of philology; now and again, inevitably, a construction will
be imperative in the light of revelation.

I

The primordial patristic insight with respect to the Mother of Christ is the vision of Mary as
the New Eve. John Henry Newman framed the question at issue with his customary lucidity, then
answered it with startling brevity, in the Letter to Pusey: “What is the great rudimental teaching
of Antiquity from its earliest date concerning her? I mean the primâ facie view of her person and
office, the broad outline laid down of her, the aspect under which she comes to us, in the writings
of the Fathers. She is the Second Eve.”
284

The earliest patristic testimonies to the Eve-Mary parallelism stem from the West: from Rome,
Lyons, and Carthage. The witnesses are the three most significant figures on the Western literary
horizon in the latter half of the second century and at the dawning of the third: Justin, Irenaeus,
and Tertullian.
285 The dean of second-century apologists, the martyr Justin (✝ c. 165), composes a
graphic overture to the Eve-Mary drama in his Dialogue with Trypho. In the course of a
labyrinthine treatment of Isa. 7:14, he writes with respect to Christ, who proceeded from the
Father before all creatures:

[The Son of God] became man through the Virgin, that the disobedience caused by the serpent might
be destroyed in the same way in which it had originated. For Eve, while a virgin incorrupt, conceived
the word which proceeded from the serpent, and brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin
Mary was filled with faith and joy when the Angel Gabriel told her the glad tidings that the Spirit of
the Lord would come upon her … and she answered: “Be it done unto me according to thy word.” And
through her was He born … by whom God destroys both the serpent and the angels and men who have
become like the serpent, and delivers from death those who repent of their wickedness and believe in
Him.
286

Justin does little more than trumpet the parallelism. He tells us explicitly that, as designed by
God, the pattern of man’s redemption paralleled his fall: both were effected through the agency
of a virgin. He leaves us to conclude that for the human race the consequences of Mary’s co-operation with God contrasted sharply with the effects of Eve’s seduction by Satan: Mary’s issue,
inferentially, is obedience and life. He makes no effort to penetrate the nature of her redemptive
role; his gaze is fixed not on Mary but on Christ.

A score of years later, a pupil of Polycarp named Irenaeus (✝ c. 202), perhaps the first
theologian of the Virgin Mother, took hold of the analogy and integrated it with his theology. At
the root of his Mariological thinking two principles lie. There is the principle termed recapitulatio:
the human dilemma, the paradoxical imperative that fallen nature must be lifted to God by the
nature that had fallen, is resolved in the Word made flesh, who identifies Himself with humanity
by becoming its second head (caput).
287 And there is the complementary principle called recirculatio:
the process of restoration is fated to correspond inversely to that of the fall, somewhat as a knot
is untied — a complicated knot, fashioned of Eve’s disobedience as well as the rebellion of Adam.
288
In the light of this latter principle, Irenaeus has left a provocative passage:

Just as Eve, wife of Adam yes, yet still a virgin … became by her disobedience the cause of death for
herself and the whole human race, so Mary too, espoused yet a virgin, became by her obedience the
cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race. And this is why the Law calls her who was
espoused to a man the wife of him who had espoused her, though she was still a virgin: to show the
cycle that goes back (recirculationem) from Mary to Eve. The point is, what is tied together cannot
possibly be untied save by inversion of the process whereby the bonds of union have arisen, so that
the original ties are loosed by the subsequent, and the subsequent set the original free. … And so it was
that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by Mary’s obedience. For what the virgin Eve bound
fast by her refusal to believe, this the Virgin Mary unbound by her belief.
289

This passage should be supplemented by another, equally impressive, where the Eve-Mary
parallelism is set side by side with the Adam-Christ analogy:

… by the obedience that took place on a tree [the Lord] recapitulated the disobedience that took place
on a tree; and, to the destruction of that seduction whereby the betrothed virgin Eve was evilly
seduced, the glad tidings of truth were happily brought by an angel to Mary, virgin espoused. For, as
Eve was seduced by the utterance of an angel to flee God after disobeying His word, so Mary by the
utterance of an angel had the glad tidings brought to her, that she should bear God in obedience to His
word. And whereas Eve had disobeyed God, Mary was persuaded to obey God, that the Virgin Mary
might become patroness (advocata) of the virgin Eve. And as the human race was sentenced to death
by means of a virgin, by means of a virgin is it delivered (salvatur). A virgin’s disobedience is balanced
by a virgin’s obedience. For the sin of the first-formed was emended by the correction from the First-born; the guile of the serpent was overcome by the simplicity of the dove; and we were set free from
those chains by which we had been bound to death.
290

In Irenaeus’ eyes, Mary as the Second Eve has a distinctive function in God’s design for man’s
redemption. The co-operation of the first Eve with Satan in effecting man’s spiritual death is
matched and outstripped by Mary’s co-operation with God in effecting man’s return to life. The
co-operation in question is not a sheerly negative thing, as though the parallelism began and
ended on the level of virginity. It is not an exclusively physical thing, as though Mary’s role
opened and closed with the bare fact of divine motherhood. Her co-operation involves activity of
the moral order: she gave Gabriel and God a free consent. Her obedience was not compelled; with
eyes open and will unfettered she placed herself at God’s disposal for the accomplishment of His
designs. That consent, moreover, has a soteriological character: its term was not simply an
Incarnation, but an Incarnation recognized as redemptive. Mary knew as well as Joseph that she
would call Him Jesus because He was to “save his people from their sins” (Mt. 1:21).
291

The same essential ideas — virginity, disobedience, and death balanced by virginity, obedience,
and life — are discoverable about the year 210 in the impetuous Carthaginian, Tertullian (✝ c. 220),
who uses the Eve-Mary parallelism as a secondary argument in favor of the virginal conception
of Christ, and emphasizes the act of faith involved in each instance. “For into Eve, as yet a virgin,
had crept the devil’s word, the framer of death. Equally into a virgin was to be introduced God’s
Word, the builder of life, to the end that what had been lost through one sex might by the same
sex be restored and saved. Eve had believed the serpent, Mary believed Gabriel. The fault which
the one committed by believing, the other by believing emended. … God, therefore, sent down into
the Virgin’s womb His Word, our good Brother, to blot out the memory of that evil brother.”
292

The insight of Justin, Tertullian, and especially Irenaeus will be repeated, if not significantly
furthered, after Nicaea. Not only in the East,
293 but in the West as well. In the eyes of Ambrose (✝
397), “it was through a man and a woman that flesh was cast from paradise; it was through a
virgin that flesh was linked to God.” Little wonder that “Eve is called mother of the human race,
but Mary mother of salvation.”
294 Jerome (✝ 420) is splendidly epigrammatic: “Death through Eve,
life through Mary.”
295 Augustine (✝ 430) is impressed by “the profound mystery that, as death had
befallen us through a woman, through a woman life should be born to us”; he muses that “the
liberation of both sexes would not have been a proper punishment for the devil, were the
liberation not effected by the agency of both.”
296 Peter Chrysologus (✝ c. 450) insists that the reason
“why Christ wanted to be born is this: that, just as death came to all through Eve, so through Mary
life might return to all.”
297 And the poet Sedulius hymns the same theme in Latin dactyls:

As the tender rose from sharp thorns grows,

Knowing not how to wound, and fairer far than parent stem:

So from the stem that was Eve the hallowed Mary bloomed,

A spotless virgin new, to mend that ancient virgin’s fault.
298

Perhaps the most urgent theological problem which derives from the Eve-Mary parallelism is
this: What role do the Fathers of the Church assign Mary in the redemptive task of her Son?
299 The
majority of Catholic scholars insist that the contemporary doctrine of Coredemption, Mary’s
immediate co-operation in the objective Redemption, is inescapably affirmed in patristic
literature.
300 A smaller group concludes, with comparable conviction, that the Fathers have nothing
to say with respect to a genuinely coredemptive function; the germ, indeed, is there, in what they
have to say; but the problem at issue had not presented itself, the Fathers consequently made no
attempt to solve it, and it was to take centuries of doctrinal development before even the germ
would be recognizable as such.
301

The evidence of Irenaeus is a focal point in the controversy and may serve as a test case. The
summary of his thought given above incorporates a minimal exegesis difficult to dispute: Irenaeus
attributes to Mary, not technically but equivalently, a positive, moral co-operation in a specifically
redemptive Incarnation. But this basic agreement leaves the heart of the matter untouched: In
what sense is the Incarnation redemptive for Irenaeus?

As some scholars see it, Irenaeus does not limit Mary’s co-operation in man’s salvation to the
production of the Redeemer, as to a preparatory stage in the story of Redemption; he associates
her directly and immediately with the realization of the total effect. True, he stresses her
obedience to the angel, but that stress stems from the fact that the Annunciation scene brings out
so vividly the Eve-Mary analogy. The redemptive program is divinely designed to destroy a twin
disobedience, Eve’s and Adam’s. Part of that program is the obedience of Mary, an obedience
especially in evidence at the moment of the Incarnation. But, for Irenaeus, the Incarnation is
intrinsically orientated to the cross, and the cross is the consummation of the Incarnation. Mary’s
fiat corresponds to her Son’s ecce venio (cf. Hebr. 10:5 ff.); each finds its culmination on Calvary.
Not that Irenaeus says this in so many words, but it seems a legitimate deduction from the direct,
immediate fashion in which he links the efficacy of the Redemption to the obedience of Christ and
of the Virgin. Briefly, in the architectonic of salvation and in its realization the role of Mary is
attuned to the role of Christ in such wise that the total effect depends on a single total principle
fashioned of Christ the Redeemer and Mary the Coredemptrix.
302

Not quite true, others retort. For Irenaeus, the Incarnation is redemptive, of course. “The Lord
readmitted us to His friendship by His Incarnation.”
303 It is redemptive, however, not in the sense
that the hypostatic union and the objective redemption are coextensive concepts. The Incarnation
is redemptive in the sense that it is the beginning of salvation. In taking our nature Christ
“recapitulated” all men in Himself, became capable of effecting man’s reconciliation by the
theandric acts which followed in the wake of the Incarnation. “He reconciled us to God by His
passion.”
304 Inasmuch as Mary co-operated, wide-eyed and free, in an Incarnation integral to
salvation, Irenaeus could justifiably speak of her as “cause of salvation.”
305 But the further
conclusion, that above and beyond this causality Mary was immediately associated with her Son
in the remainder of His redemptive activity, specifically the Passion, goes beyond the thought of
Irenaeus. The relationship between Adam and Christ, between Eve and Mary, is of concern to him;
the redemptive relationship between Mary and Christ is not. To prolong his thought so as to see
in them one total principle of Redemption is doubtless legitimate; but the prolongation is ours, not
his; and the developed thesis is the fruit of a long, complicated doctrinal progression. The
contemporary principle of redemptive co-operation may well be unassailable; but to find more
than a germ of it, more than a basis for it, in the second century is to do violence to the texts.
306

The conclusion of this latter band of scholars is confessedly modest; it is, I submit, justified by
the texts. As a convincing demonstration of the thesis that Mary co-operated directly and
immediately in the objective redemption, the extant evidence from the New Eve doctrine of the
Fathers is somewhat inadequate. On the other hand, if we suppose the doctrine otherwise
established, then a goodly number of patristic texts take on new meaning. We are justified in
discovering therein indications, valuable elements, insights, which later ages would exploit and
bring to a perfection unsuspected in the days of the Fathers. For, as Druwé has pointed out, from
the death of Damascene in the middle of the eighth century the witnesses to the Eve-Mary
parallelism follow one another in an endless wave, across the whole of the Latin Middle Ages,
down to our own time, when Pius XII, in the moving epilogue to Mystici corporis, portrays the
New Eve at the foot of the cross, offering her Son and herself to the Father for the sin-scarred
children of Adam.
307

II

If the Eve-Mary analogy is the first genuine insight of the patristic age with respect to Our
Lady, the first problem that is clearly posed in her regard is Mary’s virginity.
308 Not that the
question springs up full-blown and unsuspected at a given point of time; it gives the impression
rather of gradual growth, gradual awareness, from the first century to the fourth.

Historically, the investigation of her virginity has focused on three phases of Our Lady’s life:
the years before Bethlehem, the moment of childbearing in the cave, and the period subsequent
to the birth of Jesus.
309 The crux of the first phase may be epitomized in two questions: Was Mary
a virgin physically at the hour of Gabriel’s visit? Was the conception of Christ a virginal
conception, effected independently of intercourse with man? On this twin score there was no
hesitation among the early Christians. There could hardly be; Scripture was all too clear. The
primitive Eastern evidence offered by Ignatius of Antioch and Aristides of Athens
310 is
supplemented in the West by Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian.

Justin is anxious to forestall misunderstanding of Isa. 7:14 from two quarters, pagan and
Jewish. In the first place, he does not care to have the pagan turn against him the accusation flung
by Christians against the poets, to the effect that Jupiter approached women with carnal lust in
mind. “The words, ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive,’ therefore mean that the virgin shall conceive
without intercourse. For, if she had had intercourse with anyone at all, she was then no longer a
virgin. The fact is, the power of God descending upon the virgin overshadowed her and caused
her, while still a virgin, to conceive. … And it was this Spirit who came upon the virgin,
overshadowed her, and brought it about that she became pregnant, not by sexual intercourse, but
by divine power.”
311 Second, he accuses Trypho and his fellow Jews of an audacious distortion of
the Septuagint; in their polemic preoccupation they have changed the original “virgin” (παρθένος)
of Isa. 7:14 to “a young girl” (νενις), “as though something of extraordinary importance was
signified by a woman conceiving after sexual intercourse, as all young women, except the barren,
can do.”
312

Irenaeus sounds like an echo of Justin or of a common tradition. He is aware that some, in the
wake of Theodotion and Aquila, see in the Isaian prophecy merely “a young woman,” and that the
Ebionites insist that Jesus was begotten of Joseph.
313 He argues that Isaias was pointing to
“something unexpected” with respect to the generation of Christ; he was pointing to a sign. But,
“what great thing or what sign would there have been in a young woman bearing a child through
conception from a man? That happens to all women who bear a child. But because an unexpected
salvation was to be initiated for men through God’s help, an unexpected birth from a virgin was
likewise accomplished. The sign was God-given; the effect was not man-made.”
314

Tertullian, too, asserts that the Word of God was brought down, of the Father’s Spirit, “into
the Virgin Mary, took flesh in her womb. …”
315 As God fashioned Adam of virgin earth,
unfurrowed, unsown, so the Second Adam was shaped by God “of a flesh not yet unsealed to
human generation.”
316

Such is the personal belief of Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian. More significantly still, Irenaeus
and Tertullian declare unequivocally that such is the belief of the Church. “The birth from a
virgin,” Irenaeus says, is a belief which, like the belief in God the Creator, in the Word made flesh,
in the Holy Spirit, in the passion, resurrection, and ascension, the universal Church “has received
from the apostles and their disciples.”
317 In Tertullian’s eyes, the virginal conception in a virgin’s
womb is part and parcel of “the rule of faith.”
318 And this rule of faith Carthage has apparently
received from Rome;
319 this rule of faith is common to the apostolic Churches.
320

The unwavering belief of the West in the physical virginity of Mary before Bethlehem is
summed up in the expression, “Virgin Mary,” and is enshrined as early as the second century in
the Roman form of the Creed, as we find it, for example, in Hippolytus: “I believe in God, the
Father almighty, and in Christ Jesus, Son of God, who was born from the Holy Spirit of Mary the
Virgin (de Spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine) …”
321 The problem begins to take shape with the question:
Did Mary remain a virgin while giving birth to Jesus? On this score the historical tradition is less
clear and slower to solidify. Nor is this surprising. In the first place, the manner in which Jesus
emerged from Mary’s womb was not a likely topic for widespread Christian discussion. Second,
it would not necessarily strike an early Christian as a problem in virginity. Third, some of those
who did recognize the problem might well have been persuaded to silence with respect to the
miraculous element in the actual birth of Jesus, for fear of giving aid and comfort to the Docetic
enemy, to the heresy that Christ was only apparently born of Mary.
322

It has been suggested that the very silence of the early authors is expressive, especially if reset
within the aura of mystery and miracle which surrounds some contemporary accounts of Jesus’
birth.
323 And it may well be that the unqualified title, “the Virgin,” intimates that Our Lady’s
virginity remained unimpaired in childbearing.
324 In similar vein, the credal formula, “born of a
virgin,” of which the West was so fond,
325 perhaps involves the conclusion later drawn by
Augustine: “And if only in His birth her virginity had been destroyed, from that moment He would
not have been born of a virgin, and the whole Church would proclaim falsely, which God forbid,
that He was born of the Virgin Mary.”
326

But all this, though plausible, is still conjecture. The one Western author before Nicaea whose
language on this score is unequivocal denies flatly that the virginity of Mary survived her
childbearing. In his polemic against Docetists, Marcionites, and Valentinians, Tertullian presents
the birth of Christ as quite normal. Revolting as parturition may be (and Tertullian takes a
pathological delight in assembling the less attractive details), “birth will not be worse for Him than
death. … If Christ truly suffered all this, to be born was something less for Him.”
327 In line with this
brutal realism he applies to Christ the primogenitus aperiens vulvam of Exod. 13:2. “She did bear,
because she produced offspring of her own flesh; she did not bear, because she produced Him not
of a husband’s seed. She was a virgin, so far as her husband was concerned; she was not a virgin,
so far as her childbearing was concerned. … She who gave birth, really gave birth; and if she was
a virgin when she conceived, in her childbearing she was a wife. … The Virgin’s womb was
especially opened, because it was especially closed. In fact, she ought rather to be called not a
virgin than a virgin, becoming a mother at a leap, at it were, before being a wife.”
328

Tertullian is clear but vexing. He does not appeal for support to a tradition or current opinion;
but neither is he conscious of contradicting official Church teaching. Is there an African tradition
on Mary’s virginity before Nicaea? Is this sheer polemics? Or Tertullian’s pique? Neither Cyprian
nor Arnobius nor Lactantius will help us settle that question. This much can be said: we are not
justified in deriving from Tertullian the conclusion that we have here an echo of theological
thought current in the Church of Africa.
329

With respect to Irenaeus, it can still be confidently urged, despite the research and reasoning
of H. Koch,
330 that there is no text from his pen which clearly contradicts the virginity of Mary in
Bethlehem. The well-known adhuc virgo texts — in which, for example, the birth of Christ from
Mary, “who was as yet a virgin,” is compared to the fashioning of Adam “from untilled and as yet
virgin soil,”
331 or Mary’s virginal obedience is contrasted with the disobedience of Eve “while still
a virgin”
332 — reveal no interest on Irenaeus’ part in any aspect of Mary’s virginity save the virginal
conception of Jesus. On the other hand, there may well be an indication of her virginity in
childbirth in Irenaeus’ paradoxical phrase, purus pure puram aperiens vulvam (the stainless Word
of God opened His Mother’s stainless womb stainlessly) — if indeed, as seems likely, it is the
adverb and not the verb that merits the stress.
333 Even more strikingly, Irenaeus takes Isa. 66:7,
where the prophet foretells a remarkable repopulation of Jerusalem through Mother Sion, and
interprets it as messianic, as spoken of the Virgin Mary who gave birth to a man child in unique
fashion, without birth pangs. “Also, concerning His birth, the same prophet [Isaias] says in
another place: ‘Before she who was in labour brought forth, and before the pains of labour came,
there came forth delivered a man child’; he proclaimed His unlooked-for and extraordinary birth
of the Virgin.”
334 Irenaeus’ language is not limpid, but it scarcely warrants the charge that he denied
Mary a virginal childbearing.
335

It is not until the second half of the fourth century that the extant patristic evidence indicates
a general awareness of the problem in the West. Hilary of Poitiers (✝ 367), whose exile in the East
enriched his theology in general but not his Mariology, is explicit only on Mary’s virginity before
and after Bethlehem.
336 There are one or two texts which in isolation might well be judged
unfavorable to the idea of a virginity in childbearing,
337 while the passages traditionally advanced
to establish Hilary as a champion of the doctrine are not very convincing under analysis.
338 Not
long after, Marius Victorinus, that remarkable old man whose conversion from Neoplatonism
“stunned Rome and gladdened the Church,”
339 seems little aware of the idea.
340 On the other hand,
the unknown author of the Consultationes Zacchaei uses the Virgin Birth as a demonstration of
Christ’s divinity and insists that in His birth “He did not destroy the integrity of His Mother’s
body.” Just as His fashioning by the Spirit was incorruptible, so too was His birth.
341 And in the
north of Italy, Zeno, Bishop of Verona (✝ c. 372), states emphatically that Mary “gave birth as a
virgin.”
342 She remained virgin after marriage, after conception, after childbearing.
343

A high-water mark appears about 389-390 with the excommunication of Jovinian by Pope
Siricius, specifically for unorthodox utterances on virginity and marriage. Siricius’ letter, Optarem,
to the Milanese Church proposed to acquaint Ambrose with the Jovinian problem and enlist his
support.
344 Ambrose and the Synod of Milan (390) ratified the condemnation in their reply,
Recognovimus, but pointed out what Siricius had omitted to mention: Jovinian and his followers
denied the virginity of Mary, not indeed in her conception but in her childbearing. Milan is one
in rejecting the thesis; and Milan argues from Scripture and tradition.

If they do not believe the teaching of the priests, let them believe the words of Christ, let them believe
the admonition of angels: ‘For with God nothing is impossible’ (Lk. 1:37). Let them believe the Symbol
of the Apostles, which the Roman Church ever guards and keeps inviolate. … This is the Virgin who
conceived in the womb, this the Virgin who gave birth to a son. … For [Isaias] did not say that a virgin
would merely conceive; he said that a virgin would give birth as well. Now, what is that gate of the
sanctuary, that outer gate looking to the East, which remains shut and no one, it says, shall pass
through it save the God of Israel alone (Ez. 44:2)? … This gate is blessed Mary; of her it is written: “the
Lord shall pass through it,” and it shall be closed after childbearing, because a virgin conceived and a
virgin gave birth.
345

This, Ambrose makes clear, is part and parcel of Catholic belief. Did ecclesiastical circles at
Rome openly profess the same thing? In his answer to Siricius, Ambrose indicates that the
pertinent article of the Symbol espoused at Rome was interpreted, or at least should be interpreted,
not merely of a virginal conception but of a virginal childbearing as well. And yet, only seven
years before, in Rome itself, Jerome had come to the defense of Mary’s perpetual virginity against
Helvidius, and had nonetheless expressed himself with reference to Christ’s birth in terms that are
a disconcerting echo of Tertullian. Retail all the horrors of childbirth, he challenges; you will
produce nothing more outrageous than the cross.
346 And still he can add: “That God was born of
a virgin we believe, because we read it; that Mary became a wife after childbearing we do not
believe, because we do not read it.”
347 A decade later, writing from Palestine against Jovinian,
Jerome applies to Mary the words of the Canticle, “A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride, a
fountain sealed” (4:12); but his language is so laconic that one wonders whether or not he is being
consciously ambiguous.
348 Shortly afterward, in a letter to the Roman senator, Pammachius,
occasioned by the shabby reception given at Rome to his attitude toward marriage as expressed
in Adversus Iovinianum, he remarks:

Christ is a virgin, and the mother of our Virgin is herself ever a virgin; she is mother and virgin.
Although the doors were shut, Jesus entered within; in the sepulchre that was Mary, which was new
and hewn in hardest rock, no one was laid before or after. … She is the eastern gate whereof Ezechiel
speaks, always shut and full of light, which closing on itself brings forth from itself the Holy of Holies;
whereby the Sun of Justice … enters in and goes out. Let them tell me how Jesus entered [the Cenacle]
when the doors were shut … and I will tell them how holy Mary is both mother and virgin, virgin after
childbirth and mother before marriage.”
349

Here we confront the same paradox which he will repeat in 415 against the Pelagians: “only
Christ opened the closed gates of her virginal womb, and yet the gates remained unfailingly
closed.”
350 One is persuaded by the paradox to conclude that, in Jerome’s eyes, Our Lord could
somehow “open the womb” of Mary without violating her virginity.

But if Jerome is at times obscure on this score, Augustine, Peter Chrysologus, and Leo the
Great are not. For Augustine, Mary is virgin before and during wedlock, virgin in her pregnancy,
virgin in giving to Christ of her milk. In taking birth of her He did not steal virginity from her.
351
Tersely, “she conceives and is a virgin; she gives birth and is a virgin.”
352 Peter Chrysologus sees
Mary’s integrity strengthened in childbirth;
353 it is the crown of her virginity;
354 Christ comes forth
in such fashion that the virginal gate does not swing open, and so Our Lady realizes in Bethlehem
the garden enclosed, the fountain sealed of the Canticle.
355 Leo declares that Mary’s womb is a
mother’s womb, but the birth of Jesus is a virgin birth;
356 it is the incorruption of Christ that kept
intact the integrity of Mary.
357 This is the tradition which will be ratified in 649 by the Lateran
Council when it condemns anyone and everyone who “does not confess, in harmony with the holy
Fathers, that … Mary … gave birth without corruption.”
358

A third phase of Mary’s virginity concerns her life after Bethlehem. Did Mary have conjugal
relations after the birth of Jesus? To point up the problem: Did Mary have any children besides
Jesus? It is the age-old problem of “the brethren of the Lord.”
359 What relationship to Christ did
early Christianity see in these “brothers and sisters”? Were they perhaps children which Joseph
had by Mary after her “first-born” Son? Or were they offspring of Joseph by a previous marriage?
Or is the kinship a more distant thing?

If the extant evidence is typical, Western Christianity was slow to face the problem. Here again
it is Tertullian alone whose language is unmistakable before Nicaea: and without hesitation
Tertullian regards the Mother of Jesus as mother of other children as well. To begin with: “It was
a virgin who gave birth to Christ and she was to marry only once, after she brought Him forth
(semel nuptura post partum). The reason for this was that both types of chastity might be exalted
in the birth of Christ, born as He was of a mother who was at once virginal and monogamous.”
360
After the birth of Jesus he can speak of her as virum passam, one who has known a man, in explicit
contrast to a virgin.
361 And when he deals with “the brethren of Jesus,” he takes it for granted that
they are sons and daughters of the same mother as He.
362

And that is almost all the evidence we have before Nicaea.
363 It is a situation which calls, above
all, for caution in deriving conclusions or fashioning reconstructions.
364 On the one hand, it will not
do to dismiss Tertullian with the cavalier thrust of Jerome: “he was not a man of the Church.”
365
For, as Neubert has observed, if the Catholic Tertullian had recognized the virginity of Mary after
Bethlehem as defined doctrine, the Montanist Tertullian would hardly have rejected it.
366 On the
other hand, Tertullian’s rejection is scarcely indicative of a traditional or official rejection. We are
not in a position to establish the source of his thesis, if any; we do not know to what extent he is
playing the polemist. It is tempting to conjecture that Origen, who insisted between 226-229 that
“no one whose mind on Mary is sound would claim that she had any child save Jesus,”
367 might well
have found support for his view when he went to Rome about 212 and met men of the stature of
Hippolytus. But conjecture is not evidence; the philological data at hand do not reveal that the
Christian West at the dawn of the fourth century was conscious of an obligation to represent Mary
as virgin save for the years before Bethlehem.
368

A new phase in Marian theology opens in the West with the publication of Hilary of Poitiers’
Commentary on Matthew before his exile in 356. Hilary knows of more than one (plures) adversary
who believes that Mary had marital relations with Joseph after Jesus’ birth; but these are
“irreligious individuals, utterly divorced from spiritual teaching.” He himself is aware that,
whenever Scripture speaks of Mary and Joseph in the same breath, Mary “is called ‘Mother of
Christ,’ because that is what she was; not ‘wife of Joseph,’ because she was not.” He knows that
there are people who insist that Jesus had many blood brothers; but these are “extremely wicked”
men. The brethren of Jesus were children of Joseph by a former marriage; were that not so, Jesus
would not have been compelled to entrust His Mother to John from the cross.
369 Hilary’s language
is so strong that we are tempted to see in his adversaries recognized heretics; but the conclusion
is not apodictic. At any rate, we find in Hilary, if not a convincing scriptural argument, a deep
conviction with respect to the perpetual virginity of Mary that is rooted in her dignity as Mother
of the Saviour.
370

In the second half of the fourth century the fascinating unknown,
371 Ambrosiaster, is likewise
aware of the opinion that Mary had other children besides Jesus. It is a thesis with which he has
little patience. The Lord’s brethren — specifically, James, “the Lord’s brother” — are so called
because their father is Joseph, and Joseph is called the father of Jesus. Those who claim that the
brethren are genuine brethren of Jesus by birth from Mary are out of their minds and their
affirmation is impious; they would logically have to regard Joseph as Jesus’ real father.
372 Zeno of
Verona offers a remarkable formula, apparently in the face of an adversary: “O marvelous mystery!
Mary conceived as virgin incorrupt; after conception she gave birth as a virgin; after childbirth she
remained a virgin.”
373

Perhaps the most significant documents appear in the decade between 383 and 392. The
atmosphere, and the source of strife as well, is the ascetieal yearning of the age. It is the
consecrated virgin who has succeeded the martyr as the witness without peer of the Church’s
holiness; and, understandably, the unequaled model of virgins is the Virgin Mary.
374 A reaction is
inevitable, and the villains of the piece are primarily Helvidius and Bonosus.

The approach of Helvidius was attractive. He did not make the tactical blunder of affirming
that virginity is inferior to marriage; he did not attack the Virgin Mary. He asserted that marriage
and virginity are equal in honor, that Mary is doubly admirable for having been, in turn, virgin and
mother of a family: virgin until the birth of Jesus, then mother of the brothers and sisters of Jesus
spoken of in Scripture. The impression in Roman circles was profound; even the elect among the
ascetics were disturbed; and the hierarchy did not intervene.

Jerome, lately come to Rome from Constantinople, reacted vigorously.

His pamphlet, Adversus Helvidium (383), develops the thesis that virginity is superior to
marriage; his palmary proof is that Mary would never have dreamed of relations with any man,
no matter who.
375 Tradition is summoned briefly to the stand: Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin.
But it is the scriptural difficulties, since become classical, which form the burden of his
presentation: “before they came together” (Mt. 1:18); Joseph’s “wife” (1:24); “he did not know her
till she had brought forth” (1:25); “first-born” (1:25). The Lord’s brethren are children not of Mary
but of her sister. And there is a final touch: “You say that Mary did not remain a virgin. I claim still
more; I claim that Joseph himself was a virgin for Mary’s sake, so that from a virgin wedlock a
virgin son might be born.”
376

The argumentation is not consistently convincing, but it is effective, linked as it is to a rare
talent for the satirical. As Jouassard has pointed out, it quickly restored the fortunes of asceticism
in Roman circles and accredited the virginity after childbirth to such an extent that there is no
evidence of its ever being seriously contested there after that encounter.
377

More bluntly, Bonosus, Bishop of Naissus (the modern Nish in Yugoslavia), submitted that
Mary had had more than one child.
378 The most significant literary reaction stemmed from
Ambrose, who cried sacrilege.
379 Not only does he deal with several Old Testament symbols of
Mary’s perpetual virginity (the “closed gate” of Ezechiel, the “enclosed garden” and “sealed
fountain” of the Canticle); he explains the New Testament texts adduced by Bonosus (Mt. 1:18
ff.).
380 The brethren of Jesus are not children of Mary; they may have been Joseph’s; in any event,
the term “brother” need not be interpreted strictly.
381 It is the perfect, permanent virginity of Mary
that Ambrose time and again proposes to virgins for their imitation.
382

The condemnation of Bonosus by his fellow bishops of Illyricum was approved in a celebrated
letter whose author may be Pope Siricius but is more probably Ambrose himself.
383 The writer
assures Anysius, Bishop of Thessalonica, and through him the bishops of Illyricum: “Surely we
cannot deny that Your Reverence was perfectly justified in rebuking him [i.e., Bonosus] on the
score of Mary’s children, and that you had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another
birth might issue from the same virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh.
For the Lord Jesus would never have chosen to be born of a virgin if He had ever judged that she
would be so incontinent as to contaminate with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of
the Lord’s body, that court of the Eternal King. To assert such a view is to do nothing less than to
accept as a basis that Jewish falsehood which holds that He could not have been born of a virgin.
And once the weight of episcopal authority is gained for the view that Mary gave issue to many
children, they will strive with even greater zeal to attack the truth of faith.”
384

The condemnation of Bonosus and the unqualified rejection of his thesis by episcopal authority
may well have influenced the Greek world; in the West it simply consolidated ground already
won. As the fourth century draws to a close it is Ambrose and his thesis that emerge triumphant;
it is his De institutione virginis that is the theological chef d’oeuvre of the time.
385 It is from this
period that orthodoxy uncompromisingly involves belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity, so much
so that the manner of expression takes on a monotonous dogmatic ring. Augustine tells us over
and over that Our Lady “conceived as a virgin, she gave birth as a virgin, she remained a virgin.”
386
Peter Chrysologus and Leo the Great echo the phraseology of Augustine.
387 In the light of this
development the definitive pronouncement of the Lateran Council (649) on Mary’s “indissoluble
virginity” will hardly come unawares on the West.
388

III

A third problem in patristic Mariology is Mary’s Maternity. Strangely enough, what was first
denied to Mary was not the prerogative, Mother of God, but what her contemporaries never
dreamed of denying, that she was Mother of Jesus (cf. Mk. 6:1-3). The early crisis was Docetic —
the affirmation that the Saviour simply did not have a genuinely human body, or at any rate, as
Tertullian sums it up, that “He was born through a virgin, not of a virgin, and in a womb, not of
a womb,”
389 without being fashioned of her substance. But there was a complementary denial.
Where the Gnostics introduced a distinction between Jesus born of Mary and the Christ who
descended into Jesus at baptism,
390 they denied implicitly that the Child of Mary was God.

The Christian reaction in the first three centuries is expressive. Not that Our Lady is
categorically denominated Mother of God; there is no indisputable evidence for the title before the
fourth century.
391 But, like Ignatius earlier in the East, Justin and Irenaeus and Tertullian have a
two-edged answer for the Gnostic position. On the one hand, they use expressions that
equivalently affirm the divine Maternity. On the other, they propound the twin premises for their
conclusion: (a) Jesus was genuinely born of Mary; and (b) Jesus born of Mary is God.

Justin declares that the Word of God, who “is also God,” the same God who appeared to Moses
and the other prophets in the form of fire and the guise of an angel, “became man by a virgin”; He
was actually “born” of her.
392

What for Justin is sheer doctrinal affirmation, is in Irenaeus a thesis defended at length.
393 The
New Testament (Mt. 1:20-23) reveals two things clearly: “that the Son of God was born of a virgin,
and that He is Himself the Saviour Christ, whom the prophets proclaimed; not, as these men say,
that Jesus is He who was born of Mary, while Christ is He who descended from above.”
394 In the
Old Testament the Holy Spirit points out in the Isaian prophecy (Isa. 7:10 ff.) “His birth, which is
from a virgin, and His essence, that He is God.”
395 In his argumentation Irenaeus employs several
phrases strikingly indicative of the divine Maternity. Our Lord “is the Word of the Father and the
Son of Man”; “Word that He is, He took birth of Mary”; the glad tidings were brought to Mary
“that she should bear God.”
396 Apart from Scripture, the proof of his predilection is drawn from the
economy of Redemption. If man was to be saved, God had to become man, had to derive His
human nature from the nature that had fallen. If His birth from Mary is unreal, our redemption
is equally unreal.
397

Tertullian, too, has Gnostics in view; he makes the same points as Irenaeus; and his belief with
respect to Mary’s motherhood does not change with his checkered career. In his Catholic days he
has no doubt that the Son of God became flesh in Mary’s womb; in His birth we find one who is
“man and God united.”
398 In fact, His being enfleshed in her womb and His birth of her is a truth
which the rule of faith obliges us to believe.
399 The palpable model of divine patience is God’s Son,
who endured to be born in a mother’s womb.
400 Dallying with Montanism does not prevent
Tertullian from propounding an authentic Incarnation, e.g., in his works On the Flesh of Christ and
Against Marcion. The novelty of Christ’s birth does not lie in this (as the Gnostics claim), “that as
the Word of God became flesh without a human father’s seed, so there should be no flesh of the
Virgin Mother”; it rests in this, “that His flesh, though not born of seed, still proceeded from
flesh.”
401 If Mary is not His Mother, then Scripture lies; if she is His Mother, He was in her womb.
But “no flesh can speak of a mother’s womb save that which is itself the offspring of that womb.
…”
402

It has not been established incontrovertibly that Hippolytus, the first antipope, who died a
martyr in 235, actually called Mary “Mother of God”;
403 what is indisputable is that, for Hippolytus,
Mary was literally pregnant with the Word of God, with God’s Son.
404 Another Roman priest,
Novatian, who occupied a leading position among the clergy of Rome about 250 and later fell into
schism, is subordinationist in his Logos doctrine, but emphatic on two points: Christ is born of
Mary, and Christ is God and Man.
405 Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (✝ 258), in the second book of
his Testimonies, written perhaps before 249 and “containing the mystery of Christ,” includes the
truth “that a sign of His birth would be this, that of a virgin He would be born man and God, Son
of man and of God.” His scriptural texts are Isa. 7:10 ff. and Gen. 3:14-15.
406

With the fourth century the title “Mother of God” is quite common and its theological basis
comes into view rather clearly. True, the development is more dramatic in the East — from the
moment (c. 319) when Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, in announcing to his colleagues the
deposition of Arius, made the first indisputable use of Theotókos,
407 through Julian the Apostate’s
querulous charge against the Christians, “You never stop calling Mary Mother of God,”
408 to the
celebrated anathema of Cyril and Ephesus: “If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in
truth, and that consequently the holy Virgin is Mother of God (for she gave birth after the flesh
to the Word of God made flesh), let him be anathema!”
409 Nevertheless, the West, if more prosaic,
is no less uncompromising.

Hilary of Poitiers may well speak for Gaul when he states so simply that Mary “was Mother
of Our Lord according to the flesh”;
410 He remains the God that He was, and is born of a virgin’s
womb.
411 Equally simple and precious is a hidden half sentence: Mary exercised, in regard of “the
second man from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47), the role of a mother; she gave Him, in His conception and
birth, what any mother gives to the child of her womb.
412

Ambrose uses the title “Mother of God” in several places with no hint of novelty or
embarrassment.
413 In opening his defense of Mary’s abiding virginity against Helvidius, Jerome
invokes “God the Father, to show that the Mother of His Son was a virgin after childbirth, she who
was mother before marriage.”
414 Augustine does not use the title, but his mind is transparent.
Though Elizabeth conceived a man, and Mary a man, still “Elizabeth conceived only a man, Mary
God and man.”
415 Christ was anointed with the spirit not at His baptism but “when the Word of
God was made flesh, i.e., when human nature … was linked to God the Word in the womb of a
virgin, so as to form one person with Him. For this reason we confess Him born of the Holy Spirit
and the Virgin Mary.”
416 The Lord our God, he says, “without birth by woman is the only Son of
the Father; without embrace of man His Mother bore Him as her only Son.”
417

Three years after Ephesus, Vincent of Lerins (✝ 450) devoted a whole chapter of his
Commonitories to Mary’s divine motherhood.

It is by reason of the unicity of person in Christ that it is Catholic to believe, and godless to
deny, that the Word of God, and not merely His flesh, was born of the Virgin. “God forbid,
therefore, that anyone should try to cheat holy Mary of her privileges of divine grace and of her
special glory. For by a unique favor of Him who is our Lord and God, but her Son, she is to be
confessed Theotókos in the truest and most blessed way possible. But she is not Theotókos in the
way a certain impious heresy supposes. To believe this heresy, she is to be called Mother of God
in name only, because she gave birth to a human being who later became God – as we speak of
the mother of a priest or the mother of a bishop; not that she gave birth to a priest or a bishop, but
because she produced the human being who later became priest or bishop. Not thus, I say, is holy
Mary Theotókos, but rather because … in her sacred womb was accomplished this sacrosanct
mystery, that by reason of a certain matchless, unique unity of person, even as the Word in flesh
is flesh, so the Man in God is God.”
418

And that, in brief, is the Western tradition. Little wonder that Leo the Great, in his Letter to
Flavian, observed that Eutyches might have learned what he was obliged to believe on the
Incarnation, if he had “listened to that common and universal confession in which the whole body
of the faithful acknowledges its belief in … Jesus Christ, [God’s] only-begotten Son, our Lord, who
was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. …”
419

IV

One of the most perplexing problems in patristic Mariology revolves about Mary’s holiness.
The issue becomes complex in that it involves an aspect of Mary’s sanctity acute for the
contemporary Christian: the state of Mary’s soul at the moment of her conception. From the close
of the Apostolic Age to the Council of Nicaea the literary heritage of Western Christianity
contains so remarkably little on the theme of Our Lady’s holiness that a pointed question is
inevitable. Was the pre-Nicene West even conscious of the problem?

Several facts are not without significance. In the first place, Jewish and pagan circles in the
second half of the second century, as a flanking attack on Christ, taxed His Mother with being a
prostitute.
420 The reaction of the Christian West would make fascinating reading, but it is nowhere
in evidence. It is not unreasonable, however, to conjecture that Christians who recognized in Mary
the counterpart of Eve, whose rule of faith involved the virginity of Mary before Gabriel, must
have reacted as strongly, if not as mordantly, as Tertullian was to do somewhat later.
421 This much
will stand the test of criticism: for the orthodox Christian, Mary was not a woman of evil
reputation.

Second, the Eve-Mary analogy is relevant here. Our Lady’s consent to the redemptive program
implicit in the Incarnation was recognized by Irenaeus as constituting an act not simply of singular
significance but even of exceptional moral value; it was an act of obedience.
422 Regrettably,
Irenaeus’ insight into the Second Eve is not paralleled by any conclusion in the texts with respect
to the state of her soul prior to her fiat. Did the ante-Nicene Fathers glimpse a further consequence
from the analogy, an indication of Mary’s sanctity? Le Bachelet, for one, surrenders such
investigation: “Who could possibly give a certain answer, one way or the other?”
423

Third, the adjective “holy” is prefixed to “Virgin.” Not often; still, it is used. Hippolytus, for
example, states, without explanation, that “God the Word descended into the holy Virgin Mary.”
424
The difficulty is, such a usage is ill-defined. The word sanctus or ἅγιος has not always been able
to boast of a clearly delimited meaning in ecclesiastical use.
425 Does Hippolytus use ἅγιος as a
rather vague laudatory epithet, or as a title of dignity, or to imply moral excellence, or to signify
the respect reserved for one who is segregated from profane things and belongs to God by some
sort of consecration? The answer must, in the state of the evidence, be a confession of ignorance.

Fourth, there is testimony which attaches more intimately to Mary’s holiness. If we can trust
a fragment on Ps. 22 attributed to Hippolytus, the Roman exegete wrote: “The ark which was made
of incorruptible timber (cf. Exod. 15:10) was the Saviour. The ark symbolized the tabernacle of His
body, which was impervious to decay and engendered no sinful corruption. … The Lord was
sinless, because in His humanity He was fashioned out of incorruptible wood, that is to say, out
of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit, lined within and without as with the purest gold of the Word
of God.”
426 The author’s direct purpose is to reveal the sinlessness of Christ; but his reasoning
shows that in his eyes the Virgin, incorruptible wood of which the humanity of Jesus was
fashioned, is likewise all-pure, all-holy. The meaning is substantially clear; what fails to emerge
is the precise nature of her purity, her incorruptibility.

The extant evidence, therefore, if meager, indicates sufficiently that for some of the ante-Nicene writers in the West the idea of holiness and purity did attach to the person of Mary. It does
not justify us in concluding with certainty to the nature of this holiness, or in picturing them as
carriers of an historical tradition, or in attributing to them a formal belief in an Immaculate
Conception.

It is in this era that we confront a current of thought unfavorable to a thesis of Marian
sinlessness. In its general form it is the principle that Christ alone is without sin, and it is
unmistakably formulated by Tertullian. “Thus, some men are good, others, bad, yet their souls all
belong to the same class. There is some good in the worst of us, and the best of us harbor some
evil within us. God alone is without sin, and the only sinless man is Christ, since He is God.”
427 In
this general form there is no inescapable implicit which would rule out an utterly sinless existence
for Mary. There is a sinlessness which is the fruit of nature; such sinlessness has always been, in
orthodox Christian thinking, the exclusive prerogative of God. And there is a sinlessness which
is the fruit of grace; it is theoretically compatible with human living. Did Tertullian deny such
God-given sinlessness in the concrete order of things?

One phrase suggests it strongly: “the best of us harbor some evil within us.”

However that may be, the stumbling block looms larger when specific defects are mentioned.
If we credit Tertullian, Christ publicly denounced His Mother for her disbelief when He asked:
“Who is my mother and who are my brethren?”
428 According to the Carthaginian, Mary apparently
kept aloof from Jesus while Martha and others were in constant contact with Him. In standing
outside she was guilty of disbelief (incredulitas); in calling Him away from His work she was
importunate. And if we believe Irenaeus, whose Marian theology is otherwise so reverential, Jesus
checked Mary’s “untimely haste” at Cana, her yearning to quicken the miracle of the water made
wine.
429

The objection from Irenaeus is scarcely momentous. The Bishop of Lyons finds Mary’s request
inopportune, untimely; he does not hint that it was sinful. Tertullian, on the contrary, is harsh and
unambiguous. And if his accusation is explicable in the light of his fiery polemic, so heedless of
consequences, it remains nonetheless a candid accusation. Though he was flirting with Montanism
at the moment, he still gives no indication that he is aware of a contrary belief or official
teaching.
430 If it is unjustifiable to conclude that Tertullian is representative of a widespread
tradition, it remains true that in Africa at the outset of the third century moral deficiencies were
apparently not regarded as incompatible with the dignity of God’s Mother.
431

A significant turning point in the Mariological consciousness of the West does not occur until
377, with the publication of Ambrose’s three books On Virginity, addressed to his sister,
Marcellina. The inspiration for his portrait of Mary is not purely local, the contemporary
aristocratic virgin vowed to Christian asceticism; it is more specifically Eastern, a work of
Athanasius on virginity.
432

The influence of Athanasius was fortunate, if only because the ideas of the fourth-century
West on Mary’s sanctity were so slender. In Gaul, for example, Hilary of Poitiers can somehow
reconcile a profound reverence for Mary’s virginity with a tortuous passage in which she seems
destined to undergo the scrutiny of God’s judgment.
433 He insists, too, that Our Lord alone is
sinless, and this in virtue of His exceptional birth.
434 In Rome, Marius Victorinus extends
specifically to Mary the imperfection which he attributes to the very idea of woman, while
Ambrosiaster understands Simeon’s sword of sorrow as Mary’s doubting at the death of the Lord
— a doubt removed only by the Resurrection.
435 In Africa, Bishop Optatus of Mileve (✝ before 400)
sees the flesh of Christ alone as sinless, because of His unique conception; only Christ is perfectly
holy, the rest of us are “half perfect”; every man, even if of Christian parents, is born with an
unclean spirit.
436 Near Granada in Spain, Bishop Gregory of Elvira seems to number Mary among
the ancestors who would have transmitted to the Redeemer a body soiled and open to sin.
437

And yet, the climate of thought and feeling promised the ideas of Ambrose an enthusiastic
welcome, especially in his own North Italy, where the influence of asceticism and the personal
sojourn of Athanasius had paved the way. Thus, Zeno of Verona implies that Mary, like the virgins
he is addressing, was “holy in body and spirit,” and claims that she had “deserved” to carry the
Saviour of souls.
438 But the attitude of Ambrose toward Mary is something novel in Latin literature.
Mary was virgin not in body alone, but in mind as well. She is the unattainable model of all
virtues; she has lived them to perfection. Not the slightest shadow mars his portrait of her, no
smallest imperfection.
439 It is a vision of Mary which will inspire Ambrose all his days and lead him
to still further insights. A decade later he can attribute to Mary a fullness of grace whose
foundation is the divine Maternity: “For Mary alone was this greeting [full of grace] reserved; for
she is well said to be alone full of grace, who alone obtained the grace which no one else had
gained, to be filled with the Author of grace.”
440 It may be that Ambrose is simply equating “full
of grace” and “Mother of God”; the construction bears that exegesis. But about the same time, in
a sermon on Ps. 118, he speaks of Mary as “a virgin free by grace from all stain of sin.”
441 It is a text
frequently invoked by defenders of the Immaculate Conception, who feel that to understand the
phrase of actual or personal sins alone is to restrict arbitrarily the indefinite, unlimited assertion.
442
On the other hand, Ambrose does not seem aware of the implications in his phrase. In any event,
the germ of future development is indisputably there, especially since, to his way of thinking, if
you are to appreciate what Mary is, you must reckon with what is fitting in such a mother.
443

At the beginning of the fifth century the Spanish poet, Prudentius (✝ after 405), alluding to
Mary’s role as New Eve, represents the serpent trampled beneath the feet of Our Lady, who has
merited to become Mother of God and consequently has remained immune to all.
444 Once again,
the text, as it stands, is susceptible of an interpretation excluding from Mary all possibility of sin
from the initial moment of her existence. Once again, the sole lingering doubt is whether
Prudentius had so comprehensive, so all-inclusive a concept of sin.

It is actually with Augustine and the Pelagians that the issues involved take on some measure
of clarity. Here there are two significant moments. In the first (415) Augustine confronts Pelagius
on the issue of Mary’s personal holiness, her freedom from actual sin; in the second (c. 428) he
confronts Julian of Eclanum on the score of her conception, her freedom from original sin.

Pelagius was not content to deny original sin; he ascribed to Adam’s progeny the power to
observe the whole moral law on their own, a native ability to live lives of justice. To bolster his
belief, he cited a number of individuals — men and women, Old Law and New —who actually
realized this program of sinlessness. The names range from Abel through Abraham to Joseph and
John, from Debbora to Elizabeth, “and in fact the Mother of our Lord and Saviour too, whom piety
must needs confess free from sin.” Ambrose had found no imperfection in Mary; Pelagius asserted
on principle that none could be found.

Augustine’s response is a two-edged denial. Only Mary is free from sin, and her sinlessness
is a triumph not of nature but of grace; its foundation is the divine Maternity. “With the exception,
therefore, of the holy Virgin Mary, in whose case, out of respect for the Lord, I would have no
question raised when there is talk of sin — for how do we know what further grace was conferred
on her for absolute victory over sin, she who deserved to conceive and bear Him who obviously
had no sin? — with the exception, then, of this Virgin, could we but gather together in their
lifetime all those saints, men and women, and ask them whether they were free from sin, what in
our opinion would have been their answer? … No matter how remarkable their holiness in this
body … they would have cried out with one voice: ‘If we should say that we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’ (1 Jn. 1:8).”
445

It might be argued that Augustine simply prefers not to discuss the case of Mary. It is far more
probable that his question is not really a question at all, that it conveys his own conviction of the
incompatibility of actual sin with divine motherhood, that consequently it constitutes a landmark
in the development of the Western Church’s consciousness of Mary’s sinlessness.
446

Julian of Eclanum, a deposed bishop, lifted the discussion to the level of original sin. In his
view, every man is born sinless; a unique proof of his position, he feels, is Mary. To attack the
doctrine of original sin in its implications, he establishes a parallel between his enemy Augustine
and the heresiarch Jovinian, to the advantage of the latter: “ille virginitatem Mariae partus
conditione dissolvit; tu ipsam Mariam diabolo nascendi conditione transcribis.”
447 Jovinian, says
Julian, sacrificed Mary’s virginity by submitting her to the usual circumstances of human
childbearing; Augustine surrenders the very person of Mary to the devil by asserting that original
sin is inseparable from human generation.

Augustine’s retort ranks among the most passionately disputed sentences in Christian
literature: “Non transcribimus diabolo Mariam conditione nascendi; sed ideo, quia ipsa conditio
solvitur gratia renascendi.”
448 The disagreements in detail among interpreters of this sentence are
too many to be retailed here, but basically scholars divide into two camps. Both agree on one
point: Augustine denies that his doctrine of original sin surrenders Mary to the devil by the
circumstances of her birth. But, for one group, no surrender is involved because the grace of
regeneration subsequently annuls this condition by making it disappear. Conditio nascendi is
synonymous with birth in original sin. Gratia renascendi necessarily involves a transition from
sin to justification subsequent to birth, a spiritual rebirth unintelligible without a prior spiritual
death. And Augustine’s doctrine on the universality of original sin and on the method of its
propagation precludes any exception in Mary’s case.

This interpretation, unfavorable to an immaculate conception, was the accepted exegesis of
Augustine for centuries; right or wrong, it exercised a vigorous influence on the West; even after
Ineffabilis Deus it remains an exegesis championed by scholars of distinction.
449

The opposing school denies that this interpretation is apodictic. For them, no surrender to the
devil is involved because the grace of regeneration simply annuls the condition of birth (original
sin) by preventing its realization in Mary. Conditio nascendi is not so much a fact as a law. Gratia
renascendi does not necessarily involve, of itself or in Augustine, the removal of sin already
contracted. Augustine’s doctrine on original sin and the manner of its transmission is not an
insuperable obstacle to a privilege in favor of God’s Mother, because Mary’s immunity from
original sin is not to be regarded as of native right; it is sheer gift. In the other hypothesis,
Augustine would actually have enslaved, surrendered Our Lady to the devil, despite his
protestation to the contrary.
450

Whatever the truth of the matter, Latin speculation on Mary’s holiness derived a twofold
orientation from Augustine. With respect to actual sins, the West would thereafter have little
difficulty recognizing in Mary a perfection unblemished. On the score of her debt to Adam, it was
to be centuries before the West could free itself from the myopia induced by anti-Pelagian
concentration and by its interpretation of five individually intelligible words: ipsa conditio solvitur
gratia renascendi.

Post-Augustinian patristic thought on the perfection of Mary reveals two conflicting currents.
There is a negative, unfavorable trend rooted in Augustine’s anti-Pelagianism; it accentuates the
universality of original sin and articulates the connection between inherited sin and any
conception consequent upon sinful concupiscence. The root idea is summed up by Leo the Great:
“Alone therefore among the sons of men the Lord Jesus was born innocent, because alone
conceived without the pollution of carnal concupiscence.”
451 The same concept is discoverable in
St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe in Africa (✝ 533), the most significant theologian of his time; in
Pope Gregory the Great (✝ 604) at the end of the sixth century; and a century later in Venerable
Bede, a scholar renowned throughout England.
452 At best, this manner of speaking is ambiguous;
it opened the door to the grave controversies to come; and it was not of a nature to foster the
development of belief in the Immaculate Conception.

Concurrently, however, there is a positive, more favorable current of thought. It is not simply
that Mary is still the Second Eve, instrument of our salvation,
453 or that the merits she acquires lift
her above the angels, to divinity’s throne.
454 More pointedly, Peter Chrysologus declares that Our
Lady was pledged to Christ in the womb at the moment of her fashioning, while Maximus of
Turin, contemporary of Leo I, finds Mary a suitable lodging for Christ, apparently not so much
because of her physical virginity as in virtue of some primal grace which he does not specify.
455
The poets, Sedulius and Venantius Fortunatus, sing of Mary in language which leaves no room for
sin and is indefinite enough to provoke wonderment with respect to the state of her soul at
conception.
456

Historically, the strides taken by the West in advance of the East on the holiness of Mary —
due primarily to Ambrose and Augustine — were slowed by the barrier which the West felt had
been placed by Augustine in the way of an immaculate conception — a barrier not confronted by
the East.

Theologically, we must face up to an evolution. From the extant philological data it does not
seem that the personal sinlessness of Mary or her Immaculate Conception were explicitly taught
as Catholic doctrine in the patristic West.
457 However, the work of elaboration evident in that era,
certain fundamental and general principles baldly stated but scarcely fathomed, initial insights into
the implications of divine Maternity and perfect virginity and Second Eve, all this will help
legitimize the conclusion of a later theology that Mary’s utter sinlessness from the first instant of
her existence is a truth implicitly revealed by God and implicitly transmitted by the early
Church.
458

V

As with the first moment of Our Lady’s earthly existence, so with the last, theology’s quest of
patristic data is initially hampered by the state of the evidence. For a discouragingly long period
the problem is not that the Assumption is denied; it is rather that the final lot of Mary is
apparently not discussed. In consequence, scholars have come to speak of the silence,
459 even the
ignorance,
460 of the first three centuries with respect to Mary’s end. In reaction, others have
retorted that the silence is sheerly relative, a surface silence which was inevitable and is actually
eloquent.177
461

In point of fact, both claims are justified. The early Church is silent on the destiny of Mary, in
the sense that no extant document deals explicitly with that destiny until a half century after
Nicaea. And if in the East we must wait until 377 before Epiphanius offers his three hypotheses
on the manner of Mary’s departure from this world,
462 the awakening of the West is a slower
process still. Even when popular faith has been quickened, there is little evidence in the West of
a theological movement to rival the homiletic productions of the East. If only because it is so
surprisingly slender, the explicit witness of the West deserves to be detailed.

Explicit statements or conjectures on the final lot of Mary begin with the last quarter of the
fourth century — contemporary, therefore, with Epiphanius. But the witnesses touch the problem
ever so lightly, with evident uncertainty. Tychonius, a lay theologian among the Donatists,
independent enough to be excommunicated by his own sect, seems to have identified Mary with
the woman of Apoc. 12, and to have spoken of a “great mystery” in her regard.
463 Ambrose is more
specific but equally unsatisfactory. Discussing Simeon’s sword of sorrow, he dismisses the idea
that Our Lady died a violent death; such a thesis has no warrant in Scripture or history.
464 But
Ambrose does not tell us just how Mary did leave this life. In a remarkable passage he presents,
as one hypothesis, the yearning of Mary to rise with Jesus in case she was fated to die with Him.
465
There may be an insinuation here that the desire was not frustrated; against this conclusion is the
flat statement elsewhere that Christ alone has risen once and for all.
466

Paulinus, Bishop of Nola in Italy (✝ 431), is anxious to learn Augustine’s mind on the exegesis
of Simeon’s prophecy; he himself, like Ambrose, is aware of no document reporting Mary’s death
by violence.
467 In his reply, Augustine mentions a previous letter of his own on the Lucan text; it
is, regrettably, lost to us; but he does tell Paulinus that their views on the scriptural passage
coincide.
468 Elsewhere, in several striking phrases, he makes it clear that Mary did die: she died
after her Son; she died a virgin; she died, like Adam, in consequence of sin.
469

Finally, however his silence may be explained, the fact remains that Jerome, who knew the
local traditions of the Holy Land as well as Epiphanius, gives no indication that he is aware of any
historical tradition with reference to the death of Our Lady, her grave, or an assumption.
470 Briefly,
between Nicaea and Ephesus the allusions to Mary’s destiny are rare and insignificant.

The first express witness in the West to a genuine assumption comes to us in an apocryphal
Gospel, the Transitus beatae Mariae of Pseudo-Melito, which may stem from the middle of the
sixth century.
471 This account is significant, in the first instance, because it affirms unequivocally
the death and burial of Mary, the reunion of her soul and body without delay, and her assumption
into heaven in soul and body. It is significant, in the second place, for the developed Assumption
theology which links this privilege causally with Mary’s Maternity and virginity, and stresses the
parallelism which ought to exist between Christ and His Mother in victory over death.
472 The
account of Pseudo-Melito, like the rest of the Transitus literature, is admittedly valueless as
history, as an historical report of Mary’s death and corporeal assumption; under that aspect the
historian is justified in dismissing it with a critical distaste. But the account is priceless
nonetheless — historically and theologically. Historically, because it witnesses indisputably to the
feeling of the faithful for Mary, a growing awareness of her dignity, even though we are unable
to specify the full range of this awareness geographically or even to indicate its dawning.
Theologically, because it postulates the Assumption on grounds that are valid not simply for piety
but for scientific theology as well.

The next witness in the West is Gregory, Bishop of Tours in Gaul; the year, 590. Borrowing
in all probability not from Pseudo-Melito but from a Syriac Transitus of the fifth century, Gregory
states very artlessly:

After this, the apostles scattered through different countries to preach the word of God. Subsequently
blessed Mary finished the course of this life and was summoned from the world; and all the apostles
were gathered together, each from his own area, at her home. On hearing that she was to be taken up
(assumenda) from the world, they kept watch with her. All at once her Lord came with angels, took her
soul, delivered it to Michael the Archangel, and disappeared. At daybreak, however, the apostles lifted
up the body together with the funeral-bed, placed it in a tomb, and kept watch over it, in readiness for
the Lord’s coming. And again, all at once the Lord stood by them and ordered the holy body taken up
and carried on a cloud to paradise. There, reunited with the soul, it rejoices with His elect and enjoys
eternity’s blessings which will never end.
473

In brief, Gregory affirms in sober fashion the death and burial of Our Lady, the assumption of
her body into paradise with little delay, the reunion there of body with soul, and Mary’s unending
blessedness. He proposes no reasons for the privilege; the only inkling in that direction is the
vague reference to the holiness of her body, and a later statement that she who was assumed into
heaven was the Mother of Christ, virgin before and after His birth.
474 A formal connection,
therefore, between Assumption and virginal motherhood is not made, but the suggestion seems
to be there, especially if read in the light of similar apocryphal accounts. At any rate, Gregory’s
account influenced the development of popular belief in an anticipated resurrection of the Virgin,
though it made little impression on the theologian because of the jaundiced eye which he cast on
its apocryphal source. Jouassard is inclined to find Gregory’s influence in some of the old Gallican
Missals of the seventh and eighth centuries, e.g., the Bobbio Missal and especially the Missale
Gothicum. Moreover, a friend of Gregory, St. Fortunatus, a native of Treviso who
475 became Bishop
of Poitiers in Gaul about 595, celebrated Mary’s queenship in verse; her triumph in glory is clear;
not so her glorious Assumption in body as well as soul.
476

In the seventh century, only Isidore, Archbishop of Seville in Spain (✝ 636), breaks the silence,
but simply to attest our profound ignorance on the way Mary left this earth. “Some affirm that she
quit this life by suffering a cruel, violent death. Their reason is that Simeon … said: ‘And thy own
soul a sword shall pierce.’ As a matter of fact, we do not know whether he was speaking of a
material sword or of God’s word that is powerful and keener than any two-edged sword (Hebr.
4:12). The point is, however, that no narrative informs us that Mary was slain by the punishment
of the sword, seeing that nowhere is there an account even of her death! Some do say, though, that
her tomb is to be found in the Valley of Josaphat.”
477 Isidore echoes Ambrose: we have no evidence
that Mary died a martyr. He echoes Epiphanius too: we have no information at all about her death.
We learn from Isidore that the thesis of Mary’s martyrdom still persists; we learn, too, of the
Jerusalem tradition on her tomb — a tradition which leaves him quite unmoved. We learn nothing
about the Assumption.

A century later, the English Bede confesses his ignorance of the final disposition of Mary’s
body. He has read the account given by Adamnam, Iona’s Abbot, of the pilgrimage undertaken by
the French Bishop, Arculf, between 670 and 685.
478 He reproduces therefrom the data on the
reputed death of Mary on Mt. Sion, and the empty tomb in the Valley of Josaphat, “in which holy
Mary is said to have rested for a while; but who took her away, or when, we do not know.”
479 Bede
shows no awareness of an anticipated resurrection. He may well have heard of it; after all, he was
familiar with Pseudo-Melito. But he attacks this apocryphal work in sharp tones. Not, it is true,
on the score of the Assumption; but his general criticism could hardly have encouraged in his
readers any sort of confidence in Pseudo-Melito, even on the theological level.
480

With this patristic background it will not be surprising to find the first orators of the feast of
August 15 in the West — Paul the Deacon, for example — consistently wary of pronouncing on
Mary’s corporeal resurrection; a far cry from Pseudo-Modestus of Jerusalem, Germanus of
Constantinople, Andrew of Crete, and John of Damascus.
481 It will not be surprising to find in
Spain, at the close of the eighth century, some Asturians directly denying Mary’s Assumption —
the first to do so, as far as the evidence goes.
482 It will not be surprising to see develop in the ninth
century, beside the tradition favorable to the Assumption represented by Pseudo-Augustine,
another current of thought represented by Pseudo-Jerome and hostile, if not to the doctrine, at
least to an unequivocal affirmation of the doctrine as somehow binding.
483 For the silence of the
first three centuries has been broken in the West only by unambiguous affirmations which have
the disadvantage of being tagged as apocryphal, or by genuinely patristic affirmations which
reveal a regrettable indifference, uncertainty, or ignorance.

On the other hand, the silence is a relative thing and rather eloquent. Faller has undertaken
to show that the early reticence is perfectly understandable, seeing that several more fundamental
facets of Christian belief, such as the Trinity and Christology, had first to be confronted, before
Mariology could claim attention.
484 Cayré, too, has indicated how the initial silence with respect
to Mary is normal rather than surprising, for it goes back to her role in the early Church: “Her
vocation was not to command, but to love and to pray, two functions that call for silence. …”
485 The
silence in question, theologians insist, does not reflect an absence of life; the life, the doctrine, is
there in germ. The seed is discoverable in the patristic thesis of recapitulation, the Eve-Mary
parallelism proposed by Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Ambrose, the analogy which associates
the New Eve with the New Adam in a total triumph over Satan.
486 The seed is there in the twin
privileges of divine motherhood and deathless virginity. Insight into these mysteries would lead
to increasing reverence for the sacredness of the body which knew only God, to a realization that
this body could not fittingly know corruption.
487

These and other seeds of an Assumption doctrine are discoverable in Western patristic
thought, but it would be sheer unsupported theorizing to suppose that the patristic West
recognized the seeds for what they were. As the age of the Fathers draws to a close, the West is
on the point of confronting the problem of Mary’s destiny on theological grounds. On this score
the task of theological elaboration has not kept pace with the Eastern development. What
Jouassard has concluded of the patristic world as a whole, must surely be said of the West:

In these conditions we shall not ask patristic thought — as some theologians still do today under one
form or another — to transmit to us, with respect to the Assumption, a truth received as such in the
beginning and faithfully communicated to subsequent ages. Such an attitude would not fit the facts.
… Patristic thought has not, in this instance, played the role of a sheer instrument of transmission;
rather has it been the precious agent of a task that has enlisted the cooperation of all manner of people
— authentic theologians, and individuals too who cannot claim that title. Both have played their part
in harmony with the capacity of each; they will continue to play it in the years to come. …
488

* * *

Not a few aspects of Marian theology with seeds in the early Christian West have inevitably
been omitted from these pages. There is, for example, the complex, intriguing problem of the
relationship between Mary and the Church; here it is Justin and Irenaeus and Tertullian, Ambrose
and Augustine, who have had the initial significant insights.
489 There is the lovely concept of
Mary’s Queenship, exercised not by jurisdiction but by intercession.
490 There is the idea of Mary’s
universal Mediation, rooted in her function as Second Eve and suggested so vividly by Ambrose.
491
There is much more, but perhaps enough has been said in this study to insinuate that the treasures
of patristic Mariology are not the legitimate plaything of aprioristic speculation, nor will they
reveal themselves in their totality to unaided historical analysis. The thought of the Fathers on Our
Lady will be mined in its purity only by theologians with a feeling for philology, and by
philologists deeply rooted in theology.

Mary in Eastern Patristic Thought

By Walter J. Burghardt, S.J., S.T.D.

I. THE NEW EVE

IN A recent study of Our Lady in early Western thought, it was suggested that the primordial
patristic insight with respect to the Mother of Christ was the vision of Mary as the New Eve.
492 If
we turn to the East, the same pregnant Eve-Mary parallelism reveals three stages of development:
(a) the remote origins before Nicaea; (b) the startling enthusiasm of Ephraem; and (c) the full
flowering of the patristic vision in the homiletic literature of the fifth century.

It is possible that the remote origins of the parallelism may be traced as far back as Papias,
Bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor, at the turn of the first century.
493 Papias’ use of an Eve-Mary
analogy, however, is admittedly conjectural and its content is at best insignificant. The passage
in question occurs in a fragment of Victorinus of Pettau,
494 which Dom Chapman recognized as
“probably dependent on Papias, perhaps verbally.”
495 The pertinent text, in a section where the
seven days of creation are paralleled by seven days of redemptive activity, simply states that “the
Angel Gabriel brought the good tidings to Mary on the day whereon the dragon seduced Eve.”

If the passage derives from Papias, it may well be the inspiration for the more developed idea
of Justin Martyr in Ephesus a half century later:

[The Son of God] became man through the Virgin, that the disobedience caused by the serpent might
be destroyed in the same way in which it had originated. For Eve, while a virgin incorrupt, conceived
the word which proceeded from the serpent, and brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin
Mary was filled with faith and joy when the Angel Gabriel told her the glad tidings that the Spirit of
the Lord would come upon her … and she answered: “Be it done unto me according to thy word.” And
through her was He born … by whom God destroys both the serpent and the angels and men who have
become like the serpent, and delivers from death those who repent of their wickedness and believe in
Him.
496

Justin does little more than enunciate the parallelism. The pattern of man’s redemption
paralleled his fall: both were effected through the agency of a virgin. He leaves us to conclude that
the consequences of Mary’s co-operation with God contrasted sharply with the effects of Eve’s
seduction by Satan: Mary’s issue, inferentially, is obedience and life. The nature of Our Lady’s
redemptive role is of no concern to him; his thought is focused not on Mary but on Christ.

It is in Irenaeus, who knew and used Papias’ work and may have developed what he
discovered in Justin,
497 that we find the Eve-Mary analogy integrated for the first time with a
theology.

Just as Eve, wife of Adam yes, yet still a virgin … became by her disobedience the cause of death for
herself and the whole human race, so Mary too, espoused yet a virgin, became by her obedience the
cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race. And this is why the Law calls her who was
espoused to a man the wife of him who had espoused her, though she was still a virgin: to show the
cycle that goes back (recirculationem) from Mary to Eve. The point is, what is tied together cannot
possibly be untied save by inversion of the process whereby the bonds of union have arisen, so that
the original ties are loosed by the subsequent, and the subsequent set the original free. … And so it was
that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by Mary’s obedience. For what the virgin Eve bound
fast by her refusal to believe, this the Virgin Mary unbound by her belief.
498

In Irenaeus’ theology, Mary as the Second Eve has a distinctive function in God’s design for
man’s redemption. The co-operation of the first Eve with Satan in effecting man’s spiritual death
is matched and outstripped by Mary’s co-operation with God in effecting man’s return to life. The
co-operation in question is not a sheerly negative thing, as though the parallelism began and
ended on the level of virginity. It is not an exclusively physical thing, as though Mary’s role
opened and closed with the bare fact of divine motherhood. Her co-operation involves activity of
the moral order: she gave Gabriel and God a free consent. Her obedience was not compelled; with
eyes open and will unfettered she placed herself at God’s disposal for the accomplishment of His
designs. That consent, moreover, has a soteriological character: its term was not simply an
Incarnation, but an Incarnation recognized as redemptive.

The evidence suggests that the Eve-Mary analogy, destined to be the leitmotif of later
Byzantine Mariology, arose in Asia Minor, and that its chief center was the Christian community
in and around Ephesus. For it was in Ephesus that Justin was educated, was converted, and
debated with Tryphon; it was in Ephesus-centered circles that the young Irenaeus came in contact
with Polycarp, the most significant influence on his theology.

Strangely enough, the Second Eve idea did not play a conspicuous role in the theology of the
early Alexandrians.
499 After Irenaeus a century and a half was to elapse before Eastern Christianity
would make capital of the analogy in the Syrian Church. In 337 the Persian Aphraates, who is
theologically exciting if only because he is representative of a Christianity virtually uninfluenced
by the Council of Nicaea, reminded his flock that it was through a woman that the devil won
access to men, and continued:

It was because of her that the curse of the law was decreed; it was because of her that the promise
of death was made; for in sorrows she gives birth to children and gives them over to death. It was
because of her that the earth was cursed, to bring forth thorns and thistles. From this time forth,
however, through the coming of the blessed Mary’s child, the thorns have been uprooted, … the curse
has been fixed on a cross, the sword’s point has been removed from before the tree of life, [which] is
given as food to believers.
500

But among the Eastern writers it is Ephraem, the most significant author of the Syrian Church,
who is incomparably sensitive to the implications of the Eve-Mary analogy. As he sees it, the
parallelism is at the root of man’s dignity: man’s “lovely and lovable glory was lost through Eve,
was restored through Mary.”
501 It is the crux of immortality; for, of the two historic virgins given
to humankind, “one was cause of life, the other was cause of death. Through Eve death arose, and
life by means of Mary.”
502 Around it the problem of sin revolves; for it was reserved for Mary to pay
Eve’s debt to sin, the debt whereby her posterity was doomed to death.
503 Because Our Lady was
blessed among women, it is through her, and specifically through her virginal childbearing, that
the primordial curse against woman has been lifted.
504 She is the woman promised in paradise: “It
was the serpent who struck the heel of Eve; it was the foot of Mary that trampled the serpent
underfoot.”
505 Although Ephraem’s Mariology, bold and prolific as it was, exercised no perceptible
influence on contemporary theology,
506 the Eve-Mary motif is discoverable in fourth century
Jerusalem, Salamis, Nyssa, Iconium, and Antioch. In 348, for example, Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem,
preached the parallelism to his catechumens: “It was through the virgin Eve that death came; it
was through a virgin, or rather from a virgin, that life had to come to light — that, just as a serpent
deceived the former, so Gabriel might bring glad tidings to the latter.”
507 Thirty years later
Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, saw Mary signified in Eve: it is Our Lady who is “mother of the
living” in its more profound meaning, because in obedience to grace she gave birth to Him who
lives, to Life itself, the Lamb of whose glory, as of fleece, a garment of immortality has been
fashioned for us. “Eve had become cause (πρόϕασις) of death for men, for through her ‘death
came into the world’ (Rom. 5:12); but Mary was cause (πρόϕασις) of life: through her, life has been
born to us.”
508

In a passage which may stem from Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, Gabriel’s greeting to Mary is
found in striking contrast with God’s primitive address to Eve. The Annunciation has transformed
childbearing: “In Eve’s case, birth’s prelude was sorrow; with Mary, birth’s midwife is joy.”
509 More
impressive still is the vision which links the New Eve with the New Adam:

Through man [came] death, and through man salvation. The first man fell into sin; the second
raised up the fallen. Woman has spoken in behalf of woman. The first woman gave entrance to sin; this
woman helped justice enter in. The former followed the serpent’s counsel; the latter presented the
serpent’s destroyer and brought forth the author of light. The former introduced sin through the wood;
through the wood the latter introduced blessing instead. By the wood I mean the cross; and the fruit
of this wood becomes life ever green and imperishable for those who taste of it.
510

The same line of thought is suggested by Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, who was linked
to the three Cappadocians by personal and theological ties: “The world has been set free through
a virgin — the world that of old fell subject to sin through that other virgin. It is through a virginal
birth that so many and such horrible herds of demons have been hurled into hell.”
511 And, in a
passage designed to demonstrate that the instruments of our condemnation have become the
instruments of our glory, Chrysostom remarked pithily from Antioch: “A virgin cast us from
paradise; through a virgin we have found life eternal.”
512

It is justifiable to conclude that in the fourth century the concept of Our Lady as the
counterpart of Eve had been incorporated into the soteriology of the Syrian Church and had
become a commonplace in the theology of the Greek-speaking world.

It was the fifth century, however, that witnessed the proliferation of the Eve-Mary parallelism
in the Greek Church. Here the significant documents are homilies, particularly on the
Annunciation, the Incarnation, and the divine motherhood. The primary influences on these
homilies are the primitive Marian feast and the Nestorian controversy. And in the homilies
impressive segments of the Greek Church make their voices heard: Egypt through Cyril of
Alexandria, Thrace through Proclus of Constantinople, Galatia through Theodotus of Ancyra,
Arabia through Antipater of Bostra, and Palestine through Hesychius and Chrysippus of
Jerusalem.
513

Cyril of Alexandria remarks that the Son of God was born of a woman to destroy the curse
leveled at the first woman: “in sorrow shalt thou bear children.” In consequence of the fact that
Mary gave birth to Emmanuel in flesh, to Him who is Life, the power of the curse was destroyed:
“woman no longer gives birth unto death, no longer in sorrow.”
514 Proclus, who became second
successor to Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople, and with his celebrated Marian sermon of
429 was one of the first to oppose Nestorius’ errors, concentrates rather on the theme of sin and
salvation, disobedience and obedience. In His birth Christ “made gate of salvation her who of old
was door of sin.”
515 Theodotus of Ancyra in Asia Minor, closely linked to Cyril by his anti-Nestorian
activity, and to Proclus by his Mariology, compares “the virgin of old” with “the second virgin.”
516
And in his Homily 6, which ranks with the better productions of Greek homiletics, he speaks
beautifully of the Eve-Mary parallelism in terms of death and life, sorrow and joy, condemnation
and redemption:

In place of the virgin Eve, who had ministered to death, a virgin was graced by God and chosen
to minister life. … This woman, worthy of her Creator, divine providence has given us as procurer of
blessings, not provoking to disobedience but showing the way to obedience … not holding out death-bringing fruit but offering life-giving bread. … It is not [Gabriel says] conception in iniquities or
conception in sins that I shall announce to you; it is rather joy that I shall expound to you, joy that
softens the sorrow which stems from Eve. It is not a painful pregnancy or a mournful birth that I
announce; it is rather a consoling, gladdening birth that I foretell. … I proclaim the rising of the light
that illumines the world. For through you the horrid sorrows of Eve have ceased; through you the
shabby and the paltry have perished; through you error is vanished; through you sorrow is set at
nought; through you the condemnation is cancelled. Eve has been redeemed through you.
517

Antipater, Metropolitan of Bostra in Arabia, continues the tradition when he reflects that
Gabriel’s greeting to Mary, “Hail, full of grace,” is the counterpart of God’s declaration to Eve, “In
sorrow shalt thou bear children.” Eve’s sorrow in childbearing is destroyed by Mary’s joy.
518 More
importantly, God’s object in the Incarnation was “that he who in the beginning was overthrown
through Eve might himself be saved through the conception of the Virgin.”
519 Hesychius, a priest
of Jerusalem in the first half of the fifth century, likewise insists that the “second virgin” drove
away at the Annunciation the oppressive sorrow which surrounded childbearing in consequence
of the sentence passed on the “first virgin.”
520 Mary is “our nature’s noble ornament, the boast of
our clay, who set Eve free from her shame, Adam from the threat, and cut off the devil’s boldness.
…”
521 From Jerusalem too, Chrysippus, a rather remarkable writer, pictures the devil faced with the
realization that through a woman we have been called to the adoptive sonship that was
primitively ours:

How can it be [Satan asks himself] that the vessel which was originally my accomplice is now my
adversary? A woman helped make me despot of the human race, and a woman deposed me from my
despotic rule. The ancient Eve raised me up; the new Eve cast me down. For the current Eve is indeed
Eve by nature, though not Eve in engendering. … As is fitting … through her have I been taken captive
through whom I took captives; through her have I been conquered through whom I conquered. … Of
all these [miracles performed by Christ, the cross, resurrection of Christ and of the dead] who is the
cause (αἰτία)? Who else save her who gave birth to Him who performed these wonders? It were better
for me, after all, had I not deceived her through the serpent.
522

The insights of Irenaeus, Ephraem, and the fifth-century homilists will be continued, without
being significandy furthered, in the period of patristic decline: in Anastasius I, Patriarch of Antioch
in the latter half of the sixth century;
523 in three Greek homilies on the Annunciation falsely
ascribed to Gregory the Wonder-Worker;
524 in a seventh-century homiletic masterpiece on the
Mother of God that has traveled illegally under the protection of Epiphanius;
525 in the anti-Monothelite Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius;
526 and, at the setting of the patristic age, in a
passage of John Damascene which supplies a splendid epitome of the past:

Dear daughter worthy of God, human nature’s beauty, our first mother Eve’s reparation! For by
your childbearing she who had fallen has been lifted up again. Dear daughter most consecrate, splendor
of women! For though the first Eve offended and, through her, death entered in as she served the
serpent against our first father, Mary for her part, in total subjection to God’s will, herself deceived the
deceiver serpent and brought immortality to the world.
527

For the historian of dogma the problem and the pertinence of all this evidence is the
theological significance which the Fathers themselves attached to the Eve-Mary parallelism. On
this score I submit, first, that the Christian writers of the patristic age in the East found in the
analogy fresh insights primarily, if not exclusively, into the role played by Our Lady in the
redemptive activity of her Son. The contrasts are constantly disobedience and obedience, sorrow
and joy, woman cursed and woman blessed, a despot devil and a captive devil, darkness and light,
sin and salvation, fall and restoration, condemnation and redemption, death and life, paradise lost
and paradise regained.

Second, Our Lady is, in some genuine sense, responsible for the redemptive effects achieved
by her Son; she co-operated in the objective Redemption. In the tradition of the patristic East the
Second Eve is “cause of salvation,”
528 “gate of salvation”;
529 she paid Eve’s debt to sin,
530 “helped
justice enter in.”
531 She is “cause of life”;
532 she “brought immortality to the world.”
533 Through her
“Eve has been redeemed”;
534 through her “the world has been set free.”
535 She has deposed the devil
from his despotic rule;
536 she trampled Satan underfoot;
537 through her the “demons have been
hurled into hell.”
538

Third, the redemptive co-operation of the New Eve, when clarified or explicated by the Fathers
themselves, is regularly reduced to the divine motherhood, to the fact that Mary gave birth to the
Redeemer, that she lent consent, open-eyed and free, to an Incarnation integral to salvation.
539
Ephraem, for example, time and again assigns to Our Lady a certain causality in the task of
Redemption: through her has been paid the debt signed and sealed by the serpent against all
generations. How? Because of the treasure to which she has given birth; because in her the Light
has arisen that scatters the darkness.
540 For Epiphanius, Our Lady is cause of life in the sense that
she gave birth to Him who is Life and gives life.
541 In Amphilochius’ eyes, Mary peoples hell with
demons — through the Virgin Birth.
542 Cyril of Alexandria, Theodotus, Ps.-Gregory the Wonder-Worker, and others find pregnancy’s sorrow transmuted into joy precisely because Mary gave
birth to Emmanuel in flesh, to Life Incarnate.
543 Chrysippus stresses Mary’s contrast to Eve “in
engendering.”
544 To Ps.-Epiphanius, it is at the Nativity that angels extol Our Lady for raising up
fallen Eve and opening barred paradise.
545 The vision of the Fathers is epitomized by Sophronius:
“through you your ancestors are saved; for you are to give birth to the Savior, who effects divine
salvation for them.”
546

Fourth, this is not to imply that indications of a more proximate co-operation of Our Lady in
the objective Redemption are utterly absent from Eastern patristic thought. Hesychius, for
example, preaches that at the presentation of Christ in the Temple Mary made her offering “not
for herself but for the whole race.”
547 Gregory of Nyssa (?) remarks that the New Eve introduced
blessing to men in place of sin through the vivifying wood of the cross.
548 Cyril of Alexandria tells
the Fathers of Ephesus that it is Mary through whom “the tempter-devil fell from heaven, the
fallen creature is taken up into heaven, all creation … has come to the knowledge of the truth, holy
baptism has come to believers. …”
549 Proclus calls her “God’s only bridge to men.”
550 For Anastasius
I, she is “the ladder hung to heaven, the gate of paradise, the entrance to immortality, the union
and link of men with God.”
551 But it must be emphasized that genuine expressions of an immediate
co-operation in the Redemption are relatively few; their underlying import is never clarified by
the writers themselves; and the effort to interpret them in harmony with the contemporary
doctrine of Coredemption runs frequently afoul of obstacles like the strange patristic vision of
Mary’s mentality beneath the cross.
552 The principle of redemptive co-operation as understood
today may well be unassailable; but to find more than a germ of it, more than a basis for it, in the
patristic East is to do violence to the evidence.
553

II. PERPETUAL VIRGINITY

If the Eve-Mary parallelism furnished the Fathers with an initial penetration into the
redemptive significance of Our Lady, Mary’s virginity provided the patristic age with its first
vexing problem in her regard. Historically, the investigation of her virginity has focused on three
phases of Our Lady’s life: the years before Bethlehem, the moment of childbearing in the cave, and
the period subsequent to the birth of Jesus.

The crux of the first phase may be epitomized in two questions: Was Mary a virgin physically
at the hour of the Annunciation? Was the conception of Christ a virginal conception, effected
independently of intercourse with man? On neither count did Eastern Christianity hesitate; the
scriptural evidence was all too clear. That is why the virginity of Mary and the virginal conception
of Jesus are categorically affirmed as early as Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 110) in language which
recalls the primitive kerygma and in accents which suggest that proof would be superfluous.
554 Not
many years later, in the earliest extant Christian apology (ca. 125), the philosopher Aristides of
Athens informs the Emperor Hadrian that Jesus’ birth of a virgin, without human seed, is part and
parcel of a Christian’s creed, confessed in the same breath with the divinity of Christ, His
redemptive crucifixion, and His resurrection.
555 In similar fashion, Justin’s exegesis a quarter
century later, to the effect that Isa. 7:14 means that “the virgin shall conceive without
intercourse,”
556 is echoed by Irenaeus (ca. 177),
557 who insists moreover that “the birth from a virgin”
is a belief which, like the belief in God the Creator, in the Word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit, in
the passion, resurrection, and ascension, the universal Church “has received from the apostles and
their disciples.”
558

There are discordant notes. We know that the pagan philosopher Celsus (ca. 178) peddled in
the East a story, supposedly of Jewish inspiration, that Mary was convicted of adultery with a
soldier named Panthera, was turned out in hatred by her carpenter husband, wandered about in
disgrace, and gave birth to Jesus in secret.
559 What we do not know at firsthand is the reaction of
the second-century Christian; but Origen’s retort to Celsus sixty years later may well sum it up:
this sort of thing is “street-corner abuse.”
560

In contrast, a genuine problem begins to take shape with the question: Did Our Lady remain
a virgin while giving birth to Jesus? On this score the historical tradition is less clear and slower
to solidify.
561 To recapture the Eastern belief before Nicaea we have at our disposal several
imaginative apocrypha and a handful of perplexing patristic testimonies.

The apocryphal witnesses are primarily three.
562 In the Ascension of Isaias, a fusion piece whose
Jewish and Christian components were united about the year 150, the Christian section testifies
that Mary has conceived her Child as a virgin, has borne Him through a period of gestation as a
virgin, and has given Him birth as a virgin: “her womb was found as formerly before she had
conceived.”
563 With respect to this evidence it may be said that (a) the section in which it appears
can be persuasively dated in the last decade of the first century;
564 (b) there is no apodictic
justification for the widespread assumption that the author of the pertinent passage inclined to
Docetism;
565 (c) whether orthodox or Docetic, he affirms unequivocally Mary’s virginity in
childbearing.

Equally unmistakable are tbe Odes of Solomon, a remarkable example of ancient Christian
hymnody which may date back to 120 or earlier.
566 Ode 19 represents the Holy Spirit as opening the
Father’s bosom and mingling the milk of the Father in a cup which is the Son; then the odist
continues:

The womb of the Virgin took (it)

and she received conception and brought forth:

And the Virgin became a mother with great mercy;

And she travailed and brought forth a son without incurring pain;

And it did not happen without purpose;

And she had not required a midwife,

For He delivered her,

And she brought forth, as a man, of her own will. …
567

More significantly still, the Protoevangelium of James, composed between 150 and 180 by a
Judeo-Christian living somewhere outside Palestine, perhaps in Egypt,
568 has for its idée capitale
the thesis that Mary, virgin in conceiving Christ, did not forfeit virginity in giving Him birth. The
proof offered is visual and tactual: a midwife present at the Nativity, and a woman named Salome
who “made trial” of Mary’s virginity soon after Jesus’ birth.
569 This graphic argument from sight
and touch is relevant here, not for any factual information on the first Christmas, but because (a)
it suggests that at the mid-point of the second century Mary’s virginity in childbearing constituted
an area of disagreement, if not among orthodox Christians, then between certain orthodox and
certain Gnostics; (b) it is not likely that Ps.-James the Less was the first to defend Our Lady’s
virginity with so indelicate a weapon; and (c) this Infancy narrative exercised an influence difficult
to exaggerate.
570

If nothing else, the evidence of the apocrypha reveals a strong current of popular opinion in
the second-century East, among apparently orthodox Christians, to the effect that Our Lady did
not cease to be a virgin in giving birth to Our Lord, and that this aspect of her virginity was a
sheerly physical thing, consisting precisely in the preservation unimpaired of her generative
structure.
571

The theologians of the pre-Nicene period are not as dogmatic, not as unequivocal, not as much
in evidence. Three merit mention: Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. With respect to
Irenaeus, it can still be convincingly argued, despite the research and reasoning of H. Koch, that
there is no passage from his pen — including the adhuc virgo texts — which clearly contradicts the
virginity of Mary in Bethlehem.
572 On the other hand, there is an inescapable allusion to this
prerogative in his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, written about 190. Irenaeus takes Isa.
66:7, where the prophet foretells a remarkable repopulation of Jerusalem through Mother Sion, and
interprets it as spoken of the Virgin Mary who gave birth to a man child in unique fashion,
without birth pangs. “Also, concerning His birth, the same prophet [Isaias] says in another place:
‘Before she who was in labour brought forth, and before the pains of labour came, there came
forth delivered a man child’; he proclaimed His unlooked-for and extraordinary birth of the
Virgin.”
573 If his language is not limpid and his mind not manifest, it may simply be that Irenaeus
never found occasion to confront this rather nuanced, delicate theological theme.

Clement is jejune but instructive. We are informed that toward the close of the second century
the virginity of Mary in Bethlehem was matter of dispute in Egypt, denied by an impressive
number, if not a majority, of Christians: “many (τοις πολλοις: most?) even down to our own day
think that Mary is a woman who was in labor owing to the birth of her Son.” Clement himself does
not agree: “actually she was not in labor.” The sole obvious source of his opinion is the apocryphal
tradition we have already met in the Protoevangelium of James: “for some say that, after she bore
her Child, a midwife examined her and found her a virgin.” However, he does glimpse in this
prerogative an analogy with the Scriptures: “they give birth to the truth and continue virgin.”
574

For Origen’s thought, a passage from Homily 14 on Luke, composed perhaps in 233 or 234,
575 is
indispensable:

Male children, which were holy because they had opened their mother’s womb, were offered before
the altar of the Lord: “every male child that opens the womb,” it says (Ex. 34:23), signifies something
sacred. In point of fact, whatever male you may mention as having come forth from the womb, he does
not open the womb of his mother in the way the Lord Jesus did, seeing that it is not childbirth but
intercourse that unlocks the womb of all women. But the womb of the Lord’s mother was unlocked at
the time of her childbearing; for before the birth of Christ no male touched in the slightest that holy
womb, worthy of all esteem and veneration.
576

Two pertinent beliefs of Origen emerge from the text. Before the birth of Jesus, Mary was a
virgin; in giving birth to Jesus, Mary did not preserve her physical integrity. If we are not to
misconstrue the latter thesis, which may be due to the direct influence of Tertullian
577 and certainly
stems from a paradoxically slavish interpretation of Scripture,
578 a passage from the Commentary
on Matthew, composed probably in 246,
579 cannot be overlooked:

A certain tradition has come to us to this effect. There is a place in the Temple where virgins
may pause and pray (adore?) God; but those who had experienced intercourse were not allowed
to stand there. Now Mary, after giving birth to the Saviour, went in to adore and stood in that
place for virgins. Those who knew that she had borne a son tried to keep her away, but Zachary
… said to them: “She is worthy of the place for virgins; for she is still a virgin.”
580

Two conclusions seem justified by the text. First, the passage does not constitute an implicit
retractation of Origen’s earlier statement that Our Lady forfeited physical integrity in Bethlehem.
In the text, “virgins” are opposed to those who have “experienced intercourse.” Mary has not
experienced intercourse, and therefore is “still a virgin.” Second, the passage strongly suggests
that, for Origen, loss of physical integrity in childbearing is not incompatible with perfect,
perpetual virginity. This suggestion finds a twofold confirmation. In the Homilies on Luke Origen
calls Mary virgin even though he is speaking of her after childbearing;
581 and in the Commentary
on Matthew he refers to her as the first-fruits of virginity with respect to women, as Jesus was in
regard of men.
582 In a word, Origen apparently understands physical virginity only in terms of
marital intercourse. In giving birth to Jesus, Our Lady surrendered her bodily integrity; she did not
relinquish her virginity. In Bethlehem virginity was not an issue.
583

From the evidence available, therefore, it would seem that at the end of the second century and
during the first half of the third century, the Christians of Egypt, of Palestine, and perhaps of Asia
Minor generally, were not conscious of an obligation to represent Our Lady as virgin in her act
of childbearing.
584

Such is the state of the evidence before Nicaea. Strangely enough, the testimony of the century
that follows is not strikingly more extensive. It is difficult to decide, for example, whether a
genuinely virginal childbearing was admitted, denied, ignored, or overlooked by such impressive
churchmen and influential writers as Athanasius of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Epiphanius
of Salamis.
585

The contributions of the three Cappadocians on this issue are startlingly unequal. Gregory of
Nazianzus does no more than suggest virginity in Bethlehem.
586 Basil the Great is somewhat more
satisfying but hardly perlucid. Insisting that Mary never ceased to be a virgin, he stresses the fact
that “the selfsame woman is virgin and mother: she abides in the holiness that is virginity, and she
is blessed with the birth of a child.”
587 It is with Gregory of Nyssa that a genuine clarity begins to
emerge. Not that Gregory is consistently unambiguous; he is not.
588 But, like Irenaeus, he applies
Isa. 66:7 to Our Lady: as no sensual pleasure was prelude to parturition, so no labor was its
consequence.
589 Like the bramble (Ex. 3:2) aflame but not consumed, Mary brings the Light to birth
and is not corrupted;
590 for the Light “kept the kindled bush incorrupt; the sprout of her virginity
was not withered by her childbearing.”
591 More pithily still, “her pregnancy was without coition,
her childbed undefiled, her travail free from pain. … His birth alone was without labor, just as His
formation was without union.” It is a misuse of language, he remarks, to speak of labor with
respect to her who was unwed and incorrupt, because virginity and labor are irreconcilable in the
same person. The Eve-Mary analogy demands “that the mother of Life begin pregnancy with joy
and finish childbearing through joy.”
592 In sum, the Bishop of Nyssa attaches the concept of
virginity not simply to coition but to parturition as well; and he affirms flatly that Mary’s virginity
was not affected by her parturition.

In this matter a genuine importance attaches to Amphilochius of Iconium, disciple of the
Cappadocians. Much that he has to say on Our Lady’s virginity is vexingly vague;
593 but his merit
is that he has faced up to Lc. 2:23 (based on Ex. 13:2), stumbling block for many an early exegete:
“whatever male offspring opens the womb is to be reckoned sacred to the Lord.” Amphilochius
makes three points, records an objection, and answers it. His first point: it is to Our Lord alone
that Scripture here refers; only He is, as Gabriel put it (Lc. 1:35), the Holy One, “sacred to the
Lord.” His second point: it is regularly by intercourse that a woman’s womb is first opened. His
third point: this did not happen in the case of Our Lady; the Saviour opened her womb without
intercourse. There is an obvious objection. If the biblical text refers to Our Lord, then “the Virgin
did not remain a virgin”; Mary’s womb was opened. The answer is a distinction. If we focus on
Mary and her virginity, “the virginal gates were not opened at all”; for this is Ezechiel’s “gate of
the Lord,” where He goes in and out, and still the gate is closed (cf. Ez. 44:2). If we focus on the
Incarnate Lord and His power, “nothing has ever been closed to Him; all things are open to
Him.”
594 In a word, “He opened the Virgin’s womb without intercourse; He came forth in a fashion
inexpressible.”
595 Amphilochius’ language has not crystallized, but his basic idea is sufficiently
clear: in parturition as in conception, Our Lady’s virginity was maintained inviolate.

The sermon, On the Birthday of Christ, which seems to stem from Chrysostom, is unequivocal.
Mary gave birth “without experiencing corruption.” After her childbearing, “pure and holy” as it
was, she is virgin still, a “supernatural” thing. The Son’s inexpressible birth of a virgin parallels
His unutterable generation from the Father. In being born of her, God “preserves her womb
unchanged, and maintains her virginity unharmed”; “the seal of her virginity” is “unblemished.”
596

In Ephraem’s Hymns on Blessed Mary, Our Lady’s virginity in childbearing is a constantly
recurring theme. She gives birth without pain; her body abides intact; she gives of her milk
without loss of virginity; she is the “closed gate” of Ezechiel; the seals of her virginity are as
inviolate as the seals of Christ’s sepulcher, inviolate even in death.
597 It is true that in the
Commentary on the Diatessaron Ephraem seems unwittingly ensnared by Ex. 13:2 and Lc. 2:23:
“By His birth He opened the closed womb; by His resurrection He opened the enclosed … tomb.”
598
But this bald statement, so pregnant with implications, finds its necessary complement in another
passage of the same work: “just as [the Lord] made His entrance when the doors were closed, in
the same way did He come forth from the Virgin’s womb, because this virgin really and truly gave
birth without pain.”
599 Unlike Amphilochius, Ephraem makes no effort to reconcile the two ideas.
It is legitimate to conclude, however, that in his eyes the Incarnate God could somehow “open the
womb” of Mary without violating her virginity; for, when she gave birth to Him, “her virginity
remained safe and sound.”
600

It is with the Council of Ephesus (431), and probably in consequence of the Council, that the
last lingering doubts on Our Lady’s virginity in parturition disappear from orthodox circles.
Around the beginning of the Nestorian controversy (428) Nilus of Ancyra bears witness to the
existence of a belief, even in high places, that Mary’s virginity was not perfect and perpetual, and
responds in part: “In His birth Our Lord Christ opened the undefiled womb; after His birth He
sealed the womb by His own wisdom, power, and wondrous activity. He did not break the seals
of her virginity at all.”
601 But during the Council itself there is no evidence of uncertainty.
602 In fact,
before the Council convened, Theodoret of Cyrus, destined to be one of the leaders of the Oriental,
anti-Cyrillan faction, had pronounced clearly and unmistakably in favor of the privilege.
603 The
belief of the theological era that dawned with Ephesus, so evident in celebrated preachers like
Hesychius of Jerusalem
604 and Proclus of Constantinople,
605 is epitomized in Cyril of Alexandria,
for whom Exodus’ burning bush, kindled but not consumed, prefigures Our Lady, who “gives birth
to the Light and is not corrupted.”
606 In Cyril’s expressive word, Mary is “Virgin-Mother.”
607

A third phase of Our Lady’s virginity concerns her life after Bethlehem. Did Mary have
conjugal relations after the birth of Jesus? To point up the problem: Did Mary have any children
besides Jesus? It is the age-old problem of “the brethren of the Lord.”
608 What relationship to Christ
did early Christianity see in these “brothers and sisters”? Were they perhaps children which
Joseph had by Mary after her “first-born” Son? Or were they offspring of Joseph by a previous
marriage? Or is the kinship a more distant thing?

If the extant evidence is typical, the Christian East was as slow as the West to face the
problem.
609 The silence is broken in the third quarter of the second century by the apocryphal
Protoevangelium of James: Joseph is a widower, with children by his former wife, and too
advanced in years to have conjugal relations.
610 The Protoevangelium solution to the problem of
“the Lord’s brethren” found an incredibly warm welcome; in fact, it became the classical
explanation in the East.
611 It is discoverable, for example, in a fragment from Clement of
Alexandria: the Jude who wrote the Catholic Epistle was “a brother of Joseph’s children,” and so
“the brother of James.”
612 It came to the knowledge of Origen; but Origen’s thinking on Mary’s
perpetual virginity is not enfeoffed to apocrypha.

On the essential fact Origen’s position is clear: “no one whose mind on Mary is sound would
claim that she had any child save Jesus.”
613 More than that, the allegation of a heretic that Mary
was wed to Joseph after the birth of Jesus (and for that reason was repudiated by her Son) does
not rest on evidence: “for the so-called sons of Joseph were not born of Mary, and there is no
mention of it in Scripture.”
614 Who, then, were these “brethren” of Christ? … some say that the
brethren of Jesus are children [sons?] of Joseph by a former wife, who had lived with him before
Mary. They are motivated by a tradition of the so-called Gospel according to Peter, or the Book
of James. Now those who say this wish to preserve the dignity of Mary in virginity to the end, that
the body chosen to minister to the Word … might not know intercourse after the Holy Spirit had
come upon her and the power from on high had overshadowed her. And I think it reasonable that
Jesus was, in regard of men, the first-fruits of the purity that resides in chastity, and Mary in
regard of women; for piety forbids us to ascribe to someone else besides her the first-fruits of
virginity.
615

Origen was convinced, therefore, with at least a segment of the Christian people, that Our
Lady preserved her virginity from the birth of Jesus to the end. He found this belief so utterly
congenial to the Christian sense that he censured its denial not as heretical but as senseless. The
dominant influence motivating his conviction was not his ascetical ideas and ideals (which were
rather rigorous in the matter of marriage), much as these may have played the role of contributory
factors;
616 not apocryphal literature like the Protoevangelium of James, much as this may have
provided a plausible exegesis of the “brethren”;
617 not even the silence of Scripture on a wedding
of Joseph and Mary after Bethlehem. The basic inspiration for the conviction of Origen and many
contemporary Christians that Mary remained a virgin to the end was theological: a deep-rooted
persuasion that by the Incarnation the body of Our Lady had been irrevocably consecrated to the
Holy Spirit and to the Word.

Such is the evidence before Nicaea. It is confessedly scanty, but it touches Egypt, Palestine, and
Asia Minor generally. If the authors in question show themselves consistently favorable to the
thesis of Mary’s abiding virginity, the philological data at hand do not reveal that the Christian
East in 325 was conscious of a peremptory obligation to represent Our Lady as virgin save for the
years before Bethlehem.
618

The precise state of the question between Nicaea and Ephesus is hardly easier to reconstruct.
Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, simply asserts that the Lord’s “brethren” were not
children of Mary.
619 The Catechetical Lectures of Cyril cast no light on the belief of Jerusalem.
620
Athanasius in Alexandria is astonishingly noncommittal, to judge from the works which have
survived in Greek; but the little treatise, On Virginity, transmitted in Coptic, attests the existence
in Egypt of individuals who claimed that Our Lady had other children besides Jesus, and reveals
Athanasius as defender of Mary’s virginity after Bethlehem, though it gives no inkling that a point
of faith was felt to be involved.
621

More importantly, a discourse of the famous Arian, Eunomius of Cyzicus, in which he declared
that Joseph and Mary had marital relations after the birth of Jesus, provoked a reply from an
orthodox theologian who is almost certainly Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia.
622
Basil rejects the thesis of Eunomius, but it is his reasoning that is significant. He confesses that
Christian doctrine, faith, is not at stake: virginity was necessary for the Incarnation alone. Why,
then, the retort to Eunomius? Because “lovers of Christ refuse to lend ear to the idea that the
Mother of God ever ceased to be a virgin.”
623 In the second half of the fourth century, therefore,
in part of the Greek world the perpetual virginity of Mary was regarded by orthodox believers as
not part and parcel of Christian dogma.

This attitude is quite compatible with the convictions of Ephraem and Chrysostom. Ephraem
knows of “some who dare to say that Mary was Joseph’s wife after the Saviour’s birth.” His
answer reminds us of Origen: “How could this be, that she who was the home where the Spirit
dwelt, she whom God’s power overshadowed, should become wife of mortal man? … As she
conceived in purity, so did she abide in sanctity.”
624 About 390 Chrysostom preaches in Antioch
that Mary remained virgin her whole life long — though he presents her virginity after Bethlehem,
unlike the virginal conception, rather as a deduction from Scripture than a truth taught explicitly
therein.
625

Before Chrysostom, however, a current of thought is discernible which is utterly
uncompromising, a movement more dogmatic in tone. In 374 Epiphanius records the belief of the
Antidicomarianites that Mary had intercourse with Joseph after the birth of Jesus.
626 In 377 he
replies by reproducing a letter addressed some years before to Christians in Arabia. The letter
castigates the opinion as novelty, audacity, madness. Of all depravity it is the most ungodly. Mary
has always been known as Virgin; it is her cognomen of honor. The “brethren” of Jesus were
children of Joseph by a former marriage. Joseph was over eighty when Mary was espoused to him.
Our Lady never had carnal intercourse; “perish the thought!” Jesus was her only Child, she was
“ever virgin.”
627 More impressive however, than Epiphanius’ vehement language are two
suggestive facts: (a) in the second creed of Epiphanius Our Lady is denominated “ever virgin”;
628
and (b) the opinion of his adversaries is catalogued as a heresy. It is true, the word “heresy” was
quite imprecise at the time. In our context, however, the minimal exegesis is that Epiphanius was
denouncing the thesis of the Antidicomarianites as in some genuine sense alien to orthodoxy.

As the Nestorian controversy dawned (428), was the orthodox East universally persuaded of
Mary’s permanent virginity? The question is not impertinent if we recall that Nilus of Ancyra was
even then taking sharp issue with an individual who claimed the contrary;
629 and, though he
borrows his arguments from Epiphanius, unlike Epiphanius he does not tax his adversary with
heresy. Jouassard may well be correct in concluding that Nilus is dealing with theological laggards,
with people behind the times; for at this critical juncture of Christian history there is no evidence
of any community whose bishop subscribes to the theory that Our Lady sacrificed her virginity
after Bethlehem.
630

However that may be, one is left with the impression that the Council of Ephesus definitively
consecrated in the Oriental Churches the belief not merely in Mary’s divine maternity but in her
perpetual virginity as well.
631 It is not simply that the prerogative was preached by orthodox
churchmen of the time, such as Cyril of Alexandria,
632 Proclus of Constantinople,
633 and Theodotus
of Ancyra.
634 What is more striking still, the same belief (including virginity in parturition) was
soon to be the common, though not unanimous, conviction of the dissidents as well.
635 Little
wonder that the Greeks experienced little, if any, difficulty in accepting the third canon of the
Lateran Council in 649, and confessing (a) that the ever-virgin Mary conceived God the Word
“without seed,” (b) that she brought Him to birth “without corruption,” and (c) that after
childbearing her virginity remained “indissoluble.”
636

III. MARY’S MOTHERHOOD

A third problem in patristic Mariology is Mary’s Maternity. Strangely enough — as I have
pointed out elsewhere
637 — what was first denied to Our Lady was not the prerogative, Mother of
God, but what her contemporaries never dreamed of denying, that she was Mother of Jesus (cf.
Mk. 6:1-3). The early crisis was Docetic — the affirmation that the Saviour did not have a
genuinely human body, or at any rate simply passed through the Virgin without being fashioned
of her substance. But there was a complementary denial. Where the Gnostics introduced a
distinction between Jesus born of Mary and the Christ who descended into Jesus at baptism, they
denied implicitly that the Child of Mary was God.

The Christian reaction in the first three centuries is expressive. Not that Our Lady is
categorically denominated Mother of God; there is no indisputable evidence for any such title
before the fourth century.
638 But the orthodox East had a two-edged answer for the Gnostic
position. On the one hand, it employed expressions tantamount to an affirmation of divine
Maternity. On the other, it propounded the twin premises for its conclusion: (a) Jesus was
genuinely born of Mary; and (b) Jesus born of Mary is God.

Ignatius, as always, is unceremonious. At odds with the heretics who refused Our Lord a true
humanity, he states flatly that Jesus Christ is “David’s scion and Mary’s Son”; He “was really born
and ate and drank. …”
639 More than that, He is “sprung both from Mary and from God.”
640 If the
latter expression tempts us to conceive two individuals, one human (from Mary), the other divine
(from God), living somehow side by side in Christ, Ignatius leaves no room for any such illusion:
“The fact is, our God Jesus Christ was conceived by Mary according to God’s dispensation, ‘of the
seed of David,’ it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit.”
641 Mary conceived God. That, in brief, is the
message hurled across the second century by Aristides, for whom a Christian’s confession is that
Christ “is the Son of the most high God, that He … was born of a holy virgin … and so took
flesh”;
642 by Justin, who insists that it was God who became man by Mary;
643 by Irenaeus, whose
insight is that, if God’s birth from Mary is unreal, our Redemption is equally unreal.
644

The early Alexandrians are no less insistent. Whatever traces of Docetism may lurk in
Clement, they are not in evidence when he calls Mary “the Mother of the Lord,”
645 or when he
observes that “the Son of God … took flesh and was carried in a virgin’s womb.”
646 More
impressive still, Origen takes issue openly with the Gnostic enemy. He knows the thesis of
Valentinus that Christ was “born through Mary and not of Mary.”
647 He recognizes not simply the
bald doctrine of Marcion: Jesus did not have a human soul or an earthly body, was not born of
Mary, appeared suddenly in Judaea with imaginary flesh at the age of thirty. He has uncovered
Marcion’s motivation: “the pretext of giving greater glory to the Lord Jesus” by divesting Him of
matter.
648 He is aware that Apelles conceded genuine flesh to Christ, but from the heavens, not
from Mary.
649 His refutation is simple but unwavering: Scripture calls Christ “Son of Man”; He had
human passions, human emotions; His birth is less a scandal than His death.
650 Origen’s retort to
Marcion is in the tradition of Irenaeus: no human nature, no salvation.
651

Moreover, Origen realizes that Christ is not sheer Man: in Him humanity has been uniquely
united to divinity. Origen’s insight into the intimate nature of this union is necessarily imperfect;
but his grasp of the essential fact of the Incarnation, his understanding of its implications, is so
clear that the divine Maternity emerges unmistakably from his writings.
652 He declares that it was
not a mere man but the Son of God who was present in Mary’s womb;
653 and he comes remarkably
close to the actual expression, Mother of God, when he says: “… as soon as Mary spoke the word
which the Son of God had prompted in His Mother’s womb, [John] leaped for joy. …”
654

With the fourth century the title Theotókos is quite common and its theological basis comes
into view rather clearly. The development down to Ephesus is especially dramatic in the East, not
least because at its beginning, middle, and end the story touches, respectively, Arius, Julian the
Apostate, and Nestorius.

Of its very nature, the speculation of Arius on the Word could not but have repercussions on
Mariology; for, if the Logos is not God, then Mary is hardly the Mother of God. Did Arius draw
the conclusion? There exists no positive proof that he did. But, as Jouassard has pointed out, it is
significant that even before the Council of Nicaea, in one of the first documents relative to the
controversy — the circular letter by which Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, announced to his
colleagues the deposition of Arius (ca. 319) — Alexander gives Mary the title Theotókos.
655 But even
then the word flows from his pen so naturally, his use of it is so nonchalant, that it leaves an
impression of everyday usage, long established and uncontroverted.

However that may be, much of the Christian East soon echoes with it. In Alexandria,
Alexander’s disciple and successor, Athanasius, uses the term a number of times,
656 and, in
insisting that “the Saviour … was always God,” he indicates inchoatively the theological principle
which legitimates the title.
657 In Caesarea of Palestine, the historian Eusebius takes the term for
granted when he records that Helena honored the childbearing of “the Mother of God” by
decorating Bethlehem’s cave in every possible way.
658 Cyril of Jerusalem preaches “the Virgin
Mother of God” to his catechumens,
659 and declares that it is the Son of God Himself who was born
of the Virgin Mary.
660 Basil the Great uses the expression once, in the Christmas homily which
assures his flock that “lovers of Christ refuse to lend ear to the idea that the Theotókos ever ceased
to be a virgin”;
661 his younger brother, Gregory of Nyssa, employs it five times.
662 The term occurs
in Epiphanius of Salamis
663 and in Didymus of Alexandria.
664 So welcome is the word that Gregory
of Nazianzus not merely makes casual use of it against Eunomius
665 but finds in it a tessera of
orthodoxy and can hurl anathema at Apollinaris:

If anyone does not admit that holy Mary is Theotókos, he is separated from the divinity. If anyone
should say that [Christ] passed through the Virgin as through a channel, but was not fashioned in her
divinely and humanly — divinely because without the help of man, humanly because by the law of
conception — he too is godless. If anyone should say that the man was fashioned and then God stole
in, he is condemned; for this is not a generation of God but an escape from generation. If anyone
introduces two sons, one from God the Father, the other from the mother, but not one and the same,
let him fall from the adoption promised to orthodox believers.
666

It is the theologian who speaks through Gregory. But while the theologian wielded the word
as a weapon, the layman whispered it in accents of love; for from the same fourth century comes
a precious papyrus leaf, from which we can reconstruct the original Greek of our lovely prayer,
“We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God” — and the word that stands out clearly is
Theotóke,
667 Little wonder that, in this atmosphere where theology and piety are one, we hear
Julian the Apostate’s cry of frustration: “You Christians never stop calling Mary Mother of God
(Theotókos).”
668 It is an intriguing fact that, while Theotókos was used without scruple by the
Alexandrians and by the Cappadocians who were theologically kin to them, the word is
conspicuously absent from Antiochene literature.
669 Not that the word was unfamiliar to fourth-century Antiochenes; they did, however, shy away from it. Two reasons may be suggested. First,
Arian misuse of the term may have engendered reservations with respect to its propriety, and a
consequent disinclination to employ it.
670 Second, if it be true that fifth-century Nestorianism had
its historical and logical roots in fourth-century Antioch, then we may surmise that a word with
the implications of Theotókos sat as uncomfortably in the Christology of a Diodore as it was later
to do in the theology of Theodore, Theodoret, and Nestorius.
671

Much of the Nestorian controversy is clouded in uncertainty. We do know that, from 428 on,
a rising reluctance to call Mary Theotókos provoked violent reactions. We know that, when
Nestorius of Constantinople gave his blessing to a bishop who preached, “If anyone says that holy
Mary is Theotókos, let him be anathema,” Cyril of Alexandria retorted, “If anyone does not confess
that … the holy Virgin is Theotókos … let him be anathema.”
672 We know that, when the Council
of Ephesus convened in 431, Cyril wrote of that first session to his flock in Alexandria:

Know, then, that on the [22nd of June] the holy Synod met at Ephesus in the great church … of Mary,
Mother of God. We spent the whole day there, and finally … we deposed … Nestorius and removed him
from the episcopal office. Now there were about 200 (more or less) of us bishops gathered together.
And the whole populace of [Ephesus] was waiting tensely, waiting from dawn to dusk for the decision
of the holy Synod. When they heard that the unfortunate fellow had been deposed, with one voice all
started to shout in praise of the holy Synod, with one voice all began to glorify God, because the enemy
of the faith had fallen. When we left the church, they escorted us to our lodging with torches; for it was
evening. Gladness was in the air; lamps dotted the city; even women went before us with censers and
led the way.
673

That is the fact of Ephesus, and on the surface it is simple enough. A bishop had questioned
Mary’s most precious prerogative, and his brother bishops had banned him from their fellowship.
But that is not quite the significance of Ephesus. Nestorius’ concept of Mary stemmed from his
concept of Christ. Similarly, what Ephesus determined with respect to Mary’s Motherhood was
rooted in what Ephesus believed with respect to Christ’s Sonship. That is why Nestorius, for all
his reluctance, could say to Cyril in all honesty: “It is not on the ground of a [mere] name that I
part from you; it is on the essence of God the Word and on the essence of the Man.”
674 What was
at stake was the Incarnation itself. In what sense can we say with St. John, “the Word was made
flesh”?

The solution of Nestorius is shrouded in obscurity. How he conceived that incredible union
of God and human nature in the womb of a virgin is not at all clear; somehow God dwelt in flesh
as in a temple. What is clear is the set of conclusions he drew therefrom. “Does God have a
mother? [He does not.]” “I say it is the flesh that was born of the Virgin Mary, not God the Word.
…” “It is not right to say that God is two or three months old.” “A born God, a dead God, a buried
God I cannot adore.”
675

The answer of Ephesus was unequivocal. It canonized the letter to Nestorius in which Cyril
declared:

We must not … sever into two sons the one Lord Jesus Christ. Such severance will be no help at all to
the correct expression of the faith, even if one allege unity of persons. Scripture, you see, has not said
that the Word united to Himself the person of a man, but that He has been made flesh. Now the Word’s
being made flesh is nothing else than that He partook of flesh and blood in like manner with us, and
made our body His own, and proceeded Man of a woman, without having cast away His divinity. …
This is what the expression of the exact faith everywhere preaches; this is the mind we shall find in
the holy Fathers. In this sense they did not hesitate to call the holy Virgin God’s Mother (Theotókos)
— not as though the nature of the Word or His divinity took beginning of being from the holy Virgin,
but that of her was begotten the holy body animated with a rational soul; to this body the Word was
united personally, and so He is said to have been born according to the flesh.
676

Briefly, then, Mary is Mother of God. She is Mother, because the flesh which God took, He took
from her flesh; and because Mary gave to her Son everything any mother gives to her child in its
fashioning. She was pregnant with Christ. And she is Mother of God, simply because the human
being who came forth from her womb was and is God.

It is understandable, then, why Ephesus was so exercised over a single word, Theotókos. True,
in the minds of some reputable historians Ephesus is synonymous with imprudence, intrigue,
ecclesiastical politics. But, to its credit, Ephesus recognized that the denial or even the
abandonment of Theotókos was equivalent to a disavowal of Nicaea. Not that the Council of Nicaea
had called Mary “Mother of God”; but that, unless Mary is God’s Mother, the Christian cannot
confess, with the Fathers of Nicaea, “I believe in … Jesus Christ, God’s Son … who for us men and
for our salvation came down, was made flesh, became Man. …”
677

Call Ephesus, if you will, a war of words; there is no need to blush. A word is the incarnation
of an idea. A century before, in the Arian crisis, the Christian world had been ruptured by a word.
With that word, homooúsios, “consubstantial,” Athanasius summed up orthodox belief on the
Eternal Word, the Son of God. In the Nestorian controversy the Christian East was sundered once
more by a word. With that Word, Theotókos, “Mother of God,” Cyril summed up orthodox belief
on the Word Incarnate, the Son of God made flesh. That is why Cyril could thunder: “To confess
our faith in orthodox fashion … it is enough to … confess that the holy Virgin is Theotókos.”
678 And
three centuries later St. John Damascene, whose glory it is to have summed up in himself the
theology of the Greek Fathers, wrote so simply: “This name contains the whole mystery of the
Incarnation.”
679

IV. OUR LADY’S HOLINESS

As with her divine Maternity and her abiding virginity, so too with respect to Our Lady’s
holiness, the year 431 marks a turning point for Eastern patristic thought. Before Ephesus, Oriental
theology is apparently unaware of a problem in this regard. Where the literature touches the
sanctity of Mary, it does so for the most part obliquely, in passing, with a disinterest which is
disconcerting and at times a familiarity which borders on discourtesy. The pre-Ephesus portrait
of Mary is paradoxical. For that reason it seems advisable to present separately the two ingredients
of which the paradox is compounded: (a) the evidence which indicates an awareness of Our Lady’s
sanctity; and (b) the texts which seem to limit, minimize, or contradict such a consciousness.
680

Even before Nicaea several facts suggest that the Christian East was not insensitive to Mary’s
sanctity. In the first place, the second-century calumny — actually a flanking attack on Christ —
that the Mother of Jesus was an adulteress, perhaps a prostitute, must have been met with scorn
by any Christian who confessed with Ignatius and Aristides, with Justin and Irenaeus and the
universal Church, that the Saviour Christ was born of a virgin.
681 The Marian vision of the early
East may well have been myopic; it did not, however, see in Mary a woman of questionable
morality.

Second, the Eve-Mary parallelism is not impertinent here. Eastern Christianity saw in Our
Lady a cause of salvation, at least in the sense that she gave birth to the Saviour: source of life
because Mother of Life. Her consent to an Incarnation recognized as redemptive was not simply
an act of singular felicity, undoing the devastation achieved by Eve. It had exceptional moral
value; it was an act of uncommon obedience.
682 From this premise, Mary’s uncompelled and
unparalleled role in the Redemption, did the Fathers conclude to a rare sanctity, either after her
fiat or before? The pre-Ephesus evidence does not warrant the affirmation that they did.
683 But the
germ of later development is already there.

Third, the adjective “holy” is prefixed to “Virgin” even in ante-Nicene times. Thus, Hippolytus
(who, for all his Roman activity, was Greek in origin, mentality, and language)
684 states, without
explanation, that “God the Word descended into the holy Virgin Mary.”
685 On this score, however,
what I have emphasized elsewhere with reference to the West is equally germane to the East:

The difficulty is, such a usage is ill-defined. The word sanctus or ἅγιος has not always been able
to boast of a clearly delimited meaning in ecclesiastical use. Does Hippolytus use ἅγιος as a rather
vague laudatory epithet, or as a title of dignity, or to imply moral excellence, or to signify the respect
reserved for one who is segregated from profane things and belongs to God by some sort of
consecration? The answer must, in the state of the evidence, be a confession of ignorance.
686

Similar difficulties arise with respect to kindred adjectives. The Inscription of Abercius (before
216) mentions that “faith … set before [him] for food the fish from the spring, mighty and pure,
whom a spotless (ἁγνή) virgin caught.”
687 A passage attributed with scant reason to Origen speaks
of “the all-holy (παναγίας) Mother of God.”
688 About 300, the anonymous (“Adamantius”) author
of a dialogue on orthodox belief says that the Word “took man to Himself of the immaculate
(ἀχράντου) Virgin Mary.”
689 In all these instances holiness is predicated of Mary, but its intimate
nature is indeterminate.

Fourth, there is testimony which suggests that here again popular piety may have anticipated
scientific theology. The witness is the apocryphal but influential Protoevangelium of James (150-180). The pertinent ideas discoverable therein concern Our Lady’s virginal purity, the unusual
circumstances of her conception, and the description of Mary as “a fruit of justice.”

To begin with, an insistent theme in the Protoevangelium is Mary’s virginal purity. The author
will not abide anything which, from her infancy on, could be construed as contamination or
defilement.
690 True, the contamination directly envisaged is physical and legal; but it may be
argued with some justification that in the context purity of body demands purity of soul, especially
in her who was destined to be Mother of the Saviour.
691

More significant, however, is the possibility that the Protoevangelium suggests a virginal, and
therefore implicitly an immaculate, conception of Mary. Joachim has retired to the desert to
lament Anne’s sterility, to fast, and to pray.
692 After a lengthy absence Joachim is greeted, first by
an angel and then by Anne, with the news of a conception.
693 At this point our problem turns
textual and grammatical. Some scholars are persuaded that, according to the primitive text, the
angel said, “Your wife has conceived,” and Anne said, “I have conceived.”
694 In the context (so runs
the argument at its most cogent) a verb in the perfect argues a conception that is virginal, and a
virginal conception implies an immaculate conception. On the other hand, several objections
deserve recording, (a) Though the perfect-tense reading is relatively ancient and enjoyed wide
diffusion at an early date, other (perhaps most) manuscripts have the future, and the future was
adopted by Tischendorf as the textus receptus.
695 (b) Even the perfect tense does not necessarily
involve a virginal conception. For one thing, Joachim’s separation from Anne may have begun no
more than forty days before. Besides, Epiphanius’ fourth-century interpretation is not implausible:
by the use of the perfect the angel “foretold what was to be, to forestall any uncertainty.”
696 (c)
Though some Christians did take the perfect tense literally and concluded to a virginal conception,
Epiphanius indicates that this way of thinking did not represent the mind of the Church.
697 In a
word, Mary’s conception emerges as confessedly miraculous, but not convincingly immaculate.

A bit later the Protoevangelium lays a canticle on the lips of Anne after the birth of Mary: “…
the Lord has given me a fruit of [His] righteousness, single and manifold before Him.”
698 The text
is uncertain; its meaning is problematical. Still, a not unlikely exegesis interprets the fruit as Mary;
she is worthy of the holiness of the God who gave her to Anne; she is unique of her kind; she
contains all manner of admirable, God-given qualities.
699

Fifth, the early Alexandrians insinuate Mary’s sanctity, but they do little more. There is a
fugitive allusion to it when Clement compares the Church to Our Lady. Each is a virgin and
consequently undefiled; each is a mother and therefore lovingly affectionate.
700 Origen is
somewhat more detailed. He claims that before the Annunciation Mary was “holy,” that she
meditated daily on Scripture.
701 Gabriel’s greeting, “Hail, full of grace,” Origen sees as a hapax
legomenon in Scripture, reserved exclusively for Mary; but he fails to clarify its significance.
702 Our
Lady’s journey “into the hill country with haste” strikes him as deeply meaningful: it indicates a
significant stage in her efforts to scale the heights of perfection.
703 The Visitation was a source of
remarkable “progress” for Elizabeth and John the Baptist, “from the nearness of the Lord’s Mother
and the presence of the Saviour Himself.”
704 Mary can sing, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” not that
the Lord is capable of increase, but because her soul’s likeness to its Lord is increasing.
705 The
“humility of His handmaid” Origen interprets as her righteousness, moderation, courage, and
wisdom.
706 Briefly, Origen’s portrait of Mary corresponds to his general conception of a soul that
is making progress in the spiritual life — and her progress reflects her own good dispositions and
the special protection of the Holy Spirit.
707

The extant evidence, therefore, if meager, indicates sufficiently that for some of the ante-Nicene writers in the East a certain sanctity did attach to the person of Mary. For the most part
its essence is unsuspected, though Origen reveals that it involves the practice of virtue, the
intervention of God, and an ascent toward perfection. The evidence does not justify us in
concluding that the pre-Nicene East envisioned a rare or singular sanctity in the Mother of God,
or believed formally that her conception was sinless. If it be insisted that the Immaculate
Conception is a legitimate deduction from the patristic doctrine of the Second Eve, let it be
remembered that it is deduction and that the deduction was not made before Nicaea.

Between Nicaea and Ephesus, Marian theology makes scant progress in the East. It is Arianism
that preoccupies the Fathers; mention of Our Lady is mostly casual and incidental. In the fourth
century the two patristic authors who lend fresh insight into Mary’s sanctity are Epiphanius
among the Greeks and Ephraem in the Syriac speaking Church.
708

Epiphanius, we have seen, recognizes that Mary is “mother of the living” in a sense far more
profound than was Eve: she is cause of life because she gave birth to Life.
709 Does this involve an
uncommon holiness? Epiphanius seems to take it for granted:

To pass on to the New Testament: If women were appointed by God to be priests or to perform
any ministerial function in the Church, it was Mary herself who should have discharged the office
of priest in the New Testament. She was thought worthy to welcome in her own womb the
absolute Monarch and heaven’s God, God’s Son; her womb was prepared, in God’s love for man
and by an astounding mystery, as a temple and dwelling-place for the Lord’s Incarnation.
710

But there is more. Not merely is Our Lady properly prepared to receive the Word in her womb;
she is “graced in every way.”
711 Does this imply that she was conceived free from sin? As
Epiphanius failed to deduce from his Second Eve doctrine Mary’s resemblance to Eve in original
sinlessness, so here he makes no inference from Mary’s fullness of grace. Nevertheless, his “graced
in every way” is not to be taken lightly; for with reference to Our Lady, Epiphanius is aware that
he must keep a careful eye on his language and his theology.
712 That is why he reproves the
Collyridians who make a goddess of Mary by offering sacrifice to her, and rejects the thesis of the
Protoevangelium of James that Our Lady was conceived virginally.
713 And still he can speak of her
as “graced in every way.” The phrase need not involve sinless conception, but it does suggest high
holiness.

Further conjectures on the implications of Epiphanius’ thought would be sterile. Perhaps the
sentence that best epitomizes his explicit theology on Mary’s sanctity is this: “though Mary is
remarkably good, though she is holy, though she is to be held in honor, still she is not to be
adored.”
714

The witness of Ephraem is more striking still. Despite the chaotic condition of the so-called
Ephraemite literature, the essence of Ephraem’s authentic thought on Mary’s sanctity may be
recaptured in a single idea: Our Lady is singularly sinless. First, he insists that the Cherubim are
not her equal in holiness, the Seraphim must yield to her in loveliness, the legions of angels are
inferior in purity.
715 Second, he links Mary and Eve in their “innocence and simplicity,” despite the
fact that one was principle of salvation, the other of death.
716 Third, in what is perhaps his most
suggestive Mariological insight, Ephraem addresses Our Lord as follows: “In very truth, you and
your Mother are alone perfectly beautiful in every respect; for in you, Lord, there is no stain at all,
and in your Mother there is no spot. Among my children there is no one like these two beautiful
ones.”
717

The implications of the last-cited text have been drawn out briefly but persuasively by Ortiz
de Urbina.
718 Ephraem likens the spotlessness of Mary to the stainlessness of Jesus. In this respect
they are unique in humankind; the privilege is exclusively theirs. Moreover, in the context the
beauty in question is a spiritual thing; for with this loveliness the Church of Nisibis contrasts its
own unsightliness. This spiritual beauty is not limited to virginity; for in the loveliness which is
virginity many human beings share. The stain, therefore, is sin, and stainlessness is sinlessness;
and so the text excludes from the Mother of God and from her Son all taint of sin, whatever it be
— consequently, even original sin.

If it be objected that the passage cannot be cited in favor of the Immaculate Conception unless
Ephraem had a clear, acceptable concept of original sin,
719 and if it be added that such a concept
is wanting in the writings which are authentically his,
720 Ortiz de Urbina has a two-edged answer.
The former objection, he holds, is a little illogical; for a negative and absolute proposition like
Ephraem’s excludes everything that is genuinely sin, whatever be the author’s inability to
understand sin comprehensively. The latter objection, he maintains, is not quite true; for Ephraem
did realize that our inheritance from Adam is properly sin.

In this instance the problem of interpretation is confessedly complex. Without challenging the
right of Ephraem to be listed as witness to the Immaculate Conception, I would simply submit (a)
that it is not at all clear from the texts quoted by Ortiz de Urbina that Ephraem recognized original
sin for what it is; and (b) that it is dangerous precedent to hold a patristic author to all the logical
implications of his negative and absolute propositions.

Such, in brief compass, is the evidence for one side of the paradox. It indicates that before
Ephesus Eastern Christianity was not unaware of Our Lady’s holiness, recognized it at times as
an uncommon thing, and may even have caught a fleeting glimpse of a conception that rivaled
Christ’s in its sheer sinlessness. The other side of the paradox comprises a set of patristic
affirmations which suggest that Mary’s life was not free of actual sin and imply concomitantly that
her conception was not exempt from original sin. In their more positive form the affirmations
attribute specific faults to Our Lady; in a more negative form they relate a purification or
sanctification of Mary, commonly on the day of the Annunciation.
721

In the first place, some of the Fathers and early ecclesiastical writers allege specific faults. The
root of these allegations may well be a general principle enunciated by Clement of Alexandria:
“only the Logos Himself is sinless.” He goes on to quote Menander: “for to sin is natural to all and
common, but to make amends for sin is not the part of any and every man, but [only] of a
remarkable man.”
722 Cyril of Alexandria recalls the principle before 423: Aaron had to offer
sacrifice for his own sins. “The reason is that, being a man, he should not be looked upon as
superior to sin. But for Christ anything of this sort simply will not do; far from it. As God, you see,
He enjoyed sinlessness by His very nature.”
723 In a word, among human beings the Incarnate Word
alone is without sin.

The imputation or insinuation of specific faults centers around four episodes in Mary’s life: the
Annunciation, Cana, the “mother and brethren” scene (Mt. 12:46 ff.), and Calvary. With reference
to Gabriel, Chrysostom asks why the angel did not act toward Mary as he did toward Joseph, i.e.,
why he did not wait until conception had taken place before telling her the truth about her
maternity. His answer? “To keep her from being much confused and troubled; for it was likely
that, not knowing the clear truth, she would reach some absurd decision in her regard and, unable
to endure the shame, hang or stab herself.”
724

The marriage at Cana is a proverbial trouble-area for exegetes: “What is that to me and to
you?” (Jn. 2:4.) Irenaeus believes that with these words Our Lord “checked [Mary’s] untimely
haste,” her yearning to quicken the miracle of the water made wine.
725 Severian, Bishop of Gabala
in Syria, finds that Jesus “reproves His Mother for a useless and unsuitable suggestion.”
726
Chrysostom does not hesitate to say that with her appeal, “They have no wine,” Mary “wanted to
store up favor with [the disciples] too, and make herself still more illustrious through the medium
of her Son.”
727

Mt. 12:46 ff. pictures the Mother and brethren of Jesus on the outskirts of a crowd, eager to
speak with Him. Chrysostom finds the attitude of the brethren (and presumably Mary too) all too
human: “their desire was not to hear anything useful, but to show that they were related to Him
and so to indulge some vainglory. …”
728 In another passage he deals with Our Lady specifically:
“What she tried to do sprang from excessive ambition; for she wanted to display herself to the
people as having full authority over her Son. As yet she had no extraordinary idea of Him; that
is why her approach was so ill-timed.”
729 It is worth noting that this is not ivory-tower exegesis;
the Homilies on John and the Homilies on Matthew were preached to the Christians of Antioch
about the years 389 and 390.
730

Calvary and Simeon’s “sword of sorrow” pose perhaps the most troublesome problem of all,
if seen through the eyes of Origen, Basil the Great, and Cyril of Alexandria. For Origen, the sword
is the scandal — concretely, uncertainty and unbelief — experienced by Mary during the passion
of her Son. What is more significant, Origen proceeds to defend his exegesis on theological
grounds: “Shall we think that, when the apostles were scandalized, the Lord’s Mother was exempt
from scandal? If she did not experience scandal at the Lord’s passion, Jesus did not die for her sins.
But if ‘all have sinned and need the glory of God’ (Rom. 3:23), then undoubtedly Mary was
scandalized at that time.”
731 Origen’s influence is evident in Basil, who interprets the sword of “a
certain unsteadiness,” “some sort of doubt,” in Mary’s soul as she stood by the cross. Why this
exegesis? Because “it was imperative for the Lord to taste death for all. …”
732 In a vivid passage
Cyril portrays Our Lady beneath the cross and makes three points. First, there is the fact: “in all
likelihood, even the Lord’s Mother was scandalized by the unexpected passion, and the intensely
bitter death on the cross all but deprived her of right reason.” Her train of thought is partly this:
“He may well have made a mistake when He said, ‘I am the Life.’” Second, Mary’s way of thinking
is due to “her ignorance of the mystery” and has roots in Cyril’s typically Oriental view of woman:
“No wonder that a woman fell like this,” seeing that Peter himself was once scandalized. Third,
Cyril insists that “these are not just idle guesses, as someone might suppose, but derive from what
has been written of the Lord’s Mother”; for Simeon’s sword is “the sharp assault of the passion,
cutting the woman’s mind to strange thoughts.”
733

So much for specific faults. A second major objection on the score of Mary’s holiness stems
from a set of patristic propositions which lead us to believe that Our Lady was not definitively
delivered from sin until the day of the Annunciation. Cyril of Jerusalem asserts that “the Holy
Spirit coming upon her sanctified her so as to enable her to receive Him through whom all things
were made.”
734 Gregory of Nazianzus remarks that the Word was “conceived of the Virgin, who
was purified in advance by the Spirit in soul and in flesh; for honor had to be paid to her
maternity, and preference given to her virginity.”
735 Ephraem speaks of a prior purification
through the Holy Spirit;
736 he mentions a purification of Mary’s mind, imagination, thoughts, and
virginity through the Life that dwelt in her;
737 he even declares that the Son regenerated His
Mother through baptism.
738

Can the paradox be resolved? To begin with, the area of conflict can be reduced if we cut away
the accumulated undergrowth. The sanctification and purification of Mary described by Cyril of
Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Ephraem need have no immediate connection with sin,
whether original or actual. In each case the context is satisfied by an increase in holiness, in what
the Catholic calls grace, given by God with a view to the divine Maternity. Such sanctification
would have for its object not forgiveness but more intimate union.
739

The general proposition, “Only Christ is without sin,” is not fatal to the thesis of Mary’s
sinlessness. There is a sinlessness which is the fruit of nature; such sinlessness has always been,
in orthodox Christian thinking, the exclusive prerogative of God. And there is a sinlessness which
is the fruit of grace; it is theoretically compatible with human living. Did the Alexandrians,
Clement and Cyril, deny such God-given sinlessness in the concrete order of things? An
affirmative answer is not justified by the texts alleged.
740 For Clement and Cyril, Christ is natively
sinless, because He is God; man is natively sinful, because he is man. There is middle ground
which neither text invades: the possibility of sinlessness through grace.

Some of the specific faults imputed to Mary, such as Irenaeus’ “untimely haste” and Severian’s
“useless and unsuitable suggestion,” are not necessarily sins.
741 In at least one instance,
Chrysostom’s interpretation of the Annunciation, there is question not of actual fact but of
unverifiable hypothesis: “she would have …”
742 Again, it is not evident that the doubts which Cyril
lays on Our Lady’s lips were deliberate and therefore formally sinful.
743 But the residue is rather
formidable: not merely Chrysostom’s “vainglory” and “ambition,” but especially Origen’s
“unbelief” and Basil’s “doubt,” because based on a dogmatic premise, the universality of
Redemption.
744

How resolve our original paradox? It would seem that before Ephesus some prominent
churchmen and some of the laity in Alexandria and Caesarea of Cappadocia, in Antioch and
Caesarea of Palestine, (a) were not aware of an obligation to represent the Mother of God as
utterly sinless; and (b) did not regard the presence of sin, perhaps even serious sin, as incompatible
with her singular sanctity. Did they espy a connection between such faults and original sin, so that
in alleging the former they would eo ipso admit the latter? Any answer would be conjecture;
Origen, Basil, and Chrysostom never posited the problem in these terms. It is evident, however,
that they did not attribute to Mary the perfect holiness which would be an implicit proof of the
Immaculate Conception.
745

The Nestorian controversy and the Council of Ephesus focused attention on Mary’s virginal
Maternity. Concomitantly preachers were inspired to speak of her sanctity. On this head, however,
progress is surprisingly sluggish. In the fifth century startling eulogies of Mary go hand in hand
with apparent rejection of her primordial holiness; even where logic demands a sinless conception,
a patristic pen is not always logical.
746

Cyril of Alexandria sees Our Lady as uncommonly holy
747 and ascribes to her many of the
redemptive effects achieved by her Son;
748 but, in the realm of original sin, seemingly it has never
occurred to him to make an exception of Mary.
749 Proclus of Constantinople claims that no
creature in the universe is comparable to God’s Mother, but he fails to draw out the implications
of his insight with a view to her personal holiness.
750 Theodotus of Ancyra is startlingly
inconsistent. In one homily he can speak of the Second Eve as “virgin with woman’s nature but
without woman’s malice; virgin innocent, unspotted, all-blameless, untainted, undefiled, holy in
soul and in body, having sprouted like a lily amid thorns, uninstructed in the vices of Eve. …”
751
And yet in another homily he can lament that the adversaries of the divine Maternity “have had
no desire to understand what we teach with respect to the Virgin’s transformation to holiness.”
He draws a comparison from a scrap of iron, black and dross-laden, which is purified by fire. If this
is possible in the material order, “why be astonished if the all-immaculate Virgin was fired to a
perfect purity by her contact with the divine, immaterial fire; if she was purified from all that was
material and foreign to her nature, and radiantly constituted in her native beauty, so as to be
thereafter impervious to, unsusceptible to, beyond the reach of all carnal degeneration?”
752 It may
be that the comparison swept the preacher beyond his authentic theology.
753 It seems more likely
that Theodotus and his contemporaries were not aware of an anomaly here; what we recognize
as contradictory they simply took for granted.
754 That is perhaps why Hesychius can attribute to
Mary privileges like incorruptibility, immortality, triumph over Satan, immunity from
concupiscence,
755 and still interpret Simeon’s sword as contradictory thoughts on Calvary; “for,
though she was a virgin, she was a woman; though she was Mother of God, she was of our
compound.”
756 Perhaps it explains why Chrysippus, even more disconcertingly, remarks that
Mary’s kinship with Eve has established her in Eve’s fall, and in almost the next breath calls her
“by nature the blameless offshoot” of a wicked people; “it is a thorn-bearing field that produces
your rose.”
757

In the three centuries that followed Chalcedon, Mariology escaped the general decadence that
enveloped theology. This anomalous situation was due in great measure to the institution of a
cycle of feasts covering the principal mysteries of Our Lady’s life: the Annunciation (March 25),
her Nativity (September 8), her Dormition (August 15), the Conception of Anne (December 9).
These feasts provided orators and poets with the opportunity of singing the praises of the Virgin,
with emphasis on her dignity as Mother of God and her role in the Redemption. Nevertheless, as
Jugie has pointed out, even during these centuries theologians do not frame explicitly the question
of the Immaculate Conception. They run the gamut of implicit testimonies, the major premises
which logically demand the privilege in question; but it is only incidentally, almost accidentally,
that a few theologians, such as Andrew of Crete and Sophronius of Jerusalem, formulate the
prerogative in explicit or equivalent terms. The emphasis is on Our Lady’s perpetual holiness
rather than on her exemption from original sin.
758 As the patristic age draws to a close, Eastern
Christianity can say with one voice to Our Lady: “You are all-fair … and there is nothing to blame
in you.”
759

V. DEATH AND ASSUMPTION

With respect to the Assumption the significant literature in the patristic East comprises (a) two
passages from Epiphanius, (b) the apocryphal accounts called Transitus Mariae, and (c) the Greek
homilies on the Dormition stemming from the seventh and eighth centuries.

As the evidence stands, the first explicit reference to a genuine Assumption of Our Lady occurs
ca. 377.
760 In a digression typical of his Medicine Chest against eighty heresies, Epiphanius is
concerned to forestall a perilous accommodation of Jn. 19:27 (“From that day the disciple took
[Mary] into his home”). He is afraid that in the John-Mary relationship clerics may find a pseudo-justification for retaining in their homes the much-discussed virgines subintroductae. He insists
that the case of Mary was guided by a wise providence, that this procedure is to be regarded as
an exception to the common conduct obligatory in the way of God, and that once John had taken
Mary into his home she did not remain with him any longer. And he continues:

But if some think us mistaken, let them search the Scriptures. They will not find Mary’s death; they
will not find whether she died or did not die; they will not find whether she was buried or was not
buried. More than that: John journeyed to Asia, yet nowhere do we read that he took the holy Virgin
with him. Rather, Scripture is absolutely silent [on the end of Mary] because of the extraordinary
nature of the prodigy, in order not to shock the minds of men.

For my own part, I do not dare to speak, but I keep my own thoughts and I practice silence. For it may
be that somewhere we have found hints that it is impossible to discover the death of the holy, blessed
one. On the one hand, you see, Simeon says of her, “And your own soul a sword shall pierce, that the
thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Lc. 2:35). On the other hand, when the Apocalypse of John
says, “And the dragon hastened against the woman who had brought forth the male child, and there
were given to her an eagle’s wings, and she was carried off into the wilderness, that the dragon might
not seize her” (Apoc. 12:13-14), it may be that this is fulfilled in her.

However, I do not assert this absolutely, and I do not say that she remained immortal; but neither do
I maintain stoutly that she died. The fact is, Scripture has outstripped the human mind and left [this
matter] uncertain, for the sake of that valued vessel without compare, to prevent anyone from
harboring carnal thoughts in her regard. Did she die? We do not know. At all events, if she was buried,
she had had no carnal intercourse. …
761

Twelve chapters later Epiphanius returns briefly to the problem of Mary’s end:

… either the holy Virgin died and was buried; then her falling asleep was with honor, her death chaste,
her crown that of virginity. Or she was killed, as it is written: “And your own soul a sword shall
pierce”; then her glory is among the martyrs and her holy body amid blessings, she through whom light
rose over the world. Or she remained alive, since nothing is impossible with God and He can do
whatever He desires; for her end no one knows. …
762

The testimony of Epiphanius is crucial for two reasons. Before Ephesus he alone deals
expressly with the problem at issue; and he knows the Holy City and its traditions as few others
of his time. It is the more regrettable, therefore, that his witness is so vague that several
interpretations of his thought are possible. As a defensible exegesis I submit three points, (a) How
did Mary end her life? Epiphanius does not know. There are three possibilities: natural death,
bloody martyrdom, deathless immortality. Of these, it is illegitimate to exclude any, illegitimate
to impose any. (b) In any event, the end of Mary’s life on earth was worthy of God and in harmony
with her dignity and holiness, (c) Epiphanius’ importance lies in this, that he has posed the
problem and allowed us to glimpse the possible solutions.
763 It is not difficult to see in him the first
theologian of the Assumption, in the sense that he had an intuition of the mystery and was
fascinated by it.
764

This rather conservative interpretation of Epiphanius, which emphasizes the absence of a fixed
historical tradition on the final lot of Mary, is not shaken by other extant pre-Ephesus evidence,
specifically that of Ephraem, Gregory of Nyssa, Severian of Gabala, and the so-called Timothy of
Jerusalem. It is true, Ephraem sees Our Lady lifted on the wings of Christ and carried through the
air; she has received a garment of glory sufficient to cover the nakedness of all men; Christ has
clothed her with a new garment; she has put on His grandeur and magnificence; He who is of
heaven has introduced her to heaven.
765 Ephraem has her say: “I shall enter, in a moment, the
verdant gardens of paradise, and there I shall praise God, where Eve fell so ingloriously.”
766
Regrettably, Ephraem’s language is too general to find in it a bodily glorification. He believes that
Mary died;
767 he maintains that she lives in glory. More than that he does not specify.
768

In an unusual passage Gregory of Nyssa compares the Virgin with other virgins, to illustrate
the victory of virginity over bodily death. Ordinary virgins destroy death’s power by refusing to
give it new victims. “With reference to Mary, God’s Mother, the death which held sway from
Adam to her (for it was near her too) first stumbled on the fruit of her virginity as on some rock,
and was crushed in regard of her. …”
769 The passage is not perlucid. What Gregory has in view,
however, is the triumph of Mary’s Son over death. Death has approached Mary by attacking the
fruit of her womb. In the assault death has been smashed, because Christ rose from the dead,
escaped the tomb’s corruption. Gregory neither affirms nor denies Our Lady’s death or her share
in her Son’s triumph by a glorious resurrection.
770

Severian of Gabala pictures Eve hearing herself constantly called a sorry, pitiful thing, while
Mary each day hears herself called blessed:

But you say, what good is it to her [i.e., Mary], since she does not hear it? Indeed she does hear,
seeing that she is in the place of brightness, in the land of the living, she who is the mother of salvation,
the source of the Light perceptible to sense — yes, perceptible to sense by reason of [His] flesh,
accessible to mind by reason of [His] divinity. Thus, then, in every way is she called blessed. In fact,
while she was yet living in the flesh she was called blessed, for she heard felicitation while still in flesh.
…
771

Severian’s thought is obscure. It may be argued that “the mother of salvation” ought herself
to be utterly saved, that “the source of sensible Light” should be in the land of the living in her
sensible frame, that she who is “in every way pronounced blessed” hears the felicitations with ears
as well as mind, that “life in the flesh” means simply life here on earth. But Severian does not say
so. He seems to assume that Mary died; he has not confronted the problem of her glorious
resurrection.
772

A passage frequently adduced to bolster the testimony of Epiphanius derives from a homily
on Simeon by a certain Timothy, who is styled by the best manuscripts “a priest of Jerusalem” and
on internal evidence was located by Jugie toward the end of the fourth century or at the beginning
of the fifth.
773 From the text as reconstituted by Faller we gather that

some have supposed that the Mother of the Lord was put to death with a sword and won for herself
a martyr’s end. Their reason lies in the words of Simeon, “And your own soul a sword shall pierce.”
But such is not the case. A metal sword, you see, cleaves the body; it does not cut the soul in two.
Therefore the Virgin is immortal to this day, seeing that He who had dwelt in her transported her to
the regions of her assumption [OR: to the places of His ascension; OR: into the regions high above].
774

Despite the unsatisfactory state of the text, and the ambiguities inherent in the significant
adjective ἀναλήψιμος, the conclusion seems justified that the author holds for a translation of
Mary, body and soul, to a supraterrestrial region. Scholars cannot agree, however, whether the
phrase, “immortal to this day,” (a) implies that Mary did not die, and (b) presents her immortality
as a provisory, temporary thing.
775 The text and its problems have lost some of their pertinence
and fascination ever since Capelle argued so convincingly that “Timothy of Jerusalem” is an
unknown author of the Byzantine world who wrote between the sixth and eighth centuries.
776

To sum up: Before Ephesus the scant evidence suggests strongly (a) that a widespread
ignorance prevailed relative to Our Lady’s destiny, and (b) that, save for isolated instances, Eastern
Christianity had not yet confronted the problem.

An intriguing corpus of literature on the final lot of Mary is formed by the apocryphal
Transitus Mariae.
777 The genesis of these accounts is shrouded in history’s mist. They apparently
originated before the close of the fifth century, perhaps in Egypt, perhaps in Syria, in consequence
of the stimulus given Marian devotion by the definition of the divine Maternity at Ephesus. The
period of proliferation is the sixth century. At least a score of Transitus accounts are extant, in
Coptic, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Armenian. Not all are prototypes, for many are
simply variations on more ancient models.

What do the Transitus Mariae stories say? In point of fact, the divergences are so pronounced
that the accounts cannot be reduced to a genuine unity. A first common feature is that all recount
the death of Mary; this is their theme, their primary concern, the event which invests them with
a specious homogeneity. Around this central event several characteristic, legendary details are
grouped: the miraculous arrival of all or some of the Apostles; the tidings brought to Mary of her
approaching death; Mary’s experience of fear; some hostile Jewish intervention on the occasion
of her burial. A second common feature is that all postulate in connection with Mary’s death a
divine intervention unique on such an occasion. It is on the nature, the time, and the locale of this
intervention that disagreement arises. Some accounts speak of a translation of Mary’s body to a
presumably earthly paradise, where it is preserved incorrupt under the tree of life; still others
describe a genuine assumption, a reunion of soul and body which entails Our Lady’s entrance into
heaven. The interval between death and prodigy varies from some moments to seven months. The
locale is now the Mount of Olives, now the Valley of Josaphat, now Gethsemane.

A splendid example of this literary genus lies in the fragments of a Syriac account entitled
Obsequies of the Holy Virgin, which may well be the oldest of the Transitus narratives. In this
account the Apostles are keeping a three-day vigil at Mary’s tomb when Christ descends from
heaven with Michael and sits among them:

… Our Lord made a sign to Michael, and Michael began to speak with the voice of a mighty angel. And
angels descended on three clouds; and the number of angels on each cloud was a thousand angels,
uttering praises before Jesus. And the Lord said to Michael: “Let them bring the body of Mary into the
clouds.” And when the body of Mary had been brought into the clouds, Our Lord said to the Apostles
that they should draw near to the clouds. And when they came to the clouds they were singing with
the voice of angels. And Our Lord told the clouds to go to the gate of paradise. And when they had
entered paradise, the body of Mary went to the tree of life; and they brought her soul and made it enter
her body. And straightway the Lord dismissed the angels to their places.
778

In the second half of the fifth century, therefore, an original Syrian apocryphon, emanating
perhaps from Jacobite circles, teaches explicitly the anticipated resurrection of Mary — the oldest
unmistakable affirmation.
779

What is the value of these witnesses? As historical accounts of an actual event — Mary’s death,
her translation, her Assumption — by individuals who were personally present, or else were in
contact with the event through unimpeachable sources, the Transitus literature is valueless.
780 But
theologically the tales are priceless. They reveal the reaction of early Christian piety when
confronted with the apparent fact of Our Lady’s death; they evidence the first unequivocal
solutions to the problem of Mary’s destiny. The solutions, though divergent, disclose a genuinely
Christian insight: it was not fitting that the body of Mary should see corruption. More importantly,
the solution is given, incorruption is postulated, on theological lines: the principles of solution are
the divine Maternity, Mary’s unimpaired virginity, her unrivaled holiness. Finally, the more
ancient of these apocrypha exercised a perceptible influence on the establishment of the Eastern
feast of the Dormition or of the Migration of the Mother of God.
781 The feast, once established,
gave rise to new Transitus accounts and occasioned the Greek homiletic literature which
blossomed from the seventh to the ninth centuries — the fairest flowering of patristic thought on
the final lot of Mary.
782

The earliest extant Byzantine discourse on the August 15th feast, the first monument of
genuine Greek theology affirming the Assumption in categorical terms, is dated by Jugie at the
end of the seventh century or the beginning of the eighth. This Panegyric on the Falling Asleep of
the Mother of God, long attributed to Modestus, Patriarch of Jerusalem (✝ 634), is remarkable for
its doctrinal content, its independence of the apocrypha (which it does use), its reasonable
conjectures, and its repeated, unhesitating affirmation of the Assumption.
783 Mary died, yes: “ever
anguished by a mother’s yearning for her Son divine, she quit her holy body with her eyes upon
Him, and into His hands she commended her all-blessed, all-holy soul.”
784 Why did she die? “As
His Mother all-holy, she followed Him. …”
785 What happened to her body in the tomb? The Mother
of God, “after childbirth ever virgin, in the grave suffered not corruption of the body that held Life,
preserved by the omnipotent Saviour Christ who came forth from her.”
786 A genuine Assumption,
preceded by a glorious resurrection and postulated by the divine Maternity, is reiterated again and
again: “… as Mother all-glorious of the Giver of life and of immortality, Christ our Saviour and
God, she was given life by Him, concorporate with Him in incorruption for eternity, with Him
who raised her from the tomb and took her to Himself, in the way that He alone knows. …”
787 The
same idea is summed up in a strikingly lovely sentence:

Christ, God, who took … flesh from her who was ever virgin, summoned her and clothed her in the
incorruption of His own body [in concorporate incorruption], and glorified her with incomparable
glory, so as to be His heir, she who was His all-holy Mother, in harmony with the Psalmist’s song: “At
your right hand stands the queen in a vesture of gold, all hung about with embroidery” (Ps. 44:10).
788

It has been asserted — and I incline to agree — that Modestus’ affirmation of Mary’s
incorruption, resurrection, and Assumption, so serene, categorical, free from all hesitation and any
palliation, gives the impression that the author is not defending a disputable thesis but expounding
an admitted truth.
789

Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople in the early eighth century, is as categorical as
Modestus with reference to the Assumption.
790 In a rather fictitious historical framework he
affirms the fact of Mary’s death:

Give to the earth without distress [Our Lord says to Mary] what is the earth’s. … Trust your body
to me, seeing that I myself entrusted to your womb my divinity. … Death will not vaunt itself over you,
for you have conceived Life. … Lie down in the tomb of Gethsemane, and that for appearance alone.
I will not leave you long an orphan therein. I will come to you, as soon as you have been laid to rest
in the grave, not to be conceived by you anew … but rather to take you to myself to dwell with me. Lay
your body with great confidence in Gethsemane, there where I before my passion bent my knees to
pray the prayer of a man; for, prefiguring your dormition, I bent in that place the knees of the body I
took from you. Therefore, just as I, after bending my knees there, went forth willingly to the lifegiving
death of the cross, so you, after depositing your remains, will pass to life without delay.
791

Mary died (a) because her Son Himself willed to die, (b) because her nature is no different from
our own, and (c) because her death was intended as confirmation of the reality of the Incarnation.
She rose from the dead, was taken up to her Son, in the integrity of her human nature, because it
was impossible for the vessel that had held God to be dissolved in dust. “For since He who had
emptied Himself in you was God from the beginning and Life from eternity, it could not but be
that the Mother of Life should live with Life, that she should entertain death as if it were sleep,
and as Mother of Life submit to migration as if it were a waking.”
792 This, Germanus implies, is
what the Christian sense imperiously demands. The bodily Assumption is a consequence of the
divine Maternity.

Andrew, contemporary of Germanus and Metropolitan of Gortyna on the Island of Crete,
consecrated a trilogy of sermons to the Dormition. He tells the Cretans that the object of the feast
is the Dormition of God’s Mother, a mystery “celebrated hitherto by a few, but now lovingly
honored by all.”
793 His basic ideas on the final lot of Mary include her death, the reunion of her
soul and body, her glorious entrance into heaven, and the premises which postulate such a destiny,
i.e., holiness, virginity, Maternity:

She who has introduced into heaven that which is dust, strips off the dust and lays aside the veil she
has carried from her birth, and restores to the earth what is kin to earth. She who gave life to Life
migrates up to a new life, makes her home in a place where life originates and life is indestructible. …
And, last of all phenomena, that which appears to our eyes rises up and in a spiritual way goes along
with that which is spiritual in the manner known to Him who of old linked the two together, and after
dissolving them united them anew. … See if a more astounding miracle can be discovered than the
marvel that was accomplished so incredibly in her. … A spectacle truly new it was, and beyond human
thinking: the woman who surpassed the heavens in her purity, crossed the threshold of heaven’s
sanctuary; the virgin who surpassed the Seraphim by the marvel of her divine Maternity, drew close
to the primal nature, God the Creator of all things; the mother who had given birth to Life itself,
crowned her life by an end that rivaled her childbearing. … For, as the womb of the mother knew not
corruption, so too the flesh of the dead did not perish.
794

Another trilogy of sermons for the feast of the Dormition was delivered by John Damascene,
very probably at Gethsemane on August 14th and 15th, about the year 740. Like Germanus, but
with greater discretion, he makes use of apocrypha, especially John of Thessalonica. With the
candor of Andrew he confesses that the circumstances surrounding his account of Mary’s end are
conjecture or rhetoric.

As Damascene sees it, Mary dies because she is human; moreover, it is through death’s crucible
that mortality gives place to immortality.
795 More accurately still, “she yields to the law of her own
Son.” Though she gave life to all, as daughter of Adam she is subject to the hereditary debt; for
even her Son, Life itself, did not refuse to die.
796 Though Homily 3 contains Damascene’s clearest
affirmations of Mary’s glorification in soul and body, it is in Homily 2 that he enumerates, in one
of the most moving of patristic texts, Our Lady’s titles to the Assumption:

For there was need that this dwelling meet for God, this undug well of remission’s waters, this
unploughed field of heaven’s bread, this unwatered vineyard of immortality’s wine, this olive-tree of
the Father’s compassion, ever green and fair and fruitful, be not imprisoned in the hollows of the earth.
Rather, just as the holy and incorrupt body that had been born of her, the body that was united
hypostatically to God the Word, rose from the tomb on the third day, so was there need that she too
be snatched from the grave and the Mother restored to her Son; and, as He had descended to her, so
she had to be carried up … to heaven itself. There was need that she, who had entertained God the
Word in the guest-chamber of her womb, be brought home to the dwelling of her Son; and, just as the
Lord said that He must be in the place that belongs to His Father, so the Mother had to take up her
abode in the palace of her Son, in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. There
was need that the body of her who in childbirth had preserved her virginity without stain, be preserved
incorrupt even after death. There was need that she who had carried her Creator as a babe on her
bosom, linger lovingly in the dwelling of her God. There was need that the bride whom the Father had
betrothed to Himself, live in the bridal-chamber of heaven. There was need that she who had looked
so closely on her very own Son on the cross, she who there felt in her heart the sword-pangs of sorrow
which in bearing Him she had escaped, there was need that she look upon Him seated with His Father.
There was need that the Mother of God enter into the possessions of her Son and, as Mother of God
and handmaid, be reverenced by all creation. … For the Son has enslaved all creation to His Mother.
797

Two remarks are in order. First, Damascene’s ἔδει (“there was need”) seems to be more than
sheer appropriateness; there is in this a certain exigence. Second, Damascene’s arguments for the
Assumption are derived not primarily from Scripture (which serves him rather for illustration),
798
and only in general from tradition.
799 They are drawn principally from the analogy of faith; he
plays the theologian, not the exegete or historian. The Assumption is for him a postulate of Mary’s
other prerogatives: to some extent her virginity and holiness, but more than all else her divine
Motherhood.
800

At the end of the patristic period in the East the doctrine of the Assumption has reached the
level of theological elaboration. It is not simply that the basic truth, Our Lady’s glorification in soul
and body, is accepted as indisputable by the outstanding orators of the Dormition feast, and
apparently by the main body of the faithful as well. Still more significant is the fact that the
Assumption is postulated on theological premises.
801 Not that the whole structure of Assumption
theology, as expounded in early Byzantine homiletic literature, will be recognized as solid by
succeeding centuries; modern doubts on Mary’s death are a case in point. But the heart of the
matter has been touched; the task of the future will be to sift incontestable Christian doctrine from
probable opinion and illegitimate speculation.
802

Mary in the Apocrypha of the New Testament

By Alfred C. Rush, C.SS.R., S.T.D.

IN THIS section on Mary in the Apocrypha of the New Testament no attempt will be made to
mention every single reference to Mary; rather, sufficient references will be gathered that indicate
a trend. These trends in Mariology will be high-lighted. It is with the Mariology of the Apocrypha
that these pages are primarily concerned. In other words, no attempt will be made to reconstruct
the series of events of Mary’s life as given in these documents. Only those events will be given that
are necessary background for understanding the Mariological principles and truths stressed in
these works.

The Mariology of the Apocrypha is a most fitting theme, especially when one considers the
nature of the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha of the New Testament are works which attempt to
supply added information regarding the lives of Christ, Mary, and the Apostles. To enlarge on the
information contained in the canonical Scriptures, to supply information not given there, and to
edify their readers, the authors of these works give free play to their imaginations. These writings
abound in accounts of the miraculous that are frequently fantastic. At times, these works were
used by heretics, especially the Gnostics, as vehicles for their tenets. To lend weight to their
accounts, the writers pose as Apostles or as people closely associated with the Apostles. Thus, side
by side with the canonical writings, there grew up apocryphal Gospels, Acts, Epistles,
Apocalypses.

Although, generally speaking, these works are of little historical value, in the sense of being
reliable accounts of the historical events narrated, they are of tremendous value along other lines.
They furnish a deep insight into the mentality of the times in which they were written. They show
the tendencies and customs, and attest to the beliefs of early Christian times. Hence, they are of
importance for the theologian and the historian of dogma. Specifically, they are of great value for
the study of Mariology. With this information, we can now proceed to the subject of the Mariology
in the Apocrypha.
803

EXCEPTIONAL BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS OF MARY

Any mention of Mary and the Apocrypha will have to begin with the Protoevangelium of
James, a work that purports to be written by James the Less, the first bishop of Jerusalem. In its
original form it dates from about the middle of the second century and was probably written by
a Christian of Jewish origin who lived outside of Palestine.
804 This work shows the great part that
Mary occupied in popular piety at this early date. The aim of the author is the glorification of
Mary, Virgin and Mother, and this is the first in a long line of works down through the ages that
have set out to proclaim the glories of Mary.
805

Already in the second century, attacks were made against Christ by attacking His Mother.
Christ, it was charged, was born of a poor country girl who obtained her livelihood by spinning.
Sent away by her spouse who was a carpenter on the charge of adultery, she gave birth to Jesus,
the son of a soldier by the name of Pantherus.
806 Living in a milieu where such charges were made,
Pseudo-James shows his indignation. In the Bible he saw that there were exceptional and
extraordinary circumstances in the birth of people whom God destined for great work. To cite one,
mention can be made of the extraordinary events surrounding the conception and birth of St. John
the Baptist.
807 Mary, who was to be the Mother of Christ, was not less favored. She received not only
the same favors as John and other saints of the Old Testament, but she received these blessings
in a more excellent manner.

Pseudo-James then states that Mary was the child of Joachim and Anna, a child who was given
by God to this elderly couple who had prayed to Him to remove the curse of sterility and bless
them with offspring.
808 The exceptional element in the birth of Mary is that she was a child obtained
by prayer, that she was born of a woman advanced in years and sterile. The author, however,
obviously thought that the conception of Mary took place by the normal union of husband and
wife, and was not a miraculous virginal conception. Thus, he writes of Joachim: “The angel of the
Lord came down to him saying: Joachim, Joachim, the Lord God has heard your prayer. Go down
from here for your wife Anna will conceive in her womb.” When Joachim came, Anna ran up to
meet him and exclaimed: “Now I know that the Lord my God has blessed me exceedingly. For
behold the widow is no longer a widow. I who was without child shall conceive.”
809 In all probability
the original text uses the future, that is, “your wife will conceive” and “I shall conceive.” Some
versions and recensions use the past tense and postulate that Mary was conceived by a virginal
conception.
810

When Mary was three years old she was presented in the Temple.
811 There she lived as a model
of purity until the time came when she was presented to Joseph. This part will be taken up under
the Virginity of Mary.

THE VIRGINITY OF MARY

If the Protoevangelium set out to glorify Mary by reason of her birth, it aimed to glorify her
all the more by proclaiming and defending her absolute and perpetual virginity. The author aims
to leave no doubt that Mary was a virgin ante partum, in partu, and post partum.
812

The Gospel proclaims the exceptional birth of Christ from Mary.
813 From early times the
virginity of Mary was part of Catholic belief, and the expression, natus ex Maria virgine, was part
of the Christian catechesis and contained in the various symbols of faith.
814 In Catholic thought it
was taken for granted that the word “virgin” when applied to Mary meant absolute and perpetual
virginity. There was no need of going into specific details. However, the second century saw
attacks on the virginity of Mary. The general attitude is summed up in the charge that Jesus
invented the story of His virgin birth, that he was born of fornication.
815 It is against such a
background that the author of the Protoevangelium rallied to the defense of Mary’s perpetual
virginity.
816

According to the Protoevangelium, Mary was consecrated to God by the vow of her mother
who exclaimed: “As the Lord my God lives, if I bring forth either a boy or a girl, I will bring it as
a gift to the Lord my God, and it shall be ministering to Him all the days of its life.”
817 By this act
Mary was vowed to the service of God by perpetual virginity. In this account, however, Mary is
regarded almost as a purely physical agent in the work of the Redemption. The author accentuates
a purity in Mary that can be described as a legal or exterior purity, and he overlooks the freedom
of will on Mary’s part in all this work. Hence, when the general theme of the Protoevangelium
appeared in the Western aprocryphon of Pseudo-Matthew there was a reaction against such an
attitude. In this we see that it is Mary who, of her own free will, resolves to remain a virgin.
Pseudo-Matthew relates that the priest Abiathar wanted to take Mary as a wife for his son, and
then he goes on with the following account: “Mary forbade them to do this and said: It cannot
happen that I know a man or that a man knows me. Then the priests and all her relatives said to
her: God is honored by children and He is adored by descendants. It has always been such in Israel.
Mary answering them said: God is honored first of all by chastity. … This is what I have learned
in the temple of God since my youth, namely, that a virgin can be dear to God. This is why I have
resolved in my heart never to know man.”
818 Interpreting the Protoevangelium in this way, Pseudo-Matthew, who wrote in the sixth century, is merely reflecting the thought of previous writers who
saw in Mary a model of virginity and one who consecrated herself to God by a vow of virginity.
819

In the Protoevangelium, then, Mary is vowed to God as a virgin to whom marriage was
excluded. This poses an acute problem for the author of the Protoevangelium with regard to the
relationship between Mary and Joseph. On the one hand he must admit a conjugal bond because
of the testimony of the New Testament; on the other hand he must hold to the virginity of Mary.
It is because of this that his language and his descriptions of the relationship between the two is
somewhat obscure and vacillating. Stressing the virginity of Mary ante partum, he concentrates
more on the fact that Mary was given to Joseph as a charge; she was given to Joseph who, by
reason of his age, could guard her intact.
820

Going on to give further proof that Mary was a virgin ante partum, the Protoevangelium
insists, in the language of the New Testament, that Mary conceived of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, he represents both Joseph and Mary as submitting to the trial of drinking the bitter
waters to show their complete innocence of all guilt in the matter of Mary’s pregnancy.
821

Mary was not only a virgin ante partum, but also a virgin in partu. The virginity of Mary in
partu is really the “idée capitale” of the Protoevangelium. To give proof of his belief in this aspect
of Mary’s virginity, the author of the account has the condition of Mary attested to by a midwife.
By these minute physical details the author emphasizes not only the virginity of Mary but also the
actuality and reality of Christ who took flesh ex Maria.
822

In the Protoevangelium Mary was not only a virgin ante partum and in partu; she also
remained a virgin post partum. Her consecration and dedication to God demanded this. However,
to leave no room for doubt in this matter and to show his belief in this fact, the author portrays
St. Joseph as an old man, as a widower, who had children by his first wife and not by Mary.
823
Incidentally, it is in this way that he solves the problem of the brethren of Jesus.
824

There are ever so many documents in which the events described in the Protoevangelium are
utilized and recalled, and which emphasize the above-mentioned virtues of Mary. It would take
us too far afield to go into them, but at least some of the main ones can be mentioned. There are,
of course, the various versions of the Protoevangelium in Syriac,
825 Ethiopic,
826 and Armenian.
827
There are no direct Latin translations, but there are Latin elaboration as seen in the Gospel of
Pseudo-Matthew from the sixth century
828 and the work on the infancy of Mary from the
Carolingian period.
829 Additional matter is found in the Coptic lives of the Virgin
830 and the history
of St. Joseph.
831 To these may be added the various Infancy Gospels.
832

Once the virginity of Mary had been so vigorously defended and emphasized in the
Protoevangelium and its allied documents, we find that later Apocrypha speak of Mary’s virginity
in the celebrated phrase “ever-Virgin.” This is very noticeable in the literature known as the
Transitus Mariae.
833 To the Latin writer, Pseudo-Melito, Mary is beata semper virgo Maria.
834 The
Greek writer, Pseudo-John, speaks of Mary as one who was ever a virgin. To him she is
ἀειπάρθενος.
835

Mary, who was always a virgin, was a virgin both in body and soul. The Coptic account of
Theodosius, speaking of the reunion of the body and soul of Mary in heavenly glory, refers to Ps.
44:15, which speaks of the virgins who will be brought to the King. With this as his background
he goes on to say: “Then we understood that today there were brought to the King virgins, even
the soul and body which were united.”
836

In this literature the virginity of Mary is regarded as a postulate for her Assumption and for
the privilege of not undergoing the corruption of the grave. Thus, in the work of Pseudo-Melito,
when Christ came to raise Mary from the dead, He is pictured as saying: “Arise, my love and my
kinswoman, thou who didst not suffer corruption by carnal intercourse, thou shalt not suffer
corruption in the sepulchre.”
837

MARY’S DIVINE MATERNITY

With regard to Mary’s divine Maternity there is a parallel between the presentation of this
doctrine in the Apocrypha and in the patristic tradition. Although this truth is not explicitly
affirmed in the New Testament, it is manifestly contained in the truth that Mary conceived and
brought forth Jesus, that Mary is the Mother of Jesus who is the Verbum, the Second Person of the
Blessed Trinity, and that everything that concerns Jesus must be attributed to the Person of the
Word who is true God.
838 Furthermore, the period up to the fourth century is characterized by an
evident affirmation of the fact of the divine Maternity, even though the expression “Mother of
God” was not formally employed. In the second and third centuries the traditional teaching was
directed against the erroneous tenet that attributed to Jesus an apparent body or a body that was
not material like ours. To combat this, it was asserted that Jesus was born ex Maria, and that Jesus,
natus ex Maria, is God.
839 In this early period, also, the doctrine of the divine Maternity is found in
the formulas of the creed, such as, “born of the Virgin,” “born of Mary,” and “born of the Holy
Spirit and of the Virgin Mary.” In the fourth and fifth centuries we have the use of the explicit
term Theotokos, and an investigation of the theological principle on which this truth rests.
840 With
the Council of Ephesus and the definition of Mary’s divine Maternity, this doctrine is the focal
point in Mariology. Prior to this time there was more emphasis on the virginity of Mary, and on
the concept of Mary as the New Eve; now she is pre-eminently the Theotokos and there is a
constant emphasis on the Mater Dei theme.

The early apocryphal literature, e.g., the Protoevangelium and its allied documents, stressed,
as was seen, the virginity of Mary. In keeping with the parallel literature of the patristic tradition,
there is no explicit emphasis on the divine Maternity. Here the divine Maternity is expressed
merely by repeating the expressions in the Gospels on which this truth is based. Here it should
be noted that the emphasis on the virginity of Mary in these documents is at the same time a
recognition of her divine Maternity. In the phrase, natus ex Virgine, they stressed the virgo
element; the recognition of motherhood, as is evident, is found in the first part of the phrase “natus
ex.”

In some of these documents that appeared after the Theotokos theme became current, there is
an emphasis on the divine Maternity. This is especially noticeable in the Coptic lives of the
Virgin.
841 The second Sahidic fragment, after stating that the angel was sent to give the good
tidings to the Virgin, goes out of its way to repeat the same idea by saying that the angel was sent
to the Mother of God to proclaim to her the great good tidings.
842 In these documents there are
many expressions describing the divine Maternity. The one that merits special attention is the
phrase “the holy God-bearer.” It is as succinct and emphatic as “Sancta Dei Genetrix,” or our
English phrase “Holy Mother of God.”
843

It is especially in the Transitus Mariae literature that we find constant emphasis on the theme
of the divine Maternity. This is only normal in literature that developed after the definition of this
doctrine, when the divine Maternity became the focal point of Mariology. Just as in the patristic
literature, so also in this literature, Mary is predominantly the Theotokos. The Transitus Mariae
literature high-lights Mary’s divine Maternity in a threefold manner: it constantly calls her the
Mother of God; it contains scenes in which an act of explicit belief is made in Mary’s divine
Maternity, and it exalts Mary’s divine Maternity by proclaiming her Assumption as postulated by
this extraordinary privilege.

It would be tedious and repetitious to cite every passage in which Mary is called the Mother
of God. One from the more important early accounts must suffice. In the complete Syriac version,
the angel appears to Mary and announces: “Hail to thee, Mother of God! Thy prayer has been
accepted in heaven before thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.”
844 The sixth-century Coptic account of
Theodosius is written in honor of the “Lady of us all, the holy God-bearer Mary.”
845 The account
of Pseudo-Melito speaks of the departure of the “Blessed Mary ever-Virgin, the Mother of God.”
846
To Pseudo-John, Mary is the “all-holy glorious Mother of God.”
847 The constant repetition of this
title is like a growing crescendo. Actually, one would have to read these documents personally to
see how they are pervaded with the theme of Mary’s divine Maternity. A faint idea can be had of
this when it is realized that in the account of Pseudo-John, which takes up about nine pages of
actual text in the edition of Tischendorf, there are at least fifty references stating outrightly or
equivalently that Mary is the Mother of God.

These documents also high-light Mary’s divine Maternity by portraying scenes in which
individuals make an express profession of faith in Mary as the Mother of God. In the Greek
account of Pseudo-John, as in many others, there is the story of Jephonias who tried to harm the
body of Mary as it was being brought to burial. As he did this an angel cut his two hands from off
his body and left them hanging in the air about the bed. When the people saw this they cried out:
“Truly, He is the true God who was born of thee, Mary, Mother of God, ever-Virgin.” Jephonias
himself exclaimed: “Holy Mary, thou didst bear Christ who is God, have mercy on me.”
848 The
complete Syriac account pictures the same person, who is here called Yuphanya, as setting out to
proclaim Mary among the Jews. When the Jews were astonished at his message he explained how
he had been cured and then he goes on to say: “I have become a disciple of Jesus the Son of the
glorious God, and of Mary His Mother who bore him. … And I believe in her that she is the Mother
of God.”
849

It must be recalled that the Transitus Mariae is a type of popular literature. In literature of this
kind, such cases in which people were won over and made explicit professions of faith in Mary
as the Mother of God was the type of proof that would have a natural appeal to the popular mind.
This is the closest that this literature comes to the tendency in patristic literature of pointing out
the theological principle that justifies the use of the expression Theotokos.
850

Finally, these documents stress the divine Maternity of Mary by postulating a special
glorification for her after her death, precisely because she is the Mother of God. Thus, in the Latin
account of Pseudo-Melito, Peter and the Apostles say to Christ: “If therefore it might be brought
about by the power of Thy grace it has seemed right to us Thy servants that as Thou, having
overcome death, reignest in glory, so Thou shouldst raise up the body of Thy Mother and take her
with Thee rejoicing in heaven.”
851

The Coptic account of Theodosius has a similar emphasis. When Christ came to raise up the
body of Mary and glorify her in body and soul, He is portrayed as standing over the coffin and
saying:

“Arise from thy sleep, O thou holy body, which was to Me a temple. … Arise. Why sleepest thou
yet in the earth? Array thyself with thy soul, and come to the heavens with Me, unto My good
Father and the Holy Spirit; for they long for thee. Arise, O thou holy body, from which I built Me
My flesh in a manner incomprehensible; wear thy soul which was to Me a dwelling place. … Arise,
O thou holy body; be joined to the blessed soul. Receive from Me thy resurrection before the whole
creation.”
852

THE DEATH OF MARY

The death of Mary, together with her final lot after death, is treated in the apocryphal
literature known as the Transitus Mariae. The Transitus attempts to give information on these
matters and thus supply for the silence of the canonical Scripture on these points. There is a great
deal of controversy with regard to the locality and the time in which this literature developed. It
seems that this type of literature developed in Syria in the fifth century after the definition of the
divine Maternity at Ephesus had given a great impetus to the development of Mariology.
853 The
Transitus was an extremely popular type of literature as seen from the accounts in Syriac, Latin,
Greek, Coptic, and other languages.
854

Before discussing the treatment of Mary’s death, something must be said about the nature of
these documents and Mary’s outlook on death. With regard to the nature of these documents, it
can be said that the authors of these works, with their attention riveted on the glories of Mary, the
Theotokos, began to write about the marvels and miracles that were associated with Mary’s last
days on earth and with her passing from this earth. The writers surcharge their accounts with
descriptions of the miraculous that are utterly fantastic, and which manifest bad taste not only
theologically but artistically. With regard to this specific aspect of the nature and style of these
works, B. Altaner offers a valid explanation. There is a certain parallel between the Transitus
literature and the legendary Acts of the Martyrs insofar as fictitious episodes are introduced and
extraordinary miracles are multiplied. There was a keen disappointment in Christian circles over
the fact that the genuine data on so many outstanding personages of the early centuries was
unknown. Consequently, writers gave free rein to their imagination in writing up the acts of the
martyrs and lives of the saints; the period from the fourth to the sixth century was noted for such
legendary works and it is within the limits of this period that the Transitus developed, furnishing
fictionalized episodes of Mary’s last days on earth and multiplying miracles at will.
855

Regarding Mary’s outlook on death, it can be said that these documents are notorious for
playing up the horrors of the exitus animae, that is, the horror of the devil at death and the many
foes that the soul encounters in its journey to eternity.
856 Some documents have the bad taste to
submit Mary to such a mentality of fear, and this is very probably one of the reasons why the
Transitus literature met with disfavor and was rejected by the decree known as the Decretum
Gelasianum.
857 Actually, what these authors are doing is projecting a very popular eschatological
mentality into Mary. It is impossible for them to write about death without stressing the ever
popular theme, the exitus animae. As versions of the Transitus multiplied and were written more
in keeping with true Catholic sense, this aspect was decidedly toned down, e.g., in the account of
Pseudo-Melito. Even in documents where this mentality is highly pronounced, there are
indications that Mary was not entirely dominated by it.
858

Turning now to the question of Mary’s death, the Transitus literature portrays Mary’s
departure from this world as a departure by death, the common lot of mankind. It excludes both
martyrdom and immortality. To these authors the most obvious solution was that she died a
natural death. The Greek account of Pseudo-John is actually a discourse on the Falling Asleep of
Mary, κοίμησις being an accepted Christian expression to designate the sleep of death.
859 Pseudo-Melito speaks of Mary’s death as the departure of the Blessed Mary ever Virgin, the Mother of
God. This departure took place by the ordinary process of the soul being taken out of the body.
860
Mary was to be subject to death, the universal law for man; she, however, would meet it in victory.
Thus, when Mary prayed to Christ to be delivered from the power of darkness, and asked that she
see not the ugly spirits coming to meet her, Christ says to her: “When I was sent by My Father for
the salvation of the world and was hung on the Cross, the prince of darkness came to Me. But
because he was unable to find any vestige of his work in Me, he departed conquered and crushed.
When thou shalt see him, thou shalt see him in virtue of the common law of mankind, whereby
death is allotted to thee. However, he cannot harm thee, because I am with thee to help thee.
Come, without fear, for the heavenly hosts await thee to bring thee into the joys of paradise.”
861

It is not necessary to use all these documents that mention the fact that Mary died a natural
death. Greater attention, however, will be given to some of the Coptic accounts because it is
especially in these that there is a more detailed theological speculation on the death of Mary. In
the sixth-century sermon, written by Theodosius, the Monophysite Patriarch of Alexandria,
862
when the Apostles were grieved on hearing that Mary was going to die, she said to them: “My
sons, wherefore do you weep and grieve my spirit? Is it not written that all flesh must needs taste
death? I also must needs return to the earth, as all the inhabitants of the earth.”
863 Theodosius again
repeats the fact of Mary’s death by pointing to the universal law of death and by showing that her
death makes her conformable to Christ. This is seen in the words of Christ addressed to Mary: “O
My beautiful mother, when Adam transgressed My commandment I passed upon him a sentence,
saying, Adam, thou art earth and thou shalt return unto the earth again. For also I, the Life of all
men, tasted death in the flesh which I took from thee, in the flesh of Adam, thy forefather. Yet
since My Godhead was one with it, therefore I raised it from the dead.”
864 In the foregoing words
emphasis is placed on the fact that Christ took flesh from Mary. This is to prove the reality of
Christ and is at the same time a refutation of Docetism. On the same score, Mary’s death is
necessary to show that she was truly human, and consequently to show that Christ and His work
were actualities. Thus, after Christ told Mary that He raised up His flesh because of the Godhead
that was in it, He goes on to say: “I did not wish to suffer thee to taste death, but to translate thee
up to the heavens as Enoch and Elias. But these also, even they must needs taste death at last. And
if this happens to thee, wicked men will think concerning thee, that thou art a power (angelic
spirit) which came down from heaven; and that this dispensation took place in appearance. I know
the heart of all men, and understand their thoughts.”
865

The account of Pseudo-Evodius, who represents himself as a disciple of St. Peter and his
successor at Rome, is very similar to that of Theodosius in the treatment of Mary’s death.
866 When
Peter and the rest of the disciples asked Christ if it were not possible that Mary should never die,
this answer is given: “I wonder at you, O My holy apostles, for this word which you have spoken
now. Can the word which I spoke from the first prove a lie? Nay, God forbid. But I pronounced
a sentence of death from the first upon all flesh, that they must needs taste death. Because of the
flesh which I took, I also tasted death, I who am the Lord of all men, that I might loose the pangs
of death.”
867 When this answer was given on the certainty of Mary’s death, Peter asked Christ if
it were not possible that Mary be allowed to remain with them a while longer. To this Christ
answered: “O My chosen Peter, knowest thou not that there is an appointed time laid down for
each man to accomplish in the world; and when it is fulfilled, it is not possible for him to stay for
a single hour. Now therefore the appointed time of My mother is fulfilled today. Therefore she
must needs lay down her body, and I will take her up to the heavens with Me in glory.”
868 The
Transitus Mariae literature, then, takes for granted that Mary died. It also adduces reasons for her
death. Among these reasons we find the universality of death, the conformity of Mary to Christ,
and the reality of Mary with the consequent reality of the redemptive work of Christ.

THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY

The Assumption of Mary is a theme that is found in the Transitus Mariae. Important as are the
statements on the glorification of Mary as contained in these documents, it must be kept in mind
that the Transitus is concerned primarily with the death of Mary and with the miraculous
happenings surrounding it. Then, in a somewhat brief manner, it treats of the final lot of Mary
after death.
869 As was noted, this literature developed after the definition of Ephesus had resulted
in an intense awareness of the Theotokos. Accounts were written of her death and then writers
speculated on the lot of Mary after death. Once there was an actual confrontation of the death of
Mary, this latter problem had to be faced also. When this took place, the Christian sense of the
writers of these accounts revolted against the idea that one so glorious as Mary suffered the
corruption of the grave; hence, they postulate a glorification of Mary. She who was extraordinary
in life, they claim, was extraordinary in death.

Except for the account which states that the body of Mary will be hidden in the earth and
preserved incorruptible,
870 these accounts postulate a glorification for Mary in body and soul. It is
not easy to pass a definitive judgment on the nature of this glorification due, in part, to the very
involved eschatology of these documents. At any event, there is no doubt that, in some versions,
this glorification is a genuine assumption, comprising death, the glorification of the soul, the
resurrection of the body, and the reunion of soul and body in everlasting glory. Others, e.g., the
Greek account of Pseudo-John and derived documents, seem to draw a distinction between the
glorification of the soul and that of the body. According to this, Mary’s soul is in the heavens, in
the treasuries of the Father; her body is transplanted to an earthly paradise where it is preserved
incorrupt.
871

The Syriac fragment from the end of the fifth century, which Jugie regards as the oldest
Transitus,
872 in simple language describes the resurrection of Mary and the reunion of the body and
soul in paradise. While the Apostles were gathered before the sepulcher of Mary, Christ appeared
with Michael and a host of angels. At the bidding of Christ, the body of Mary was placed upon the
clouds which then went to the gates of paradise. On entering paradise, the body of Mary was set
down by the tree of life; then her soul was brought and placed in her body.
873

In the Latin account of Pseudo-Melito, which was a quasi-official version in the Latin Church,
874
Christ appeared to the Apostles who were gathered at the sepulcher after burying Mary. Christ
said to them: “Before I ascended to My Father, I promised you saying, that you who have followed
Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His majesty, you also shall
sit on the twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. I have chosen this woman out of the
tribes of Israel by the command of My Father to be My dwelling place. What, then, do you wish
that I should do with her.” On hearing this, Peter and the Apostles immediately answered: “Lord,
Thou hast chosen this Thy handmaid to become Thy immaculate chamber, and us Thy Apostles
for the ministry. Before the ages Thou hast foreknown all things with the Father, with Whom to
Thee and the Holy Spirit there is one equal divinity and infinite power. If, therefore, it might be
brought about by the power of Thy grace, it has seemed right to us Thy servants that as Thou,
having overcome death, reignest in glory, so Thou shouldst raise up the body of Thy mother and
take her with Thee rejoicing in heaven.”
875 At once Christ commanded Michael to bring on the soul
of Mary to have it ready to re-enter her body. In the words of Pseudo-Melito, the resurrection is
described as follows: “The Lord said: Arise, My love and My kinswoman, thou who didst not suffer
corruption by carnal intercourse, thou shalt not suffer corruption in the sepulcher. And at once
Mary rose from the tomb, blessed the Lord, and threw herself at the Lord’s feet, adoring Him and
saying: I am not able to offer Thee fitting thanks, O Lord, for Thy immense benefits, which Thou
hast deigned to confer upon me, Thy handmaid. May Thy name, O Redeemer of the world, and
God of Israel be blessed for ever.”
876 After the Lord had kissed her, Mary was taken up to the
paradise of God together with Christ and the angels.
877

The theme of a genuine Assumption is equally clear and emphatic in the Coptic account of
Theodosius. The mind of Theodosius on the extraordinary glorification of Mary after death is seen
in the threefold announcement of what is going to happen to Mary. Addressing words of
consolation to Peter and John who were grieving over the news of Mary’s departure, Christ said:
“Be of good cheer, My friends and Apostles. I will not suffer her to be long away from you, but she
shall appear to you quickly. There are two hundred and six days from her death until her holy
assumption. I will bring her unto you arrayed in this body again, even as this body also, as you see
her now, whilst she is with you. And I will translate her up to the heavens to be with My Father
and the Holy Spirit, that she may continue praying for you all.”
878 The same promise is made as
soon as Mary died.
879 As the body of Mary was being brought to burial, Theodosius pictures a
Galilean as saying under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “This corpse that is borne, this is the
body of Mary, the daughter of Joachim and Anne, who bore the Messias, who is Christ. He it was
who healed your sick, and gave light to your eyes, and raised your dead. We believe that as He
raised your dead, He will raise His Mother also, and will take her to the heavens with Him.”
880

When the time for the actual Assumption arrived, Christ came down from heaven and ordered
the body to rise. This is the beautiful passage “Arise from thy sleep, O thou holy body” which has
already been quoted in the section on the divine Maternity of Mary. Describing what then took
place, Theodosius goes on to relate: “When the Lord had said these things over the coffin of stone,
straightway it opened; for it was shut even as the ark of Noah aforetime, which no man could
open save God, who shut it aforetime. Forthwith the body of the honorable Virgin arose, and
embraced its own soul, even as two brothers who are come from a strange country, and they were
united one with another.”
881 Giving us a final glimpse of Mary, Theodosius states: “She also, at once
Our Lady and our Succorer, blessed us; and we saw them no more. But the voice of the powers
that sang hymns before them was sounding in our ears, saying: Alleluia. Bring to the Lord glory
and honor; bring to the Lord honor to His holy name. Alleluia. Bring to the Lord the sons of God,
and sing glory in His holy temple. Alleluia. Then we understood that today there were brought
unto he King virgins, even the soul and the body which were united.”
882

These are but a few of the many testimonies to Mary’s Assumption in the Apocrypha.
883 These
apocryphal accounts are extremely important and interesting, because it is in them that we have
the first testimonies in writing to Mary’s Assumption. This poses a very weighty and involved
problem, namely, the origin of this belief. This problem is seen to be all the more acute when it
is borne in mind that there is no explicit statement in Scripture regarding Mary’s Assumption, and
that, prior to the Transitus Mariae literature, there is no patristic tradition on this matter. These
facts argue to the nonexistence of an oral tradition of apostolic origin on the final lot of Mary.
884

The glorification of Mary after death and the Assumption theme in the Transitus Mariae, then,
demand an explanation. It isimpossible to regard these accounts as reliable historical reports of
the events described. On the other hand, they are not merely the product of imaginations allowed
to run wild. Altaner’s explanation for the bizarre style of these documents, as noted above,
885 is a
very valid explanation. However, this does not explain the Assumption theme introduced into
these documents. For the explanation of this, other factors were at work.

These are accounts that proclaim the glories of Mary. Although previous to these writings
there were no testimonies to Mary’s Assumption, there was in Sacred Scripture and tradition a
definite corpus Marianum. Mary was revered as the Mother of God, as the Virgin ante, in, and post
partum; she was the New Eve associated with Christ, the New Adam, in the work of the
Redemption. She was hailed as a creature of unique holiness. Consequently, when these authors
consciously confronted the problem of Mary’s final lot, their Christian piety revolted against the
idea that one so exceptional underwent the corruption of the grave; they postulated for her a
glorification in body and soul. To them, this glorification was based on and flowed from the above-mentioned Mariological truths and principles. Hence, in these Apocrypha we have the origin of
the movement to approach the Assumption of Mary from a theological viewpoint.
886 This trend
gained tempo with the passing of the ages. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the
protection of Christ, the Church came to a greater insight into the deposit of revelation; the
Assumption of Mary was a truth believed and taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium,
and was solemnly declared a dogma of faith by Pope Pius XII on the first of November, 1950.
887

THE QUEENSHIP OF MARY

Explicit testimonies to the Queenship of Mary did not appear before the fifth century.
888 Prior
to this time, however, there were implicit manifestations of this belief.
889 The Mater Domini of the
New Testament, where the word Dominus definitely connotes royalty and sovereignty,
890 led to the
use of the word Domina.
891 Similarly, there was the evolution from the concept “Mother of Christ
who is King” to “Mother of the King” and then the explicit use of the word “Queen.”
892

It would not advance the proof in any noticeable way to quote the passages from the
Protoevangelium of James and its allied documents that repeat the Gospel scenes of the
Annunciation, Nativity, and the Visitation which form the basis of this truth. In the
Protoevangelium of James, however, there is a passage that should be noted. The priests of the
Temple decided to have a veil spun for the temple from various kinds of thread. To make this veil,
young girls were chosen who were virgins and of the tribe of David. Lots were cast to determine
who would weave the gold, linen, etc. It fell to Mary’s lot to weave the true purple and scarlet.
893
Purple, the color of royalty, was allotted to Mary, to one who was the offspring of a royal line and
who was destined for a royalty higher than all the dignities of earth.
894 The author does no more
than state that the purple was allotted to Mary. In the Latin version of Pseudo-Matthew, Mary
likewise received the purple. When this happened, the other virgins were jealous and explained
it by saying that she received the purple because she was the youngest. Then in a sarcastic manner
they began to call her, “Queen of virgins.” No sooner had they referred to Mary as the Queen of
virgins, when an angel of the Lord appeared in their midst and said to them: “This word will not
be a word spoken in sarcasm, but it will be a true prophecy.”
895

Referring to this designation of Mary in Pseudo-Matthew, Amann remarks that the author has
understood perfectly the thought of the Protoevangelium when this document assigned to Mary
the task of weaving the purple.
896 In connection with the appellation of Mary as Queen in Pseudo-Matthew, it is interesting to note that the author makes a very significant change in the
Annunciation scene. In this document, the angel is represented as saying to Mary: “Fear not, Mary,
thou hast found favor with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bear a King who will
rule not only on earth but also in heaven, and He shall reign for ever and ever.”
897

The explicit title of “Queen” in Pseudo-Matthew is a far advance on the Protoevangelium. This,
however, is not surprising in a work that comes from the sixth century. It is a good illustration
showing how later recensions of a specific theme, such as that of the Protoevangelium, can mirror
explicit and developed viewpoints current in their own time.

In a similar way, late Infancy Gospels clearly portray Mary as Queen. This is particularly
noticeable in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, where Mary has a very predominant role.
898 Here
Mary is constantly referred to as “Queen.” The title Domina, applied to Mary, is always linked with
the title Dominus, applied to Christ. Christ is Herus, Dominus; Mary is Hera, Domina. Mary is
Domina nostra, the Mother of Christ the King. Because of this, she is Domina nostra.
899

Since explicit testimonies to Mary as Queen date from the fifth century and are linked so
closely with her divine Maternity, the richest source of this doctrine is the Transitus Mariae
literature. In proclaiming the glories of the Mother of God and in describing her triumphant
entrance into paradise, they hail her as a glorious queen. The testimonies to this doctrine are
somewhat subdued in the early Greek accounts and very effusive in the Syriac and Coptic
versions.

In Pseudo-Melito there is no direct statement that Mary is a queen. Two points, however, are
stressed, namely, the Kingship of Christ and Mary’s divine Maternity. Mary, therefore, is the
Mother of the King of Glory. It is to Christ as the King of glory that Mary addresses her prayers.
900
This is as much as can be drawn from Pseudo-Melito on the royalty of Mary. Mary is the Mother
of the King; and this phrase represents a fact, and also one of the stages of development or
evolution of the Queenship of Mary.

The Greek discourse by Pseudo-John frequently refers to Mary as the “Mother of the Lord.”
The Lord is both God and King. The Mother of the Lord, then, is both Mother of God and Mother
of one who is King. In this term, Mother of the Lord, there is conveyed the idea of royalty and
sovereignty. Pseudo-John, moreover, explicitly proclaims the Queenship of Mary when he uses
δέσποινα, a word that conveys the meaning of “Sovereign Lady” or “Queen.”
901 This is seen when
he states: “The Apostles, therefore, rose up immediately and went from the house carrying the bed
of the Sovereign Lady, the Mother of God.”
902

In the Syriac Transitus Mariae
903 Mary is referred to again and again as “Lady Mary.”
904 She is
“Lady Mary, the Mistress of the world.” This Lady Mary is the one who bore Him who is the
Governor of the heaven and of the world.
905 This Governor of the world is Christ the King who
came down from heaven to be beside the Lady Mary in death.
906 Throughout, the royalty of Mary
is linked with the Kingship of Christ, the Son of God whom she bore. Not only does He proclaim
her Queenship, but He proclaims her as a very special queen, for she is the Mistress of the world.

The Coptic account of Theodosius is a panegyric on the “Lady of us all, the holy God-bearer
Mary.”
907 Mary is the Lady of us all because she brought forth Him who bears the universe.
908 The
concept of the royalty of Mary is brought out in the words which Christ addressed to the Father
when He took the soul of Mary to heaven after she died. To Him He says: “Receive from Me, O
My good Father, the bush which received the fire of the Godhead and was not burnt. I offer Thee,
O My Father, a royal gift today, even the soul of My virgin mother.”
909 Mary, in truth, is a royal
gift because she is the Queen whom Christ called from the grief, trouble, and groaning of this life
that she might receive everlasting joy and gladness.
910

Even more enthusiastic are the testimonies to the Queenship of Mary in the account of Pseudo-Evodius. Like Theodosius, he also sets out to proclaim the glory of the “Lady of us all, the holy
God-bearer Mary.”
911 For him the day on which Mary died was the day on which “the Queen of
all women, Mary the Virgin, the Mother of the King of kings was to go unto her beloved Son, our
Lord, Jesus Christ.”
912 Mary the Queen, the Mother of the King of kings is the heavenly Queen who
takes her stand at the right hand of her Son. Thus, when Christ came to call Mary in death and
take her to heaven, He said to the Apostles: “O My glorious members, whom I chose out of all the
world, this is the day that the prophecy of My father David has been fulfilled, ‘The Queen stood
at thy right hand.’”
913 David himself is portrayed as a witness to Mary’s Queenship. When Mary
died “David the holy singer struck his spiritual harp, and cried out, saying: Precious before the
Lord is the death of His holy ones. Be glad, O Mary, thou mother of Christ, the King of kings. This
is the day that the prophecies are fulfilled which I spoke concerning thee, thou true Queen.”
914

The foregoing testimonies are sufficient to show the thought and trend of these documents on
the Queenship of Mary. They clearly show that the Mother of the Lord is Domina, and that the
Mother of Christ the King is Regina. These documents glory in hailing and proclaiming Mary as
a queen. In popular and homiletical literature of this type, however, there is little theological
speculation on the nature and basis of this Queenship. There are, it is true, many indications of
why Mary is a queen, and it is with deep regret that these, due to lack of space, cannot be handled
here at the present time. One obvious conclusion, however, stands out most clearly, namely, that
the divine Maternity of Mary and her Queenship are always linked together.

THE INTERCESSION OF MARY

In the New Testament we see Mary as the means by which Christ, the Source of all blessings,
came to man. We also see Mary using her power of intercession with her Son in favor of the
married couple at Cana.
915

Regarding the invocation of Mary and her intercession, there is not a word in the
Protoevangelium of James. On the other hand, in Pseudo-Matthew, the sixth-century Latin
elaboration of this work, there are scenes in which people have recourse to Mary. Describing
Mary’s life in the Temple, he says that if any sick people touched her they were immediately cured
of their malady.
916 When the virgins who sarcastically referred to Mary as queen were rebuked by
the angel, they at once asked Mary to pardon them and pray for them.
917 When the people made
rash judgments about Mary’s pregnant condition, and Mary proved them to be wrong, they
implored her to have compassion on them and to pardon them.
918

Such a theme, introduced into this sixth-century version of the Protoevangelium, is not at all
surprising, for this work is the product of an age where Mary was hailed as the Dispensatrix of
all graces, the Hope of the sick, the Help of the afflicted, and the Refuge of sinners.
919 This same
mentality is especially pronounced in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy where Mary plays a very
dominant role and is the Mediatrix of all blessings bestowed by the Infant.
920 This document is
replete with scenes in which people come to Mary in their needs and are then helped by Mary and
the Child whom she bore.
921

The Transitus Mariae literature which proclaims the glories of Mary and which proclaims
Mary’s Assumption and Queenship because she is the Mother of God also high-lights the
invocation and intercession of one who, as the Mother of God, can obtain all graces and blessings
from her Son. To show the trend of these documents on this point, these few following testimonies
must suffice.

In the Syriac Transitus, many people came to Mary in their needs with pleas for help on their
lips. Describing one of these scenes, the Transitus states: “And persons without number went forth
and went to Bethlehem; and they knocked at the door of the Blessed one’s upper chamber. And
the Apostles did not open the door to them. And when they did not open the door to them, they
implored, saying: O Lady Mary, Mother of God, have mercy on us. And the Lady Mary heard the
voice of the persons who were crying to her, and she prayed and said: My Master the Christ,
whom I have in heaven, hearken to the voice of these afflicted souls. And straightway great
strength and help went forth from the Blessed one to all these sick people, and they were cured.”
922
From the lips of the Governor who was won over to Mary’s cause, we hear these beautiful words:
“The earth on which thou walkest becomes heaven. The heaven that beholds thee gives a blessing
to the creatures who believe in thee. The healthy who behold thee receive gladness. To the sick
who come unto thee thou givest health. I worship thee, Lady Mary. Stretch out thy right hand and
bless me, and this my only child.”
923 The angel who came to Mary to announce to her that she was
to leave the world hails her with this greeting: “Hail to thee, Mother of God! Thy prayer hath been
accepted in heaven before thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore thou shalt depart from
this world unto life everlasting. For thus I have been sent to tell thee and to cause thee to know
that at the time when thou didst pray on earth, at once thou wast answered in heaven; and
whatsoever thou dost seek from the Christ, thy Son who is in heaven on the right hand of God,
thou shalt have both in earth and in heaven, and thy will is done.”
924

The power of Mary to help those in need is brought out very graphically by Pseudo-Melito
when he tells the story of the Jewish priest who tried to overturn the body of Mary and whose
arms were cut off from his shoulders and clung to the bier. It is at this point that the author goes
on to say: “Then Peter made the bier stand still and said to him: If thou wilt believe with thy whole
heart in the Lord Jesus Christ, thy hands will be loosed from the bier. And when he had said this,
immediately his hands were loosed from the bier and he began to stand on his feet; his arms,
however, were still withered and the pain did not leave him. Then Peter said to him: Go up to the
body, kiss the bed and say: I believe in God, and in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom this woman
bore, and I believe all things whatever Peter, the Apostle of God, has told me. Then coming near
he kissed the bed, and at once all pain left him and his hands were healed.”
925

Pseudo-John gives the name of Jephonias to the person who tried to overturn the body of
Mary. When Jephonias was punished for this rash act and was in excruciating pain, he cried out:
“Holy Mary, thou didst bear Christ, who is God, have mercy on me.”
926 This calling upon Mary is
most helpful because her power of intercession is so great. This idea is brought out very
graphically in these words which Christ addresses to Mary: “Let thy heart be glad and rejoice, for
every grace and every gift has been given thee of My Father who is in heaven and of Me and of
the Holy Spirit. Every soul that calls upon thee shall not be put to shame, but shall find mercy and
consolation and help and confidence both in this world and in the world to come before My Father
who is in heaven.”
927 The power of Mary to obtain for us not only the needs of the present life, but
also the help necessary to attain eternal life is also stressed by the author when he says: “By the
prayer and intercession of Mary may we all be accounted worthy to come under her protection
and help and guardianship both in this world and in the world to come.”
928

In these writings it is brought out that the intercession of Mary was great while she was living
here on earth and also equally great when she was taken to heaven. Mary the Queen, assumed into
heaven, is there beside her Son to intercede for us. In the sermon of Theodosius, this role of Mary,
the Queen of heaven, receives great prominence. When Christ came to call Mary to heaven,
Theodosius portrays Christ as saying to Peter and John: “And I will translate her up to the heavens
to be with My Father and the Holy Spirit, that she may continue praying for you all.”
929

CONCLUSION

The foregoing pages show that there are ample testimonies to Mary in the Apocrypha of the
New Testament. Ample as these testimonies are, it must not be forgotten that the testimonies
mentioned are selective. At the same time, the testimonies selected are representative of the
Marian trends in these writings.

Aside from individual works like the Ascension of Isaias, the Odes of Solomon, and the like,
there are two main Marian sources in the Apocrypha. For the earlier period (second century on)
there is the Protoevangelium of James, together with its various versions and allied documents.
For the later period (fifth century on) there is the Transitus Mariae literature. The Protoevangelium
literature is concerned primarily with the exceptional birth and the virginity of Mary; the Transitus
Mariae literature is a glorification of Mary as the Theotokos and is a witness to her death and
Assumption. It must not be imagined that these two Marian sources are parallel sources in the
sense that they run parallel and never meet. Thus, later versions of the Protoevangelium and later
allied documents can and do reflect teachings current in their own age, teachings which are
normally given greater emphasis in the Transitus Mariae literature. To illustrate, the Latin account
of Pseudo-Matthew and the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy witness to the Queenship of Mary and
the power of her intercession, themes normally found in the Transitus Mariae as a glorification of
the Theotokos. Conversely, accounts of the Transitus Mariae (e.g., that by Pseudo-Evodius) utilize
the theme of the Protoevangelium.

The various testimonies adduced in these pages show that there is a very definite and sublime
corpus of Mariology in these documents. Four observations are called for regarding this Mariology.
Sublime as the Mariology of these documents is, it is hoped that this has not given a one-sided
view of these documents and portrayed them in too favorable a light. This Mariology is often
given against a bizarre and fantastic background of fabricated legends and miracles. The wheat
of these documents, that is, their teaching on Mary, has been gathered and used; the chaff, that
is, the fantastic background has been rejected except when absolutely necessary for continuity.
Second, with regard to the Mariology of the Apocrypha, the writer was very happy to find so
many and clear testimonies. The texts were clear and spoke for themselves; they did not have to
be read into or twisted to form a corpus of Mariology. Third, the sublime Mariology in these works
is a priceless witness to the fundamentally sound Christian feeling of the faithful for Mary. This
points up the basic importance of these accounts for the theologian and the historian of dogma;
as witnesses to tradition they are of great value. Finally, as witnesses to tradition, it should be
remarked that very often there is a close parallel between the development and the explicitation
of a doctrine in the apocryphal teaching and the patristic praedicatio.

Mary in the Eastern Liturgies

By Very Rev. Cuthbert Gumbinger, O.F.M.Cap., S.T.D.

INTRODUCTION

THE cult of the Mother of God began in the East with the early Church. Christ confided His
Mother to the care of St. John, the beloved disciple. She was the joy and consolation of the
Apostles and the other early followers of Christ. With her they received the Holy Spirit on
Pentecost Sunday. From her they learned many facts of Christ’s early history, which were then
incorporated into the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Some of the Apostles, or at least John, knew
of her glorious Assumption into heaven.

From these facts we can understand how the early Church revered the Mother of God. But the
persecutions and strenuous missionary work of the early times prevented the Church from
insisting on Mary’s glories and privileges as she would have liked to do. Nonetheless, Mary had
a place in the liturgy even before the Council of Ephesus.
930 But it is difficult, if not impossible, to
say just when devotion to the Mother of God found a place in the liturgical cult of the Church. We
know that some of the Apostolic Fathers wrote about Mary’s Virginal Conception of Christ and
her divine Maternity.
931 Thus, SS. Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus, Justin, and Aristides affirm the
Virginal Conception of Christ.
932 Justin and Irenaeus compare Mary to Eve.
933 From the year 190 until
the year 325 various ecclesiastical writers treat of Mary, especially Tertullian, Origen, and Clement
of Alexandria.
934 After the Council of Nice (325) there are more references to Mary not only in the
East but also in the West, due to the Christological controversies and heresies.
935 It was precisely
the defense of Catholic doctrine regarding the divinity of Christ that brought out the glory of
Mary in her divine Maternity. This increased love and devotion to both Christ and His Blessed
Mother and gave her a more prominent place in the liturgy especially after the Council of Ephesus
(431).
936

Christ and Mary are of the East. Their cult arose in the East. We do well to study the Eastern
liturgies, therefore, to see in what manner the Christian devotion of the East honors Christ and
His immaculate Virgin Mother. The wealth and beauty of the Eastern hymns, odes, and prayers
to Our Lady are truly amazing. This is especially seen in the Byzantine, Ethiopian, and Syrian
liturgies.
937 The Byzantines have hundreds of kontaks and thousands of canons in varied forms and
in the eight tones in honor of Mary. These verses fill some twenty huge volumes, while those
inedited and lost would fill many more.
938 Three fourths of the Byzantine Office consists of hymns,
and perhaps the best and greater part of them is in honor of Mary’s privileges and offices.
939 It is
somewhat similar in the Ethiopian and Syrian liturgies. But in all the Eastern liturgies Mary has
a prominent place.

The theological foundation of Eastern devotion to Mary is her divine Maternity. Although the
term hyperdulia is generally not used among the Eastern writers, yet the entire body of Eastern
Christians actually give her this special cult, for they agree (except the Nestorians) that Mary has
a dignity above that of every other creature and above all other creatures, because she is the
Mother of God.
940 Thus, the cult of Mary in the East is identical with that in the West, which we
call hyperdulia, even though the East, for lack of theological analysis in this matter, does not use
this term. In fact, an Orthodox theologian, Mihalcescu, calls Mariology “Papist theology.”
941

In the following pages we attempt to review briefly the place that Mary has in the Eastern
liturgies; but it is impossible here to give a full idea of the beauty and wealth of doctrine that they
contain. The true Church both in the East and the West will never cease to praise the all-holy and
immaculate Virgin Mother of God, to multiply hymns, feasts, and practices in her honor; for in
doing so the Church glorifies God with Mary and begs her, who is all-powerful with her divine
Son, to grant us mercy, peace, and grace. This is well expressed in the following prayer of the
Byzantine liturgy:

Whilst we sing the glories of thy Son, we praise thee, too, O Mother of God, living Temple of the
Godhead. … O purest One, do not despise the petitions of the sinner; for He who deigned to suffer for
us will also be merciful towards us and save us. O Christ, behold Thy Mother, she who conceived Thee
in her womb, without the loss of her virginity, and who after she had given Thee birth remained a
stainless Virgin. We present her to Thee that she may be our Advocate, O Thou who art all mercy,
Thou who dost grant pardon to those who say to Thee from their hearts: Be mindful of me, O Lord,
when Thou art come into Thy kingdom.
942

In fine, it is devotion to the Mother of God even among the Dissident Eastern Christians that
gives us hope for the reunion of Churches. She, the Mother of the Good Shepherd, we hope, will
lead back to the true flock those countless souls who for so long have been without a shepherd.
By knowing the Eastern liturgies better we can grow in love for the East, and thus hasten the day
when there will be a united Christendom ruled by the Vicar of Christ.

I. MARY IN THE BYZANTINE LITURGY

The richest of all the Eastern rites in Marian praises is that of Byzantium, or Constantinople.
Even before the Council of Ephesus in 431 Our Lady had a noble place in the Eastern rites.
943 From
that time on there was a marvelous development.
944 The Byzantine rite glories in its liturgical
devotion to the all-holy Mother of God.

The Byzantine rite is used by Catholics and Orthodox who hold Constantinople as their
liturgical mother. They are the most numerous of the Eastern Christians and can be found from
Poland to Japan, and from the Sudan to the White Sea. There are numerous colonies of them in
western Europe especially since World War II, as well as in North and South America and even
in Australia.
945 Various nations follow this rite and it uses various languages (more among the
Orthodox than among the Catholics). The rite is used by Greeks, Slavs of Russia and the Balkans,
Italo-Greeks of Sicily and Calabria, Melkites of Syria and Egypt, Ukrainians, Podcarpatho-Rusins,
some Hungarians and Rumanians.
946

There are some minor differences in the liturgical books of these various nations and
languages, but essentially the rite is the same. The same is true of the vestments used. The chant
differs quite a bit among the various nations.

The Marian cult among the Byzantines is rich and profound in doctrine. They seem to have
no end in praising her, who is above all praise. They use an enormous number of titles and figures
for her taken from Sacred Scripture, and from her various offices and privileges. Then, too, they
give her names taken from the animals, plants, flowers, stars, and other material things.
Archbishop Assaf of Petra, Philadelphia, and the Transjordan has counted up no less than 197
titles of Mary in the Byzantine liturgical books.
947 Here we shall treat first of the Marian Year, then
of Mary in the Divine Office, and finally of Mary in the Divine Liturgy.

1. Mary in the Byzantine Calendar

During the liturgical year which begins with the first of September, there are various feasts
of Mary embellished with beautiful antiphons, tropars, and kondiaks in her honor. Of old the civil
year in Byzantium began with the first of September and the faithful of the Byzantine rite have
ever kept this for the liturgical year as well.

Among the twelve greater feasts in this rite eight are in honor of Christ (two of them partly
in honor of Mary, namely Christmas and the Purification of Mary) and four are in honor of Mary,
namely her Nativity, her Presentation in the Temple, the Annunciation, and the Falling Asleep
(Assumption) of Mary. From October 1 to 14 there is commemorated the Protection (Intercession)
of Mary.
948

September: On the first of this month there is the Commemoration (Synaxis) of Our Lady of
Miasenes in honor of her manifestation at the monastery of that place in 864. In the Office for that
day we read:

Hail, Mother of God, Virgin full of grace, Refuge and Protection of the human race; for it is from thee
that the Redeemer of the world has taken flesh. Thou alone art at one and the same time Mother and
Virgin, blessed and glorified forever. Pray to Christ, Our God, to grant peace to the world.
949

This is the type of prayer used so often in the Byzantine rite. Mary’s intercession with her
divine Son is stressed in many forms in the Office and the Divine Liturgy. In Byzantine art this
theme is called the Deisis (intercession) and Christ is represented between Our Lady and St. John
the Baptist, who are interceding with Him.
950 The vigil of Our Lady’s Nativity has this prayer in
the Office:

… The Daughter of God, Mary, is sent into the world. Heaven and earth rejoice. … Hail, O Virgin, glory
of Christians.
951

The feast of Our Lady’s Nativity, September 8: This is a great feast, which has lost some of its
solemnity in the West, and which is still held as a day of obligation in many parts of the East. The
following prayer is used even in the Latin Liturgy:

Thy Nativity, O Mother of God, has announced joy to the whole world; for from thee there has risen
the Sun of Justice, Christ, our God, who breaking the curse, has given blessing, and confounding death,
has given us life everlasting.
952

Some other prayers for this feast are:

Today the barren gates are opened, and the Divine Virginal Gate advances. Today is devoted to Fruit-bearing, its grace manifesting the Mother of God to the world; by her the earthly is united to the
heavenly, for the salvation of our souls.

Today the joy of the whole world has its beginnings; today the breezes blow messengers of salvation;
the barrenness of our nature is destroyed; for the Virgin Mother is manifested, who was a Virgin after
the Birth of the Creator, by whom that which was estranged, was reconciled to the Nature of God, and
salvation was accomplished for the wanderers in the flesh, Christ, the Lover of man and Redeemer of
our souls.

Today the barren Anna bringeth forth a blessed Child, the foreordained from all generations to be the
dwelling of the King and Creator, Christ our God, for the working of the divine Plan, through which
we, the earth-born, are re-established and renewed from corruption to the eternal life.
953

At Thy Nativity, O Immaculate, Joachim and Anna were delivered from the opprobrium of sterility;
Adam and Eve from corruption and death. Thy people also celebrate this Nativity, for they are freed
from the bondage of sin and cry out: She who was sterile gave birth to the Mother of God, who
nourishes our spiritual life.
954

October: The Slavs and Rumanians have the commemoration of the Protection of the Virgin
from the first to the fourteenth of this month. This is taken from the feast of the Mantle of the
Virgin, still celebrated on July 2 in the Church of Constantinople. Among the Greeks this feast
honored first the mantle itself and then Mary’s protection, as seen in the Office (similar to that of
Our Lady’s Cincture on August 31). Among the Slavs the feast is that of Mary’s protection, even
though icons of the Prokov (covering) show either Mary or the angels spreading her mantle over
the faithful.
955

The Slavic and Rumanian Offices have this prayer:

Today, we the faithful people … contemplating thy pure image, cry out in all humility: Cover us with
thy precious patronage and deliver us from all evil, praying thy Son, Christ our God, to save our souls.
956

Today the Virgin intercedes in the Church, and with the invincible armies of saints, prays to God for
us; angels and pontiffs prostrate themselves; apostles and prophets rejoice, for the Mother of God prays
the eternal God for us.
957

On the Sunday Between October 11 and 17 there is the feast of the Second Council of Nice
(787) but it really commemorates the first seven General Councils. In the liturgy for this feast we
have the following prayer:

O Lord of all goodness, by the intercession of Thy Mother, and of the Fathers assembled in the seven
Councils, strengthen Thy Church, fortify the faith, and grant us a part in the Kingdom of Heaven, when
Thou comest on earth to judge every creature.
958

November: On November 15 the Slavs celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Compassion. This title
responds to the Greek Theotokos Eleousa, given to many Byzantine icons of Mary.
959

On the vigil of Our Lady’s Presentation in the Temple we read:

[She is] truly the Temple of the Divine Word. The whole world, filled with joy, cries out: The Virgin
is a heavenly Tabernacle.
960

The feast of Our Lady’s Presentation in the Temple on November 21 is one of the twelve
principal feasts of the year, and ranks higher in the East than in the West.

Today we, the faithful, rejoice in psalms and hymns, singing unto the Lord, honoring also His
sanctified Tabernacle, the living Ark, the Container of the Uncontainable Word; for she, being
marvellously brought forth in the flesh, is offered to God; and the great High Priest Zachary receives
her, gladdened, as the Dwelling Place of God.

Today the living Temple of the holy glory of Christ our God, the only-blessed Undefiled One among
women, is offered in the legal Temple, to dwell in the holy places; and Joachim and Anna rejoice in
spirit, and virginal choirs sing unto the Lord in melodious psalms, and honor His Mother.

O Virgin Mother of God, thou art the Proclamation of the Prophets, the Glory of the Apostles, and
Boast of the Martyrs, the Renewal of the earth-born; by thee we are reconciled to God. Wherefore we
honor thy entrance into the Temple of the Lord, and with the Angels we cry aloud in psalms: Hail to
thee, the all-august, being saved by Thy intercession.
961

Today is the prelude of the blessing of God, and the announcement of the salvation of men. The Virgin
is presented in the Temple of the Lord, and she announces Christ beforehand to all. Let us also cry to
her with a loud voice: Hail, thou who art the fulfillment of the plan of the Creator.

She who is the most pure Temple of the Saviour, She who is at one and the same time a Virgin and a
nuptial chamber of great price, the true Treasure of the Glory of God, enters today into the house of
the Lord, bringing with her the grace of the Divine Spirit. The Angels of God sing hymns to her. She
is the heavenly Tabernacle.
962

December: The Immaculate Conception is considered in an active sense, namely the conception
of Mary by Anna. This is the title for the feast found in modern liturgical books, “Feast of the
Conception of Anna.” But in the Middle Ages the other title was frequendy used, “Feast of the
Conception of the Mother of God.” The hymnographers have ever celebrated the fact of Mary’s
conception, and paid little attention to the miraculous or legendary circumstances surrounding
it. These writers treat of the special intervention of the Blessed Trinity in preparing the palace of
the Word made Flesh. This gives the hymnographers an occasion to honor the perpetual sanctity
of Our Lady. The feast of the Immaculate Conception was not developed in the East under the
influence of theological controversies as in the West. The feast expressed the initial holiness of
Our Lady, whom God prepared in a special way to be the Mother of His Son. A kontakion reads:

Today the whole world celebrates the Conception of Anna, which is the work of God; for she has
brought forth into the world her, who, in an ineffable manner, has begotten the Word made Flesh.
963

Again:

Today are burst the bonds of barrenness, for God, hearing the desire of Joachim and Anna for children,
clearly promised them a holy Daughter, from whom shall be born He, who is Uncontainable, who shall
become a Mortal by the summons of the Angel crying aloud to her: Hail, O full of grace, the Lord is
with thee.
964

From December 18 to 24 the following antiphons are read:

O Virgin, the living Palace of God, He, whom the Heavens cannot contain, found place in Thee:
who in the cave was brought forth above thought, taking part in poverty and flesh, that He might deify
me, and enrich poverty, weakness and bitter hunger.

The All-Holy and Blameless One, perceiving the ordinances of nature renovated by the
incomprehensible Birth cried out to the Son: O much desired Child, I am amazed at the great mystery,
how, remaining a Virgin, I also brought forth by Thy Power, who madest all things by Thy Will.
965

Today the Virgin begets the Supersubstantial One,

The earth offers the shelter of the cave to the Inaccessible One,

The Angels chant the Glory of God with the shepherds,

The Magi walk with the star,

For there is born for us,

The new Infant, God before all ages.
966

On Christmas Day Mary is honored with these prayers:

… For He, the unchangeable Image of the Father, the Impress of His eternity, hath taken the form of
a servant, coming forth from His virginal Mother, but unchanged; for what He was, that He still
remained, True God; and what He was not, He assumed, through Love for men becoming Man. To Him
we cry aloud: O God, who wast born of a Virgin, have mercy upon us.
967

From the Hymn of Anatolius:

When Jesus the Lord was born of the Holy Virgin, all things were enlightened. … O God who art, and
wast before, and shinest forth from the Virgin, have mercy upon us.

From the Hymn of Casia:

When Augustus reigned alone upon the earth, the many rulers of men ceased; and when Thou
becamest Man of the Pure One, the many godheads of the idols fell.
968

After the Consecration in the Divine Liturgy, Mary is praised with this hymn:

It is easy, O Virgin, to love thee in silence, without having anything to fear; but it is difficult to chant
hymns to thee as we would like, well suited to thy love. At least, O Mother, grant us to do so according
to our desire.
969

On December 26 there is celebrated the Synaxis or Commemoration of Mary, which is really
the feast of her divine Maternity and was the first feast in honor of Mary. A kontakion for this day
reads:

He, who before the dawn was begotten of the Father without having a Mother, took flesh today in thy
womb without having a father. Therefore the star announces His Birth to the Magi and the Angels sing
of thy virginal childbearing with the shepherds, O thou full of grace.
970

On the Sunday after Christmas there is a commemoration of St. Joseph, Spouse of Mary, of
David the Prophet, and of James the Lord’s cousin, to show the messianic descent of Joseph and
the relationship of James. The tropar at Vespers declares:

O Joseph, announce to David that thou hast seen a Virgin with child, and that, informed by the angel,
thou hast glorified God with the shepherds, whom thou hast adored with the Magi. Beg Christ our God
to save our souls.
971

In the Christmas Office there are many tropars and kondiaks in honor of Mary, e.g.:

The dew-shedding fiery furnace imaged forth the type of a marvellous wonder: for its flames scorched
not the Holy Children whom it had received, even as the fire of the Godhead scorched not the Virgin
when it entered into her womb.
972

Magnify, O my soul, the Virgin, the all-pure Birth-giver of God, more honorable and more glorious
than the hosts on high.

A mystery strange and most glorious I behold. The cavern, Heaven; the Cherubic Throne a Virgin; the
manger, the receptacle wherein lieth Christ, our God, whom nothing can contain. Him, therefore, do
we magnify, praising Him in song.
973

January: Although there is no special Marian feast in this month, the Office of the
Circumcision is filled with the idea of the divine Maternity of Mary. So, too, in the Latin Office for
this feast the antiphons for Vespers and Lauds are obviously taken from the Byzantine Office (O
admirabile commercium, etc.). A Byzantine theotokion reads:

Who could worthily celebrate the supernatural mystery of the conception wrought in thy womb? For
thou hast begotten in the flesh, O All-Holy One, God who has manifested Himself to us the Saviour of
men.

The bush of Sinai, in contact with the fire without being consumed, prefigured thee, O Mother ever
Virgin, Mary, O most chaste Mother of God.
974

Although the feast of Epiphany is mainly to honor the Lord’s Baptism, it does not forget His
Mother. These strophes of Matins are in her honor:

Every tongue finds it hard to praise Thee worthily. The heavenly spirits themselves exult to praise thee,
O Mother of God. Nonetheless in thy goodness, accept our faith, for thou knowest our desire. Thou art
the Protectress of Christians; we glorify thee.

O incomprehensible wonder of Thy child-bearing! Virgin all-pure, blessed Mother, by whom we have
received complete salvation. O thou, our Benefactress, we present to thee the worthy homage of our
gratitude.
975

This latter prayer is used also during the Divine Liturgy.

February: On the vigil of Mary’s Purification we find this strophe:

The heavenly choir of the angels of God, prostrate on the earth, sees arriving at the Temple a tiny
Infant carried in the arms of a Virginal Mother, the First-born of all creation. In their joy mixed with
fear, the angels sing with us the hymn of preparation for the feast.
976

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, or Purification of Mary, is one of the twelve great
feasts of the Byzantine rite and is generally a holyday of obligation. In the Office we find the
following tropars:

Hail, O virgin Birth-giver of God; for from thee hath shone forth the Sun of Righteousness, Christ our
God, who giveth light to those who are in darkness. …

We magnify Thee, O life-giving Christ, and we do homage to Thy Mother most pure, by whom Thou
hast now been brought into the Temple of the Lord, according to the Law.

O Virgin Birth-giver of God, the Hope of Christians, protect, guard and save thou those who put their
trust in thee.

Incomprehensible unto Angels and unto men is that which is wrought with thee, O Virgin Mother
Pure.

A pure Dove, a spotless Lamb bringeth into the Church the Lamb and the Shepherd.
977

The response “Adorna thalamum tuum Sion,” used in the Latin chants for the procession on this
feast, is a translation of a Byzantine tropar for Vespers on this feast. The Latin version is a bit
changed. The Byzantine reads:

Adorn thy nuptial chamber, O Sion, and receive Christ thy King. Receive Mary with love, who is the
heavenly Gate; she has been made the Cherubic Throne and the Gate of the King of Glory. The Virgin
is the luminous Cloud, who bears in her arms her Son begotten before the dawn. Simeon, receiving
Him in his arms, has proclaimed to the peoples that He is the Master of life and death and the Saviour
of the world.
978

March-April: For the vigil of the feast of the Annunciation there is this kontakion:

Today, let us celebrate with joy the prelude of universal exultation. Behold, Gabriel approaches,
bringing to the Virgin with admiration and respect the glad tidings: Hail, O Full of Grace, the Lord is
with thee.
979

The feast of the Annunciation is one of the twelve great feasts of the Byzantine rite, and is
generally a holyday of obligation. The divine message of the feast and its importance are repeated
in various ways in the Divine Office for this feast, together with praise of Mary and prayers to her.

Today is the beginning of our salvation, and the manifestation of that mystery which is from
everlasting; the Son of God becometh the Son of a Virgin, and Gabriel announceth the glad tidings of
grace. Wherefore, let us also cry aloud with him unto the Birth-giver of God; Hail, thou that art full of
grace, the Lord is with thee.

O Birth-giver of God, Fountain living and inexhaustible! Spiritually establish thou those who hymn
thee, convoked in a choir, and vouchsafe unto them crowns in thy heavenly glory.

The Akathistos Hymn: This long hymn in honor of the Annunciation is very old, but it is
uncertain just when it was composed.
980 Its name means the “not seated,” for it is sung standing
as a sign of joy in praise of the Virgin for her victories in favor of the people. This hymn is sung
in its entirety on the fifth Saturday of Lent in Byzantine churches, i.e., it is anticipated on Friday
evenings. It is in such favor that a fourth of it is sung on the four preceding Friday evenings.
981 The
hymn has 24 oikoi or strophes, each beginning with a letter of the Greek alphabet. There are also
an introductory strophe and a concluding invocation. The hymn fills about thirty pages in the
Greek version of Grottaferrata (1949) in ordinary pamphlet size. After speaking of the Archangel
Gabriel announcing the glad tidings to Mary the hymn breaks forth in jubilation which sets the
tone for the whole hymn:

I will open my mouth and it shall be filled with the Spirit; I will break forth into a hymn to the Queen
Mother and with joy I will present myself to honor her and I will sing her privileges with exultation.
982

The hymn then goes on to salute and praise the Mother of God under the most diverse titles
in true Eastern style and with a rare sense of fitness. It is a rich and magnificent hymn breathing
forth love and admiration for the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God and Dawn of Salvation. Some
of the titles given to her are:

Hail, O Virgin Divine Spouse, Rehabilitation of Adam, Destruction of Hell!

Hail, Brilliant Throne of the Almighty, who hast brought forth the incorruptible Rose!

Hail, O Perfume of the Universal King, purest Virgin, Salvation of the World!

Hail, O Lady, fragrant Lily, that perfumes the faithful, sweet-smelling Thyme, precious Ointment!

Hail, O Mother of God, living and copious Fountain, confirm thy devoted ones!

Hail, O Splendid Dawn, that has brought us the Sun who is Christ! Hail, O unique Gate, through which
only the Word passed!

Hail, O inaccessible Height of human intelligences, O inscrutable Profundity even to the eyes of the
Angels!

Hail, thou Throne of the King! Hail, who carriest Him who sustains all! Hail, O heavenly Ladder whereby
God came down to earth!

Hail, O Bridge that brings mortals from earth to Heaven!

Hail, thou pleasing Incense of intercession!

During the singing of this hymn the celebrant incenses the icon of Mary several times and
kisses it. At last he prostrates himself before the icon, incenses it again, and kisses it. He then goes
to the sanctuary to finish the Office of the day.
983

The Compassion of Mary: Although the general Byzantine rite has no special feast of Our Lady
of Sorrows, there are special tropars in honor of her compassion in every Lenten Office. These
tropars are called Stavrotheotokia, because addressed to Our Lady at the foot of the cross, and are
used especially on Lenten Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The following are some of these
tropars:

In contemplating Thee, Divine Lamb, crucified on the Wood with two thieves, O generous Logos, and
on seeing Thy Side pierced with a lance, Mary uttered these maternal lamentations: What is this
strange and awful mystery, O my Jesus? How canst Thou go to be covered by the tomb, Thou who art
the infinite God? O unspeakable spectacle! Do not leave me alone, Thou whom I have begotten, O my
sweetest Son.
984

The purest Virgin Mother contemplating Him on the Cross cried out with sighs: Alas, my Son! What
hast Thou done? Thou, the most beautiful of the children of men, Thou appearest without breath and
without beauty. … Alas! O my Light, I cannot bear to see Thee sleep; I am wounded to the core of my
being, and a cruel sword transfixes my heart. I glorify Thy Passion, I adore Thy Compassion and Thy
Mercy, O magnanimous Saviour, glory be to Thee!
985

On Good Friday at Matins the following antiphons are read:

In seeing Thee suspended on the Cross, O Christ, she who begot Thee cried out: What a strange
mystery do I see, O my Son? How dost Thou die on the Cross, Thou who art the Head and the
Dispenser of life.
986

With dramatic insistence the following antiphon cries out:

Mary, with the other women, followed Him consumed with sorrow and crying out: Whither goest
Thou, my Son! Why dost Thou hasten Thy step! Is there another marriage at Cana, where Thou
wouldst undertake to change water into wine for them! Would that I could come with Thee, my Son!
Or rather that I could remain with Thee! Give me a word, O Logos; do not pass me up in silence, Thou
who hast preserved me a Virgin. For Thou art my Son and my God.
987

Again:

Today the Virgin undefiled, beholding Thee, the Word, uplifted upon the Cross, weeping with the
tender love of a mother, was sore wounded in heart, and moaned grievously from the depths of her
soul, wiping her face with her hair. Wherefore also beating her hands, she cried piteously: Woe is me,
O my Son divine! Woe is me, O Light of the World! Why hast Thou departed from mine eyes, O Lamb
of God? For which cause also the host of bodiless Powers were seized with trembling, and said: O Lord
ineffable, glory to Thee!
988

On Holy Saturday there is this antiphon:

… When she beheld Him hanging on the Cross, she cried with weeping, and with maternal feeling
exclaimed: Woe is me, my Son! Woe is me, my Light, and the Beloved of my bosom! that which was
foretold in the Temple by Simeon today hath come to pass! A sword shall pierce my heart, but into the
joy of the Resurrection lament shall be changed. …
989

Again:

Lament not for me, O Mother, when Thou beholdest in the tomb the Son whom, without seed, Thou
didst conceive in Thy womb; for I will rise again and glorify Myself; and in that I am God, I will raise
in glory that hath no ending those who with faith and love magnify Thee.
990

Mary and the Resurrection of Christ: The Byzantine rite is similar to the others in joining Mary
to the joy of Christ’s Resurrection. Romanos the hymnographer sang: “Have confidence, O Mother,
for Thou shalt be the first to see me rise from the tomb.”
991 At Matins an ode reads:

The angel cried addressing the One Full of grace: Rejoice, O Virgin, again I say, rejoice! Thy Son is
risen from the tomb the third day.
992

At every hour of the Office during Paschal week there is read this antiphon in honor of Mary, the
Cause of our joy:

Rejoice thou, who art the divine Tabernacle of the Most High; for it is through thee, O Mother of God,
that there has been given the joy to repeat to thee: Thou art blessed among women, O Immaculate
Queen.
993

On Easter there is this tropar in the Divine Office:

O Christ, who did not break the Virgin’s gate by Thy birth, Thou didst rise from the dead, having kept
intact the seals; and Thou hast opened unto us the gates of Paradise.
994

Again:

Rejoice thou, O pure Birth-giver of God, in the rising again of Him whom thou didst bear.
995

Rejoice, O Virgin! Rejoice, O Blessed One! Rejoice O greatly Glorified One! For thy Son is risen from
His three days’ sojourn in the tomb.
996

May: On May 11 there is the feast of the dedication of the City of Constantinople, which the
Byzantine rite considers an act of homage to Mary. Even the Slavs, the Melchites, and the
Rumanians have this feast. The very first tropar at Vespers shows the Marian character of this
feast:

The Queen of Cities dedicated her foundation to the Queen of creation; for it is in her that she finds
her support. Hence she cries out: It is thou, O Virgin, who art the support of the crown, the scepter and
the rulers.
997

July-August-October: On July 2 there is the feast of the Mantle of the Mother of God at
Blakhernes, on August 31 the feast of the Cincture of the Mother of God, and on October 1 that
of the Protection or Patronage of the Mother of God. On all of these feasts we see the doctrine of
Mary’s intercession clearly expressed, as stated previously for the feast of October 1.
998

August 15: The feast of the Falling Asleep of the Holy Virgin, or the Assumption. This is the
most solemn Marian feast in the Byzantine rite. It is preceded by a small fast of two weeks and a
vigil. The feast is a holyday of obligation.

There are three kinds of texts in the Byzantine liturgy for this great feast. The first is quite
explicit regarding the Resurrection and Assumption of Mary. The second speaks only of the
Assumption of her soul and the incorruption of her body. The third category is ambiguous in the
sense that the texts speak either of the Assumption of her soul or of her departure without
defining just how.
999 The clearest texts telling of Mary’s Assumption to heaven body and soul are
generally those of St. John Damascene, St. Cosmas, Bishop of Maiouma (both of the eighth
century) and St. Theophane Graptos, Bishop of Nice (in the ninth century).

The heavenly tabernacles, O all-Pure One, have received thee worthily as a living Heaven; thou hast
presented thyself to our King and God in all the splendor of beauty, as a Spouse entirely immaculate.

It was a marvel to contemplate the living Heaven of the King of the Universe, elevated above the
earthly places. How admirable are Thy works! Glory to Thy Power, O Lord!

In bringing forth God, O Immaculate One, thou hast gained the palm of victory over nature.
Nonetheless, after the example of thy Creator, who is also thy Son, thou hast yielded supernaturally
to the laws of nature; therefore dying with thy Son, thou hast arisen for eternity.

The tomb and death could not retain in their power the Mother of God, whose intercession never
ceases, and whose protection constitutes our firm hope; her title Mother of Life has entitled her to pass
to life by the power of Him, who has dwelt in her virginal womb.
1000

Others read as follows:

O marvel wonderful! The Source of life is laid in a grave, and the tomb becometh the ladder unto
Heaven. Rejoice, O Gethsemane, thou holy abode of the Mother of God.

Sing, O ye people, sing to the Mother of our God; for today she doth yield up her all-radiant soul into
the hands most pure of Him, who, without seed, was incarnate of her; whom, also, she doth
unceasingly entreat that He will give unto the world peace and great mercy.

In giving birth, thou didst preserve thy virginity; in thy Falling-asleep thou hast not forsaken the world,
O Mother of God. Thou hast passed into life, thou who art the Mother of God, and through thine
intercession dost deliver our souls from death.

When the holy Angels beheld thine Assumption, they marvelled how a Virgin should ascend from
earth to Heaven.

The laws of nature were conquered in thee, O Virgin pure; for in giving birth was virginity preserved,
and with death is life conjoined. Thou who, after giving birth didst remain a Virgin, though dead, art
yet alive, Birth-giver of God, and savest always thine inheritance.
1001

August is Mary’s month with the Byzantines. The first half is devoted to the fast in preparation
for the feast of the Assumption. Then there is the feast itself, and then its prolongation until
August 23. It was Emperor Andronicus II Paleologus of Constantinople who issued the decree in
1297 that the entire month of August be dedicated to the Mother of God. Until the city fell to the
Turks in 1453 the month of August was celebrated with solemnity in honor of Mary. The festivities
began at the Church of Our Lady of Hodeges and was continued at the different churches
throughout the month. On the fifteenth the services were held at Santa Sophia and on the thirty-first at Blakhernes, the Byzantine Lourdes, “Our Lady of the Living Source.”
1002 The custom spread
in the lands of the Byzantine rite with some variations. Today every evening during the first two
weeks of August they sing the votive office of Our Lady known as the Paraklisis.
1003

2. Mary in the Divine Office

The praises of Mary occur every day in the Divine Office. The following are examples taken
from various parts of the Office:

O most Glorious and Blessed Mother of God, ever Virgin, present our prayer to thy Son, our God, and
beg Him to save our souls through Thee.

… I place all my hope in thee, O Mother of God, protect me in thy care.

On Sundays:

O purest Virgin, in seeing thy Son divinely risen again from the dead, the whole world was filled with
ineffable joy, in glorifying Him and in venerating thee.

Hail, O Venerable One, thou who hast brought forth God in the flesh, thou through whom the human
race has found salvation. For through thee we shall find Paradise, O Virgin pure and blessed.

O Christ, who art the Light, enlighten me with Thyself, by the intercession of the Mother of God, O
Saviour, and save me.

On Wednesdays and Saturdays we find this tropar:

Standing at the foot of the Cross, she, who brought Thee forth virginally, sighed and said: Alas! O my
sweetest Son, how hast Thou passed from my eyes, how hast Thou been counted among the dead?

On Thursdays there is this prayer, in which we see a fine declaration of Mary’s relation to the
three Divine Persons:

Mary, the purest Golden Censer, has become the Tabernacle of the Trinity, whom nothing can contain.
With this Tabernacle, the Father is pleased, the Son has dwelt therein, and the Holy Spirit, O Virgin,
covering thee with His shadow, has made thee Mother of God.

On Saturdays:

We glory in thee, O Mother of God, and we have thee for Protectress before God; extend thine
invincible arm and destroy our enemies; send down to thy servants aid from on high.

On Sundays:

Thou art blessed above all, O Virgin Mother of God; for it is through Him, who took flesh of thee, that
hell has been made captive, that Adam has been freed, that the curse was destroyed, that Eve has been
delivered, that death has been sent to death, and that life has been restored to ourselves. Therefore we
sing: Blessed be Christ our God.

At the Little Hours these tropars occur:

Let us glorify without respite, with heart and mouth, the most glorious Mother of God, holier than the
angels, and proclaim her Birth-giver of God, for she has really brought forth God Incarnate, and that
she should intercede for our souls.

At Prime and before the Divine Liturgy:

Open to us the door of mercy, Blessed Mother of God. Hoping in thee, may we not be confounded.
Through thee may we be delivered from all dangers, for thou art the Hope of Christians.

At Tierce:

O Birth-Giver of God, thou art the true Vine that has produced the Fruit of life. We beg of thee, intercede,
O Queen, with the Apostles and all the saints, so that our souls will receive mercy.

At Sext:

Thou art the Source of mercy, deign to show us thy compassion, O Birth-giver of God; cast an eye on
this sinful people, show it, as ever, thy power. Filled with hope in thee, we repeat to thee the salutation,
which the Archangel Gabriel brought to thee of old.
1004

It is monastic custom to have the midday meal between Sext and None. During the meal, in
monasteries and in many Christian families, an icon of Mary, hung in a prominent place, receives
special honor. This ceremony is called the Exaltation of the Panagia (All-Holy). Some bread in the
form of a triangle is placed before her icon. At the end of the meal, one of the community or family
incenses this bread and raising it before all says: “Great is the Name of the Trinity! Most Holy
Mother of God, protect us.” The others answer: “In virtue of her prayers, O God, have mercy on
us, and save us.” Then the bread is cut and all present take a piece which is called the panagia.
This ceremony is explained in the following manner in the Horologion:

After Christ’s Resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit Our Lady and the Apostles lived
together. At meals there was a vacant place at table where a piece of bread was placed in honor
of Christ. After the meal the diners recited praise to the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. On
the third day after the burial of Our Lady the Apostles came together to dine, and when they
began the prayer in honor of the Blessed Trinity, Our Lady appeared to them and told them to
rejoice, for she would be ever with them. The Apostles begged her aid. Then they went to her
tomb and found it empty, and they understood that she had arisen like her Son on the third day
after her death. Hence in this custom of raising an icon of Mary at table and of blessing the bread
and praising the Blessed Trinity we find the belief in Mary’s Assumption.
1005

At None:

Come, let us all praise Him who has been crucified for us. Mary saw Him on the wood of the Cross and
said: Although Thou sufferest the Cross, Thou art my Son and my God.

At Vespers:

Often during Lent, and on certain other ferial days, there are two tropars in honor of Mary:

O Virgin Birth-giver of God, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst
women and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb; for thou hast brought forth the Saviour of our souls.

We have recourse to thy mercy, O Birth-giver of God, do not thou disdain our supplications in our
necessities, but deliver us from dangers, O thou who art alone pure and alone blessed.

The evening table prayers have these words:

Thy womb, O Mother of God, has become the sacred table bearing the heavenly Bread, Christ our God,
who promises immortality to whomsoever eats it, according to the word of Him who is the universal
Provider.

O Virgin Birth-giver of God, make us worthy of thy gifts, forget our sins, and give us the spiritual
remedies, we who receive thy blessing with faith, O Immaculate One.

At Compline:

Having confidence in thee that will never be confounded, I shall be saved. Assured of thy protection,
O Immaculate One, I shall fear nothing; I shall pursue my enemies and destroy them, having thy help
as my only shield. So, too, imploring thy assistance, I cry to thee: O Queen, save me by thy intercession
and make me to come forth from dark sleep to sing thy praises, by the power of God, thy Son, who took
flesh from thee.
1006

This part of the Office ends with an unusually long prayer attributed to the monk Paul (✝ 1054),
founder of the Monastery of Our Lady of Evergate.
1007 These tropars, antiphons, and odes are only
some examples of the rich Theotokia in the Byzantine Office. Many more are used especially on
certain feasts at Matins and Vespers. Besides that, the Byzantine rite also has some Votive Offices.
The Akathistos Hymn is often used that way. Others are called the Small Canon of Supplication and
the Great Canon of Supplication to the All-Holy Birth-Giver of God.
1008

3. Mary in the Divine Liturgy

The icons of Christ and the all-holy Mother of God are present at every Divine Liturgy. They
are incensed at various times by the celebrant or deacon. On opening the royal door, the celebrant
recites the prayer given above beginning with the words: “Open to us the door of mercy.” Before
Mary’s icon he says:

Thou art the Font of mercy, O Mother of God, vouchsafe us thy compassion. Look down upon a sinful
people, show thy power as always. Hoping in thee, we cry to thee: Hail, as did once Gabriel, the
Captain of the angels.
1009

Placing a piece of bread on the paten in honor of Mary the celebrant says:

In honor and in memory of our most blessed and glorious Lady, Mother of God, and ever-Virgin Mary,
through whose intercession do Thou, O Lord, receive this sacrifice on Thy heavenly altar. The Queen
stood at Thy right hand, clothed in a robe of gold and many colors.
1010

During the Divine Liturgy the Mother of God is invoked various times, e.g.:

By the intercession of the Mother of God, O Saviour, save us.

May Christ our God, by the prayers of His Immaculate Mother … and of all the saints, have mercy on
us and save us, for He is the gracious Lover of men.
1011

Remembering our all-holy, immaculate, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Mother of God, and ever-Virgin Mary, and all the saints, let us commend ourselves, each other, and all our life to Christ our
God.
1012

O only-begotten Son and Word of God, who being immortal didst vouchsafe to take flesh for our
salvation of the Holy Birth-giver of God, and ever Virgin Mary; Thou who without change didst
become man and wast crucified, O Christ our God, by death trampling down death; Thou who wast
Thyself one of the Holy Trinity, who art glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us.
1013

In this prayer we hear the echoes of the early Councils of the Church crying down the ages
that Christ is true God and true Man, and Mary is truly the Mother of God. The great Eastern
Doctors of those ages speak to us in this prayer, and in others of this rite, they who proclaimed
these doctrines with such force and clarity. Mary is commemorated several times in shorter
prayers. Then after the Consecration, the priest incenses the Sacred Species and praises Mary,
immaculate, all-holy, and ever Virgin. The choir sings the megalynarion (which varies on certain
feasts):

Meet indeed it is to bless thee, Mother of God, ever blessed and most sinless Mother of our God.
Honored above the Cherubim, infinitely more glorious than the Seraphim, who didst bear God the
Word without stain. Mother of God in truth, we magnify thee.
1014

On Mary’s feasts the tropars and antiphons multiply in her honor, e.g.:

Thy mysteries are above understanding and most glorious, O Mother of God, for, spotless and a virgin,
thou art acknowledged a true Mother, who hast borne the true God; pray to Him that He save our
souls.

Hail, thou Gate of the Lord! Hail, Bulwark and Protection of those who fly to thee! Hail, untroubled
Haven and Virgin, who hast borne in flesh thy Creator and God! Do not cease to pray for those who
laud and reverence thy child-bearing.

As the treasure of our resurrection, do thou, O universally celebrated Virgin, raise up those hoping in
thee from the pit and depth of sin; for thou hast saved the repentent from sin, having borne our
Salvation, and wast a Virgin before bearing child, a Virgin in bearing, and after bearing hast ever
remained a Virgin.
1015

From these excerpts of the Byzantine liturgical texts we see how profound and how tender is
the Marian doctrine of the Byzantines. They are justly proud of it. We do well to study these
prayers to increase our own devotion to the all-holy and immaculate Virgin Mother of God. When
we consider that the Orthodox use these same prayers, we are consoled to think that Mary, in her
merciful goodness, will eventually lead them back to the one true Church of Christ, over whom
He had appointed Peter and his successors to rule and teach infallibly for all ages. With all the
Byzantines we ask the Mediatrix of All Graces:

For the peace of the whole world, for the good estate of all the holy churches of God, and for the union
of all.
1016

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Attwater, Donald, The Christian Churches of the East, 2 vols. (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1946, 1947).

– Prayers from the Eastern Liturgies (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1931).

Brian-Chaninov, Nicolas, The Russian Church, translated from the French by Warre B. Wells
(New York: Macmillan, 1930).

Fortescue, Adrian, The Uniate Eastern Churches, The Byzantine Rite in Italy, Sicily, Syria and
Egypt (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1923).

Gordillo, Mauritius, S.I., Compendium Theologiae Orientalis (Romae: Pont. Institutum
Studiorum Orientalium, 1950).

King, Archdale A., The Rites of Eastern Christendom, 2 vols. (Rome: Catholic Book Agency,
1948), Vol. 2, Byzantine Rite with Variants, pp. 1-250.

Kirsch, Johann Peter, Die Kirche in der Griechisch-Roemischen Kulturwelt (Kirchengeschichte
1) (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1930).

Larsson, Raymond, E. F., Saints at Prayer (New York, Coward-McCann, 1942). Many Eastern
prayers to Mary are here given.

Raes, Alphonsus, S.I., Introductio in Liturgiam Orientalem (Romae: Pont. Institutum Studiorum
Orientalium, 1947).

For Byzantine anaphoras see Aleksyei Maltzev, Die Goettlichen Liturgien unserer heiligen Vaeter
Johannes Chrysostomus, Basilios des Grossen und Gregorios Diologos (Berlin, 1890). Also Migne,
Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 63, col. 90 et seq.

II. MARY IN THE ALEXANDRIAN AND ETHIOPIAN
LITURGIES

1. The Alexandrian Liturgy

The Church of St. Mark at Alexandria and its faithful use the Alexandrian liturgy. After the
Council of Chalcedon Egypt fell into Monophysism, when the Patriarch Dioscoros of Alexandria
was deposed by the Council. Nearly all the clergy and faithful of Egypt, and many also in Syria,
refused to accept the definitions of this Council. Politics, too, played a part in this, and for the next
century Alexandria had sometimes Catholic, sometimes Monophysite, patriarchs. By 567 two lines
of patriarchs were established, one Catholic and one Monophysite. The Catholics were in a
minority. Both Catholic and Monophysite Egyptians are called Copts. This condition remains to
the present day. Various attempts at reunion have taken place in recent centuries, but with little
effect. In 1899 Pope Leo XIII granted the Catholic Copts a patriarch in the person of Cyril
Makarios. Since then they have increased in numbers and power. Yet even Makarios went into
schism for a time. The present patriarch is Mark II Khouzam, appointed by Pope Pius XII, August
10, 1947.
1017

The splendid Alexandrian liturgy gives great praise to Mary and is used by both the Catholic
and the Monophysite Copts. This liturgy is a form of the early Greek liturgy of Alexandria and it
has three anaphoras, namely of St. Basil for Sundays and ordinary days; of St. Mark and St. Cyril,
used on the feasts of these saints and at the consecration of a bishop; and of St. Gregory Nazianzen
for great feasts. This last anaphora is addressed to Our Lord. The language used is Coptic, a
language derived from the old Egyptian and mixed with some Greek.
1018

The Ethiopian liturgy is derived from the Alexandrian, translated from the Coptic and Arabic
in the course of centuries, without much order. It is being re-edited at present.
1019 The Alexandrian
liturgy manifests a tender and abiding devotion to the Mother of God. It was this devotion of the
Egyptians, as well as that of the Syrians and Persians that so impressed the Mohammedan
conquerors that even they honor Mary as full of grace, as the noblest of women and the chosen
one of God.
1020

A. The Mass

Mary is honored in the Alexandrian liturgy at Mass by being named first among the saints, and
before the Lord’s Prayer at the breaking of the Host. At the Commemoration Mary is named as
“she who is full of glory, that is a virgin unto all time, holy Mary, the holy Mother of God.”
1021 A little
later the intercession of Mary is asked: “Exalt the horn of the orthodox Christians through the
power of the life-giving cross … through the prayers and supplications which our Lady, the Lady
of us all, the holy Mother of God, holy Mary, doth at all times make for us all.”
1022

At the incensation of Mary’s icon the priest says:

Hail to thee, the faithful Dove, which hath borne for us God the Word.

We give thee salutation with the Angel Gabriel, saying, Hail, thou art full of grace; the Lord is with
thee.

Hail to thee, O Virgin, the very and true Queen; hail, glory of our race. Thou hast borne for us
Emmanuel.

We pray thee, remember us, O thou our faithful Advocate with our Lord Jesus Christ, that he may
forgive us our sins.
1023

During the incensation the faithful sing these touching words:

The golden thurible of Aaron, the priest, is the Virgin; the sweet fragrance which it exhales is the
Saviour. She bore Him and He saved us. O Mary, thou art the pure censer containing the blessed and
Holy fire.
1024

When the priest unveils the oblation at the Preface the people chant:

By the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary who bore for us the Saviour of the world, grant us, O
Lord, pardon for our sins.
1025

On Marian feasts there are special praises in her honor.

B. The Divine Office

It is in the Divine Office that we find rich and precious doctrine about the glory and privileges
and power of the Mother of God. According to this liturgy, Mary must be commemorated and
invoked at every ceremony, at every Office. Hence we cannot give all these texts. Mary is honored
in a special way as the Queen and Mother of the priest. She is invoked as such at every canonical
hour:

Hail Mary! We beseech thee, holy one, full of glory, ever Mother of God, Mother of Christ, lift up our
prayers to thy beloved Son, that He may forgive us our sins. Hail, holy Virgin, who didst mother the
true Light, Christ our God. Intercede for us with the Lord, that he may show pity on our souls and
pardon us our sins. O Virgin Mary! Mother of God, faithful Advocate of the human race, supplicate for
us Christ whom thou didst mother, that we may obtain forgiveness of our sins. Hail to thee, O Virgin
Queen, truly righteous! Hail, the honor of our race, who didst give birth to Emmanuel; be mindful of
us we implore thee, O faithful Advocate with Our Lord Jesus Christ, that he may pardon us our sins.
1026

In the prayer before the Creed at Matins and Compline Mary is thus honored:

We glorify thee, O Mother of the true Light; we venerate thee, O Holy Mother of God, for thou didst
give birth to the Redeemer of the world. …
1027

The following prayer is recited at the end of Tierce:

O Mother of God, thou art the true vine bearing the Grape of Life. In union with the Apostles we
beseech thee, O full of grace, obtain for us the salvation of our souls. Blessed be the Lord our God. May
the God of our salvation prepare our way before us. O Mother of God, thou Portal of heaven, open to
us the gates of mercy.
1028

At None:

When the Mother of the Lamb and Good Shepherd saw the world’s Redeemer hanging on the Cross,
she said through her tears: “The world rejoices because it has received salvation; but my heart is broken
at witnessing this crucifixion which Thou dost suffer for all mankind, O my Son and my God.”
1029

At Vespers:

Hail, thou who hast found grace, Holy Mary, Mother of God; blessed be thou among women and
blessed be the fruit of thy womb; because thou didst give birth to the Saviour of our souls.
1030

During Holy Week the following invocation is used morning and night: “Hail to thee, O
spotless Dove, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, we pray thee to be mindful of us before thy Son.” All
blessings and favors are asked of God in all the ceremonies through the intercession of the Mother
of God.
1031

As among other rites of the Christian East Mary’s image or icon has special honor in the
church and is incensed during the sacred functions. The Alexandrian Church always portrays
Mary with the divine Child. Pictures of her alone are not in favor, for she is ever honored as the
Theotokos, the Mother of God. The Alexandrians learned this love for God’s all-holy Mother from
the Council of Ephesus and from St. Cyril of Alexandria, its hero. Therefore Mary is almost always
present in the Alexandrian liturgy, despite age-long schism and heresy, even among the
Monophysites. Her light shines upon all who use this liturgy. The Catholics pray that some day
this light of Mary and love for her will bring the dissidents back to the true Church.
1032

C. Marian Feasts and Privileges

The Marian feasts in this liturgy are thirty-two and in this the Ethiopians imitate them. But
not all these feasts are observed everywhere. The three major Marian feasts are her Nativity, her
Presentation in the Temple, and her Assumption. As the Alexandrians honor Mary’s divine
Maternity, so, too, they honor her Assumption as her greatest feast. This is celebrated on August
22 and is preceded by a strict abstinence for a fortnight, when the diet consists of fruit and
uncooked food. It is a little Lent, when the solemnization of marriage is forbidden, and it is a time
of prayer.
1033

Some feasts of Christ are also feasts of Mary, e.g., the Annunciation, Christmas, the
Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and the Entry Into Egypt.
1034 Besides these, other Marian feasts
are, e.g., that of the Holy Family, the Immaculate Conception (two feasts, July 31 and December
9), Death of Mary (January 16) — but among the Catholics this day commemorates the
consecration of the first church dedicated to Our Lady — the Divine Motherhood, the
Commemoration of the Council of Ephesus, and the days of the dedication of Marian churches at
Atrib, Heliopolis, Philipponis, and Itib.
1035

Mary’s privileges and power of intercession are clearly stated in the liturgy and hymns of the
faithful. Egypt glories in the Mother of God, so much so that even the Mohammedans had been
influenced by this devotion. Mary’s purity is unsullied; she is compared to the burning bush that
was not consumed. Her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, her plenitude of grace,
her painless childbearing, her power of intercession, and her heavenly glory in body and soul —
all these privileges and graces of Mary are stated explicitly many times in this rich and splendid
liturgy.
1036 Father Gabriel Giamberardini, O.F.M., gives excellent testimony to the Marian devotion
of the Coptic Church in his fine work on the assumptionist theology of that church.
1037 From this
we see that Coptic love and devotion to the Mother of God, handed on to them from St. Cyril of
Alexandria and the Council of Ephesus, has never grown weak, but has continued strong and
glorious through the centuries.

Honorable titles and attributes generously applied to Our Lady prove this devotion of the
Alexandrian liturgy. Some of these titles and attributes are:

David’s Daughter, Ark of the Covenant robed in purest gold, Flower of Jesse, who draws down the
Saviour, Garden enclosed where dwells the Godhead, the Father’s Chariot radiant with divine light,
Ladder to heaven seen by the Patriarch Jacob, having the Spirit of God at its summit, Silver Censer
enclosing burning coals, Lantern resplendent, Light of Paradise, Strength of Samson, Rod of Aaron
blossoming unwatered, Bush of myrrh which Moses saw crowned with flame on Mount Tor, Vase of
alabaster, Precious Treasure, Tower of Ivory, Dome of Moses, Fruitful Vineyard, Throne of God which
Daniel the Prophet saw above the Seraphim, Sacred Altar which God inhabits, and Immaculate Virgin
betrothed to the Spouse.
1038

2. The Ethiopic Liturgy

In modern times revisions of the Ethiopic liturgy have taken place. In 1945 the Vatican Press
completed the printing of the revised missal, called the Book of the Oblation. This missal is based
on old manuscripts and on that of Diredawa in Ethiopia. The book contains the Ordinary of the
Mass, the Anaphora of the Apostles and seventeen others. The liturgical language is Ge’ez, a
Semitic language used in Ethiopia until the seventeenth century.
1039

A. The Mass

Mary is mentioned at the beginning of the liturgy of the Catechumens:

Blessed be the only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, who was made man of Mary, the holy Virgin, for our
salvation.
1040

While incensing the image of Mary the priest says:

Thou art the golden censer which didst bear the live Coal of fire. Blessed is he who receiveth out of the
sanctuary him that forgiveth sin and blotteth out error, who is God’s Word, who was made man of
thee, who offered himself to his Father for incense and an acceptable offering. We worship thee, Christ,
with thy good heavenly Father and thine Holy Spirit, the life-giver, for thou didst come and save us.
1041

After the incensation of the altar the priest recites the Hail Mary alternately with the people.
1042
After the epistle there is another incensation of the altar when the priest prays:

Hail, O thou of whom we ask salvation, O holy praiseful ever-virgin Parent of God, Mother of Christ:
offer up our prayer on high to thy beloved Son that He forgive us our sins. Hail, O thou who barest for
us the very Light of Righteousness, even Christ our God. O Virgin pure, plead for us unto the Lord, that
he show mercy unto our souls and forgive us our sins. Hail, O Virgin pure, Mary, holy Parent of God,
very pleader for the race of mankind, plead for us before Christ thy Son, that he vouchsafe us remission
of our sins. Hail, O Virgin pure, very Queen; hail, O Pride of our kind. Hail, O thou that barest for us
Emmanuel. We pray thee that thou remember us, O very Mediatrix, before our Lord, Jesus Christ, that
He forgive us our sins.
1043

Going outside the veil the priest says:

This is the time of blessing, this is the time of choice incense, the time of the praise of our Saviour,
lover of men, Christ. The censer is Mary; the incense is He who was in her womb which is fragrant;
the incense is He whom she bare; He came and saved us, the fragrant ointment, Jesus Christ. … To
Michael was given mercy, and glad tidings to Gabriel and a heavenly gift to Mary, the Virgin. … The
fragrant ointment is Mary: for He that was in her womb, who is more fragrant than all incense, came
and was made flesh of her. In Mary Virgin pure the Father was well pleased and He decked her for a
tabernacle for the habitation of His well-beloved Son. …
1044

At the Trisagion the priest says: “Holy God, holy mighty, holy living immortal, who was born
of Mary the holy Virgin, have mercy on us, O Lord.”
1045 The Catholics leave out the interpolation.

After the Preface the deacon recites a litany wherein Mary is named first among the saints.
1046
A little later the priest says:

Thou who sendest Thy Son from heaven into the bosom of the Virgin, He was carried in the womb,
was made flesh, and His birth was revealed of the Holy Ghost.
1047

Mary is mentioned again shortly before the words of Consecration.
1048 She is named again, in
a prayer before Communion.
1049 She is again mentioned at the end of a prayer when the priest puts
a particle of the Host into the chalice.
1050 Toward the end of the liturgy there is a long prayer,
wherein Mary is named as the Mother of God and immaculate.
1051 After that she is mentioned in
another prayer as “immaculate in virginity, pure for ever and ever.”
1052 Among the many anaphoras
of this rite there is one entitled “Of our Lady, Mary the Virgin.” The first part of it praises Our
Lady, who is typified in the lives of Old Testament characters, and who is the source of all
Christian graces.
1053

B. The Divine Office and Marian Hymns

The Divine Office in this rite needed revision as did the other liturgical books. The psalter,
lessons, and office of Our Lady were published for the Catholics in 1926.
1054 The definitive Ethiopic
breviary will soon appear in its revised edition. The Ethiopic hymnology and prayers to Mary are
rich and numerous. Mary is given many splendid titles, many feasts honor her, and in all the
liturgical texts we see the wealth of oriental imagery used to glorify her, who is above all praise.
Genevieve Nicollet states that it is well-nigh impossible to gather all the Marian hymns. They have
a plain chant all their own and go back to early centuries.
1055 There was a renaissance of Marian
hymnography in the fifteenth century during the reigns of the Ethiopian kings Zara-Yaqob, his
son Baeda-Maryam, and Naod. These kings also ordered the ancient hymns to be collected. At this
time many new ones were composed as well.
1056

The Marian hymns are a study in themselves, for in them we see so many influences both
native and foreign, that they are a literary problem. Above all, they prove the ceaseless ardor of
the Ethiopians to praise the all-holy Mother of God, to enrich the treasure of her hymns, and to
multiply her glorious praises. There are so many of these hymns for every feast, even for every
day of the week, that it seems the authors must have vied with one another in composing them.
And even if all the hymns are not original and native to the land, yet their superabundance
manifests the profoundly Ethiopian sentiment of absolute confidence in Mary.
1057

Many of these Marian hymns are in the liturgical collections, others are for popular use. In the
Deggua, a book of plain chant for the days of the year, there are several Marian hymns. For
example, one hymn glorifies the birth of Christ, another compares Our Lady to the golden
candlestick seen by the Prophet Zachary in a vision (Zach. 4:2). This latter hymn is filled with
scriptural allusions to Mary from the Old Testament. Another hymn compares Mary to the
burning bush seen by Moses (Exod. 3:4). Still another one likens her to a dove, or to the Tabernacle
of the Chosen People.
1058

In the Meeraf, a book composed probably in the second half of the fifteenth century, we find
other Marian hymns. This book is really a guide for the chanted offices. Here one hymn calls Mary
the “golden table,” while there are other hymns in honor of Mary’s Nativity, the Annunciation,
and one where she is styled “Mother of God and the Saviour,” and another where she has the
names of “Vine and Vase filled with manna.” Finally there is a hymn in honor of her Assumption.
1059
Other liturgical books containing Marian hymns are Mawaseet (an antiphonary); Zemmare (hymns
for Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany); Matshafa Kidana Mehrat (Book of the Pact of Mercy);
Weddase Maryam (Praises of Mary); Argonona Dengel by George the Armenian; Enzira Sebhat
(Harp of Glory); Weddase wa-genay la-emma Adonay (Praises and humble thanks to the Mother
of Adonai); Weddase em-qala nabiyat (Praises taken from the words of the Prophets); and the Laha
Maryam (Lamentations of Mary). The Mazmura Dengel (Psalter of Mary) has 105 strophes of four
verses each. The religious sentiment is predominant in all these works. There we see the profound
and childlike love of the Ethiopians for the Mother of God.
1060 A good number of other Marian
hymns are used occasionally also in the liturgy.
1061

C. Marian Feasts and Privileges

From the important place Mary has in the Ethiopian liturgy we see that even though the
Ethiopians, as well as the Egyptians and Syrians, have erred in the past in regard to the dogmatic
explanation of the mystery of the Incarnation, they have, nevertheless, retained intact the privilege
of the divine Maternity of Mary — and this despite all their trials and persecutions through the
centuries.
1062 Echoes of the Council of Ephesus, proclaiming Mary’s divine Maternity are heard in
all the liturgies, and in a special way in those of Alexandria and Ethiopia. Even the Dissidents
retain this great devotion to Mary and manifest it in their liturgy and devotions.

In the Chronicles of King Zara-Yaqob (1431-1468) of Ethiopia we read that after he had
conquered and killed with his own hand the terrible Mohammedan chief Arwe Badlay, an order
was given that the “thirty-two feasts of Our Lady should be celebrated like Sundays with the
greatest punctuality … under pain of excommunication.”
1063 Later he commanded that every church
should have a tabot (altar) dedicated to the holy Virgin. These customs are still in use and the
Ethiopians have never failed in their love and devotion to the Mother of God.
1064 Even Job Ludolf,
a German Protestant scholar of the seventeenth century, famous for his works on Ethiopia, had
to admit that the Ethiopians honor Mary much more than all the other saints.
1065 It is impossible to
give an exact list of the Marian feasts celebrated in the Dissident Ethiopian liturgy today, because
their number differs in various places. Some Ethiopian Marian feasts celebrate some famous
Marian sanctuary, others some miracle wrought at Mary’s intercession. Nearly one third of the
year, the Ethiopian calendar has feasts on which work is forbidden.
1066 The Coptic calendar is the
foundation for that of Ethiopia. Often the same feast is celebrated many times in the year. For
example, Christmas is commemorated on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of every month except
March.
1067

The principal Catholic Marian feasts are the Immaculate Conception (December 9), the Death
of Mary (January 16), the Assumption (August 22), the Nativity of Mary (September 8). Other
feasts are the Presentation of Mary in the Temple (November 29), and the Annunciation
(December 18 and every twenty-second day of other months and March 25 which is also the feast
of the Incarnation).
1068

From these feasts we see that the Ethiopians admit Mary’s great graces and privileges, as well
as her power of intercession with her divine Son. The Assumption is the greatest Marian feast. It
is commemorated every month. Some texts for the feast are:

I salute the Assumption of thy Body which the human heart can never conceive. Doubly surrounded
with grace and clothed in a like glory, O Mary, thy flesh was like to a pearl, and death itself was
shamed when with wonder it saw thee ascending resplendent through the clouds to heaven.
1069

I salute the Assumption of thy Body truly worthy to be praised, which outshines in beauty the splendor
of the sun and the glory of the moon. Except thee, O Virgin, and thy first-born Son of Joy, there is no
one who has loosened the bonds of death and has awakened the dead from Sheol.
1070

I salute the resurrection of thy flesh, twin of the resurrection of Christ, who hid himself alive in thee.
Clothe me, O Mary, Dove of Ephrate, and shelter me under thy wings in the day of judgment, when
the earth will give back those whom she had taken into her keeping.
1071

D. Mary in Popular Ethiopian Devotion

It is true the Ethiopians have mixed a bit of superstition with their devotion to Mary. This is
a souvenir of ancient African beliefs, such as all races have, but the fact remains that the Ethiopian
faith in Mary is strong and sound, and that they have a tender love for her and an absolute trust
in her all-powerful intercession.
1072 Ethiopia received the Faith from Alexandria and with it a great
love and devotion to the Mother of God. With Alexandria, Ethiopia, too, fell into Monophysism,
probably without fully realizing what this doctrine implied. But Ethiopia has no body of doctrine
in the true theological sense as we have in the West. Hence they have no full body of doctrine
regarding the Mother of God, except that they follow the Fathers of Alexandria. Haymanota Abaw,
the Faith of the Fathers, is what they call the collection of truths which forms their belief. St. Cyril
of Alexandria plays a great part in this doctrine, as well as other Fathers of the East and the
decrees of the Council of Ephesus. Hence with this Council and St. Cyril of Alexandria the
Ethiopians believe in the Mother of God, the Waladita Malak, the Theotokos. Even the Dissidents
appeal to St. Cyril of Alexandria, and consider him one of their Doctors.
1073 In their liturgy and
hymns the Ethiopians have expressed the true faith in Mary as Mother of God, and they echo the
words of St. Cyril of Alexandria and the definition of the Council of Ephesus. The Dissident
Ethiopians still honor Alexandria as their spiritual mother, receive their spiritual directives from
Alexandria, and until lately received their Abuna or metropolitan from there. The Catholic
Ethiopians are united to Alexandria spiritually and historically, but their bishops are appointed
by the Pope.
1074

The Ethiopians speak of heretics as “Enemies of Mary.” The great Ethiopian devotion to Our
Lady can explain to a certain degree why some historians wanted to see nothing in the Ethiopian
liturgy but a confusion between the cult due to God and that due to Mary.
1075 The truth, however,
is that the Ethiopians, both Catholic and Dissident, have correct doctrine regarding Mary, her
privileges and power, and this they manifest in their practices and hymns as well as in their
liturgy.

In conclusion it is well to see some of the titles the Ethiopians give Mary, and thus prove their
sound doctrine about her:

Permanent Temple, Sacerdotal Vestibule, Chosen Column, Verdant Tree, Garden of the Heavenly Son,
Lamp of the Universe, Light of the Stars, Unbreakable Wall, Extension of Heaven, Veil of Fine Linen,
City of Jewels, Spouse of Heaven, Golden Censer of the Seraphs, Harvest of Prophecies, Mother of
Justice, Doctrine of Peace, Vine of Sweet Grapes, Mother of the Glorious Sun, Book of Life, Vessel of
Our Riches, Superabundance of the time of Fruit and Compensation for the Years of Famine, Satiety
of Those Who Hunger, Queen of Love, Gate of Paradise, and Help of Sinners.
1076

Conclusion

Egyptian devotion to Mary as Mother of God is deep-rooted in all the faithful. Their love for
Mary prompts them to abstain for two weeks before the feast of her Assumption. This practice is
so ancient that even the Mohammedans of the country observe it in great numbers down to the
present day.
1077 Another sign of this Egyptian devotion to Mary is seen in the many temples
dedicated to her throughout Egypt. In the eighth century there were twenty-two Marian shrines
in Upper Egypt and seven in Lower Egypt. Two of these are still dedicated to Mary’s Assumption.
They are centers of pilgrimage and great Marian festivities are held there by the Dissidents on the
feast of the Assumption.
1078

Egypt was sanctified by the presence of the Holy Family. The Egyptians are proud of this great
honor and wish to be second to none in their love for Christ and His all-holy Mother. May she lead
the Dissident back to the true Church of her divine Son and may she protect all the faithful of the
Alexandrian and Ethiopian rites who are so devoted to her who is the Mother of God, ever Virgin
Immaculate, and all-powerful with her divine Son.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Black, G. F., Aethiopica and Amharica, A List of Works in the New York Public Library, 1928.

Budge, E. A. Wallis, The Miracles of the Blessed Virgin and the Life of Hanna, 1910.

De Vries, G., S.I., Oriente Cristiano Ieri e Oggi (Roma, 1949).

Etiopia in Vol. 14 of the Enciclopedia Italiana (Milano, 1935).

Fortescue, A., The Lesser Eastern Churches (London, 1913).

Grebaut, S., and Tisserant, E., Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae codices aethiopici, Vaticani et
Borgiani, 1936.

Harden, J. M., The Anaphoras of the Ethiopic Liturgy, 1928.

Jones and Monroe, Abyssinia (Oxford, 1935).

Macaire, Histoire de l’Eglise d’Alexandrie (Cairo, 1894).

Matshafa Qeddasê (Ethiopian missal) (Città del Vaticano: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1945).

Mercer, S. A. B., The Ethiopic Liturgy, 1915.

O’Leary, The Saints of Egypt (London, 1938).

Pollera, A., Lo Stato etiopico e la sua Chiesa, 1926.

Rossini, C. Conti, Liber Axumae, 1910.

Strothman, Die Koptische Kirche in der Neuzeit (Tübingen, 1932).

III. MARY IN THE ANTIOCHENE LITURGY

The liturgy of Antioch is one of the most ancient liturgies. It was modified for use in Jerusalem
and then this form supplanted the older form at Antioch itself. This liturgy is the source of the
Armenian, Byzantine, and Maronite liturgies, and perhaps also of that used by the Chaldeans.
After the Council of Chalcedon (a.d. 451) many of the Syrians followed the Monophysites and
refused to accept the decrees of that Council, mostly for political reasons. The Monophysite
Syrians are called Jacobites from their organizer in the sixth century, Jacob al-Baradai. The Syrians
who remained Catholics formed that branch of the Byzantine rite known as the Melkites. In the
course of centuries a goodly number of the Jacobites have returned to the true Church. At various
times these Catholics have had bishops confirmed by Rome, and in 1801 Michael Jarweh became
the first patriarch of Antioch of the Catholic Syrians. These faithful are mostly in the old Turkish
Empire and Egypt, but there are also several thousands in the United States, the Argentine, Chile,
Australia, and Paris.
1079

1. The Mass

The Antiochene liturgy is the richest of all because it has so many anaphoras. The Catholics
ordinarily use that of St. James. They also use at times the anaphoras of St. John the Evangelist,
of St. Eustace of Antioch, of St. Basil of Caesarea, and of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. There are sixty-four
Syrian anaphoras, of which the Catholics use only seven. Brightman gives the list of those used
by the Jacobites.
1080 He also gives the translations of those of the Apostolic Constitutions and of St.
James
1081

The liturgical texts are very ancient. Those used by the Catholics received their definitive form
in the eighth century under James of Edessa.
1082 In the liturgy of St. James, Mary is commemorated
in the preparation of the gifts, and in the beginning of the liturgy of the Catechumens followed
by an incensation with the words: “With the smoke of spices be there a remembrance to the Virgin
Mary, Mother of God.” Again incensing the gifts: “Let Mary who brought thee forth, and John who
baptized thee be suppliants unto thee in our behalf.” Mary is again named before the Trisagion,
and in the beginning of the Gospel reading. After the Consecration and prayers for various classes
of persons, the commemoration of the saints begins with that of the Mother of God by the deacon:

Again then we commemorate her who is to be called blessed and glorified of all generations of the
earth, holy and blessed, and ever Virgin, blessed Mother of God, Mary.

After the priest breaks the Host and recites a silent prayer, the deacon prays:

My blessed Lady Mary, beseech with thine only Begotten that he be appeased through thy prayers and
perform mercy on us all.
1083

The Maronite liturgy is merely the ordinary part of the Syrian liturgy of St. James and at times
some other anaphora is inserted.
1084 After the Anamnesis the Maronites have these prayers to Mary:

Especially then and firstly we remember the holy and glorious and ever Virgin Mother of God, Mary,
Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ; intercede for me with the only begotten Son who was born of thee
that he forgive me my offenses and sins and receive from my vile and sinful hands this sacrifice which
my abjectness offereth upon this altar, by thine intercessions for me, O holy Mother.

The deacon says:

Remember her, O Lord God, and by her pure and holy prayers be propitious and have mercy and hear
us.
1085

After Communion the priest says:

May the prayer of the blessed one be a wall to us, Halleluia, her prayer be with us. Bless, O my Lord.
The ladder which Jacob saw was a figure of thee, O Virgin Mother of God, for on thee God, the hope
of all of us, came down to afford hope to the hopeless.
1086

When the Malabar Jacobites of India began to enter the Church in 1930 with Bishop Mar
Ivanios and his suffragan Bishop Mar Theophilus, Pope Pius XI permitted them to keep their
Antiochene liturgy and customs. More bishops, priests, and lay people have since returned to the
true Church.
1087 Their liturgy is the West Syrian rite (Antiochene) without most of the modifications
which the Syrian Catholics have introduced. This Malabar liturgy, and the faithful who follow it,
are called Malankarese. Most of the prayers are in the vernacular Malayalam; the priest’s secret
prayers are in Syriac.
1088

2. The Divine Office

The Antiochene Office is rich and complicated. Mary is honored with prayers and hymns,
especially on her feast days. At Sunday Sext we find this prayer:

By the prayer of Thy Mother and of all the saints, pardon us, O our Lord, and rest the departed. The
memorial of Mary be for our blessing and her prayer be a wall to our souls. … Glory to Him who hath
magnified the memorial of His Mother, and may He make the saints resplendent and rest the departed.
By the prayer of Thy Mother and of all Thy saints, pardon us, O our Lord, and rest the departed.
1089

One of the ordinary anthems to Mary reads:

O holy virgin Mother of God, Mary, pray thine only Son to make His tranquillity to dwell in His
creation. Watchers and angels, lo! they rejoice on the day of the memorial of the Virgin Mary who bore
the Son of God.
1090

Wednesday is dedicated to Mary in this liturgy. A prayer to her at Matins reads:

Peace to thee, who didst bear in the flesh the Word most high, Virgin Mother, maiden pure and holy,
Mary Mother of Christ, full of mercies and grace. Peace to thee, who wast a second heaven to the
eternal Word of the Father. Peace to thee, who wast the small cloud to the Creator of all creation. But,
O holy one, we implore of thee, pray thine only Son, God above all, to grant tranquillity to the creation
for the sake of the abundance of His mercifulness.
1091

Regarding devotion to Mary in the Antiochene liturgy, Chorepiscopos Paul Hindo writes:

Besides the solemn proclamation in the liturgy the Syrian Church commemorates the Mother of God
at the Offertory, at the ceremony of incensation, at the breaking of bread, at the distribution of
Communion, and at the end of Mass. The canonical Office, both ferial and festive, contains a great
number of chants and hymns in honor of the Virgin, notably 1) at Vespers, Lauds and Prime every day;
2) at Matins, and precisely at the first nocturn, with the exception of Fridays, from Easter to Advent;
Fridays are consecrated to the Holy Cross; 3) at the end of Matins, the Magnificat is recited daily with
special Marian praises called Mawerbe, that is of the Magnificat; 4) the Wednesday Office is specially
consecrated to the Holy Virgin, above all at Vespers, Lauds, Prime and Tierce. According to Syrian
tradition, Wednesday is the day of Mary’s birth and death.
1092

In the liturgy of the Maronites, Mary is also frequently invoked. Before Mass every day a
prayer in the form of a litany is addressed to Christ through the intercession of Mary. Praises, after
the manner of St. Ephrem, are dedicated to her on Wednesdays and on her feasts. She is also
commemorated at other times with hymns, especially at the Gospel procession. All the anaphoras
mention Mary between the Anamnesis and the Epiclesis. On her feast days she has hymns in her
honor, especially when the gifts are brought to the altar.
1093

3. Marian Feasts and Privileges

The Marian feasts in the Antiochene liturgy are of two kinds, movable and fixed. The movable
Marian feasts are in preparation for Christmas. In ancient times this liturgy celebrated two feasts
during Advent, that of St. John the Baptist and that of the Virgin (divine Maternity and
Immaculate Conception). The feast of the Virgin goes back to the year 428. The Nestorians who
separated from the true Church in the fifth century have the same tradition as the Catholics of this
liturgy and call Advent Subara or Annunciation. At the time of their separation the feast of the
Virgin was called the Salutation of the All-Holy Mother of God. James of Saroug (451-521) has left
us homilies for the time of Advent, on the Annunciation of Zachary, the Annunciation of Mary,
the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, and the Nativity of our Lord. By the seventh century the five
Sundays before Christmas were dedicated to the Annunciation of the birth of the Precursor, the
Annunciation of Mary, the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, the Revelation of the conception of
Christ to St. Joseph, and finally the Genealogy of Christ. The Nestorians have the same feasts as
the Syrians and Maronites to this day.
1094

The fixed feasts of Mary in this rite are the Immaculate Conception, the Nativity of Mary, the
Presentation of Mary in the Temple, the Annunciation (second feast), the Praises or Felicitations
to the Mother of God (December 26), the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and the Assumption
of Mary. For the latter feast there is a preparation of a fast lasting two weeks. Besides these feasts
both the Syrians and Maronites have added others of a more local character. Thus the Syrians have
added the Marian feasts of January 15, May 15, and June 15. The Maronites also have that of May
15 to bless the harvest. The Maronites have also added a fixed feast of the Visitation (besides the
one in Advent) on July 2, the feasts of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel on July 16, the Marriage of Mary
and Joseph on September 30; and a movable feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on the first Sunday
of October.
1095

On September 9, after the feast of Mary’s Nativity, the Antiochene liturgy celebrates the
commemoration of her parents, Joachim and Anna. Such commemorations are made also after the
feasts of Christ to honor certain persons connected with the mystery of Christ’s life just
celebrated.
1096

Except for the feast in the cycle of Christmas and the Nativity, the feast of the Assumption is
the only Marian feast celebrated in every Eastern rite. This shows the universality of the belief of
these ancient churches. The Dissidents have the same belief in Mary’s Assumption.
1097

The faithful of the Antiochene rite have ever had definite doctrine in regard to Mary’s death and
burial, her corporal incorruptibility, her bodily Assumption into heaven, and her universal
Queenship over heaven and earth.
1098 St. Ephrem, the Syrian, Doctor of Mary’s Immaculate
Conception and other glories, is also the Doctor of her Assumption.
1099 The Antiochene Office
testifies to Mary’s death and burial:

The Lord has chosen thee for his Mother and has glorified the day of thy memorial. He has caused thee
to pass from life through the portal of death, so that thou mayest rejoice in the heavenly kingdom.
1100

This tomb was the ladder that brought thee to heaven, next to thy Lord, thy Son and thy God.
1101

The Office gives testimony to Mary’s corporal incorruptibility after death: “The [burning] bush
is a symbol of thy holy Body.”
1102 Her body is compared to the Ark of the Covenant, made of
incorruptible wood.
1103

Mary’s corporal Assumption is clearly and firmly stated in this liturgy:

Although thy Body was placed in a tomb according to the law of mortals, nonetheless it is not like the
body of Moses … which was hidden from the Hebrews by God. … For thy immaculate Body was taken
to heaven by the Lord, and there he placed it in the blessed dwellings. There thou standest next to the
throne of thy Son. Pray for us to thy Son Jesus.
1104

Mary’s bodily Assumption is a consequence of her Immaculate Conception and the divine
Maternity:

By the Holy Spirit she was freed from the curse of the first mother, for she never opened the door to
sin. So her passing is the admiration of the whole world.
1105

Blessed be thou, O Justice, who wast never contaminated, O Eve who hast brought forth Emmanuel.
1106

Mary rules as Queen of heaven and earth:

As thou, O Lord, hast rejoiced the heavenly armies, on this day, whereon thou hast raised up Mary, thy
Mother, to heaven in body and soul, and where thou hast made her to sit on a throne elevated over all
the choirs of angels, and where thou hast made her Queen of the heavenly spirits and of those who
dwell on earth, we likewise rejoice, with spiritual joy, free from all human passion; grant us to feel at
every moment the effect of the prayers which she makes for us and help her that she will favor us, so
that we will be protected and can imitate her pure and divine life and merit to rejoice, after her
example, on the day of our parting from this world, through thy grace and that of thy Father and thy
Spirit, Amen.
1107

It was the Emperor Maurice (582-603) who extended the feast of the Assumption to the whole
Byzantine Empire. This feast on August 15 is the most popular feast of the Mother of God in all
the Eastern rites.
1108 At an incensation the priest prays:

O Messias, our God … Thou who hast glorified the memory of the Assumption of thy Mother, the
Immaculate Virgin, accept the perfume of our incense. … Grant that this may be in honor of thy
Mother, Queen of Angels and Empress of Saints.
1109

Mary’s Immaculate Conception, her utter sinlessness, her perpetual virginity, her suffering
with Christ, her power of universal intercession are also celebrated in the various prayers of the
Antiochene rite.

The Maronite liturgy has this hymn to Mary:

Hail, Mary, ever Virgin, Mother of the Almighty who fills both the heavens and the earth.

Hail, Mary, ever virgin, Mother of the Ancient of Days whose name was before the sun was created.
Hail, Mary, ever virgin, Mother of Him who made Adam from the mold of the earth.

Hail, Mary, ever virgin, Mother of Him who formed Eve and gave her to Adam.

Blessed art thou, Mary, the Mother of Him who gave righteousness and virtue to the sons of Levi.

Blessed art thou, Mary, for within thee dwelt the Only-Begotten, the Light of the Father, the Child of
the Godhead.

Blessed art thou, Mary, for thou hast nourished Him who giveth to all creatures to eat.

Blessed art thou, Mary, who hast carried in thy lap and arms the Son of the Most High whom the
powers of heaven acclaim.

All generations bless thy maidenhood, for He who is born of thee hath driven the curse of fear from
the earth. We too bless thee, O holy Virgin, here kneeling before thee. Intercede with the Lord who was
born of thee that He may bestow His graces on all people and ever have pity on us. Praise to Thee, O
Lord, born of a Virgin, who became man, uniting two natures and two wills in one person. Glory be
to Thee, to Thy Father, and to Thine Holy Spirit, three persons in one undivided God. Amen.
1110

A Syrian prayer to Mary:

How can I praise thee duly, O most chaste Virgin? For thou alone among men art all holy, and thou
givest to all the help and grace they need. All we who are on earth put our hope in thee: strengthen
our faith, shine through the dimness of this world, while we, children of the Church, sing thy praise.
Throne of the cherubim art thou and Gate of Heaven; pray without ceasing for us, that we may be
saved in the day of dread. Amen.
1111

A Maronite prayer to Mary:

Let thine intercession be with us, O Mother most pure, and come to us in our need as is thy wont. We
are exiles on this earth, with our end before our eyes, and even now many of us perish; help us by thy
prayers, O merciful Maiden, and be always our Advocate lest we be lost through our own ill will.
Blessed and most holy one, plead for us before God, who was carried in thy womb, that He may be
pitiful to us through thine asking. Amen.
1112

Both the Antiochene and Chaldean liturgies glory in the splendid writings of their illustrious
Doctor, St. Ephrem of Edessa and Nisibis. It is especially in his poems and sermons on the glories
and power of the Mother of God that he is famous in the whole Church. One of his prayers to
Mary is used on the feast of Mary, Mediatress of All Graces in the Roman Seraphic Breviary:

O my Queen, most holy Mother of God, full of grace, endless sea of divine and secret gifts and graces
… Queen of all after the Trinity, another Consoler after the Paraclete, and Mediatress of the whole
world after the Mediator, see my faith and my desire divinely given. … Mother of God … Thou hast
taken away all tears from the face of the earth, thou hast filled creation with every kind of benefice,
thou hast brought joy to those in heaven, thou hast saved those on earth. Through thee we hold a most
certain guarantee of our resurrection; through thee we hope to gain the heavenly kingdom; through
thee all glory, honor and holiness, O only immaculate one, has been derived, are derived and will be
derived from Adam to the consummation of the world for the Apostles, Prophets, the just and humble
of heart; and every creature rejoices in thee, O thou full of grace.
1113

A prayer of St. Ephrem to Mary Immaculate:

O pure and immaculate and likewise blessed Virgin, who art the sinless Mother of thy Son, the Mighty
Lord of the universe, thou who art inviolate and altogether holy, we sing thy praises. We bless thee,
as full of grace, thou who didst bear the God-man; we all bow low before thee; we invoke thee and
implore thine aid. Rescue us, O holy and inviolate Virgin, from every necessity that presses upon us
and from all the temptations of the devil. Be our intercessor and advocate at the hour of death and
judgment: deliver us from the fire that is not extinguished and from the outer darkness; make us
worthy of the glory of thy Son, O dearest and most clement Virgin Mother. Thou indeed art our only
hope most sure and sacred in God’s sight, to whom be honor and glory, majesty and dominion for ever
and ever world without end. Amen.
1114

Thus the Antiochene liturgy in its various forms and parts gives magnificent testimony to the
faith of the Syrians, Maronites, and Malankarese in all the glories, privileges and power of the all-holy and immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God.

IV. MARY IN THE ARMENIAN LITURGY

The Armenian liturgy is used by the Armenians alone. These people formerly lived between
the Caucasus and Taurus Mountains, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Greater Armenia was to
the east of the Euphrates, and Lesser Armenia to the west. In later times the Armenians also lived
in Cilicia. They are an Indo-Germanic people and so their language is of the same origin. In 294
they received their first bishop in the person of St. Gregory the Illuminator, who baptized King
Tiridates. The Armenians glory in being the first nation to embrace the true Faith officially and
in a body. The Armenian Church went into schism about the year 500, repudiating for political
reasons the Council of Chalcedon (a.d. 451). Toward the end of the twelfth century Armenians
who had fled from the Mohammedans founded the Kingdom of Little Armenia in Cilicia and were
reunited to Rome. More and more have entered the Church through the centuries. Both Catholic
and Dissident Armenians use the same rite.

1. The Mass

The Armenian liturgy is basically the Greek liturgy of St. Basil, translated into classical
Armenian, and then modified in the course of time by Syrian, Constantinopolitan, and finally Latin
influences. Thus it is unique among all the liturgies. It is a rich and splendid liturgy and is marked
by constantly uniting Christ and Mary in the divine cult. The first invocation to Mary is at the
beginning of Mass. There is another on her feasts. After the Trisagion her intercession is again
invoked. In the Preface she is called the “Instrument of the Divine Economy.” In the context the
Incarnation is recalled and Mary is named the “Mother of God and the Holy Virgin Mary.” She is
again invoked shortly after the Consecration.
1115

2. The Ritual

Mary is constantly invoked in the administration of both the sacraments and sacramentals. She
is the companion of all human joys and sorrows. In the blessing of a betrothal we read:

Today the ineffable mystery, hidden to the nations and to the tepid, has been revealed by the
Annunciation of the Archangel to the Virgin Mary, our Advocate with the Lord.

For Holy Viaticum:

By the intercession of the ever Virgin Mother of God, save me from the snare of the invisible enemy.

For Benediction:

Thou who wert inflamed by the sun like the bush, and wert not consumed, but hast given to men the
Bread of Life, intercede with Christ that He blot out our sins.

In the blessing for grapes, on the feast of the Assumption, Mary is again honored.

When Thou hast willed finally to manifest Thy paternal love for men, Thou hast sent Thy only Son,
making a branch come forth from the root of Jesse and an admirable and perfumed Flower to come
forth from the Immaculate Virgin Mary.
1116

3. Divine Office

At Matins, Mary is invoked daily. On Sundays she is named ten times at Matins and still
oftener on her feasts. She is also named on feasts of saints and on days of abstinence. An example:

O Lord, who lovest men, by the intercession of Thy Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mother and by Thy
precious Cross, hear our prayers and save us.

After the Magnificat there are three strophes in honor of Mary. She is called “Holy Mother of
Admirable Light.” One strophe reads:

Pray for us to God, who took flesh of thee so that He would unite His Holy Church built on the
foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets, and that He would preserve it immaculate to the day of
His second coming, we beg thee, Holy Mother, intercede for us.

After the Trisagion there is another prayer to Mary beginning with the words: “Holy Mary,
Mother of Christ, our God” attributed to St. Thomas the Apostle. On Wednesday, dedicated to the
Annunciation, the final hymn is dedicated to Mary:

O Spouse offered by earth to heaven, we raise our hearts to thee. Pray that on the day on which thou
hast received the annunciation of the Incarnation, we may be worthy to hear from thy only Son this
other message, Come ye blessed of my Father.

The final hymn of None is dedicated to Mary. At Compline:

We prostrate before thee, Mother of God, and we beg thee unchangeable Virgin, to intercede for us and
pray thy only Son that He would save us from temptation, and from all dangers.
1117

4. Marian Feasts

In the hymns used for Marian feasts we see the great love and devotion of the Armenians to
the Mother of God. There are six classical Marian feasts, Christmas, Epiphany, Purification,
Annunciation, Assumption, and Immaculate Conception. The names and invocations used for
these feasts are similar to those found in the Litany of Loreto, or those used by other Eastern
liturgies. Thus Mary is called “Throne of Salvation,” “Dawn of Peace,” “Orient of the Sun of
Justice,” “Daughter of Light,” “Altar of the Holy Spirit,” “Tree of Life for the Fruit of Immortality,”
“Peace of the Afflicted,” “Foundation of the Church,” “Mediatress Between God and the Human
Race,” “Joy of the World.”
1118

The Armenian liturgy does not go far in the development of Marian doctrine. But it insists on
the great dignity of Mary in various offices and titles. Some examples will suffice:

Divine Maternity and Perpetual Virginity

Mary is styled “Holy Mother of Admirable Light”; “Mother of the Only Begotten”; “She who
brought forth the Word”; “Mother of Life”; “Mother of the Spouse of the Church”; “Abode of the
Incarnation.” On the Assumption she is addressed thus:

More sublime than the Seraphs and the Cherubs with multiple eyes, O Mother of the Saviour, Holy
Virgin, Ark of the Covenant, Vessel of Gold, Mysterious Altar of the Word of the Father, the Churches
of the world today keep festive day with hymn of benediction for the solemnity of thy birth [entrance
into heaven].

On the third day of the octave of Epiphany:

O Mother and Virgin, Servant of Christ, who art ever the Advocate of the world, all nations bless Thee.
Pure dove, heavenly Spouse, Mary, Temple and Throne of God the Word, all nations bless thee.

Mother and Virgin — these two grand privileges of Mary are ever united in the liturgical
prayers:

Three tremendous mysteries are manifested in thee, O Mother of God: Virginal Conception,
immaculate childbirth, and virginity after childbirth.

Mary is called: “Delight of the Word”; “Mother of Virgins”; “Unconsumed Bush”; “Lily of the
Valleys”; “Rock cut without the aid of human hands”; “Sealed Fountain”; “Fleece of Gedeon”;
“Sealed Door”; “Incorruptible Treasure.”

The divine Maternity is always the grand theme in these liturgical prayers. Mary is the final
preparation for Christ, as the branch bears the fruit. She is the “Rising of the Sun of Justice”
(Assumption); the “Spiritual Orient”; the “Tree of life planted in the Garden of Eden, who has
given its fruit to men, namely the Son” (Epiphany). “Joachim and Anna have given us the Fleece
that contains the heavenly Rose” (Nativity of Mary). She is the “Temple of the Creator” (Octave
of the Assumption); the “Temple of the King of the Heavens” (ibid.); the “Abode of the Holy Spirit”
(Assumption); the “House and Temple of the Spirit” (Octave of the Assumption).

The holiness of Mary is not much developed in this liturgy. At times it is affirmed in strong
terms: Mary has received the sevenfold grace; she is entirely blessed. Her holiness is understood
in connection with her divine Maternity.
1119

Mary, Our Mediatrix

The Armenian liturgy often treats of the advantages we have from God through the
intercession of Mary. She is our Mediatrix, the Patroness of the Church, the Queen of the World,
the Hope and Refuge of Christians. Owing to the many persecutions of the Armenians, they
learned to hope and trust in the Mother of God to help them, and deliver them from all their
enemies. Mary is “She who has born Him who delivers us from the bonds of death”; Mary is the
“Salvation of the human race”; Mary is the “Tree of life, who has given the fruit of immortality to
the first mother Eve, delivering her from the sorrows of death”; “Thou art the Glory of human
Virginity, the Joy of Angels, thou, the one who liberates from malediction.” Through Mary we
have access to the Tree of Life. “Rejoice, O Mother of God, Throne of salvation and Hope of the
human race, Mediatrix of Law and of Grace.”
1120

Mary, Patroness of the Church

This title is dear to the Armenian people and has been in their liturgy for ages. “May Christ
protect His Church, by the intercession of the Mother of God.” Mary is the “Foundation of the
Church and the Altar of the Holy Spirit.” “By the intercession of the all-holy Virgin, fortify the
foundations of Thy Church, for Thou art the unique Sovereign Lord of the World.” “The Church
of thy Son acknowledges thee, Mother of God.” “The Church confesses the Holy Virgin
Immaculate.” “Today the Spouse, Holy Church, celebrates with joy, in company with the heavenly
spirits, the solemnity of the Immaculate Virgin, Mother of God.”
1121

Mary, Queen of the Universe

Mary is the Queen of the Universe. She “carried in her arms Him before whom the celestial
spirits tremble.” “Before her the Powers are prostrate.” “The Legions of Heavens exalt the
Immaculate Temple of the Word of God.” “We, the human race, we glorify thee, Mother of God,
whom the angelic powers honor.” “Mother of God, when thou takest thy place, radiant Light, at
the right hand of thy Son, call upon Him then, that He save us from the horrible flame.”
1122

Mary, Hope and Refuge of Christians

There are many invocations that show the confidence of the faithful in Mary’s power as the
Hope and Refuge of Christians. “Mother of God, our Refuge and our Hope, pray to thy only Son,
that He save us from the fire of hell and grant us the Kingdom of Heaven.” “Never cease to pray
for us, O Blessed among all women.” “We have placed our hope in thee; thou, who art brighter
than the sun, do not cease to intercede for us, Mother of Christ, our God.” “We take refuge in thee,
O most Holy One, Sublime, Admirable One, and distributor of graces; thou art a fountain for the
thirsty, rest for the afflicted, thou who hast born the Word Divine.”
1123

The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary

Although the Armenian liturgy has no theological formula of the Immaculate Conception, the
terms it uses for Mary’s sinlessness must be understood in the most absolute sense. Mary “alone
is blessed among all women”; she is the “Daughter of Light”; she has “lifted the curse”; she is “The
one who frees from the sin of Eve.”

The feast of Mary’s Assumption is the greatest Marian feast among the Armenians. It is
preceded by a week of abstinence and celebrated with an octave. This feast is rooted in the most
ancient traditions of the Armenian Church. The liturgical prayers are explicit in regard to the
bodily Assumption of Mary:

Today the heavenly spirits bring to heaven the Abode of the Holy Spirit, making her enter into the
heavenly Jerusalem, to the immaculate tabernacle, to us inaccessible, close to the Holy Trinity.

Today the celestial spirits have carried to heaven the immaculate body of the Virgin Mother of God,
placing it among the angels to share in delights beyond our telling. Therefore Holy Church sings to
thee exultingly a new hymn of praise.

Having lived in this body an immaculate life, thou art brought by the Divine Will to the Kingdom of
thy Son, our God; pray for us.
1124

An Armenian hymn to Mary:

Mother of God, gateway of Heaven to men, with a divine voice the angel declared: Hail, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee. He who sitteth with the Father above the cherubim, was pleased to dwell within
thy maiden body; Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

He who dwelt amid the flaming seraphim was seen among men in a woman’s arms; Hail, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
1125

The many prayers to Mary and the titles the Armenians give her prove their ancient and
ardent devotion to the Mother of God. They honor her with a sublime cult, and ask her to bring
the Dissident back to the true Church.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Attwater, D., Eastern Catholic Worship (New York, 1945).

Brightman, F. E., Liturgies Eastern and Western (Oxford, 1896), pp. 412-457.

Isserverdentz, The Armenian Ritual (Venice, 1876).

– Armenia and the Armenians (Venice, 1886).

King, A. A., The Rites of Eastern Christendom, Vol. 11 (Rome, 1948), pp. 521-646.

Talatinian, B., O.F.M., L’Assunta nella liturgia e teologia della Chiesa Armena, in Atti del
Congresso Assunzionisiico Orientale (Gerusalemme, 1951), pp. 17-30.

Weber, Die Katholische Kirche in Armenien (Freiburg i/Br., 1903).

V. MARY IN THE CHALDEAN LITURGY

This liturgy is used by the Christians of Mesopotamia, Persia, and Malabar, and derives from
the primitive liturgy in an East Syrian form. In ancient times Edessa was its center. In the fifth
century this portion of the Church lapsed into Nestorianism. Many members of this rite are still
Nestorians. Others, since 1551, have become Catholics and are known as Chaldeans in
Mesopotamia and Persia, and as Malabarese on the Malabar coast of India. Both Catholics and
Dissidents of this rite use the liturgy of SS. Addai and Mari. All, except the Malabarese, use also
two other anaphoras on Sundays and feasts from Advent until Palm Sunday and five other days
of the year.

1. The Mass

Mary is honored in the Holy Sacrifice in the litany before the Offertory:

For the memorial of the blessed Lady Mary the holy Virgin, Mother of Christ our Saviour and Lifegiver,
let us pray. Amen. That the Holy Ghost who dwelt in her, sanctify us by His grace and perfect His will
in us and seal in us His truth all the days of our life.

She is mentioned again by the deacon at the Offertory:

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. On the holy altar let there be a memorial
of the Virgin Mother of Christ. From everlasting to everlasting world without end.
1126

2. The Divine Office

In the Office Mary is given a great place. In the hymns three times a week, Mary is invoked
after the invocation to God or to Christ. She it is “who gave birth to the Remedy which vivifies the
children of Adam.” She is “the holy Virgin, the Mother of Jesus, the Saviour.” She is “the Mother
of the King of Kings.” She is invoked for “mercy for sinners, peace for the whole world, protection
for the Church from the wicked; for the end of wars and for blessing on the seasons of the year;
and (finally) for entrance into the Kingdom.” Wednesday is dedicated to her. She is honored with
a special couplet twice that day, and at evening the priest prays:

O Lord, our God, defend us with solid and invincible arms, by the prayers of the holy Mother, the
blessed Virgin Mary, and give us with her a portion of heavenly glory.

Another Wednesday prayer has this splendid praise of Mary:

Mary has glorified the Word, the Son, with a great glory in her bosom, and she has become the Mother
and Servant of Jesus, the Saviour of all. Therefore all creatures rejoice on her feast and are invited to
the luminous reunion for the joy that will have no end; and all of us, with all generations, we call her
blessed, and we give glory to Him, who has chosen her for the habitation of His glorious Image.

The following prayer is similar to the Latin “Sub tuum praesidium” in affirming Mary’s
universal intercession:

We take refuge at every hour, chaste Mary, under the protection of thy prayers; they defend us at all
times, and through them we shall find mercy and pity on the day of judgment.

Every day in the Office, morning and evening, in the hymns for the martyrs, there is a strophe in
honor of Mary, just before the doxology. Thus, e.g., on Thursday evening:

Blessed art thou, holy Virgin; blessed art thou, Mother of God; blessed art thou, for all generations call
thee blessed. Blessed art thou, for the Father has been in thee, the First-Born has dwelt in thee, and the
Holy Spirit has glorified thy name in the world.
1127

3. Feasts in Honor of Mary

Mary is not invoked especially on Sundays, but she has various special feasts in the course of
the year. First there are three ancient feasts that testify to the devotion of the Chaldeans to Mary.
They have a peculiar Eastern charm.

The Feast of the Congratulation of the Holy Virgin. This is celebrated the day after Christmas.
Its purpose is to felicitate Mary on the birth of Christ. It is known in the whole East as a Marian
feast, but the Chaldeans have beautiful hymns for the day. These were composed by George
Warda in the thirteenth century, and apply figures of the Old Testament to the Mother of God.
The Chaldeans delight in these hymns. These thoughts occur in one of them:

The Church says to Mary: Come and we will go together to pray the Son of the Lord for the sins of the
world. Pray thou to Him because thou hast nourished Him; I shall pray to Him for He has mingled His
blood with my nuptials. Pray thou to Him as a Mother, and I as a spouse; He will hear His Mother, He
will answer His bride.

The Feast of Our Lady, Guardian of the Harvest is a popular local feast in Mesopotamia, and
is celebrated on May 15, to ask Mary’s blessing on the harvest, which begins at that time. There
is no mention of this special intention in the Office, but the powerful intercession of Our Lady is
brought out in the prayers:

O Christ, who has heard the prayers of Thy Mother while she was on earth, and who now hears and
helps at all times those who have recourse to her and call upon Thee for her mediation, have mercy
on us.

Mary is the source of help and the refuge of the afflicted in all creation. And he who celebrates the
feasts of Mary will be helped by her prayers. Glory to Thee, O Lord, Son of God, who hast honored
Mary, Thy Mother.

The Assumption of Mary, August 15, is the greatest Marian feast for the Chaldeans. They fast
for five days before it; the Nestorians for seven days. The traditional Chaldean idea is that the
Apostles, the Prophets, and the angels were present with Our Lady on the day of her death. This
is based on the Eastern custom of people coming together when a person is dying. Some of the
Apostles rose from the dead for this occasion; so, too, did the Prophets and Patriarchs, says this
liturgy.

We thank Thee and glorify Thee, O Christ, our Saviour, that it pleased Thy majesty to transfer the
Mother of life from the terrestrial world to places full of joy, so that she can rejoice eternally with the
legions of spirits and the heavenly powers. In Thy mercy, O Lord, render us worthy of rejoicing with
her in life that will have no end.
1128

Since the Chaldeans have returned to the Catholic Church, four other Marian feasts have been
added to their calendar, namely the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity of Our Lady, and
the Immaculate Conception. For the Annunciation the liturgy has merely prayers composed by
the Patriarch Joseph Audo at the time of Pius IX, and certain texts of the Advent liturgy from the
Gospels. For the feast of the Visitation (June 21) there are also prayers of the Patriarch Audo and
commentaries on the Gospel narrative of the Visitation. The feast of the Nativity of Our Lady has
prayers likewise of the Patriarch Audo and a hymn from the works of George Warda.

The prayers for the feast of the Immaculate Conception contain excellent doctrine. They are
the work of Damian, a priest of the monastery of Alkosh.

Glory to the Highest, who has done great things in Mary the Virgin, for from the bosom of His Mother,
He has brought it to pass that she has none like to her among the angels.

O Christ, who hast freed Mary from the sin of Adam by the merits of Thy blood, and hast effected her
redemption in a manner far superior to that of all the children of Adam, by not allowing her, for even
a second, to be under the rule of the Evil One, have mercy on us.

A beautiful flower, without equal, has appeared this day on the barren earth, full of thorns and thistles:
Mary, of the race of the unfortunate Adam and daughter of Eve, who killed the serpent, was conceived
by the power of the Lord without original sin. It is an astonishing and incomprehensible thing which
no words can describe. Glory to the power divine!

O Queen of Queens, all rich, enrich with benefits thy servants, O Mother of the Most High! For He has
made thee the Dispensatrix of His treasures, and universal Queen, for it has pleased the King of Kings
to place Thee over all. By thy goodness, pour out on all the gifts they need, so that the whole world can
prepare for thee a crown of thanks.

How beautiful art thou, O Virgin Spouse, for the glorious Spouse, the Divine Word! It is in thy bosom
that He has placed His treasures, and in thee He has gathered together graces as in a sea, and He has
made thee the source of life for mortals. … O Merciful One in needs, come to the help of all the children
of the Church, now and at the hour of death.
1129

4. Mary in Popular Chaldean Devotion

When we recall the important role the liturgy played in the daily life of the Chaldean people,
and how its texts and hymns strengthened and developed their spiritual life, we can well
understand the great love and devotion they have ever had for the Mother of God, who is so
highly praised in their liturgy. Some of their important churches are dedicated to her. Thus at
Mosul, the city of the Patriarch, there is the Church of The Pure, where the liturgy was developed.
Nearby is the Monastery of the Virgin, the largest monastery of the Chaldean monks of the
Congregation of Rabban Hormez. Our Lady of the Harvest extends her maternal care to the young
priests, who are generally ordained on that feast day, May 15. Many of the faithful bear the name
of Mary or of Our Lady of the Assumption. A frequent exclamation in time of danger, or after long
work, is “la Mariam,” “O Mary.” Many persons make a vow to fast on Saturday in honor of Our
Lady; or to celebrate the months of May and October by reading lectures on Mary added to the
Marian Offices, or by reciting the Rosary publicly. In many churches in Mesopotamia some women
take turns reciting the Rosary during the day. This they do in the language of Christ and Mary.

Thus the liturgy of the Chaldeans agrees with the other Catholic liturgies in praising the
Mother of God and asking her all-powerful intercession. The Catholics of this rite were once very
numerous and their liturgy is very ancient. In fact it is claimed that their Office is the most ancient
public prayer of the Church.
1130 The Chaldeans brought the true Faith to the East as far as China,
Mongolia, and India. They glory in many saints and martyrs, but especially in St. Ephrem the
Deacon, Doctor of the Church, who is called the Lyre of the Holy Spirit. He is justly famous for
his great poems on the Mother of God, and his defense of her Immaculate Conception. Chaldean
devotion to the Blessed Virgin impresses the heretics and even the Mohammedans, and it should
help them to enter the true Church of Christ.

Mary in the Western Liturgy

By Simeon Daly, O.S.B.

INTRODUCTION

IF ANYONE is tempted to feel that devotion to Mary is a prerogative of our own age, he need only
look to the sacred liturgy to realize that this devotion is a part of the very structure of Catholic
worship. Mary’s life and privileges are completely summarized in the cycle of the Church year.
1131

Among the feasts honoring the memory of her early life are the Immaculate Conception, the
Nativity, and the Presentation. The hallowed activities of her adult life are recalled in such feasts
as the Annunciation, the Espousals with St. Joseph, the Visitation, the Maternity, the Holy Family,
the Seven Sorrows, and the Assumption. In the temporal cycle of the liturgical year she frequently
holds a place of veneration in the feasts of Our Lord, such as Christmas, Epiphany, and the
Presentation. Hence, to be ignorant of her place of honor in Catholic life is to miss not only an
essential doctrine but the very key to the area of Catholic worship which is so thoroughly
permeated with veneration of her.

This study is concerned with Mary’s place in the Western liturgy. Specifically, the main
objective will be to find reflected in the Western liturgy evidence of the dogmatic truths we
profess concerning Our Lady. One should find here the answer to the question: How does the
worship of the Christian society, which is the Church, reflect a vital realization of the dogmas
concerning the Blessed Mother?

Our field of investigation is limited to the Western liturgies and even here limited primarily
to the Roman liturgy. This is not a structural or an historical study of the individual feasts, but
rather a factual investigation of the relation between dogma and prayer in Mariology.

The method of procedure briefly will be as follows: a few remarks on the liturgy in relation to
faith; a résumé of the facts concerning the initial traces of honor paid to Mary in the liturgy; a
study of the main doctrines of Mariology: Maternity, Sanctity, Virginity, Queenship, and
Mediation, as reflected in the Marian feasts; the presentation of a few feasts and devotions not
included in the above; and, finally, a brief conclusion to the whole study.

The term liturgy may be taken in its primary meaning, which is the active work of redemption
that Christ continues to carry on and to apply through the Church in the Holy Sacrifice and the
Sacraments, or it may apply to the concrete records of the Church’s tradition which form the basic
guide or norm for current practice, such as the texts themselves of the official books of the liturgy.
It is the latter meaning of the word that we shall use in this paper.
1132

The sacred liturgy is the life of the Church. Through it she continues the divine mysteries of
the life of Christ and applies their saving graces to men. Through it she offers worthy praise and
thanksgiving night and day throughout the world; through it she offers expiation and satisfaction
for sin and pleads with God for all the individual needs of this society; through it she reconsecrates
to God persons and things, as it were, lost to Him by Adam’s sin. By means of the liturgy, then,
we are drawn into bonds of closest union with the saints in heaven.

Our study of the texts of this liturgy will take us to the Missal, the Breviary, the Pontifical, and
the Ritual, which are the official source books in the Roman Church for sacrifice, prayer, and
blessings.

Getting closer to the heart of our study, we must first see the important relationship between
faith and worship, between our believing and our praying, between dogma and cult.

LITURGY IN RELATION TO FAITH

There are two fundamental principles that must be considered in this regard, namely, that
what is to be found in the liturgy must have its foundation in the canons of the Faith, and that not
all the doctrines of faith are necessarily reflected in the liturgy. The latter is important in the
discussion of our particular paper because we know that at least in the Western liturgy, there is
no trace of Marian cult before the fifth century, yet we know that devotion and doctrine
concerning Our Blessed Lady did exist right from the time of the Apostles. There is no necessary
demand that what be of faith be also in the liturgy. The other principle, however, namely, that
what is in the liturgy must have its foundation in faith, will concern us more directly in this study.

Our Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical letter, Mediator Dei, points up the importance
of the interrelationship between faith and prayer, and specifically liturgical prayer. He quotes the
time-honored maxim or principle, Legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi
1133 (let the law of prayer
determine the rule for belief). He stresses the importance of this statement and yet warns against
its false interpretation. He says:

On this subject We judge it Our duty to rectify an attitude with which you are doubtless familiar,
Venerable Brethren. We refer to the error and fallacious reasoning of those who have claimed that the
sacred liturgy is a kind of proving ground for the truths to be held of faith, meaning by this that the
Church is obliged to declare such a doctrine sound when it is found to have produced fruits of piety
and sanctity through the sacred rites of the liturgy and to reject it otherwise. … But this is not what the
Church teaches and enjoins. The worship she offers to God, all good and great, is a continuous
profession of Catholic faith and a continuous exercise of hope and charity. … The entire liturgy,
therefore, has the Catholic Faith for its content, inasmuch as it bears public witnesss to the faith of the
Church. …

The sacred liturgy, consequently, does not decide or determine independently and of itself what is of
Catholic faith. More properly, since the liturgy is also a profession of eternal truths and subject as such
to the Supreme Teaching Authority of the Church, it can supply proofs and testimony, quite clearly
of no little value, towards the determination of a particular point of Christian doctrine.
1134

We see here that there is an interrelationship or interdependence one upon another, so that
if we find something in the liturgy, it should also have its foundation in Catholic faith. This
formula, Legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi, was originally used only in a specific instance,
against the Pelagian heresy, pointing out that the sacraments and prayers of the liturgy as
expressed in the liturgy were an argument for the true doctrine of grace. Though originally
applied only to a specific problem, it was gradually taken up as a formula of universal extent until
by the time of St. Thomas it was accepted as a general axiom or law. St. Thomas himself
considered the liturgy as a prime source for doctrine, practically equating it at times with
Scripture.
1135

It follows then that if we find reflected in the liturgy these doctrines regarding Mary’s life and
prerogatives, we have a very definite witness to their having been clearly the belief of the Church
throughout the ages.

MATERNITY

Devotion to Mary must be reduced to the practical application of the doctrine of the
Communion of Saints. Because this doctrine is not contained explicitly in the Apostles’ Creed,
there is no ground for surprise if we do not find any clear traces of the cult of the Blessed Virgin
in the first Christian centuries.
1136 In fact, at present it is impossible to determine the first
manifestation of cult shown to the Virgin before the peace of the Church in the year 312.
Catacomb monuments, frescoes, and the like, picture her with Our Lord, but without particularly
indicating that homage was offered to her.
1137 However, one might justly suppose that, granting the
fact of the universal recognition of her prerogatives,
1138 men would extend to her a place of
veneration at least equivalent to that of the martyrs.

By the second half of the fourth century, however, we have definite indication of the
recognition of the legitimacy, even the urgency of this cult in Epiphanius.
1139

The real turning point for this veneration comes with the Council of Ephesus in 431. The
history of this third ecumenical council of the Church reads like the pages of a novel, not only
because of its complications, but also because of the great concern of the people for the accurate
definition of Mary’s motherhood.
1140 From this time on, honor toward Mary was expressed in one
way or another — through the dedication of churches, through the composition of prayers to her,
and eventually in the seventh century (in the West) through the introduction of definite feasts.

That Marian cult developed from or was a sequel to the cult of angels is an opinion held among
scholars, but without implying that it is anything more than a theory
1141 and likewise without
implying that there were insufficient doctrinal grounds for the cult to give rise to itself. It is a fact
that in many of the ancient litanies the Archangels Michael and Gabriel are invoked after the
Persons of the Trinity and immediately before the Blessed Virgin.
1142

At any rate the devotion to and veneration of Mary took root in the period of a few centuries
following the Council of Ephesus and expressed itself by liturgical prayer and liturgical feasts.
While it is difficult to give precise dates for the introduction of the various feasts, it can be said
with certainty that the feasts of the Assumption, the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the
Purification can be traced to this period.
1143

The first prerogative of Mary that we turn to is her Maternity because it seems to be the final
cause of all her other privileges.
1144

We look to the liturgy for a living, practical, poetical expression of the doctrine that Mary is
truly the Mother of Christ, the God-Man, and further that she exercises spiritual motherhood over
all men, especially over the Christians.

The first place that we naturally go to for reflections of the doctrine of the Maternity in the
liturgy is the feast of the divine Maternity itself (October 11). Only in 1931 was this feast raised
to the rank of a double of the second class for the universal Church by Pope Pius XI at the time
of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus.
1145 Before that time, this doctrine which is
reflected in all the Marian feasts was especially emphasized in the Advent and Christmas seasons,
as I shall try to indicate later. The privilege of observing the feast of the Maternity was first
granted to the King of Portugal in 1751 and was assigned to the first Sunday in May.
1146 In the Mass
for this feast we find the following passages:

“Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Introit).

“O God who didst will that thy Word should take flesh at the message of an angel in the womb of the
blessed Virgin Mary, grant unto us thy suppliants that we who believe her to be indeed the Mother of
God may be aided by her intercession with thee” (Collect).

“There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse: and a flower shall rise up out of his root”
(Gradual).

“Virgin Mother of God, He whom the whole world cannot hold, enclosed Himself in thy womb, being
made man” (Alleluia).

The Gospel speaks of “his parents.”

“When his Mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost”
(Offertory).

“Through thy mercy, O Lord, and by the intercession of the Blessed Mary ever Virgin, Mother of Thy
Only-begotten Son, may this oblation secure for us present and perpetual prosperity and peace”
(Secret).

“Blessed is the womb of the Virgin Mary, which bore the Son of the Eternal Father” (Communion).

“May this communion, O Lord, cleanse us from guilt, and by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, Mother of God, make us partakers of the heavenly remedy” (Postcommunion).

These passages give an opportunity to point out once for all the sources for the texts applied
to Mary in the liturgical books.
1147 Primarily, Sacred Scripture is the fount. Some passages of the Old
Testament have their literal
1148 fulfillment in Mary, e.g., “A virgin shall conceive.” Some of the
prophetic, messianic psalms, such as Psalm 44, seem to have direct application to her. Some texts
are used in an accommodated sense, as, for example, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom literature,
and the Book of Judith. In each of these the literal sense is some other more obvious fact, but for
some extrinsic reasons they are applied to Mary. This gives rise to the mystical aura that pervades
some of her feasts. The interpretation of the applied texts comes only from a knowledge of the
Scripture background, knowledge of the Marian doctrines, and quiet contemplation.

Besides Scripture, texts from the Fathers are used, or even texts composed specifically for some
feast or occasion. Thus, the beautiful Communion verse above is of ecclesiastical origin and is used
quite frequently throughout the Missal and Breviary. It might be well to point out that many of
these passages quoted in this paper for one or the other feast or doctrine frequently occur in other
parts of the Breviary or Missal.

I remarked previously that this doctrine of the Maternity was clearly expressed and even
emphasized in the liturgy long before Pope Pius XI promulgated the feast for the universal Church.
The season of Advent, in fact, very dramatically and delicately makes constant reference to the
Maternity of Our Lady
1149 though always in reference to her future Maternity. Hence on days of
temporal office in Advent, the doxology Jesu, tibi sit gloria, Qui natus es de Virgine in the Breviary
must be omitted because of its reference to an already completed Maternity. The second Collect
for ferial Masses in this season is the proper oration of the Blessed Virgin, which is identical with
the one quoted above for the feast of the Maternity. While the words definitely affirm the
Maternity of Mary as completed, there is also the “message of the angel” to give it an
“annunciation” tone.
1150

The prophecy, “Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Isa. 7:14), which comes in the
Scripture lesson of the Saturday within the first week of Advent, the seventh responsory of the
first Sunday of Advent, and the Communion antiphon of Ember Wednesday, keeps this privilege
of Mary before our minds.

Gabriel’s message to Mary threads its way in and out of the Divine Office and the Mass in the
fourth week. Ember Wednesday and Friday, in fact, seem to be Marian feasts, always, however,
maintaining the prophetic tone.
1151

The first Sunday of Advent, the vigil of Christmas, and the first Mass of Christmas are
celebrated at the stational church of St. Mary Major. This particular church was chosen for these
occasions in honor of Mary, who gave us Christ.
1152

The beautiful feast of Christmas and its octave particularly highlight Mary’s Maternity.
January 1 had been celebrated in Rome as a Marian feast, the first and only one of the early Marian
feasts that originated in the West.
1153 However, by the beginning of the ninth century, it was
considered to be a feast of Our Lord, the Circumcision.

In whatever way the historians of the liturgy may solve the origins, the fact remains that
Christmas and its octave are replete with striking references to the Maternity — Mary and Jesus
cannot be separated here if the fullness of the mystery is to be preserved.
1154

“This is the day whereon the King of Heaven was pleased to be born of a Virgin” (1st Responsory at
Matins).

“How great is this mystery, how wonderful is the teaching of the faith! The beasts saw the new-born
Lord lying in a manger. Blessed is that Virgin whose womb was made meet to bear our Lord Christ”
(4th Responsory).

“Blessed is God’s Holy Mother, Mary, maiden undefiled. This day hath she brought forth the Saviour
of the world” (5th Responsory).

This last prayer is particularly beautiful, expressing so succinctly Mary’s Maternity, sanctity,
and virginity. The next responsories are equally beautiful, but these will suffice to show our point.

It would seem that the psalms of the first of the two Christmas offices are the source for the
psalms of the Office of the Blessed Virgin. January 1 — the octave of Christmas (and probably a
Marian feast) — uses the psalms of the first office; February 2 and other Marian feasts have the
same psalms with only two modifications. The Office of Virgins then gets its series of psalms from
these.
1155

In considering the Maternity, we cannot fail to look at the feast of the Annunciation of March
25 which was for centuries, liturgically speaking, a feast of the Maternity.
1156 Both the Mass and the
Office are replete with references to Our Lady’s Maternity:

“O God, Who hast willed that …” (Collect — same as for Maternity, see above).

“Receive, O Virgin Mary, receive the word of the Lord, which is sent thee by His angel. Thou shalt
conceive and shalt bring forth God and Man together. And thou shalt be called blessed among all
women” (3rd Responsory at Matins).

This is sufficient to show that the concept of Mary’s Maternity is clearly expressed in the
sacred liturgy. We do not find here the precision of expression that one expects in a theology
textbook, but rather the living, pulsing expression of a praying Church animated with love and
devotion.

It is interesting to note that the privileges of Mary are frequently mentioned in the Pontifical
and the Ritual. A few expressions honoring her Maternity are: Sweet Mother; Dwelling Place of
God; Dwelling Place of the Son of God; Mother of Christ; Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ; The
Word took flesh from her womb; She who bore Him and she who nourished Him at the breast.
1157

One ancient and beautiful prayer that is found in the Breviary, the Ritual, and the Pontifical
honoring Mary’s Maternity is the Sub tuum praesidium (Compline of Little Office; Versicle at 3rd
Nocturn of Maternity and Mediatrix of all Grace).

We take refuge under thy protection, O holy Mother of God. Despise not our supplications in our need,
but deliver us from all dangers, O Ever Virgin, glorious and blessed.
1158

SANCTITY

The second concept or privilege of Mary we want to consider is her eminent sanctity. Rooted
in the Scripture — “Hail, full of grace” — this doctrine has ever been evident in the teaching of the
Church. The doctrine is implicitly contained in almost every feast honoring Mary, though there
is no specific feast honoring her under this general title.

When we refer to Mary’s sanctity we include all her privileges insofar as each, de facto, did
increase her holiness, either actually, such as her Immaculate Conception, or, at least, by providing
a means for sanctity, such as her virginity.

Mary was not only free from any stain of original or actual sin, but her soul — more than any
other except that of her own divine Son — was steeped in divine grace. The sacred liturgy
expresses this in different ways.

From the feast of the Annunciation (March 25) we have the words of Scripture: “Hail Mary,
full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women” (Alleluia, Gospel, and
Offertory). “Thou hast found grace with God” (Gospel). These phrases from the holy Gospel
interlace the whole framework of this feast and keep returning like a theme in most of the feasts
in which she is honored. In the Common Office of the Blessed Virgin, the fifth lesson taken from
St. John Chrysostom has this magnificent passage:

Verily, dearly beloved brethren, the Blessed Virgin Mary was a great wonder. What thing greater or
more famous than she hath ever at any time been found or can be found? She alone is greater than
heaven and earth. What thing holier than she hath been or can be found? Neither Prophets, nor
Apostles, nor Martyrs, nor Patriarchs, nor Angels, nor Thrones, nor Lordships, nor Seraphim, nor
Cherubim, nor any other creature visible or invisible can be found that is greater or more excellent than
she. She is at once the handmaid and the parent of God, at once Virgin and Mother.

This passage certainly high-lights Mary’s eminent holiness. Another passage from the
Common Office expresses her sanctity very beautifully but less obviously:

“I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. Therefore the king has loved me and brought me
into his chambers” (3rd Antiphon of Lauds).

Perhaps the feast most intimately connected with the concept of sanctity is that of the
Immaculate Conception, which honors Mary’s singular prerogative of having been conceived from
the very first moment free of any stain of sin. It is her triumph over Satan. She is mankind’s one
unspotted soul.

The doctrinal emphasis of this feast was implied in the feast of the Annunciation where Mary’s
fullness of grace and spotlessness of soul are stressed. A special feast seems to have developed
from the parallel feast of the Conception of St. John the Baptist (September 24). The step from one
to the other is not hard to recognize. The Eastern rite here too was ahead of the West. Already in
the ninth century, in the Marble Calendar of Naples, there is a feast of the Conception of St. Ann.
Although Naples is in the West, it was at that time under the Byzantine rule and this calendar
entry represents a Byzantine feast.

Even so, the origin of the feast in the West seems to have been independent of this and cannot
be placed much — if at all — before 1060. It seems to have been England’s privilege to have
introduced this feast to the West.
1159 The question of Ireland’s role as the first to have the feast
seems to have been conclusively discounted, especially since it has been shown that the entries
in the early Irish calendars were insertions of a later date.
1160

Pius IX defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 (Ineffabilis Deus). In the
document of the definition he refers to the presence of the feast in the liturgy as a sign and a
reflection of the faith of the Church in the doctrine.
1161 Sixtus IV had in 1477 extended the feast to
the universal Church. The Mass and Office that he had approved on that occasion were replaced
in 1863 by Pius IX with the Mass formula we have today. Leo XIII, on November 30, 1879, raised
the feast from the rank of a double of the second class to that of a double of the first class with a
common octave.

As is usually the case, the Oration for the feast captures the particular aspect or phase of
doctrine the Church is stressing in her celebration.

O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin didst make her a worthy habitation for Thy
Son, and didst by His foreseen death, preserve her from all stain of sin; grant we beseech Thee, that
through her intercession we may be cleansed from sin and come with pure hearts to Thee.

We may notice here even the important theological distinction concerning the merits of Christ.
It was precisely this distinction that cleared the theological atmosphere around this doctrine. Until
it was made, there had been some hesitancy concerning the doctrine from fear of encroaching on
the teaching of mankind’s universal need of Christ’s redeeming grace.

Of even richer poetic beauty is the Introit of the Mass — taken from the prophecy of Isaias:

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord and my soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with
garments of salvation and with the robe of justice He hath covered me, as a bride adorned with her
jewels.

The use of passages of Holy Scripture referring to “the uncreated Wisdom” (Epistle) and His
eternal origin are here applied to the origin of Mary, which was preordained by one and the same
decree with the Incarnation of the Divine Wisdom.
1162

The Gradual and the Alleluia verse for the feast are:

Blessed art thou, O Virgin Mary, by the Lord the most high God above all women upon earth. Thou art
the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israel, thou art the honor of our people.

Thou art all fair, O Mary, and there is in thee no stain of original sin.

This latter phrase — original sin — is distinctive in the liturgical texts of the Mass. Editions of
the Missal prior to 1863, and even in the ancient calendars,
1163 entitled the feast In conceptione B.
Mariae Virginis.
1164

The Sarum Missal of the early sixteenth century had a special Alleluia verse that mentioned
the glorious conception of the Virgin Mary. It also had a sequence: “Let this day be celebrated in
which the Conception of Mary is piously recalled.”
1165

The Invitatory of Matins says: “Let us keep the feast of the stainless conception of the Virgin
Mary; let us worship Christ, her Son and her Lord and ours.” This passage is interesting for the
explicitness of its dogmatic reference to Mary’s conception as well as for the theological balance
it portrays by reflecting Mary’s honors to Christ. This is a pattern that goes through the whole
structure of the liturgical texts on Mary.

There follow some further passages pertaining to this concept — all from the Breviary for the
feast of the Immaculate Conception.

“O Lord, how excellent is Thy Name in all the earth, Who has made Thee a worthy tabernacle in the
Virgin Mary” (1st Antiphon at Matins).

“Grace is poured into her Conception and she is fairer than the daughters of men” (4th Antiphon of
Matins).

“By this I know that thou favorest me, because mine enemy can not triumph over me” (Versicle of 2nd
Nocturn).

“For the Lord hath created me in righteousness and hath held mine hand and hath kept me” (4th
Responsory).

And finally the first Antiphon of Lauds and Vespers:

“Thou art all fair, O Mary; there is no spot of original sin in thee.”

In a fourteenth-century manuscript of the Sarum Missal the feast of the Conception is in the
calendar (December 8) but it does not have a special Mass formula or Office; it is celebrated with
the feast of the Nativity.
1166 The Mass on that day makes no explicit reference to Mary’s conception
which would seem to indicate that the latter feast was only tacked on. Even in the later Roman
Missals the two Masses are very similar, being identical from the Introit through the Gospel except
for the change of the word “Nativity” to “Conception.” The feast of the Nativity is one of the
earliest Marian feasts in the Western liturgy, celebrated in Rome during the pontificate of Sergius
I (687-701) and probably some years before. Like the feast of the Immaculate Conception, it owes
its origin probably to the Gospel narration and the early feast of the birth of John the Baptist. The
feast had its origin in the East, probably in Syria or Palestine. The object of the feast, namely, the
birth of Mary, lacks historical details and is based somewhat on apocryphal writings, which
abounded after the Council of Ephesus. Evidence is wanting to show why September was chosen,
1167
though it is certainly because of that date that the feast of the Conception was celebrated on
December 8, nine months earlier. Because of this lack of historical foundation, the feast was slow
in being accepted universally.
1168

A person might ask why the birth of Mary is particularly set aside for honor, since in the case
of the saints the Church “celebrateth only the day of their being made perfect at death” (6th
Lesson, December 9). The answer will be found in this that in the case of Our Blessed Mother as
in the case of St. John the Baptist, the Church venerates even their birth since they were sanctified
in the womb. Hence every phase of her life is worthy of honor who even at her birth was a
singularly perfect and holy creature.

There follow some pertinent passages from the Office of the feast of the Nativity:

“Today is the Nativity of the Holy Virgin Mary, whose glorious life is the ornament of all the churches”
(Versicle and Responsory at Vespers).

“Let us tell again of the right worthy Birth of the glorious Virgin Mary who gained the honor of
Motherhood without losing the guilelessness of a Maiden” (Antiphon at the Magnificat, 1st Vespers).

“Thy birth, O Virgin Mother of God, was a message of joy to the whole world, for out of thee rose the
Sun of righteousness …” (6th Responsory of Matins).

“Let us keep with rejoicing the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary that she may pray for us to our
Lord Jesus Christ” (5th Antiphon at Lauds).

“Let us this day keep solemnly the Birthday of Mary, Mother but still Maiden, her Birth a step toward
the loftiness of her throne” (Antiphon at the Benedictus’).

One might remark the obvious supernatural mentality reflected in all these prayers. The
perfectly natural event of Mary’s birth is seen in the light of the beauty of her soul and the height
of her calling to be Virgin Mother and Queen.

Since holiness means attachment to the supreme good (God) and distance from evil (sin), Mary
is certainly most holy. We have seen how the sacred liturgy expresses these concepts in a concrete
way, especially in the two feasts of the Annunciation and the Immaculate Conception.

VIRGINITY

We pass now to the mystery of Mary’s life closely associated with her sanctity, namely, her
virginity. Our Lord himself tells us that virginity is not a necessary sign of sanctity,
1169 but we know
that Mary’s virginity is very intimately connected with the holiness of her life and flows from it.
Before she ever realized the height of her calling, she had consecrated herself body and soul, to
almighty God. Her “How can this be done?” is universally interpreted by exegetes as a reference
to her vow of virginity.
1170 The angel’s assurance was all she needed: “Be it done unto me according
to thy word.”

With regard to giving the full doctrine of Mary’s virginity (before, in, and after the birth of
Christ) the expressions of the liturgy are general and all-inclusive, using the simple term “virgin”
to include all its implications. In some passages, however, more of the fullness of her virginity is
expressed, for example:

“Mother of God, when Moses saw the bush unconsumed, we own that it was a figure of the
preservation of thy most wonderful virginity. Pray for us” (3rd Antiphon at Lauds, feast of
Circumcision).

“The joy of a Mother was hers, remaining a Virgin unsullied” (from the 2nd Antiphon of Lauds on
Christmas).

“Long ago Ezechiel prophesied: I saw the gate shut; behold God went forth from it before the ages for
the salvation of the world. And it was shut again, showing forth the Virgin, because after child-birth
she remained a virgin. The gate which thou sawest, the Lord only shall enter by it” (2nd Responsory
of Matins on Wednesday in the 1st Week in Advent).

Although there is no feast today in the Roman calendar honoring Mary in her virginity, there
have been, in certain places, days set aside to honor her through this privilege: fourth Sunday in
July — her Virginity; third Sunday in May — Queen of Virgins; first Sunday in August — Faithful
Virgin, etc.
1171 In the Roman Missal there is a feast of the Purity of the Blessed Virgin Mary assigned
to October 16.
1172 We pray in the Oration of that Mass:

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty and eternal God, that we who venerate with festive celebration the
most perfect virginity of the most pure virgin Mary, may by her intercession attain to purity of mind
and body.

The feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which our Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, extended
to the universal Church after consecrating the world to her Immaculate Heart on December 8,
1942, might also be considered here. The new Office and Mass were promulgated on May 4, 1944.
1173
It is fixed on August 22, the octave of the Assumption.

It is not possible or necessary to cite the countless references in the Missal and Breviary
referring to Mary’s virginity. But that the liturgy incorporates in full the dogmatic teaching
concerning it, there can be no doubt. Mary’s name is seldom mentioned without affixing to it this
her glorious privilege.

“O Mary, how holy and how spotless is thy virginity. I am too dull to praise, for thou hast borne in thy
womb Him whom the heavens can not contain” (6th Responsory of Christmas Matins).

ASSUMPTION

We shall consider Mary’s role as Coredemptrix, which would logically come here, in
connection with her mediatory powers.

We pass now to that privilege of Mary so recently exalted by the solemn definition of Pope
Pius XII —the Assumption.
1174 This privilege — one of the first honored in both the Roman and
Gallican liturgies — is the one which in our day has received the most attention. Study, research,
and prayer prepared the way for the definition, and the definition has evoked more study,
research, and prayer.
1175

The doctrine defined is Mary’s glorious bodily assumption into heaven and her glorification
in heaven. The definition does not extend to the death of Mary — a point considered by some to
be forever undefinable, because of the lack of historical evidence. However, the sacred liturgy does
refer to Mary’s death. Doctrinally, the Assumption is the climax, the glorious completion of the
most holy life of Mary. It involves not only her victory over death, but also her glorification in
heaven above all the saints and angels.

We shall try to see how the Church is able to incorporate both aspects of this doctrine into her
prayer life — her liturgy. But first let us consider the feast itself.

The Gallican feast of Our Lady, celebrated on January 18, most probably came West from the
Coptic liturgy with Cassian around the year 550.
1176 This was the only Marian feast of the Gallican
liturgy prior to the influence brought about by the dissemination of the Roman liturgical books.
1177

Around the turn of the eighth century the date was changed under Roman influence from
January 18 to August 15.
1178

The Mozarabic liturgy seems to have depended on Roman influence for its feast of the
Assumption and at a late date.
1179

The object of the Roman feast at first seemed to have been only the death of Mary with no
reference to the Assumption until the end of the seventh century.

As mentioned above, there was a procession in Rome on this day, inaugurated by Pope Sergius
I. From the seventh to the sixteenth century, the papal cortège, including members of the Senate
and representatives of the people, passed from the Church of Adrian on the Forum to St. Mary
Major.
1180 When the people had assembled for the procession, the following formula was read:

It is our duty to honor the solemnity of the day, O Lord, in which the Holy Mother of God did indeed
suffer temporal death, although the bonds of this death could not hold back her whose flesh formed
the body of Thy Son, Our Lord.
1181

This is truly a remarkable passage in that it is not just a prayer but rather a declaration of the
fact of Mary’s victory over death and an explicit avowal of her bodily assumption. It is remarkable
also, because the Mass formula (i.e., before the new one) is rather noncommittal — one which was
derived from the Common of Virgins.
1182 In fact, the oration makes no mention of the Assumption.
The Introit is adapted for the Assumption, but the formula — Gaudeamus — really belongs to the
Mass of St. Agatha (February 5) and occurs eight times in the Missal. The Alleluia verse and the
Offertory are the same. They repeat the first Antiphon of Vespers and Lauds: “Mary hath been
taken to heaven; the angels rejoice; they praise and bless the Lord.” This verse is retained as the
Alleluia verse in the new Mass which our Holy Father approved for the universal Church for the
feast of the Assumption.
1183

The Introit of this new Mass is from the Apocalypse. The text is that of the woman (Apoc.
12:1):

A great sign has appeared in the heavens: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet
and on her head a crown of twelve stars. Ps. 97, v. 1. Let us sing a new song to the Lord, for he has done
great things!

The Oration is classic in its structure:
1184

Almighty and eternal God, Who hast assumed the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of Thy Son,
body and soul into heavenly glory, grant, we beseech Thee, that always intent on higher things, we
may merit to be sharers of her glory.

This has a happy suggestion of the essential relation of the Assumption to the Immaculate
Conception. It likewise puts the verb in the active voice, showing God’s immediate action. God
has assumed Mary to Himself. Mary is in glory, body and soul. The whole doctrine is here.

The Epistle accommodates the passage from Judith. This same Epistle is used for the feast of
the Seven Sorrows. The scriptural passages referring to that valiant woman are here applied to
Mary. I include only three pertinent passages: “Blessed art thou, O daughter, by the Lord the most
high God, above all women upon the earth.” “Blessed be the Lord who made heaven and earth,
who hath directed thee to the cutting off the head of the prince of our enemies.” “Thou art the
glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israel, thou art the honor of our people.” The middle passage
is most expressive in reference to Mary’s victory over Satan. This idea is brought up again shortly
after in the Offertory verse, which is the Protoevangelium: “I will put enmity between thee and the
woman, between thy seed and her seed.”

The Gospel is that of the Visitation. Elizabeth’s words of praise and Mary’s Magnificat are the
pertinent passages.

This should suffice to show that the new Mass formula clearly transposes dogma to prayer.
Without question it is a superior formula when compared to the former Gaudeamus Mass.

The new Office of the Assumption
1185 makes changes for the most part by offering new texts in
places where the old Office was of the Common. However, the really characteristic passages
remain.

“The Virgin Mary hath been taken into the (bridal) chamber on high where the King of kings sitteth
on the throne amid the stars” (2nd Antiphon of Lauds).

“This is the day whereon Mary went up into heaven. Rejoice for she reigneth forever with Christ”
(Magnificat Antiphon for 2nd Vespers).

These passages, as well as the antiphon quoted earlier (“Mary hath been taken to heaven, etc.”)
may well have been incorporated into the liturgy from an epistle-sermon Cogitis me by Paschasius
Radbert.
1186

Another very beautiful passage is the first responsory of Matins. It is a delicate interweaving
of six different passages from the Canticle of Canticles and of one from Sirach.
1187 This Responsory,
too, is retained in the new Office:

I saw her, when fair like a dove, she winged her flight above the rivers of waters. The priceless savor
of her perfumes hung heavy in her garments. And about her it was as the flower of roses in the spring
of the year, and lilies of the valley. . Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like a pillar of
smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense?

We see, then, all the important facts relative to the doctrine of Our Lady’s Assumption
expressed in the sacred liturgy. Sometimes, indeed, expressed in most simple and direct terms,
sometimes in figure, sometimes in the ecstatic prayer of the mystic, but always in a manner and
with an accuracy befitting the Spouse of Christ.

QUEENSHIP

Immediately following on Mary’s Assumption and implied in it is her Queenship. She is the
Queen of Heaven. Yet in reality her Queenship is simultaneous with her Maternity. For from the
first moment of her conception of the God-Man she was Mother of a King. Not just Queen-Mother
as understood in kingdoms today, but truly Queen. The fact is implied in Holy Scripture and has
been attested to by one pope after another.
1188 The nature of her Queenship is more than
metaphorical; it is queenship in the proper sense. She enjoys that power of intercession proper to
a mother and a spouse of the king and enjoys personal dignity attendant on her position. She is
Queen of queens because she is Mother and Spouse of the King of kings and because by her life
she helped to attain victory for the kingdom.

The sacred liturgy takes explicit recognition of both her intercessory powers and her dignity.
There has been an active effort of late to have a feast introduced in honor of Mary’s Queenship
— to correspond to the new feast of Christ the King. Until such time, the feast of the Assumption
can certainly be considered to honor her Queenship since her glorification in heaven (which is one
of the objects of that feast) is but the King’s royal welcome and rewarding of His Queen into their
kingdom.

In the Oration of the Mass we speak of her as having glory in heaven: “Almighty and eternal
God, Who hast gathered to Thyself the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of Thy Son, body and
soul to heavenly glory …” The Epistle speaks of her eminent dignity; she is blessed by God above
all women — and then: “Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israel, thou art the
honor of thy people.” The Gradual is a verse from Ps. 44, which is the prophetic psalm of the new
kingdom: “Hear, O Daughter, and see and incline thy ear and the king will desire thy beauty. The
daughter of the King enters with all beauty; golden are her garments.”

The Postcommunion appeals to God through the merits and intercession of Mary, thus
bringing out the other aspect of her Queenship — power before the throne.

Mary’s pre-eminence even over angels is attested in the Versicle and Responsory — “The Holy
Mother of God is exalted above the choirs of angels to the heavenly kingdom.” Since the fifth
century, Mary’s name has appeared after God and before the angels in the litanies, giving
recognition to this dignity.

Mary’s Queenship is hers by a natural law — not just of inheritance as a descendant of David,
but in the very nature of her motherhood of a King. “He shall be King over the house of Jacob
forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”
1189

She has some acquired rights as queen, i.e., as a consequence of her co-operation in the work
of the kingdom, the redemption of men. Her first “Be it done unto me according to thy word”
implicitly expressed this total co-operation. The feast of the Annunciation honors her for this,
while the feasts of the Purification and Seven Sorrows expand on the actual role she played in the
struggle for victory.

From the Office common to the Blessed Virgin, the following passages give further evidence
of the notion of queenship:

“Upon thy right hand did stand the queen in a vesture of gold wrought about with divers colors, and
when the daughters of Sion saw her, they cried out that she was most blessed” (Verse and Response,
6th Responsory of Matins).

“I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. Therefore the king hath loved me and brought
me into his chamber” (3rd Antiphon of Lauds).

“In thy comeliness and in thy beauty, ride on triumphant and reign” (Short Resp., Lauds).

The King’s reign is eternal — so too shall be the queen’s.

The beautiful antiphons, Salve Regina, Ave Regina coelorum, Regina coeli should be mentioned
here since they thread through the Divine Office day by day throughout the year keeping Mary’s
Queenship before our minds.

These few examples taken from the Missal and the Breviary should be adequate to show
clearly Mother Church’s desire to place on the lips and in the hearts of her children prayers that
express her understanding of the doctrine of Mary’s Queenship.

MEDIATION

We come now to the final doctrines which integrate all the above under the practical aspect
of Mary’s role in the whole plan of redemption — her role as Coredemptrix and Dispenser of
graces. They are treated here under one topic because her work as Dispenser of graces flows from
her share in the work of redemption.

Her perfect union with her divine Son from the first moment of His mission down to the
tortuous way of Calvary merited for her a unique role in the redemptive actions of our divine
Saviour. Her every act was unique in that its perfection and its purity rendered it most pleasing
and consequently meritorious before God. Her sorrows and her deep compassion with every
suffering step of our Redeemer in the course of the Passion were such that she has merited the
title of Coredemptrix.

Taking this into account and then considering her other glorious prerogatives, Mother, Saint,
Virgin, and Queen, it is not hard to understand the unique role she plays in heaven as the
Mediatrix and the Dispensatrix of all graces.

We need not here proceed any further than this into the theological aspects of these doctrines,
especially since there are variations of opinion among theologians on the extent of her role in the
plan of salvation. Next to the doctrine of the Assumption no other problem has been more fully
treated in recent literature.
1190 Whatever the theological solution might be, the texts of the liturgy
of the Church will hardly exert more force in the final proof than to imply the unique intercessory
powers of Mary in heaven and some mode of co-redemption during her life here on earth.
1191

Mary’s “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word” is her
complete acceptance of God’s plan for her. This consent celebrated on the feast of the
Annunciation (March 25) is the foundation for her office of Mediatrix. Words do not convey the
degree of dedication contained in this consent, but there could be no halfway measures for this
soul whose intellect was unclouded by ignorance and whose will was undivided by concupiscence
or selfish consideration. This was the turning point in history, and Mary consented to provide
herself body and soul to the cause.

Later she was called upon to carry out in deed this consent of her spirit, especially when she
followed her divine Son to the cross. Her oneness with Him especially here and her glorious merits
consequent on the anguish of soul she endured, give her a unique relationship with the Redeemer,
a relationship theologians have not hesitated to include under a special name — Coredemptrix. It
is the feast of the Seven Sorrows, especially the one in Passion Week, that brings to mind this
mystery.

“There stood by the cross of Jesus, His Mother” (Introit). She would not be separated from Him
now. By this fidelity and co-operation at the foot of the cross “an ineffable union is made to exist
between the two offerings, that of the Incarnate Word and that of Mary; the Blood of the Divine
Victim and the tears of the Mother, flow together for the redemption of mankind.”
1192

“O God, at whose passion according to the prophecy of Simeon, a sword of sorrow pierced the most
sweet soul of the glorious virgin and mother, Mary, grant in Thy mercy that we who call to mind with
veneration her soul transfixed with sorrow through the merits and prayers of all the saints faithfully
standing by Thy cross, may obtain the blessed result of Thy Passion” (Oration).

As Collects go, this one is a rather poor composition, and it is also exceptional in this that it
is prayed directly to Christ. The Oration for the feast of the Seven Dolors (September 15) omits the
reference to the other saints and simply reads: “… mercifully grant that we who reverently
meditate on her sorrows may reap the happy fruit of Thy Passion.”

“Holy Mary, the Queen of heaven and Mistress of the world, stood by the cross of Our Lord
Jesus Christ, full of grief” (Alleluia, September 15). There is in this verse a hint of the teaching of
Pope Pius XII: that Mary is “Queen” by right of conquest.
1193 Her Queenship is here stressed, and
her endurance even to the point of spiritual martyrdom merits the victory. In connection with our
thought — the Queen has shared the victory with the King.

“Happy the senses of the Blessed Virgin Mary which without dying earned the palm of
martyrdom beneath the cross of our Lord” (Communion). This is the great paradox of Christianity!
There is victory in death and victory in martyrdom without death, and both of these seeming
contradictions took place at the same time on Calvary in Jesus and Mary.

No one with even the most elementary contact with liturgical books would question that they
reflect the belief in Mary’s intercessory powers. The Offertory of the Mass we were just
considering is in itself a sufficient witness. “Be mindful, O Virgin Mother of God, when thou
standest in the sight of the Lord to speak good things for us and to turn away His anger from us”
(Offertory). Mary’s word on our behalf at the throne of God is what we seek, confident of the
power of her intercession on our behalf.

After the Salve Regina which is recited at least once a day from Pentecost to Advent, there is
this versicle, response, and prayer:

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.

R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray. O almighty and everlasting God who by the cooperation of the Holy Ghost, didst
prepare the body and soul of Mary, glorious Virgin and Mother to become the worthy habitation of Thy
Son, grant that by the gracious intercession of her at whose memory we rejoice, we may be delivered
from present evils and everlasting death.

We pray to her to intercede for us for those things most essential to us (our prayer is really to
God, but with an absolute confidence that Mary is simultaneously making our prayer her own on
our behalf): (1) that we be made worthy of the promises of Christ (final perseverance); (2) grace
to avoid the occasions of sin; and (3) grace to avoid sin itself with its eternal consequences
(everlasting death).

There are two prayers that can be added here because of their intercessory contents. The first
is the Magnificat Antiphon of the first Vespers of the Common Office of the Blessed Virgin:

O holy Mary, be thou a help to the helpless,

a strength to the fearful,

a comfort to the sorrowful.

Pray for the people, plead for the clergy,

make intercession for all women vowed to God.

May all that are keeping this thy holy feast day feel the might of thine assistance.

Certainly this beautiful antiphon embodies in full the idea of intercession. We pray to Mary,
confident of her competence to help all with the might of her assistance. This antiphon has been
taken from a sermon attributed to St. Augustine.
1194 It breathes a deep confidence in Mary and in
her intercessory powers.

The second prayer worthy of note is a very short antiphon that only recently has been
discussed as being a third-century witness of a prayer of intercession to Our Lady.
1195 This prayer
is a translation from the Greek original. Today its place in the Breviary is in the Little Office, the
antiphon at the Nunc Dimittis; it occurs once in the Pontifical and twice in the Ritual. “We take
refuge under thy protection, O holy Mother of God. Despise not our petitions in our necessity, but
deliver us from all dangers, ever Virgin glorious and blessed.”
1196 We find in this prayer, especially
interesting because of its early date, an assertion of Mary’s role as Mother and Virgin as well as
Intercessor. To have placed our trouble in the hands of Mary is to be assured that she will handle
“our case” with God.

We have seen, then, that the liturgy does reflect the faith of the Church regarding Mary’s
Coredemption and intercessory powers. While the doctrines are never fully expressed in just those
words, they are contained there in substance.

Having covered the main doctrines concerning Our Lady that find expression in the liturgy,
it is not out of place at this time to consider Mary’s cult in general as it exists in the Roman liturgy
and to treat of a few special feasts and prayers that are pointed to her honor.

IN GENERAL

In the daily life of the Church we find Mary invoked over and over again. The Divine Office
never begins without a Hail Mary and never ends without a Marian antiphon. In the Office and
at Mass the Confiteor seeks her intercession. Low Masses are always concluded with the three Hail
Marys and the Hail, Holy Queen prescribed by Pope Leo XIII for the conversion of Russia. The
oration A cunctis prescribed for most seasons of the year and prayed on ferial days and on days
of simple feasts invokes the special intercession of Mary.

The daily use of the Magnificat has a significance both in the way of honoring Mary who first
prayed it, and in urging us to pray in joyful gratitude at the beginning of each liturgical day of
grace (at Vespers) for the mystery of God’s loving mercy, our salvation. Not infrequently the
Magnificat antiphon locks up in a few words the whole mystery of the feast being celebrated.

While no one of these prayers alone is particularly convincing, taken together they converge
to focus the Church’s consciousness of the role of Mary in our daily spiritual life.

The weekly Mass and Office for Saturday are celebrated in her honor whenever they are not
hindered by some higher-ranking feast. Further, there are five different forms of this Mass that
give variations corresponding to the temporal cycle in which they fall. It is noteworthy that this
Mass and Office are of very ancient origin, probably dating as far back as Alcuin (✝ 804).

Throughout the year at different times the Litany of Loreto is prescribed (May and October
in parishes), and the Litany of All Saints, prayed especially on Rogation Days and at ordinations,
gives Mary the place of honor after the Divine Trinity.

FEAST OF THE PURIFICATION

The feast of the Purification (double of second class) but briefly mentioned above is worthy
of attention because it is one of the four feasts that go back to the middle of the seventh century.
The procession prescribed for that day is still extant in a modified form. Both the feast and the
procession have their origin in the East. There, however, the date was usually February 14 in place
of February 2, since the Nativity of Our Lord was celebrated on January 6 instead of December 25.
The twelve days’ difference accounts for the different dates of this feast which is based on the
historical fact of Mary’s bringing the Child to the Temple forty days after His birth.
1197 The feast
originally was a feast of Our Lord — YPAPANTI Domini (the meeting of the Lord, i.e., the meeting
of Jesus and His parents with Simeon and Anna), which title the feast frequently had even in
Western calendars.
1198 It was only some time after the tenth century that the blessing of candles was
introduced. The Presentation of Jesus and not the Purification is the principal object of the feast
even though it is definitely Marian in tone.

SEVEN DOLORS

This meeting of Mary with Simeon, who prophesied her sorrows, directs us to another feast
of Mary — the Seven Dolors. This feast is celebrated in the Temporal Cycle on Friday of Passion
Week and in the Sanctoral Cycle on September 15. Both feasts have the same object, i.e., the
martyrdom of the Mother of God and her compassion in the sufferings of her Son,
1199 although the
former’s original object was more precisely the compassion of Mary at the foot of the cross, while
the object of the latter is the Seven Dolors. For all practical purposes the Masses are identical. St.
Bernard’s lessons in the second Nocturn on the Compassion of Mary at the foot of the cross are
common to both Offices.

The martyrdom of the Virgin is set before us, not only by the prophecy of Simeon, but also in the story
itself of the Lord’s Passion. … the sword did, indeed, pierce through thy soul! for nought could pierce
the Body of thy Son, without piercing thy soul likewise. Yea, and when this Jesus of thine had given
up the ghost, and the bloody spear could torture him no more, thy soul winced as it pierced His dead
side. His own soul might leave Him, but thine could not.

The sword of sorrow pierced through thy soul so that we may truly call thee more than Martyr in
whom the love that made thee suffer along with thy son wrung thy heart more bitterly than any pang
of bodily pain could do. … Marvel not, my brethren, that Mary should be called a martyr in spirit.

The Office of the feast in Passion Week is notable for its lack of specific reference to the
number of Mary’s sorrows. It is more centered on the Passion. The counting of the individual
sorrows was a later development — a natural development of affective piety. The responsories at
Matins in the Office for the September feast enumerate these seven sorrows. In both feasts though,
there is an emotional tenderness and affective element quite rare in most of the liturgical texts.

Both feasts are late in the calendar, the former in 1423, the latter in 1668 (not for the universal
Church until 1814). The September feast was celebrated on the third Sunday in September until
Pope Pius X’s reform in 1913 assigned it to September 15.
1200

Characteristic of the Mass of September and the Office of the Friday of Passion Week is the
poignant Stabat Mater of Jacoponi da Todi, O.F.M. (✝1306),
1201 or perhaps of St. Bonaventure (✝
1274).
1202 The hymn is very personal in expression, giving pointed evidence to the more personalized
asceticism beginning around this period. It is based on the following passages of Holy Scripture:
John 19:25; Luke 2:35; Ezechiel 13:6; 2 Corinthians 4:10; and Galatians 4:17.

Because they both have the same object, these two feasts are somewhat of an anomaly in the
sacred liturgy which has a governing principle of never doing the same thing twice (Numquam
bis de eodem).

VISITATION

The visit of Mary to Elizabeth was honored in the late Middle Ages on Friday of Ember Week
in Advent when the Gospel of the Visitation is read. The Franciscans were the first to celebrate
this as a special feast in 1263. It was extended to the universal Church in 1389 and confirmed again
in 1441.
1203 Because of its close affinity to the feast of St. John the Baptist, our feast is celebrated on
July 2, which is the first free day after the octave of St. John. The Mass, except for the Epistle and
Gospel, is taken from the feast of the Nativity (September 8). The doctrinal implication of the
Gospel is perhaps Mary as Mediatrix. Origen did not hesitate to attribute St. John’s sanctification
to her Mediation.
1204 The feast is celebrated in the Church today as a double of the second class.

HOLY NAME

The feast of the Holy Name of Mary (September 12) is closely connected with the feast of her
Nativity (September 8) just as the feast of the Circumcision and the naming of Our Lord follows
after Christmas. However, the origin of this feast may well have developed as a consequence of
the simple and tender love of the faithful. St. Bernard’s grandiloquent words on the name of Mary
may well have fostered that devotion:

It is said: “And the virgin’s name was Mary.” Let us speak a few words upon this name, which
signifieth, being interpreted, “Star of the sea,” and suiteth very well the Maiden Mother, who may very
meetly be likened unto a star. A star giveth forth her rays without any harm to herself, and the virgin
brought forth her Son without any hurt to her virginity. … She, I say, is a clear and shining star,
twinkling with excellencies, and resplendent with example, needfully set to look down upon the
surface of this great and wide sea.

O thou, whosoever thou art, that knowest thyself to be here not so much walking upon firm ground
as battered to and fro by the gales and storms of this life’s ocean, if thou wouldst not be overwhelmed
by the tempest, keep thine eyes fixed upon this star’s clear shining. If the hurricanes of temptation rise
against thee or thou art running upon the rocks of trouble, look to the star, call on Mary. If the waves
of pride, or ambition, or slander, or envy toss thee, look to the star, call on Mary. If the billows of anger,
or avarice, or the enticements of the flesh beat against thy soul’s bark, look to Mary. If the enormity
of thy sins trouble thee, if the foulness of thy conscience confound thee, if the dread of judgment appall
thee, if thou begin to slip into the deep of despondency, into the pit of despair, think of Mary. … If thou
keep her in mind, thou wilt never wander. If she hold thee, thou wilt never fall. If she lead thee, thou
wilt never be weary. If she help thee thou wilt reach home at last — and so thou wilt prove in thyself
how meetly it is said: “And the Virgin’s name was Mary” (2nd Nocturn).

The feast, first celebrated in Spain in 1513, was dropped twice, once by Pius V and once by
Benedict XIV, but was reintroduced by Innocent XI in 1683 after the deliverance of Vienna from
the Turks.
1205

PRESENTATION

The feast of the Presentation of Our Lady (November 21) is a feast honoring the coming of
Mary to the Temple at the age of three years. The only evidence for this event is taken from an
apocryphal source. And for this reason, probably, the feast was very slow in coming from the East.
It was not celebrated in the West until after the Crusades, even though it had been celebrated at
Jerusalem since the sixth century.

Despite this flimsy historical foundation, the feast cannot fail to attract one to the
inspirational realization that Mary —free from all stain or fault — had consecrated herself even
from her infancy to God. No doubt, it is in emulation of that dedication that some religious
communities pronounce their vows on that day and celebrate the feast with solemnity.

It was probably because of its weak historical foundation that Pius V dropped it from the
calendar. Then Benedict XIV did the same thing after it had been in the meantime reintroduced
into the liturgy. The present feast, a greater double, dates from the reign of Clement VIII.
1206 The
formula is very discreetly silent about Mary’s presentation except in the Oration and in the Lesson
where St. John Damascene refers to the legend.

The Magnificat antiphon is particularly beautiful and interesting in that it shifts the idea of
Temple to Mary herself and expresses pithily her major prerogatives. “O Blessed Mary, Mother
of God, Virgin forever, Temple of the Lord, sanctuary of the Holy Ghost, thou without any
example (before thee) didst make thyself well-pleasing to our Lord Jesus Christ.”

* * *

These certainly do not represent all the Marian feasts (Holweck lists around 940), but they do
give a good cross section of them, reflecting how the knowledge of Mary’s life and her spiritual
prerogatives pass over into the prayer life of the Church. In honoring Mary or some phase of her
life we are honoring Christ and, through Christ, God.

LITTLE OFFICE

A word should be said about the so-called Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. Seemingly a
development from the Common, it is, on the contrary, the most ancient of the Marian Offices
appended to the Common Offices of the saints in the Breviary. From it the Office of the Blessed
Mother on Saturday was developed as something special. Even before that the Little Office had
come to be the Common of the Blessed Mother, Pius V inserted three nocturns into the Office to
be used on greater feasts, but the rest of the framework was the Little Office. It was only as late
as the pontificate of Pius IX that a separate Common was drawn up relegating this ancient form
into somewhat of an appendix.

It was in the monasteries undoubtedly that this Office began to be recited as a devotional
accretion to the Divine Office,
1207 but it soon passed over to the laity so that it became their
preferred devotion down to the end of the Middle Ages. The interesting and beautiful little volume
so often represented in manuscript holdings and known as the “Book of the Hours” was nothing
more than the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin.

Characteristic of the Office is its one nocturn of three psalms and a lesson each day. The
psalms were taken from Matins of the feast of the Assumption, three each day repeated twice in
the course of the week. At Lauds the antiphons are taken from the feast of the Assumption except
in Advent when they are taken from the feast of the Annunciation (March 25), and after the
Nativity when they are taken from the feast of the Purification (February 2). Thus we see how the
principal Marian feasts celebrated at that time were interwoven into this Office.

It would be impossible to estimate the extension of the use of this Little Office, but it is safe
to say that thousands upon thousands have consecrated their day-by-day existence through
praying it. Even to this day, it is the prayer of many religious communities of women and lay
Brothers.

MARIAN ANTIPHONS

There remains for us to examine the four Marian antiphons, gems of doctrinal and devotional
content that have always been close to the hearts of the lay people as well as of the clergy and
religious.

These antiphons, each in its proper season, are prescribed to be recited after Lauds and after
Compline. The Alma Redemptoris Mater is recited from the first Sunday in Advent until the feast
of the Purification; Ave Regina Coelorum until Easter; the Regina Coeli during Paschaltide; and
finally the Salve Regina throughout the rest of the year. In many religious communities the
antiphon after Compline is sung. Thus, the last official use of the voice before the great night
silence is a quiet, tender prayer to Our Lady.

The Alma Redemptoris
1208 is considered the most literary composition of the group. It was
probably written by Hermanus Contractus (✝ 1054), a monk of Reichenau, who seems to have
gotten his inspiration from the already extant hymn, Ave Maris Stella.
1209 At least the phraseology
is strikingly similar.

Alma Redemptoris Mater

Alma Mater

Sweet Mother

Coeli Porta

Gate of Heaven

Stella maris

Star of the Sea

Virgo prius et posterius

Virgin before and after

Gabrielis ab ore

From the mouth of Gabriel

Sumens illud Ave

Accepting that greeting (of Gabriel) Ave

Ave Maris Stella

Alma Mater

Coeli Porta

Maris stella

Semper Virgo

Always Virgin

Grabielis Ore

Sumens illud Ave

Just a glance at this grouping gives evidence of the similarity, but it also forcefully shows the
wealth of vigorous phrases used to express in delicate poetic language the key doctrines
concerning Our Lady.

The versicle, response, and oration following the Alma Redemptoris Mater change at Christmas,
adapting themselves to the character of the season. Before Christmas: “The Angel of the Lord
declared unto Mary and she conceived by the Holy Ghost”; after Christmas: “After Childbirth thou
didst remain a pure Virgin. Intercede for us, O Mother of God.”

The second antiphon, the Ave Regina Coelorum, was introduced into the Office by Clement VI
(1342-1352), who felt he perceived in it noble accents and aspirations of many doctors, such as St.
Athanasius, St. Ephrem, and St. Ildephonse.
1210 The date of its origin is uncertain, though it is found
in a twelfth-century manuscript.
1211 It has been an antiphon for the feast of the Assumption, which
helps to explain its motif: Queen of Heaven, Queen of Angels, Glorious Virgin, rejoice, Good-bye
(Vale). Farewell is made to the Virgin who is proceeding to heaven where she will reign as Queen,
even of the angels, and will make intercession with Christ for us.
1212

The Regina Coeli is most obviously proper to the Paschal season. The date of origin and author
are unknown, but in an antiphonary of the twelfth century for St. Peter’s in Rome it was assigned
to Easter Vespers. It honors Mary as Queen of Heaven, who merited to bear Him who has arisen
from the dead. Queenship, Maternity, sanctity, and intercession are all briefly but certainly
expressed.

Finally, we come to the Salve Regina. It was probably written by Hermanus Contractus (✝ 1054)
or perhaps by Adhemar du Puy (✝ 1098), but was definitely written before St. Bernard’s time, and
all to the contrary notwithstanding, neither is he the author of the three final invocations, “O
Clement, O Pious, O Sweet Virgin Mary.”
1213

This is an antiphon almost every Catholic knows by heart because it is recited in the
vernacular after every Low Mass for the conversion of Russia. It is a beautiful prayer pleading for
the intercession of the Mother of Mercy in behalf of her distressed children. The emphasis on our
distress is certainly pointed: “We, banished children of Eve, cry unto thee, we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in a vale of tears.” Our prayer is for the beatific vision in heaven — man’s
most legitimate prayer.

The melodies for these four antiphons are among the most beautiful in the whole Gregorian
repertory. Deeply religious in spirit, this music lends itself as an efficient means of revealing the
mystical contents of the texts.
1214

Let, then, the concluding climax of the day’s sacred liturgy itself conclude our considerations
about the sacred liturgy as an accurate and full reflection of the dogmatic truths concerning Our
Blessed Mother. The many areas of investigation completely untouched here should only tend to
make the position stronger. The Church believes; the Church prays, and her prayer unfolds her
belief. We have tried to present only this much: that what the Church believes about Mary is
adequately and beautifully expressed in the sacred liturgy.

Outline History of Mariology in the Middle Ages and
Modern Times

By George W. Shea, S.T.D.

MARIOLOGY is that part of the science of theology which treats of Mary, Mother of God and of
the sons of God. Essential to all theology, and therefore also to Mariology, are two elements,
steadfastness in tradition, and yet progress.
1215

Steadfastness in tradition, that is, unswerving fidelity to the truths of public revelation, to the
Word of God both “written and handed down,” according as it has been preserved inviolate and
faithfully expounded by the Catholic Church.
1216 The data of public revelation, which was concluded
with the death of the Apostles, are immutable, admitting neither addition to their number nor
alteration of their meaning.
1217

And yet there is room for progress, without which theology would not be a science; subjective
progress, progress in our recognition, understanding, elaboration, and formulation of the
immutable truths of revelation, of their further implications and their interrelations.
1218 Two factors
make such advance possible and inevitable. One is the intrinsic richness of revealed truth.
1219 The
other is the manner in which these profound verities were originally transmitted to us via
Scripture and the Apostles — in rudimentary form, so to speak; somewhat as unorganized data
waiting to be worked up, or as raw materials with which to construct a harmonious whole.
1220

To illustrate the first factor, eminently appropriate is Mary’s dignity as the Mother of God, a
prerogative freighted with tremendous consequences.
1221 “Because she is the Mother of God,” says
Aquinas, “the Blessed Virgin has a kind of infinite dignity from the infinite good which is God.”
1222
This single revealed truth alone, Mary’s divine Maternity, would insure the forward march of
theology, specifically, of Mariology, as John Henry Newman recognized in a passage which is
almost a commentary on the statement of St. Thomas just quoted:

When once we have mastered the idea, that Mary bore, suckled, and handled the Eternal in the form
of a child, what limit is conceivable to the rush and flood of thoughts which such a doctrine involves?
What awe and surprise must attend upon the knowledge, that a creature has been brought so close to
the Divine Essence?
1223

As to the second factor, Origen noted it thus in his “First Principles”:

The holy apostles, in preaching the faith of Christ, delivered themselves with the utmost clearness on
certain points which they believed to be necessary to everyone … leaving, however, the grounds of
their statements to be examined into by those who should deserve the excellent gifts of the Spirit …
while on other subjects they merely stated the fact that things were so, keeping silence as to the
manner or origin of their existence; clearly in order that the more zealous of their successors, who
should be lovers of wisdom, might have a subject of exercise on which to display the fruit of their
talents. …
1224

Whence, after indicating “the particular points clearly delivered in the teaching of the
apostles,” the Alexandrian came to dwell on theology’s office of progress and development:

Every one, therefore, must make use of elements and foundations of this sort … if he would desire to
form a connected series and body of truths agreeable to the reason of all these things, that by clear and
necessary statements he may ascertain the truth regarding each individual topic, and form … one body
of doctrine, by means of illustrations and arguments — either those which he has discovered in Holy
Scripture, or which he has deduced by closely tracing out the consequences and following a correct
method.
1225

The Church’s “lovers of wisdom” have ever given themselves to the glorious task of
intellectual conquest so well described by Origen, and in due course they undertook to enlarge and
to solidify the realm of our knowledge of Mary.

Here, as in other areas, the onward march of theology acquired but slowly momentum,
direction, discipline, and co-ordination; nor has it proceeded always at a steady pace, always
inexorably forward, always unerringly, always with even deployment along the entire front. A
variety of circumstances now accelerated the general advance, now retarded it; now made for
successful thrusts and salients here, for hesitation there, for temporary withdrawals or evasive
tactics elsewhere, in the face of phantom foes or supposedly impassable obstacles.

Yet the over-all gain down the centuries has been prodigious, especially in our age, as the
modern treatises of Mariology eloquently attest. But, even so, one may still repeat Frederick
William Faber’s dictum that “no province of theology will have to widen itself as much as that
which speaks” of Our Lady.
1226 “How many Marian truths,” exclaims Roschini, “still implicit in the
sources, await a robust and penetrating mind which will render them explicit and present them
in a more effulgent light! In this field, so vast and so delicate, many things remain to be done,
some things to be done over.”
1227

For those who would participate in this endeavor to consolidate and to extend the precious
conquests of the centuries, almost indispensable is some familiarity with the history of
Mariology.
1228 It is not otherwise than with a new commander on a field of battle; to cement his grip
on the terrain already won, to plan and effect additional gains, he must first orient himself,
striving to understand the position and disposition of his forces by diligent study of the
campaign’s history.

Earlier chapters in this volume have reported the progress and development of Marian dogma
and theology during the patristic era. It is the scope of the present chapter to continue that history,
from the Middle Ages down to modern times. Within the allotted space, no more than a bare
outline may be attempted.
1229 Hence it will be impossible to record all the notable contributors and
contributions to Marian thought during these centuries, or to trace closely the movement and
evolution of that thought. But one may hope that what does come to be said will show how
grossly Otten underestimated the room for progress when, about to devote a few pages to the
Mariology of the Middle Ages, he wrote:

With the exception of a few subordinate points, dogmatic Mariology was fully developed during
Patristic times. … All this was a matter of Catholic belief before the Scholastics began to systematize
the teaching of the Fathers. Hence there was little room for development in the Mariological teaching
of the Church, except by way of setting forth certain details which had been only lightly touched upon
by Patristic writers.
1230

Inaugurating as he did the scientific treatment of Marian doctrines, St. Anselm of Canterbury
is the logical point of departure for our outline.
1231 The nine centuries to be traversed can be divided
into three main periods which embrace, roughly, medieval, modern, and contemporary Mariology:
I. the twelfth to the sixteenth century, from St. Anselm to Protestantism; II. the late sixteenth to
the nineteenth century, from Protestantism to the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate
Conception; III. the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from 1854 to the present.

I. MEDIEVAL MARIOLOGY (TWELFTH TO SIXTEENTH
CENTURIES)

Scientific Mariology, in the strict sense of the word,
1232 is of comparatively recent origin. This
rigorously scientific discipline, enjoying the status of a distinct and quasi-autonomous tract within
theology,
1233 with its several theses systematically organized and connected under the control of one
master principle and various secondary principles,
1234 did not exist in the Middle Ages.
1235 The
Scholastics expressed their thought on the prerogatives of Our Blessed Lady now in sermons and
other discourses, now in devotional and ascetical writings, now in commentaries on Scripture, in
letters sometimes amounting to veritable theological opuscula, and on other occasions, especially
in the course of their tracts on the Incarnation. Not until the fifteenth century, with the Tractatus
de B. Virgine of St. Bernardine of Siena, did there appear more or less systematic Marian treatises,
which, however, were still far removed from the organic perfection and comprehensiveness of
today’s Mariological tract.
1236

But let us hasten to add that, if the medieval “lovers of wisdom” did not themselves achieve
the well-rounded, highly developed, and scientifically refined Marian disquisitions which grace
modern dogmatic theology, they did make distinguished contributions to the evolution of such
treatises. For the Scholastics were not at all content simply to transmit, without further ado, the
deposit of revealed Marian verities and the patristic elaborations thereof. Here, as elsewhere, the
doctors and other theologians of the Middle Ages struggled, with no little — if incomplete —
success, to win deeper insight into the data of revelation, to clarify and to formulate the data more
precisely, to lay bare their ramifications and interrelations, to harmonize and reconcile them, to
recognize, state, and solve new problems. Briefly, the mystery of Mary, too, was an object of the
Scholastics’ “fides quaerens intellectum.”
1237 And therewith were had at least the beginnings of
scientific Mariology.

The initial impetus was delivered by St. Anselm of Canterbury (✝ 1109), not only through the
beneficent influence exercised on all subsequent theology by the “Father of Scholasticism,”
1238 but
also through his specifically Marian writings.
1239 To be sure, these, when spurious and doubtful
works have been eliminated,
1240 are but few and, at first glance, theologically unpromising; a few
passages in Cur Deus homo and De conceptu virginali et de originali peccato aside, they are of a
devotional character, Anselm’s three celebrated prayers to Our Blessed Lady.
1241

Yet one should not on that account underestimate the saint’s value as a Mariologist. His
contribution at the level of positive theology is indisputable.
1242 But, what is more, if we probe more
deeply, a great speculative theologian may be seen in the midst of prayer; Father Eugene Burke’s
sensitive study has emphasized of Anselm’s Marian corpus “the close relation between doctrine
and devotion and how the whole emanates from an essentially theological approach.”
1243 Thus one
can discover there in germ the basic Mariological principle which theologians have used ever
since, the principle that her divine Maternity is the very wellspring of Mary’s dignity and
prerogatives; from the divine Maternity Anselm infers Our Lady’s purity, virginity, sanctity, and
intercessory power.
1244

As to Mary’s spiritual Maternity, so clear and explicit was Anselm’s doctrine on this, as well
as her role in the distribution of all graces, that he surpassed all previous and paved the way for
all future efforts to express Our Lady’s mediatorial functions.
1245

For all his realization that the Blessed Virgin’s purity and sanctity must be proportioned to her
dignity as the Mother of God, Anselm failed, as some no less able minds were to fail after him, to
perceive the implications of this principle for the Immaculate Conception. Texts which would
place him among the defenders of the latter doctrine are not his; whereas statements surely his
logically exclude that glorious Marian prerogative, while conceding a special sanctification of Our
Lady in the womb.
1246 Nevertheless, it is a great merit of Anselm that he furthered mightily the final
solution of the medieval controversy on the Immaculate Conception, through his speculations in
Cur Deus homo and in De conceptu virginali et de originali peccato,
1247 particularly by his criticism
of the Augustinian theses on the transmission of original sin.
1248

Still under the influence of that Augustinian doctrine, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (✝ 1153),
likewise failed to extend Mary’s sanctity, admittedly incomparable in all other respects, to her
conception.
1249 His famous letter to the Canons of Lyons, while avowing a special sanctification of
Our Lady in the womb, denied, but with submission given in advance to any contrary
pronouncement the Church might make in the future, that Mary was conceived free from original
sin.
1250

This error is the sole blemish marring Bernard’s reputation as the most illustrious Doctor of
Mary. The influence exercised by the Abbot of Clairvaux down through the ages, not only on
Marian piety, but also on the theologians of Our Blessed Mother, is unparalleled in the annals of
the Marian movement.
1251

Surprisingly enough, the Abbot of Clairvaux did not write much of the Blessed Virgin.
1252 His
letter to the Canons of Lyons is his only Marian work of an explicitly theological character; for the
rest, Bernard’s doctrine on Our Lady is expressed in a dozen sermons delivered on various feasts
of the Blessed Mother, in the four homilies (collected under the title De laudibus V. Matris) on the
Gospel Missus est of Ember Wednesday in Advent, and here and there in a few other sermons.
1253

Hence, to account for St. Bernard’s tremendous influence one must look to factors other than
the quantity of his Marian writings. Certainly the charm of their style, their fervor and unction,
help explain that influence — never was their author more deserving of the title Doctor mellifluus
than when he addressed himself to the subject of Mary. For Dom J. Leclercq that is the whole
secret of St. Bernard’s success, and the only rightful basis for his reputation as “the Marian
Doctor”; according to the Benedictine scholar, the Abbot of Clairvaux is overrated as a theologian
of Mary — “Bernard expressed (save for his denial of the Immaculate Conception) the traditional
doctrine common to his epoch, contributing hardly any new precisions or great doctrinal
originality.”
1254

In the opinion of most, however, and theirs would seem the more equitable judgment, the
science of Mary was considerably enriched by her greatest troubadour. If Bernard had no penchant
for speculation, this was not for want of power of mind or of sound theological instinct.
1255 That his
Mariology is concrete in form and character is understandable from its pulpit origins, and from
the saint’s close adherence — born of his strict orthodoxy and wariness of innovations, to the Bible
and to the Fathers.
1256 Yet if, as with Anselm, one delves beneath the surface, a competent and even
creative theologian may be seen in action. Bernard’s Marian doctrine surpasses that of his
predecessors by the richness and range of its synthesis, nor is it lacking in explicitations, new
precisions, original argumentation.
1257

To document this judgment somewhat, we may remark the fact that Bernard’s Mariology was
evolved under the control of certain principles, especially the composite one of the grandeur of
Mary’s divine Maternity and her exalted role as Mediatrix between God and men, her association
with the supreme Mediator in the work of our Redemption; with these prerogatives he links up
the purity of the Mother and Associate of the divine Redeemer, her sanctity, virginity, her other
virtues and privileges.
1258 Or we may note that the Abbot of Clairvaux was not content to be one of
the stanchest witnesses to the fact of Mary’s Assumption and glorification: he went on to assign
intrinsic reasons for this privilege, arguing it, e.g., from her integrity, from the fact that heaven
is our true home, whither she has preceded us in order to act as our advocate and to summon us
there.
1259

Finally and above all, one must mention, as St. Bernard’s foremost contribution to Mariology,
his development of the doctrine of Mary’s Mediation, which earned for him the title of “Doctor
of Mediation,” par excellence. To refer to but one aspect of that rich and complex teaching,
1260 the
Abbot of Clairvaux affirmed in unprecedented fashion the role of Our Lady in the distribution of
all graces, e.g., in the well-known texts, oft quoted by the Sovereign Pontiffs: Mary is “the
aqueduct” through whom all graces come to us;
1261 God “willed that we have all through Mary”;
1262
“God willed that we have nothing that does not pass through Mary’s hands.”
1263

Dom J. Leclercq believes that, when the teaching of Bernard on Mary’s Mediation is compared
with that of earlier writers, it is distinguished more by its vigor than by its precision.
1264 But may
we justly expect to find in that doctrine, and in that of other twelfth-century authors who were
inspired by Bernard,
1265 doctrine expressed, moreover, in sermons rather than in professedly
theological works, all the explicit distinctions and precisions of twentieth-century theologians?
1266
It is enough that, in progressing beyond the formulas of St. Anselm and of other predecessors, St.
Bernard paved the way for those later distinctions and precisions; therewith Mariology took a
great stride forward.
1267

The next medieval Mariologist of major importance
1268 is St. Anthony of Padua (✝ 1231).
1269 His
other attainments long overshadowed the fact that the celebrated thaumaturgist and preacher was,
in addition, “a remarkable theologian in dogmatic investigations,” until Pope Pius XII reminded
us of this in pronouncing the Franciscan Saint a Doctor of the Church Universal.
1270 The
“Evangelical Doctor” might also be styled another “Marian Doctor,” side by side with St. Bernard.

For, although St. Anthony was heavily indebted to the latter, his Marian teachings “are not
only an echo of the past, they are also a torch which sheds its light far into the future” — besides
embracing all the then accepted tenets, they also anticipated doctrines which only centuries later
were either defined as dogmas (the Assumption, perhaps the Immaculate Conception) or
established as common doctrine.
1271

In St. Anthony we again have one whose Mariology must be gleaned mainly from sermons.
1272
Those discourses, however, treat of the Blessed Mother with such admirable theological precision
and such fullness that one can construct from them a veritable and complete Marian theology.
1273

The master principle in that Mariology would be Mary’s divine Maternity and the virginal
birth of our Saviour, around which St. Anthony makes everything else revolve, either as
prerogatives preliminary to the divine and virginal Maternity, or as prerogatives subsequent to
it. Among the former he numbers Mary’s plenitude of graces, her perpetual virginity, and
(possibly) her Immaculate Conception; among the others, the prerogatives consequent upon the
divine Maternity, St. Anthony emphasizes Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven and glorification
as Queen of angels and saints, her cooperation in the redemption of mankind, her intermediary
position in the distribution of graces, and others.
1274

Whether the Evangelical Doctor actually taught the Immaculate Conception is much debated;
certainly he never denied it and was, at the least, favorably disposed toward this doctrine.
1275 As to
the Assumption, we may recall the declaration of Pius XII, in the Apostolic Constitution,
Munificentissimus Deus, that St. Anthony “holds a special place” among witnesses to that truth.
Noteworthy, too, is the caliber of his teaching on Mary as Coredemptrix and spiritual Mother of
men, as Mediatrix in the distribution of all graces, matters in which St. Anthony is judged to have
been quite ahead of his time.
1276

Thus far in our résumé of medieval Mariology we have had to study it as reflected in the
ascetical writings and sermons of an Anselm, a Bernard, an Anthony, where Marian thought
mingles with devotion in a kind of symbiosis.
1277 Rewarding though such study is, our major interest
centers on formally theological treatment of the Blessed Mother and her prerogatives. Such
treatment, theological discussion ex professo, makes its appearance with the great luminaries of
Scholasticism, among them St. Bonaventure (✝ 1274).
1278

The Seraphic Doctor expressed his Marian thought not only in oratorical works, his 27
sermons on the Blessed Virgin, sermons for the feasts of the Epiphany and of Christ’s Nativity,
the Collatio VI de donis Spiritus Sancti, but also in his Commentary on the Gospel according to St.
Luke, in the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and in the Breviloquium.
1279

Characteristic of the saint’s Marian writings is their caution; in glowing love for Our Lady,
Bonaventure yielded to none, yet at the same time he was deeply concerned not to heap
unfounded honors on her who has no need of questionable praise.
1280

The dominant principle in the Seraphic Doctor’s Mariology is a composite one, the divine
Maternity of Our Lady and her association with Christ in the work of our redemption; from this
twofold source flow, for Bonaventure, all Mary’s other prerogatives and privileges, e.g., her
plenitude of grace and of virtue; her freedom from all personal sin, even venial; her Assumption
into heaven.
1281

Unfortunately, influenced by the authority of St. Bernard (his chief Mariological mentor, whom
he cites some 400 times) and by his own native caution, the Seraphic Doctor was among those who
failed to realize that Mary’s transcendent role as Mother of the divine Redeemer also called for her
complete preservation from original sin, rather than for a mere prenatal sanctification. But if he
sided with opponents of the Immaculate Conception, holding theirs “the more common, more
reasonable, and safer” view,
1282
1283 nevertheless he refused to reprehend the other school of
thought.69 Indeed, St. Bonaventure may even be said to have helped the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception toward ultimate victory, in that he admitted Mary’s soul could have come
under the influence of the Redemption from the first moment of its creation.
1284

As we have already intimated, the Seraphic Doctor exalted Our Lady’s association with Christ
in the redemption of mankind, whence he has come to share in St. Bernard’s title, “Doctor of
Mediation.”
1285 “The Blessed Virgin is Mediatrix between us and Christ, as Christ is Mediator
between us and God.”
1286 St. Bonaventure insists on Mary’s personal participation in the sacrifice
of her divine Son and in its consequences, although the precise nature of his teaching regarding
the extent of her co-operation in the objective redemption is disputed.
1287 Be that as it may, the
spiritual Maternity of Our Lady is inculcated in a variety of ways, as when the Seraphic Doctor
explicitly declares that Mary “is not only the physical mother of God, but also the spiritual mother
of men.”
1288 Varied, too, and emphatic, are the expressions by which he unfolds Mary’s part in the
subjective redemption, her role of intercession,
1289 her association with Christ in the actual
distribution of all graces.
1290 Truly, St. Bonaventure is a Doctor Mediationis.
1291

At least equally deserving of that title, already shared by Bernard and Bonaventure, is another,
St. Albert the Great (✝ 1280).
1292 “Mediatrix” and its equivalents recur habitually in his Marian
writings.
1293 On no subject, other than the Eucharist, did the Universal Doctor dwell more often,
more at length, or with greater predilection, than Our Lady, particularly with an eye to her role
in the economy of salvation.
1294 He enlarged on the Blessed Mother not only in his encyclopedic
Mariale super Missus est,
1295 in the Compendium super Ave Maria, in a dozen and more Marian
sermons, but also in the course of scriptural commentaries (especially that on the Gospel according
to St. Luke), and of theological works such as the Commentary on the Sentences, the Summa de
Incarnatione, and the treatise De natura boni.
1296 In a word, St. Albert seized every occasion to
express his love and devotion for the Mother of God and of men; he wrote more in the sphere of
Mariology than any other theologian of his era.
1297

No less admirable is the quality of these extensive writings. Always clear, almost always
doctrinally solid, often profound, they are further distinguished by the range of Marian questions
dealt with, and by some tendency toward synthesis, systematization, and yet other functions
proper to scientific Mariology.
1298 In this connection we may note that St. Albert’s argumentation
in behalf of Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven is singled out for special praise in the Apostolic
Constitution, Munificentissimus Deus.

Flaws there are, of course; among them, the exaggeration of Our Lady’s knowledge.
1299 Then,
too, although with St. Augustine, St. Anselm, and Scholastics all, St. Albert acknowledged in Mary
a plenitude of grace, of purity, and of virtue second only to Christ’s,
1300 he also was among those
who failed to perceive that, consistently with her singular mission and dignity, the Mother of God
must have been preserved from original sin.
1301 Moved by the authority of Bernard of Clairvaux, and
by the Augustinian view on the transmission of original sin, the Universal Doctor admitted only
a prenatal sanctification of the Blessed Mother.
1302

Such shortcomings are, however, offset by the excellence of St. Albert’s doctrine on Mary’s
part in the work of our salvation. The “secretary and scribe of the Mother of God” stands as an
incomparable witness to her mediatorial role, even if, as M.-A. Genevois holds, that role occupies
only a secondary place in St. Albert’s Mariology.
1303 Dispersed throughout his writings are the
essentials “of all the later theological elaborations” of Mary’s Mediation.
1304 Albert the Great would
seem to have surpassed all his predecessors and contemporaries in expounding Our Lady’s formal
and intimate co-operation in the objective redemption.
1305 Emphasized, too, is her spiritual
Maternity, her Mediation in the spiritual regeneration of mankind.
1306 No less explicit is the teaching
of this Doctor of the Church that Mary is Mediatrix also by her part in the actual distribution of
all graces.
1307

From St. Albert we turn to his illustrious disciple, St. Thomas Aquinas (✝ 1274).
1308 Neither the
exuberance of his teacher nor the warm effusions of his friend, St. Bonaventure, are to be found
in the Marian writings of the Doctor communis; one is struck by their economy and their sober
restraint.
1309

For, despite his great personal devotion to Our Lady,
1310 to her whose quasi-infinite dignity as
the Mother of God lifts her above all angels and entitles her to the special veneration called
hyperdulia,
1311 Aquinas would seem to have written more profusely of the angels than of their
Queen.
1312 Not only did he forego the many minor questions which fill a large part of St. Albert’s
Mariology but, what is more, St. Thomas has given us no ex professo treatment of such major
themes as those which bear on Mary’s role of Mediatrix.
1313 What he did say of the Blessed Mother
is found mainly in the following: S. Th., III, qq. 27-35; In III Sent., dd. 3-4; S. c. Gentiles, lib. 4, q. 45;
Compendium Theologiae, p. 1, cc. 221-225; Expositio salutationis angelicae; and in a half-dozen
Marian sermons.
1314

As to style and presentation, the Adoro te (or rather, Oro te devote) and the Pange lingua
sufficiently demonstrate his powers of exalted and poetic expression; and yet, when St. Thomas
spoke of Our Lady, even in his sermons, he eschewed the ardent language, the rich imagery, the
forceful utterances of a Bernard, an Anthony, a Bonaventure, an Albert.
1315

Nevertheless, the Angelic Doctor is also a Marian Doctor, ranked with the foremost, and
deservedly so.
1316 He who gave to theology its statut véritablement scientifique
1317 laid the firm
foundations for the construction of a stringently scientific Mariology, both positive and
speculative.
1318 Depth, if not breadth, solidity rather than élan, and clear, precise concepts in
preference to dazzling images and ambiguous metaphors, are the invaluable contributions of St.
Thomas to the science of Mary.

The disciplined form which he imparted to the traditional teaching on the Blessed Mother, his
constant effort to relate that teaching to the whole of revelation, made for accurate orientation of
subsequent theological reflection and opened up new perspectives. His method, principles, and
insights have guided and inspired the labors of Mariologists ever since. Despite the omissions in
S. Th., III, qq. 27-35, omissions admitting of satisfactory explanation,
1319 the doctrine there
contained stands as the primitive nucleus of a special tract “De B. Virgine”; the later elaboration
of that nucleus by Suarez was to constitute one of the major advances of Mariology.
1320

St. Thomas, the Mariologist, is especially renowned as the Doctor of the divine Maternity. His
scientific and exhaustive treatment of this dogma is unrivaled.
1321 The divine motherhood is,
moreover, the central point of his Mariology, from which all else radiates, the incomparable
dignity of the Blessed Mother, her fullness of grace, and whatever other Marian privileges and
prerogatives St. Thomas came to discuss.
1322

Regrettably, Aquinas thought it necessary to exclude from among those privileges the singular
one of the Immaculate Conception.
1323 “The Blessed Virgin did indeed contract original sin, but was
cleansed therefrom before her birth.”
1324 The Angelic Doctor based his view ultimately on a point
which St. Albert had raised without, however, having particularly insisted on it, the universality
of the Redemption.
1325 “If Mary had been conceived without original sin,” wrote St. Thomas, “she
would not have had to be redeemed by Christ, and so Christ would not be the universal Redeemer
of men, which detracts from His dignity.”
1326

Thus the genius of the Angelic Doctor did not rise to the idea of a redemption which is able
not only to liberate from sin already contracted but also to preserve from contracting the guilt of
original sin at all — a more sublime mode of redemption which heightens rather than derogates
from the dignity of Christ as universal Redeemer.
1327 On the other hand, one must acknowledge
that St. Thomas contributed in no small measure to the final solution of the controversy, by
purging the idea of the Immaculate Conception from certain false elements, by further clarifying
the issues in marshaling the strongest possible objections against the doctrine, and by developing
powerful arguments for at least a special sanctification of Mary in the womb — arguments which
can easily be adapted to the Immaculate Conception.
1328

No history of Mariologv, however brief, could fail to give special notice also to John Duns
Scotus (✝ 1308).
1329 Few will deny to him the title of Doctor Marianus, although it rests not on any
wide contribution to the science of Mary but rather on the great Franciscan’s unique role in the
development of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
1330

To be sure, as we shall learn, other theologians before Scotus had defended that glorious
privilege of the Blessed Mother, even at Paris — stronghold of the “maculists.” But the Subtle
Doctor is generally credited with having turned the tide, by his brilliant solution of the theological
difficulties which then prevailed against the doctrine.
1331

Decisive, above all, was his insistence at Oxford and then at Paris (c. 1307) on the distinction
between what came to be called the “liberative” and, in Mary’s case, the “preservative”
redemption, together with Scotus’ insight that such preservation of Mary from original sin was
a more sublime mode of redemption, thus heightening rather than lessening the dignity of Christ
as Redeemer.
1332 At Oxford Scotus had asserted not only the speculative possibility but also the
factuality of the Immaculate Conception.
1333 If at Paris he wrote more cautiously on the latter point,
this may be attributed to deference on his part toward opponents of the doctrine, so numerous
then in Paris and backed by such great authorities as Anselm, Bernard, Bonaventure, and
Aquinas.
1334 The story that the Subtle Doctor defended the Immaculate Conception victoriously in
a public disputation before the University of Paris would seem to have a kernel of truth beneath
the accretions of legend.
1335

After this necessary tribute to the towering figures of medieval Mariology there is room only
for brief mention of other noteworthy contributors in this period to the science of Our Lady.
1336 One
may not, of course, forget other scholars of the University of Oxford whose early support of the
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception paved the way for Duns Scotus. Among these we may
account the Cistercian, Alexander Neckam (✝ 1217), and Robert Grosseteste, of the secular clergy
(✝ 1253, as Bishop of Lincoln).
1337 The latter’s university lectures to sons of St. Francis of Assisi are
credited by some with having laid the primary foundation of the traditional teaching of the
Franciscan theologians on the Immaculate Conception.
1338 Then there is also William of Ware,
O.F.M. (✝ c. 1300), who lectured at Oxford, thereafter at Paris.
1339 Reputedly the teacher of Duns
Scotus, he is considered by some to have supplied his disciple with essentially all that the Subtle
Doctor was to say in defense of the Immaculate Conception.
1340 Others, however, attribute his
teaching on the subject to the influence of his celebrated pupil.
1341

Famed chiefly as the compiler of the popular Golden Legend, James of Voragine (rather,
Varagine), O.P. (✝ 1298, as the Archbishop of Genoa), deserves also to be remembered as the author
of the Mariale aureum and of many other Marian sermons, Scholastic in cast, which exercised
great influence in the Middle Ages.
1342

Remarkable on many other grounds, the Spanish theologian, Bl. Raymond Lull (✝ 1316), a
member of the Third Order of St. Francis, merits attention for his Mariology as well.
1343 The latter
is found mainly in his Disputatio Eremitae et Raymundi super aliquibus dubiis quaestionibus
sententiarum Petri Lombardi, the Liber de Sancta Maria, and the poems, Plant de Nostra Dona Santa
Maria and Horas de Nostra Dona Santa Maria. The Doctor Illuminatus was perhaps the first to
uphold the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception at Paris, in his Disputatio Eremitae … (a.d. 1298);
however, his explanations were not without flaw, and their importance has been exaggerated at
the expense of William of Ware and of Duns Scotus. Outstanding, on the other hand, were the
Spaniard’s teachings on the spiritual Maternity of Mary.

That Mariology came to win a special place in theology is due in no small degree to the efforts
of Peter Auriol, O.F.M. (✝ 1322 as Bishop of Aix).
1344 He is renowned especially for his defense of
the Immaculate Conception, in a special treatise, Tractatus de Conceptione B. M. V., and in a
vindication of the latter work, Repercussorium editum contra adversarium innocentiae Matris Dei.
Among the reasons for believing that God preserved the Blessed Virgin from original sin, Peter
cited Mary’s Assumption and the conviction that her body had been spared from all corruption.
The same author was the first to discuss explicitly the question, destined to be long controverted:
Was Mary exempted from original sin not only de facto but also de jure?
1345

Among others who enriched medieval Mariology we may mention the Franciscans, Francis of
Meyronnes (✝ 1325)
1346 and William of Nottingham (✝ 1336);
1347 Engelbert, Benedictine abbot of
Admont (✝ 1331), author of an extensive dogmatic monograph, De gratiis et virtutibus B.V.M., and
of a doctrinally interesting Marian psalter;
1348 John Bacon or Baconthorp, the great Carmelite
theologian (✝ 1348), who, after initial opposition, became one of the stanchest defenders of Mary’s
Immaculate Conception, thus bringing about the triumph of that doctrine among the Carmelites;
1349
the Viennese theologian, Henry of Langenstein, also known as Henry de Hassia, Sr. (✝ 1397);
1350
John Gerson (✝ 1429), renowned as the first to treat, ex professo, Marian principles and to lay
down sage directives for Mariologists.
1351

So superbly and completely are Marian themes elaborated in the sermons of St. Bernardine of
Siena (✝ 1444), that the Franciscan deserves to be ranked among the great medieval Doctors of
Mary.
1352 Acclaimed as “the echo of St. Bernard,” he is regarded as the greatest theologian of the
universal Mediation of Our Lady; and his doctrine on her Assumption, applauded by Pope Pius XII
in Munificentissimus Deus, has moved some to salute him as “the Doctor of the Assumption.”
1353

Other medieval preachers and theologians to whom Marian science is indebted include
Alphonsus Tostatus, Bishop of Ávila (✝ 1455);
1354 Ambrose Spiera, O.S.M. (✝ 1455);
1355 St. Antoninus,
O.P., Archbishop of Florence (✝ 1459);
1356 Cardinal John Torquemada, O.P. (✝ 1468);
1357 the
Carthusian, Denis of Ryckel (✝ 1471);
1358 and Bl. Bernardine of Busti, O.F.M. (✝ 1515), with whom
the period came to a not inglorious close.
1359

During that four-century span from St. Anselm to Bl. Bernardine, Mariology registered many
substantial gains. Some of them may be briefly noted. The dogma of the Divine Motherhood,
defined at Ephesus, achieved theological deepening, especially at the hands of St. Thomas Aquinas
and Duns Scotus. With St. Anselm, the Scholastics emphasized that Mary’s exalted office as the
Mother of God required in her the greatest purity, sanctity, and fullness of grace after Christ.
Implicit in such teaching is the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. If St. Bernard and many
subsequent theologians of great name failed to recognize this and even denied Mary’s immunity
from original sin at her conception, some excuse can be found in the confused state of the question
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
1360 and in the seemingly insoluble difficulties, especially on
the score of the universality of the Redemption. The ensuing controversy gradually brought about
the clarification of the true issues; the solution, by Duns Scotus and others, of the formidable
objections; and the development of positive arguments favorable to the thesis of the Immaculate
Conception.
1361

Therewith the opposition, which had never been universal,
1362 dwindled rapidly. By the end of
the fourteenth century the original sanctity of Mary’s soul was common doctrine among the
Franciscans, who were joined in the latter half of the century by the Carmelites, Augustinians,
Premonstratensians, Trinitarians, Servites, and by many Benedictines, Cistercians, and
Carthusians.
1363 In the fifteenth century the great majority of theologians upheld this glorious
privilege of the Blessed Mother.
1364 In the meanwhile, however, they continued to debate the
manner of Mary’s preservation from original sin.
1365

Another significant development in medieval Mariology was the triumph of the doctrine of
Our Blessed Mother’s Corporeal Assumption into heaven. This Marian prerogative had been
controverted from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, but thereafter it became the common
teaching, vindicated by arguments upon which subsequent centuries would find it difficult to
improve.
1366 The contributions of the great Scholastics in this sphere are admirably summarized by
Pope Pius XII in Munificentissimus Deus.
1367

As our references to the great Doctors of Marian Mediation have already suggested, another
central preoccupation of medieval theologians was the role of the Blessed Mother in the
redemptive work of Christ, and, by the same token, her relations with the Church,
1368 and with all
men, her spiritual children.
1369 Fruitfully discussed in this period was not only Mary’s part in the
distribution of all graces, but also the fact of and the mode of her co-operation in the acquisition
of those graces, i.e., her part in the objective Redemption.
1370 The elucidation of the latter aspect
of Marian Mediation was facilitated to some extent by the theological deepening of the dogma of
the divine Maternity, and by the gradual acceptance of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception.
1371 In
its turn, the growing appreciation of the Blessed Mother’s coredemptive role contributed to a
heightened understanding of her Queenship.
1372

These major accomplishments of medieval Mariologists suffice to refute B. Otten’s contention
that the Church Fathers had left the Scholastics little room for further development of Marian
doctrines.
1373 At the same time, they validate the judgment of G. Philips, that, if the theological
treatise De Beata be of recent origin, its constitutive elements have an ancient and thoroughly
respectable history.
1374

MODERN MARIOLOGY (SIXTEENTH TO NINETEENTH
CENTURIES)

This period extends from the Council of Trent, which expressly excluded “the blessed and
immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God” from its decree on original sin,
1375 and thus paved the way
for the dogmatic definition of her Immaculate Conception, to the definition itself on December 8,
1854.

The intervening centuries witnessed notable advances in the science of Our Lady. Tremendous
impetus to such progress was given by the violent attacks on Marian cult and doctrines, which
were mounted first by the Protestant “Reformers,”
1376 then by the Jansenists and kindred spirits,
1377
especially Adam Widenfeld, in his notorious brochure of 1673, Monita salutaria B. Mariae Virginis
ad cultores suos indiscretos.
1378

In meeting these onslaughts the defenders of Catholic orthodoxy produced a huge volume of
polemical and dogmatic literature, which, if uneven in quality, nevertheless grounded more
thoroughly and illumined more clearly the perfection of the Mother of God; her unrivaled sanctity;
her immunity from all sin, both original and actual; her universal Mediation in the acquisition and
the distribution of all graces; and the special veneration which is her due.
1379

Dozens of authors belonging to this period merit special mention, but these pages can notice
only some of the more eminent champions of Mary’s glories.
1380 The first German Doctor of the
universal Church, St. Peter Canisius, S.J. (✝ 1597), unquestionably falls into this category, thanks
to his masterful refutation of Protestant errors, the De Maria Virgine incomparabili et Dei Genetrice
sacrosancta libri quinque.
1381 This apologetical classic may be termed the first complete exposition
of Catholic doctrine on the Mother of God.

As such, it assures its author a high place in the historical evolution of the science of Mary.
However, the honor of having created the first modern Mariology, rigorously scientific and
scholastic, belongs not to Canisius but to his confrere in religion, Francis Suárez (✝ 1617).
1382 As we
have already remarked, the doctrine of Aquinas in the Summa Theologica, III, qq. 27-35, stands as
the primitive nucleus of a special tract “De B. Virgine”; the Spanish Jesuit’s elaboration of that
nucleus, in the first twenty-three disputations of his De mysteriis vitae Christi,
1383 is justly
celebrated as a monumental contribution both to the content and method of Mariology.

Among the foremost Mariologists of all time one must number the Capuchin preacher, St.
Lawrence of Brindisi (✝ 1619). Original, yet always theologically sound, and often profound, his
Mariale, consisting of 84 sermons, amounts to a complete, if informal, treatise De Beata, which is
especially remarkable for its thorough and effective vindication of the Immaculate Conception.
1384

The latter doctrine, championed also by St. Peter Canisius and Suarez, found a further
supporter in St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J. (✝ 1621), whose sermons and Disputationes de controversiis
rendered yet other valuable services to Marian doctrine and piety, notably by their refutation of
Protestant errors.
1385

Some other distinguished Jesuit Mariologists of the period may be noticed here. The science
of Our Lady owes a good deal, on the positive side, to D. Petau (✝ 1652), whose Dogmata
Theologica (lib. 14) assembled and subjected to critical scrutiny the ancient traditions on Mary’s
prerogatives.
1386 Also deserving of express mention are the prolific Theophilus Raynaud (✝ 1663);
1387
George de Rhodes (✝ 1661), who incorporated in his Disputationes theologicae scholasticae an
excellent treatise De Maria Deipara;
1388 and Paul Segneri (✝ 1694), author of the little classic, Il
devoto della Vergine.
1389

Dillenschneider has rescued from obscurity one of the ablest Marian theologians of the
seventeenth century, John Baptist Novati, O.S.Cam. (✝ 1648). His De eminentia Deiparae Virginis
adopted and developed many Suarezian theses; of chief interest is the work’s discussion of
Mariological principles and axioms, and of various aspects of Marian Mediation, particularly the
Blessed Mother’s immediate co-operation in the objective Redemption, and her spiritual
Maternity.
1390 The latter themes also found admirable treatment in the De hierarchia Mariana of
Bartholomew de Los Rios, O.E.S.A. (✝ 1652).
1391

The traditions of the Franciscan school, especially its advocacy of the Immaculate Conception,
were ably continued in the writings of Peter de Alvay Astorga, O.F.M. (✝ 1667),
1392 and the
Conférences … sur les grandeurs de la très Sainte Vierge Marie Mère de Dieu of Louis D’Argentan,
O.F.M.Cap. (✝ 1680).
1393 Important for the study of Scotist Mariological thought are the De
eminentissima Deiparae Virginis perfectione libri tres by John M. Zamoro, O.F.M.Cap. (✝ 1649),
1394
and the remarkable Fons illimis theologiae scoticae marianae by Charles del Moral, O.F.M.
(✝1731).
1395

Among the sons of St. Dominic who advanced Marian science in this period we may name
Justin Miechow (✝1689), renowned for his exhaustive and solid commentaries on the Litany of
Loreto;
1396 Vincent Contenson (✝1674), whose celebrated Theologia mentis et cordis contains an
extensive and pellucid dissertation on the Blessed Mother’s prerogatives;
1397 and John Van Ketwig
(✝1746), whose Panoplia Mariana is a Mariology ad mentem S. Thomae.
1398

As could be expected of the “Order of Mary,” the Servites have contributed profoundly to the
development of Marian dogma and piety.
1399 A shining example is the Austrian theologian, Caesar
Shguanin (✝ 1769), remarkable for the quality as well as the quantity of his writings on all phases
of Mariology.
1400 The science of Our Lady has also been enriched by the Clerics Regular of the
Mother of God, especially by Hippolytus Marracci (✝ 1675), another amazingly prolific author.
1401

Jansenist rigorism and the Monita salutaria of Widenfeld were strenuously combated by many
of the controversialists and theologians already named in these pages. But exceptional in this
regard were the labors of John Crasset, SJ. (✝ 1692),
1402 and, above all, of Henry Boudon (✝ 1702).
1403
Several spiritual writers of the era also entered the lists, with telling effect. Their devotional works
not only nourished Marian piety but, at the same time, broadened and deepened its doctrinal
bases, particularly in connection with the mediatorial role of Our Blessed Mother, a crucial issue
in the Jansenist controversy.
1404

Of the above group the most famous representatives are Cardinal de Bérulle (✝ 1629);
1405 John
Olier (✝ 1657);
1406 St. John Eudes (✝ 1680);
1407 St. Louis M. Grignion de Montfort (✝ 1716), universally
renowned for his Treatise on the True Devotion to the Bl. Virgin;
1408 and the no less celebrated
Redemptorist Doctor of the Universal Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori (✝ 1787), whose tremendously
successful Glories of Mary is both dogmatic and ascetical, harmonizing profound science and great
erudition with ardent filial affection for the Mother of God and Mother of men.
1409

To these doctrinally significant spiritual writers, mostly of the Bérullian school, one must add
the last disciple of that school, William Chaminade (✝ 1850), founder of the Marianists, whose
published and unpublished writings are now being increasingly explored and appreciated.
1410

If we assign the contributions of Cardinal John Henry Newman
1411 to the latter half of the
nineteenth century, Chaminade is the sole Mariologist worthy of note in the preceding fifty years.
For, despite the defeat of Jansenism, and notwithstanding the many gains registered in the Post-Tridentine era, Mariology was in low estate in the early decades of the nineteenth century.
Jansenism, though overcome, had, along with rationalism, semirationalism, and Josephinism, left
its mark on all theology,
1412 and on the science of Mary in particular.
1413 In this decadent epoch, the
general works of theology tended to neglect the traditional place given to Our Lady, being content
to treat only of her divine Maternity and perpetual virginity.
1414 For their part, Mariologists were
prone to exalt the Blessed Mother without reference to the whole of theology.
1415 In short, the
unhealthy gap between theology and Mariology, which Suárez had sought to close, had widened.
1416

However, the labors of earlier theologians of Our Lady were to be instrumental in bringing
about a glorious renascence of Marian studies. Their painstaking discussions on the Immaculate
Conception had ripened this doctrine for the solemn definition it came to receive from Pope Pius
IX, in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, December 8, 1854. One of the salutary effects of that Papal
pronouncement was the gradual development of a rigorously scientific and adequate Mariology,
as an organically structured treatise distinct from, yet integrated with, the rest of theology. A
résumé of this providential evolution is attempted in the next and last section of our brief history
of Mariology.

III. CONTEMPORARY MARIOLOGY (1854-1954)

In the century which has elapsed since the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception,
many factors combined to produce the present flourishing state of Marian studies.
1417 But chief
among them has been the efficacious influence of the Papal magisterium. The initial impetus
delivered by Ineffabilis Deus was sustained and augmented by a succession of other pontifical
documents, from the ten Rosary Encyclicals of Leo XIII to the manifold Marian pronouncements
of Pius XII.

To be sure, this Papal encouragement given to renewed serious studies of Our Lady bore fruit
only gradually, although the harvest in the second half of the nineteenth century was not as lean
as has been suggested.
1418 Positive theology was the first to reap the benefit of the definition of the
Immaculate Conception;
1419 either in preparation for or as an aftermath of Ineffabilis Deus, there
appeared the works of Perrone, Guéranger, Passaglia, Ballerini, and Malou.
1420 On the speculative
side, the science of the Blessed Mother achieved precious growth with the Dogmatik of Matthias
Joseph Scheeben (✝ 1888), the century’s greatest theologian and Mariologist, in whom speculative
genius was wedded to a profound knowledge of the Church Fathers, and of medieval and Post-Tridentine Scholasticism.
1421 Measured against the towering figure of Scheeben, of lesser
importance are J. Petitalot,
1422 August Nicholas,
1423 Louis di Castelplanio,
1424 and the Dominican, Van
den Berg.
1425

To Scheeben goes the distinction of having labored more than any other modern theologian
to change Mariology into a scientific whole, distinct from, yet tightly integrated with, the rest of
theology (especially with the treatise on the Church), and given inner cohesion by a fundamental
principle of its own.
1426 His views on the place Mariology should hold in the over-all system of
theology are best summed up in his own words:

I came to the conclusion that Mariology can and must be considered a link connecting the doctrine on
the Redeemer and His work with the doctrine on the grace of the Redeemer and its distribution by the
Church, and that, thus conceived, Mariology is called to occupy a much more important place in the
system of dogmatic theology than is usually accorded it. As I endeavored to treat Mariology from this
point of view, it shaped itself as the development of the profound concept of the ancient Church, which
ideally beholds Mary in the Church, and the Church in Mary (Apoc. 12, 1). Thus, in my conception of
it, Mariology, as the doctrine on the personal bride of Christ and the personal spiritual mother of
mankind, when conjoined with … the doctrine on Christ as the head of a Mystical Body and as the
priestly Mediator of the supernatural life of this Body, becomes a rich source of light for the doctrine
on the Church, on her inner organism and supernatural essence.
1427

Intimated in the above passage is Scheeben’s conception, original with him — at least in its
formulation — of what should be the master principle of Mariology. The Cologne professor
considered it to be the most characteristic note of the Blessed Virgin that she is both the Mother
of Christ according to the flesh and His supernatural spouse. Scheeben erected “this ‘maternal-sponsal character,’ as he calls it, into the fundamental principle of Mariology, thus fusing in most
intimate fashion the divine maternity and Mary’s freely willed association with Christ, in which
others prefer to see a distinct principle.”
1428

Druwé remarks that, whatever one may hold as regards this methodological question (the
aforesaid fusion into the one fundamental principle of the “bridal motherhood”), “the perfect
association of Mary with the Redeemer — principium consortii — is recognized today by all
Mariologists as fundamental, in this double sense: that it pertains to the donné chrétien originel and
that it constitutes, with the divine maternity, the foundation of all of Mary’s prerogatives.”
1429

Not the least among Scheeben’s merits was his masterful vindication of Catholic devotion to
Mary. “With the deep and synthetic view that marked him as one of the greatest religious thinkers
of the past century, he incorporated the Catholic doctrine regarding Mary into the whole of
Catholic dogmatic theology. In doing so, he showed in an unexcelled way how the veneration of
Mary takes root in the deepest soil of Christian belief.”
1430 Invaluable is his insight into the root of
Protestant antagonism toward the Marian doctrines and cult of the Catholic Church: it is the
intimate rapport between Mary and the Church.
1431

Scheeben’s pioneering work was not heeded immediately.
1432 It remained for the twentieth
century to resume his efforts at organizing Marian doctrines into a complete and cohesive treatise,
and, rediscovering the ancient and medieval appreciation of the relationship between Mary and
the Church, to forge a strong bond between Mariology and Ecclesiology.
1433 By and large, the late
nineteenth-century Mariologists were more interested in particular questions.

Understandably enough, they devoted a great deal of attention to the Immaculate Conception,
both in order to explain the new dogma to the faithful, and to defend it against the attacks of
rationalists, Protestants, Old Catholics, and Eastern Dissidents.
1434 However, as we have already
indicated,
1435 the Marian scholars of this era addressed themselves to other matters as well. With
the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception, Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven shone
forth with a new radiance, and the study of this prerogative became the order of the day,
especially after many of the bishops present at the Vatican Council requested that the doctrine be
dogmatically defined.
1436

Another consequence, at least indirect, of the momentum imparted to Marian theology by
Ineffabilis Deus was a renewed interest in and a more penetrating study of questions bearing on
Mary’s role as universal Mediatrix.
1437 Paving the way for the profound developments which the
twentieth century brought to these themes, many late nineteenth-century Mariologists, especially
after the appearance of the Rosary Encyclicals of Leo XIII, gave their attention to Our Lady’s part
in the acquisition and the distribution of all graces, and to the concomitant doctrine of her spiritual
Maternity.
1438

Thus, among the many who discussed Mary’s co-operation, even proximate, in the objective
Redemption, one may cite Frederick William Faber, O. Van den Berghe, J. De Concilio, P.
Jeanjacquot, S.J., and Francis Risi.
1439

Jeanjacquot also deserves a place of honor in the history of the discussion on Mary’s
intervention in the distribution of all graces, a discussion thereafter taken up and notably
advanced by R. de la Broise, S.J.;
1440 J.-B. Terrien, S.J.;
1441 J.-V. Bainvel, S.J.;
1442 and E. Hugon, O.P.
1443
Furthered by the celebration of Marian Congresses dedicated to Mary’s “maternity of grace,”
1444 and
by Cardinal Mercier’s enthusiasm on the subject of Our Lady’s universal Mediation,
1445 this topic,
along with that of the Coredemption, has remained the object of intense study down to the
present.
1446

Intense, in fact, have been the labors of the past several decades to consolidate and to enlarge
the whole realm of our knowledge of the Blessed Mother. In consequence, Marian science has now
achieved truly marvelous development.

Thus, excellent general treatises, adequate in content and scientifically organized and executed,
now abound.
1447 Symposia, such as those edited by Fathers du Manoir and Sträter, bring together
the ripest fruits of Marian scholarship and make them available to a wide public.
1448

The specialized literature has reached mountainous proportions; countless are the
monographs, and the studies and articles appearing in the annuals of the various Mariological
societies,
1449 in the theological periodicals of general interest,
1450 and in those exclusively devoted
to the science of Our Lady.
1451 So vast is this literary production that bibliographers are hard put
to record it,
1452 while Marian Centers are equally hard pressed to collect and to house it in special
libraries.
1453 If we may high-light some of the more important features of contemporary Mariology,
the first to be noted is the growing preoccupation with the declarations of the ecclesiastical
magisterium, the ordinary as well as the extraordinary.
1454 This is a most fruitful development. For
one thing, such declarations furnish the supreme arguments in theology, and are an indispensable
safeguard in interpreting the data of Sacred Scripture and Tradition.
1455 Moreover, the ecclesiastical
magisterium is not only the authentic interpreter of all doctrinal evolution in the Church: it is at
the same time, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the principal agent of all such evolution —
a spur to the further development of doctrine.
1456 As J. Dillersberger remarks:

The teaching Church from time to time in its dogmatic decisions determines the definitive
form of such progress. But long before this there came from the teaching Church the stimuli to
new development — we experience this especially in those truths which revolve around Mary.
1457

As concrete evidence of the keen attention now being given to the magisterium by Our Lady’s
scholars, one may cite the collections of Papal documents on Mary,
1458 various studies on the
Marian doctrine of individual popes,
1459 and other studies on particular questions in the light of
Papal teachings.
1460 To date, these explorations have confined themselves pretty much to the Papal
magisterium; rich and inviting vein though they be, quite unexploited as yet are the teachings of
the universal episcopate.
1461

Another heartening feature of contemporary Marian studies is the high level of biblical
Mariology. Noteworthy is the conscientious effort of scholars to determine and apply the
principles involved in the explanation of the Marian texts of Sacred Scripture.
1462 On these many
passages
1463 countless new commentaries have appeared, geared to the great progress of modern
biblical science. Invaluable, although at times ultraconservative, is the Mariologia biblica of Father
Ceuppens, which endeavors to expound all the major Marian texts of the Bible.
1464 Among the
many other general works of lasting significance one must single out for express mention those
of the Dominican, F.-M. Braun, and the Jesuit, Paul Gächter.
1465 Illustrative of the numerous major
studies of particular texts are the contributions of J.-F. Bonnefoy, O.F.M., T. Gallus, S.J., and B. Le
Frois, S.V.D.
1466

Nor has that other branch of positive theology been neglected, study of the monuments of
Tradition. The impetus which was given to such study by the dogmatic definition of the
Immaculate Conception and by subsequent non-Catholic attacks on the newly defined dogma was
intensified by Modernist opposition to Marian doctrines (A. Loisy, J. Turmel, H. Koch, and
others),
1467 by the century-long movement culminating in the solemn definition of Our Lady’s
corporal Assumption, and by controversies among Catholic theologians on Mariological questions
still open to debate. Under this stimulation scholars have produced a vast literature exhibiting and
evaluating the Marian testimonies of the Church Fathers and of the ancient liturgies.
1468 In addition,
as our footnotes will have suggested, the Mariological teachings of earlier theologians have been
the object of tireless research.
1469

Discussions on the systematic treatment of Mariology are another remarkable feature of the
contemporary scene.
1470 Involved here are several questions, intimately interrelated: the right of
Mariology to exist as a distinct tract within the theological system, the proper location of that
distinct treatise within the over-all system, the organization and structure of the treatise, and the
existence and nature of a first principle which would preside over the structure of Mariology,
giving the treatise organic unity and order.
1471 The problem as to the nature of the fundamental
principle of Mariology is complicated by various questions on the nexus between the different
prerogatives of Our Lady,
1472 and has, in consequence, given rise to a great number of opinions.
1473

Side by side with these general and methodological problems, many particular questions of
Mariology have been the center of contemporary interest. Quite naturally, the Apostolic
Constitution, Munificentissimus Deus (November 1, 1950), the first centenary of Ineffabilis Deus
(December 8, 1854), and the exhortations of the encyclical Fulgens corona (September 8, 1953),
have focused attention on the sublime and interconnected prerogatives of the Immaculate
Conception of Our Blessed Mother and of her corporal Assumption into heaven. As to the many
other topics currently of major interest,
1474 limitations of space permit only the bare mention of
two, Our Lady’s role of Coredemptrix,
1475 and her relationship with the Church.
1476

The theological deepening of these themes will, as has been the case with earlier Mariological
developments, both reveal new facets in the gems adorning Our Lady’s radiant crown of glory and,
at the same time, yield precious new insights into the entire deposit of faith.

APPENDIX: The Holy Name of Mary

By Richard Kugelman, C.P, S.T.L., S.S.L.

THE etymology and meaning of Mary’s name has fascinated her spiritual children since the days
of the Fathers. Many titles of honor which Christian piety and the liturgy of the Church have
bestowed on Mary had their origin in the ancient speculations on the meaning of her holy name.
The history of the meaning of Mary’s name supplies much valuable material for the history of
Marian devotion.
1477

The study devoted to the meaning of Our Lady’s name may seem to many moderns a useless,
if pious, waste of time and talent. After all, names are only convenient tags to distinguish one
person from another. The character and accomplishments of an individual, not the name which
fond parents bestowed on their newborn infant, establish his or her place in history. Such a
contemptuous appraisal of the study of the meaning of Mary’s name would be justified, if it were
not that, in the case of Our Lady, we are concerned with the victorious Woman of biblical
prophecy, with the Mother of God our Saviour.

A cursory reading of the Bible will indicate the importance which the ancient Hebrews
attached to the meaning of names. A close relation was presumed to exist between a name and the
personality of its bearer. The Hebrew frequently used the name as almost an equivalent of the
personality, or character, or nature of the person or thing named. When, for example, a prophet
wished to express forcefully the character of a person or place, he said he will be called “so and
so,” or its name will be “such and such.” Isaias indicates the personality and dignity of the future
Messias by telling us he will be called “Emmanuel” (God with us) (Isa. 7:14; cf. also 9:6). The New
Jerusalem, we are informed by Ezechiel, will bear the name “Yahweh Shamah” (God is there)
(Ezech. 48:35).
1478

The contemporaries of Our Blessed Lady had inherited the Old Testament culture and
concepts. It is not surprising, then, that the ancient Hebrew concept of the relation of name to
person existed in the New Testament era. Faith in the mission and person of Jesus is expressed
simply as faith “in his name” (e.g., Jn. 1:12; 2:23). In Acts 1:15 “names” (ὀνόματα) simply replaces
“persons.”

When speaking to mankind through men God accommodates Himself to the thought patterns
of His spokesmen and their audience. In both Old and New Testaments God indicates the missions
of the heroes of the history of salvation by the names which He imposes on them (For a few Old
Testament examples cf. Gen. 17:5, 15; 35:10). The angel instructed Zachary that the child who was
to be born to Elizabeth should be called John (Yahweh is gracious) (Lk. 1:13). Joseph is commanded
to call Mary’s Son, Jesus (Yahweh saves), “for he shall save his people from their sins” (Mt. 1:20-21). Our Blessed Lord presages the position of the Prince of the Apostles in His Church by
changing his name to Peter (Cephas), “the Rock” (Jn. 1:42; Mt. 16:18). Therefore, as St. Lawrence
of Brindisi observes, “it would be a mistake to think that this glorious name of Mary does not
abound in mysteries, or that it was not divinely imposed, as was the name of Christ and John
Baptist.”
1479

It is not necessary, as St. Peter Canisius thought, to posit a special revelation of Mary’s name
to her parents, such as the revelation of Jesus’ name to Joseph (Mt. 1:20).
1480 It suffices that the
parents of Our Lady, inspired by God (an influence of which very likely they were unconscious),
called their child Mary.
1481

THE FORM OF THE NAME MARY

Mary is a proper feminine name borne by only one person in the Old Testament, the sister of
Moses and Aaron (Exod. 15:20 f.; Num. 12:1-5, 10, 15; 20:1; Mich. 6:4).
1482 In the Massorctic text the
name is vocalized Miryām. The Septuagint renders it Mariám (Μαριάμ). The change of the first
vowel probably represents the pronunciation current in Aramaic-speaking Palestine during the
two centuries preceding Christ.
1483 In the Vulgate the name becomes Maria.

When one considers the prominence of Mary the prophetess in the history of the Exodus, it
seems strange that the Old Testament Hebrews did not honor her by conferring her name on their
daughters. But the sister of Moses is not alone in her biblical isolation. The names of Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Aaron were also avoided, and, it seems, from pious reverence for the
heroes of the Bible. A similar sentiment restrains Christians (Spanish-speaking Catholics are a
singular exception) from giving the holy name of Jesus to their sons. And the early Christians
would not call their daughters Mary.
1484 The New Testament era saw a reversal of the Old Testament
practice. The contemporaries of Our Lady honored the great men and women of their history by
calling their children after them. Perhaps there is also in this practice an indication of their keen
expectation of the proximity of the Messianic Age. In the New Testament we meet, e.g., several
individuals called Jacob (James) and a number of Marys.

In the Greek New Testament the form of Our Lady’s name is the Septuagint rendition of the
name of Moses’ sister, Mariám (Mt. 13:55; Lk. 1:27, 30, 34, 38, 39, 46, 56; 2:5, 16, 34; Acts 1:14). There
is only one exception. Most critical editions of the text (e.g., Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort, Merk,
Bover) read, on the authority of Codex Vaticanus and Codex Bezae, Maria in Lk. 2:19. When it is
not indeclinable Our Lady’s name becomes in the oblique cases Μαρίας and Μαρίᾳ (once Μαρίαν
in the accusative, Mt. 1:20). The form Maria is employed for the Magdalene and for Mary of James
and of Clopas (Mt. 26:56; Mk. 15:47; 16:1, 9; Lk. 8:2; 24:10; Jn. 19:25; 20:1). The sister of Lazarus is
called Mariám by both Luke and John (Lk. 10:39, 42; Jn. 11:2, 19, 20, etc.). Once John employs the
form Mariám for the Magdalene (Jn. 20:16; perhaps also 20:18). Josephus uses the form Μαριάμμη,
whether he refers to Moses’ sister or to the women of the Herodian family who bore the name
(Ant. Jud., II, 9, 4; III, 2, 4; IV, 4, 6).

W. Smith (A Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 2 [London, 1853], p. 255) thinks that Maria is a distinct
form, a shortened form of the more archaic Mariám, somewhat similar to Nathan, a shortened
form of Jonathan. Authors generally, however, are agreed that Maria is merely a Hellenization of
the Semitic Maryām. Maria gives a regular Greek feminine form of the first declension. The
Mariamme of Josephus has been styled a “coquettish Hellenization.”
1485 It is possible that Matthew
and Mark, in reserving the Semitic form Mariám exclusively for Our Lady, intend to distinguish
her even in name from other women and to insinuate that she is the Miryām of the great
liberation, which was prefigured and promised by the Exodus.
1486 As in the Old Testament, so in the
New, Maria is the only form of the name in the Vulgate.

THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE NAME MARY

No convincing argument has been adduced against the claim of the Massoretic Miryām to be
the oldest and very likely the original form of the name Mary. While this is generally admitted,
there is no agreement on the meaning of the name. More than seventy etymologies have been
proposed (in 1885 Bardenhewer listed sixty-seven)!

This confusing variety is due to uncertainty concerning the derivation of the name, even
uncertainty about the language to which it belongs, and to the pious avidity of preachers and
writers to see Mary’s prerogatives mirrored in her holy name. While some derive the name from
ancient Egyptian, and a few from Syriac, the majority of exegetes have assumed that it is of
Hebrew origin. Ancient and medieval authors generally took it to be a composite name, i.e.,
derived from two Hebrew roots. The moderns, who attach the name to the Hebrew, usually
consider it a simple name.
1487

THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES A.D.

The earliest extant writer to concern himself with the meaning of the name Mary was Philo
(✝ a.d. 50), the learned Alexandrian Jew. The statement of Exod. 2:4 that the sister of Moses was
“standing afar off, and taking notice what would be done” to her baby brother, lying in his basket
in the sedges on the river’s brink, leads Philo to observe that Mary’s name means “hope.” His
comment on Num. 12:1-3, which records that “Mary and Aaron spoke against Moses because of
his wife the Ethiopian,” is that Mary signifies “brazen and bold sensuality.”
1488 As is evident, Philo
is not giving the etymology of Mary’s name. Rather he is assigning an allegorical and quite
arbitrary meaning to her name because of her actions.

The ancient rabbis saw in Mary’s name a symbol of Israel’s bitter servitude in Egypt. Mary
means “bitterness” (Hebrew, Mėrûr). She was given this name, say the rabbis, because her birth
coincided with the beginning of the Egyptians’ hard treatment of the Jews.
1489

The ancient Onomastica Sacra have preserved the meanings ascribed to Mary’s name by the
early Christian writers and perpetuated by the Greek Fathers. “Bitter Sea,” “Myrrh of the Sea,”
“The Light Giver,” “The Enlightened One,” “Lady,” “Seal of the Lord,” “Mother of the Lord” are the
principal interpretations.
1490

Obviously influenced by the Septuagint Mariám, these etymologies suppose that the Hebrew
form of the name is Maryām, not Miryām. “Bitter Sea” derives the name from Mar (bitter) and Yām
(sea). Aside from the fact that such an etymology does not explain the first syllable of Our Lady’s
name (Mir could hardly be derived from Mar), this combination violates the usual Hebrew word
order in which the noun precedes the adjective. “Myrrh of the Sea” supposes Mor (myrrh) and
Yām. This also fails to account for the first syllable of Our Lady’s name. And what is myrrh of the
sea? Isn’t myrrh a product of the vegetable kingdom, the resin of trees? “The Light Giver”
(φωτίζουσα) regards Mary’s name as a casuative (hiphil) participle of the verb ’ôr (to shine) or of
the verb rā’āh (to see). But it is only with violence to the language that one can get Miryām from
Mē’îr or Mar’eh. The interpretation “Lady” and “Our Lady” derives the name from the Aramaic
word for Lord, Mār’ē (Mār). The feminine of this word, however, would be Mar’ā in the absolute
state, Marth’ā in the emphatic state. In fact, this Aramaic word does occur as a feminine proper
name in the New Testament. It is the name of the sister of Lazarus, Martha. Absolutely impossible
is the meaning “Mother of the Lord” (Deus ex genere meo), which would derive the name from the
Hebrew Yāh (God) and Hārāh (to conceive). “Seal of the Lord” supposes a bizarre combination of
the Persian word muhur or muhr (seal) and the Hebrew Yāh. Among these interpretations of the
Onomastica the Greek Fathers preferred “Myrrh of the Sea” and “Lady.”
1491

ST. JEROME TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY A.D.

About the year a.d. 390 St. Jerome made available to Western Christendom the Onomastica of
the Greeks. Jerome’s Liber Interpretationis hebraicorum Nominum is a Latin translation and
revision of a similar book of Origen, which in turn was based on a work of the Alexandrian Jew,
Philo.
1492 On the name Mary in Matthew’s Gospel Jerome writes in the Liber Interpretationis:
“Mariam plerique aestimant interpretari, illuminant me isti, vel illuminatrix, vel smyrna maris, sed
mihi nequaquam videtur. Melius autem est, ut dicamus sonare eam stellam maris, sive amarum
mare: sciendumque quod Maria, sermone Syro, domina nuncupetur.”
1493 With the exception of Stella
Maris all these interpretations occur in the Greek Onomastica. Of course Stella Maris may have
been in Jerome’s copy of Origen’s work, but more probably this is his personal contribution to the
treasury of Marian etymologies. Jerome’s indication of his preferences among the meanings he
listed influenced all subsequent Latin writers. “Lady,” “Bitter Sea,” “The Light Giver,” and
especially “Star of the Sea” are the interpretations common in the West from Jerome until the
sixteenth century.
1494 Stella Maris was by far the favored interpretation.

The question has been raised whether Jerome wrote Stilla (drop) Maris rather than Stella Maris.
The Hebrew language contains no word for star even remotely resembling Our Lady’s name.
There is, however, a Hebrew word Mar, meaning “drop” (cf. Isa. 40:15). When Jerome wrote the
Liber Interpretationis he was already well versed in Hebrew. The conjunction sive in the text of
Jerome suggests that he is offering alternative meanings for the word Mar, i.e., “drop” or “bitter”
(Melius autem est, ut dicamus sonare eam stellam maris, sive amarum mare). The text of Jerome in
the ninth-century Codex of Bamberg reads Stilla. The change to Stella is an understandable scribal
error, especially when it is remembered that common speech confounded the vowels e and i.
Countryfolk said vea for via, vella for villa, speca for spica, leber for liber.
1495 St. Gregory the Great
on the text of Job 36:27 “qui aufert stillas pluviae” gives a commentary that supposes stellas
pluviae. The “stillas pluviarum” of Jer. 3:3 becomes in Gregory “stellae pluviarum.”
1496

The “Star of the Sea” of Jerome’s text is therefore very probably due to the lapse of one or
several early copyists, who substituted stella for stilla because the two words were identical in
pronunciation. Later copyists perpetuated the error because of the beautiful meaning stella gave
to Our Lady’s name. It would be unjust, however, to accuse the medieval scribes of deliberately
changing Jerome’s text in the interest of Marian devotion. Bardenhewer very wisely observes that
had the medieval clients of Our Lady read stilla maris in their copies of Jerome, they would have
found a symbolic relation between the drops of the sea and Our Lady as easily as they did for stella
maris.
1497 This unintentional alteration of Jerome’s text was really a felix culpa. To it we owe some
of Christendom’s most beautiful tributes to Our Lady. It suffices to mention the hymn Ave Maris
Stella (ninth century) and St. Bernard’s Second Homily on the words of Lk. 1:26, “Missus est.”

The great Scholastic Doctors, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, accept without
question the interpretations current in their day, which were derived from Jerome’s work. Thus
St. Thomas in his Expositio super Angelica Salutatione (cap. 6, 7, 8) explains Mary’s name as
“illuminatrix,” “domina,” “stella maris.” St. Bonaventure gives the meanings “mare amarum,”
“stella,” “domina” (e.g., Comment. in Luc 1:17).

THE MODERN PERIOD. SIXTEENTH AND

SUBSEQUENT CENTURIES

The revival of Hebraic studies, which accompanied the Renaissance, led to a more critical
appraisal of the meanings assigned to Our Lady’s name. The author of the lexicon of proper names
in the Complutensis Polyglott offered two new interpretations, “magistra sive doctrix maris” and
“exaltata.”
1498 The first would derive Our Lady’s name from Môreh (the hiphil participle of the verb
Yārāh, which in the hiphil has the meaning “to teach”) and Yām. Aside from the difficulty of
explaining the origin of Mir from Môr, the meaning obtained seems meaningless. What is a
“teacher of the sea”?

Angelus Caninius embraced enthusiastically the interpretation “exaltata.” He regarded Miryām
as a noun formed from the verb Rwm (to be high) and the very common preformant M.
1499 Cornelius
a Lapide accepts this interpretation in his commentary on Ecclus. 43:7, and the great exegete
Estius finds it “not displeasing.”
1500 But the exegetes and philologists generally rejected it on the
grounds that a substantive formed from the root Rwm would be vocalized Mārôm, not Miryām or
even Maryām, like Mākôm a quite frequent noun in the Old Testament derived from Qwm.
1501 In fact
Mārôm (height) is a common noun in the Old Testament. But in 1948 E. Vogt, S.J., the present
rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, adduced some very telling arguments in favor of this
etymology.
1502 From the root Dyn (to judge) are derived two nouns meaning “strife,” Mādôn, the
usual form, and Midyān, a rare form. Philologically, therefore, the derivation of Miryām from Rwm
is probable. Now the celebrated Ugaritic tablets, discovered at Ras Shamrah from 1929 through
1936, offer new and striking evidence in favor of this derivation. In this ancient Canaanite
literature (mythological epics, religious poems, and sacrificial ritual in a language closely akin to
Hebrew) there occurs a word MRYM used both as a noun and an adjective and identical in
derivation and meaning with the Hebrew word Mārôm, “height.” According to C. H. Gordon, who
painstakingly worked out a grammar of this ancient Canaanite language, MRYM probably should
be vocalized Maryam(u) or Miraym(u).
1503 The Ras Shamrah tablets date from the fourteenth century
B.C. and so are contemporaneous with Moses and his sister Mary. Old Testament names like Kelāl,
“perfection,” “the perfect one” (1 Esdras 10:30) and Mib ār, “election,” “the chosen one” (1 Par.
11:38), show that Hebrew parents did express their joy in their newborn children by conferring
very flattering titles as names. Certainly “Highness” or “The Exalted One” is an appropriate name
for Our Blessed Lady, who has been lifted by grace above all creatures, even the highest Seraphim.

St. Peter Canisius offers a number of meanings, e.g., “exaltata” and “rebellio” (from the root
Mārāh). But above all he endeavored to give the beloved Stella Maris a solid philological basis. He
derives Mary’s name from the verb Hēîr and Yām. Apparently he has in mind the hiphil participle
Mē’îr of the verb ’ôr. This etymology is no more successful than the ancient φωτίζουσα.
1504

Cornelius a Lapide commenting on Exod. 15:20 rejects the Massoretic vocalization. Maryām,
he thinks, is the original form of the name. It means either “amaritudo maris” (from Mar the
construct of the noun Mārāh and Yām) or “Magistra aut Domina maris.”

Christopher Vega, S.J., offered an original interpretation, “domina diei” or “domina cribri,”
deriving the name from the Aramaic Mar (Lord) and Yām (Yôm) meaning “day,” or Yām meaning
“sieve.”
1505

At the beginning of the eighteenth century Matthew Hiller proposed the interpretation “the
rebellious” or “the contumacious,” deriving Mary from Merî (rebellion) from the verb Mārāh.
1506 The
final Am of Our Lady’s name he held to be simply a termination used in the formation of nouns.
(Mem intensivum he called it.) Philologically there is no objection to this etymology. The meaning
is also quite apt for the sister of Moses, who murmured against her brother in the desert. But such
an interpretation could hardly be applied to Our Blessed Lady.
1507

Gesenius, the master of Hebrew lexicographers, in the first edition of his celebrated Neues
hebräisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch identified the name Mary with the form Miryām (their
rebellion) of Neh. 9:17. The name would be composed of the noun Merî and the third plural
pronominal suffix am. In later editions Gesenius silently adopted Hiller’s interpretation, explaining
am as a substantive termination (Ein Bildungszusatz).
1508

In 1856 P. Schegg in his commentary on Matthew’s Gospel proposed the verb Mārā’ (to be fat)
as the root of Our Lady’s name. Arguing that to the Semitic eye a “well-developed,” even a
corpulent woman was beautiful, he gave as the meaning of Mary’s name “the beautiful one.” With
Hiller and Gesenius he considers the final am of Mary’s name a simple denominative
termination.
1509 Like Hiller’s this etymology, from the viewpoint of philology, is probable. Normally,
however, a noun formed from Mārā’ with the aid of the termination am would be Mir’ām, not
Miryām. While Aleph can be changed to Yod in certain cases, there is no proof that pronounced
consonantal Aleph, following a consonant and preceding a vowel, can be changed to pronounced
consonantal Yod.
1510 Moreover, is it true that corpulency was associated with beauty in the Semitic
mind? In Hebrew literature there is no example of the root Mārā’ meaning “beauty.” But quite a
few authors have accepted Schegg’s interpretation (e.g., Fürst, Gildmeister, Bardenhewer, Lesêtre,
Janssens, Scheeben).
1511 “The Beautiful” is certainly an appropriate name for her who was
immaculately conceived and endowed with grace and holiness surpassing that of the highest
angels, and who, in all probability, was also physically the most beautiful of the daughters of Eve.
Tota pulchra es, Maria! In this interpretation the angel’s greeting to Our Lady, Χαρε
κεχαριτωμένη, Ave gratia plena, would express aptly the meaning of her holy name (Lk. 1:28).

Is Mary an Egyptian name? May not Mary, born in Egypt, have received an Egyptian name as
did her brothers Moses and Aaron? Father Francis Zorell, S.J., proposed the hypothesis that the
name Miryām is a composite word made up of the perfect passive participle of the Egyptian verb
mr (to love), i.e., merî(t) and the Hebrew divine name Yām (i.e., Yahweh, as in Abiam for Abi-yahu).
The holy name Mary would therefore have the most appropriate meaning, “The Beloved of God.”
1512

Father Roschini, O.S.M., embraces Zorell’s etymology as “most probable, not to say certain”
(probabilissima, ne dicamus certa).
1513 Moses is certainly an Egyptian name, and the name Aaron,
which cannot be explained from the Hebrew, is probably also of Egyptian origin. It is possible that
their sister also received an Egyptian name. But Roschini’s argument that the name Mary would
have occurred frequently in the Old Testament if it were of Hebrew origin is not at all convincing.
Such a typically Hebrew name as Jacob is also unique in the Old Testament. Granted that Mary
is an Egyptian name, the derivation from Merî-Yām is by no means established. Moses’ sister
presumably was named shortly after birth. Did the Hebrews in Egypt know then that God’s name
is Yahweh? Did not God reveal His name to men for the first time, when, many years after Mary’s
birth, He spoke to Moses out of the burning bush? (Exod. 6:2-3.) Zorell himself later called his
hypothesis “doubtful.” Since merî when transcribed in Assyrian (a Semitic language) becomes mai
and in Greek appears as μι, the R being lost in transcription, the derivation of Miryam from this
word is very questionable.
1514

Conclusion: The evidence available today is preponderantly in favor of the meaning “Highness”
or “The Exalted One.” Miryām has all the appearance of a genuine Hebrew name, and no solid
reason has been adduced to warrant rejecting the Semitic origin of the word. Father Zorell turned
to the Egyptian only because he despaired of finding a satisfactory explanation according to the
known rules of Hebrew morphology. Had the grammarians and exegetes known the Ras Shamrah
literature with its striking argument in favor of the derivation of Miryām from Rwm, there is no
doubt that they would have embraced wholeheartedly this etymology first proposed by Cardinal
Ximenes’ Polyglott.
1515 Once again twentieth-century archaeology has supplied the key to a
satisfactory solution of a centuries-old problem. The sweet name of Mary expresses fittingly the
dignity and glory of the Mother of God and the Queen of all creation. She is “Highness,” “The
Exalted One.”

Probably it were better, however, if Mariologists ceased searching exclusively for the reasons
of God’s choice of Our Lady’s name in the etymology of the word, and looked for them rather in
the relation of Mary (as antitype) to the sister of Moses. In view of the inferior position of women
in ancient society the role of Moses’ sister in the history of the Exodus is remarkable. She is a
prophetess who supports the Liberator in his great work of freeing Israel from the Egyptian
bondage. (Cf. the words of God in Mich. 6:4, “For I brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and
delivered thee out of the house of slaves, and I sent before thy face Moses, and Aaron, and Mary.”)
The sister of Moses is an apt type of Mary, the Alma Socia Redemptoris, the coadjutrix of her divine
Son in the liberation of mankind from the slavery of sin and the bondage of Satan.
1516 May not God
have inspired the parents of Our Lady to call their infant daughter after the sister of Moses, in
order to indicate her mission in the Redemption of mankind?

Laus Deo et Virgini Immaculatæ eius.

Footnotes

1

A set in three volumes published in 1947-1951 by F. Schöningh, Paderborn, Germany.

2

Two volumes published by Beauchesne, Paris, in 1949 and 1952, respectively. A third volume is now in
preparation.

3

Three volumes so far, published this year (1953) by the Libreria Editrice F. Ferrari, Rome, Italy. A fourth
volume has been announced for the near future. This is by far the best, most complete, and most up-to-date
set of systematic Mariology written by a single author.

4

K. Barth, Die kirkliche Dogmatik, I, 2, Zollikon, 1939, pp. 151-160. Reference taken from Hugo Rahner, S.J.,
Die Marienkunde in der lateinischen Patristik, in Katholische Marienkunde (ed. P. Sträter, S.J.), Vol. 1,
Paderborn, 1947, p. 138.

5

Maria, die Mutter Gottes, published by Evangelisches Verlagswerk, Stuttgart, Germany, 1950.

6

Published by E. Vitte, Paris, 1951.

7

Published by Dacre Press, Westminster, England, 1949.

8

Mystici Corporis, in A.A.S., Vol. 35, 1943, pp. 247-248; English translation of the N.C.W.C., No. 107.

9

The principal sources used have been the following: H. Denzinger et C. Bannwart, Enchiridion symbolorum,
definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, ed. 27 augmentata a J. B. Umberg (Barcelona, 1951);
Paul Palmer, S.J., Mary in the Documents of the Church (Westminster, Md., 1952), with grateful
acknowledgment for many useful ideas and translations; G. Roschini, O.S.M., Mariologia, 2a ed. (Romae,
1947-1948), particularly Vol. 1, pp. 33-50 on the Marian Doctrine of the Roman Pontiffs; idem, La Madonna
nel pensiero e nell’insegnamento di Pio XI, in Marianum, Vol. 1, 1939, pp. 121-172; D. Bertetto, S.D.B., Maria
nel domma cattolico (Torino, 1950), pp. 261-323 on the popes of the past hundred years; J. Bittremieux,
Doctrina Mariana Leonis XIII (Brugis, 1928); idem, Ex doctrina Mariana Pii XI, in Ephemerides Theologicae
Lovanienses, Vol. 11, 1934, pp. 95-101. Besides the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (1909- ), Le Encicliche Mariane,
ed. A. Tondini (Roma, 1950) (from the time of Pius IX to the present) has been useful; it will be referred to
as Tondini. G. Filograssi, S.I., La dottrina Mariana dei Papi (da Pio IX a Pio XII), in La Civilità Cattolica, Vol.
103, 1952, iii, pp. 347-364, is a commentary on Tondini. The English translations have been taken from many
sources, sometimes with slight adaptations. For Pope Leo XIII, the translations are usually from The Rosary
of Mary, ed. by William R. Lawler, O.P. (Paterson, N. J., 1944), cited simply as Lawler.

10

D.B., 1839. On the magisterium, see M. Cordovani, O.P., in the article “Chiesa”, in Enciclopedia Cattolica,
Vol. 3, cols. 1455-1456 (Città del Vaticano, 1950).

11

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 568; authorized Vatican translation. On the authority of the encyclicals, cf. J. C.
Fenton, The Religious Assent due to the Teachings of Papal Encyclicals, in The American Ecclesiastical
Review, Vol. 123, 1950, pp. 59-67; The Doctrinal Authority of Papal Encyclicals, ibid., Vol. 121, pp. 136-150,
210-220; The Lesson of Humani Generis, ibid., Vol. 123, 1950, pp. 359-378.

12

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 756; English of the N.C.W.C. translation by Fr. Fenton, No. 12. D.B., 1792, says “sive
solemni iudicio sive ordinario et universali magisterio.”

13

A.A.S., Vol. 20, 1928, p. 14. Cf. Giacinto Ameri, O.F.M., Deposito della Fede, in Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol.
4, cols. 1442-1443 (Città del Vaticano, 1950); C. Vagaggini, Dogma, ibid., cols. 1799-1804, on the evolution of
dogma.

14

On Cardinal Newman’s Mariology, and his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1845, which
he began as an Anglican and finished as a Catholic, see Francis J. Friedel, S.M., The Mariology of Cardinal
Newman (New York, 1928), especially pp. 50-87. Newman applied his principles on development in the
famous Letter to Pusey, 1865, in defense of the Immaculate Conception. His own summary of his views on
development with the comments of Fr. Perrone, S.J., are given in “The Newman-Perrone Paper on
Development,” ed. Rev. T. Lynch, in Gregorianum, Vol. 16, 1935, pp. 402-447. E. Druwé, S.J., uses Newman’s
theories in La Médiation Universelle de Marie, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol.
1 (Paris, 1949), e.g., pp. 459, 477, 478, 496, 516. B. Capelle, O.S.B., finds the great Cardinal’s ideas vindicated
in the Assumption in Théologie de l’Assomption d’après la bulle “Munificentissimus Deus,” in Nouvelle revue
théologique, Vol. 72, 1950, pp. 1009-1027, esp. p. 1024 ff.

15

Cordovani, loc. cit.

16

Palmer, Mary in the Documents of the Church, p. 4. On the early Creeds, see J. Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 1
(Westminster, Md., 1951), pp. 23-27; he notes that the West tended more than the East to stress the birth from
the Virgin Mary in the early symbols.

17

D.B., 2, Palmer, p. 4.

18

D.B., 54, Palmer, p. 7.

19

D.B., 86, where the Latin has “incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine.” The Greek has: “from the
Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.” The same difference is true of the Roman Creed of note 11.

20

D.B., 111 a, Palmer, p. 10. The Latin reads: “Non enim primo vulgaris quispiam homo ex Virgine ortus est,
in quem Dei Verbum deinde se demiserit; sed in ipso utero carni unitum secundum carnem progenitum
dicitur, utpote suae carnis generationem sibi ut propriam vindicans. … Ita [scl. sancti Patres] non dubitaverunt
sacram virginem Deiparam appellare.” On the history of Ephesus, see G. Bardy, Les débuts du Nestorianisme
(428-433), in Histoire de l’Église, ed. Fliche et Martin, Vol. 4 (Paris, 1945), pp. 163-186; G. Jouassard, Marie
à travers la Patristique: Maternité divine, Virginité, Sainteté, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. by
H. du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 1, 1949 (Paris), pp. 69-157; M. Jugie, A.A., Efeso, Concilio di, in Enciclopedia
Cattolica, Vol. 5, cols. 114-119 (Città del Vaticano, 1950); Philip Hughes, A History of the Church, Vol. 1 (New
York, 1935), pp. 292-306.

21

Fulgens Corona, A.A.S., Vol. 45, 1953, p. 580.

22

Philip’s words are in D.B., 112, and were incorporated verbatim at the fourth session of the Vatican Council,
1870, D.B., 1824.

23

G. Bardy, art. cit., p. 184, n. 4.

24

D.B., 148.

25

D.B., 113, Palmer, p. 11. D.B. and Palmer both note that this anathema was probably not read at Ephesus,
on the basis of Fr. Galtier’s research, reported in Recherches de science religieuse, Vol. 23, 1933, p. 45 ff. Also
Nilus a S. Brocardo, O.C.D., De maternitate divina B. Mariae semper Virginis (Romae, 1944), p. 45, n. (60).
According to Jouassard, art. cit., p. 135, nos. (56-57), the divine Maternity strictly speaking was not defined
at Ephesus; nonetheless, the conciliar decisions were the equivalent of a definition, even before the approval
of the anathema at the Fifth Ecumenical Council.

26

A.A.S., Vol. 23, 1931, pp. 493-517; in Tondini, pp. 369-406. Cf. A. Luis, C.SS.R., San Cirilo y Nestorio.
Encíclica “Lux veritatis,” in Estudios Marianos (Asamblea del año 1948), Vol. 8 (Madrid, 1949), pp. 325-344;
the whole volume treats the divine Maternity.

27

On the value of the Creeds concerning Mary’s virginity, cf. A. Janssens, De Heerlijkheden van het goddelijk
moederschap, tweede herziene druk (2nd edit.), Brussel, 1939, p. 111 ff. On the Gospels, cf. C. C. Martindale,
S.J., Christ’s Virgin Birth and the Gospel of the Infancy (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1948).

28

Cf. O. Faller, De priorum saeculorum silentio circa Assumptionem B. Mariae Virginis (Romae, 1946), pp.
74-75; Jouassard, art. cit., p. 120.

29

D.B., 91, Palmer, p. 28. On these controversies, cf. Jouassard, art. cit., p. 106 ff.; Hugh Pope, O.P., The
Perpetual Virginity of Our Blessed Lady, in Our Blessed Lady (Cambridge Summer School Lectures for 1933)
(London, 1934), pp. 121-141; J.-R. Palanque, Les métropoles ecclésiastiques à la fin du IVe siècle, in Histoire
de l’Église, ed. Fliche et Martin, Vol. 3 (Paris), p. 476 ff.; Hugh Rahner, Die Marienkunde in der lateinischen
Patristik, in Katholische Marienkunde, ed. Paul Sträter, S.J., Vol. 1 (Paderborn, 1947), p. 146 ff.

30

Jouassard, art. cit., pp. 88-90, 111-112.

31

D.B., 143-144, Palmer, pp. 29-31, where Flavian is mistakenly called Emperor rather than Archbishop.
Background history in G. Bardy, Le Brigandage d’ Éphèse de le Concile de Chalcedoine, in Histoire de l’Église,
ed. Fliche et Martin, Vol. 4 (Paris, 1945), pp. 211-240.

32

D.B., 143-144, Palmer, pp. 30-31. Fr. Palmer gives more of the tome than D.B. Leo I is quoted in the
encyclical Sempiternus Rex, in A.A.S., Vol. 43, 1951, p. 634, on the occasion of the 1500th anniversary of
Chalcedon: “de ea Virgine de qua est natus.” Chalcedon’s own Creed, D.B., 148, is also quoted, loc. cit., p. 635.
Rouët de Journel, S.J., Enchiridion Patristicum, ed. 14a (Friburgi Brisgoviae, 1947), Nos. 2182-2183, quotes
more from the tome.

33

Hughes, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 316.

34

D.B., 256, Palmer, pp. 31-32. The Latin is: “Can. 3. Si quis secundum sanctos Patres non confitetur proprie
et secundum veritatem Dei genitricem sanctam semperque Virginem et immaculatam Mariam, utpote ipsum
Deum Verbum specialiter et veraciter, qui a Deo Patre ante omnia saecula natus est, in ultimis saeculorum
absque semine concepisse ex Spiritu Sancto, et incorruptibiliter eam [eum?] genuisse, indissolubili
permanente et post partum eiusdem virginitate, condemnatus sit.” (The square brackets are in D.B.)

35

D.B., 314 a, n. (3).

36

Ibid., 422.

37

Ibid., 462.

38

Ibid., 708 ff.

39

Ibid., 993, Palmer, pp. 77-78.

40

On Chalcedon’s influence on subsequent Mariology, cf. the articles of H. Weisweiler, S.J., in Scholastik, Vol.
28, 1953: Das frühe Marienbild der Westkirche unter dem Einfluss des Dogmas von Chalcedon — Die
vertiefte Schau der Virgo-Mater Gloriosa, pp. 321-360, and Die verstärkte Einzeichnung des Zuges der
zärtlich liebenden Mutter, pp. 504-525.

On Mary’s sanctity, cf. Jouassard, art. cit., pp. 114-116, 136-155; E. Dublanchy, Marie, in D.T.C., Vol. 9, cols.
2413-2428; P. G. M. Rhodes, Our Lady’s Endowments, in Our Blessed Lady (Cambridge Summer School
Lectures, 1933) (London, 1934), pp. 174-179; J. I. Cartmell, Our Lady in Tradition and the Fathers, ibid., pp.
80-84.

41

Palmer, pp. 33-34; Rouët de Journel, Enchiridion Patristicum, No. 1794.

42

J. H. Newman, The New Eve, with introduction by P. Radcliffe (Oxford: Newman Bookshop, 1952), p. 57.

43

D.B., 833, Palmer, pp. 76-77. The Latin concerning Our Lady is: “Can. 23. Si quis hominem semel
justificatum dixerit … posse in tota vita peccata omnia etiam venialia vitare, nisi ex speciali Dei privilegio,
quemadmodum de beata Virgine tenet Ecclesia: A.S.” On the value of Trent in reference to Mary’s privileges,
cf. Ernst Böminghaus, S.J., Geschichte der Marienverehrung seit dem Tridentinum, in Katholische
Marienkunde, ed. Paul Sträter, Vol. 1 (Paderborn, 1947), pp. 333-337.

44

D.B., 1073, Palmer, p. 78.

45

D.B., 1314, Palmer, pp. 78-79.

46

Ineffabilis Deus, Tondini, p. 30. The English translation is from Mary Immaculate, by D. Unger, O.F.M.Cap.
(Paterson, N. J., 1946), p. 2.

47

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, 2a ed., Vol. 3, p. 110 ff., for different opinions of the theologians on the dogmatic
value of Trent’s words. Also J. A. de Aldama, S.J., El valor dogmático de la doctrina sobre la inmunidad de
pecado venial en Nuestra Señora, in Archivo Teológico Granadino, Vol. 9, 1946, pp. 53-67.

48

Jouassard, art. cit., p. 151.

49

Cf. F. J. Connell, C.SS.R., Historical Development of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, in The
American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 114, 1946, p. 340 ff., and the same article in Studies in Praise of Our
Blessed Mother, ed. J. C. Fenton and E. D. Benard (Washington, D. C., 1952), pp. 93-99; T. E. Flynn, The
Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, in Our Blessed Lady (Cambridge Summer School Lectures, 1933)
(London, 1934), pp. 93-120; X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée Conception, in D.T.C., Vol. 7, cols. 979-1218; E.
Druwé, S.J., Kerkleer omtrent de Onbevlekte Ontvangenis in Middeleeuwen en Moderne Tijden, in
Verslagboek der zevende Mariale Dagen, 1937 (Tongerloo, 1938), pp. 111-131 (the whole Volume 7 of Mariale
Dagen is on the Immaculate Conception); B. A. McKenna, The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception
(Washington, D. C., 1929); M. Cabrera, E. Schoenstein, C. Mondor, The Immaculate Conception, in Priestly
Studies (Santa Barbara, Calif.), condensed in Our Lady’s Digest, Vol. 6, 1951, pp. 301-320 (subtitle: A
Franciscan Study); J. Duhr, S.J., L’évolution du dogme de l’Immaculée Conception, in Nouvelle revue
théologique, Vol. 73, 1951, pp. 1013-1032; Friedel, op. cit., pp. 294-311; A. Wolter, O.F.M., The Theology of
the Immaculate Conception in the Light of “Ineffabilis Deus,” in Marian Studies, Vol. 5, 1954, pp. 19-72.

50

C. Sericoli, O.F.M., Immaculata B. M. Virginis Conceptio juxta Xysti IV constitutiones (Sibenici et Romae,
1945).

51

Sericoli defends the date of February 27, 1477; see op. cit., pp. 31, 33, note 22. The constitution is also known
as Cum praeexcelsa.

52

D.B., 734, Palmer, p. 74; full text in Sericoli, op. cit., pp. 153-154.

53

Cf. Sericoli, op. cit., p. 40 ff.; D.B., 735, Palmer, p. 75, give part of the second Grave Nimis.

54

D.B., 735. Cf. A Robichaud, S.M., The Immaculate Conception in the magisterium of the Church prior to
1854, in Marian Studies, Vol. 5, 1954, pp. 99-103.

55

D.B., 792, Palmer, p. 77; cf. M. Tognetti, O.S.M., L’Immacolata al Concilio Tridentino, in Marianum, Vol.
15, 1953, pp. 304-374 — to be continued in a later number.

56

Ineffabilis Deus; in Unger, op. cit., p. 9.

57

D.B., 1073, Palmer, p. 78.

58

D.B., 1100, Palmer, p. 78.

59

D.B., 1641, Palmer, pp. 86-87, Tondini, p. 54. The Latin is: “… Ad honorem Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis,
ad decus et ornamentum Virginis Deiparae, ad exaltationem fidei catholicae et christianae religionis
augmentum, auctoritate Domini nostri Iesu Christi, beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli ac Nostra
declaramus, pronuntiamus et definimus, doctrinam, quae tenet, beatissimam Virginem Mariam in primo
instanti suae conceptionis fuisse singulari omnipotentis Dei gratia et privilegio, intuitu meritorum Christi Iesu
Salvatoris humani generis, ab omni originalis culpae labe praeservatam immunem, esse a Deo revelatam atque
idcirco ab omnibus fidelibus firmiter constanterque credendam.” Cf. R. Aubert, La proclamation de
l’Immaculée Conception en 1854, in Collectanea Mechliniensia, Vol. 36, 1951, pp. 594-597; G. Geenen, O.P.,
La Bulle “Ineffabilis Deus” in Marie, Vol. 7, Nov.-Dec., 1953, pp. 41-43.

60

R. Aubert, Le pontificat de Pie IX (1846-1878), in Histoire de l’Église, ed. Fliche et Martin, Vol. 21 (Paris,
1952), pp. 278-280.

61

Unger, op. cit., p. 23, Palmer, p. 88, Tondini, p. 56.

62

Tondini, p. 320; English from D. Unger, Mary Mediatrix (Paterson, N. J., 1948) p. 6.

63

A.A.S., Vol. 45, 1953, p. 578.

64

Ibid., p. 583.

65

Ibid., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 769. The Latin is: “… divinitus revelatum dogma esse: Immaculatam Deiparam
semper Virginem Mariam, expleto terrestris vitae cursu, fuisse corpore et anima ad caelestem gloriam
assumptam.” English of the N.C.W.C. translation, No. 44; also in Palmer, p. 113.

66

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 756; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 12. Cf. Bishop Wright, The Dogma of the Assumption,
in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 124, 1951, pp. 81-96, and the same article in Studies in Praise of
Our Blessed Mother, ed. J. C. Fenton and E. D. Benard (Washington, D. C., 1952), pp. 215-230; P. Parente,
La giustificazione teologica della definizione dommatica dell’Assunzione, in Euntes Docete, Vol. 4, 1951, pp.
257-274; G. Filograssi, S.J., Constitutio Apostolica “Munificentissimus Deus” de Assumptione beatae Mariae
Virginis, in Gregorianum, Vol. 31, 1950, pp. 323-360.

67

D.B., 530.

68

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 757; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 13.

69

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 758; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 16.

70

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 758; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 15.

71

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 760; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 19.

72

This prayer now occurs as a Collect in the Assumption Mass of the Dominican, Carmelite, and other rites.
Cf. the articles of Dom B. Capelle, O.S.B., L’Oraison “Veneranda” à la Messe de l’Assomption, in Ephemerides
Theologicae Lovanienses, Vol. 26, 1950, pp. 354-364; Le témoignage de la Liturgie, in Études Mariales
(Assomption de Marie, II), Vol. 7, 1949, pp. 35-62; and L’Assunzione e la liturgia, in Marianum, Vol. 15, 1953,
pp. 241-276.

73

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 760; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 19.

74

Cf. G. Geenen, O.P., L’Assomption et les Souverains Pontifes. Faits, documents et textes, in Angelicum, Vol.
27, 1950, pp. 327-355; this reference, p. 334. Fr. Geenen has gathered his facts from M. Jugie, A.A., La Mort
et l’Assomption de la Sainte Vierge (Città del Vaticano, 1944); and from G. Hentrich et R. G. de Moos,
Petitiones de Assumptione Corporea B. V. Mariae in caelum definienda, 2 vols. (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis,
1942). Cf. also, for the popes of that period, C. Piana, O.F.M., Assumptio beatae Virginis Mariae apud
scriptores saec. XIII (Sibenici et Romae, 1942).

75

Cf. William O’Shea, S.S., The History of the Feast of the Assumption, in The Thomist, Vol. 14, 1951, pp. 127-128.

76

Quoted in Munificentissimus Deus, A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 768; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 40.

77

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 754; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 5. On the relationship between the Immaculate
Conception and the Assumption, cf. Roschini, The Assumption and the Immaculate Conception, in The
Thomist, Vol. 14, 1951, pp. 59-71, and K. Healy, O.Carm., The Assumption among Mary’s Privileges, ibid., pp.
77-81.

78

Geenen, art. cit., pp. 337-338; Healy, art. cit., p. 78.

79

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 755; N.C.W.C. translation. No. 7.

80

Tondini, 158; Lawler, 116 (The Rosary of Mary, ed. Wm. Lawler, O.P.) (Paterson, N. J., 1944).

81

Geenen, art. cit., p. 339.

82

Unger, Mary Mediatrix, pp. 16-17.

83

A.A.S., Vol. 35, 1943, pp. 247-248; English of the N.C.W.C. translation, No. 108. There is also a connection
between the doctrine of the Immaculate Heart, to which the Pope here refers, and the bodily Assumption, for
Our Lady’s Most Pure Heart is her physical heart; cf. Remigius De Roo, Regina in Coelum Assumpta, in Les
Tracts Marials, Nos. 37-38, Mars-Avril, 1953, pp. 49-50. There are many studies on Mystici Corporis, e.g.,
J. Dillersberger, Das neue Wort über Maria, (Salzburg, 1947).

84

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 756; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 10.

85

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, pp. 782-783.

86

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 756; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 12.

87

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 769; cf. note 57 for the Latin text.

88

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, pp. 754, 758; N.C.W.C. translation, Nos. 3, 14.

89

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 763; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 27.

90

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, pp. 769-770; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 42.

91

A.A.S., Vol. 13, 1921, p. 345.

92

Fidentem piumque, Tondini, pp. 248-250; Lawler, pp. 150-151; D.B., 1940 a.

93

Cf. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Mother of the Saviour and Our Interior Life (Dublin, 1948), p. 184; for
this point and for many others, see E. Druwé, S.J., La médiation universelle de Marie, in Maria. Études sur
la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 417-572.

94

Cardinal Newman, An Essay in the Development of Christian Doctrine (London, 1845), p. 384 — reference
from L. Riley, Historical Conspectus of the Doctrine of Mary’s Co-Redemption, in Marian Studies, Vol. 2, 1951,
p. 84, n. (229).

95

Cf. Cardinal Newman, The New Eve (Oxford, 1952), p. 19.

96

Cf. Druwé, art. cit., p. 478.

97

Newman, op. cit., p. 25.

98

J. Bittremieux, Il movimento mariologico dell’anno 1938-1939, in Marianum, Vol. 2, 1940, p. 12; Druwé,
art. cit., p. 458. On the Coredemption: J. B. Carol, O.F.M., De Corredemptione B. Virginis Mariae (Civitas
Vaticana, 1950); H. Seiler, S.J., Corredemptrix, Theologische Studie zur Lehre der Letzen Päpste über die
Miterlöserschaft Mariens, Rom, 1939; Marian Studies, Vol. 2, 1951, on the theme of the Coredemption.
Studies in Praise of Our Blessed Mother, ed. J. C. Fenton and E. D. Benard (Washington, D. C., 1952), contains
the following articles on this topic; after the pagination in studies is given in parentheses the volume, year and
pages of The American Ecclesiastical Review, where these studies first appeared: T. U. Mullaney, O.P., The
Meaning of Mary’s Compassion, pp. 100-127 (Vol. 125, 1951, pp. 1-6, 120-129, 196-207); A. Michel, Mary’s
Co-Redemption, pp. 137-146 (Vol. 122, 1950, pp. 183-192); C. Boyer, S.J., Thoughts on Mary’s Co-Redemption, pp. 147-161 (Vol. 122, 1950, pp. 401-415); J. Carol, O.F.M., Mary’s Co-Redemption in the
Teaching of Pope Pius XII, pp. 162-170 (Vol. 121, 1949, pp. 353-361).

99

A.A.S., Vol. 41, 1908, p. 409.

100

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, 2a ed., Vol. 2, p. 389; R. Laurentin, Le titre de Corédemptrice. Étude historique,
in Marianum, Vol. 13, 1951, pp. 396-452.

101

Tondini, p. 42; Unger, Mary Immaculate, p. 11.

102

A.A.S., Vol. 25, 1933, p. 80 (Epistola ad Card. Binet).

103

Cf. L. Riley, Historical Conspectus of the Doctrine, in Marian Studies, Vol. 2, 1951, p. 96 ff.

104

Cf. Unger, Mary Mediatrix, p. 8; Palmer, p. 94; Tondini, p. 312.

105

Tondini, pp. 204-206; Lawler, pp. 114-115. Iucunda semper.

106

A.A.S., Vol. 10, 1918, p. 182; Palmer, p. 97; Carol, De Corredemptione, pp. 524-527.

107

A.A.S., Vol. 20, 1928, p. 178; Palmer, p. 98.

108

A.A.S., Vol. 35, 1943, pp. 247-248; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 107; Palmer, pp. 98-100.

109

Cf. J. B. Carol, O.F.M., The Apostolic Constitution “Munificentissimus Deus” and Our Blessed Lady’s
Coredemption, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 125, 1951, pp. 255-273.

110

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 758; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 14.

111

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 768; N.C.W.C. translation. No. 40.

112

A.A.S., Vol. 45, 1953, p. 382.

113

Ibid., Vol. 35, 1943, pp. 247-248; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 107.

114

Tondini, p. 206; Lawler, p. 115.

115

Tondini, p. 222; Lawler, p. 130.

116

L’Osservatore Romano, April 29-30, 1935; English translation as in G. Shea, The Teaching of the
magisterium on Mary’s Spiritual Maternity, in Marian Studies, 3, 1952, p. 98. Bover, Shea, Carol, Seiler, and
other Mariologists attach great doctrinal value to this message of the Pope.

117

Tondini, p. 54; Unger, Mary Immaculate, p. 22; Palmer, p. 88.

118

Tondini, p. 158; Lawler, p. 79.

119

Tondini, pp. 312-314; Unger, Mary Mediatrix, pp. 8-10; D.B., 1978 a.

120

A.A.S., Vol. 10, 1918, p. 182.

121

Ibid., Vol. 29, 1937, p. 380; Tondini, p. 424.

122

Tondini, 400. These pages borrow heavily from the thorough treatment of Fr. George W. Shea, The
Teaching of the magisterium on Mary’s Spiritual Maternity, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 35-110. The
whole volume is devoted to the spiritual motherhood, with studies by W. Sebastian, O.F.M., William R.
O’Connor, C. Vollert, S.J., etc. Cf. also C. Vollert, Mother of Divine Grace, in Studies in Praise of Our Blessed
Mother, pp. 24-36, originally published in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 126, 1952, pp. 258-270.
English translations for this section are Dr. Shea’s.

123

Shea, art. cit., p. 42.

124

Shea, art. cit., p. 44, quoting Benedicti XIV Opera Omnia, Vol. 16 (Prati, 1846), p. 428. This was the Bull
Gloriosae Dominae.

125

Tondini, p. 2.

126

Tondini, p. 56.

127

Shea, art. cit., p. 54.

128

Tondini, p. 160. Cf. J. Bittremieux, Doctrina Mariana Leonis XIII (Brugis, 1928), pp. 32-42, on the spiritual
motherhood.

129

Adiutricem populi, Tondini, p. 230.

130

Tondini, p. 116 (Quamquam pluries).

131

Tondini, p. 136 (Octobri mense): “universitatem humani generis, in Ioanne discipulo, curandam ei
fovendamque commissit.”

132

Magnae Dei Matris, Tondini, 158; Shea, art. cit., p. 59.

133

Quamquam pluries, Tondini, p. 116; Shea, art. cit. p. 58.

134

Tondini, pp. 310-312; Shea, art. cit., pp. 72-73. Cf. Dillersberger, Das neue Wort über Maria (Salzburg,
1947), pp. 197-205; William G. Most, Blessed Pius X and the Blessed Virgin Mary, in The Homiletic and
Pastoral Review, Vol. 52, 1952, pp. 311-314.

135

Cf. Shea, art. cit., p. 48.

136

A.A.S., Vol. 14, 1922, p. 675.

137

Codex iuris canonici, 1276; Shea, art. cit., p. 80.

138

A.A.S., Vol. 10, 1918, pp. 181-182; Shea, art. cit., pp. 81-84.

139

D. Bertetto, S.D.B., Maria nel Domma Cattolico (Torino, 1950), pp. 295-302.

140

A.A.S., Vol. 18, 1926, p. 83.

141

Shea, art. cit., p. 92.

142

Ibid., p. 93.

143

L’Osservatore Romano, April 29-30, 1935; Shea, art. cit., p. 98.

144

A.A.S., Vol. 35, 1943, pp. 247-248; D.B., 2291; N.C.W.C. translation, No. 107; Palmer, pp. 99-100.

145

Cf. G. Geenen, O.P., Mother of the Mystical Body, trans. Sister Mary Madonna, C.S.C., in Cross and Crown,
Vol. 2, 1950, pp. 385-402; p. 391 on Genetrix.

146

Tondini, p. 538: Radio message delivered in English to the National Marian Congress at Ottawa, June 19,
1947.

147

A.A.S., Vol. 39, 1947, p. 582. The encyclical, Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947.

148

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 781.

149

Neminem profecto latet, February 11, 1950, A.A.S., Vol. 43, 1950, p. 391.

150

American Mariologists have been giving special attention to the Queenship. Marian Studies, Vol. 4, 1953,
is entirely devoted to this theme; the present writer contributed Our Lady’s Queenship in the magisterium
of the Church, pp. 29-81. The United States section of the Mariological Congress held in Rome, October, 1950,
treated the same question: cf. the Acts of the Congress, Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 3 (Romae, 1952), containing
(in English) the episcopal addresses read at the meeting, by Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop Cushing, and
Archbishop O’Boyle, and the studies on different aspects of the Queenship by J. C. Fenton, K. Moore, O.Carm.,
T. B. Falls, U. Mullaney, O.P., A. Rush, C.SS.R., F. Connell, C.SS.R.

Besides the many books and articles referred to in Marian Studies, Vol. 4, the following recent titles may be
noted: Remigius J. De Roo, Regina in coelum assumpta (Les rapports entre l’Assomption et la Royauté de
Marie), in Les Tracts Marials, Nos. 37-38, Mars-Avril, 1953, an excellent work, its Canadian author’s
doctorate thesis at the Angelicum University, Rome, 1952; Leone Jambois, Regalità di Maria Santissima, in
Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. 10, cols. 635-638 (Città del Vaticano, 1953); G. Filograssi, S.J., La dottrina
mariana dei Papi (da Pio IX a Pio XII), in La Civiltà Cattolica, anno 103, 1952, Vol. 3, pp. 357-359. From the
progress this belief in the Queenship has made, in the liturgy, the Papal teachings, among the theologians and
the people, Filograssi calls it certain Catholic doctrine.

151

Cf. P. Aubron, De la Souveraineté de Maria, in Souveraineté de Marie, Congrès Marial de Boulogne S/Mer
(Paris, 1938), pp. 121-122.

152

Cf. A. Luis, C.SS.R., La Realeza de Maria (Madrid, 1942), p. 80.

153

Ibid.

154

Carroll, art. cit., in Marian Studies, Vol. 4, p. 41.

155

Ibid., p. 43. The Epistle in the new Mass of the Assumption also recalls Judith’s triumph (Judith 13:22-25;
15:10); cf. A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 793.

156

Carroll, art. cit., p. 45.

157

Salutaris ille, Tondini, p. 84, is the apostolic letter of December 24, 1883, commanding the insertion of
“Queen of the Most Holy Rosary” in the Litany of Loreto.

158

Tondini, p. 166; Lawler, p. 88. Note the connection between Coredemption and the Queenship.

159

Tondini, pp. 312-314; Unger, pp. 9-10; Carroll, art. cit., pp. 53-54.

160

A.A.S., Vol. 3, 1911, p. 266: a letter of April 30, 1911; cf. Seiler, Corredemptrix, p. 76; Druwé, art. cit., p. 448.

161

È pur troppo vero, Christmas Eve address to the cardinals, 1915, quoted from the translation in Principles
for Peace — Selections from Papal Documents, Leo XIII to Pius XII, ed. by. H. C. Koenig (Washington, D. C.,
1943), No. 425.

162

A.A.S., Vol. 15, 1923, pp. 581-582.

163

Ibid., Vol. 18, 1926, p. 83; English from The Global War for Christ (New York, 1944).

164

A.A.S., Vol. 23, 1931, p. 513; Tondini, p. 402; N.C.W.C. translation.

165

A.A.S., Vol. 34, 1942, pp. 345-346; translation from Principles for Peace, No. 182. For other documents in
connection with the consecration to the Immaculate Heart, and their bearing on the Queenship, cf. Carroll,
art. cit., pp. 162-166; K. Healy, O.Carm., Theology of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in
Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America (Cincinnati, 1949),
pp. 102-127.

166

A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, pp. 265-267; Tondini, p. 505 ff. The Pontiff alluded to the anniversary commemorated
on October 12, without mentioning Columbus’ name.

167

A.A.S., Vol. 38, 1946, p. 266; Tondini, pp. 518-519. This important message is sometimes titled Bendito seja
from its opening words in Portuguese, other times called Benedicite Deum. Cf. Carroll, art. cit., pp. 66-69; J.
B. Carol, O.F.M., Mary’s Co-redemption in the Teaching of Pope Pius XII, in The American Ecclesiastical
Review, Vol. 121, 1949, p. 359, and again in Studies in Praise of Our Blessed Mother, ed, J. C. Fenton and E.
D. Benard (Washington, D. C., 1952), pp. 167-168; De Roo, op. cit.; Filograssi, art. cit.

168

A.A.S., Vol. 35, 1943, p. 248; cf. Carroll, art. cit., pp. 69-71. The Latin “unaque simul cum Filio suo regnat”
for “reigns in heaven with her Son” is a very strong phrase, as the commentators note.

169

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 793.

170

De Roo, op. cit., p. 56.

171

A.A.S., Vol. 42, p. 768; N.C.W.C. translation. No. 40.

172

A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, pp. 265-267; Tondini, p. 511.

173

Laurentius de Brindisi, Sermo II, In Assumptione, in the Mariale (Opera Omnia, I) (Padua, 1928), pp. 590-591; Didacus Stella, In sanctum Iesu Christi Evangelium, Vol. 2 (Lugduni, 1583), p. 53. Fr. Anthony Cotter,
S.J., has written a general article worthy of consideration: The Obscurity of Scripture, in The Catholic Biblical
Quarterly, Vol. 9, 1947, pp. 453-464.

174

Outstanding is a recent article by Dominic Unger, O.F.M.Cap., The Use of Sacred Scripture in Mariology,
in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp. 67-116. Cf. also S. Alameda, O.S.B., La Mariología y las fuentes de la
revelación, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 1, 1942, pp. 41-100; J. Coppens, Les harmonies des deux Testaments,
in Nouvelle Revue Théologique, Vol. 70, 1948, pp. 799-810; Vol. 71, 1949, pp. 3-38, 337-366, 477-496; Gabriel
Roschini, O.S.M., La Madonna secondo la Fede e la Teologia, Vol. 2 (Rome, 1953), pp. 49-147.

175

E.g., H. Höpfl and B. Gut, O.S.B., Introductio Generalis in Sacram Scripturam, 5 ed. (Romae, 1950), p. 434
ff.; John Steinmueller, A Companion to Scripture Studies, Vol. 1 (New York, 1941), p. 226 ff.

176

According to another common division the biblical senses may be explicit (the meaning explicitly expressed
in the words) or implicit (the meaning contained in the words either formally — making it equivalent to an
explicit concept — or virtually — when the meaning is derived by a reasoning process). The “consequent
sense” corresponds to the virtually implicit sense.

177

Cf. D. Unger, art. cit., pp. 107-108. As applied to Gen. 3:15, cf. bibliography in Eric May, O.F.M.Cap., The
Scriptural Basis for Mary’s Spiritual Maternity, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, p. 114 ff. R. Galdós, S.J.,
María en la Biblia, in Cultura Bíblica, Vol. 3, 1946, pp. 113-115, contends that theologians of note limit Old
Testament texts, which are applicable literally to Mary, to Isa. 7:14. He adds that “enthusiastic
Marianophilists” (like Roschini) also try to bring forward texts like Gen. 3:15 and Jer. 31:22.

178

Cf. particularly E. F. Sutcliffe, S.J., The Meaning of the Old Testament, in A Catholic Commentary on Holy
Scripture (henceforth: CCHS) (London, 1953), pp. 127-132; Augustin Bea, S.J., Das Marienbild des Alten
Bundes, in Katholische Marienkunde (ed. P. Sträter), Vol. 1 (Paderborn, 1952), pp. 22-43.

179

“In Vetere Testamento Novum latet, et in Novo Vetus patet,” Quaest. in Hept., II, 73; PL, 34, 623.

180

Along similar lines cf. Eric May, O.F.M.Cap., Ecce Agnus Dei (Washington, D. C., 1947), pp. 100-108 and 123-129, for John the Baptist’s advanced knowledge regarding the expiatory death of Christ.

181

J. Arendzen, Our Lady in the Old Testament, in Our Blessed Lady (Cambridge Summer School Lectures
for 1933) (London, 1934), pp. 10-11.

182

Charles Moeller, The Virgin Mary in Contemporary Thought, in Lumen Vitae, Vol. 8, 1953, p. 191.

183

Charles Moeller, Doctrinal Aspects of Mariology, in Lumen Vitae, Vol. 8, 1953, p. 227.

184

The following are a few examples of how the biblical theme motif has been applied to Marian doctrine. A
general article is that of Ermenegildo Florit, Maria nell’Esegesi Biblica Contemporanea, in Studi Mariani,
Vol. 1, 1942-1943, pp. 87-90. In particular, for the universal Mediation of Mary, cf. Joseph Bover, S.J.,
Universalis B. Virginis mediatio ex Proto-evangelio (Gen. 3:14-15) demonstrata, in Gregorianum, Vol. 5,
1924, pp. 569-583; for the spiritual Maternity of Mary, cf. E. May, O.F.M.Cap., The Scriptural Basis for Mary’s
Spiritual Maternity, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 111-141; for the Assumption, cf. Bonaventura
Mariani, O.F.M., L’Assunzione di Maria SS. nella Sacra Scrittura, in Atti del Congresso Nazionale Mariano
dei Frati Minori d’ltalia (Studia Mariana, 1) (Roma, 1948), pp. 456-468; for Mary as Spouse of the Divine
Word, cf. C. Moeller, Doctrinal Aspects of Mariology, pp. 236-238, and F.-M. Braun, Marie Mère des fidèles.
Essai de théologie johannique (Paris, 1952). — Cf. also J. Levie, Les limites de la preuve d’Ecriture Sainte en
théologie, in Nouvelle Revue Théologique, Vol. 71, 1949, pp. 1009-1029.

185

For the purposes of bibliography in this treatise, we have been forced to select only the more noteworthy and
pertinent books and articles. The most recent and most complete volume on the Protoevangelium is the study
by Dominic J. Unger, O.F.M.Cap., The First-Gospel, Genesis 3:15 (St. Bonaventure, N. Y., Franciscan Institute,
1954).

186

E.g., Antonine De Guglielmo, O.F.M., Mary in the Protoevangelium, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol.
14, 1952, pp. 104-115; Léon Leloir, La Médiation Mariale dans la théologie contemporaine (Bruges, 1933),
pp. 87-90; B. Brodmann, O.F.M., Quid doceat S.S. utriusque Testamenti de indole historica narrationis de
paradiso et lapsu Gen. 2-3, in Antonianum, Vol. 12, 1937, p. 355.

187

Fulgens Corona as translated in The Catholic Mind, Vol. 51, 1953, p. 739. (Is it possible that by the phrase
“earliest tradition” His Holiness may have meant to go as far back as the primitive tradition of the Old
Dispensation?) More than a few authors have stated in so many words that the Church is morally unanimous
today in its Mariological interpretation of Gen. 3:15. On this point, cf. A. Bea, S.J., Maria SS. nel
Protoevangelo (Gen. 3, 15), in Marianum, Vol. 15, 1953, pp. 1-21; M. Peinador, C.M.F., De argumento
scripturistico in Mariologia, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 1, 1951, p. 337; V. Bertelli, Il senso
mariologico pieno e il senso letterale del Protoevangelo (Gen. 3, 15) dalla ‘Ineffabilis Deus’ al 1948, in
Marianum, Vol. 13, 1951, pp. 369-395. The latter concludes: “Abbiamo detto che si può dunque intendere
mariologicamente il Protoevangelo. Ma oseremmo dire anche di più: che si deve interpretare in tal senso” (p.
395).

188

E. Sutcliffe, S.J., Protoevangelium, in The Clergy Review, Vol. 2, 1931, pp. 155-159; G. Repetti, La tipologia
mariana nel Protoevangelio, in Divus Thomas, Vol. 14, 1937, p. 289; J. Dougherty, The Fall and Its
Consequences, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 3, 1941, pp. 230-231; A. Robert, P.S.S., La Sainte
Vierge dans l’Ancien Testament, in Du Manoir’s Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), p. 35.

189

T. Gallus, S.J., sees the whole context as a continued metaphor. Mary is in the text figuratively or
metaphorically, the so-called “allegorico-dogmatic” sense; Beata Virgo Maria Protoevangelio praesignata, in
Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 11, 1953, pp. 58-67. This author has written extensively on the Protoevangelium. Cf.
e.g.: Interpretatio mariologica Protoevangelii (Gen. 3, 15) tempore post-patristico usque ad Concilium
Tridentinum (Romae, 1949); Observationes ad “Novam Protoevangelii mariologicam interpretationem,” in
Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 2, 1952, pp. 425-437; Interpretatio mariologica Protoevangelii post-tridentina
… , pars prior: a Concilio Trid. usque ad annum 1660 (Romae, 1953). Cf. also J. R. García, C.M.F., Glosas
crítico exegéticas. II, María en el Protoevangelio (Gen. 3:15), in Cultura Bíblica, Vol. 8, 1951, pp. 193-197.

190

E.g., Teófilo de Orbiso, O.F.M.Cap., La Mujer del Protoevangelio, in Estudios Bíblicos, Vol. 1, 1941, pp. 187-207; J. Trinidad, S.J., Quomodo praenuntietur Maria in Gen 3:15? in Verbum Domini, Vol. 19, 1939, p. 357;
M. de Jonghe, De Protoevangelio, in Collationes Brugenses, Vol. 29, 1929, esp. p. 435; F. Ceuppens, O.P.,
Mariologia Biblica (Romae, 1951), p. 17.

191

Cf. Francis X. Peirce, S.J., Mary Alone is “the Woman” of Genesis 3, 15, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly,
Vol. 2, 1940, pp. 245-252; idem, The Woman of Genesis, in The Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 103, 1940, p. 94
ff.; idem, The Protoevangelium, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 13, 1951, pp. 239-252; A. Vitti, S.J.,
Maria negli splendori della Teologia Biblica, in La Civiltà Cattolica, Vol. 3, 1942, pp. 193-201; Michael von
Neukirch, O.F.M.Cap., Kleine theologisch-praktische Mariologie (Leipzig, 1925), pp. 19-20; G. Roschini,
O.S.M., La Madonna secondo la Fede e la Teologia, Vol. 2 (Romae, 1953), p. 49 ff.; Theophilus ab Orbiso,
O.F.M.Cap., Sancti Laurentii Brundusini quaedam de theologica biblica quaestiones, in Collectanea
Franciscana, Vol. 22, 1952, pp. 251-280. A further elaborate bibliography will be found in Juniper Carol,
O.F.M., De Corredemptione B. V. Mariae (Civitas Vaticana, 1950), pp. 86-91.

192

Fr. Peirce, S.J., Protoevangelium, loc. cit., p. 251, quite correctly ridicules the idea, as proposed (for
example) by Fr. Ceuppens in his Quaestiones selectae ex Historia primaeva (Romae, 1947), p. 197.

193

Cf. Dominic Unger, O.F.M.Cap., Mary Immaculate, the Bull Ineffabilis Deus of Pope Pius IX (Paterson, N.
J., 1946), pp. 10-11 and note on p. 30.

194

As is well known, the Vulgate reading of verse 15c is: “Ipsa conteret caput tuum” — “She shall crush your
head.” Philologically, this is an incorrect rendition of the Hebrew hû’ (“he”). Theologically, though, as a strict
traditional argument it has great value, linking the Blessed Mother with her divine Son in the perfect victory
over Satan. Cf. E. Gallagher, S.J., Evaluation of the Arguments in favor of Mary’s Co-redemption, in Marian
Studies, Vol. 2, 1951, p. 109; L. Kösters, S.J., article Maria, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Vol. 6
(Freiburg i/Br., 1934), col. 887.

195

“D’une façon générale on peut dire que l’emploi de l’article en hébreu est assez flottant. En poésie l’emploi
de l’article est très libre. …” Paul Joüon, S.J., Grammaire de l’Hébreu Biblique (Rome, 1947), p. 421. The
author then goes on to show how the article can express perfect determination, lack of determination, or
imperfect determination.

196

Fr. Peirce, S.J., Protoevangelium, pp. 239-240.

197

Cf. Dominic Unger, O.F.M.Cap., Franciscan Christology, Absolute and Universal Primacy, in Franciscan
Studies, Vol. 2, 1942, pp. 454-458.

198

As we have noted elsewhere (Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, p. 121), we can see one real difficulty with a
restriction of Satan’s seed to the individual sense. In Apoc. 12:9 we find other devils associated with Satan,
and this in a passage which evidently alludes to Gen. 3:15.

199

E.g., for the Immaculate Conception, cf. Jaime Lladó, El Proto-Evangelio y la Inmaculada, in Cultura
Bíblica, Vol. 5, 1948, pp. 344-345; for the Coredemption, cf. J. Carol, O.F.M., De Corredemptione B. V. Mariae
(Civitas Vaticana, 1950), pp. 86-91; N. García Garcés, C.M.F., Mater Corredemptrix (Romae, 1940), esp. pp.
30-33; for Mary’s spiritual Maternity, cf. Eric May, O.F.M.Cap., The Scriptural Basis for Mary’s Spiritual
Maternity, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 111-141; J. Bover, S.J., Universalis B. Virginis mediatio ex
Protoevangelio (Gen. 3, 15) demonstrata, in Gregorianum, Vol. 5, 1924, pp. 271-272; for the Assumption, cf.
F. S. Mueller, S.J., Origo divino-apostolica doctrinae evectionis B. Virginis ad gloriam coelestem quoad
corpus (Oeniponte, 1930), esp. pp. 58-63; R. W. Gleason, Studies on the Assumption: 3. The Assumption and
Scripture, in Thought, Vol. 26, 1951, pp. 533-539.

200

Besides the standard commentaries on Isaias, a list of recent specialized sources would include: Hubert
Vecchierello, O.F.M., The Virgin Birth of Christ (Paterson, N. J., 1932); Heinisch-Heidt, O.S.B., Theology of
the Old Testament (Collegeville, Minn., 1950), pp. 305-307; C. C. Martindale, S.J., Mother in Israel, in The
Mary Book (New York, 1950), pp. 10-11; T. E. Bird, Who is ‘The Boy’ in Isaias 7:16? in The Catholic Biblical
Quarterly, Vol. 6, 1944, pp. 435-443; E. Power, S.J., The Emmanuel Prophecy of Isaias, in The Irish
Ecclesiastical Record, Vol. 70, 1948, pp. 289-304; idem, Isaias, in CCHS, esp. pp. 546-548; A. Vaccari, S.J.,
De Signo Emmanuelis Is 7 in Verbum Domini, Vol. 17, 1937, pp. 45-49, 75-81; Schaefer-Brossart, The Mother
of Jesus in Holy Scripture (New York, 1913), p. 18 ff.; Hipólito Arias, C.J.M., La Virgen Madre en Isaías, in
Cathedra, Vol. 4, 1950, pp. 413-421.

201

E.g., the Anglican L. S. Thornton, The Mother of God in Holy Scripture, in E. L. Mascall (ed.), The Mother
of God, a Symposium (Westminster, 1949), p. 21.

202

In his brief Divina, September 20, 1779; Enchiridion Biblicum, No. 59.

203

C. Lattey, S.J., The Term Almah in Isa. 7:14, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 9, 1947, pp. 89-95.

204

Review of A. Feuillet, Le Signe proposé à Achaz et l’Emmanuel (Isaïe, 7, 10-25), in Recherches de Science
Religieuse (April, 1940), pp. 129-151. Peirce’s review appeared in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol.
104, 1941, pp. 80-84. Cf. also E. Power, Isaias, in CCHS, pp. 547-548.

205

Cf. W. McClellan, S.J., El Gibbor, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 6, 1944, pp. 276-288.

206

Yet, according to C. P. Caspari, “Es möchte kaum zwei prophetische Schriften geben, die in allen
Beziehungen in einer so starken Verwandtschaft mit einander stehen, als das Buch Micha’s und das Jesaja’s.”
Über Micha den Morasthiten und seine Prophetische Schrift (Christiana, 1852), p. 444.

207

Cf. P. L. Suárez, C.M.F., Un texto mariológico en Miqueas, in Cultura Bíblica, Vol. 10, 1953, pp. 247-248;
H. Arias, C.J.M., La Virgen Madre en Isaías, in Cathedra, Vol. 4, 1950, p. 419 (where he maintains that Mich.
5:2 is unintelligible apart from Isa. 7:14); Schaefer-Brossart, The Mother of God in Holy Scripture, pp. 56-58;
Gaspare de Stéfani, Maria Santissima nell’Antico Testamento, nella sua vita e nella vita della Chiesa (Torino,
[n.d.]), pp. 68-70; A. Vitti, S.J., Maria negli splendori della Teologia Biblica, in La Civiltà Cattolica, Vol. 3,
1942, pp. 193-201; E. Rosales, O.F.M., La Realeza de Maria en las Sagradas Escrituras, in Actas del
Congreso Asuncionista Franciscano de América Latina (Buenos Aires, 1950), pp. 217-218; Heinisch-Heidt,
Theology of the Old Testament, pp. 305-307.

208

Kevin Smyth, S.J., Micheas, in CCHS, p. 675.

209

F. Ceuppens, O.P., however, holds that Jer. 31:22 is to be considered messianic by reason of context, without
any reference here to the Person of Messias, much less to His conception in Mary’s virginal womb. The text,
he says, concerns the conversion of the faithless Israelitic people (the spouse) to Yahweh her God in the
messianic era, which will be truly “a new thing upon the earth.” De Prophetiis Messianicis, pp. 428-433.

210

F. Ceuppens, O.P., ibid.; also in his Mariologia Biblica (Romae, 1951), pp. 48-54; A. Robert, P.S.S., La
Sainte Vierge dans l’Ancien Testament, pp. 24-26; R. Galdós, S.J., Maria en la Biblia, in Cultura Bíblica, Vol.
3, 1946, pp. 113-115.

211

C. Lattey, S.J., Jeremias, in CCHS, p. 584; Schaefer-Brossart, The Mother of Jesus in Holy Scripture, pp.
58-62; Anton Scholz, Commentar zum Buche des Propheten Jeremias, 1880, p. 368 ff.; M. Scheeben-T.
Geukers, Mariology, Vol. I, (St. Louis, 1946), pp. 18-19.

212

E.g., Fr. Closen, S.J., in an article in Verbum Domini, Vol. 16, 1936, pp. 295-304, translated the pertinent
phrase “mulier viro providet” and found its ultimate verification in Mary.

213

C. Lattey, Jeremias, in CCHS, p. 584.

214

Anton Scholz, op. cit., p. 368.

215

Cf. D. Buzy, Le Cantique des Cantiques (Paris, 1949), p. 29 ff.; Juan G. Arintero, Cantar de los Cantares
(Salamanca, 1926), Introducción; Pouget-Guitton-Lilly, The Canticle of Canticles (New York, 1948), pp. 144-145; P. P. Saydon, The Canticle of Canticles, in CCHS, pp. 497-498; Paschal Parente, The Canticle of Canticles
in Mystical Theology, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 6, 1944, pp. 142-158; Alfonso Rivera, C.M.F.,
Sentido Mariológico del Cantar de los Cantares? in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 1, 1951, pp. 437-468;
Vol. 2, 1952, pp. 25-42. Rivera gives as the conclusion to the first part of his article: “Admitimos como
verdadero, junto con el sentido eclesiológico, el sentido mariano del Ct., con la probabilidad y fuerza que le
da la interpretación tradicional y moralmente unánime de la exégesis cristiana, confirmada por el análisis
interno y los criterios de analogía exegética del Ct.” (p. 468).

216

Charles Moeller, Doctrinal Aspects of Mariology, in Lumen Vitae, Vol. 8, 1953, pp. 236-238. D. Buzy calls
the Canticle of Canticles “the fourth Gospel of the Old Testament”; ibid., p. 33.

217

Cf. E. Power, S.J., Ezechiel, in CCHS, p. 619. Some patristic quotations are available in Schaefer-Brossart,
The Mother of Jesus in Holy Scripture, p. 63 ff. Schaefer himself concludes: “This application [of Ezech. 44:2
to Mary] is made in such a manner that the conviction becomes evident that such a reference to Mary was also
intended by the Holy Ghost.”

218

E.g., Eduardo Rosales, O.F.M., La Realeza de María en las Sagradas Escrituras, in Actas del Congreso
Asuncionista Franciscano de América Latina (Buenos Aires, 1950), pp. 216-217. He thinks the prophecy
refers to the Messias in the literal, express sense, and to Mary in the implicit, literal sense

219

Simon-Prado, Praelectiones Biblicae. Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 1 (Taurini, 1949), p. 463.

220

Thus, Eduardo Rosales, O.F.M., La Realeza de María, pp. 218-220. E. C. Messenger, Our Lady in the
Scriptures, in CCHS, p. 114, likewise thinks that the (primary) collective meaning of the Spouse does not
exclude the “application” of the text to the King’s Mother, Mary. However, Eustace Smith, O.F.M., doubts the
Marian verification; The Scriptural Basis for Mary’s Queenship, in Marian Studies, Vol. 4, 1953, p. 114.

221

Esther as a Type of Our Lady, in Sheed’s The Mary Book (New York, 1950), pp. 15-16.

222

Mary Immaculate, The Bull Ineffabilis Deus of Pope Pius IX, translated and annotated by Dominic Unger,
O.F.M.Cap. (Paterson, N. J., 1946), pp. 11-12.

223

Ibid., p. 14.

224

Cf. esp. Fr. Canice, O.F.M.Cap., Mary, a Study of the Mother of God (Dublin, 1950), Chap. 3; M. J.
Scheeben, Mariology, Vol. 1 (St. Louis, 1946), p. 35 ff. For a fuller development of Eve as a type of Mary, cf.
Francis Friedel, The Mariology of Cardinal Newman (New York, 1928), Chap. 2.

225

Op. cit., pp. 1, 3. The Holy Father’s words are: “For this reason the very words by which the Sacred
Scriptures speak of Uncreated Wisdom, and by which they represent His eternal origin, the Church has been
accustomed to use not only in the ecclesiastical offices but also in the Sacred Liturgy [the Eucharistic
Sacrifice], applying them to this Virgin’s origin.”

226

Cf. Eric May, O.F.M.Cap., The Logos in the Old Testament, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 8, 1946,
esp. p. 442 ff.; also E. C. Messenger, Our Lady in the Scriptures, in CCHS, p. 114. In a rather unique way,
Scheeben in his Mariology, Vol. 1, pp. 22-35, makes an attempt to reconcile the reference to both Eternal
Wisdom and to Mary in this Wisdom literature.

227

Fulgens Corona, as translated in The Catholic Mind, Vol. 51, 1953, p. 739.

228

E.g., cf. Raphael Huber, O.F.M.Conv., The Mariology of St. Anthony of Padua, in Studia Mariana, 7
(Burlington, Wis., 1952), pp. 188-268. St. Anthony gave Mary affectionate titles like “Paradise of Humanity,”
“Rainbow in the Heavens,” “Lily and Rose,” “Door of Paradise,” etc. — based on texts like Gen. 2:8 and 9:13;
Ecclus. 50:8; Osee 14:6; 3 Kings 6:25.

229

Fulgens Corona; loc. cit., p. 742.

230

Cf. J. M. Abel, Géographie de la Palestine, Vol. 2 (Paris, 1938), p. 395. Cf. also the standard guides to
Palestine such as Meistermann, Bädeker, etc.

231

M. J. James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1926).

232

As quoted by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3, 11, 2.

233

J. Bonsirven, Le Judaïsme palestinien, Vol. 2 (Paris, 1935), p. 213.

234

Cf. Bonsirven, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 139, 141-143.

235

Pss. 119-133 (120-134). Cf. Bonsirven, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 119, 139, 147-148.

236

Cf. P. Gächter, The Chronology from Mary’s Betrothal to the Birth of Christ, in Theological Studies, Vol. 2,
1941, pp. 347-368; U. Holzmeister, De nuptiis S. Joseph, in Verbum Domini, Vol. 25, 1947, pp. 145-149; E.
Neubert, La chronologie depuis les fiançailles de Marie jusqu’à la naissance du Christ, in Marianum, Vol.
4, 1942, pp. 10-20.

237

Cf. Bonsirven, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 209; W. L. Strack and P. L. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament
aus Talmud und Midrash, Vol. 2 (München, 1924), pp. 377-378.

238

Cf. Bonsirven, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 208.

239

Cf. Strack-Billerbeck, op. cit., p. 375; Bonsirven, loc. cit.

240

Cf. Strack-Billerbeck, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 379.

241

Carlo Cecchelli, Mater Christi, Vol. 2 (Romae, 1948), pp. 51-52.

242

St. Jerome, De virginitate perpetua B. Mariae adversus Helvidium. PL, 23, 203AB, 213B.

243

Strack-Billerbeck, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 384-394.

244

Cf. ibid., p. 393.

245

Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 504-518, on Mt. 9:5; p. 879, on Mt. 22:2.

246

Cf. D. Frangipane, Utrum B. V. Maria ab angelo salutata jam in domo Joseph ut conjux fuerit, in Verbum
Domini, Vol. 25, 1947, pp. 99-111.

247

S. Lyonnet, Chairē Kecharitōměne, in Biblica, Vol. 20, 1939, pp. 131-141; cf. R. Bernard, L’évangile de
l’Annonciation, in La Sainte Vierge, figure de l’Eglise (Paris, 1946), pp. 7-40.

248

Cf. L. Cerfaux, Gratia plena, in Mémoires et Rapports du Congrès Marial tenu à Bruxelles (1921), Vol. 1
(Bruxelles, 1922), pp. 34-40.

249

Cf. U. Holzmeister, “Dominus tecum,” in Verbum Domini, Vol. 23, 1943, pp. 257-262.

250

Cf. the verbs in Lk. 1:12, 29.

251

Cf. J. J. Collins, Our Lady’s Vow of Virginity, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 5, 1943, pp. 371-381.

252

Cf. H. Rongy, La conception surnaturelle et virginale du Christ d’après Saint Luc, in Mémoires et Rapports
du Congrès Marial tenu à Bruxelles (1921), Vol. 1 (Bruxelles, 1922), pp. 21-33.

253

Cf. H. Barré, Le consentement à l’Incarnation rédemptrice, in Marianum, Vol. 14, 1952, pp. 233-266; J. M.
Bover, Virginis consensus fuitne vera Corredemptio? in Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 2 (Romae, 1952), pp. 164-176; A.-M. Malo, Données de l’évangile de S. Luc pour la Corédemption de Marie, ibid., pp. 178-183.

254

Cf. F. Ogara, De doctrina mariana in visitationis mysterio contenta (Lk. 1:39-56), in Verbum Domini, Vol.
17, 1937, pp. 199-204, 225-233, 289-295.

255

R. Rábanos, ¿De donde a mi esto, que la Madre de mi Señor venga a mi? (Lk. 1:43), in Estudios Marianos,
Vol. 8, 1949, pp. 9-27.

256

Cf. J. De Kaulenaer, De Cantico “Magnificat,” in Collectanea Mechliniensia, Vol. 8, 1934, pp. 542-547; G.
Fregentino, Il Magnificat nei commenti dei Santi Padri, Siena, 1939; P. Luis Suárez, Soteriología del
Magnificat, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 3, 1953, pp. 447-466.

257

Cf. R. Bulbeck, The Doubt of St. Joseph, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 10, 1948, pp. 296-309.

258

Hegesippus; cf. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3, 11, 2; 4, 22, 4.

259

St. Jerome, De perpetua virginitate B. Mariae adversus Helvidium. PL, 23, 185-206.

260

Cf. Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, s.v.

261

Cf. Madeleine S. Miller and J. Lane Miller, Encyclopedia of Bible Life (New York, 1944), p. 60.

262

Ibid., pp. 26, 248; Ill. 21.

263

Cf. Strack-Billerbeck, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 129, note b.

264

Cf. J. Fernández, El encuentro de Simeón y Ana con Jesús. Su testimonio, in Cultura Bíblica, Vol. 5, 1948,
pp. 338-343; C. De Koninck, La prophétie de Siméon et la compassion de la Vierge Mere, in Alma Socia
Christi, Vol. 2 (Romae, 1952), pp. 184-191.

265

The Greek word translated “stature” means also “years,” “age.”

266

Cf. Strack-Billerbeck, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 141-149.

267

Ibid., p. 149.

268

Cf. J. M. Bover, Una nueva interpretación de Lc. 2:50, in Estudios Bíblicos, Vol. 10 (seg. ép.), 1951, pp. 205-215.

269

Cf. Walter Bauer, Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament (Berlin, 1952), s.v.

270

See, for example, T. Gallus, “Quid mihi et tibi, mulier? Nondum venit hora mea” (Jn. 2, 4): potestne intelligi
tamquam allusio? in Verbum Domini, Vol. 22, 1942, pp. 41-50.

271

For an analysis of all the scriptural passages concerned, cf. Paul Gächter, Maria im Erdenleben (Innsbruck,
1953), pp. 171-177.

272

Cf., for example, F.-M. Braun, La Mère de Jésus dans l’oeuvre de saint Jean, in Revue Thomiste, Vol. 50,
1950, pp. 429-479; Vol. 51, 1951, pp. 5-68; J. Leal, La hora de Jésus, la hora de su Madre (Jo. 2, 4), in
Estudios Eclesiásticos, Vol. 26, 1952, pp. 147-168.

273

Cf. O. Rodriguez, “Qui sunt fratres mei” (Mt. 12, 48), in Verbum Domini, Vol. 5, 1925, pp. 132-137.

274

Cf. R. Rábanos, La Corredención de María en la Sagrada Escritura, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 2, 1943,
esp. pp. 51-59.

275

Cf., among others: J. Corluy, Commentarius in Evangelium Joannis (Gandavi, 1889), p. 511; J.
Knabenbauer, Evangelium sec. Joannem (Parisiis, 1898), pp. 546-547; A. Durand, Evangile selon Saint Jean
(Paris, 1938), p. 493; W. Newton, A Commentary on the New Testament (Catholic Biblical Association of
America, 1942), p. 357; F. Ceuppens, De Mariologia Biblica, ed. 2 (Taurini, 1951), pp. 199-202; H. Lennerz,
De Beata Virgine (Romae, 1939), p. 127.

276

Cf., for example, F. X. Maszl, Erklärung der hl. Schriften des Neuen Testamentes, Vol. 5 (Wien, 1841), pp.
433-435; Loch-Reischl, Die Heiligen Schriften des N.T., Vol. 1 (Regensburg, 1899), p. 387; Lusseau-Collomb,
Manuel d’Etudes Bibliques, Vol. 4 (Paris, 1932), p. 851.

277

Cf. E. Legnani, De theologica certitudine Maternitatis B. M. Virginis quoad fideles juxta Christi verba
“Mulier, ecce filius tuus” (Venetiis, 1899), p. 27; Hilary of St. Ahatha, Beatissimae Virginis Maternitas
universalis in verbis Jesu morientis: “Ecce filius tuus … ecce mater tua,” in Teresianum, 1933, pp. 105-151;
1934, pp. 194-249; J. Prado, Praelectiones Biblicarum Compendium, Vol. 3 (Taurini, 1942), p. 446; R.
Rábanos, La maternidad espiritual de Maria en el Protoevangelio y San Juan, in Estudios Marianos, Vol.
7, 1948, pp. 15-50; J. Leal, Beata Virgo omnium spiritualis Mater ex Jn. 19, 26-27, in Verbum Domini, Vol.
27, 1949, pp. 65-73; E. May, The Scriptural Basis for Mary’s Spiritual Maternity, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3,
1952, pp. 125-130; G. M. Roschini, La Madonna secondo la fede e la teologia, Vol. 2 (Roma, 1953), pp. 245-253.

278

J. M. Bover, Mulier, ecce filius tuus, in Verbum Domini, Vol. 4, 1924, p. 340; D. Unger, in his review of
Katholische Marienkunde, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 125, 1951, pp. 239-240; P. Gächter,
Die geistige Mutterschaft Marias; ein Beitrag zur Erklärung von Jo 19, 26f., in Zeitschrift für katholische
Theologie, Vol. 47, 1923, pp. 391-429; T. Gallus, “Mulier, ecce filius tuus,” in Verbum Domini, Vol. 21, 1941,
pp. 289-297.

279

The various Papal references to this biblical passage may be found in the exhaustive dissertation of G. W.
Shea, The Teaching of the magisterium on Mary’s Spiritual Maternity, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp.
35-110, esp. 68-69, 92-93.

280

Others are of a different opinion. Cf., for example, Card. A. H. Lépicier, Diatessaron, Vol. 4 (Roma, 1927),
p. 177.

281

On this interesting controversy cf. F. Tallachini, Un silenzio nel Vangelo, in Palestra del Clero, Vol. 19, 1940,
p. 201; G. Gherardi, Per un silenzio nel Vangelo, ibid., pp. 233-235; G. M. Roschini, Intorno all’apparizione
di Gesu risorto alla sua Ss. Madre, ibid., pp. 235-246; V. Buffon, A proposito di una recente controversia
mariologica, in Marianum, Vol. 2, 1940, pp. 410-424; U. Holzmeister, Num Christus post resurrectionem
suae Ss. Matri apparuerit, in Verbum Domini, Vol. 22, 1942, pp. 97-102; id., Der Auferstandene und seine
heiligste Mutter, in Klerusblatt, Vol. 24, 1943, pp. 238-240; J. Blinzler, Der Auferstandene und seine Mutter,
ibid., pp. 113-116; id., Nochmals zur Frage der Christophanie vor Maria, ibid., p. 240 ff.; A. M. Schuhmaier,
Controversia de Christophania B. M. Virgini die resurrectionis concessa, in Marianum, Vol. 8, 1946, pp. 147-151.

282

The various opinions on this may be grouped as follows: (A) Those who favor the exclusive ecclesiological
interpretation, for example, J. Bonsirven, L’Apocalypse de saint Jean, in Verbum Salutis, Vol. 16, 1951, pp.
213-221; J. S. Considine, A Commentary on the New Testament (Catholic Biblical Association of America,
1942), p. 669; C. Rösch, Mulier, draco et bestiae in Apoc. 12:13, in Verbum Domini, Vol. 8, 1928, p. 271. (B)
Those who claim that the “woman” is Mary alone, for example, J.-F. Bonnefoy, Les interprétations
ecclésiologiques du ch. XII de l’Ap., in Marianum, Vol. 9, 1947, pp. 208-222; id., Le mystère de Marie selon
le Protévangile et l’Apocalypse (Paris, 1949); T. Gallus, Scholion ad “mulierem” Apocalypseos (12, 1), in
Verbum Domini, Vol. 30, 1952, pp. 332-340. (C) Those who believe that the “woman” is both Our Lady and
the Church in a literal sense, aliter atque aliter. For example: E. B. Allo, Saint Jean — L’Apocalypse, ed. 3
(Paris, 1933), p. 194; G. Perrella, Senso mariologico dell’Apocalisse XII, in Divus Thomas (Pl.), Vol. 43, 1940,
pp. 215-223; L. Di Fonzo, Intorno al senso mariologico dell’ Apocalisse, c. XII, in Marianum, Vol. 3, 1941, pp.
248-268; E. May, The Scriptural Basis for Mary’s Spiritual Maternity, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp.
131-135; A. Rivera, “Inimicitias ponas …” — “Signum magnum apparuit …” (Gen. 3, 15; Apoc. 12, 1), in
Verbum Domini, Vol. 21, 1941, pp. 113-122, 183-189; D. Unger, Did St. John See the Virgin Mary in Glory?
in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 11, 1949, pp. 248-262, 392-405; Vol. 12, 1950, pp. 74-83, 155-161, 292-300, 405-415 (a complete review of the patristic exegesis of this passage); B. Le Frois, The Woman Clothed
with the Sun, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 126, March 1952, pp. 161-180. The author has
recently published an exhaustive book on the same subject: The Woman Clothed with the Sun (Rome, 1954).

283

For further study on Our Lady in the New Testament the following authors may be consulted with profit:
Msgr. E. Florit, Maria nell’esegesi biblica contemporanea, in Studi Mariani, Vol. 1, 1943, pp. 83-132; G.
Hilion, La Sainte Vierge dans le Nouveau Testament, in Maria. Études sur la Ste. Vierge (ed. H. du Manoir),
Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 43-68; R. Knox, Our Lady in the New Testament, in Our Blessed Lady (London:
Cambridge Summer School Lectures for 1933, 1934), pp. 48-67; C. Lattey, Our Lady’s Gospel, ibid., pp. 18-47;
J. Leal, La Virgen en et Evangelio, in Cultura Bíblica, Vol. 9, 1952, pp. 115-116, 215-217; A. Merk, Das
Marienbild des Neuen Bundes, in Katholische Marienkunde (ed. P. Sträter), Vol. 1 (Paderborn, 1947), pp. 44-84; M. Peinador, La Sagrada Escritura en la Mariología durante los ultimos veinticinco años. Problemas
suscitados y avances realizados, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 11, 1951, pp. 17-58; M. Sánchez del Villar, María
según el Evangelio … in Crónica Oficial del Congreso Mariano Hispano-Americano de Sevilla (Madrid,
1930), pp. 622-725; A Schäfer, The Mother of Jesus in Holy Scripture (New York, 1913).

284

J. H. Newman, A Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on His Recent Eirenicon, 3 ed. (London, 1866), pp. 33-34.

285

For a brief treatment of the texts in question, cf. M. A. Nauwelaerts, De Maria nova Heva doctrina patrum
antenicaenorum, in Divus Thomas (Piacenza), Vol. 34, 1931, pp. 480-491; E. Neubert, Marie dans l’église
anténicéenne (Paris, 1908), pp. 240-254; also the literature cited below, footnotes 17 and 18. For background,
and the atmosphere in which the usage of the Eve-Mary analogy developed, cf. W. Staerk, Eva — Maria. Ein
Beitrag zur Denk und Sprechweise der altkirchlichen Christologie, in Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche
Wissenschaft, Vol. 33, 1934, pp. 97-104.

286

Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone, cap. 100; PG, 6, 709-712.

287

This is simply one aspect of Irenaeus’ theology of recapitulation; cf. A. d’Alès, La doctrine de la
récapitulation en saint Irénée, in Recherches de science religieuse, Vol. 6, 1916, pp. 185-211. For the Mariology
of Irenaeus, cf. J. Garçon, La mariologie de s. Irénée (Lyon, 1932); B. Przybylski, De mariologia s. Irenaei
Lugdunensis (Romae, 1937); N. F. Moholy, Saint Irenaeus: The Father of Mariology, in Studia Mariana, Vol.
7: First Franciscan National Marian Congress in Acclamation of the Dogma of the Assumption [1950]
(Burlington, Wis., 1952), 129-187.

288

Cf. E. Druwé, La médiation universelle de Marie, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir,
Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), p. 462.

289

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 32, 1 (Massuet 3, 22, 4); ed. W. W. Harvey (Cantabrigiae, 1857), Vol.
2, 123-124; PG, 7, 958-959.

290

Ibid., lib. 5, cap. 19, 1; Harvey, 2, 375-376; PG, 7, 1175-1176. Essentially the same idea is present in Irenaeus’
Demonstratio apostolicae praedicationis, cap. 33; Patrologia Orientalis, Vol. 12, 684-685; cf. the careful
translation from the Armenian by J. P. Smith, in Ancient Christian Writers, Vol. 16 (Westminster, Md., 1952),
69. This is significant, because the Demonstratio is not a polemical but a catechetical work, which reveals how
Christianity was presented to the people of Lyons at the end of the second century; cf. A. Harnack, in Texte
und Untersuchungen, Vol. 31, n. 1 (Leipzig, 1907), pp. 65-66.

291

Cf. J. B. Carol, O.F.M., De Corredemptione beatae Virginis Mariae. Disquisitio positiva (Civitas Vaticana,
1950), p. 38.

292

Tertullian, De carne Christi, cap. 17; C.S.E.L., 70, 233.

293

Cf., e.g., Ephraem, De diversis sermonibus, 3: De laudibus Dei genitricis Mariae; Opera omnia syr. et lat.,
Vol. 3 (Romae, 1743), 607; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, 12, 15; PG, 33, 741; Epiphanius, Panarion, haer.
78, n. 18; G.C.S., 37, 468-469; John Chrysostom, Expositio in ps. 44, n. 7; PG, 55, 193; John Damascene, Hom.
1 in nativitatem beatae Virginis Mariae, n. 7; PG, 96, 672.

294

Ambrose, Epist. 63, n. 33; PL, 16, 1249-1250 (ed. 1866); Serm. 45, n. 4; PL, 17, 716 (ed. 1866); this latter text
is taken from a sermon dubiously Ambrosian. For the Mariological teaching of Ambrose, cf. A. Pagnamenta,
La mariologia di S. Ambrogio (Milano, 1932).

295

Jerome, Epist. 22, n. 21; PL, 22, 408. For the Marian doctrine of Jerome, cf. J. Niessen, Die Mariologie des
hl. Hieronymus (Münster, 1913).

296

Augustine, De agone christiano, n. 22 [24]; C.S.E.L., 41, 125. For the Mariology of Augustine, cf. Ph.
Friedrich, Die Mariologie des hl. Augustinus (Köln, 1907).

297

Peter Chrysologus, Serm. 99; PL, 52, 479.

298

Sedulius, Paschale carmen, lib. 2, lines 28-31; C.S.E.L., 10. 46.

299

The coredemptive function of Mary is by no means the only aspect of Marian theology which scholars have
tried to trace to the Eve-Mary analogy of the Fathers; cf., e.g., J. M. Bover, La mediación universal de la
“Segunda Eva,” en la tradición patristica, in Estudios eclesiásticos, Vol. 2, 1923, pp. 321-350; also Bover’s
detailed treatment of Ambrose, La mediación universal de María según S. Ambrosio, in Gregorianum, Vol.
5, 1924, pp. 25-45. Nor is the Eve-Mary parallelism the sole patristic basis on which theologians rest the thesis
of Coredemption. Among others, there are the texts which seem to ascribe to Mary various effects of the
Redemption; cf. the classical, much-controverted passage from Ambrose on Mary’s compassion beneath the
cross: “Suscepit quidem [Christus] affectum parentis, sed non quaesivit alterius auxilium.” Epist. 63, n. 110;
PL, 16, 1271 (ed. 1866); cf. Pagnamenta, op. cit., pp. 369-370; Carol, op. cit., pp. 142-144.

300

Cf., e.g., J. Lebon, L’apostolicité de la doctrine de la médiation mariale, in Recherches de théologie
ancienne et médiévale, Vol. 2, 1930, p. 143; id., Comment je conçois, j’établie et je defends la doctrine de la
médiation mariale, in Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Vol. 16, 1939, pp. 655-744; G. M. Roschini, De
corredemptrice, in Marianum, Vol. 1, 1939, pp. 365-367; F. Solá, La corredención de María en la tradición
patristica, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 2, 1943, p. 68.

301

Cf., e.g., W. Goossens, De cooperatione immediata Matris Redemptoris ad redemptionem obiectivam
(Parisiis, 1939), pp. 109-124; C. Dillenschneider, Marie au service de notre rédemption (Haguenau, 1947),
pp. 268-288; J. Rivière, Marie “corédemptrice”? in Revue des sciences religieuses. Vol. 19, 1939, pp. 339-340;
L. J. Riley, Historical Conspectus of the Doctrine of Mary’s Co-Redemption, in Marian Studies, Vol. 2, 1951,
pp. 46-47. Cf. the unqualified rejection of any patristic basis by H. Lennerz, De cooperatione b. Virginis in ipso
opere redemptionis, in Gregorianum, Vol. 29, 1948, p. 133.

302

Cf. Druwé, art. cit., pp. 464-465. Worth mentioning in this connection are the two passages in which
Irenaeus speaks of Mary as the Virgin who “regenerates” us: Adversus haereses, lib. 4, cap. 52, 1 (Massuet,
4, 33, 4); lib. 4, cap. 55, 2 (Massuet, 4, 33, 11); Harvey, 2, 259, 266; PG, 7, 1074, 1080; cf. P. Galtier, La vierge
qui nous régénère, in Recherches de science religieuse, Vol. 5, 1914, pp. 136-145.

303

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 5, cap. 17, 1; Harvey, 2, 369; PG, 7, 959.

304

Irenaeus, op. cit., lib. 3, cap. 17, 9 (Massuet, 3, 16, 9); Harvey, 2, 91; PG, 7, 959.

305

Irenaeus, op. cit., lib. 3, cap. 32, 1 (Massuet, 3, 22, 4); Harvey, 2, 123-124; PG, 7, 958.

306

Two splendidly sober treatments of the patristic aspect of this problem, especially with reference to the
thought of Irenaeus, are to be found in M. A. Genevois, La maternité universelle de Marie selon saint Irénée,
in Revue thomiste, Vol. 41, 1936, 26-51; and Carol, op. cit., pp. 128-150.

307

Cf. Druwé, art. cit., p. 468; Pope Pius XII, encyclical. Mystici corporis, June 29, 1943; A.A.S., Vol. 35, 1943,
pp. 247-248.

308

Cf. [H. Rondet’s] unsigned Preface to the eighth edition of J.-B. Terrien, La Mère de Dieu et la Mère des
hommes, Part 2, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1950), (9). The Preface is a fine condensation of Marian theology, especially in
its historical growth.

309

Cf. E. Dublanchy, Marie, in D.T.C., Vol. 9, Part 2, 2369-2382, for a brief presentation of the patristic texts.
Precious insights on this and other aspects of early Western Mariology are given by H. Rahner, Die
Marienkunde in der lateinischen Patristik, in Paul Sträter, ed., Katholische Marienkunde, Vol. 1, Maria in der
Offenbarung (Paderborn, 1947), pp. 137-182.

310

Cf. Ignatius, Ad Ephesios, n. 19, 1; ed. K. Bihlmeyer, p. 87; id., Ad Smyrnaeos, n. 1, 1; Bihlmeyer, p. 106;
Aristides, Apologia, n. 2; Texte und Untersuchungen, Vol. 4, Part 3, p. 9.

311

Justin, Apologia 1, cap. 33; PG, 6, 381; cf. tr. by T. B. Falls, in The Fathers of the Church: Saint Justin
Martyr (New York, 1948), pp. 70-71. There is a rather detailed treatment of early Western thought on the
virginal conception of Christ in E. Neubert, op. cit., pp. 57-120.

312

Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone, cap. 84; PG, 6, 673-676; tr. Falls, op. cit., p. 282; cf. Dial., cap. 100; PG,
6, 709-712.

313

Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 23 (Massuet, 3, 21, 1); Harvey, 2, 110; PG, 7, 946.

314

Ibid., lib. 3, cap. 26, 2 (Massuet, 3, 21, 6); Harvey, 2, 118; PG, 7, 953.

315

Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, cap. 13; C.S.E.L., 70, 17-18. A. d’Alès has a compendious section
on Tertullian’s Mariology in La théologie de Tertullien, 3 ed. (Paris, 1905), pp. 192-197.

316

Tertullian, De carne Christi, cap. 17; C.S.E.L., 70, 232-233.

317

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 1, cap. 2 (Massuet, 1, 10, 1); Harvey, 1, 90-91; PG, 7, 549.

318

Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, cap. 13; C.S.E.L., 70, 17-18.

319

Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, cap. 36; C.S.E.L., 70, 45-46.

37 Cf.

320

Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, cap. 20-21; C.S.E.L., 70, 23-25. Tertullian proposes to prove
that the rule of faith in question is derived from the tradition of the Apostles; cf. cap. 22; C.S.E.L., 70, 25.

321

Cf. Hippolytus, Traditio apostolica, n. 73; ed. J. Quasten, Florilegium patristicum, Vol. 7 (Bonnae, 1935),
p. 31. On the textual problem, cf. R. H. Connolly, On the Text of the Baptismal Creed of Hippolytus, in Journal
of Theological Studies, Vol. 25, 1923-1924, pp. 131-139. Dom Connolly believed that the ex, whether due to
translator or subsequent scribe, should be corrected to et; cf. p. 137.

322

Cf. J. C. Plumpe, Some Little-Known Early Witnesses to Mary’s Virginitas in partu, in Theological Studies,
Vol. 9, 1948, p. 568. Some Docetists held that Christ had no genuine human body at all; others admitted a
human body, but insisted that He came with this body from heaven, that He was not born ex virgine but
simply passed per virginem.

323

Cf., e.g., L. Kösters, Maria, die Mutter Jesu, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Vol. 6, 1934, p. 890;
Plumpe, art. cit., p. 567.

324

Cf., e.g., Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone, cap. 100; PG, 6, 712; Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 32,
1 (Massuet, 3, 22, 4); Harvey, 2, 123; PG, 7, 958; Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, cap. 13; C.S.E.L.,
70, 17.

325

Cf. J. Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 1 (Westminster, Md., 1950), p. 27.

326

Augustine, Enchiridion ad Laurentium, cap. 34 [al. cap. 10, n. 34]; PL, 40, 249; tr. L. A. Arand, in Ancient
Christian Writers, Vol. 3 (Westminster, Md., 1947), p. 42.

327

Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, lib. 3, cap. 11; C.S.E.L., 47, 394; cf. Adversus Marcionem, lib. 4, cap. 21;
C.S.E.L., 47, 490-491.

328

Tertullian, De carne Christi, cap. 23; C.S.E.L., 70, 246-247. A. d’Alès, La théologie de Tertullien, p. 197, note
5, says simply that the virginity in childbirth is “affirmed” in De virginibus velandis, cap. 6; PL, 2, 946 (ed.
1866). Tertullian’s involved argumentation in this passage, however, does not seem to warrant d’Alés’
conclusion.

329

Cf. G. Jouassard, Marie à travers la patristique: Maternité divine, virginité, sainteté, in Maria. Études sur
la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 77-78. This whole article, pp. 69-157, is crammed
with information and is unusually rich in discernment; cf. the annotated bibliography, pp. 154-157.

330

Cf. H. Koch, Adhuc virgo (Tübingen, 1929); id., Virgo Eva — Virgo Maria (Berlin und Leipzig, 1937). These
two small volumes provoked spirited reaction from Catholic scholars; cf., e.g., O. Bardenhewer, Zur
Mariologie des hl. Irenäus, in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, Vol. 55, 1931, pp. 600-604; J. Lebon,
review in Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Vol. 34, 1938, pp. 336-345; B. Capelle, “Adhuc virgo” chez saint
Irénée, in Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, Vol. 2, 1930, pp. 388-395.

331

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 30 (Massuet, 3, 21, 10); Harvey, 2, 120; PG, 7, 954-955.

332

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 32, 1 (Massuet, 3, 22, 4); Harvey, 2, 123-124; PG, 7, 958-959.

333

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 4, cap. 55, 2 (Massuet, 4, 33, 11); Harvey, 2, 266; PG, 7, 1080; cf.
Bardenhewer, art. cit., p. 604.

334

Irenaeus, Demonstratio apostolicae praedicationis, cap. 54; Patrologia orientalis, Vol. 12, 701; tr. J. P.
Smith, op. cit., p. 83; cf. Plumpe, art. cit., pp. 569-570.

335

It is regrettable that in the second or third century the West offers nothing comparable to the Eastern
apocrypha: the Protevangelium Iacobi, with its graphic argument from sight and touch, and the suggestion
that about 150 the question of Mary’s virginity in childbearing was debated; the Ascensio Isaiae, with the clear
testimony that Mary has conceived her Child as a virgin, has borne Him through a period of gestation as a
virgin, and has given Him birth as a virgin; and the Odes of Solomon, where the odist’s idea of Mary as Virgin
Mother includes painless childbirth without need of midwife. Cf. Plumpe, art. cit., pp. 570-577.

336

On the virginity before childbirth, cf. Hilary, De Trinitate, lib. 3, n. 19; PL, 10, 87. For the virginity after
childbirth, cf. Commentarius in Matthaeum, cap. 1, n. 3; PL, 9, 921-922.

337

Cf. Hilary, De Trinitate, lib. 2, nn. 24-27; PL, 10, 66-68; De Trinitate, lib. 10, n. 47; PL, 10, 380.

338

Cf. the well-known “perfectum ipsa de suis non imminuta generavit”; De Trinitate, lib. 3, n. 19; PL, 10, 87.
Dublanchy insists that we have here an affirmation of the virginity in partu; cf. D.T.C., Vol. 9, Part 2, 2373. The
passage is not utterly clear, however, and Druwé argues that it is in the light of the texts unfavorable to the
doctrine (some of those he cites are not convincing) that we must conclude that this particular passage is
dealing with the virginal conception alone; cf. Marie à travers la patristique, p. 102, note 7.

339

Augustine, Confessiones, lib. 8, cap. 2; C.S.E.L., 33, 173.

340

Cf. Marius Victorinus, In epist. Pauli ad Gal., lib. 2; PL, 8, 1176-1177. He does affirm the virginal conception;
cf. Adversus Arium, lib. 4, n. 32; PL, 8, 1136.

341

Consultationes Zacchaei et Apollonii, lib. 1, cap. 11; ed. G. Morin, Florilegium patristicum, Vol. 39 (Bonnae,
1935), p. 15. The virginal conception is likewise asserted; cf. ibid., lib. 1, cap. 10; ed. Morin, p. 14. Morin’s
ascription of the Consultationes to Julius Firmicus Maternus has not won acceptance; cf. B. Altaner,
Patrologie, 3 ed. (Freiburg, 1951), p. 314. Altaner prefers to date the work about the beginning of the fifth
century.

342

Zeno, Tractatus, lib. 2, tr. 8, 2; PL, 11, 415.

343

Cf. Zeno, Tractatus, lib. 1, tr. 5, 3; PL, 11, 303; Tractatus, lib. 2, tr. 9, 1; PL, 11, 417.

344

Siricius, Optarem; ed. W. Haller, in Texte und Untersuchungen, Vol. 17, Part 2 (Leipzig, 1897), pp. 68-72.
Haller reproduces the text of J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, Vol. 3
(Florentiae, 1759), 663-664, with the chapter division of Coustant. It is found twice in Migne: among the
letters of Ambrose, PL, 16, 1169-1171 (ed. 1866); and with the letters of Siricius, PL, 13, 1168-1172.

345

Ambrose, Epist. 42, n. 4; ed. Haller, op. cit., pp. 75-76. In Migne, PL, 16, 1174 (ed. 1866), the pertinent
numbers are 5-6. Cf. also De institutione virginis, cap. 8, n. 52: “… virginali fusus est partu, et genitalia
virginitatis claustra non solvit”; PL, 16, 334. Ambrose proposed the same doctrine to the people in his
sermons; cf. Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, lib. 2, n. 43; C.S.E.L., 32, Part 4, 66; Expositio evangelii
secundum Lucam, lib. 2, n. 57; C.S.E.L., 32, Part 4, 73. This latter passage is not clear, and reveals the
influence of Origen: “Hic ergo solus aperuit sibi vulvam … hic est qui aperuit matris suae vulvam, ut
immaculatus exiret.”

346

Cf. Jerome, De perpetua virginitate adversus Helvidium, n. 18; PL, 23, 212-213 (ed. 1865).

347

Jerome, De perpetua virginitate adversus Helvidium, n. 19; PL, 23, 213.

348

Cf. Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum, lib. 1, n. 31; PL, 23, 265.

349

Jerome, Epist. 49 [48], n. 21; C.S.E.L., 54, 386.

350

Jerome, Dialogus contra Pelagianos, lib. 2, n. 4; PL, 23, 563. Cf. Comm. in Isaiam, lib. 3, cap. 7; PL, 24, 110
(ed. 1865); Comm. in Ezechielem, lib. 13, cap. 44; PL, 25, 449 (ed. 1865).

351

Augustine, Serm. 188, n. 4; PL, 38, 1004 (ed. 1865).

352

Augustine, Serm. 189, n. 2; PL, 38, 1005; cf. Serm. 191, n. 3-4; PL, 38, 1010-1011.

353

Cf. Peter Chrysologus, Serm. 142; PL, 52, 581.

354

Cf. Peter Chrysologus, Serm. 175; PL, 52, 658.

355

Cf. Peter Chrysologus, Serm. 145; PL, 52, 589.

356

Cf. Leo, Serm. 24, cap. 1; PL, 54, 204.

357

Cf. Leo, Serm. 22, cap. 2; PL, 54, 196. Cf. Epist. 28, cap. 2; PL, 54, 759; Birth from a virgin is included among
the truths of faith universally believed. “He was conceived of the Holy Spirit within the womb of a virgin
mother; just as she conceived Him without loss of virginity, so without loss of virginity did she give Him birth.”

358

Cf. Mansi, Vol. 10, 1151.

359

Cf. Mt. 13:55-56; Mk. 6:3; Jn. 2:12; 7:3, 10; Acts 1:14; 1 Cor. 9:5; Gal. 1:19.

360

Tertullian, De monogamia, cap. 8; PL, 2, 989 (ed. 1866); tr. W. Le Saint, in Ancient Christian Writers, Vol.
13 (Westminster, Md., 1951), p. 86. A virginal marriage with Joseph would satisfy the words semel nuptura
post partum, but only in the abstract; in other passages Tertullian supposes that Mary’s monogamy was not
virginal.

361

Tertullian, De virginibus velandis, cap. 6; PL, 2, 946.

362

Cf. Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, lib. 3, cap. 11; C.S.E.L., 47, 393; Adversus Marcionem, lib. 4, cap. 19;
C.S.E.L., 47, 482-483; De carne Christi, cap. 7; C.S.E.L., 70, 208-212.

363

Helvidius later claimed as a witness against the virginity post partum not merely Tertullian but also
Victorinus, bishop of the modern Pettau in Styria (✝ 304). Jerome conceded Tertullian, but argued that
Victorinus did no more than speak, like the Evangelists, of “the Lord’s brethren”; he did not say they were
Mary’s children; cf. Adversus Helvidium, n. 17; PL, 23, 211. The pertinent texts of Victorinus are lost. Around
the same time, an unidentified versifier from the region of Autun hinted at the perpetual virginity in certain
Laudes Domini; PL, 19, 383:

“Ne tamen insignem res nulla ostenderet ortum,

Virgine concipieris: non sufficit esse pudicam,

Nec quae nupta queat Domino conjungere fratrem,

Ne procul ex utero contagio turpis abesset.”

364

For example, Hugo Koch, op. cit., has reconstructed the evolution of the doctrine of Mary’s virginity from
what he considers the primitive and historically accurate belief to its ultimate, definitive forms in the fourth
century. He distinguishes four stages. To begin with, Jesus was the eldest son of many children born to Mary
and Joseph. Subsequently, the idea of a virginal conception was introduced; the brothers and sisters of Jesus
were regarded as born of the later marriage of Mary and Joseph. Later still, the perpetual virginity of Mary
being admitted, the brethren of Jesus became the fruits of a previous marriage of Joseph. A final stage was
reached in the West alone: Joseph became a virgin in his turn, and the brethren of the Lord became merely
cousins. Koch’s unambiguous point of departure is Tertullian. In rejecting Mary’s virginity in and after
childbearing, he argues, Tertullian cannot be in opposition to a pre-existing tradition, because he would be
the last so to act. He must have drawn his opinion from a good ecclesiastical source. This source can only be
Irenaeus, on whom he depends for his Christology and Soteriology, and who is well suited to this role by
reason of his Eve-Mary analogy. Tertullian and Irenaeus cannot have found a tradition favoring perpetual
virginity in Justin, Theophilus, or Melito, whose writings, now lost, they read. The primitive tradition,
therefore, had no room for perpetual virginity; it knew nothing of brethren improperly so called, or of cousins
of Jesus, etc. For this summary, and the weakness of individual links in Koch’s chain, cf. J. Lebon, in Revue
d’histoire ecclésiastique, Vol. 34, 1938, 341 ff.

365

Jerome, Adversus Helvidium, n. 17; PL, 23, 211.

366

E. Neubert, Marie dans l’église anténicéenne, p. 194. De virginibus velandis, Adversus Marcionem, and
De carne Christi stem from Tertullian’s semi-Montanist days; De monogamia is a product of the full-fledged
Montanist.

367

Commentarius in Ioannem, lib. 1, cap. 4, n. 6; G.C.S., Origenes, Vol. 4, 8.

368

Cf. Jouassard, Marie à travers la patristique, pp. 83-84.

369

Cf. Hilary, Commentarius in Matthaeum, cap. 1, n. 3-4; PL, 9, 921-922.

370

Cf. Jouassard, art. cit., p. 101.

371

The conclusion of C. Martini is that the author flourished at Rome during the pontificate of Damasus (366-384), though he apparendy had some connection with the Milanese Church and with Spain; cf. Ambrosiaster:
De auctore, operibus, theologia (Romae, 1944), p. 160.

372

Cf. Ambrosiaster, In epist. Pauli ad Galatas, cap. 1; PL, 17, 364 (ed. 1866). About the same time, Marius
Victorinus does not combat the idea that James was Jesus’ blood brother, though the opportunity knocks quite
loudly; cf. In epist. Pauli ad Galatas, lib. 1; PL, 8, 1155-1166.

373

Zeno, Tractatus, lib. 2, tr. 8, 2; PL, 11, 414-415; cf. Tractatus, lib. 1, tr. 5, 3; PL, 11, 303.

374

For a brief insight into the ascetieal movement of the time, and the influence of Athanasius on Western
asceticism, cf. Jouassard, art. cit., p. 103 ff.

375

Jerome, Adversus Helvidium; PL, 23, 193-216 (ed. 1865).

376

Jerome, Adversus Helvidium, n. 19; PL, 23, 213; cf. n. 17; PL, 23, 211: the brethren are “fratres
propinquitate, non natura.”

377

Cf. Jouassard, art. cit., p. 107.

378

This happened about 390. Ambrose intimates that Bonosus was not alone in denying the permanence of
Mary’s virginity; the reason for interrupting his silence on this score is the presence of a bishop, Bonosus, in
the enemy camp; cf. De institutione virginis, cap. 5, n. 35; PL, 16, 328 (ed. 1866).

379

Cf. ibid.

380

Cf. De institutione virginis, cap. 5, n. 36 ff,; PL, 16, 329 ff.

381

Cf. De institutione virginis, cap. 6, n. 43; PL, 16, 331. Ambrose, too, argues from the fact that Christ
entrusted Mary to John on Calvary; cf. De institutione virginis, cap. 7, nn. 46-48; PL, 16, 332-333.

382

Cf. De institutione virginis, cap. 5, n. 35; PL, 16, 328; cap. 16, n. 97 ff.; PL, 16, 343 ff.; De virginibus, lib. 2,
cap. 2, n. 7: ed. O. Faller, Florilegium patristicum, Vol. 31 (Bonnae, 1933), p. 47; Exhortatio virginitatis, cap.
5, n. 31; PL, 16, 360.

383

De Bonoso; PL, 16, 1222-1224 (ed. 1866); also in PL, 13, 1176-1178, as Siricius, Epist. 9, Ad Anysium
Thessalonicensem aliosque Illyrici episcopos. Cf. X. Le Bachelet, Bonose, in D.T.C., Vol. 2, col. 1027 ff.; E.
Amann, Sirice (saint), ibid., Vol. 14, Part 1, 2173. The pertinent note in PL, 16 refuses to choose from among
the authors suggested; the monitum in PL 13 ascribes the letter to Siricius. Jouassard assigns it to Ambrose;
cf. Le problème de la sainteté de Marie chez les Pères depuis les origines de la patristique jusqu’au concile
d’Ephèse, in Etudes Mariales, Bulletin de la Société française d’études mariales, 5e année, 1947, Sainteté de
Marie (Paris, 1948), p. 23, note 31. F. Homes Dudden believes that “the style and the matter indicate
Ambrosian authorship”; The Life and Times of St. Ambrose (Oxford, 1935), Vol. 2, p. 402, note 4.

384

De Bonoso, n. 3; PL, 16, 1223-1224; 13, 1177.

385

Cf. Jouassard, Marie à travers la patristique, p. 113. For the dating of De institutione virginis, whether in
392 with Palanque, or 393 at the earliest, cf. ibid., note 52.

386

Augustine, Serm. 190, n. 2; PL, 38, 1008; cf. Serm. 196, n. 1: “Virgo concepit, miramini; virgo peperit, plus
miramini; post partum, virgo permansit”; PL, 38, 1019.

387

Cf. Peter Chrysologus, Serm. 98: “Virgo concipit, virgo parturit, virgo permanet”; PL, 52, 521. Cf. Leo, Serm.
22, cap. 2: “… divina potestate subnixum est, quod virgo conceperit, quod virgo pepererit, et virgo
permanserit”; PL, 54, 195.

388

Cf. Mansi, Vol. 10, 1151.

389

Tertullian, De carne Christi, cap. 20; C.S.E.L., 70, 238.

390

Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 17, 1 (Massuet, 3, 16, 2); Harvey, 2, 83; PG, 7, 921.

391

On the antiquity of the title, cf. V. Schweitzer, Alter des Titels Θεοτόκος, in Der Katholik, Vol. 83, 1903, pp.
97-103; Jouassard, Marie à travers la patristique, p. 86, note 2. Perhaps the most impressive modern advance
in our knowledge on this point is the discovery of a papyrus leaf preserving scraps of our Sub tuum praesidium
in Greek, with the word ΘΕΟΤΟΚΕ clearly written; cf. C. H. Roberts, ed., Catalogue of the Greek and Latin
Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1939), n. 470; F. Mercenier, L’antienne mariale
grecque la plus ancienne, in Muséon, Vol. 52, 1939, pp. 229-233; id., La plus ancienne prière à la sainte
Vierge, in Questions liturgiques et paroissiales. Vol. 25, 1940, pp. 33-36. The conservative dating of Roberts,
not before the second half of the fourth century, has been disputed by G. Vannucci, who prefers the opinion
of Lobel, based on sheerly paleographic grounds, that the document is not later than the third century; cf. La
più antica preghiera alla Madre di Dio, in Marianum, Vol. 3, 1941, pp. 97-101. More recently, Otto Stegmüller
has objected to Mercenier’s restoration and substituted his own; paleographic, liturgical, patristic, and
apocryphal data persuade Stegmüller that the prayer, so significant in the story of Marian veneration and
invocation, ought not be dated before the end of the fourth century; cf. Sub tuum praesidium: Bemerkungen
zur ältesten Überlieferung, in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, Vol. 74, 1952, pp. 76-82.

392

Cf. Justin, Apologia 1, cap. 63; PG, 6, 425; Apologia 2, cap. 6; PG, 6, 453. Regrettably, Justin’s work
Adversus Marcionem, which Irenaeus used (cf. Adv. haer., lib. 4, cap. 11, 2; Massuet, 4, 6, 2) and Eusebius
mentions (Hist. eccl., lib. 4, cap. 11, 8 ff.), has been lost.

393

Cf. E. Dublanchy, Marie, in D.T.C., Vol. 9, Part 2, col. 2350.

394

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 17, 1 (Massuet, 3, 16, 2); Harvey, 2, 83; PG, 7, 921.

395

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 25, 2 (Massuet, 3, 21, 4); Harvey, 2, 116; PG, 7, 951.

396

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 20, 3 (Massuet, 3, 19, 3); Harvey, 2, 104; PG, 7, 941; lib. 3, cap. 30
(Massuet, 3, 21, 10); Harvey, 2, 120; PG, 7, 955; lib. 5, cap. 19, 1; Harvey, 2, 376; PG, 7, 1175.

397

Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 31, 1 (Massuet, 3, 22, 1); Harvey, 2, 121; PG, 7, 956.

398

Tertullian, Apologeticum, cap. 21, n. 13-14; C.S.E.L., 69, 55-56.

399

Cf. Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, cap. 13; C.S.E.L., 70, 17-18.

400

Cf. Tertullian, De patientia, cap. 3; C.S.E.L., 47, 3.

401

Tertullian, De carne Christi, cap. 21; C.S.E.L., 70, 241-242.

402

Tertullian, De carne Christi, cap. 21; C.S.E.L., 70, 243.

403

The crucial passage occurs in De benedictionibus Iacob, cap. 1; “… Joseph betroths Mary to himself and
becomes a trustworthy witness to the Mother of God (θεοτόκου)”; Texte und Untersuchungen, Vol. 38, Part
1 (Leipzig, 1911), p. 13. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the Georgian translation to correspond to it; only
the Greek has it; cf. Texte und Untersuchungen, Vol. 26, Part 1 (Leipzig, 1904), p. 3. Hugo Rahner has made
a laudable effort to accredit the Greek text, and concludes that Hippolytus, about 220, attests the title, Mother
of God; cf. Hippolyt von Rom als Zeuge für den Ausdruck Θεοτόκος, in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie,
Vol. 59, 1935, pp. 73-81. Jouassard is not convinced; cf. Marie à travers la patristique, p. 86, note 2.

404

Cf. De benedictionibus Iacob, cap. 27; Texte und Untersuchungen, Vol. 38, Part 1, p. 41; De antichristo, cap.
45; G.C.S., Hippolytus, Vol. 1, Part 2, 28; Contra Noetum, cap. 4; PG, 10, 809. The last Christian author at
Rome to express himself in Greek, Hippolytus may well have been a disciple of Irenaeus; at any rate, his
Soteriology is Irenaean, revolving about the concept of recapitulation; cf. Philosophumena, lib. 10, cap. 33,
15; G.C.S., Hippolytus, Vol. 3, 291. His understanding of Mary’s Maternity is unmistakable: “Let us therefore
believe, brethren blessed, according to the tradition of the apostles, that God the Word came down from
heaven into the holy Virgin Mary, with this in mind, that enfleshed of her, assuming a human (I mean rational)
soul, become all that man is save for sin, He might save fallen man and offer immortality to those who believe
in His name. … As it was proclaimed, so was it done: He showed Himself in person of a virgin and the Holy
Spirit, become a new man … not by phantasy or alteration … but man in all reality.” Contra Noetum, cap. 17;
PG, 10, 825-828; cf. Contra Noetum, cap. 15; PG, 10, 824-825.

405

Cf. Novatian, De Trinitate, cap. 9 ff.; PL, 3, 927 ff. The expressions he uses in this second section (cap. 9-29)
to show the unity of the two natures in Christ are significant for the divine Maternity and were of unusual
influence on Latin theology; cf. H. Rahner, Die Marienkunde in der lateinischen Patristik, p. 144.

406

Cyprian, Ad Quirinum testimonia, lib. 2, cap. 9; C.S.E.L., 3, 73; cf. Ad Quirinum testimonia, praef.; C.S.E.L.,
3, 35. For the date, cf. J. Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 2 (Westminster, Md., 1953), p. 363.

407

Cf. Alexander of Alexandria, Epist. ad Alexandrum Constant., n. 12; PG, 18, 568. The offhand use of the
term, with no apparent need to justify it, arouses the suspicion that Alexander is inspired by an established
custom; cf. Dublanchy, art. cit., col. 2351.

408

Quoted by Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Iulianum, lib. 8; PG, 76, 901.

409

Cyril of Alexandria, Epist. 17, n. 12; ed. E. Schwartz, Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum, Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part
1 (Berolini et Lipsiae, 1927-1930), 40; PG, 77, 120.

410

Hilary, Tractatus in ps. 131, n. 8; C.S.E.L., 22, 668.

411

Cf. Hilary, Tractatus in ps. 126, n. 16; C.S.E.L., 22, 624.

412

Hilary, De Trinitate, lib. 10, n. 17: “… quae officio usa materno, sexus sui naturam in conceptu et partu
hominis exsecuta est”; PL, 10, 356.

413

Cf. Ambrose, De virginibus, lib. 2, cap. 2, n. 7; ed. Faller, p. 47; Exameron, lib. 5, cap. 20, n. 65; C.S.E.L.,
32, Part 1, 188-189; Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, lib. 2, n. 26; C.S.E.L., 32, Part 4, 55.

414

Jerome, Adversus Helvidium, n. 2; PL, 23, 194.

415

Augustine, Serm. 289, n. 2; PL, 38, 1308.

416

Augustine, De Trinitate, lib. 15, cap. 26, n. 46; PL, 42, 1093-1094.

417

Augustine, Serm. 195, n. 2; PL, 38, 1018.

418

Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium 1, cap. 15; PL, 50, 658.

419

Leo, Epist. 28, cap. 2; PL, 54, 757. Cf. Serm. 24, cap. 3: “… Creator … electa sibi matre, quam fecerat, quae
salva integritate virginea, corporeae esset tantum ministra substantiae …”; PL, 54, 205.

420

Cf. Tertullian, De spectaculis, cap. 30; C.S.E.L., 20, 29. The same story was peddled in the East by Celsus;
cf. Origen, Contra Celsum, lib. 1, cap. 28 ff.; G.C.S., Origenes, Vol. 1, 79 ff.

421

Tertullian, De spectaculis, cap. 30. Tertullian’s reaction was prompted not so much by the insult to the
Mother as by the assault on her Son.

422

Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 32, 1 (Massuet, 3, 22, 4); Harvey, 2, 123-124; PG, 7, 958-959.

423

X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée conception, in D.T.C., Vol. 27, col. 874; he grants, however, that the principles
of solution are there. For Le Bachelet’s treatment of the Western Fathers, cf. col. 872-893, 979-983. It is
argued that, in Justin’s description of Eve as “virgin incorrupt,” there is question of Eve exempt from all
corruption, and so the parallelism demands a similar exemption for Mary. The argumentation is not
convincing. The seeds of future development with respect to Mary’s sanctity are contained in the patristic Eve-Mary analogy; but they are seeds and not the full flower.

424

Hippolytus, Contra Noetum, cap. 17; PG, 10, 825.

425

Cf. H. Delehaye, Sanctus, in Analecta Bollandiana, Vol. 28, 1909, pp. 145-200.

426

Hippolytus, In ps. 22; quoted by Theodoret, Dialogus 1; PG, 10, 610, 864-865.

427

Tertullian, De anima, cap. 41, n. 3; ed. J. Waszink (Amsterdam, 1947), p. 57; tr. E. A. Quain, in Fathers of
the Church, Vol. 10 (New York, 1950), p. 273.

428

Cf. Tertullian, De carne Christi, cap. 7; C.S.E.L., 70, 210-212. In the same chapter Tertullian adds another
interpretation: “In the mother abjured there is a figure of the Synagogue, and in the disbelieving brethren a
figure of the Jews.” Cf. also Jesus’ alleged indignation and His disavowal of mother and brethren in Adversus
Marcionem, lib. 4, cap. 19; C.S.E.L., 47, 483.

429

Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 17, 7 (Massuet, 3, 16, 7); Harvey, 2, 88; PG, 7, 926.

430

The problem becomes more acute when we reflect that in the East a score of years later Origen could preach
to the people of Caesarea that the sword of sorrow is Mary’s experience of scandal at the Passion of her Son,
a sword of unbelief, of uncertainty. Even more startling is his theological reasoning: “If she did not experience
scandal at the Lord’s passion, Jesus did not die for her sins.” In Luc. hom. 17; G.C.S., Origenes, Vol. 9, 116-118.

431

Cf. Jouassard, Le problème de la sainteté, p. 18.

432

It is reasonably certain that we have this important production in a Coptic translation discovered and edited
by L. Th. Lefort, S. Athanase: Sur la virginité, in Muséon, Vol. 42, 1929, pp. 197-275. For the influence of this
work on Ambrose, cf. Lefort, Athanase, Ambroise et Chenoute “Sur la virginité,” in Muséon, Vol. 48, 1935, pp.
55-73.

433

Cf. Hilary, Tractatus in ps. 118, Gimel, n. 12; C.S.E.L., 22, 384. Jouassard believes there may be question
here of faults that are slight; cf. Marie à travers la patristique, p. 102, note 6. The note in PL, 9, 523, recalls
the marginal jotting of Erasmus: “Aliud sentiunt, qui liberant eam a peccato originis.”

434

Cf. Hilary, op. cit., Vau, n. 6; C.S.E.L., 22, 414; ibid., Nun, n. 8; C.S.E.L., 22, 478; De Trinitate, lib. 10, cap.
25; PL, 10, 364-366. There is no insuperable problem in Hilary’s belief that Mary was sanctified at the hour
of the Annunciation, and that the Holy Spirit strengthened her (apparently bodily) weakness; cf. De Trinitate,
lib. 2, cap. 26; PL, 10, 67-68.

435

Cf. Marius Victorinus, In epist. Pauli ad Galatas, lib. 2; PL, 8, 1176-1177; Ambrosiaster, Quaestiones Veteris
et Novi Testamenti, cap. 76, n. 2; C.S.E.L., 50, 131.

436

Cf. Optatus, Contra Parmenianum Donatistam, lib. 1, cap. 8; C.S.E.L., 26, 9-10; ibid., lib. 4, cap. 7; C.S.E.L.,
26, 112; Optatus, lib. 2, cap. 20; C.S.E.L., 26, 55-56; ibid., lib. 4, cap. 6; C.S.E.L., 26, 110.

437

Cf. Gregory of Elvira, Hom. in Cant. canticorum; text established by D. Wilmart, in Bulletin de littérature
ecclésiastique, Vol. 7, 1906, pp. 252-254.

438

Zeno, Tractatus, lib. 1, tr. 5, 3; lib. 2, tr. 8, 2; PL, 11, 303, 414. In lib. 1, tr. 13, 10 Zeno seems to see in Mary
moral faults which had to be cut away before the Incarnation, or simultaneously with it; PL, 11, 352.

439

Cf. Ambrose, De virginibus, lib. 2, cap. 2, n. 6-18; ed. Faller, pp. 47-52. For a picture of fourth-century
ascetical life and virginity, and Ambrose’s place therein, cf. F. Homes Dudden, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 144-159.

440

Ambrose, Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, lib. 3, n. 9; C.S.E.L., 32, Part 4, 45-46.

441

Ambrose, Expositio in ps. 118, Serm. 22, n. 30; PL, 15, 1599 (ed. 1866).

442

Cf. Le Bachelet, art. cit., col. 882.

443

Cf. Ambrose, Epist. 63, n. 110; PL, 16, 1270-1271. Jerome is rather vague on Mary’s holiness. Mary is
Ezechiel’s gate to the East, a figure of her perpetual virginity; this gate is “always closed and full of light”;
Epist. 49, n. 21; C.S.E.L., 54, 386. The idea is taken up and accentuated elsewhere: Mary is a cloud that is
never in darkness but “always in the light”; Hom. in psalmos; ed. G. Morin, Anecdota Maredsolana, Vol. 3,
65.

444

Cf. Prudentius, Liber cathemerinon, 3, lines 146-155; C.S.E.L., 61, 18.

445

Augustine, De natura et gratia, cap. 36, n. 42; C.S.E.L., 60, 263-264

446

Some theologians argue that the text indirectly or implicitly excludes original sin as well. In the context,
they admit, Augustine is speaking of actual sin; but he asserts without reservation that she is free from all sin.
The honor of Christ, on which his conclusion is based, is no less incompatible with the hypothesis of original
sin than with the affirmation of actual sin; cf. Le Bachelet, art. cit., col. 883.

447

Augustine, Opus imperfectum contra Iulianum, lib. 4, cap. 122; PL, 45, 1417. Augustine quotes this
objection from the fourth book of Julian’s Ad Florum, written about 421, but no longer extant as such.

448

Augustine, Opus imperfectum contra Iulianum, lib. 4, cap. 122; PL, 45, 1418.

449

Cf. Ph. Friedrich, Die Mariologie des hl. Augustinus, pp. 183-233; L. Saltet, Saint Augustin et l’Immaculée-Conception, in Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique, Vol. 11, 1910, pp. 161-166; B. Capelle, La pensée de saint
Augustin sur l’Immaculée Conception, in Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, Vol. 4, 1932, pp.
361-370; J. Götz, Augustin und die Immaculata Conceptio, in Theologie und Glaube, Vol. 25, 1933, pp. 739-744; A. Dufourcq, Comment s’éveilla la foi à l’Immaculée-Conception et à l’Assomption aux Ve et VIe siècles
(Paris, 1946), pp. 12-15; Jouassard, Le problème de la sainteté, p. 25; B. Altaner, Patrologie, 3 ed. (Freiburg,
1951), p. 389.

450

Cf. Le Bachelet, art. cit., col. 884-885, 889-890. A more detailed defense of this interpretation is offered
by F. S. Mueller, Augustinus amicus an adversarius Immaculatae Conceptionis? in Miscellanea Agostiniana
(Romae, 1931), Vol. 2, pp. 885-914. Charles Boyer’s answer to Capelle is typical and pointed: (a) Mary’s flesh-of-sin demands only that she have an obligation of being conceived with sin unless God’s grace intervenes;
(b) the excepta itaque Maria text is directly concerned with actual sin, but the affirmation is so general and
the reason given so fundamental that they outstrip the limited problem envisaged; (c) the transcribimus text
involves Augustine unjustifiably in contradiction unless gratia renascendi signifies a preservative grace, only
conceptually posterior to Mary’s conception; cf. Bulletin augustinien, in Gregorianum, Vol. 14, 1933, pp. 93-96. Of some relevance is a sermon delivered by Augustine in 413 on the birth of the Baptist. He refuses to
except John from the universality proclaimed in Rom. 5:12 ff., but it is his reasoning that is significant:
“Invenisti plane praeter peccatum natum, quem invenis praeter Adam natum. … Nam ille qui voluit ab ea
[sententia] esse separatus, per virginem est venire dignatus”; Serm. 223, n. 12; PL, 38, 1335.

451

Leo, Serm. 25, cap. 5; PL, 54, 211.

452

Cf. Fulgentius, De veritate praedestinationis et gratiae Dei, lib. 2, cap. 2, n. 5; PL, 65, 605; Gregory,
Moralia in Iob, lib. 18, cap. 52, n. 84; PL, 76, 89; Bede, Hom. gen., lib. 1, hom. 2, In festo annuntiationis; PL,
94, 13. It is a concept which leads to the thesis that Mary’s flesh is a flesh-of-sin, because conceived in iniquity;
cf. Fulgentius, Epist. 17, cap. 6, n. 13; PL, 65, 458. It leads likewise to the theory of a necessary purification of
Mary at the hour of the Annunciation; cf. Leo, Serm. 22, cap. 3; PL, 54, 196; Bede, op. cit.; PL, 94, 12.

453

Cf. Maximus of Turin, Hom. 15; PL, 57, 254.

454

Cf. Gregory the Great, In 1 Regum expositiones, lib. 1, cap. 1, n. 5; PL, 79, 25.

455

Cf. Peter Chrysologus, Serm. 140; PL, 52, 576; Maximus, Hom. 6; PL, 57, 235. On the argumentation of
Dufourcq, op. cit., from Maximus and some acta martyrum, cf. the critique of B. Capelle, in Bulletin de
théologie ancienne et médiévale, Vol. 5, 1946-1947, pp. 255-256.

456

Cf. Sedulius, Paschale carmen, lib. 2, lines 28-31; C.S.E.L., 10, 46; Fortunatus, Miscellanea, lib. 8, cap. 7;
PL, 88, 277, 281.

457

Cf. Jouassard, Le problème de la sainteté, pp. 26-27.

458

On the difficult problem of the patristic exegesis of Gen. 3:15, cf. L. Drewniak, Die mariologische Deutung
von Gen. III, 15 in der Väterzeit (Breslau, 1934); also the controversy between H. Lennerz and G. M. Roschini,
in Gregorianum, Vol. 24, 1943, pp. 347-366; Vol. 27, 1946, pp. 300-318; Marianum, Vol. 7, 1944, pp. 76-96;
Vol. 8, 1946, pp. 293-299. Roschini’s position is that there is a genuine patristic consent on a Mariological
interpretation of the protoevangelium, and that Pius IX affirmed this consent in Ineffabilis Deus; Lennerz
enters a denial on both counts. Cf. also Dominic J. Unger, O.F.M.Cap., The First-Gospel, Genesis 3, 15 (St.
Bonaventure, N. Y., 1954), pp. 90-235.

459

M. Jugie, e.g., in his monumental La mort et l’Assomption de la sainte Vierge (Città del Vaticano, 1944),
not only states that there is no patristic testimony on the Assumption before Nicaea, but insists that in the first
five centuries there is no absolutely clear and explicit witness to the glorious Assumption as understood in
Catholic theology today; cf. pp. 56, 101. This conclusion was approved by B. Altaner, Zur Frage der
Definibilität der Assumptio B.V.M., in Theologische Revue, Vol. 45, 1949, p. 135. Cf. also Enrico Recla, Il
silenzio e la dottrina dei Padri sull’Assunzione, in Atti del Congresso Nazionale Mariano [1947] dei Frati
Minori d’ltalia (Roma, 1948), pp. 33-72.

460

Cf. G. Jouassard, L’Assomption corporelle de la sainte Vierge et la patristique, in Assomption de Marie:
Bulletin de la Société française d’études mariales, 1948 (publ. Paris, 1949), p. 102.

461

Cf. O. Faller, De priorum saeculorum silentio circa Assumptionem b. Mariae Virginis (Romae, 1946), p.
129.

462

Cf. Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. 78, cap. 23: “For either the holy Virgin died and was buried … or she was
killed … or she remained alive …”; G.C.S., 37, 474. On the silence of Scripture, and the “extraordinary nature
of the prodigy,” cf. Panarion, haer. 78, cap. 10-11; G.C.S., 37, 461-462. For the problems involved in
recapturing the thought of Epiphanius, cf. Jugie, op. cit., pp. 77-81; Faller, op. cit., pp. 33-43; Altaner, in
Theologische Revue, Vol. 44, 1948, pp. 131-133.

463

Tychonius’ view is transmitted by Cassiodorus, Complexiones in Apocalypsin, n. 16; PL, 70, 1411.

464

Cf. Ambrose, Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, lib. 2, n. 61; C.S.E.L., 32, Part 4, 74.

465

Cf. Ambrose, De institutione virginis, cap. 7, n. 49; PL, 16, 333.

466

Cf. Ambrose, De interpellatione Iob et David, lib. 1, cap. 7, n. 25; C.S.E.L., 32, Part 2, 227.

467

Cf. Paulinus, Epist. 50, n. 17-18; C.S.E.L., 29, 419-423. The same letter is contained among the letters of
Augustine, Epist. 121, n. 17-18; C.S.E.L., 34, Part 2, 737-742.

468

Cf. Augustine, Epist. 149, n. 33; C.S.E.L., 44, 378-379.

469

Cf. Augustine, In evangelium Ioannis, tr. 8, n. 9; PL, 35, 1456; De catechizandis rudibus, cap. 22, n. 40;
PL, 40, 339; Enarratio in ps. 34, Serm. 2, n. 3; PL, 36, 335.

470

Cf. Altaner, in Theologische Revue, Vol. 44, 1948, pp. 133-134. The thesis of J. Niessen, Die Mariologie des
hl. Hieronymus (Münster, 1913), that Jerome denies the anticipated resurrection of Mary in three passages
(Adv. Rufinum, lib. 2, n. 5; PL, 23, 447; Contra Ioannem Hieros., n. 31; PL, 23, 399; Epist. 75, n. 2; PL, 22,
687), is by no means convincing; cf. Jugie, op. cit., p. 65 and note 2.

471

The Transitus Mariae literature attempts to fill up the lacunae of the canonical books on the life, death,
and final lot of Mary. Perhaps the oldest is a fifth-century Syriac Transitus, which made its way into the West,
probably in a Latin translation, and caused such scandal that it was listed in the books proscribed by the
Decretum Gelasianum at the beginning of the sixth century; cf. A. Thiel, Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum
genuinae, Vol. 1 (Brunsbergae, 1868), p. 465. Pseudo-Melito, posing as a disciple of St. John, proposes to
furnish an expurgated, decorous version; cf. A. C. Rush, Assumption Theology in the Transitus Mariae, in
The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 123, 1950, pp. 93-110, esp. 101. Jugie would date it about 550, while
Faller argues for the fourth century. For the text, cf. C. Tischendorf, Apocalypses apocryphae (Leipzig, 1866),
pp. 124-136; an English translation is given by M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1924),
pp. 209-216.

472

Cf. Pseudo-Melito, Transitus beatae Mariae, cap. 15, n. 2 ff.; Tischendorf, p. 134 ff.

473

Gregory of Tours, Lib. 1 miraculorum: In gloria martyrum, cap. 4; PL, 71, 708. For the date, cf. W. C.
McDermott, Gregory of Tours: Selections from the Minor Works (Philadelphia, 1949), p. 9. For the extant
epilogue of the fifth-century Syriac Transitus, which Jugie regards as the oldest of the accounts, cf. W. Wright,
Contributions to the Apocryphal Literature of the New Testament (London, 1865), p. 46 f. Jugie and Altaner
both believe it likely that Gregory borrowed from this work, in an early Latin translation.

474

Cf. Gregory, op. cit., cap. 9; PL, 71, 713.

475

Cf. Jouassard, L’Assomption corporelle, pp. 111-112.

476

“Cuius honore sacro, genitrix, transcendis Olympum,

Et super astrigeros erigis ora polos.

Conderis in solio felix regina superbo,

Cingeris et niveis lactea virgo choris.

Nobile nobilior circumsistente senatu,

Consulibus celsis celsior ipsa sedes.

Sic iuxta genitum regem regina perennem,

Ornata ex partu, mater opima, tuo.”

The lines are found in Miscellanea, lib. 3, cap. 7; PL, 88, 282; the poem belongs to the series of those written
before 576; there is some doubt whether these lines were really composed by Fortunatus, but cf. H.
Weisweiler, in Scholastik, Vol. 28, 1953, p. 520.

477

Isidore, De ortu et obitu patrum, cap. 67, n. 112; PL, 83, 148-149. A later redaction presents the existence
of the Jerusalem tomb as absolutely certain; cf. PL, 83, 1285-1286.

478

Cf. Adamnan, De locis sacris, lib. 1, cap. 12; C.S.E.L., 39, 240-241.

479

Cf. Bede, Liber de locis sanctis, cap. 2 and 5; C.S.E.L., 39, 306, 309-310.

480

Cf. Bede, Liber retractationis in Actus apostolorum, cap. 8; PL, 92, 1014-1015. On the three Marian
homilies falsely attributed to Bede, cf. Jugie, op. cit., p. 272, note 2.

481

Cf. Jugie, op. cit., pp. 272-274.

482

Cf. The correspondence between Bishop Ascarius and his friend, Tuscaredus; PL, 99, 1233, 1235. The
Asturians in question insisted that Mary had died like anyone else, and that her body was still in the tomb
awaiting the glorious resurrection. The thesis scandalized Ascarius; Tuscaredus replied that we have no
evidence of a violent death, or of any death for that matter. It would seem that Tuscaredus believed in Mary’s
glorious immortality.

483

Cf. Pseudo-Jerome, Epist. 9: Ad Paulam et Eustochium de assumptione B.V.M., n. 2; PL, 30, 127-128;
Pseudo-Augustine, De assumptione B.V.M., n. 2-9; PL, 40, 1143-1148. On the problem of authorship, cf. Jugie,
op. cit., pp. 278, 290-291.

484

Cf. Faller, op. cit., pp. 69-76.

485

Cf. F. Cayré, L’Assomption aux quatre premiers siècles: Etat embryonnaire de la doctrine, in Studia
Mariana, Vol. 4: Vers le dogme de l’Assomption (Montréal, 1948), p. 135 ff.

486

Cf. C. F. De Vine, The Fathers of the Church and the Assumption, in Vers le dogme de l’Assomption, pp.
408-410.

487

Faller has developed these and other principles at length; cf. op. cit., pp. 77-128.

488

Jouassard, L’Assomption corporelle, pp. 115-116. A word of caution is not impertinent here. The
investigation of patristic documents might well lead the historian to the conclusion: In the first seven or eight
centuries no trustworthy historical tradition on Mary’s corporeal Assumption is extant, especially in the West.
The conclusion is legitimate; if the historian stops there, few theological nerves will be touched. The historian’s
mistake would come in adding: therefore no proof from tradition can be adduced. The historical method is
not the theological method, nor is historical tradition synonymous with dogmatic tradition. Cf. W. J.
Burghardt, The Catholic Concept of Tradition in the Light of Modern Theological Thought, in Proceedings
of the Sixth Annual Convention (Catholic Theological Society of America, 1951), pp. 73-75. It is not true to say,
with V. Bennett, that tradition “is but another name for the historical evidence of what the Church taught and
believed in other ages”; The Assumption: A Postscript, in Theology, Vol. 54, 1951, p. 410.

489

Cf. A. Müller, Ecclesia-Maria: Die Einheit Marias und der Kirche (Fribourg, 1951); G. Montague, The
Concept of Mary and the Church in the Fathers, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 123, 1950, pp.
331-337; K. Delehaye, Maria, Typus der Kirche, in Wissenschaft und Weisheit, Vol. 12, 1949, pp. 79-92.

490

Cf. H. Barré, La royauté de Marie pendant les neuf premiers siècles, in Recherches de science religieuse,
Vol. 29, 1939, 129-162, 303-334; A. Luis, La realeza de María (Madrid, 1942); M. J. Donnelly, The Queenship
of Mary during the Patristic Period, in Marian Studies, Vol. 4, 1953, pp. 82-108.

491

Cf. the articles of Bover cited in footnote 16.

492

Cf. W. J. Burghardt, S.J., Mary in Western Patristic Thought, p. 122.

493

On the evidence of Irenaeus and Eusebius, E. Gutwenger, Papias: Eine chronologische Studie, in Zeitschrift
für katholische Theologie, Vol. 69, 1947, p. 416, dates Papias before 110, and his floruit while Clement of Rome
was still alive.

494

Victorinus of Pettau, De fabrica mundi, n. 9; C.S.E.L., 49, 8.

495

J. Chapman, Papias on the Age of Our Lord, in Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. 9, 1907-1908, p. 42.

496

Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone, cap. 100; PG, 6, 709-712. I have already dealt with Justin in Mary in
Western Patristic Thought, pp. 122-123, because the Dialogue was apparently composed in Rome. The two-day discussion, however (to the extent that it is historical), took place probably at Ephesus (cf. Eusebius, Hist.
eccl., lib. 4, cap. 18, 6; G.C.S., 9/1, 364) during the war of Bar-Cocheba (132-135), and so may be evidence of
the Asia Minor aspect of the Eve-Mary tradition.

497

As Chapman has observed, “Irenaeus may have elaborated what he found in Justin, or we may simply say
that it was already a preacher’s commonplace, or we may think that both used a common source”; art. cit., p.
51. I have treated Irenaeus at some length in Mary in Western Patristic Thought, p. 111 ff., because the
passages in question stem from his literary activity in Lyons. There is no reason, however, for excluding an
awareness of the Eve-Mary analogy from his earlier, Asia Minor period.

498

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 32, 1 (Massuet, 3, 22, 4); ed. W. W. Harvey (Cantabrigiae, 1857), Vol.
2, 123-124; PG, 7, 958-959. Cf. also ibid., lib. 5, cap. 19, 1; Harvey, 2, 375-376; PG, 7, 1175-1176. Essentially the
same ideas are present in Irenaeus’ Demonstratio apostolicae praedicationis, cap. 33; Patrologia Orientalis,
Vol. 12, 684-685; cf. the careful translation from the Armenian by J. P. Smith, in Ancient Christian Writers,
Vol. 16 (Westminster, Md., 1952), 69. For the underlying theory of recapitulation, cf. A. d’Alès, La doctrine
de la récapitulation en saint Irénée, in Recherches de Science Religieuse, Vol. 6, 1916, pp. 185-211.

499

There are three fragments in which Origen alludes to it: (1) In Lucam hom. 7; G.C.S., 35, 48: Origen seems
to mean that Mary, in giving birth to Christ, restored to womankind the honor it had lost through Eve’s sin;
in this way woman “finds salvation in childbearing” (1 Tim. 2:15). (2) In Lucam hom. 6; G.C.S., 35, 40: the joy
trumpeted by Gabriel to Mary (“the Lord is with thee”) destroys the sentence of sorrow leveled by God against
Eve (“in sorrow wilt thou bring forth”). (3) In Lucam hom. 8; G.C.S., 35, 54-55: Origen supposes the
traditional idea of a parallelism between fall and redemption: “Just as sin began with the woman and then
reached the man, so too the good tidings had their beginning with the women [Elizabeth and Mary]. …” On
this last text three points merit attention: (a) Jerome’s translation, principium salutis (PG, 13, 1819), must be
tempered by the simple τα αγαθά of the catena (G.C.S., 35, 55) and the corresponding bona of Ambrose
(C.S.E.L., 33, 56). (b) Origen is concerned not merely with Mary but with her cousin Elizabeth as well. It is
misleading to say, as I. Ortiz de Urbina does in his article, Lo sviluppo della Mariologia nella Patrologia
Orientale, in Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Vol. 6, 1940, p. 57, that for Origen salvation had its beginning
“in una donna.” The inaccuracy is repeated in his more recent Die Marienkunde in der Patristik des Ostens,
in P. Sträter, ed., Katholische Marienkunde, Vol. 1, Maria in der Offenbarung (Paderborn, 1947), p. 100: “in
einer Frau.” (c) Origen does not attribute to Mary and Elizabeth the same active role in the economy of
salvation which he assigns to Eve in the economy of sin; the “good things” in the context may be no more than
the grace of prophecy given Mary and Elizabeth at the outset of the new order of things. On these texts and
their authenticity, cf. C. Vagaggini, Maria nelle opere di Origene (Roma, 1942), pp. 110-113.

500

Aphraates, Demonstratio 6: De monachis, n. 6; Patrologia Syriaca, Part 1, Tom. 1, col. 265. The parallelism
implies that it was through Mary that life found access to men; Aphraates, however, limits Our Lady’s role to
her childbearing. The ideas and language are similar to a sentence in Ephraem: “[Eve] saw him who trembled
and was an exile because of the curse on the earth; [Mary] saw Him who removed the curse and fixed it with
nails on the wood of a cross.” Explanatio evangelii concordantis, cap. 2, n. 2; ed. L. Leloir, C.S.C.O., Vol. 137,
Scriptores armeniaci, Tom. 1 (Louvain, 1953), p. 24; Latin tr., Leloir, C.S.C.O., Vol. 145, Scr. arm., Tom. 2
(Louvain, 1954), p. 17.

501

Ephraem, Sermones exegetici; Opera omnia syriace et latine, Vol. 2 (Romae, 1740), 318.

502

Ephraem, Hymni de beata Maria, 2, n. 8; Lamy, Vol. 2, 525. Some doubt attaches to the authenticity of these
hymns. Cf., in the same vein, the indisputably authentic Sermo de domino nostro, n. 3; Lamy, 1, 153, 155: Eve,
mother of all the living, became the source of death for all the living; but something new sprouted, “Mary, a
new plant, in place of Eve, the old vine, and in her dwelt the new Life” that is destructive of death. Cf. also De
diversis sermonibus, 3: De laudibus Dei genitricis Mariae; Opera omnia syriace et latine, Vol. 3 (Romae,
1743), 607. The aspect of virginity is stressed again in Hymni de instauratione ecclesiae, 5, 23; Lamy, 3, 985:
“Two virgins there were, but of these two quite different was the deed. One was the destruction of her husband,
the other the support of her father. Through Eve man found a tomb; through Mary he was called to heaven.”

503

Cr. Ephraem, Hymni de beata Maria, 18, nn. 24-26; Lamy, Vol. 2, 611-613. Cf. also Hymni de beata Maria,
9, n. 4; Lamy, Vol. 2, 549.

504

Cf. Ephraem, Explanatio evangelii concordantis, cap. 2, n. 6; C.S.C.O., Vol. 137, 26-27 (Armenian); Vol. 145,
19-20 (Latin).

505

Ephraem, Explanatio …, cap. 10, n. 13; C.S.C.O., Vol. 137, 140 (Arm.); Vol. 145, 101 (Latin). Cf. also Hymni
de nativitate Christi in carne, 2, n. 31; Lamy, Vol. 2, 457. Similar ideas are discoverable in the Syrian poet,
Cyrillonas; ed. G. Bickell, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Vol. 27, 1873, pp. 591-592; Italian tr. by I. Ortiz de Urbina, La mariologia nei Padri siriaci, in Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Vol.
1, 1935, p. 111.

506

Cf. L. Hammersberger, Die Mariologie der ephremischen Schriften (Wien, 1938), p. 87.

507

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, 12, 15; PG, 33, 741.

508

Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. 78, n. 18; G.C.S., 37, 468-469.

509

In diem natalem Christi; PG, 46, 1140. Gregory’s authorship is disputed; cf. summary of arguments pro and
con in G. Söll, Die Mariologie der Kappadozier im Licht der Dogmengeschichte, in Theologische
Quartalschrift, Vol. 131, 1951, pp. 185-188. Söll finds the style and content in harmony with Gregory’s genuine
works. Testimony in favor of authenticity is a rather lengthy citation, in a letter of Severus of Antioch, from
“Gregory … the brother of Basil the great, and bishop of Nyssa”; Patrologia Orientalis, Vol. 14, 82-85.

510

In diem natalem Christi; PG, 46, 1148.

511

Amphilochius, Oratio 1: In Christi natalem, n. 4; PG, 39, 40-41.

512

John Chrysostom, Expositio in ps. 44, n. 7; PG, 55, 193. In a homily on the birthday of Christ (In Christi
nativitatem oratio; PG, 56, 392-393: among the works of Chrysostom), the author says: “Of old the devil
deceived Eve, who was a virgin; for this reason Gabriel brought good tidings to Mary, who was a virgin. But
when Eve was deceived, she brought forth a word that was cause (αἴτιον) of death; when the glad tidings were
brought to Mary, she gave birth in flesh to the Word, the author (πρόξενον) for us of life eternal. Eve’s word
made known the wood, through which it cast Adam from paradise; but the Word from the Virgin made known
the cross, through which He brought the robber into paradise in place of Adam.” The homily was published
in 1883, under the name of Gregory the Wonder-Worker, by J. P. Martin in Pitra’s Analecta sacra, Vol. 4,
134-144 (Armenian), 386-396 (Latin). As known in the Armenian version, Gregory’s authorship was rejected
by Harnack, upheld by Loofs, Neubert, and Jugie; cf. Analecta Bollandiana, Vol. 43, 1925, p. 94. In Revue
d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, Vol. 24/1, 1928, pp. 364-373, Ch. Martin pointed out that the Greek text could be
read in PG, 56, 385-394, and that from the beginning of the fifth century it passed for an authentic work of
Chrysostom. He insisted that, in view of the Greek MS tradition, the clarity and preciseness of its theological
formulations, the Antiochene tendency of its Christology, and the absence of anti-Sabellian preoccupation in
its trinitarian theology, the homily cannot be attributed to Gregory. Martin placed it in Antiochene circles of
the fourth century and was impressed by Cyril of Alexandria’s citations of it as from Gregory. In 1940 B. Marx
assigned the homily to Proclus of Constantinople. A year later Martin showed that we are justified in regarding
it as an authentic work of Chrysostom; cf. Le Muséon, Vol. 54, 1941, pp. 30-33.

513

In an important article, Le omelie mariane nei Padri Greci del V secolo, in Marianum, Vol. 8, 1946, pp. 201-234, Dino del Fabbro has synthesized the results of contemporary research on the authenticity of the Marian
homilies emanating from the fifth-century Greek Church. He concludes that a solid, sufficient basis for the
Mariological doctrine of that century is provided by five strictly Marian sermons, fourteen on Christ’s birth
or the Incarnation, one on the Hypapante, and one on the birth of the Baptist.

514

Cyril of Alexandria, Comm. in Lucam, hom. 2; ed. I. B. Chabot, C.S.C.O., Vol. 70, Scriptores syri 27
(Louvain, 1954), 11-12 (Syriac); Latin tr., R. M. Tonneau, C.S.C.O., Vol. 140, Scriptores syri 70 (Louvain, 1953),
3.

515

Proclus, Oratio 1: Laudatio in sanctissimam Dei genitricem Mariam, n. 1; ed. E. Schwartz, Acta
conciliorum oecumenicorum, Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part 1 (Berolini et Lipsiae, 1927-1930), 103; PG, 65, 681. Cf. also
Oratio 5: Laudatio in sanctam virginem ac Dei genitricem Mariam, n. 3; PG, 65, 720: We greet Mary as
blessed among women because she alone has “healed Eve’s sorrow,” wiped away her tears, carried the world’s
ransom, given birth to Emmanuel without suffering. J. Lebon sees in Oratio 5 a sermon of Atticus of
Constantinople, with the collaboration of Proclus; cf. Le Muséon, Vol. 46, 1933, p. 174. Ortiz de Urbina
suggests that in the Syriac version we have two homilies, the first by Proclus, the second by Atticus; cf.
Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Vol. 6, 1940, p. 64, note 1. Along the same lines, cf. the solution of del
Fabbro, art. cit., p. 215: the first homily, which corresponds to the Greek Oratio 5, has Proclus for author; the
second, which comprises the remaining section De nativitate, has Atticus for author, in collaboration with
Proclus.

516

Theodotus, Hom. 4: In sanctam deiparam et in Simeonem, n. 5; PG, 77, 1396. For the authenticity of this
homily, cf. del Fabbro, art. cit., p. 220.

517

Theodotus, In sanctam Mariam Dei genitricem et in sanctam Christi nativitatem, nn. 11-12; Patrologia
Orientalis, Vol. 19, 329-331. Its editor, M. Jugie, considers the authenticity of this homily unimpeachable; cf.
pp. 292-293. Cf. also Nilus of Ancyra, Epistolae, lib. 1, ep. 267; PG, 79, 180-181; the inspiration here derives
from Epiphanius.

518

Antipater, In sanctissimam deiparae annuntiationem, n. 3; PG, 85, 1777. Despite the attribution of passages
of this homily to other authors (Origen, Eudoxius the Arian), del Fabbro believes it a genuine work of
Antipater; cf. art. cit., pp. 221-225.

519

Antipater, op. cit., n. 10; PG, 85, 1781.

520

Hesychius, Sermo 4: De sancta Maria deipara; PG, 93, 1453.

521

Hesychius, Sermo 5: De sancta Maria deipara; PG, 93, 1465.

522

Chrysippus, In sanctam Mariam deiparam, n. 3; Patrologia Orientalis, Vol. 19, 340-341. Its editor, M.
Jugie, sees no reason for doubting the authenticity of this homily; cf. p. 295.

523

Cf. Anastasius I, Sermo 3: In laudatissimae Dei genitricis annuntiationem, n. 2; PG, 89, 1388. Anastasius
looks on Mary as the origin (ἀρχή) of woman’s joy.

524

Cf. PG, 10, 1145-1178. Sermo 1, a potpourri of an author later than the fifth century (cf. Jugie, in Analecta
Bollandiana, Vol. 43, 1925, p. 90), insists that “in the holy Virgin alone has Eve’s fall been healed”; col. 1148.
In Sermo 2, another potpourri, the author, who apparently lived after the middle of the sixth century (cf. Jugie,
pp. 90-91), declares that the Word took flesh of Mary “in order that through the same flesh through which sin
entered the world, through that same flesh sin might be condemned in the flesh … and life eternal live in the
world”; col. 1156; cf. col. 1157. Sermo 3 was written probably in the second half of the fifth century — in any
event, before the introduction of the March 25 feast (cf. Jugie, p. 91); it preaches that “life contrived its
entrance where death had made its exit”; col. 1177.

525

Cf. Ps.-Epiphanius, De laudibus sanctae deiparae; PG, 43, 501. Despite points of contact with Basil of
Seleucia, Proclus, and Cyril of Alexandria, del Fabbro finds the general development of the homily more akin
to the Marian homilies of the seventh and succeeding centuries; cf. art. cit., p. 228.

526

Cf. Sophronius, Oratio 2: In sanctissimae deiparae annuntiationem, n. 22; PG, 87c, 3241.

527

John Damascene, Hom. 1 in nativitatem Mariae, n. 7; PG, 96, 772. For a more detailed treatment of
Damascene’s Eve-Mary doctrine, cf. C. Chevalier, La mariologie de saint Jean Damascene (Rome, 1936), pp.
150-156.

528

Irenaeus, note 7 above; cf. Antipater, note 28 above.

529

Proclus, note 24 above.

530

Cf. Ephraem, note 12 above.

531

Gregory of Nyssa (?), note 19 above.

532

Ephraem, note 11 above; Epiphanius, note 17 above; cf. Chrysostom, note 21 above; Theodotus, note 26
above.

533

John Damascene, note 36 above.

534

Theodotus, note 26 above.

535

Amphilochius, note 20 above.

536

Cf. Chrysippus, note 31 above.

537

Cf. Ephraem, note 14 above.

538

Amphilochius, note 20 above.

539

For the viewpoint of Irenaeus, cf. Mary in Western Patristic Thought, pp. 129-130.

540

Cf. Ephraem, Hymni de beata Maria, 9, n. 4; Lamy, Vol. 2, 549. Cf. Hymni de nativitate Christi in carne,
2, n. 31; Vol. 2, 457: “Mary’s foot crushed him who had struck Eve with his heel.” Note what Ephraem adds
immediately: “Blessed is He who by His birth laid him prostrate.”

541

Cf. Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. 78, 18; G.C.S., 37, 468-469.

542

Cf. Amphilochius, note 20 above.

543

Cf. Cyril, note 23 above; Theodotus, note 26 above; Ps.-Gregory, In annuntiationem sermo 3; PG, 10, 1177:
“Hail, you who have sunk in your womb the death of your mother.”

544

Chrysippus, note 31 above.

545

Cf. Ps.-Epiphanius, De laudibus sanctae deiparae; PG, 43, 501.

546

Sophronius, Oratio 2: In sanctissimae deiparae annuntiationem, n. 22; PG, 87c, 3241.

547

Hesychius, Sermo 6: In praesentatione Christi; PG, 93, 1469.

548

Cf. note 19 above.

549

Cyril of Alexandria, Hom. div. 4; ed. E. Schwartz, A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part 2, 102; PG, 77, 992.

550

Proclus, Oratio 1: Laudatio in sanctissimam Dei genitricem Mariam, n. 1; ed. E. Schwartz, A.C.O., Tom.
1, Vol. 1, Part 1, 103; PG, 65, 681.

551

Anastasius I, Sermo 3: In laudatissimae Dei genitricis annuntiationem, n. 4; PG, 89, 1389.

552

Cf. Part IV of this chapter, on Our Lady’s sanctity.

553

Mary’s co-operation in the objective Redemption is not the only aspect of Marian theology which scholars
have tried to trace to the Eve-Mary analogy of the Fathers, nor is this parallelism the sole patristic basis on
which theologians rest their theses. A fruitful field of patristic investigation has been Our Lady’s role in
subjective Redemption, i.e., the part she plays not in the acquisition but in the distribution of grace. For a good
summary, with bibliographical indications, of both aspects of Marian mediation in Eastern theology, cf. M.
Gordillo, Mariologia orientalis (Roma, 1954), pp. 58-87; cf. also his article, La mediazione di Maria Vergine
nella teologia bizantina, in Mélanges Martin Jugie (Paris, 1953), pp. 120-128. Worth recording is Gordillo’s
evaluation (Mariologia orientalis, p. 74) of the striking texts so often adduced from Damascene: these
passages have reference to Mary’s mediatorial activity in conceiving Christ, at the outset of our deification.
If our problem concerns her co-operation in the Redemption effected on the cross, “we must by all means
confess that on this score Damascene is silent.”

554

Cf. Ignatius, Ad Ephesios, n. 19, 1; ed. Funk-Bihlmeyer (Tübingen, 1924), p. 87; id., Ad Smyrnaeos, n. 1, 1;
Funk-Bihlmeyer, p. 106. What Ignatius finds it imperative to stress, against the Docetists, is not the virginal
but the real conception of Christ.

555

Cf. Aristides, Apologia, n. 2; ed. E. Hennecke, Texte und Untersuchungen, Vol. 4, Part 3, p. 9.

556

Justin, Apologia 1, cap. 33; PG, 6, 381; cf. Dialogus cum Tryphone, cap. 84 and 100; PG, 6, 673-676, 709-712. Justin is evidence that by the middle of the second century Our Lady was commonly referred to as simply
“the Virgin.”

557

Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 26, 2 (Massuet, 3, 21, 6); Harvey, 2, 118; PG, 7, 953. The
theological significance which Irenaeus attaches to Jesus’ birth of a virgin emerges impressively from the role
which he assigns to Mary’s virginity in his Second Eve doctrine.

558

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 1, cap. 2 (Massuet, 1, 10, 1); Harvey, 1, 90-91; PG, 7, 549.

559

Cf. Origen, Contra Celsum, lib. 1, cap. 28-39; G.C.S., 2, 79-90. A. Deissmann, Der Name Panthera, in
Orientalische Studien T. Nöldeke gewidmet (Giessen, 1906), p. 871 ff., has shown that the name was common
at this period, especially as a surname of Roman soldiers. L. Patterson, Origin of the Name Panthera, in
Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. 19, 1917-1918, pp. 79-80, thinks that some Jewish controversialist
pounced on the name because of its similarity to παρθένος. “Then the legend of the Roman soldier grew up
and found its way into the Talmud with the purpose of discrediting and vilifying the Christian tradition, as
soon as the gospel story became known to the general public.”

560

Origen, Contra Celsum, lib. 1, cap. 39; G.C.S., 2, 90. Cf. the text of Origen conserved by Pamphilus, Apologia
pro Origene, cap. 1; PG, 17, 554: Some, like the Ebionites and Valentinians, say that Jesus “was born of Joseph
and Mary.” Cf. also Origen, Hom. 17 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 115.

561

Several reasons for this sluggish development are suggested in Mary in Western Patristic Thought, p. 120.

562

A splendid analysis and evaluation of this evidence is presented by J. C. Plumpe, Some Little-Known
Witnesses to Mary’s Virginitas in partu, in Theological Studies, Vol. 9, 1948, pp. 567-577.

563

Cf. Ascensio Isaiae, cap. 11, nn. 2-11; English translation from R. H. Charles, The Ascension of Isaiah
(London, 1900), pp. 74-76.

564

Cf. Charles, op. cit., pp. xxii ff., xxxvii f., xliv f.; E. Tisserant, Ascension d’Isaie (Paris, 1909), p. 60.

565

Cf. Plumpe, art. cit., pp. 573-574. In fact, Charles, op. cit., pp. xxii-xxiii, 77, has tried to show that the
Ascensio is the source of the celebrated sentence in the anti-Docetic Ignatius, Ad Eph., n. 19, 1: “And the prince
of this world was in ignorance of the virginity of Mary and her childbearing. …”

566

Cf. Plumpe, art. cit., pp. 576-577. The Odes were probably written originally in Greek. The striking
similarities between the language of the odist and that of Ignatius (even on the Virgin Birth) has led J. Rendel
Harris and A. Mingana to the conclusion that the Bishop of Antioch knew the Odes, even quoted them; they
are convinced that the home of the collection is Antioch, its origin before the end of the first century; cf. The
Odes and Psalms of Solomon (Manchester, 1916-1920), Vol. 2, pp. 42-49, 67. J. H. Bernard prefers a date
between 150 and 200; cf. The Odes of Solomon, in Texts and Studies, Vol. 8, n. 3 (Cambridge, 1912), p. 42.

567

Odae Salomonis, 19, vv. 6-10; tr. Harris-Mingana, op. cit., Vol. 2, 299, save for the alternative “of her own
will” in preference to “by (God’s) will.” Harnack’s pithy interpretation is splendid: “der Geburtsact sich bei ihr
so selbständig vollzog, wie der Zeugungsact beim Manne”; in Texte und Untersuchungen, Vol. 35, Part 4
(Leipzig, 1910), p. 50.

568

Cf. E. Amann, Le Protévangile de Jacques et ses remaniements latins (Paris, 1910), pp. 99-100; J. Quasten,
Patrology, Vol. 1 (Westminster, Md., 1950), pp. 119, 121.

569

Cf. Protevangelium Iacobi, 18-20; ed. Amann, op. cit., pp. 246-256.

570

Cf. Plumpe, art. cit., pp. 570, 572. Amann concludes that nothing is less certain than the alleged Docetism
of the Protevangelium Iacobi, or a Docetic origin of the Virgin Birth doctrine; cf. op. cit., p. 36. — The virginal
conception of Christ and Mary’s virginal childbearing are clearly indicated in a Christian section of the
Sibylline Oracles, lib. 8, vv. 456-479; ed. J. Geffcken, G.C.S., 8, 171-172. I have thought it prudent, however,
not to stress this testimony, because more probably the section of Book 8 which contains these verses does
not antedate the third century; cf. A. Rzach, Sibyllinische Orakel, in Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll-Witte, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 2. Reihe, 4. Halbband (1923), col. 2146; this, despite
the belief of Geffcken that Book 8 should be dated before 180; cf. Texte und Untersuchungen, Vol. 23, Part
1 (Leipzig, 1902), pp. 38-46.

571

Plumpe believes, with good reason, that they do more; cf. art. cit., p. 577. They offer, he concludes, a full
commentary and illustration of Ignatius’ claim that Jesus was “really born of a virgin”; they remove all doubt
that “of a virgin” meant in partu as well as ante partum; for the time between Ignatius and Origen they are a
formidable chain of witnesses to this permanent virginity; they lend certitude to indications in Justin and
Irenaeus that they too regarded Mary as ἀειπάρθενος.

572

Cf. Mary in Western Patristic Thought, pp. 121-122. Koch’s pertinent works are Adhuc virgo (Tübingen,
1929), and Virgo Eva — Virgo Maria (Berlin und Leipzig, 1937).

573

Irenaeus, Demonstratio apostolicae praedicationis, cap. 54; Patrologia Orientalis, 12, 701; tr. J. P. Smith,
op. cit., p. 83.

574

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, lib. 7, cap. 16; G.C.S., 17, 66. E. Neubert, Marie dans l’église anténicéenne
(Paris, 1908), pp. 177-178, believes it deceiving to claim that, according to Clement, the majority of Christians
rejected the belief. The question did not occur to the masses. For them, Mary was a virgin and she had borne
God. How reconcile these affirmations was not their preoccupation; such, too, is the attitude of the faithful
in general today.

575

So R. P. C. Hanson, Origen’s Doctrine of Tradition (London, 1954), pp. 20-22, 26.

576

Origen, Hom. 17 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 100.

577

Vagaggini finds this influence difficult to deny; cf. op. cit., pp. 89-91.

578

Cf. Ortiz de Urbina, Lo sviluppo, p. 54.

579

So Hanson, op. cit., pp. 16-17, 27.

580

Origen, Comm. in Matthaeum, ser. 25; G.C.S., 38, 42-43.

581

Cf. Origen, Hom. 17 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 115.

582

Cf. Origen, Comm. in Matthaeum, Tom. 10, cap. 17; G.C.S., 40, 21-22.

583

For a more detailed treatment of Origen on virginitas in partu, cf. Vagaggini, op. cit., pp. 80-97. The
concept of virginity in parturition does not seem to have been totally unfamiliar to Origen, but for polemical
reasons he seems to take “virginem peperisse” as opposed to “vere peperisse”; cf. In epist. ad Titum; the
pertinent text has been preserved by Pamphilus in Apologia pro Origene, lib. 1, cap. 1; PG, 17, 554 (reproduced
in PG, 14, 1304), where he rejects the idea. Of some pertinence here is Origen’s understanding of Mary’s
purification after childbearing. In Hom. 14 in Lucam, stemming from about 233, Origen says: Mary required
purification because she contracted a sordes not merely legal but real. He does not specify its nature, save to
affirm that it is not to be identified with sin; G.C.S., 35, 96. In 244, Hom. 8 in Leviticum, Origen states that
Mary by exception is not unclean by reason of her childbearing, because Lev. 12:2 refers to women who have
given birth after normal conception, i.e., of human seed; G.C.S., 29, 394-396. Here the sordes of the infant and
the immunditia of the mother are understood of sin. Why does Scripture call a woman who gives birth unclean
sinfully, and that by reason of childbearing itself? Origen confesses that he is face to face with mystery. In
neither homily is he able to explain clearly in what the sordes consisted and therefore the purification
therefrom. But Origen recognizes that, because Mary conceived virginally of the Spirit, (a) Jesus born of her
entered this world pure, (b) she remained immune from the sinful contamination of childbearing, and (c) she
had no need to fulfill the law of purification.

584

Cf. G. Jouassard, Marie à travers la patristique: Maternité divine, virginité, sainteté, in Marie, Etudes sur
la Sainte Vierge, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), p. 81. It is no longer legitimate, with Neubert, op. cit.,
pp. 185-190, to use the homily, In natalem Christi diem, as a pre-Nicene witness, and specifically as a work
of Gregory the Wonder-Worker; cf. note 21 above.

585

Cf., e.g., Athanasius, De incarnatione Verbi, n. 17; PG, 25, 125; id., Epistola ad Epictetum, n. 7; PG, 26, 1061;
note the realistic language in the latter work, n. 5; PG, 26, 1057. It is true that the term, ἀειπάρθενος, “ever
virgin,” begins to be applied to Our Lady in the second half of the fourth century (cf. J. A. de Aldama, in
Estudios Eclesiásticos, Vol. 21, 1947, pp. 487-489), specifically by Athanasius (Fragmenta in Lucam; PG, 27,
1393), by Epiphanius (Ancoratus, n. 119; G.C.S., 25, 148; Panarion, haer. 78, 10; G.C.S., 37, 461; Expositio
fidei, n. 15; G.C.S., 37, 515), and by Didymus (De trinitate, lib. 1, cap. 27; PG, 39, 404). It may be argued,
however, that the sheer use of the word, ἀειπάρθενος, is not an apodictic proof that the authors who employ
it consider Our Lady virgin in childbearing. What is needed, over and above, is evidence that the author in
question, as general practice or at least in a particular context, does not understand virginity merely quantum
a viro (to use Tertullian’s expressive phrase) but extends the concept to cover the issue of parturition. Thus,
Didymus does say that it is beyond human comprehension “how the Virgin gave birth without flux
(afterbirth?), remaining a virgin”; De trinitate, lib. 3, cap. 2, n. 20; PG, 39, 793. — If Peter of Alexandria (✝ 311)
is cited as the first to have employed the term, ἀειπάρθενος (so Ortiz de Urbina, Lo sviluppo, p. 54, and Die
Marienkunde in der Patristik des Ostens, p. 99), it should be pointed out that the text (Frag. 1, n. 7; PG, 18,
517) is not certainly authentic; cf. de Aldama, p. 488. Likewise, the lovely antiphon, Sub tuum praesidium (cf.
Part III of this chapter), which in the original Greek may go back to the third century, should not be cited as
witness to ἀειπάρθενος; in none of the Greek recensions is there any mention of virginity, while the Latin
version, “libera nos semper virgo gloriosa et benedicta,” is ambiguous.

586

Cf. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 40: In sanctum baptisma, n. 45; PG, 36, 424.

587

Basil the Great, Homilia in sanctam Christi generationem, n. 4; PG, 31, 1465-1468. The authenticity of this
homily, denied by Dom Garnier, is admitted — justifiably, it seems — by H. Usener, Religionsgeschichtliche
Untersuchungen, Vol. 1 (2nd ed.; Bonn, 1911), p. 249 ff.; Söll, art. cit., pp. 178-185; Ortiz de Urbina, Lo
sviluppo, pp. 54-55; Jouassard, art. cit., p. 89, note 14, and p. 90. Many patristic texts (e.g., that of Basil above;
cf. also Gregory of Nyssa, note 97 below) are deceptive if read superficially and are difficult to interpret,
because “childbearing” may and often does refer not to the specific act which is parturition but to the general
condition which is pregnancy.

588

Thus, Gregory seems to include the act of childbearing, parturition, when he writes: “The Virgin becomes
a mother, and remains virgin. With other women, while a woman is a virgin, she is not a mother; when she
becomes a mother, she does not have virginity. But here the two titles coincide; for the same woman is both
mother and virgin. Virginity was no hindrance to childbearing, and childbearing did not destroy virginity.”
But he goes on to say: “it was fitting that He who became man to give all men incorruption should begin
human life of an incorrupt mother; for men are accustomed to call her incorrupt who is unwed.” In diem
natalem Christi; PG, 46, 1136. His preoccupation, therefore, is with virginity ante partum. The same may be
said of a passage where Gregory interprets Lc. 11:27: the Evangelist felicitates Mary’s womb, because it
ministered to an immaculate, undefiled childbearing, “inasmuch as childbearing did not destroy virginity, nor
did virginity prove an obstacle to her pregnancy.” De virginitate, cap. 19; ed. J. P. Cavarnos, in Gregorii
Nysseni opera, ed. W. Jaeger, Vol. 8, Part 1 (Leiden, 1952), p. 324.

589

Gregory of Nyssa, In Christi resurrectionem, orat. 1; PG, 46, 604.

590

99 Cf. In diem natalem Christi; PG, 46, 1136.

591

Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Moysis; PG, 44, 332.

592

Gregory of Nyssa, In Cantica canticorum, hom. 13; PG, 44, 1053.

593

Cf. Amphilochius, Oratio 1: In Christi natalem, nn. 1-2; PG, 39, 37; ibid., n. 4; PG, 39, 40-41; Oratio 2: In
occursum domini, n. 1; PG, 39, 44-45.

594

Amphilochius, Oratio 2: In occursum domini, nn. 2-3; PG, 39, 48-49. Cf. Söll, art. cit., pp. 301-303.

595

Amphilochius, Oratio 2: In occursum domini, n. 2; PG, 39, 48.

596

In natalem Christi diem; PG, 56, 387-393. For the authenticity of this work, cf. note 21 above. Cf. also
Chrysostom’s moving presentation of the virginal conception, Hom. 49 in Genesim, n. 2; PG, 54, 445-446.

597

Cf. Ephraem, Hymni de beata Maria, 1, 2; 2, 3; 4, 7; 4, 10; 5, 1-2; 6, 2; 7, 6; 8, 3; 10, 2; 11, 4; 11, 6; 12, 1; 15,
2; 15, 5; 18, 20; ed. Lamy, Vol. 2, 519, 523-525, 532, 533, 540, 545, 547, 553, 567, 569, 573, 583, 611.

598

Ephraem, Explanatio evangelii concordantis, cap. 21, n. 2; C.S.C.O., Vol. 137, 312 (Arm.); Vol. 145, 223
(Latin). Although the Explanatio is doubtless Ephraem’s work, the researches of Zahn, Euringer, and C. Peters
indicate that the Armenian translators have not always rendered the original Syriac faultlessly; cf. Ortiz de
Urbina, Lo sviluppo, p. 61.

599

Ephraem, Explanatio …, cap. 2, n. 6; C.S.C.O., Vol. 137, 26-27 (Arm.); Vol. 145, 20 (Latin).

600

Ephraem, Explanatio …, cap. 2, n. 8; C.S.C.O., Vol. 137, 28 (Arm.); Vol. 145, 20 (Latin). Cf. also Explanatio
…, cap. 21, n. 21; C.S.C.O., Vol. 137, 326 (Arm.); Vol. 145, 232 (Latin): The sealed tomb was a witness to the
sealed womb; its virginity was sealed up, yet the Son of God went forth from its midst. Cf., however, the
reservations of Jouassard, art. cit., p. 88, note 10.

601

Nilus, Epistolae, lib. 1, ep. 270; PG, 79, 181.

602

From a line of argument launched against Cyril’s first Anathematism by Andrew of Samosata (cf. Schwartz,
A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part 7, 34; PG, 76, 317-320), some have concluded that uncertainty did obtain just
before the Council; cf. A. Eberle, Die Mariologie des heiligen Cyrillus von Alexandrien (Freiburg im Breisgau,
1921), p. 115; H. du Manoir de Juaye, Dogme et spiritualité chez saint Cyrille d’Alexandrie (Paris, 1944), p. 273.
In reality, as Jouassard has pointed out (art. cit., p. 138, note 7), Andrew is concerned with the virginal
conception alone. Cyril’s reply, however, touches the virginal parturition as well.

603

Cf. Theodoret, De incarnatione domini, n. 23; PG, 75, 1460-1461. Though edited under the name of Cyril
of Alexandria (PG, 75, 1420-1477), the work is certainly Theodoret’s; cf. J. Lebon, in Revue d’Histoire
Ecclésiastique, Vol. 26/1, 1930, pp. 524-536.

604

Cf. Hesychius, Sermo 4: De sancta Maria deipara; PG, 93, 1460; id., Sermo 5: De sancta Maria deipara;
PG, 93, 1461-1464.

605

Cf. Proclus, Oratio 1: Laudatio in sanctissimam Dei genitricem Mariam, n. 10; ed. Schwartz, A.C.O., Tom.
1, Vol. 1, Part 1, 107; PG, 65, 692.

606

Cyril, Adversus anthropomorphitas, cap. 26; PG, 76, 1128-1129.

607

The Greek word is παρθενομήτωρ: Cyril, Adversus nolentes confiteri sanctam virginem esse deiparam,
n. 4; PG, 76, 260. For a brief synthesis of Cyril’s doctrine on virginity in parturition, cf. Eberle, op. cit., pp. 114-116; also du Manoir, op. cit., pp. 272-274, obviously dependent on Eberle.

608

Cf. Mt. 13:55-56; Mk. 6:3; Jn. 2:12; 7:3, 10; Acts 1:14; 1 Cor. 9:5; Gal. 1:19.

609

For the Western development, cf. Mary in Western Patristic Thought, pp. 140-147.

610

Cf. Protevangelium Iacobi, 9, 2; ed. Amann, op. cit., p. 216.

611

For the history of the Protevangelium Iacobi in Christian Greek literature, cf. Amann, op. cit., pp. 109-137.

612

Clement of Alexandria, Adumbrationes in epistolam Iudae; PG, 9, 731.

613

Origen, Comm. in Ioannem, lib. 1, n. 4 (6); G.C.S., 10, 8.

614

Origen, Hom. 7 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 49. It does not appear that Origen is classifying as heretical the
opinion itself (denial of virginity after childbirth) of the heretic, name unknown, whom he is denouncing; cf.
Vagaggini, op. cit., pp. 131-133.

615

Origen, Comm. in Matthaeum, Tom. 10, cap. 17; G.C.S., 40, 21-22.

616

For the pertinent ascetical ideas of Origen, and their influence in the present context, cf. Jouassard, art.
cit., pp. 80-81, and Vagaggini, pp. 122-127.

617

Cf. Vagaggini, op. cit., pp. 128-130. In the passage quoted from Comm. in Matthaeum, Origen neither
accepts nor rejects the solution supplied by the apocrypha. According to a fragment taken from catenae on
Jn., Origen did commit himself to it; cf. G.C.S., 10, 506-507. Regrettably, the passage is found among the
fragments (1-105) whose authenticity is strongly suspect; cf. R. Devreesse, Chaînes exégétiques grecques, in
Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible, Vol. 1, cols. 1198-1199.

618

Cf. Jouassard, art. cit., pp. 83-84.

619

Eusebius, Comm. in psalmos, Ps. 68, 9; PG, 23, 737-740.

620

The virginal conception is proposed by Cyril with a clarity that leaves no room for doubt; cf. Catecheses,
12, 29-34; PG, 33, 761-768.

621

The treatise was discovered and edited by L. Th. Lefort, S. Athanase: Sur la virginité, in Le Muséon, Vol.
42, 1929, pp. 197-275. There are good reasons for believing it an authentic work of Athanasius.

622

On the discourse of Eunomius, cf. Photius’ summary in Philostorgius, Hist. eccl., lib. 6, n. 2; G.C.S., 21, 71.
For confirmation, cf. PG, 56, 635. On Basil’s authorship, cf. note 96 above.

623

Basil, Homilia in sanctam Christi generationem, n. 5; PG, 31, 1468.

624

Ephraem, Explanatio evangelii concordantis, cap. 2, n. 6; C.S.C.O., Vol. 137, 26-27 (Arm.); Vol. 145, 19-20
(Latin). Mary had no other child: cf. Explanatio …, cap. 5, n. 7; C.S.C.O., Vol. 137, 62 (Arm.); Vol. 145, 46
(Latin). The very fact that Jesus gave Mary to John on Calvary proves that the “brethren” were not her
children, Joseph not her husband: cf. Explanatio …, cap. 2, n. 11; C.S.C.O., Vol. 137, 29 (Arm.); Vol. 145, 22
(Latin).

625

Cf. John Chrysostom, Hom. 5 in Matthaeum, n. 3; PG, 57, 58. Cf. also Didymus, De trinitate, lib. 3, cap. 4;
PG, 39, 832: “… neither did … Mary wed anyone nor did she ever become mother of another; but she remained
even after pregnancy ever and always virgin immaculate. …”

626

Cf. Epiphanius, Ancoratus, n. 13; G.C.S., 25, 22.

627

Cf. Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. 78, nn. 5-24; G.C.S., 37, 455-475. Epiphanius finds it hard to believe the
rumor that Apollinaris or his disciples held this opinion; cf. Panarion, haer. 77, n. 36; G.C.S., 37, 448.

628

Cf. Epiphanius, Ancoratus, n. 119; G.C.S., 25, 148. Cf. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (London, New
York, Toronto, 1950), pp. 335-337 and passim.

629

Cf. Nilus, Epistolae, lib. 1, epp. 269 and 271; PG, 79, 181.

630

Cf. Jouassard, art. cit., p. 100.

631

Cf. ibid., pp. 138-139.

632

Mary is “ever virgin” and “crown of virginity”: Cyril, Hom. div. 4; Schwartz, A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part 2,
102 and 104; PG, 77, 992, 996. She had only one son, and remained thereafter virgin: cf. Oratio ad dominas,
n. 190; A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part 5, 111; PG, 76, 1317. The “brethren” were sons and daughters of Joseph by
a former marriage: cf. Comm. in Ioannis evangelium, lib. 4, cap. 5; ed. P. E. Pusey, Cyrilli in d. Ioannis
evangelium, Vol. 1 (Oxonii, 1872), p. 584; PG, 73, 637; also Glaph. in Genesim, lib. 7; PG, 69, 352. Cf. Eberle,
op. cit., pp. 116-118.

633

Cf. Proclus, Oratio 2: De incarnatione domini, n. 6; PG, 65, 700.

634

Cf. Theodotus, Hom. 4: In sanctam deiparam et in Simeonem, n. 3; PG, 77, 1412.

635

Cf. the survey of the Eastern tradition, orthodox and dissident, in Gordillo, Mariologia orientalis, pp. 168-184

636

Cf. J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, Vol. 10 (Florentiae, 1764), col. 1151.
As Jouassard points out, op. cit., p. 139, note 15, this canon simply expresses in more explicit fashion a
doctrine which the Greeks had already accepted in the Second Council of Constantinople, when they declared
Mary “ever virgin.”

637

Cf. Mary in Western Patristic Thought, p. 147.

638

The texts adduced to prove a third-century usage of Theotókos in East or West have all been challenged.
(a) In the Greek text of Hippolytus’ De benedictionibus Iacob, cap. 1, we read: “… Joseph betroths Mary to
himself and becomes a trustworthy witness to the Mother of God (θεοτόκου)”; Texte und Untersuchungen,
Vol. 38, Part 1, p. 13. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the Georgian translation (Texte und Untersuchungen,
Vol. 26, Part 1, p. 3) to correspond to it; only the Greek has it. Bardenhewer branded it an interpolation; cf.
Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, Vol. 2 (2nd ed.; Freiburg, 1914), p. 608, note 1. H. Rahner, however,
made a laudable effort to accredit the Greek text and concluded that Hippolytus, about 220, attests the title;
cf. Hippolyt von Rom als Zeuge für den Ausdruck θεοτόκος, in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, Vol. 59,
1935, pp. 73-81. Dom. B. Reynders, however, pointed out that the Armenian text, which is the intermediary
whereby the Georgian reaches the original Greek, had been edited by L. Mariès (Paris, 1935), that it does not
give the passage in question (cf. pp. 46-47), and that therefore the hypothesis of an interpolation must stand;
cf. Bulletin de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale, Vol. 2, 1933-1936, n. 1153; so, too, J. Lebreton, in Recherches
de Science Religieuse, Vol. 26, 1936, p. 204, note 25. (b) The historian Socrates claims that Origen, in the first
volume of his commentary on Romans, treated the question, how Mary is θεοτόκος; cf. Hist. eccl., lib. 7, cap.
32; PG, 67, 812. Rahner, art. cit., p. 73, thought it a moot point whether Socrates meant that Origen was
defending merely Mary’s maternal dignity or the actual title. Vagaggini, op. cit., p. 106, note 37, sees no reason
to doubt that, in Socrates’ context, it is the title itself that is primarily in view. In any event, none of the extant
works of Origen contains the word indisputably; for unreliable readings, cf. Vagaggini, p. 107, note 40. (c) The
title of a homily, περι της θεοτόκου, attributed to Pierius, Bishop of Alexandria at the beginning of the fourth
century, by Philip of Side (cf. Texte und Untersuchungen, Vol. 5, Part 2, p. 171), may well be due to a copyist;
cf. Bardenhewer, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 237-238, and p. 238, note 1. (d) On the antiphon, Sub tuum praesidium,
cf. note 176 below.

639

Ignatius, Ad Trallianos, n. 9, 1; ed. Funk-Bihlmeyer, p. 95; tr. J. Kleist, in Ancient Christian Writers, Vol.
1 (Westminster, Md., 1946), 77.

640

Ignatius, Ad Ephesios, n. 7, 2; Funk-Bihlmeyer, p. 84; tr. Kleist, p. 63.

641

Ad Ephesios, n. 18, 2; Funk-Bihlmeyer, p. 87; tr. Kleist, p. 67.

642

Aristides, Apologia, n. 2; Texte und Untersuchungen, Vol. 4, Part 3, p. 9.

643

Cf. Justin, Apologia 1, cap. 63; PG, 6, 425; Apologia 2, cap. 6; PG, 6, 453.

644

Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 31, 1 (Massuet, 3, 22, 1); Harvey, 2, 121; PG, 7, 956. I have
treated Irenaeus more at length in Mary in Western Patristic Thought, pp. 148-149.

645

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, lib. 1, cap. 21; G.C.S., 15, 91.

646

Stromata, lib. 6, cap. 15; G.C.S., 15, 496.

647

Origen, In epistolam ad Galatas; PG, 14, 1298; cf. In epistolam ad Titum; PG, 14, 1304.

648

Origen, In epistolam ad Titum; PG, 14, 1304.

649

Cf. Origen, Hom. 14 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 97; Hom. 17 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 115.

650

Cf. Origen, Hom. 1 in Ezechielem, n. 4; G.C.S., 33, 327-328.

651

Cf. Origen, Comm. in Ioannem, lib. 10, n. 6 (4); G.C.S., 10, 176.

652

On Origen’s grasp of the Incarnation, cf. Vagaggini, op. cit., pp. 101-104.

653

Cf. Origen, Hom. 7 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 51-52; Hom. 8 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35-58; Hom. 7 in Lucam; G.C.S.,
35, 48.

654

Origen, Hom. 7 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 45.

655

Cf. Alexander of Alexandria, Epist. ad Alexandrum Constant., n. 12; PG, 18, 568. Cf. Jouassard, art. cit.,
p. 85.

656

Cf. Athanasius, Oratio 3 contra Arianos, nn. 14, 29, 33; PG, 26, 349, 385, 393; id., Vita s. Antonii, n. 36;
PG, 26, 897.

657

Cf. Athanasius, Oratio 3 contra Arianos, n. 29; PG, 26, 385.

658

Cf. Eusebius, De vita Constantini, lib. 3, n. 43; G.C.S., 7, 95. On Constantine’s alleged use of θεο μήτηρ
κόρη, originally in Latin according to Eusebius, cf. PG, 20, 1265; also P. Clément (cited below, note 177), pp.
603-604.

659

Cyril, Catecheses, 10, 19; PG, 33, 685.

660

Cf. Catecheses, 12, 4; PG, 33, 729.

661

Basil, Homilia in sanctam Christi generationem, n. 5; PG, 31, 1468.

662

Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, De virginitate, cap. 14 (13) and 19; ed. Cavarnos, op. cit., pp. 306, 323; id., In diem
natalem Christi; PG, 46, 1136; id., In Christi resurrectionem, orat. 5; PG, 46, 688.

663

Cf. Epiphanius, Ancoratus, n. 75; G.C.S., 25, 95.

664

Cf. Didymus, De trinitate, lib. 2, cap. 4; PG, 39, 484.

665

Cf. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 29, n. 4; PG, 36, 80.

666

Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistola 101; PG, 37, 177-180.

667

Cf. C. H. Roberts, ed., Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Vol. 3
(Cambridge, 1939), n. 470; F. Mercenier, L’antienne mariale grecque la plus ancienne, in Le Muséon, Vol.
52, 1939, pp. 229-233; id., La plus ancienne prière à la sainte Vierge, in Questions Liturgiques et
Paroissiales, Vol. 25, 1940, pp. 33-36. The conservative dating of Roberts, not before the second half of the
fourth century, has been disputed by G. Vannucci, who prefers the opinion of Lobel, based on sheerly
paleographic grounds, that the document is not later than the third century; cf. La più antica preghiera alla
Madre di Dio, in Marianum, Vol. 3, 1941, pp. 97-101. More recently, O. Stegmüller has objected to Mercenier’s
restoration and submitted his own; paleographic, liturgical, patristic, and apocryphal data persuade him that
the prayer ought not to be dated before the end of the fourth century; cf. Sub tuum praesidium: Bemerkungen
zur ältesten Überlieferung, in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, Vol. 74, 1952, pp. 76-82. Gordillo
considers Stegmüller’s dating less probable and assigns the prayer to the third century; cf. Mariologia
orientalis, p. 7, and note 56, ibid.

668

Quoted by Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Iulianum, lib. 8; PG, 76, 901. P. Clément has concluded, from the
literature, monuments, liturgy, and Collyridian heresy, that at the end of the fourth century not only the
ecclesiastical writers but even the generality of the faithful felt a profound attachment to this Marian
prerogative; cf. Le sens chrétien et la maternité divine de Marie avant le conflit Nestorien, in Ephemerides
Theologicae Lovanienses, Vol. 5, 1928, 599-613.

669

Two exceptions may be authentic. The first stems from the Synod of Antioch at the beginning of 325; for
the text, cf. H.-G. Opitz, Athanasius Werke, Vol. 3/1, 1-2, Urkunde 18, p. 39. Historians tend more and more
to accept the existence of this Council; cf. G. Bardy, in J. R. Palanque, et al., The Church in the Christian
Roman Empire, Vol. 1, The Church and the Arian Crisis, tr. E. C. Messenger (New York, 1953), pp. 85-86. The
other text stems from Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch 324-330; cf. Frag. 68; ed. M. Spanneut, Recherches sur
les écrits d’Eustathe d’Antioche (Lille, 1948), p. 116. Its authenticity is doubted by Sellers and Zoepfl, upheld
by Cavallera, Bardenhewer, and Spanneut; cf. A. Grillmeier, Die theologische und sprachliche Vorbereitung
der christologischen Formel von Chalkedon, in Das Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und Gegenwart, edd.
Grillmeier-Bacht, Vol. 1 (Würzburg, 1951), p. 125 and note 14, ibid. Ephraem does not use the Greek word,
Theotókos, nor any Syriac word which could be so translated, although he affirms the divine Maternity clearly;
cf. Ortiz de Urbina, La mariologia nei Padri siriaci, p. 104; Gordillo, Mariologia orientalis, pp. 8, 29. With
respect to Chrysostom, the homilies where the word occurs are not his, but are probably the work of Severian
of Gabala; cf. B. Marx, Severiana unter den Spuria Chrysostomi bei Montfaucon-Migne, in Orientalia
Christiana Periodica, Vol. 5, 1939, pp. 281-367.

670

Cf. Grillmeier, art. cit., p. 126, note 14.

671

Neither the content of Theotókos among the Alexandrians nor the Antiochene reluctance to employ the
term can be appreciated without some understanding of Alexandrian and Antiochene Christology. Cf., e.g.,
Grillmeier, art. cit., pp. 5-202; E. Weigl, Christologie vom Tode des Athanasius bis zum Ausbruch des
nestorianischen Streites (373-429) (München, 1925); R. V. Sellers, Two Ancient Christologies (London,
1940); F. Loofs, Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte, Part 1 (ed. K. Aland; Halle, 1950), p. 205 ff.;
Söll, art. cit., pp. 310-317. — It is worth noting that a man like Chrysostom, whose orthodoxy is beyond
suspicion, avoids Theotókos not so much from deep-rooted theological prepossessions as (a) because his
master, Diodore, refuses to use it, and (b) because he is primarily a preacher, who prefers the more common,
more indeterminate, less loaded terminology.

672

Cyril of Alexandria, Epistola 17, n. 12; A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part 1, 40; PG, 77, 120. It is interesting that
before 428 Theotókos appears in Cyril very infrequently, perhaps not at all; cf. Jouassard, art. cit., p. 99, note
59.

673

Cyril, Epistola 24; A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part 1, 117-118; PG, 77, 137. For the background of Ephesus and
subsequent events, cf. Jouassard, p. 122 ff. In a recent attempt to determine the precise theological value of
Ephesus’ first session, Ortiz de Urbina has concluded that the divine Maternity was expressly and directly
defined; cf. Il dogma di Efeso, in Mélanges Martin Jugie (Paris, 1953), pp. 233-240; but cf. Jouassard, p. 135,
for a more conservative opinion.

674

Nestorius, Liber Heraclidis, 2, 1; tr. based on French version by F. Nau, et al., Le Livre d’Héraclide de
Damas (Paris, 1910), p. 171.

675

Nestorii sermo; A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 5, Part 1, 30; Liber Heraclidis, 2, 1; tr. Nau, p. 176; Nestorii tractatus;
A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 5, Part 1, 38; J. P. Bethune-Baker, Nestorius and His Teaching (Cambridge, 1908), p. 71.
Cf. also Nilus a S. B., De maternitate divina b. Mariae semper virginis Nestorii Constantinopolitani et Cyrilli
Alexandrini sententia (Romae, 1944), pp. 1-19.

676

Cyril, Epistola 4, n. 6; A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part 1, 28; PG, 77, 48.

677

Cf. Cyril, Epistola 1, nn. 5-6; A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part 1, 12-13; PG, 77, 16. For the text of the Symbol of
Nicaea, cf. I. Ortiz de Urbina, El Símbolo Niceno (Madrid, 1947), p. 21.

678

Cyril, Hom. div. 15, n. 4; PG; 1093. For a more comprehensive picture, cf. Eberle, op. cit., pp. 21-104.

679

John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa, lib. 3, cap. 12; PG, 94, 1029. A synthetic view of Damascene’s doctrine
on the divine Maternity may be found in Chevalier, op. cit., pp. 94-129.

680

The Oriental tradition for the first five centuries, specifically on Mary’s “original sanctity,” has been set forth
with customary scholarliness and acumen by M. Jugie, L’Immaculée Conception dans l’Écriture sainte et dans
la tradition orientale (Romae, 1952), pp. 55-94.

681

Cf. notes 64-67 above.

682

Cf. notes 5 and 7 above.

683

Jugie argues that Irenaeus’ concept of Mary’s sublime role at the side of Christ (i.e., it is to Jesus and Mary
that humanity owes its return to primitive incorruption) removes from her ipso facto any such thing as
original corruption; cf. L’Immaculée Conception, p. 67. The conclusion may be theologically valid; it is
nevertheless obvious that Irenaeus did not grasp the implications of his premise.

684

Cf. J. Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 2 (Westminster, Md., 1953), 163.

685

Hippolytus, Contra Noetum, cap. 17; PG, 10, 825.

686

Mary in Western Patristic Thought, pp. 138-139. Cf. also H. Delehaye, Sanctus, in Analecta Bollandiana,
Vol. 28, 1909, pp. 145-200.

687

Epitaphium Abercii, vv. 12-14; ed. J. Quasten, in Florilegium patristicum, Vol. 7 (Bonnae, 1935), 22-24.
For the view that the “virgin” is Our Lady, cf. F. J. Dölger. ΙΧΘΥΣ, Vol. 2 (Münster, 1922), 487-488; J.
Quasten, Flor. patr., Vol. 7, 24, note 2; J. C. Plumpe, Mater ecclesia (Washington, D. C., 1943), p. 28, note 32.
For the conviction that the Church is intended, cf. A. Greiff, Zum Verständnis der Aberkiosinschrift, in
Theologie und Glaube, Vol. 18, 1926, pp. 78-88; G. Bardy, La théologie de l’église de s. Clément de Rome à
s. Irénée (Paris, 1945), pp. 123-124; and, tending in the same direction, A. Müller, Ecclesia-Maria: Die Einheit
Marias und der Kirche (2nd ed., Freiburg i. d. Schweiz, 1955), pp. 43-44 and note 58, ibid. — Cf. also Ascensio
Isaiae, cap. 11, n. 5: Joseph keeps Mary as “a holy virgin”; Charles, Ascensio d’Isaie, p. 204.

688

Hom. 7 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 50. Cf. Vagaggini, op. cit., pp. 25 and 107, note 40.

689

Adamantius, De recta in Deum fide; G.C.S., 4, 190, 191. Cf. also Oracula Sibyllina, lib. 8, v. 461: ἀχράντοισι
… κόλποις; G.C.S., 8, 171.

690

Cf. Protevangelium Iacobi, 7-16; ed. Amann, op. cit., pp. 204-242.

691

Cf. Jugie, L’Immaculée Conception, p. 57.

692

Cf. Protevangelium Iacobi, 1, 4; Amann, pp. 182-184.

693

Cf. Protevangelium Iacobi, 4, 2 and 4, 4; Amann, pp. 192-194.

694

So Jugie, L’Immaculée Conception, p. 60.

695

For a discussion of the textual problem, cf. Amann, op. cit., pp. 17-21; Jugie, L’Immaculée Conception, pp.
58-62.

696

Cf. Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. 79, n. 5; G.C.S., 37, 480.

697

Cf. Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. 79, n. 5; also haer. 78, n. 23; G.C.S., 37, 474: her body “was conceived of
a man and a woman.”

698

Protevangelium Iacobi, 6, 3; Amann, p. 202.

699

Cf. Jugie, L’Immaculée Conception, pp. 62-63.

700

Cf. Clement, Paedagogus, lib. 1, cap. 6; G.C.S., 12, 115.

701

Cf. Origen, Hom. 6 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 40.

702

Cf. Hom. 6 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 39-40.

703

Cf. Origen, Hom. 7 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 46.

704

Origen, Hom. 9 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 62.

705

Cf. Origen, Hom. 8 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 55-57.

706

Cf. Hom. 8 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 58.

707

Cf. Vagaggini, op. cit., pp. 136-156, 168-170.

708

If the treatise, On Virginity, transmitted in Coptic, is authentic (cf. note 130), Athanasius should he added
to Epiphanius and Ephraem. It describes in highly laudatory terms the life of Mary as a young girl. Incidental
reservations suggest that the author may have glimpsed in her some trifling, momentary failings; but on the
whole the picture is striking. The treatise presents Our Lady as a unique model for Christian virgins.

709

Cf. note 17.

710

Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. 79, n. 3; G.C.S., 37, 477.

711

Panarion, haer. 78, n. 24; G.C.S., 37, 474.

712

Cf. X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée Conception, in D.T.C., Vol. 7, 879.

713

Cf. Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. 78, n. 23, and haer. 79, n. 5; G.C.S., 37, 474, 480.

714

Panarion, haer. 79, n. 7; G.C.S., 37, 482.

715

Cf. Ephraem, Hymni de beata Maria, 13, nn. 5-6; Lamy, Vol. 2, 577. Cf. Hymni …, 14, n. 1; Lamy, Vol. 2,
577: heaven is not loftier than Mary.

716

Cf. Ephraem, Sermones exegetici; Opera omnia syriace et latine, Vol. 2 (Romae, 1740), 327.

717

Ephraem, Carmina Nisibena, 27; ed. G. Bickell (Lipsiae, 1866), p. 40.

718

Cf. Ortiz de Urbina, La mariologia nei Padri siriaci, pp. 107-108; Lo sviluppo, pp. 59-60.

719

Cf. L. Hammersberger, op. cit., p. 57 ff.

720

Cf. B. Altaner, Patrologie (2nd ed.; Freiburg, 1950), p. 301.

721

Cf. X. Le Bachelet, art. cit., cols. 885-893.

722

Clement, Paedagogus, lib. 3, cap. 12; G.C.S., 12, 287.

723

Cyril of Alexandria, Glaph. in Leviticum; PG, 69, 584. For the date (before 423), cf. G. Jouassard, L’activité
littéraire de saint Cyrille jusqu’à 428. Essai de chronologie et de synthèse, in Mélanges E. Podechard (Lyon,
1945), p. 170.

724

John Chrysostom, Hom. 4 in Matthaeum, n. 5; PG, 57, 45. Chrysostom’s answer is the more surprising as
in the same context he recognizes Mary’s reaction to Gabriel’s greeting as admirable and virtuous.

725

Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, lib. 3, cap. 17, 7 (Massuet, 3, 16, 7); Harvey, 2, 88; PG, 7, 926. Ephraem too
sees Mary rebuked at Cana for excessive haste; cf. Expositio evangelii concordantis, cap. 5, n. 5; C.S.C.O., Vol.
137, 61 (Arm.); Vol. 145, 45 (Latin).

726

Severian, In sanctum martyrem Acacium; ed. J. B. Aucher, Severiani … homiliae (Venetiis, 1827), p. 317.

727

John Chrysostom, Hom. 21 in Ioannem, n. 2; PG, 59, 130.

728

Id., Hom. 27 in Matthaeum, n. 3; PG, 57, 347.

729

Id., Hom. 44 in Matthaeum, n. 1; PG, 57, 464-465.

730

Cf. Bardenhewer, op. cit., Vol. 3 (Freiburg, 1912), 337-338.

731

Origen, Hom. 17 in Lucam; G.C.S., 35, 116-118. The Homilies on Luke, which were preached in some form
to the Christians of Caesarea in Palestine, are difficult to date; Hanson inclines to place them at 233-234; cf.
op. cit., pp. 20-22, 26.

732

Basil, Epistola 260, n. 9; PG, 32, 965-968. For a dating in 377, cf. PG, 32, 954.

733

Cyril of Alexandria, Comm. in Ioannis evangelium, lib. 12; ed. Pusey, op. cit., Vol. 3, 90-91; PG, 74, 661-664. The time of composition of the Commentary on John may have run from ca. 425-428; cf. Jouassard,
L’activité littéraire de saint Cyrille, p. 172.

734

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, 17, 6; PG, 33, 976.

735

Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 38, n. 13; PG, 36, 325; same passage in Oratio 45, n. 9; PG, 36, 633.

736

Cf. Ephraem, Sermo adversus haereticos (= De margarita); Opera omnia graece et latine, Vol. 2 (Romae,
1743), 270.

737

Cf. Ephraem, Sermones exegetici; Opera omnia syriace et latine, Vol. 2 (Romae, 1740), 328.

738

Cf. Ephraem, Sermo 11 in natalem domini; Opera omnia syriace et latine, Vol. 2, 429-430.

739

Mary’s baptism as envisaged by Ephraem is difficult to reconcile with his thesis that Our Lady is loftier than
heaven, superior to angels. On this score I simply note (a) that the context gives no inkling of the purpose and
effect of Mary’s baptism, save that it is a rebirth; (b) that sin does not enter the picture he is painting; and (c)
that we may be face to face here with an early Christian intuition that Our Lady is prototype of the Church.
If this intuition has place in the passage under discussion, then the words placed on Our Lady’s lips, “You [my
Son] will regenerate me with your baptism,” may well be uttered in the name of the Church, Cf. Müller,
Ecclesia-Maria, p. 150 and note 57, ibid.

740

Cf. notes 231 and 232 above.

741

Cf. notes 234 and 235.

742

Cf. note 233.

743

Cf. note 242.

744

Cf. notes 237, 238, 240, and 241.

745

Cf. Le Bachelet, art. cit., cols. 888-889.

746

Cf. Jugie, L’Immaculée Conception, pp. 77-94.

747

Cf. Cyril, Adversus Nestorii blasphemias, lib. 1, cap. 1; A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part 6, 16; PG, 76, 17.

748

Cf. Cyril, Hom. div. 4; A.C.O., Tom. 1, Vol. 1, Part 2, 102-103; PG, 77, 992.

749

Cf., e.g., Cyril, Adversus anthropomorphitas, cap. 26; PG, 76, 1129. The problem of Mary’s sinlessness is
complicated by Cyril’s concept of original sin. His casual statements leave the impression that human nature
shares in Adam’s sin; but, when he confronts the problem specifically, he emphasizes the element of
concupiscence. Cf. Jugie, L’Immaculée Conception, pp. 32-33, 78; du Manoir, op. cit., pp. 282-283. — It is
interesting that Nestorius comes fairly close to affirming the Immaculate Conception by his concept of Mary’s
“flesh without sin” and because he exempts her from dolorous parturition, the penalty of original sin which
is proper to women. For the texts, cf. F. Loofs, Nestoriana (Halle, 1905), pp. 324-326, 349.

750

Cf. Proclus, Oratio 5: Laudatio in sanctam virginem ac Dei genitricem Mariam, n. 2; PG, 65, 717-720. On
the authorship of this homily, cf. note 24 above. Cf. also Oratio 6: Laudatio sanctae Dei genitricis Mariae,
n. 8: Mary was “fashioned of pure (good?) clay”; PG, 65, 733. She is “the sacred innermost shrine of
sinlessness”; Oratio 6 … n. 17; PG, 65, 753. However, the authenticity of Homily 6 is suspect; cf. Jugie,
L’Immaculée Conception, p. 80; del Fabbro, art. cit., pp. 212-214, 219.

751

Theodotus, In sanctam Mariam Dei genitricem et in sanctam Christi nativitatem, n. 11; Patrologia
Orientalis, Vol. 19, 329.

752

Theodotus, Hom. 4: In sanctam deiparam et in Simeonem, n. 6; PG, 77, 1397.

753

So Jugie, L’Immaculée Conception, pp. 82-83.

754

So Jouassard, Marie à travers la patristique, pp. 140, 141.

755

Cf. Hesychius, Sermo 5: De sancta Maria deipara; PG, 93, 1464-1465.

756

Hesychius, Sermo 6: In occursum domini; PG, 93, 1476. Hesychius does not imply that Mary’s doubts were
sinful.

757

Chrysippus, In sanctam Mariam deiparam, n. 2; Patrologia Orientalis, Vol. 19, 338-339. Jugie inclines
to interpret this involvement of Mary in Eve’s fall as debitum remotum or proximum. — For the pertinent
ideas of Basil of Seleucia and Antipater of Bostra, cf. Jugie, L’Immaculée Conception, pp. 92-93.

758

Cf. Jugie, op. cit., pp. 95-146. With respect to this period some fine insights may be found in Jouassard,
Marie à travers la patristique, pp. 139-147.

759

Andrew of Crete, Oratio 4: In nativitatem b. Mariae; PG, 97, 872.

760

Before Nicaea the only overt reference to the close of Our Lady’s earthly life is a phrase attributed to Origen:
“With respect to the brethren of Jesus (Jn. 2:12), there are many who ask how He had them, seeing that Mary
remained a virgin until her death”; G.C.S., 10, 506. The passage, whose authenticity is suspect (cf. note 126
above), is more significant as testimony to Mary’s permanent virginity than as evidence for her death. True,
her death is mentioned obliquely, as though it were self-evident; but this manner of speaking need not reflect
a tradition; it may stem from lack of reflection on the dignity of God’s Mother. In a word, we may conclude
no more than that the author took Our Lady’s death for granted.

761

Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. 78, nn. 10-11; G.C.S., 37, 461-462.

762

Panarion, n. 23; G.C.S., 37, 474.

763

This is essentially the middle-of-the-road solution of M. Jugie, La mort et l’Assomption de la sainte Vierge
(Città del Vaticano, 1944), pp. 77-81. A more benign interpretation is offered by O. Faller, De priorum
saeculorum silentio circa Assumptionem b. Mariae virginis (Romae, 1946), pp. 33-43. As he sees it, (a)
Epiphanius has no doubt that the passage of Mary from this life was miracle-laden; this miraculous element
explains the silence of Scripture on her death. (b) In fact, this miracle is so remarkable that it is possible to
admit an immediate passage of her body and soul into life immortal. (c) Epiphanius does not doubt Mary’s
glorification, even in the body. His one unresolved problem concerns the manner of her passing: did she die
or not? (d) The third hypothesis means a translation to glory without the prelude of death; this is the
hypothesis favored by Epiphanius. Faller’s exegesis is followed by F. de P. Solá, La Asunción de María en la
tradición patrística, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 6, 1947, pp. 121-123. A more conservative conclusion is
reached by B. Altaner, Zur Frage der Definibilität der Assumptio B.M.V., in Theologische Revue, Vol. 44,
1948, cols. 131-134. From a more extensive collection of texts Altaner finds (a) that in the two passages under
discussion Mary’s end is veiled for Epiphanius in a mysterious obscurity. What is “astonishing and amazing”
is simply this, that we must reckon with the possibility that Mary died a martyr, or that she was carried off to
some unknown place on earth, where she continues in life. (b) The third hypothesis cannot be interpreted of
an Assumption thesis; it means that Mary may have been transferred elsewhere on earth. (c) This evaluation
of Epiphanius is supported by the silence of Jerome, Origen, Athanasius, Ambrose, and Augustine. — The
problem is soberly treated by E. R. Smothers, Saint Epiphanius and the Assumption, in The American
Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 125, 1951, pp. 355-372.

764

So F. Cayré, L’Assomption aux quatre premiers siècles: État embryonnaire de la doctrine, in Studia
Mariana, Vol. 4: Vers le dogme de l’Assomption (Montréal, 1948), pp. 144-145. Epiphanius’ discovery, Cayré
believes, was that Mary can be the woman of Apoc. 12, miraculously withdrawn from the fury of the dragon
who ravages God’s kingdom on earth. This insight motivated his hesitation as to her death and resurrection.

765

Cf. Ephraem, De nativitate domini sermo 12, sermo 11, sermo 4; Opera omnia syriace et latine, Vol. 2, 415.

766

Ephraem, Sermo 1 de diversis; Opera omnia syriace et latine, Vol. 3, 600. Jugie finds this sentence
reminiscent of an early patristic idea which located the temporary abode of just souls in an earthly paradise;
cf. La mort et l’Assomption, p. 60.

767

Cf. Ephraem, Hymni de beata Maria, 15, n. 2; Lamy, Vol. 2, 583.

768

In Ephraem’s works there is no express declaration of Our Lady’s glorious resurrection; on this point his
remarks are consistently vague. Cf. Ephraem, Sedra de probis et iustis; Lamy, Vol. 3, 231-237.

769

Gregory of Nyssa, De virginitate, cap. 14 (13); ed. Cavarnos, op. cit., p. 306.

770

Cf. Jugie, La mort et l’Assomption, p. 63.

771

Severian of Gabala, In mundi creationem oratio 6, n. 10; PG, 56, 498.

772

Cf. Jugie, La mort et l’Assomption, pp. 64-65.

773

Cf. ibid., pp. 73-74.

774

In prophetam Simeonem; ed. Faller, op. cit., p. 26; cf. PG, 86, 245.

775

For two well-reasoned interpretations, cf. Jugie, La mort et l’Assomption, pp. 74-76, and Faller, op. cit.,
pp. 30-31.

776

Cf. B. Capelle, Les homélies liturgiques du prétendu Timothée de Jérusalem, in Ephemerides Liturgicae,
Vol. 63, 1949, pp. 5-26. Jugie was not impressed by Capelle’s argumentation; cf. L’Immaculée Conception, p.
74 and note 3, ibid.; he continues to consider Timothy a contemporary of Epiphanius.

777

Cf. Jugie, La mort et l’Assomption, pp. 101-171; A. C. Rush, The Assumption in the Apocrypha, in The
American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 116, 1947, pp. 5-31; id., Assumption Theology in the Transitus Mariae,
ibid., Vol. 123, 1950, 93-110.

778

Obsequies of the Holy Virgin; W. Wright, Contributions to the Apocryphal Literature of the New
Testament (London, 1865), p. 46 f. On the probable date, cf. Jugie, La mort et l’Assomption, pp. 107-109.

779

A pertinent but controverted document is the Euthymiaca historia, lib. 3, cap. 40, found in John
Damascene’s Hom. 2 in dormitionem Mariae, n. 18; PG, 96, 748-752. The unknown author has Juvenal,
Archbishop of Jerusalem, narrated at the time of Chalcedon what he has learned about Mary’s passing “from
an ancient and utterly unerring tradition.” This embraces her death, the arrival of the Apostles, the vision of
angels, the commitment of Mary’s soul to God’s hands, the burial in Gethsemane, the discovery after three
days of a coffin empty save for burial shrouds, the Apostles’ conclusion that Christ wanted to honor His
Mother’s immaculate body “with incorruption and transposition before the common, universal resurrection.”
The Historia of which this is an extract has not been recovered. Many scholars consider the extract an
interpolation in Damascene’s homily. Jugie, e.g., insists that it should not be dated much before 890; cf. La
mort et l’Assomption, pp. 160-164. He calls the Juvenal narration sheer legend (cf. ibid., pp. 164-167), while
Gordillo follows Kekelidze, Abel, and Baldi in admitting its historicity, pointing to the temperate narrative and
its similarity to Epiphanius’ approach; cf. Mariologia orientalis (Roma, 1954), p. 222 and note 45, ibid. A.
Wenger asserts that Jugie has convincingly demonstrated the apocryphal character of the Juvenal story, but
he observes justly that the MS Sinait. gr. 491, the oldest witness of the Historia, forbids us to date the legend
later than 750; cf. L’Assomption de la T. S. Vierge dans la tradition byzantine du VIe au Xe siècle: Études et
documents (Paris, 1955), p. 137.

780

In this sense Altaner was surely justified when he insisted that “no tradition underlies the Transitus which
is to be taken seriously from a historical point of view”; art. cit., col. 135.

781

The influence of the apocrypha is evident in a pastoral letter, The Dormition of Our Lady (ca. 620), in which
John, Archbishop of Thessalonica, introduced the Dormition feast into his diocese shortly after Emperor
Maurice prescribed it for the Empire; cf. Jugie’s edition, Patrologia Orientalis, Vol. 19, 1926, pp. 344-438.
John’s purpose was to disengage from numerous interpolated versions the genuine eyewitness story of Mary’s
last hours. But, despite its sobriety, piety, and influence, John’s account is legendary. Capelle has concluded
that, save for a personal prologue and peroration, John has (with superficial exceptions) simply transcribed
an earlier Greek apocryphon which is itself the source of the Latin Transitus (ed. Wilmart, Studi e testi, Vol.
59, 1933, pp. 323-357) on which Ps.-Melito depended; cf. Les anciens récits de l’Assomption et Jean de
Thessalonique, in Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale, Vol. 12, 1940, pp. 209-235. Capelle’s
conclusion found independent confirmation from L. Carli, Le fonti del Racconto della Dormizione de Maria
di Giovanni Tessalonicese, in Marianum, Vol. 2, 1940, pp. 307-313. Subsequently Capelle returned to the
problem, compared the two recensions of John with the Latin accounts of Ps.-Melito, Wilmart’s Transitus,
and the previously unedited Transitus Colbertinus, and concluded that John’s pastoral letter gives us in the
original language the whole apocryphon (going back to at least the sixth century) of which the other witnesses
are but résumés or rather free adaptations; cf. Vestiges grecs et latins d’un antique ‘Transitus’ de la Vierge,
in Analecta Bollandiana, Vol. 67, 1949, pp. 21-48. — Especially disappointing is John’s epilogue; of fifteen
manuscripts consulted by Jugie, only three speak clearly of a glorious resurrection. Capelle believes that John
deliberately omitted mention of the bodily Assumption, because it was not certainly genuine. J. M. Bover,
however, believes he has established that the authentic epilogue contained the Assumption account, and that
consequently John is probably the first Greek author who testifies explicitly to the Assumption; cf. La
Asunción de María en el ‘Transitus W’ y en Juan de Tesalónica, in Estudios Eclesiásticos, Vol. 20, 1946, pp.
415-433. Cf. the Epitome of John’s account published by F. Halkin, Une légende byzantine de la Dormition:
L’Epitomé du récit de Jean de Thessalonique, in Mélanges Martin Jugie (Paris, 1953), pp. 156-164. It
confirms two of Jugie’s theses: the attribution of the original work to John, and the extent of its influence. The
epilogue, perhaps added by the scribe, includes the reunion of Mary’s soul and body.

782

According to Jugie, the first traces of a special solemnity that makes express mention of Mary’s death and
Assumption do not go back beyond the second half of the sixth century. In many churches, however, this feast
of the Dormition was an outgrowth of the primitive Marian feast, the Commemoration of Blessed Mary, which
celebrated in general fashion Mary’s entry into the Church Triumphant. In the absence of indisputable
scriptural or traditional data on the way in which this entrance was effected, the feast emphasized the Virgin-Mother idea and Mary’s role as New Eve. After the Transitus tales had won popularity, the Commemoration
tended to be transformed into the feast of the Dormition and Assumption. The institution of this feast, Jugie
claims, does not constitute an apodictic proof in favor of a genuine Assumption doctrine. In East and West
the liturgy reflected the actual state of theology: a perceptible inclination for the radical solution of the future,
but unquestionable traces of the incomplete solution, bodily incorruption till the Last Judgment. Cf. Jugie,
La mort et l’Assomption, pp. 172-212. Faller finds in the fifth-century Commemoration a proper feast of
Mary’s death and Assumption; cf. op. cit., p. 26. Altaner considers Faller’s evidence unacceptable; cf.
Theologische Revue, Vol. 45, 1949, p. 136. Cf. the summary of the development of the feast in W. O’Shea, The
History of the Feast of the Assumption, in Thomist, Vol. 14, 1951, pp. 118-132.

783

Cf. Encomium in dormitionem sanctissimae dominae nostrae semperque virginis Mariae; PG, 86, 3277-3312. The long-accepted paternity of Modestus (✝ 634) is quite problematical; cf. Jugie, La mort et
l’Assomption, pp. 215-218. L. Carli, however, sees no reason for questioning its authenticity; cf. Marianum,
Vol. 2, 1940, p. 387. In any event, it remains the best production of patristic Greek homiletics on the
Assumption. I have not been able to make proper use of the recently published discourse of Theoteknos,
Bishop of Livias (about thirty-five kilometers east of Jerusalem), for the Marian feast of August 15, which he
calls ἀνάληψις. Written between 550 and 650, this homily may be the first genuinely Catholic affirmation of
the glorious Assumption; cf. discussion, text, and French translation in Wegner, op. cit., pp. 96-110, 271-291.

784

Encomium, n. 11; PG, 86, 3308.

785

Encomium, n. 12; PG, 86, 3308.

786

Encomium, n. 7; PG, 86, 3293.

787

Encomium, n. 14; PG, 86, 3312. The expression, “concorporate in incorruption,” is peculiar to Modestus,
is repeated several times, and means that, as the bodies of Jesus and Mary were similar on earth in passibility
and mortality, so He wanted His Mother’s body to resemble His in her risen state; cf. Jugie, La mort et
l’Assomption, p. 222.

788

Encomium, n. 5; PG, 86, 3289. Modestus likewise insists on Mary’s mediatorial role in glory — a common
possession of Byzantine Mariology in this period. She intercedes with her Son and makes Him propitious to
us; cf. Encomium, n. 6; PG, 86, 3292-3293.

789

Cf. Jugie, La mort et l’Assomption, p. 223.

790

The three homilies as edited in PG, 98, 340-372, are actually but two; the first two (cols. 340-357) are two
parts of one homily.

791

Germanus, Hom. 3 in dormitionem; PG, 98, 368.

792

Germanus, Hom. 1 in dormitionem; PG, 98, 348.

793

Andrew of Crete, Hom. 2 in dormitionem; PG, 97, 1072. The order of the first two homilies should be
reversed.

794

Andrew of Crete, Hom. 1 in dormitionem; PG, 97, 1080-1081. Andrew’s mind would be clear enough, were
it not for three hypotheses which he subjoins immediately. In Jugie’s interpretation (La mort et l’Assomption,
pp. 239-240), the hypotheses are: (a) a glorious Assumption in body and soul; (b) assumption of soul to
heaven, transfer of incorrupt body to an unknown spot in this world; (c) some other exceptional and
marvelous condition, not specified. Andrew favors the first hypothesis, but it remains a hypothesis. Faller has
essayed a refutation of Jugie; cf. op. cit., pp. 9-18. For him there is no question of the place to which soul and
body went, but of their state or condition relative to each other. The three hypotheses are: (a) soul and body
simply united to form the same living organism as before; (b) soul rapt in some divine ecstasy, body sharing
in spiritual qualities, while remaining a true body; (c) whole speculation left to God. Faller’s interpretation
has the merit of solving an otherwise insoluble problem: how could Andrew have written so paradoxical a
passage?

795

Cf. John Damascene, Hom. 3 in dormitionem Mariae, nn. 2-3; PG, 96, 753-757.

796

Cf. John Damascene, Hom. 2 in dormitionem Mariae, n. 2; PG, 96, 725.

797

John Damascene, Hom. 2 in dormitionem Mariae, n. 14; PG, 96, 740-741.

798

Cf. John Damascene, Hom. 1 in dormitionem Mariae, nn. 8 and 12; PG, 96, 712, 720; Hom. 2, n. 2; PG, 96,
724.

799

Cf. John Damascene, Hom. 2 in dormitionem Mariae, n. 4; PG, 96, 729.

800

Mention should he made of Cosmas Vestitor, an orator of moderate ability, who apparently lived in
Constantinople toward the middle of the eighth century. His four discourses on the Dormition reveal not
simply a number of improbable legends but an Assumption theology remarkably sound in its principle and
applications. He sees the mystery of Mary’s earthly end and bodily glorification as analogous to the mystery
of Jesus’ death and resurrection, because the flesh of the Son and the flesh of the Mother are one same flesh.
Mary died and her body remained incorrupt in the tomb for three days. On the morning of the third day Christ
came to raise her up; from that moment she is in heaven in body and soul, hard by her Son. For an analysis
of these significant homilies, and a persuasive effort to situate Cosmas in his age and milieu, cf. A. Wenger,
Les homélies inédites de Cosmas Vestitor sur la Dormition, in Mélanges Martin Jugie, pp. 284-300. Wenger
finds that Cosmas has drawn on the apocrypha, Ps.-Dionysius, the Euthymiaca historia, John of Thessalonica,
and probably Germanus of Constantinople.

801

In his Early Christian Interpretations of History (Bampton Lectures, 1952.; New York, 1954), R. L. P.
Milburn has devoted an Appendix (pp. 161-192) and part of a chapter (pp. 134-141) to the historical
background of the Assumption doctrine. His reconstruction of the extant evidence (patristic, liturgical,
apocryphal) of early Christian thought on Mary’s final lot is, on the whole, sober historical fact. And Mr.
Milburn admits, quite honestly, that there is “no means of disproving the doctrine of the Assumption, for, in
the absence of historical data, it is not given to mankind lightly to confine the power of a God ‘whose
judgements are unsearchable and whose ways are past finding out’” (p. 139). But Mr. Milburn is playing the
theologian rather than the historian when he states baldly and badly that “to elevate the doctrine of the
Assumption to equality with the fundamental truths of the Christian creeds is to abandon the ancient claim
of the Church to declare, as its Gospel, the mighty works of God manifested in history” (p. 141). Moreover, Mr.
Milburn reveals little awareness of the concept or role of doctrinal development in Christian belief — an
awareness essential, not indeed for reconstructing an era’s explicit belief, but surely for evaluating the link (or
lack of it) between a particular doctrine and Christ’s own revelation. He is less than fair as a historian to
Modestus, Germanus, Andrew, and Damascene when he does not reveal that their primary reasons for
asserting an Assumption of Mary are not pseudo-historical but theological, and so leads us to believe that the
only significant influences which “operated in favour of the doctrine of the Assumption” were (a) a medieval
love of the miraculous, (b) impatience with the silence of Scripture and the Fathers, (c) desire for parallelism
between Jesus and Mary, (d) rivalry between Jerusalem and Ephesus for an empty tomb, (e)
misunderstandings of authors’ and artists’ meanings, (f) eagerness to convert metaphor or reverie into
concrete fact, (g) influence or miraculous translations in Graeco-Roman and Jewish tradition. Underlying the
whole treatment is, I fear, an unspoken principle: if history does not declare an event, neither should the
Church. If history traces a doctrine’s primitive life to unfounded legend, the Church had best beware of it. “But
the grave difficulty … is that … something has been solemnly stated as assured historical fact that has no other
strictly historical basis … than a Coptic romance” (p. 140).

802

Cf. the splendid brief survey of the patristic period by G. Jouassard, L’Assomption corporelle de la sainte
Vierge et la patristique, in Assomption de Marie: Bulletin de la Société Française d’Études Mariales, 1948
(Paris, 1949), pp. 99-117.

803

For information on the Apocrypha, cf. J. Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 1 (Westminster, Md., 1950), pp. 106-157;
A. Robert and A. Tricot, Guide to the Bible, English translation prepared under the direction of E. Arbez and
M. McGuire, Vol. 1 (Westminster, Md., 1951), pp. 61-69; B. Altaner, Patrologie (Freiburg i/Br., 1950), pp. 45-67; E. Amann, Apocryphes du nouveau testament, in Dictionnaire de la bible, supplément, Vol. 1 (1928), cols.
460-533.

804

J, Quasten, op. cit., pp. 119-121. The term Protoevangelium is the usual designation for this Gospel of James.
This is the name given to the work by Postel in 1552.

805

E. Amann, Le protoévangile de Jacques et ses remaniements latins (Paris, 1910), pp. vii, 10.

806

Origen, Contra Celsum, 1. 32 (G.C.S., Vol. 1, 1899, p. 83, ed. Koetachau; PL, 11, 720 f.).

807

Lk. 1:5-25, 57-80.

808

Protoevangelium Jacobi, 1-6 (Amann, pp. 178-198). The text can also be found in C. Tischendorf, Evangelia
apocrypha (Leipzig, 1876), pp. 1-50; C. Michel, Evangiles apocryphes, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1911), pp. 2-50.

809

Protoevangelium, 4. 2-4 (Amann, pp. 192-194).

810

E. Amann, op. cit., pp. 17-22; X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée Conception, in Dictionnaire de théologie
catholique, Vol. 7, 1927, cols. 875-877.

811

On the feast of the Presentation of Mary, cf. Sr. M. J. Kishpaugh, The Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin
Mary in the Temple. An Historical and Literary Study (Washington, D. C., 1941).

812

J. Quasten, op. cit., p. 121.

813

Mt. 1:18-25; Lk. 1:26-38; Jn. 1:13.

814

E. Dublanchy, S.M., Marie: Enseignement néo-testamentaire sur la virginité de Marie, in Dictionnaire de
théologie catholique, Vol. 9, 1927, cols. 2341-2349; Enseignement traditionnel concernant la virginité de la
Mère de Dieu, ibid., cols. 2369-2373.

815

Origen, Contra Celsum, 1. 32; Acta Pilati, 2. 3 (Tischendorf, p. 224).

816

E. Amann, Le protoévangile de Jacques, pp. 10-15.

817

Protoevangelium Jacobi, 4. 1 (Amann, p. 192).

818

Pseudo-Matthew, Liber de ortu Beatae Mariae et infantia Salvatoris, 7 (Amann, pp. 300-304). The text
is also found in C. Tischendorf, Evangelia apocrypha, pp. 51-112; C. Michel, Evangiles apocryphes, Vol. 1,
pp. 54-158.

819

E. Dublanchy, Marie: Le voue de virginité émis par Marie, in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Vol.
9, 1927, col. 2386.

820

On this problem, cf. E. Amann, op. cit., pp. 24-27.

821

Protoevangelium, 13-17 (Amann, pp. 230-242). The author accommodates here to suit his own purpose the
trial of drinking the bitter water mentioned in Num. 5:12 ff.

822

Protoevangelium, 19-20 (Amann, pp. 250-256). The virginity of Mary in partu is also mentioned in such
early apocrypha as the Ascension of Isaias, 11: 2-11; Odes of Solomon, 19: 6-10. On these documents, cf. J.
Plumpe, Some Little-known Early Witnesses to Mary’s Virginitas in Partu, in Theological Studies, Vol. 9,
1948, pp. 567-577. For the testimony of the Epistola Apostolorum, 3, cf. J. Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 1, p. 151.

823

Protoevangelium, 9: 2-3 (Amann, pp. 216-218).

824

E. Amann, op. cit., pp. 36-39.

825

A. Lewis, Apocrypha syriaca: Protoevangelium, in Studia sinaitica, Vol. 11, 1902, pp. 1-12.

826

M. Chaine, Apocrypha de B. Maria Virgine: Liber nativitatis Mariae, in Corpus scriptorum christianorum
orientalium, ser. 1, Vol. 7, 1909, pp. 1-16.

827

F. Conybeare, Protoevangelium Mariae, in American Journal of Theology, Vol. 1, 1897, pp. 424-442.

828

Pseudo-Matthew, Liber de ortu Beatae Mariae et infantia Salvatoris (Amann, pp. 272-339).

829

De nativitate Mariae (Amann, pp. 340-365). The text can also be found in C. Tischendorf, Evangelia
apocrypha, pp. 113-121. Dom Lambert (Revue Bénédictine, Vol. 46, 1934, pp. 275-282) argues that this is a
work of Paschasius Radbertus.

830

F. Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels: Sahidic Fragments of the Life of the Virgin, in Texts and Studies,
Vol. 4, No. 2, 1896, pp. 1-41.

831

F. Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels: Bohairic Accounts of the Death of Joseph, with Sahidic
Fragments, ibid., pp. 130-185; P. Peeters, Histoire de Joseph le charpentier, in Evangiles apocryphes, Vol.
1, pp. 193-245. Cf. S. Morenz, Die Geschichte von Joseph dem Zimmerman, übersetzt, erläutert und
untersucht (Texte und Untersuchungen, Vol. 56) (Berlin, 1951).

832

P. Peeters, Evangiles apocryphes, Vol. 2, L’évangile de l’enfance (Paris, 1914).

833

Pertinent data on the Transitus Mariae literature will be given below when they are studied in connection
with the death and Assumption of Mary.

834

Pseudo-Melito, Transitus Beatae Mariae, prolog. (C. Tischendorf, Apocalypses apocryphae [Leipzig, 1866],
p. 124, note). In the edition of Tischendorf this prologue is given as a note; in other editions it is given as
Chapter 1. This accounts for the difference in the number of chapters.

835

Pseudo-John, Liber de dormitione Mariae, 1 (Tischendorf, p. 95).

836

Theodosius, The Falling Asleep of Mary, 9. 14 (Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, p. 127).

837

Pseudo-Melito, Transitus Beatae Mariae, 16. 1 (Tischendorf, p. 135).

838

E. Dublanchy, Marie: Enseignement néo-testamentaire sur la maternité divine, in Dictionnaire de
théologie catholique. Vol. 9, 1927, col. 2340.

839

G. Bareille, Docétisme, in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Vol. 4 (1939), cols. 1484-1501.

840

E. Dublanchy, Marie: Enseignement patristique ou théologique concernant la maternité divine, in
Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Vol. 9, 1927, cols. 2349-2351; V. Schweitzer, Alter des Titels Theotokos,
in Katholik, ser. 3, Vol. 17, 1903, pp. 97-113; G. Jouassard, Marie à travers la patristique: Maternité divine,
virginité, sainteté, in Maria. Etudes sur la Sainte Vierge, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 71-157.

841

F. Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, pp. 1-41.

842

Sahidic Fragment 2, B (Robinson, p. 17).

843

Sahidic Fragment, 4 (Robinson, p. 39).

844

Transitus Mariae, 1 (Lewis, Apocrypha syriaca, p. 21).

845

Theodosius, The Falling Asleep of Mary (Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, p. 91).

846

Pseudo-Melito, Transitus Beatae Mariae, Prolog (Tischendorf, Apocalypses apocryphae, p. 124, note).

847

Pseudo-John, Liber de dormitione Mariae, 1 (Tischendorf, p. 95).

848

Pseudo-John, Liber de dormitione Mariae, 47 (Tischendorf, p. 110).

849

Transitus Mariae, 3 (Lewis, p. 51).

850

E. Dublanchy, Marie: Enseignement patristique au IV et au commencement du V siècle, in Dictionnaire
de théologie catholique, Vol. 9, 1927, cols. 2351-2355.

851

Pseudo-Melito, Transitus Beatae Mariae, 15. 3 (Tischendorf, p. 135).

852

Theodosius, The Falling Asleep of Mary, 8. 10 ff. (Robinson, pp. 121-123).

853

M. Jugie, A.A., La mort et l’Assomption de la Sainte Vierge (Studi e testi, Vol. 114) (Vatican City, 1924), pp.
108, 169.

854

C. Balić, O.F.M., Testimonia de Assumptione Beatae Mariae Virginis. Pars prior (Rome, 1948), pp. 14-65,
137-153; M. Jugie, op. cit., pp. 103-171; A. C. Rush, The Assumption in the Apocrypha, in The American
Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 116, 1947, pp. 5-31.

855

B. Altaner, Zur Frage der Defïnibilität der Assumptio in Theologische Revue, Vol. 44, 1948, p. 136. In this
and the corresponding articles in the Theologische Revue, Vol. 45, 1949, pp. 129-142, and Vol. 46, 1950, pp.
5-20, Altaner placed too much emphasis on historical tradition; he tried to discover the teaching of the
Church’s dogmatic tradition by a sheerly historical method. Cf. W. Burghardt, S.J., The Catholic Concept of
Tradition in the Light of Modern Theological Thought, in The Catholic Theological Society of America,
Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Convention (1951), p. 73; J. Ternus, Zur historisch-theologischen Tradition
der Himmelfahrt Mariens, in Scholastik, Vol. 25, 1950, pp. 321-360.

856

For the exitus animae theme in ancient Christian writers, cf. J. Quasten, Die Grabinschrift des Beratius
Nikatoras, in Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, Vol. 53, 1938, pp.
50-69; A. C. Rush, C.SS.R., Death and Burial in Christian Antiquity (Studies in Christian Antiquity, Vol. 1,
Washington, D. C., 1941), 32-35. In the Transitus Mariae literature the terror of the exitus animae is
portrayed very graphically in the Coptic accounts. Incidentally, this was a favorite theme with such early
Egyptian writers as Origen, Homilia 23 in Lucam (G.C.S., Vol. 9, p. 154, ed. Rauer); Athanasius, Vita S.
Antonii, 65 (PG, 26, 933); Cyril of Alexandria, Homilia 14: De exitu animi (PG, 77, 1073). When a Latin
version of the Transitus mentions (even though more moderately) a description of the exitus animae, it does
this not simply as something borrowed from and patterned on the Eastern Transitus theme, but as something
that played a part in Western culture as well. Cf. A. C. Rush, An Echo of Christian Antiquity in St. Gregory
the Great: Death a Struggle with the Devil in Traditio, Vol. 3, 1945, pp. 369-380.

857

On the Decretum Gelasianum, cf. B. Altaner, Patrologie, p. 414; G. Bardy, Gelase, decret de, in Dictionnaire
de la bible, Supplément, Vol. 3, 1938, cols. 579-590.

858

A. C. Rush, Scriptural Texts and the Assumption in the Transitus Mariae, in Catholic Biblical Quarterly,
Vol. 12, 1950, p. 373.

859

Pseudo-John, Liber de dormitione Mariae (Tischendorf, Apocalypses apocryphae, pp. 95-112). Jugie (La
mort et l’Assomption, p. 117) believes that this dates from the sixth century in the period between 550 and
580. On the Christian concept of death as a sleep, cf. A. C. Rush, Death and Burial in Christian Antiquity, pp.
1-22.

860

Pseudo-Melito, Transitus Beatae Mariae, 2. 1 (Tischendorf, p. 125). Jugie (op. cit., p. 111) believes that this
is a Catholic adaptation of the work rejected by the Decretum Gelasianum and that it is to be dated about 550.

861

Pseudo-Melito, Transitus Beatae Mariae, 7. 2 (Tischendorf, p. 129).

862

E. Amann, Théodose d’Alexandrie, in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Vol. 15, 1946, pp. 325-328. The
text is given by F. Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels: Bohairic Accounts of the Falling Asleep of Mary,
in Texts and Studies, Vol. 4, Part 2, 1896, pp. 90-126, and also by M. Chaine, Sermon de Théodose, patriarche
d’Alexandrie, sur la dormition et l’Assomption de la Vierge, in Revue de l’Orient Chrétien, Vol. 29, 1933-1934,
pp. 272-314. Chaine gives the long introduction and the conclusion which Robinson omits.

863

Theodosius, The Falling Asleep of Mary, 5. 4-5 (Robinson, p. 107).

864

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 5. 15-18 (Robinson, p. 107 f.).

865

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 5. 18-21 (Robinson, p. 109).

866

There is an Evodius who is mentioned as the successor of St. Peter at Antioch. Cf. R. Devresse, Le patriarcat
d’Antioche (Paris, 1945), p. 115; F. Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, p. 207. On the problem of the
episcopal succession at Antioch, cf. C. Karalevskij, Antioche: Les origines chrétiennes jusqu’au concile de
Nicéa, in Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, Vol. 3, 1924, col. 567.

867

Pseudo-Evodius, The Falling Asleep of Mary, 8. 10-13 (Robinson, p. 55).

868

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 8. 16 (Robinson, p. 55).

869

H. Jürgens, Die kirchliche Ueberlieferung von der leiblichen Aufnahme der seligsten Gottesmutter in den
Himmel, in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, Vol. 4, 1890, p. 602.

870

Sahidic Fragment of the Life of the Virgin, 4. 82-82 (Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, p. 35). Cf. M.
Jugie, La mort et l’Assomption de la Sainte Vierge, p. 126; C. Balić, Testimonia de assumptione, p. 39.

871

Pseudo-John, Liber de dormitione Mariae, 39 (Tischendorf, Apocalypses apocryphae, p. 107 f.). On this
point, cf. M. Jugie, op. cit., pp. 117-126, and the argumentation of C. Balić, op. cit., pp. 15-23.

872

M. Jugie, op. cit., p. 108.

873

W. Wright, Contributions to the Apocryphal Literature of the New Testament (London, 1865), p. 46. This
fragment is entitled: Obsequies of the Holy Virgin.

874

A. Wilmart, L’ancien récit latin de l’Assomption, in Studi e testi, Vol. 59, 1933, p. 323. In the light of the text
here edited by Wilmart, J. Rivière brought forth a study, entitled Le plus vieux Transitus latin et son dérivé
grec, in Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, Vol. 8, 1936, pp. 5-23. Jugie (op. cit., pp. 110, n. 1,
150-154) argues that this is an abbreviated Latin version of the Greek account by John of Thessalonica.

875

Pseudo-Melito, Transitus Beatae Mariae, 15. 2-3 (Tischendorf, p. 134).

876

Transitus Beatae Mariae, 16 (Tischendorf, p. 135).

877

Transitus Beatae Mariae, 17 (Tischendorf, p. 135 f.).

878

Theodosius, The Falling Asleep of Mary, 5. 23-28 (Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, p. 109). For a
study of the belief in the Assumption among the Copts, cf. A. van Lantschoot, L’Assomption de la Sainte
Vierge chez les Coptes, in Gregorianum, Vol. 27, 1946, pp. 493-526.

879

Theodosius, The Falling Asleep of Mary, 6. 13 (Robinson, p. 113).

880

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 7. 7-10 (Robinson, p. 117).

881

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 9. 1-3 (Robinson, p. 125).

882

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 9. 10-15 (Robinson, p. 127).

883

For other accounts of the Assumption, cf. M. Jugie, La mort et l’Assomption, pp. 103-171; C. Balić,
Testimonia de Assumptione, pp. 14-65, 137-153; A. C. Rush, The Assumption in the Apocrypha, in The
American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 116, 1947, pp. 5-31.

884

M. Jugie, op. cit., pp. 168-171, 585-589, 609-612.

885

B. Altaner, Zur Frage der Definibilität der Assumptio B. M. V., in Theologische Revue, Vol. 44, 1948, p. 136.

886

A. C. Rush, Assumption Theology in the Transitus Mariae, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 123,
1950, pp. 93-110. J. M. Bover, S.J., Los apócrifos y la tradición asuncionista, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 6,
1947, pp. 99-118.

887

Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, in Acta Apostolocae Sedis, Vol. 42, 1950, pp. 753-777.

888

H. Barré, La royauté de Marie pendant les neuf premiers siècles, in Recherches de science religieuse, Vol.
29, 1939, p. 145.

889

A. Luis, C.SS.R., La realeza de Maria, (Madrid, 1942), p. 34.

890

L. Cerfaux, Le titre Kyrios et la dignité royale de Jésus, in Revue de sciences philosophiques et
théologiques, Vol. 11, 1922, pp. 40-71.

891

A good brief summary of the history and theology of Mary’s Queenship is given by A. Santonicola, C.SS.R.,
La royauté de Marie (Nicolet, Quebec, Canada, 1951).

892

M. Donnelly, S.J., The Queenship of Mary during the Patristic Period, in Marian Studies, Vol. 4, 1953, pp.
86-91. This entire issue of Marian Studies is given over to articles on the Queenship of Mary.

893

Protoevangelium Jacobi, 10 (Amann, Le Protoévangile, pp. 218-220).

894

E. Amann, op. cit., p. 220, note.

895

Pseudo-Matthew, Liber de ortu Beatae Mariae et infantia Salvatoris, 8. 5 (Amann, p. 310).

896

E. Amann, op. cit., p. 311, note.

897

Pseudo-Matthew, Liber de ortu Mariae, 9. 2 (Amann, p. 312). Amann sees in this change the dependence
of Pseudo-Matthew on Sedulius who writes in his well-known hymn: Salve sancta parens, enixa puerpera
regem.

898

E. Amann, Apocryphes du nouveau testament, in Dictionnaire de la bible, Supplément, Vol. 1, col. 485.

899

Evangelium infantiae Salvatoris arabicum, 3, 6, 11, 16, 21 (Tischendorf, Evangelia apocrypha, pp. 182, 183,
185, 188, 191). In studying the Mariology in the Apocrypha and in the Christian tradition, we must not
overlook the part that Mary plays in Islamic thought which was greatly influenced by the Apocrypha. A good
survey on Mary in Islamic culture is given by J-M. Abd-el-Jalil, Marie et l’Islam (Etudes sur l’histoire des
religions) (Paris, 1951).

900

Pseudo-Melito, Transitus Beatae Mariae, 2, 3; 7. 1 (Tischendorf, Apocalypses apocryphae, pp. 126, 129).

901

H. Liddel and R. Scott, Greek-English Lexicon (New York, 1929), Vol. 1, p. 334.

902

Pseudo-John, Liber de dormitione Mariae, 32 (Tischendorf, p. 105).

903

A. Lewis, Apocrypha syriaca: Transitus Mariae, in Studia sinaitica, Vol. 11, pp. 12-69. An edition of this
from a slightly later manuscript is given by W. Wright, The Departure of my Lady Mary from the World, in
Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record, fourth ser., Vol. 6, January, 1865, pp. 417-449; Vol. 7, April,
1865, pp. 110-160.

904

Transitus Mariae, 1, 3 (Lewis, pp. 14, 18, 38, 39).

905

Transitus Mariae, 2, 3 (Lewis, pp. 24, 32, 34).

906

Transitus Mariae, 4 (Lewis, p. 55).

907

Theodosius, The Falling Asleep of Mary, prolog. (Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, p. 92).

908

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 3. 13 (Robinson, p. 101).

909

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 6. 18 (Robinson, p. 113).

910

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 5. 30 (Robinson, p. 111).

911

Pseudo-Evodius, The Falling Asleep of Mary, prolog. (Robinson, p. 44).

912

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 10. 1 (Robinson, p. 56).

913

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 7. 6 (Robinson, p. 53).

914

The Falling Asleep of Mary, 12. 15 (Robinson, p. 60).

915

On the mediation and intercession of Mary, cf. E. Dublanchy, Marie: Médiation universelle de Marie en
vertu de sa maternité divine, in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Vol. 9, 1927, cols. 2389-2405; Marie:
Toute-puissance d’intercéssion de Marie au ciel, cols. 2435-2439; J. Bittremieux, De mediatione universali
B. Mariae quoad gratias (Bruges, 1926); J. Carol, O.F.M., The Theological Concept of Mediation and Co-redemption, in Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses, Vol. 14, 1937, pp. 642-650.

916

Pseudo-Matthew, Liber de ortu Mariae et infantia Salvatoris, 6. 3 (Amann, Le Protoévangile, p. 300).

917

Liber de ortu Mariae, 8. 5 (Amann, p. 310).

918

Liber de ortu Mariae, 12. 5 (Amann, p. 322).

919

E. Amann, Le Protoévangile, p. 40.

920

E. Amann, Apocryphes du nouveau testament, in Dictionnaire de la bible, Supplément, Vol. 1, col. 485.

921

For two such illustrations, cf. Evangelium infantiae arabicum, 14, 27 (Tischendorf, Evangelia apocrypha,
pp. 187, 194).

922

Transitus Mariae, 3 (Lewis, Apocrypha syriaca, p. 35).

923

Transitus Mariae, 3 (Lewis, p. 46).

924

Transitus Mariae, 2 (Lewis, p. 21).

925

Pseudo-Melito, Transitus Beatae Mariae, 13. 2 (Tischendorf, Apocalypses apocryphae, p. 133).

926

Pseudo-John, Liber de dormitione Mariae, 47 (Tischendorf, p. 110).

927

Liber de dormitione Mariae, 43 (Tischendorf, p. 109).

928

Liber de dormitione Mariae, 50 (Tischendorf, p. 112).

929

Theodosius, The Falling Asleep of Mary, 5. 27 (Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, p. 109).

930

Cf. Otto Menzinger, Mariologisches aus der vorephesinischen Liturgie (Regensburg, 1932), p. 181. In the
West there was no liturgical cult of Mary until the fifth century. Cf. B. Capelle, O.S.B., La liturgie mariale en
Occident, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge (ed. H. du Manoir, S.J.), Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 217-245; M.
Jugie, A.A., La première fête mariale en Orient, in Echos d’Orient, Vol. 22, 1923, pp. 129-153. The first feast
was celebrated on December 26 and was called the Commemoration of St. Mary. It honored especially her
divine Maternity and her Virginal Conception of Christ. Cf. M. Doumith, Marie dans la liturgie syro-maronite, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge (ed. H. du Manoir), Vol. 1, pp. 329-351. The Assumption was
celebrated in Jerusalem from about the year 450. Cf. S. Salaville, Marie dans la liturgie byzantine ou grec-slav, in H. du Manoir’s set, Vol. 1, pp. 249-326. For the origin of the Marian cult in Ethiopia, cf. Samuel A. B.
Mercer, The Ethiopic Liturgy (1915).

931

Cf. Jouassard, Marie à travers la patristique, in H. du Manoir’s set, Vol. 1, pp. 71-157.

932

Ibid., pp. 72-77. Cf. P. R. Botz, Die Jungfrauschaft Mariens in N. T. und in der nachapostolischen Zeit. Eine
dogmatisch-biblische Studie (Bottrop in Westphalen, 1935).

933

Jouassard, art. cit., p. 73.

934

Ibid., pp. 73-85.

935

Ibid., pp. 85-100.

936

Cf. Salaville, art. cit., p. 249.

937

Cf. G. Giovanelli, Il culto della Madre di Dio nell’iconografia bizantina, in Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 5, fasc.
2 (Romae, 1952), pp. 16-28. On the various Eastern liturgies, see the subsequent sections of our paper.

938

Ibid., p. 24.

939

Ibid.

940

Cf. M. Gordillo, S.J., Fondamento teologico del culto della Vergine Madre di Dio presso gli orientali, in
Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 5, fasc. 2, pp. 1-16, esp. pp. 13 and 15.

941

Gordillo, art. cit., p. 15.

942

Cf. I. Card. Schuster, O.S.B., The Sacramentary (trans. by A. Levelis-Marke), 5 vols. (London, 1927), Parts
5 and 6, Euchological Appendix, p. 442.

943

Cf. Menzinger, op. cit., p. 181.

944

Cf. Salaville, art. cit., p. 249; Jugie, art. cit., pp. 129-153.

945

Sacra Congregazione Orientale, Statistica con cenni storici della gerarchia e dei fedeli di rito orientale
(Tip. Pol. Vaticana, 1932), p. 93.

946

Cf. Salaville, art. cit., p. 249.

947

Cf. M. Assaf, Culte de la Vierge Marie dans le rite byzantin, in Marie, Sept.-Oct., 1953, pp. 20-29.

948

For Slavs and Rumanians, cf. Salaville, art. cit., pp. 251, 252. Isabel Florence Hapgood, Service Book of the
Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, revised edition (New York: Association Press, 1922), pp. xv, xvi.
Cf. F. E. Brightman, Liturgies, Eastern and Western (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), pp. lxxxi-xcvi, 309-411.
D. C. McPherson, The Divine Office in the Byzantine Rite, in Eastern Churches Quarterly (St. Augustine’s
Abbey, Ramsgate), Vol. 7, Nos. 3, 5, 7.

949

Salaville, art. cit., p. 250.

950

Ibid. Cf. Ch. Diehl, Manuel d’art byzantin, 2 ed. (Paris, 1926), 2 vols.

951

Salaville, art. cit., p. 251.

952

Ibid.

953

The Office for the Lord’s Day as Prescribed by the Orthodox Greek Church (London: Hayes, 1880), p. 161.

954

Salaville, loc. cit.

955

Ibid., pp. 251, 252, 277, 278. Cf. Alma Socia Christi, Acta Congressus Mariologici-Mariani, Romae Anno
Sancto MCML celebrati, Vol. 5, fasc. 2, De B. V. Maria penes Ecclesias Orientis (Romae: Officium Libri
Catholici, 1952); David Lathaud, A.A., Le thème iconographique du Prokov de la Mère de Dieu; Origene,
Variantes, pp. 54-68.

956

Salaville, art. cit., p. 252.

957

Ibid.

958

Ibid.

959

Cf. J. Martinov, Annus ecclesiasticus graeco-slavicus, in Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, October, Vol.
77 (Paris, 1870), p. 281.

960

Salaville, art. cit., p. 252.

961

The Office of the Lord’s Day, p. 163

962

Salaville, art. cit., p. 254.

963

Ibid.

964

The Office of the Lord’s Day, p. 191.

965

Ibid., p. 164.

966

Salaville, art. cit., p. 255.

967

The Office of the Lord’s Day, p. 164.

968

Ibid., p. 265.

969

Salaville, art. cit., p. 255.

970

Ibid., p. 256.

971

Ibid.

972

Hapgood, op. cit., p. 179.

973

Ibid.

974

Salaville, art. cit., pp. 256, 257.

975

Ibid., p. 257.

976

Ibid.

977

Hapgood, op. cit., pp. 198-200.

978

Salaville, art. cit., p. 258.

979

Ibid., p. 259.

980

Ibid. Cf. McPherson, art. cit., April-June, 1949, pp. 128, 129. — Officio del Inno Akathistos in onore della
SS. Madre di Dio (Grottaferrata, 1949).

981

Salaville, art. cit., p. 259.

982

Officio del Inno Akathistos, p. 10.

983

Salaville, art. cit., pp. 262-265.

984

Ibid., p. 266.

985

Ibid.

986

Ibid.

987

Ibid.

988

Hapgood, op. cit., p. 218.

989

Ibid., p. 223.

990

Ibid., p. 224.

991

Salaville, art. cit., p. 271.

992

Ibid.

993

Ibid.

994

Hapgood, op. cit., p. 230.

995

Ibid., p. 232.

996

Ibid., p. 233. For “Our Lady of the Living Source,” on Friday after Easter, see Salaville, art. cit., pp. 272-275.

997

Salaville, art. cit., p. 276.

998

Ibid., pp. 277-281.

999

M. Jugie, La Mort et l’Assomption de la Sainte Vierge, Étude historico-doctrinale (Rome, 1944), p. 188.

1000

Salaville, art. cit., pp. 281-285.

1001

Hapgood, op. cit., pp. 263-265.

1002

Salaville, art. cit., pp. 285, 286. Archdale A. King, The Assumption of Our Lady in the Oriental Liturgies,
in Eastern Churches Quarterly, Vol. 8, Nos. 3 and 4; for Byzantine rite, No. 4, October-December, 1949, pp.
228, 229. See also Vol. 9, No. 2, Summer, 1951, Michael Gavrilof, The Dormition and Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin in Slav Iconography, pp. 113-119, with 14 illustrations; Dom Edmund M. Jones, O.S.B., The
Iconography of the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God in Byzantine Tradition, pp. 101-112; Atanasio G.
Welykyj, O.S.B.M., L’Assunzione della B. V. Maria Deipara nella Liturgia Bizantina, in Alma Socia Christi,
Vol. 5, fasc. 2, pp. 36-53; M. Jugie, A.A., La fête Byzantine de la Conception de Sainte Anne, in Alma Socia
Christi, Vol. 5, fasc. 2, pp. 29-35.

1003

Salaville, art. cit., p. 287.

1004

Ibid., pp. 289-293.

1005

Ibid., pp. 293, 294.

1006

Ibid., pp. 295-298.

1007

Ibid., pp. 297, 298.

1008

Ibid., pp. 312-324.

1009

Ibid., p. 303. Cf. Cuthbert Gumbinger, O.F.M.Cap., The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantine Liturgy, in
Franciscan Studies (St. Bonaventure, N. Y.), Vol. 22; New Series, Vol. 1, No. 3, September, 1941, pp. 49-61.

1010

Dom Placid De Meester, O.S.B., The Divine Liturgy of our Father among the Saints, John Chrysostom
(Greek text witb Introduction and Notes) (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1926), p. 13.

1011

Ibid., p. 27.

1012

Ibid., p. 29.

1013

Ibid., p. 31.

1014

Ibid., p. 69.

1015

Theophile A. Zatkovich, The Bread of Life, Prayer Book for Catholics of the Old Slavonic Rite (Homestead,
Pa., 1935), pp. 100, 101, 106, 110. Cf. Salaville, art. cit., pp. 302-304.

1016

De Meester, op. cit., p. 25.

1017

D. Attwater, The Christian Churches of the East, Vol. 1 (Milwaukee, 1946), pp. 132-141, 132, 134. Ibid., Vol.
II, for Dissidents (Milwaukee, 1947), pp. 199-211. Annuario Pontificio (Città del Vaticano, 1953), p. 90.

1018

Attwater, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 137. A. A. King, The Rites of Eastern Christendom Vol. I (Rome, 1947), pp. 387,
393. S. Congregazione Orientale, Statistica con cenni storici della gerarchia e dei fedeli di rito orientale
(Roma, 1932), pp. 33-40. O. H. E. Hadji-Burmester, The Rites and Ceremonies of the Coptic Church, in
Eastern Churches Quarterly (Ramsgate), Vol. 7, April-June, 1948, pp. 373-403; Vol. 8, January-March, 1949,
pp. 1-39; Spring, 1950, pp. 291-316; Vol. 9, Spring, 1951, pp. 1-27.

1019

S. Congregazione Orientale, op. cit., pp. 41-47. King, op. cit., pp. 337-495. A. J. Butler, The Ancient Coptic
Churches of Egypt (Oxford, 1884), 2 vols. R. M. Woolley (translator), The Coptic Offices (New York, 1930).
D. Attwater, The Liturgy of the Copts, in Orate Fratres (Collegeville), April-May, 1942. Anonymous, Some
Notes on the Egyptian Christians, in Eastern Churches Quarterly, Vol. 7, April-June, 1948, pp. 412-425.

For Ethiopian rite see: King, op. cit., pp. 497-658; G. Nicollet, Le Culte de Marie en Ethiopie in H. du Manoir,
S.J., Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 365-413; A. A. King, The New Ethiopic
Missal, in Eastern Churches Quarterly, Vol. 6, October-December, 1946, pp. 496-501.

1020

Amba Alexander, Devotion to Our Lady in the Coptic Rite, in Eastern Churches Quarterly, Vol. 7, April-June, 1948, pp. 404-408. H. Belloc, The Great Heresies (New York, 1938), p. 79. A. Arce, O.F.M., Culte
islamique au tombeau de la Vierge, in Atti dei Congresso Assunzionistico Orientale (Gerusalemme, 1951),
pp. 175-194.

1021

King, op. cit., p. 464.

1022

Ibid., p. 466.

1023

Ibid., pp. 438, 439.

1024

Amba Alexander, op. cit., p. 407.

1025

Ibid., p. 408.

1026

Ibid., pp. 406, 407.

1027

Ibid., p. 407.

1028

Ibid.

1029

Ibid.

1030

Ibid.

1031

Ibid., p. 408.

1032

Ibid.

1033

King, op. cit., p. 398; Amba Alexander, op. cit., p. 406.

1034

King, op. cit., pp. 397, 398.

1035

Ibid., pp. 398, 399; Amba Alexander, loc. cit.

1036

A. Van Lantschoot, O.Praem., Le culte de la Sainte Vierge chez les coptes, in Alma Socia Christi, Acta
Congressus Mariologici-Mariani Romae Anno Sancto MCML celebrati, Vol. 5, fasc. 11 (Romae, 1952), De B.
V. Maria penes Ecclesias Orientis, pp. 103-108.

1037

G. Giamberardini, La teologia assunzionistica nella Chiesa Egiziana, in Atti dei Congresso Assunzionistico
Orientale (Gerusalemme, 1951), pp. 41-174.

1038

Amba Alexander, loc. cit.

1039

King, op. cit., pp. 562-566; cf. note 3 of this paper.

1040

Ibid., p. 591.

1041

Ibid., p. 594.

1042

Ibid., pp. 596, 597.

1043

Ibid., p. 600.

1044

Ibid., p. 601.

1045

Ibid., p. 602.

1046

Ibid., p. 616.

1047

Ibid., p. 619.

1048

Ibid., p. 620.

1049

Ibid., p. 632.

1050

Ibid., p. 633.

1051

Ibid., p. 643.

1052

Ibid., p. 645.

1053

Ibid., pp. 646-648; Nicollet, op. cit., pp. 376-379.

1054

King, op. cit., p. 566.

1055

Nicollet, op. cit., p. 395; A Grohmann, Aethiopische Marienhymnen (Leipzig, 1919). Three great Marian
hymns are here translated with a rich philological commentary.

1056

Nicollet, loc. cit.

1057

Ibid., p. 396.

1058

Ibid.

1059

Ibid., pp. 396, 397.

1060

Ibid., pp. 397, 398, 405; translations into French.

1061

Ibid., pp. 406-413.

1062

Van Lantschoot, op. cit., p. 103.

1063

Nicollet, op. cit., p. 379.

1064

Ibid., p. 380.

1065

Ibid.; I. Ludolf, Commentarius ad historiam aethiopicam, 1691, p. 361.

1066

King, op. cit., p. 546. Nicollet, op. cit., pp. 379-395.

1067

King, op. cit., pp. 546, 547.

1068

Nicollet, op. cit., pp. 384-395.

1069

King, op. cit., p. 542.

1070

Ibid.

1071

Ibid., D. Attwater, Eastern Catholic Worship (New York, 1945); H. Engberding, Maria in der Froemmigkeit
der Oestlichen Liturgien, in P. Straeter, Maria in der Offenbarung (Paderborn, 1947), pp. 119-136; De Lacy,
O’Leary, The Daily Office and Theotokia of the Coptic Church (London, 1911); id., The Coptic Theotokia
(London, 1923).

1072

Nicollet, op. cit., pp. 366, 367; King, op. cit., p. 541.

1073

Nicollet, op. cit., pp. 369, 370.

1074

Ibid., pp. 368, 369.

1075

Ibid., p. 396, note 63.

1076

Ibid., p. 365 et passim.

1077

Amba Alexander, The Assumption of Mary in the Liturgy of the Church of Alexandria, in Eastern Churches
Quarterly, Vol. 9, Summer, 1951, pp. 93-101, p. 95. (He mentions two traditions in regard to Mary’s
Assumption.)

1078

Ibid., p. 99. The places are Haret Zouela and Deir Dronka or Adronka.

1079

D. Attwater, The Christian Churches of the East, Vol. I (Milwaukee, 1946), pp. 104, 152-164. Attwater,
Eastern Catholic Worship (New York, 1945).

1080

F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western (Oxford, 1896), pp. xlviii-lxiii.

1081

Ibid., pp. 1-109.

1082

E. Rahal, L’Assomption de la T. Ste. Vierge au ciel selon le rite syrien d’Antioche, in Atti del Congresso
Assunzionistico Orientale (Gerusalemme, 1951), pp. 225-237.

1083

Brightman, op. cit., pp. 73-76, 92, 93, 98. Missale Syriacum iuxta ritum Ecclesiae Antiochenae syrorum
(Romae, 1843).

1084

D. Attwater, The Christian Churches of the East, Vol. I, pp. 174, 175; G. Gorayet, The Maronite Liturgy
(Buffalo, 1915); P. Sfeir, The Maronite Liturgy, (Detroit, 1936); Attwater, Eastern Catholic Worship (New
York, 1945).

1085

H. W. Codrington, The Maronite Liturgy in Eastern Churches Quarterly, Vol. II (Ramsgate), January, 1937,
pp. 27-37. Sacra Congregazione Orientale, Statistica con Cenni Storici della Gerarchia e dei Fedeli di Rito
Orientale (Romae, 1932), pp. 54-63.

1086

Codrington, op. cit., p. 36.

1087

Attwater, The Christian Churches of the East, Vol. I, p. 179.

1088

Ibid., p. 180.

1089

H. W. Codrington, The Syrian Liturgy, in Eastern Churches Quarterly, Vol. I, January-October, 1936, pp.
135-148.

1090

Ibid.

1091

Ibid.., pp. 138, 139.

1092

P. Hindo, Disciplina Antiochena Antica — Siri IV (Roma, 1943), p. 307, n. 1, in Codificazione Canonica
Orientale — Fonti, serie 11, Fasciculo XXVIII, Sacra Congregazione per la Chiesa Orientale.

1093

M. Doumith, Marie dans la liturgie syro-maronite, in H. du Manoir, S.J., Maria. Études sur la Sainte
Vierge (Paris, 1949), pp. 329-340.

1094

Doumith, op. cit., pp. 331, 332.

1095

Ibid., p. 332.

1096

Ibid.

1097

A. A. King, The Assumption of Our Lady in the Oriental Liturgies, in Eastern Churches Quarterly, Vol. 8,
October-December, 1949, pp. 225-231.

1098

Rahal, op. cit., p. 226. M. Maklouf, La doctrine de l’Assomption dans la rite maronite, in Atti del Congresso
Assunzionistico Orientale (Gerusalemme, 1951), pp. 197-212.

1099

Rahal, op. cit., p. 226; Lamy, Sancti Ephremi Syri Hymni et Sermones (Mechliniae, 1882-1902), Vol. 2, col.
584.

1100

Rahal, op. cit., p. 227; G. Shelhot and J. David, Fenqitho (Bréviaire festival), 7 vols. (Mosul, 1886-1896),
Vol. 7, col. 379a.

1101

Rahal, op. cit., p. 227; Shelhot and David, op. cit., Vol. 7, col. 405b.

1102

Rahal, op. cit., p. 231; Rahmani, Shihimo (Bréviaire ferial) (Charfet, 1902),p. 118.

1103

Rahal, op. cit., p. 231; Rahmani, op. cit., pp. 77, 244, 245.

1104

Rahal, op. cit., p. 232.

1105

Ibid., p. 233.

1106

Ibid., p. 234.

1107

Ibid., pp. 234, 235.

1108

Ibid., p. 235.

1109

Ibid., p. 236.

1110

D. Attwater, Prayers from the Eastern Liturgies (London, 1931), pp. 17, 18.

1111

Ibid., p. 20.

1112

Ibid.

1113

Breviarium Romano-Seraphicum (Romae, 1943), Pars Verna, 31 Maii, II Noct.

1114

The Raccolta of Prayers and Devotions (edited by J. P. Christopher and C. E. Spence: New York, 1944), No.
339, pp. 252, 253. Cf. G. De Vries, S.I., Oriente Cristiano Ieri e Oggi (Roma, 1949), pp. 339-356. A. A. King,
The Rites of Eastern Christendom, Vol. 1, pp. 61-336.

1115

1 V. Tekeyan, La Mère de Dieu dans la liturgie arménienne in H. du Manoir, S.J., Maria. Études sur la
Sainte Vierge, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), pp. 355-361.

1116

Ibid., pp. 355, 356.

1117

Ibid., pp. 356-357.

1118

Ibid., pp. 357-358.

1119

Ibid., pp. 358-359.

1120

Ibid., p. 359.

1121

Ibid., pp. 359, 360.

1122

Ibid., p. 360.

1123

Ibid.

1124

Ibid., pp. 360-361. Ritual, Mashdotz (Vienna, 1902). Hymnodium (Charagnotz, Venezia, 1898).

1125

D. Attwater, Prayers from the Eastern Liturgies (London, 1931), pp. 16, 17.

1126

F. E. Brightman, Liturgies, Eastern and Western (Oxford, 1896), pp. 264, 268.

1127

A. M. Massonat, O.P., Marie dans la Liturgie Chaldéenne, in H. du Manoir, S.J., Maria. Études sur la Sainte
Vierge (Paris, 1949), Vol. 1, pp. 343-351.

1128

Ibid., pp. 344-346. H. W. Codrington, The Chaldaean Liturgy, in Eastern Churches Quarterly (Ramsgate),
Vol. 11, April, July, October, 1937. M. Kyriakos, L’Assomption chez les Chaldéens, in Atti del Congresso
Assunzionistico Orientale (Gerusalemme, 1951), pp. 33-37. O. Mensinger, Mariologisches aus der
vorephesinischen Liturgie (Regensburg, 1932).

1129

Massonat, op. cit., pp. 348-350.

1130

Kyriakos, op. cit., p. 34. Tfinkji, L’Eglise chaldéene (Paris, 1913). Rabban, La Messa caldea detta “Degli
Apostoli” (Roma, 1935). D. Attwater, The Christian Churches of the East, Vol. I, pp. 198-209; ibid., Vol. II, pp.
185-198. D. Attwater, Eastern Catholic Worship (New York, 1945). A. A. King, The Rites of Eastern
Christendom, Vol. 11, pp. 251-520.

1131

Henry Lawrence Janssens, O.S.B., De cyclo liturgico mariali, in Ephemerides Liturgicae, Vol. 38, 1924, pp.
157-161. Cf. P. Oppenhcim, O.S.B., Maria nella liturgia cattolica (Roma, 1944); Maria in der lateinischen
Liturgie, in Katholische Marienkunde, ed. P. Sträter, Vol. 1 (Paderborn, 1947), pp. 183-267.

1132

For the other meaning cf. C. Howell, S.J., The Blessed Virgin in the liturgy, in Orate Fratres, Vol. 24, 1949,
pp. 1-8. Also published as Marian Reprint, No. 17 (Dayton, Ohio, Marian Library, 1953).

1133

Denzinger, 139. De gratia Dei “Indiculus” until recently attributed to Pope St. Celestine I. It was probably
written by St. Prosper of Aquitaine. Cf. M. Cappuyns, O.S.B., Revue Bénédictine, Vol. 41, 1929, p. 156 ff.

1134

Pius XII, Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pius XII, on Sacred Liturgy (Vatican library translation)
(Washington, D. C.: N.C.W.C. [n.d.]), pp. 20-21. The official text of the encyclical, Mediator Dei, will be found
in A.A.S., Vol. 39, 1947, pp. 521-595.

1135

P. Oppenheim, O.S.B., Institutiones systematico-historicae in sacram liturgiam, Vol. 7, Principia theologiae
liturgicae (Torino, Marietti, 1947), pp. 98-106. Oppenheim cites forty passages where St. Thomas appealed
to liturgical usage or liturgical texts to establish his doctrine.

1136

H. Thurston, S.J., Virgin Mary, Devotion to the Blessed, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 15, p. 459.

1137

H. Leclercq, O.S.B., Marie, Mère de Dieu; culte liturgique, in DACL, Vol. 102, c. 2035. Cf.: M. Armellini,
Notizie storiche intorno all’antichità del culto di Maria Vergine (Roma, 1888).

1138

Primum factum [cultus venerationis] est Christianorum fides relate ad principales praerogativas et praecipue
privilegia B. M. Virginis, videlicet: Eius divina maternitas, eius virginitas, eius universalis mediatio prout clare
apparet ex frequenti antithesi inter Evam et Mariam. In symbolo (saltem inde a saeculo II in Occidente)
habebantur verba: “natus ex Maria Virgine”; ex quo apparet B. Virginis privilegia nedum Patribus et
Doctoribus sed etiam fidelibus a quibus symbolum recitabatur, et quibus antequam baptizarentur
exponebatur, habitualiter nota esse. G. Roschini, O.S.M., Compendium Mariologiae (Romae: Scientia
Catholica, 1946), pp. 487-488.

1139

Haeres, 79. PG, 41, 749-751.

1140

Cf. M. Barret, O.S.B., Our Lady in the liturgy, considerations on certain feasts of the Mother of God
(London: Sands & Co.; St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder, 1912), pp. 11-15. For the history of the Council see C. Hefele,
Histoire des Conciles … (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1907 — ), Vol. 21, 1908, pp. 219-422.

1141

H. Thurston, Virgin Mary, p. 459.

1142

M. Hasset, Angels, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 486a.

1143

H. Thurston, Virgin Mary, p. 462.

1144

A theory recently proposed merits consideration, namely, that the fullness of grace is the basic principle of
Mariology. Alois Müller, The basic principles of Mariology, in Theology Digest, Vol. 1, 1953, pp. 139-144. This
article is a condensation of one that appeared in Divus Thomas (Freiburg), Vol. 29, 1951, pp. 385-401, which
in turn was the summary of the results of his patristic study as a doctoral thesis: Ecclesia-Maria: Die Einheit
Marias und der Kirche (Freibourg, 1951).

1145

Pius XI, Lux veritatis, in A.A.S., Vol. 23, 1931, pp. 493-517. In this encyclical Pope Pius XI ordered that a
new Office and Mass be prepared, p. 517. They did not officially appear until the following year: A.A.S., Vol.
24, 1932, pp. 151-159.

1146

F. Holweck, Calendarium liturgicum festorum Dei et Matris Mariae (Philadelphia: The American
Ecclesiastical Review, The Dolphin Press, 1925), p. 148 and passim. Cf. also his article on the Maternity in the
Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, p. 40d.

1147

B. Capelle, O.S.B., La liturgie Mariale en occident, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, edited by Hubert
du Manoir, S.J. (Paris, Beauchesne, 1949), Vol. 1, pp. 236-237.

1148

For the full signification of the literal sense cf. M.-D. Philippe, O.P., Remarques sur les signes divins, in
Laval théologique et philosophique, Vol. 5, 1949, pp. 111-118.

1149

Cf. Joseph Alvarez, De Beata Maria Virgine in liturgia Adventus, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 1,
1951, pp. 531-533, and I. Schuster, O.S.B., The Sacramentary, translated from the Italian by Arthur Levelis-Marke (New York: Benziger Bros., 1930), Vol. 1, Advent, passim.

1150

This oration is also the same as the one for the feast of the Annunciation (March 25).

1151

For an explanation of the origin of the Ave Maria as an Offertory verse for the fourth Sunday of Advent, cf.
René-Jean Hesbert, O.S.B., Antiphonale missarum sextuplex (Bruxelles: Vromant & Co., 1935), pp. xxxviii-xxxix, xliv.

1152

Cf. St. Andrew’s Missal for the first Sunday of Advent.

1153

F. Holweck, Calendarium, p. 1. Although the title definitely appears in manuscripts of calendars and
missals, Hesbert seriously questions whether the feast was ever intended to be anything other than the octave
of Christmas or possibly a misreading of Natalis Sanctae Martinae, who was honored on this day. R.-J.
Hesbert, Antiphonale missarum sextuplex, p. lxxxi. Bernard Botte, O.S.B., argued the other view in La
première fête de la liturgie romaine in Ephemerides Liturgicae, Vol. 47, 1933, pp. 425-430; holding that the
feast of St. Martina did not appear in the calendars before the end of the seventh century and claiming that
January 1 was celebrated as a Marian feast before it was celebrated as the octave of Christmas.

1154

For passages from the Breviary, translations will be taken, when possible, from: The Roman Breviary …
translated out of Latin into English by John, Marquess of Bute, K.T., a new edition (Edinburgh and London:
W. Blackwood and Sons, 1908).

1155

Georges Frénaud, O.S.B., Le culte liturgique de Notre-Dame in Revue Grégorienne, Vol. 31, 1952, p. 107.
This is a section from a review of the first volume of Maria, edited by Du Manoir, with special attention to
Abbot Capelle’s contribution on Mary in the Western liturgy. This opinion counters that of Capelle who feels
that the Office of Virgins is the source for the psalms of the Marian office. Cf. B. Capelle, La liturgie Mariale
en occident, p. 236. Psalms for the feast of the Assumption, see his: La fête de l’Assomption dans l’histoire
liturgique, in Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Vol. 3, 1926, pp. 39-41.

1156

One of the four earliest Marian feasts celebrated in the Roman Church. It probably dates from the middle
of the seventh century. It is one of the four feasts for the celebration of which Sergius I (687-701) prescribed
a procession in the Liber Pontificalis. The other three were: the Purification (February 2), the Assumption
(August 15), and the Nativity (September 8). L. Duchesne, Origines du culte chrétien, étude sur la liturgie
latine avant Charlemagne, 2. édition (Paris: A. Fontemoing, 1898), pp. 118, 261. (There is a fifth edition,
1925.) For the record of the spread of the feast of the Annunciation, cf. Holweck, Calendarium, pp. 60-61.

1157

A. Onofrio, De B. V. Maria in precibus Ritualis et Pontificalis Romani, in Ephemerides Liturgicae, Vol. 61,
1947, p. 104.

1158

This prayer will be discussed more at length later.

1159

E. Bishop hinted that the extensive traffic between Rome and England in this period may well have
influenced the passage of the feast from Italy to England: Liturgica historica (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918),
p. 258. Cf. B. del Marmol, O.S.B., Quelques précisions sur le culte de la Vierge au XIIe siècle, in Mémoires et
Rapports du Congrès Marial tenu à Bruxelles, 1921, Vol. 1 (Bruxelles, 1922), pp. 231-241.

1160

For a discussion of the whole problem of the origin of this feast, cf. Andrea M. Cecchin, O.S.M.,
L’lmmacolata nella liturgia occidentale anteriore al secolo XIII (Rome: Edizioni Marianum, 1943), pp. 15-27.
Edmund Bishop has two studies in his Liturgica historica, pp. 239-259. The first is a reprint of an article in
the Downside Review, April, 1886. The second (pp. 250-259) is an essay on “Irish Origins” of the feast which
was written thirty years after the first essay. While his study is interesting and his methods commendable, the
force of his argument has been lost now that Fr. Grosjean has pointed out that the entries in the Martyrology
of Tallaght (end of the eighth century) and the Martyrology of Oengus (end of the eighth or beginning of the
ninth century) relative to this feast (May 3, Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary) are later insertions:
Analecta Bollandiana, Vol. 61, 1943. pp. 91-95.

1161

“By which illustrious act she pointed out the conception of the Virgin as singular, wonderful, and very far
removed from the origin of the rest of mankind and to be venerated as entirely holy, since the Church
celebrates festival days only of what is holy.” Pius IX, Official documents connected with the definition of the
dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (in Latin and English) (Baltimore: J.
Murphy, 1855), p. 62.

1162

Pius IX, Official documents, p. 83.

1163

Cf. F. Wormald, English Kalendars before A.D. 1100 (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1934), Vol. 1.

1164

A Roman Missal printed in 1858 (four years after the definition) still has this simple title. However, a
Breviary printed in 1856 has Immaculatae inserted in the title for this feast.

1165

Missale ad usum insignis et praeclarae Ecclesiae Sarum. Labore ac studio Francisci H. Dickinson
(Burntisland, 1861-1883), p. 130.

1166

In nativitate et in conceptione Sancte Marie. The Sarum Missal, edited from three early manuscripts by J.
Wickham Legg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1916), p. 318.

1167

F. Holweck, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, p. 712.

1168

Holweck, Calendarium, p. 312.

1169

Mt. 19:12.

1170

M. Scheeben, Mariology, translated by Rev. T. L. M. J. Geukers (St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder, 1946), Vol. 1, p.
116.

1171

Cf. Holweck, Calendarium.

1172

Missae pro aliquibus locis.

1173

A.A.S., Vol. 37, 1945, pp. 44-52.

1174

Ibid., Vol. 42, 1950, pp. 753-771. Cf. C. Morin, The Assumption and the Liturgy, in Vers le dogme de
l’Assomption (Montréal, 1948), pp. 391-397; G. Giamberardini, O.F.M., Il valore dommatico della liturgia
assunzionistica, in Atti del Congresso Mariano dei Frati Minori d’ltalia (Roma, 1948), pp. 511-557; F.
Antonelli, O.F.M., La festa dell’Assunzione nella liturgia romana, ibid., pp. 223-239; G. Brasso, O.S.B.,
Contenido doctrinal de las fórmulas asuncionistas de la liturgia romana, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 6
(Madrid, 1947), pp. 147-154.

1175

J. Carol, O.F.M., A Bibliography of the Assumption, in The Thomist, Vol. 14, 1951, pp. 133-160; Recent
Literature on Mary’s Assumption, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 120, 1949, pp. 376-387; The
Mariological Movement in the World Today, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp. 37-42.

1176

A. King, The Assumption of Our Lady in the Oriental Liturgies, in Eastern Churches Quarterly, Vol. 8,
1949-1950, p. 204. Cf. B. Capelle, La fête de l’Assomption, p. 35; and La Messe gallicane de l’Assomption: son
rayonnement, ses sources, in Miscellanea liturgica in honorem L. Cuniberti Mohlberg (Rome: Edizioni
Liturgiche, 1949, Vol. 2, pp. 33-59.

1177

For an excellent treatment of the problem of introducing uniform liturgical books, cf. M. Andrieu, Les
Ordines Romani du Haut Moyen Age (Louvain, 1948), Vol. 2, pp. xvii-xlix.

1178

B. Capelle, La fête de l’Assomption, pp. 35-36.

1179

B. Capelle, La liturgie Mariale en Occident, p. 233.

1180

I. Schuster, O.S.B., The festival of the Assumption into heaven of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the ancient
Roman liturgy, in The Sacramentary, translated from the Italian by Arthur Levelis-Marke (New York:
Benziger Bros., 1930), Vol. 5, pp. 32-35.

1181

From the Gregorian Sacramentary. PL, 39, 133.

1182

Cf. B. Capelle, La fête de l’Assomption, pp. 38-40, where he discusses the Mass at length, and the following
two references where he analyzes the prayer, Veneranda, just quoted: L’oraison ‘Veneranda’ à la messe de
l’Assomption, in Ephemerides Theologicae Lovaniensis, Vol. 26, 1950, pp. 354-364; La témoignage de la
liturgie, in Études Mariales, 1949. Assomption de Marie, Part 2 (Paris: Vrin, 1950), pp. 49-52.

1183

A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, pp. 793-795.

1184

Cf. Sister Mary Gonzaga Haessly, O.S.U., Rhetoric in the Sunday Collects of the Roman Missal (Cleveland:
Ursuline College, 1938), passim; C. Egger, De quibusdam Ecclesiae precibus latinis, in Latinitas, Vol. 1, 1953,
pp. 141-147; J. M. Bover, S.J., Uso liturgico de los textos biblicos en la nueva Misa de la Asunción, in Estudios
Marianos, Vol. 12 (Madrid, 1952), pp. 97-110.

1185

A.A.S., Vol. 43, 1951, pp. 385-399; cf. M. Gordillo, S.J., Las lecciones del II nocturno de la Asunción en la
historia del Breviario Romano, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 12 (Madrid, 1952), pp. 111-123.

1186

This is the opinion of Capelle, La liturgie Mariale en Occident, pp. 224-225. Dom Frénaud in his review of
Capelle (Revue Grégorienne, Vol. 31, 1952, p. 106) holds the Cogitis me to be rather a witness and
commentary on the already existing texts. In his own review of this (his own) article, which came a full year
after Frénaud had made these observations, Capelle makes no reference to them as involving a problem:
Bulletin de théologie ancienne et médiévale, Vol. 4, No. 2066.

1187

Cant. 2:3; 5:12; 4:11; 2:1; Ecclus. 50:8; Cant. 3:6; 5:6.

1188

Cf. E. Carroll, O.Carm., Our Lady’s Queenship in the magisterium of the Church, in Marian Studies, Vol.
4, 1953, pp. 29-81; or, more briefly, G. M. Roschini, O.S.M., Royauté de Marie, in Maria. Études sur la Sainte
Vierge (ed. H. du Manoir, S.J.) (Paris: Beauchesne, 1949), Vol. 1, pp. 601-606. Cf. also K. B. Moore, O.Carm.,
The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin in the Liturgy of the Church, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 218-227.

1189

Lk. 1:33.

1190

J. Carol, O.F.M., Mariological Movement in the World Today, Section E — “Mary’s Co-redemption,” in
Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp. 34-37 for the beginnings of a bibliography from both points of view.

1191

Cf. G. Cozien, O.S.B., La Maternité de grâce dans la liturgie, in Quatrième Congrès Marial bréton tenu à
Folgoat … 1913 (Quimper, 1915), pp. 244-249; P. Charles, S.J., L’hymnologie mariale et la Médiation de la
T. S. Vierge, in Mémoires et Rapports du Congrès Marial tenu à Bruxelles, 1921 (Bruxelles, 1922), Vol. 2, pp.
475-494; I. Van Houtryve, O.S.B., La Médiation de Marie dans la liturgie, in La Vie Diocésaine, Vol. 11, 1922,
pp. 349-360; Serapio de Iragui, O.F.M.Cap., La Mediación de la Virgen en la himnografía latina de la edad
media (Buenos Aires, 1939); D. Baier, O.F.M., The Franciscan Office of St. Mary of the Angels and the
Mediation of Grace, in Orate Fratres, Vol. 10, 1936, pp. 399-402.

1192

P. Guéranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, translated from the French by Dom Laurence Shephard, O.S.B.
(Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1952), Vol. 6, Passiontide and Holy Week, p. 175.

1193

A.A.S., Vol. 38, 1946, p. 266.

1194

PL, 39, 2104.

1195

F. Mercenier, O.S.B., La plus ancienne prière à la Sainte Vierge, in Questions liturgiques et paroissiales,
Vol. 25, 1940, pp. 33-36.

1196

For the placement of the comma before or after semper (ever) which would change the meaning from “ever
Virgin” to “ever deliver us,” cf. A. Paladini, C.M., in Ephemerides Liturgicae, Vol. 61, 1947, pp. 109-110.

1197

M. Higgins, Note on the Purification and Date of Nativity in Constantinople in 602, in Traditio, Vol. 1,
1943, pp. 409-410. Also published more recently in Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, Vol. 2, 1952, pp. 81-83.

1198

Of the twenty calendars edited by Wormald (English calendars before A.D. 1100) fifteen have Purificatio
Beatae Mariae, but there are five that have YPAPANTI Domini — and some of these represent calendars as
late as 1000.

1199

F. G. Holweck, Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 14, p. 151.

1200

Holweck, Calendarium, pp. 76, 320, 342.

1201

G. M. Dreves, Ein Jahrtausend Lateinischer Hymnendichtung … Nach des Verfassers Ableben revidiert
von Clemens Blume, S.J. (Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1909), Vol. 1, pp. 390-391. Cf. J. Julian, A Dictionary of
Hymnology …, revised edition (London: John Murray, 1915), pp. 1081-1084, 1706.

1202

A. Manser, Stabat mater, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Vol. 9, p. 760.

1203

Holweck, Calendarium, pp. 213-214.

1204

In Lucam homiliae, n. 7. PG, 9, 1817-1819.

1205

Holweck, Calendarium, p. 317.

1206

Ibid., p. 386.

1207

H. Thurston, S.J., Virgin Mary, Devotion to the Blessed, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 15, p. 463c.

1208

Cf. H. T. Henry, Alma Redemptoris Mater, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 326; J. Julian, A
Dictionary of Hymnology, pp. 51-52.

1209

This hymn is found in three ninth-century manuscripts, but is probably not older than that. The lines of the
first verse high-light the ideas to be developed in the subsequent verses, e.g., Ave, Mater, Virgo. Cf. H. T.
Henry, Ave Maris Stella, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, p. 149a; G. M. Dreves, Ein Jahrtausend
Lateinischer Hymnendichtung …, Vol. 2, pp. 238-239; J. Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 99.

1210

H. T. Henry, Ave Regina, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, p. 149b.

1211

J. Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 99.

1212

J. Otten, Antiphon, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 575c.

1213

Capelle, La liturgie Mariale en Occident, p. 244. Cf. Le culte de Marie et les bénédictins, in Revue liturgique
et monastique, Vol. 7, 1921-1922, p. 247; E. Carretón, La Salve en la liturgia, in Liturgia (Burgos), Vol. 6,
1951, pp. 141-146; J. Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology, pp. 991-992; cf. also J. Maier, Studien zur Geschichte
der Marienantiphon “Salve Regina” (Regensburg, 1939); S. Navarro, C.M.F., El autor de la Salve, in Estudios
Marianos, Vol. 7 (Madrid, 1948), pp. 425-442; C. Boyer, S.J., Le “Salve Regina,” in Marianum, Vol. 14, 1952,
pp. 270-275.

1214

J. Otten, Antiphon, p. 575c.

1215

Hence theology is both positive and speculative, which is to say, with the Scholastics, that both auctoritas and
ratio must come into play; cf. J. Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 2 (Westminster, Md., 1953), p. 59; J. Bilz,
Einfuehrung in die Theologie (Freiburg im Br., 1935), pp. 101-102.

1216

Cf. D.B. (Denzinger-Bannwart-Umberg, Enchiridion Symbolorum, Freiburg im Br., ed. 21-23, 1937), nn. 783,
1781, 1787, 1792, 1800, 1836.

1217

Cf. Ibid., nn. 1800, 1818, 2058-2064, 2080.

1218

Cf. Bilz, op. cit., pp. 67-72.

1219

Cf. Pius XII, Litt. Encycl. Humani generis (August 12, 1950) : “Accedit quod uterque doctrinae divinitus
revelatae fons tot tantosque continet thesauros veritatis ut numquam reapse exhauriatur”; A.A.S., Vol. 42
(September 2, 1950), p. 568.

1220

Cf. G. Roschini, O.S.M., La Madonna secondo la Fede e la Teologia, Vol. 1 (Roma, 1953), p. 6.

1221

Cf. Pius XI, Litt. Encycl. Lux veritatis (December 25, 1931), A.A.S., Vol. 23 (December 26, 1931), p. 513; Pius
XII, Litt. Encycl. Fulgens corona (September 8, 1953), A.A.S., Vol. 45 (October 8, 1953), p. 580.

1222

S. Th., I, q. 25, a. 6, ad 4um.

1223

J. H. Newman, Difficulties of Anglicans, Vol. 2 (London, 1914), pp. 82-83.

1224

De principiis, lib. 1, praef., n. 3; PG, 11, 116-117; Engl. transl., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4 (New York,
1925), p. 239. Cf. J. Quasten, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 59.

1225

De principiis, lib. 1, praef., n. 10; PG, 11, 121; The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, p. 241. Cf. Quasten, op. cit.,
Vol. 2, pp. 59-60.

1226

F. Faber, Bethlehem, 25th Amer. ed. (Baltimore-New York: J. Murphy Co.), p. 395. Faber had in mind the
enlargement of theology even here below, not only that which comes with the beatific vision.

1227

G. Roschini, op. cit., p. 6.

1228

Cf. ibid., p. 135; H. Rondet, S.J., preface to J.-B. Terrien, S.J., Le Mère des hommes, Vol. 1, ed. 8 (Paris,
1950), pp. 6-7.

1229

The Mariological literature and developments of our century alone are immense, while the magnitude of
earlier materials can he estimated from the huge collections made (somewhat indiscriminately and
uncritically, to be sure) by: H. Marracci, Bibliotheca Mariana, 2 vols. (Romae, 1648); idem, Appendix ad
Bibliothecam Marianam (Coloniae, 1683); J. Bourassé, Summa aurea de laudibus B. M. V., 13 vols. (Parisiis,
1862); A. Roskovany, B. Virgo Maria in suo Conceptu Immaculata, ex monumentis omnium saeculorum
demonstrata, 9 vols. (Nitriae, 1873-1881), covering some 25,000 Marian writings from the first century down
to a.d. 1880. The contents of the above collections are indicated in G. Roschini, Mariologia, ed. 2, Vol. 1
(Romae, 1947), pp. 290-291, 301-302, 304-305.

Our outline will owe much to Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 217-305, 390-399; idem, La Madonna secondo la
Fede e la Teologia, Vol. 1 (Roma, 1953), pp. 88-95, 148-166; to various articles in Marian Studies, Vol. 1-4
(Washington, D. C., 1950-1953), and in the symposia edited by P. Sträter, S.J., Katholische Marienkunde, Vol.
1 (Paderborn, 1947), and by H. du Manoir, S.J., Maria, Vols. 1-2 (Paris, 1949, 1952). For a rapid survey, still
useful, despite need for revision, is M. Scheeben, Handbuch der katholischen Dogmatik, Vol. 3 (Freiburg im
Br., 1882), pp. 476-479.

1230

B. Otten, S.J., A Manual of the History of Dogmas, Vol. 2 (St. Louis, 1918), p. 397.

1231

For the period from the eighth century down to St. Anselm, cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 211-217, 390.

1232

Cf. ibid., pp. 325, 396.

1233

Roschini, art. Mariologia, in Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. 8 (Città del Vaticano, 1952), s.v. Maria, col. 85:
“In modern times, consequent upon many positive and speculative studies conducted with a rigorously
scientific method, Mariology has received a development which confers upon it a certain autonomy.” That is,
while remaining an integral part of theology, Mariology is no longer treated as a kind of appendix to the tract
de Verbo Incarnato; cf. idem, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 324-325.

1234

Cf. ibid., pp. 323-326, 338.

1235

Cf. J. Carol, O.F.M., The Mariological Movement in the World Today, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp.
25-26; F. Connell, C.SS.R., Toward a Systematic Treatment of Mariology, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, p. 56;
E. Burke, C.S.P., The Beginnings of Scientific Mariology, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, pp. 117-118; J. A. de
Aldama, S.J., Mariologia, in Sacrae Theologiae Summa, Vol. 3 (Matriti, 1950), p. 289.

1236

Cf. Roschini, La Madonna secondo la Fede e la Teologia, Vol. 1, p. 151.

1237

It could not have been otherwise — the mystery of Mary is, after all, inseparable from that of Christ; cf. M.
Mueller, O.F.M., Maria. Ihre geistige Gestalt und Persoenlichkeit in der Theologie des Mittelalters, in P.
Straeter, S.J. (ed.), Katholische Marienkunde, Vol. 1 (Paderborn, 1947), pp. 269-271, developing the point that
in the religious life and thought of the Middle Ages “Jesus and Mary are a single concept.”

1238

Cf. F. Cayré, A.A., A Manual of Patrology and History of Theology, transl. by H. Howitt, Vol. 2 (Paris,
1940), pp. 404-407; J. Bainvel, Anselme, in DTC (Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique), Vol. 1, cols. 1343-1348.

1239

Cf. R. Jones, Sancti Anselmi Mariologia (Mundelein, 1937); E. Burke, C.S.P., The Beginnings of a Scientific
Mariology, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp. 117-137; Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 217-224. Anselm’s
Mariology is touched on in many places in the DTC; cf. the Tables générales, s.v. Anselme, col. 176, for
references.

1240

For a convenient, not necessarily definitive, catalogue of the authentic works of Anselm and other medieval
Mariologists, cf. Roschini, op. cit., p. 217 ff.; idem, La Madonna seconda la Fede e la Teologia, Vol. 1, pp. 88-92.

1241

Orationes 50, 51, 52 (in PL, 158); these are now designated as Orationes 5, 6, 7 in the critical edition of S.
Anselmi Opera Omnia, ed. F. Schmitt, O.S.B., Vol. 3 (Edinburgi, 1946), pp. 13-14, 15-17, 18-25. Cf. A. Wilmart,
Les propres corrections de S. Anselme dans sa grande prière à la Vierge Marie, in Recherches de Théologie
ancienne et médiévale, Vol. 2, 1930, pp. 189-204.

1242

R. Jones, op. cit., p. 84: “Vocari potest S. Anselmus magnus doctor marianus, non quidem quia de B. Virgine
multa scripsit opera theologica sed quia tanta claritate tantaque vi traditionem de ea protulit. Omnes veritates
quas hodie de Maria docet magisterium ecclesiasticum ipsi fuerunt non tam notiones explicandae quam facta
laudanda atque adhibenda. Traditionem sibi a Patribus traditam accepit et quasi ex re mortua vel dormiente
fecit rem vivam et apertam; et deinde ex hac doctrina viva, facilius potuerunt theologi post eum varios illius
deducere theologicos aspectus.” Not that one may expect to find reference to all Marian doctrines; thus no
direct testimony to the Assumption is available apart from Homilia 9 (PL, 158, 644), which is commonly
regarded as spurious.

1243

E. Burke, art. cit., p. 136, where the author also points out that similar studies would be rewarding for a
better understanding and appreciation of such other earlier medieval writers as Hugh of St. Victor and St.
Bernard.

1244

Cf. ibid., pp. 121-136. Anselm extols the divine Maternity thus in De conceptu virginali et de originali
peccato: “Nempe decens erat ut ea puritate, qua maior sub Deo nequit intelligi, Virgo illa niteret, cui Deus
Pater unicum Filium … ita dare disponebat”; c. 18 in Opera omnia, ed. Schmitt, Vol. 2, p. 150; c. 17 in PL, 158,
451. Again: “Nihil aequale Mariae, nihil nisi Deus maius Maria. Deus Filium suum … dedit Mariae”; Orat. 7
in ed. Schmitt, Vol. 3, pp. 21-22; Orat. 52 in PL, 158, 956.

1245

So Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, p. 219, who includes in this judgment Anselm’s teaching on Mary’s part in
our Redemption. However, that teaching would not seem to go beyond indirect, remote, mediate co-operation
of Mary in the objective Redemption; cf. J. Carol, O.F.M., De Corredemptione Beatae Mariae Virginis (Civitas
Vaticana, 1950), p. 153, nota 87.

1246

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., pp. 222-223. Anselm’s rejection of the Immaculate Conception is not admitted by all;
e.g., F. Spedalieri, S.J., Anselmus per Eadmerum, in Marianum, 5, 1943, pp. 205-219, considers it significant
that the above privilege was upheld by the saint’s three most intimate disciples, among them Eadmer of
Canterbury (✝ 1124?), his friend and biographer. The latter’s Tractatus de Conceptione sanctae Mariae (PL,
159, 301-318), long attributed to Anselm, is the first monograph on the Immaculate Conception. Another work
wrongly ascribed to Anselm is Eadmer’s De excellentia Virginis Mariae (PL, 159, 557-580), notable for its
doctrine on Mary’s Queenship and its testimony to her corporeal Assumption. On Eadmer, cf. Roschini, op.
cit., p. 224 (with bibliography); for some other Benedictine writers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, cf.
J. Leclercq, O.S.B., Dévotion et théologie mariales dans le monachisme bénédictin, in Maria, ed. H. du
Manoir, Vol. 2, pp. 555-562.

1247

Cf. E. Burke, art. cit., pp. 122-128; A. Gaudel, Péché originel, in DTC, Vol. 12, cols. 438-439.

1248

Cf. Gaudel, loc. cit.; X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, cols. 995-1001. According to the
teaching attributed to St. Augustine, original sin is indivisibly constituted by concupiscence and the privation
of sanctifying grace, and is transmitted by the fact that generation is linked with concupiscence, which
excludes any sanctifying activity on the part of the Holy Spirit; cf. J. Leclercq, art. cit., p. 573. Although he
criticized that teaching, Anselm’s own doctrine on original sin led to the same conclusion: only one born of
a virgin is immune from original sin.

1249

Cf. C. Clemencet, La Mariologie de S. Bernard (Brignais, 1909); B. Haensler, O. Cist., Die Marienlehre des
hl. Bernhard (Regensburg, 1917); D. Nogues, O.C.R., Mariologie de S. Bernard (Paris, 1935); A. Raugel, La
doctrine mariale de S. Bernard (Paris, 1935); P. Aubron, S.J., L’oeuvre mariale de S. Bernard (Paris, 1935);
Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 225-235; J. Leclercq, art. cit., pp. 568-574; Dom J.-B. Auniord, Cîteaux et Notre
Dame, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, pp. 583-613. Bernard’s Mariology is discussed frequently in the
Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique; cf. the Tables générales, s.v. Bernard (Saint), col. 428.

1250

Epist. 174; PL, 182, 332-336; Engl. transl. in The Life and Works of St. Bernard, ed. by J. Mabillon (transl.
and additional notes by S. Eales), Vol. 2 (London, 1889), pp. 512-518. Attempts to interpret Bernard benignly,
as a defender of the Immaculate Conception (cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, p. 232), are curtly rejected by
J. Leclercq, art. cit., p. 573, with whom J.-B. Auniord, art. cit., pp. 588, 591, would agree; cf. also X. Le
Bachelet, Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, cols. 1010-1015.

1251

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 227, 390-391.

1252

Cf. J.-B. Auniord, art. cit., pp. 587-590; also J. Leclercq, art. cit., pp. 568- 569, who points out that the very
paucity of Bernard’s Marian writings refutes those who would reduce his religion to Mariolatry, his theology
to Mariology; the saint, Leclercq further observes in this connection, always considered the Blessed Mother
in relation and in due subordination to her divine Son.

1253

Epist. 174 excepted, all are found in PL, 183; for references, cf. Auniord, art. cit., pp. 587-590, and Roschini,
op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 226-235, cf. p. 226 for the many spurious and doubtfully authentic works ascribed to
Bernard.

1254

J. Leclercq, art. cit., in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, p. 574; cf. also pp. 568-569, and idem, Bernard de
Clairvaux, in Catholicisme, hier, aujourd’hui, demain, Vol. 1, col. 1478. Compare G. Dumeige, Une session
d’études théologiques sur saint Bernard, in Études, Vol. 279, 1953, p. 249: Bernard “est davantage l’admirable
Docteur de la dévotion mariale qu’à proprement parler le théologien de la Vierge;” “non,” the same writer
conceded earlier, “qu’il manque de sens théologique ou de force de pensée — on s’en rend compte en etudiant
sa doctrine si solide, sur le Christ, et l’auteur du traité sur la Grâce et le libre arbitre a montré ce dont il était
capable.”

1255

As was just conceded by Dumeige, in note 40; cf. also F. Cayré, Manual of Patrology and History of
Theology, Vol. 2, pp. 430-432.

1256

Especially St. Ambrose and St. Augustine; for other patristic and later sources used by Bernard, cf. Leclercq,
art, cit., in Maria, Vol. 2, p. 578. Such zeal for orthodoxy is a guarantee that the troubadour of Mary did not
allow his ardor to carry him beyond the bounds of assured dogma; cf. P. Régamey, O.P., Les plus beaux textes
sur la Vierge Marie, nouvelle éd. (Paris, copyright 1946), p. 125. On the other hand, mistakenly applied, it
betrayed Bernard into his denial of the Immaculate Conception; cf. Régamey, op. cit., p. 125; Leclercq, art. cit.,
in Maria, Vol. 2, p. 574.

1257

Cf. Auniord, art. cit., in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 587, 612; Régamey, op. cit., pp. 125-126.

1258

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 226-234.

1259

Cf., e.g., In Assumptione B. V. Mariae, Sermo 1; PL, 183, 415-417. In connection with the Assumption St.
Bernard quite naturally also enlarged on Mary’s Queenship; thus in the sermon just cited and elsewhere, e.g.,
PL, 183, 425, 431, 436, 438.

1260

Cf. Auniord, art. cit., pp. 601-608; Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, 229-232. According to J. Carol, De
Corredemptione B. V. Mariae, pp. 155-156, it is questionable that Bernard upheld Mary’s immediate co-operation in the objective Redemption. And although he teaches in effect the spiritual Maternity of the Blessed
Virgin, Bernard never actually refers to her as “our mother,” despite St. Anselm’s use of this term and its
equivalents; doubtless the Abbot of Clairvaux avoided such expressions because he did not find them in St.
Ambrose or St. Augustine (another instance of his concern for orthodoxy); cf. P. Morineau, S.M.M., Comment
la doctrine de la Maternité spirituelle de Marie s’installe dans la théologie mystique de Saint Bernard, in
Bulletin de la Société Française d’Études Mariales, 1935, pp. 121-148; Régamey, op. cit., p. 125.

1261

Sermo in Nativitate B. V. Mariae, nn. 3-5; PL, 183, 439-440.

1262

Sermo in Nativitate B. V. Mariae, n. 7; PL, 183, 441.

1263

In Vigilia Nativitatis Domini, Sermo 3, n. 10; PL, 183, 100.

1264

J. Leclercq, Bernard de Clairvaux (Saint), in Catholicisme, hier, aujourd’hui, demain, Vol. 1, col. 1478.

1265

Other Cistercians contemporary with Bernard were likewise strong proponents of Mary’s Mediation and
spiritual Maternity; among them we may mention (cf. Auniord, art. cit., pp. 614-617; Roschini, Mariologia,
Vol. 1, pp. 225, 236-237; DTC, Tables générales): Blessed Guerric, Abbot of Igny (✝ 1151 or 1155), whose
sermons are rated almost on a par with Bernard’s; St. Amadeus of Lausanne (✝ 1159), noted also for his strong
testimony to Our Lady’s corporeal Assumption, which was commemorated by Pius XII in the Apost. Const.,
Munificentissimus Deus; Arnold of Chartres, Abbot of Bonneval (✝ 1160), regarded as the “Corredemptionis
marialis primus adsertor” (cf. J. Carol, op. cit., p. 156); and Blessed Ailred, Abbot of Rievaulx (✝ 1166).

1266

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., p. 237, on Blessed Ailred.

1267

Cf. Auniord, art. cit., pp. 605; 603, note 78; E. Druwé, S.J., La médiation universelle de Marie, in Maria,
ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1, pp. 547-549.

1268

Among lesser figures we may mention Alexander Neckam (✝ 1217), of some significance in the controversy
on the Immaculate Conception; cf. X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, cols. 1037-1041,
1068-1069.

1269

Cf. R. Huber, O.F.M.Conv., The Mariology of St. Anthony of Padua, in Proceedings of First Franciscan
National Marian Congress (Studia Mariana, cura Commisionis Marialis Franciscanae editae, VII)
(Burlington, Wis., 1952), pp. 188-268; G. Roschini, La Mariologia di Sant’ Antonio da Padova, in Marianum,
Vol. 8, 1946, pp. 16-67; L. Di Fonzo, O.F.M.Conv., La Mariologia di Sant’ Antonio, in the symposium S.
Antonio Dottore della Chiesa (Città del Vaticano, 1947), pp. 85-122; B. Costa, O.F.M.Conv., La Mariologia
di S. Antonio da Padova (Padova, 1950); additional literature cited in Huber, art. cit., pp. 266-268.

1270

Cf. Pius XII, Litt. Apost., Exulta, Lusitania felix (January 16, 1946); A.A.S., 38 (1 Iunii 1946), pp. 200-204;
Eng. transl. in The National Catholic Almanac (Paterson, N. J., 1947), pp. 203-206.

1271

Cf. Huber, art. cit., pp. 189, 206.

1272

Eight sermons on the Blessed Virgin, with much relevant material in many other sermons, especially those
for the Sundays and for the feasts of Our Lord; cf. Huber, art. cit., pp. 189-190. Cf. A. Locatelli, S. Antonii
Patavini Thaumaturgi Incliti Sermones Dominicales et in Solemnitatibus (Patavii, 1895); representative
selections in L. Guidaldi, O.F.M.Conv., Il Pensiero Mariano di S. Antonio di Padua (Padova, 1938).

1273

Cf. Huber, art. cit., pp. 190, 206, 207.

1274

Cf. ibid., p. 206.

1275

Cf. ibid., pp. 215-225. For the opposite opinion see the scholarly book by C. M. Romeri, O.F.M., De
Immaculata Conceptione B. M. Virginis apud S. Antonium Patavinum (Romae, 1939).

1276

Cf. Huber, art. cit., pp. 241-246, 264.

1277

For information on many other authors whose devotional writings illustrate the Marian thought of the
twelfth and early thirteenth century, cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 237-241; and the several articles on
devotion to Mary in various religious orders and congregations, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, pp. 547-906; e.g., pp. 617-622, 686-693, 718-720. As a representative of the secular clergy we may mention Richard
of St. Lawrence (✝ c. 1245), whose Mariale or Tractatus de Laudibus beatae Mariae Virginis, which for
centuries was mistakenly attributed to St. Albert the Great, sheds light on the state of the question as it then
obtained regarding Our Lady and her prerogatives; cf. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 240-241; J. Carol, De
Corredemptione B. V. Mariae, p. 161, nota 106.

1278

Cf. E. Chiettini, O.F.M., Mariologia S. Bonaventurae (Sibenici-Romae, 1942); L. Di Fonzo, O.F.M.Conv.,
Doctrina S. Bonaventurae de universali Mediatione B. Virginis Mariae (Romae, 1938); Roschini, Mariologia,
Vol. 1, pp. 241-245; additional literature, p. 241, nota 1, and in J. Carol, De Corredemptione Beatae Virginis
Mariae, p. 162, nota 110.

1279

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 242, for these main repositories of Bonaventure’s Marian teachings, also for
a list of the spurious works once ascribed to him.

1280

Cf. Sent. 3, d. 3, p. 1, a. 1, q. 2, ad 3, and d. 4, a. 3, q. 3; in Opera omnia, ed. Ad Claras Aquas (1882-1902),
Vol. 3, 68 and 115.

1281

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 242-243.

1282

Cf. Sent. 3, d. 3, p. 1, a. 1, q. 2.

1283

Cf. Balić, De regula fundamentali Theologiae Marianae Scotisticae (Sibenici, 1938), p. 6, quoted in
Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 243.

1284

Cf. Sent. 3, d. 3, p. 1, a. 1, q. 2; cf. X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, cols. 1047-1048;
J. de Dieu, O.F.M.Cap., Le culte marial chez les Fils de Saint François d’Assise, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir,
Vol. 2, pp. 788-789; Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 2, Pars 2 (Romae, 1948), p. 56.

1285

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 243-244.

1286

Sent. 3, d. 3, p. 1, a. 1; Opera omnia, Vol. 3, p. 67.

1287

Cf. J. de Dieu, art. cit., in Maria, Vol. 2, pp. 789-791; J. Carol, De Corredemptione Beatae Mariae Virginis,
pp. 162-164.

1288

Sermo 2, In Pentec., n. 4.

1289

“We have three Advocates, Christ, the Holy Ghost, and the Virgin. The first contends for us, the second
speaks for us, the third intercedes for us”; In Joan., c. 14; Opera omnia, Vol. 6, p. 303.

1290

E.g., repeating St. Bernard’s “all graces pass through Mary’s hands”; Serm. 4, De Annuntiatione B. M. V.;
Opera omnia, Vol. 9, p. 673.

1291

St. Bonaventure’s reputation in this regard remains established even though he is not the author of the
Speculum B. M. V. (seu Expositio salutationis angelicae), which belongs rather to a colleague in religion,
Conrad of Saxony, O.F.M. (✝ 1279). This charming and profound little work, a commentary on the “Hail Mary”
(as then recited, i.e., down to “Holy Mary”), is a compendium of Mariological questions, with emphasis on Our
Lady’s mediatorial functions; cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 251-252; J. de Dieu, art. cit., in Maria, ed.
H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, p. 790. The opusculum, along with another spurious work, has been published in English
under St. Bonaventure’s name: The Mirror of the Blessed Virgin and the Psalter of Our Lady (St. Louis, 1932).

1292

Cf. M.-A. Genevois, O.P., Bible mariale et mariologie de S. Albert le Grand (Saint-Maximin, 1934); M.-M.
Desmarais, O.P., S. Albert le Grand, docteur de la médiation mariale (Paris-Ottawa, 1935); J. Bittremieux,
S. Albertus Magnus Ecclesiae doctor, praestantissimus Mariologus, in Ephemerides Theologicae
Lovanienses, Vol. 10, 1933, pp. 217-231; M. Cordovani, O.P., La Mariologia di S. Alberto Magno, in
Angelicum, Vol. 9, 1932, pp. 203-212; Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 252-261; for additional literature, cf.
Roschini, p. 252, nota 1, and DTC, Tables générales, s.v. Albert le Grand, cols. 67-68.

1293

Cf. Desmarais, op. cit., p. 135.

1294

Cf. H. Wilms, O.P., Albert der Grosse (Muenchen: Verlag J. Koesel & F. Pustet, n.d.), pp. 178-180.

1295

This work (in Alberti magni opera omnia, edit. Borgnet, Vol. 37, 1-362) is not to be confused with the
Mariale of Richard of St. Lawrence (cf. supra, note 63; this spurious work is also in Borgnet, Vol. 36). (Editor’s
Note. As this volume goes to press, reliable information reaches us from Europe concerning the recent
discovery to the effect that the Mariale [ed. Borgnet, Vol. 37] long attributed to St. Albert, was not actually
written by him. Cf. R. Laurentin, Court traité de théologie mariale [Paris: 1953], p. 52, note 48a.)

1296

On the authentic Mariological writings of St. Albert, cf. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 252-253; Desmarais,
op. cit., pp. 148-167; P. Meersseman, O.P., Introductio in opera omnia B. Alberti Magni, O.P. (Brugis: apud
C. Beyaert, n.d.), 118-121; M.-A. Genevois, O.P., La Mariologie de Saint Albert-le-Grand, in Bulletin de la
Société Française d’Études Mariales, 1935, pp. 27-51. Excerpts are given in French translation in A. Garreau,
Saint Albert le Grand (Paris: Aubier, n.d.).

1297

Thus M. Grabmann, in Wilms,op. cit., p. 178.

1298

Cf. Genevois, art. cit., in Bull. de la Soc. Franç. d’Ét. Mar., 1935, p. 47, note 1, and pp. 50-51, regarding St.
Albert’s contribution to the evolution of theological method; cf. also E. Lajeunie, O.P., Quelques aspects de
la Théologie mariale actuelle, in Bull. de la Soc. Franç. d’Ét. Mar., 1935, pp. 55-59; Cordovani, art. cit., in
Angelicum, Vol. 9, 1932, pp. 210-212; Bittremieux, art. cit., in Eph. Theol. Lov., Vol. 10, 1933, pp. 218-219,
229-231.

1299

Cf. Mariale, qq. 96-111; Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 261.

1300

De bono, tract. 3, q. 3, a. 9, sol. (Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, cura B. Geyer, Vol. 28 [hujus editionis
numerus currens 1], Monasterii Westfalorum, 1951, n. 302): “Impium est non credere virginitatem et
munditiam gloriosae et sanctae theotocos omnem creaturae munditiam excellere in quattuor. … Primum est
liberatio ab immundante, quod est peccatum, de quo dicit Augustinus (De nat. et gratia, c. 36, n. 42; P.L. 44,
267), quod cum de peccatis agitur, nullam de beata virgine vult haberi quaestionem propter honorem Filii eius,
domini nostri Iesu Christi. Aliud est quantum ad immunitatem fomitis et incentivi ad libidinem, quia fomes
penitus fuit in ea exstinctus. Et haec duo plenius notata sunt in quaestione De sanctificatis in utero. Tertium
est puritas virgineae mentis in omni cogitatu, verbo et opere ipsius. … Quartum autem est sacramentum
perpetuae gratiae in corde et in corpore. …” Mariale, q. 32 (Opera omnia, ed. Borgnet, Vol. 37, Parisiis, 1908,
p. 69): “Nulla alia creatura plena est gratia susceptive praeter beatam Virginem, quae sola tantum accepit,
quod pura creatura recipere plus non potuit.” Cf. Bittremieux, art. cit., in Eph. Theol. Lov., Vol. 10, 1933, pp.
220-222.

1301

Postilla super Isaiam, c. 11, 1 (Opera omnia, cura B. Geyer, Vol. 19 [huius editionis numerus currens 2],
Monasterii Westfalorum, 1952, p. 162, lin. 76-78): “Mater (Maria) enim, quamvis in originali peccato concepta
sit, tamen ante nativitatem mundata ad rectitudinem deducta est.” Cf. also In 3 Sent., d. 3, a. 5; a. 8; Mariale,
q. 163, 3.

1302

Cf. Genevois, art. cit., in Bull. de la Soc. Franç. d’Ét. Mar., 1935, pp., 37-38, 47-48; Lajeunie, art. cit., in
Bull. de la Soc. Franç. d’Ét. Mar., 1935, pp. 59-61; X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, cols.
1044-1045.

1303

Cf. Genevois, art. cit., pp. 45-46.

1304

Desmarais, op. cit., p. 146; for a summary of Albert’s doctrine on Marian Mediation, cf. ibid., pp. 135-147;
Bittremieux, art. cit., in Eph. Theol. Lov., Vol. 10, 1933, pp. 222-227; Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 255-259.

1305

Cf. Bittremieux, art. cit., p. 223; Cordovani, art. cit., in Angelicum, Vol. 9, 1932, pp. 207-208; J. Carol, De
Corredemptione Beatae Virginis Mariae, pp. 164-167, 198.

1306

Postilla super Isaiam, c. 11, 1 (Opera omnia, cura B. Geyer, Vol. 19, p. 163, lin. 22-24): “Mater (Maria) enim
figura est ecclesiae castis visceribus concipiens et pariens, natus autem figura regeneratorum.” Mary is the
“mother of regeneration,” the “spiritual mother of the whole human race,” the “mother of all Christians,” etc.;
cf. Mariale, qq. 11, 29, 36, 43, 145, 148, 150, 166; cf. Desmarais, op. cit., pp. 128-132; W. O’Connor, The
Spiritual Maternity of Our Lady in Tradition, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 161-163.

1307

See, e.g., Mariale, qq. 29, 51, 146, 147, 164; cf. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 257-258; Bittremieux, art. cit.,
in Eph. Theol. Lov., Vol. 10, 1933, pp. 225- 227; Desmarais, op. cit., pp. 80-114; H. Wilms, Albert der Grosse,
p. 179.

1308

Cf. F. Morgott, Die Mariologie des hl. Thomas von Aquin (Freiburg im Br., 1878); G. Roschini, Mariologia,
Vol. 1, pp. 245-251; idem, La Mariologia di S. Tommaso (Roma, 1950), cf. pp. 25-33 for a complete
bibliography.

1309

Cf. A. Duval, O.P., La dévotion mariale dans l’Ordre des Frères prêcheurs, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol.
2, pp. 753-754; Morgott, op. cit., pp. 3-4; Roschini, La Mariologia di S. Tommaso, pp. 34-35.

1310

Cf. Duval, art. cit., pp. 753—754; Roschini, op. cit., pp. 14—15; Morgott, op. cit., p. 3.

1311

Cf. S. Th., I, q. 25, a. 6, ad 4; III, q. 30, a. 2, ad 1; III, q. 25, a. 5, c; II-II. q. 103, a. 4, ad 2.

1312

St. Thomas discussed the angels ex professo in a special treatise, De substantiis separatis, and in S. Th., I,
qq. 50-64, 106-114; S. c. Gentiles, lib. 2, cc. 91-101; lib. 3, cc. 80, 103, 105-110. It has been surmised that this
wealth of teaching earned St. Thomas his title of “Angelic Doctor”; cf. F. Cayré, Manual of Patrology and
History of Theology, Vol. 2, p. 594. Revealing are the entries in the “Index tertius” to the Summa Theologica:
356 under Angelus, 39 under Maria. Suarez was to note and to correct the disproportion in Scholastic
treatment of angels and of their Queen; cf. De mysteriis vitae Christi, praefatio, n. 2 (Opera omnia, ed. Vivès,
Vol. 19, Parisiis, 1860, pp. 1-2).

1313

Cf. Roschini, La Mariologia di S. Tommaso, pp. 164-191; idem, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 248-249; R. Bernard,
O.P., La Maternité spirituelle de Maria et la pensée de Saint Thomas, in Bull. de la Soc. Franç. d’Ét. Mariales,
1935, pp. 89-90: “Je ne vais pas essayer de dire comment saint Thomas a traité de la maternité spirituelle de
Marie, pour la bonne raison qu’il n’en a pas traité, si ce n’est par quelques réflexions incidentes, pas très
nombreuses.” Cf. also J. Carol, De Corredemptione Beatae Virginis Mariae, pp. 168-169. Further, Aquinas
barely touched on Mary’s Queenship; cf. Roschini, La Mariologia di S. Tommaso, p. 192. The corporeal
Assumption of Our Lady is another topic with which St. Thomas never dealt directly, although, as Pius XII
noted in Munificentissimus Deus, he did find occasions to uphold that truth: S. Th., III, q. 27, a. 1; q. 83, a.
5, ad 8; Expositio salutationis angelicae; In Symb. Apostolorum expositio, a. 5; In IV Sent., d. 12, q. 1, a. 3,
sol. 3; d. 43, a. 1, a. 3, sol. 1, 2.

1314

There is, of course, much incidental treatment of Marian matters throughout the Summa Theologica and
the commentary on the Sentences; moreover, St. Thomas adverted to the Blessed Mother some 21 times in
his commentaries on ten books of the Old and New Testament; for a detailed inventory of Marian passages
in St. Thomas, cf. Roschini, La Mariologia di S. Tommaso, pp. 15-22; cf. pp. 23-24 for vindication of the
authenticity of the Expositio salutationis angelicae.

1315

Cf. Roschini, La Mariologia di S. Tommaso, p. 34.

1316

Cf. ibid., pp. 13-14, 34-35; Morgott, op. cit., pp. 2-5; Duval, art. cit., in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, p.
754; E. Hugon, O.P., S. Thomae doctrina de B. M. V. Mediatrice omnium gratiarum, in Xenia Thomistica,
Vol. 2, 1925, p. 540: “Concludimus Angelicum, licet non singula explicite expenderit, statuisse firma ac solida
Mariologiae fundamenta. …”

1317

Cf. M.-A. Genevois, art. cit., in Bull. de la Soc. Franç. de l’Ét. Mar., 1935, p. 50.

1318

The reputation of St. Thomas as a speculative theologian should not be allowed to obscure his concern for
positive theology, in Mariology and elsewhere; cf. Roschini, La Mariologia di S. Tommaso, pp. 37-39; R.
Bernard, art. cit., in Bull. de la Soc. Franç. de l’Ét. Mar., 1935, pp. 91-92.

1319

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., pp. 167-168.

1320

Cf. J. A. de Aldama, Mariologia, in Sacrae Theologiae Summa, Vol. 3 (Matriti, 1950), p. 289.

1321

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., pp. 117-162.

1322

Cf. Morgott, op. cit., p. 5. In effect, then, the divine Maternity operated as the primary principle of the
Angelic Doctor’s Mariology, although he never explicitly discussed such a principle (John Gerson would be
the first to do so). According to Roschini, La Mariologia di S. Tommaso, pp. 35-36, the primary Marian
principle of St. Thomas was the divine Maternity considered in the concrete, that is, as historically verified,
which would include not only Mary’s physical motherhood of Christ but also her spiritual motherhood, as
regards men; briefly, the principle of Mary’s “universal maternity”; this position presupposes, of course,
Roschini’s attempt, op. cit., pp. 164-191, to interpret the Angelic Doctor’s mind on the questions of Mary’s
Mediation, insofar as his views can be gleaned from incidental utterances or are implicit in other statements.

1323

Roschini, op. cit., pp. 193-237, refutes those who try to show that St. Thomas was not an adversary of the
Immaculate Conception.

1324

110 S. Th., III, q. 27, a. 2, ad 2; cf. q. 27, aa. 1-2; Comp. Theologiae, p. 1, c. 224; etc. St. Thomas held with the
opinion that Mary’s sanctification in the womb was wrought “cito post conceptionem, et animae infusionem,”
Quodl., 6, q. 5, a. 7; cf. Roschini, op. cit., pp. 228-229.

1325

Cf. M.-A. Genevois, art. cit., in Bull. de la Soc. Franç. de l’Ét. Mar., 1935, p. 48.

1326

Comp. Theologiae, p. 1, c. 224; Engl. transl., C. Vollert, S.J., Compendium of Theology by St. Thomas
Aquinas (St. Louis, 1947), pp. 263-264.

1327

Pope Pius IX, Litt. Apost., Ineffabilis Deus (December 8, 1854): “Omnes pariter norunt quantopere solliciti
fuerint sacrorum antistites … profiteri, sanctissimam Dei Genetricem Virginem Mariam, ob praevisa Christi
Domini Redemptoris merita numquam originali subiacuisse peccato, sed praeservatam omnino fuisse ab
originis labe, et idcirco sublimiori modo redemptam.” Quoted from Le Encicliche Mariane, ed. A. Tondini
(Roma, 1950), p. 40.

1328

Cf. E. Dander, S.J., Mariologia, in L. Lercher, S.J., Institutiones Theol. Dogm., Vol. 3, ed. 3 retractata
(Oeniponte, 1942), n. 305; Roschini, op. cit., pp. 236-237; F. Cayré, Manual of Patrology and History of
Theology, Vol. 2, p. 627. Cf. X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée Conception, in Dict. de Théologie Catholique, Vol. 7,
cols. 1050-1060.

1329

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 263-265; Vol. 2/2, ed. 2 (Roma, 1948), pp. 65-69; P. Raymond,
O.F.M.Cap., Duns Scot, in Dict. de Théol. Cath., Vol. 4, cols. 1896-1898; X. La Bachelet, Immaculée
Conception, in Dict. de Théol. Cath., Vol. 7, cols. 1073-1078; J. de Dieu, art. cit., in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir,
Vol. 2, pp. 794-797; additional literature is cited in Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 263, nota 1. The Marian
teachings of Scotus are contained in his commentary on the Sentences, begun at Oxford (Opus Oxoniense),
resumed and completed at Paris (Reportata Parisiensia); a critical edition of the relevant passages has been
furnished by C. Balić, O.F.M.; Ioannis Duns Scoti … Theologiae Marianae Elementa (Sibenici, 1933).

1330

The Marian questions which Scotus treated ex professo are these: Mary’s Immaculate Conception; her
marriage with St. Joseph (perpetual virginity); the divine Maternity, treated with depth and originality; the
question of a real filiation of Christ in relation to Mary. Cf. Raymond, art. cit., cols. 1896-1898; B. Merkelbach,
O.P., review of Balić, op. cit., in Angelicum, Vol. 12, 1935, pp. 408-409; Balić, La prédestination de la Très-Sainte Vierge dans la doctrine de Jean Duns Scot, in La France Franciscaine, Vol. 19, 1936, pp. 114-158;
Carol, De Corredemptione Beatae Virginis Mariae …, p. 170.

1331

Cf. X. Le Bachelet, art. cit., cols. 1073-1078, 1078-1083; F. Cayré, Manual of Patrology, etc., Vol. 2, pp. 657-658; Merkelbach, art. cit., p. 409, accords Scotus the title Doctor immaculatae conceptionis. Roschini, op. cit.,
Vol. 1, pp. 264-265, and Vol. 2/2, pp. 68-69, contends that the Subtle Doctor’s role in regard to the
clarification of the doctrine has been highly exaggerated.

1332

Cf. In 4 Sent., lib. 3, d. 3, q. 1; in Balić, op. cit., pp. 20-43 (Opus Oxon.), 45-54 (Report. Par.).

1333

Cf. X. Le Bachelet, art. cit., col. 1075.

1334

Cf. ibid., col. 1076. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 265, nota 1, spurns this explanation. He further remarks (p.
265) that the opusculum known as the Theoremata denies the Immaculate Conception, and that this work
“certainly belongs to Scotus — as Father Balić has apodictically demonstrated”; Merkelbach, art. cit., p. 408,
likewise represents Balić as regarding the Theoremata to be certainly authentic; actually, Balić, op. cit., p. cxlv,
is content to say that the question is not yet settled, and that in the meanwhile the traditional view on the
authenticity of the work remains in possession.

1335

Cf. Balić, op. cit., pp. xcvii-cxiv; X. Le Bachelet, art. cit., cols. 1076-1077.

1336

On these and other medieval Mariologists, cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 262-276; M. Mueller,
O.F.M., Maria. Ihre geistige Gestalt und Persoenlichkeit in der Theologie des Mittelalters, in Katholische
Marienkunde, ed. P. Sträter, S.J. (Paderborn, 1947), Vol. 1, pp. 268-316; also the several articles on devotion
to Mary in various religious orders and congregations, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, pp. 547-906.

1337

On both theologians, cf. F. Mildner, O.S.M., The Oxford Theologians of the Thirteenth Century and the
Immaculate Conception, in Marianum, Vol. 2, 1940, pp. 284-299; on Neckam, cf. also supra, footnote 54.

1338

Cf. Mildner, art. cit., in Marianum, Vol. 2, 1940, p. 299.

1339

Cf. Gulielmi Guarrae, J. D. Scoti, Petri Aureoli, Quaestiones disputatae de Immaculata Conceptione B. M.
V. (Ad Claras Aquas, 1904). Cf. X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, cols. 1060-1062.

1340

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 264-265, and Vol. 2/2, pp. 68-69; X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée
Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, col. 1075; M. Grabmann, Die Geschichte der katholischen Theologie seit dem
Ausgang der Vaeterzeit (Freiburg im Br.), p. 89. Roschini and Le Bachelet acknowledge Scotus’ superiority
in this respect, that, unlike William of Ware, he rejected the old theory of concupiscence infecting the flesh
and transmitting original sin, in favor of St. Anselm’s position (already adopted by Aquinas) which placed the
essence of original sin in the privation of sanctifying grace.

1341

Cf. J. de Dieu, art. cit., in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, p. 794. On the interdependence between Ware
and Scotus relative to the Immaculate Conception, see the interesting and well-documented paper by L.
Siekaniec, O.F.M., William of Ware, in The Scotist, 1941, pp. 38-40; likewise M. Müller, O.F.M., Johannes
Duns Scotus (Gladbach, 1934), p. 12; F. Pelster, S.J., Duns Scotus nach englischen Handschriften, in
Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, Vol. 51, 1927, p. 68; J. Lechner, Wilhelm von Ware, in Lexikon für
Theologie und Kirche, Vol. 10, col. 910.

1342

Cf. P. Lorenzin, O.F.M., Mariologia Iacobi a Varagine, O.P. (Romae, 1951).

1343

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 265-266; E. Longpré, O.F.M., Lulle, Raymond, in DTC, Vol. 9, cols.
1127-1128; X. Le Bachelet, Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, cols. 1062-1064.

1344

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 267-269; A. Teetaert, O.F.M.Cap., Pierre Auriol, in DTC, Vol. 12, cols.
1821-1826, 1873-1875; idem, Un grand Docteur marial franciscain: Pierre d’Auriol, in Études Franciscaines,
Vol. 39, 1927, pp. 352-375; Vol. 40, 1928, pp. 124-152; J. de Dieu, art. cit., in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2,
p. 802. Cf. Gulielmi Guarrae, J. D. Scoti, Petri Aureoli quaestiones disputatae de Immaculata Conceptione
B. M. V. (Ad Claras Aquas, 1904).

1345

Cf. J. de Dieu, art. cit., in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, p. 802; Teetaert, art. cit., in DTC, Vol. 12, cols.
1873-1874. For the later history of this controversy, cf. J. Schwane, Dogmengeschichte, Vol. 4 (Dogmengesch.
der neueren Zeit) (Freiburg im Br., 1890), pp. 179-183.

1346

Cf. J. de Dieu, art. cit., in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, p. 803; M. Mueller, Maria. Ihre geistige Gestalt
und Persoenlichkeit in der Theologie des Mittelalters, in Katholische Marienkunde, ed. P. Straeter, Vol. 1, pp.
270, 294, 298 f., 301, 310, 313 f.

1347

Cf. A. Emmen, O.F.M., Immaculata Deiparae Conceptio secundum Guillelmum de Nottingham, in
Marianum, Vol. 5, 1943, pp. 220-244.

1348

Cf. G. Fowler, Intellectual Interests of Engelbert of Admont (New York, 1947), pp. 43-44; S. Beissel, S.J.,
Geschichte der Verehrung Marias in Deutschland waehrend des Mittelalters (Freiburg im Br., 1909), pp. 246-248.

1349

Cf. X. Le Bachelet, art. Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, col. 1082; and DTC, Tables générales, s.v.
Baconthorp, col. 349.

1350

Cf. M. Grabmann, Die Geschichte der katholischen Theologie seit dem Ausgang der Vaeterzeit (Freiburg
im Br., 1933), p. 115 f.

1351

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 270-271, 323, note 3. The Marian contributions of this somewhat
neglected theologian have been appreciated by A. Combes, La doctrine mariale du chancelier Jean Gerson,
in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, pp. 865-882.

1352

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 271-273; G. Folgarait, La teologia mariana di San Bernardino da
Siena (Milano, 1939); P. Emm. ab Izegem, O.F.M.Cap., De doctrina mariologica S. B. Senensis, in Collectanea
Francescana, Vol. 10, 1940, pp. 383-394; L. di Fonzo, O.F.M.Conv., La mariologia di S. B. da Siena, in
Miscellanea Francescana, Vol. 47, 1947, pp. 3-102; D. Scaramuzzi, O.F.M., La dottrina del B. G. Duns Scoto
nella predicazione di S. Bernardino da Siena (Firenze, 1930), pp. 135-141.

1353

Cf. E. Longpré, Bernardin de Sienne (Saint), in Catholicisme, hier, aujourd’hui, demain, Vol. 1, col. 1488.

1354

Cf. Grabmann, op. cit., p. 122.

1355

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, p. 273.

1356

Cf. ibid., p. 273.

1357

Cf. ibid., p. 273; Grabmann, op. cit., p. 100.

1358

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, p. 274; J. De Wit, Dionysius de Karthuijser over onze lieve Vrouw, in
Handelingen van het vlaamsch Maria-Congres te Brussel, Vol. 1 (Brussel, 1922), pp. 345-351.

1359

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., p. 275; J. de Dieu, art. cit., p. 806; F. Cucchi, O.F.M.Conv., La Mediazione universale
della Santissima Vergine negli scritti di Bernardino de’Bustis (Milano, 1942).

1360

Cf. X. Le Bachelet, art. Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, cols. 1041-1042.

1361

Cf. ibid., cols. 1089-1093; A. Teetaert, art. Pierre Auriol, in DTC, Vol. 12, cols. 1823-1824.

1362

X. Le Bachelet, art. cit., DTC, Vol. 7, col. 1058, observes that “the opposition was not universal, but
particular and, in a certain sense, local. Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas
Aquinas, and their disciples, all pertained to the same literary milieu, the university of Paris.” Cf. idem, art.
Marie — Immaculée Conception, in Dictionnaire Apologétique de la Foi Catholique, Vol. 3 (Paris, 1926), col.
263.

1363

Cf. X. Le Bachelet, art. cit., in DTC, Vol. 7, cols. 1078-1089.

1364

Cf. ibid., cols. 1108-1132; J. Schwane, Dogmengeschichte, Vol. 3 (Dogmengesch. der mittleren Zeit)
(Freiburg im Br., 1882), pp. 426-428; Vol. 4 (Dogmengesch. der neueren Zeit) (Freiburg im Br., 1890), pp. 178-179. M. Mueller mistakenly declares that most medieval theologians rejected the Immaculate Conception; cf.
art. cit., in Katholische Marienkunde, Vol. 2, p. 295.

1365

Cf. X. Le Bachelet, art. Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, cols. 1093-1094; cf.,supra note 131.

1366

Cf. G. Roschini, Il Dogma dell’Assunzione (Studi Mariani, 3), ed. 2 (Roma, 1951), pp. 81-83; C. Balić,
O.F.M., Testimonia de Assumptione B. V. M. ex omnibus saeculis. Pars prior: Ex aetate ante Concilium
Tridentinum (Romae, 1948), pp. 222-387. C. Piana, O.F.M., Assumptio B. V. M. apud scriptores saec. XIII
(Bibliotheca Mariana Medii Aevi, fasc. 4) (Sibenici-Romae, 1942).

1367

133 Cf. A.A.S., Vol. 42 (4 nov. 1950), pp. 762-766; Engl. transl., Catholic Mind, January, 1951, pp. 72-74.

1368

Cf. H. Barré, C.S.Sp., Marie et l’Église; du Vénérable Bede à Saint Albert le Grand, in Marie et l’Église.
Bull. de la Soc. Franç. d’Ét. Mar., 1951 (Paris, 1952), pp. 59-143.

1369

Cf. W. O’Connor, The Spiritual Maternity of Our Lady in Tradition, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp.
153-168.

1370

Cf. J. Carol, O.F.M., De Corredemptione B. M. V. (Civitas Vaticana, 1950), pp. 151-198; L. Riley, Historical
Conspectus of the Doctrine of Mary’s Co-Redemption, in Marian Studies, Vol. 2, 1951, pp. 47-54; Roschini,
La Madonna seconda la Fede e la Teologia, Vol. 1 (Roma, 1953), pp. 149-150.

1371

Cf. M. Mueller, art. cit., in Katholische Marienkunde, ed. Sträter, Vol. 1, pp. 282-286, 286-295.

1372

Cf. W. Hill, S.S., Our Lady’s Queenship in the Middle Ages and Modern Times, in Marian Studies, Vol. 4,
1953, pp. 135-153, 154-155 (summary).

1373

Cf. supra, note 16.

1374

G. Philips, in Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Vol. 19, 1953, p. 460, reviewing the Marie et l’Église
volume of the Société Française d’Études Mariales.

1375

Sess. 5, cap. 6 (June 17, 1546); D.B., n. 792. Cf. M. Tognetti, L’Immacolata al Conc. Tridentino, in
Marianum, Vol. 15, 1953, pp. 304-374.

1376

Cf. C. Dillenschneider, C.SS.R., La Mariologie de S. Alphonse de Liguori, Vol. I (Fribourg, Suisse, 1931),
pp. 1-32; Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 391-393; S. Beissel, S.J., Geschichte der Verehrung Marias im 16.
u. 17. Jahrhundert (Freiburg im Br., 1910), pp. 100-111.

1377

Cf. Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 33-104; Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 393-395.

1378

Attempts at a partial rehabilitation of Widenfeld have been undertaken by P. Hoffer, S.M., La dévotion à
Marie au déclin du XVIIe siècle autour du Jansénisme et des ‘Avis salutaires de la B. Vierge Marie à ses
dévots indiscrets’ (Paris, 1938); G. Cacciatore, S. Alfonso de Liguori e il Giansenismo (Firenze, 1942). Roschini
rejects these efforts in his La Madonna secondo la Fede e la Teologia, Vol. 1, pp. 156-157.

1379

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 153; Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 150-151, 194-195, 226-227, 250-251;
Beissel, op. cit., pp. 112-117; H. Rondet, S.J., preface to J.-B. Terrien, S.J., La Mère des hommes, Vol. 1, ed. 8
(Paris, 1950), pp. 13-44. For details on the Mariological progress in this era, confer: E. Dublanchy, art. Marie,
in DTC, Vol. 9 (Paris, 1926), passim, especially cols. 2355-2369, 2392-2394, 2400-2403; 2436-2453; X. Le
Bachelet, art. Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, cols. 1150-1209; J. Carol, De Corredemptione B. V. M.,
pp. 198-480; L. Riley, Historical Conspectus of the Doctrine of Mary’s Co-Redemption, in Marian Studies,
Vol. 2, 1951, pp. 64-92; W. O’Connor, The Spiritual Maternity of Our Lady in Tradition, in Marian Studies,
Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 168-172; W. Hill, S.S., Our Lady’s Queenship in the Middle Ages and Modern Times, in
Marian Studies, Vol. 4, 1953, pp. 155-169; C. Balić, O.F.M., Testimonia de Assumptione B. V. M. ex omnibus
saeculis. Pars altera: Ex aetate post Concilium Tridentinum (Romae, 1950); P. Renaudin, Assumptio B.
Mariae Virginis Matris Dei (Taurini-Romae, 1933), pp. 69-92.

1380

For other Mariologists of the modern era, cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 276-301; Dillenschneider, op.
cit., Vol. 1, pp. 107-254; Grabmann, op. cit., passim; and various articles in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2,
pp. 547-991.

1381

Cf. Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 109-113. The De Maria Virgine incomparabili is reproduced in Vols.
8-9 of J. Bourassé, Summa aurea de laudibus B. M. V. (Parisiis, 1862).

1382

Cf. J. de Aldama, S.J., Piété et système dans la Mariologie du ‘Docteur Eximius,’ in Maria, ed. H. du
Manoir, Vol. 2, pp. 975-990, esp. pp. 979-983; Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 153-154, 157-161; J. Bover,
S.J., Suarez, mariólogo, in Estudios Eclesiásticos, Vol. 22, 1948, pp. 311-337.

1383

Opera omnia, ed. Vivès, Vol. 19, pp. 1-337.

1384

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 281-283; idem, La Mariologia di S. Lorenzo da Brindisi (Padova,
1951); Jérome de Paris, La doctrine mariale de S. Laurent de Brindes (Paris, 1933); Dillenschneider, op. cit.,
Vol. 1, pp. 213-218.

1385

Cf. Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 113-118; S. Tromp, S.J., S. Robertus Bellarminus et B. Virgo, in
Gregorianum, Vol. 21, 1940, pp. 162-182; J. A. Hardon, Bellarmine and the Blessed Virgin, in Our Lady’s
Digest, Vol. 8, October, 1953, pp. 175-183; idem, Mary Mediatrix in the Theology of Bellarmine, in The
Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Vol. 48, 1947, pp. 91-97.

1386

Cf. Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 167-170.

1387

Cf. ibid., pp. 170-176.

1388

Cf. ibid., pp. 178-182.

1389

Cf. ibid., pp. 222-225.

1390

Cf. ibid., pp. 161-166; J. Carol, De Corredemptione B. V. M., pp. 288-290.

1391

Cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, p. 286; Carol, op. cit., pp. 271-273; A. Musters, La Souverainété de la
Vierge d’après les écrits mariologiques de Barthélemy de los Rios (Bruges, 1946).

1392

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 289.

1393

Cf. Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 187-194.

1394

Cf. Archangelus a Roc, O.F.M.Cap., Joannes M. Zamoro ab Udine, O.F.M.Cap., praeclarus mariologus
(1579-1649) (Roma, s.a.), extractum ex Collectanea Franciscana, Vol. 15-19, 1945-1949.

1395

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., p. 295; I. de Guerra Lazpiur, O.F.M., Integralis conceptus Maternitatis divinae juxta
Carolum del Moral (Romae, 1953); Carol, op. cit., pp. 339-342.

1396

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., p. 285; Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 218-220.

1397

Cf. Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 182-184.

1398

Cf. ibid., pp. 145-150.

1399

Cf. G. Roschini, L’Ordre des Servites de Marie, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, pp. 885-907.

1400

Cf. idem, Mariologia, Vol. 1, p. 296.

1401

Cf. F. Ferraironi, O.M.D., Le culte marial dans l’Ordre des Clercs Réguliers de la Mère de Dieu, in Maria,
ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 2, pp. 917-923; Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 290-291; Roschini, Un grande
precursore dell’era mariana: il P. Ippolito Marracci, O.M.D., in Alma Socia Christi, Vol. 11, 1953, pp. 219-232.

1402

Cf. Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 118-124; H. Baron, S.J., Jean Crasset (1618-1692), le Jansénisme
et la dévotion à la Sainte Vierge, in Bull. de la Soc. Franç. d’Études Mariales (Paris, 1938), 249-255.

1403

Cf. Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 124-128, 242-246.

1404

Cf. E. Druwé, S.J., La Médiation universelle de Marie, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1, pp. 551-552; M.-A. Genevois, O.P., in Bull. de la Soc. Franç. d’Ét. Mar. (Paris, 1936), p. 50.

1405

Cf. Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, 230-234; Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, p. 284; J. Nicolas, O.P., La
doctrine mariale du Card. de Bérulle, in Revue Thomiste, Vol. 43, 1937, pp. 81-100.

1406

Cf. Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 234-238.

1407

Cf. ibid., pp. 238-242; E. George, Saint Jean Eudes, Modèle et Maitre de vie Mariale (Paris, 1946).

1408

Cf. Dillenschneider, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 246-250; Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 293-295; F. Setzer,
S.M.M., The Spiritual Maternity and St. Louis M. de Montfort, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 197-207.

1409

Cf. J. Kannengieser, art. Alphonse de Liguori, in DTC, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1903), col. 917; Roschini, op. cit., Vol.
1, 297-301; J. Dillenschneider, La Mariologie de S. Alphonse de Liguori, Vol. 2 (Fribourg, Suisse, 1934); see
also Vol. 1, pp. 252-382.

1410

E. Neubert, S.M., La doctrine mariale de Messier Chaminade (Paris, 1938); T. Stanley, S.M., The Mystical
Body of Christ according to the Writings of Father William Joseph Chaminade: a Study of His Spiritual
Writings (Fribourg, Switzerland, 1952); excerpt from the same, Mary and the Mystical Body (The Marian
Library, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, 1953); F. Friedel, S.M., Dogmatic Foundation of Father
Chaminade’s Doctrine of Filial Piety, in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 208-217.

1411

Cf. F. Friedel, S.M., The Mariology of Cardinal Newman (New York, 1928); John Henry Newman: Maria
im Heilsplan, (eingeleitet u. uebertragen von Birgitta zu Muenster, O.S.B.) (Freiburg im Br., 1953); Most Rev.
John J. Wright, Mariology in the English-speaking World, in Marian Studies, Vol. 2, 1951, pp. 11-26.

1412

Cf. M. Grabmann, Die Geschichte der katholischen Theologie seit dem Ausgang der Vaeterzeit (Freiburg
im Br., 1933), pp. 206-219; J. Bellamy, La théologie catholique au XIXe siècle, ed. 3 (Paris, 1904), pp. 1-20;
E. Hocedez, S.J., Histoire de la théologie au XIXe siècle, Vol. 1 (Bruxelles, 1949), pp. 13-24.

1413

Cf. Bellamy, op. cit., p. 267; P. Régamey, O.P., Les plus beaux textes sur la Vierge Marie (Paris, 1946), p.
295.

1414

Cf. Bellamy, op. cit., p. 267.

1415

Cf. Theology Digest, 1 (1953), p. 145 (summary of article on Mary and the Church, by R. Laurentin, in La
Vie Spirituelle, 86, 1952, pp. 295-304).

1416

Cf. J. A. de Aldama, S.J., Mariologia, in Sacrae Theologiae Summa, Vol. 3 (Matriti, 1950), p. 289.

1417

On these factors, for example, Catholic reaction to attacks on Marian doctrine and cult (by Protestants, Old
Catholics, Modernists, the Eastern Dissidents), the celebration of Marian Congresses, the publication of source
materials, the foundation of Mariological Academies, Centers, and Societies, and the erection of university
chairs of Mariology, etc., cf. Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 396-399; idem, La Madonna secondo la Fede
a la Teologia, Vol. 1, pp. 158-166. Mariological societies will be dealt with at length elsewhere in the present
work.

1418

On the history of Mariology in the latter half of the nineteenth century, cf. Hocedez, op. cit., Vol. 3
(Bruxelles-Paris, 1947), pp. 313-316; Bellamy, op. cit., pp. 267-281. A. Noyon, S.J., art. Mariolatrie, in Dict.
Apologétique de la Foi Catholique, Vol. 3 (Paris, 1926), col. 316, contends that few of the many works
produced in this period possessed lasting significance; H. Rondet, S.J., in his preface to J.-B. Terrien, S.J., La
Mère des hommes, Vol. 1, ed. 8 (Paris, 1950), pp. 46-47, believes that the Marian theology of the period
concerned itself almost exclusively with the Immaculate Conception. Both judgments appear too sweeping;
a glance at Hocedez, and at the nineteenth-century authors quoted in J. Carol, De Corredemptione B. V. M.,
pp. 382-480, suffices to suggest that, between 1854 and 1900, a goodly company of writers dealt ably with a
wide variety of Mariological themes.

1419

Cf. Bellamy, op. cit., pp. 270-273.

1420

J. Perrone, S.J., De Immaculato B. V. Mariae Conceptu (Romae, 1847); P. Guéranger, O.S.B., Mémoire sur
la question de l’Immaculée Conception de le très-sainte Vierge (Paris, 1850); C. Passaglia, De Immaculato
Deiparae semper Virginis Conceptu Commentarius, 3 vols. (Romae, 1854-1855); A. Ballerini, S.J., Sylloge
Monumentorum ad Mysterium Virginis Deiparae illustrandum, 2 vols. (Romae, 1854-1856); J. Malou,
L’Immaculée Conception de la très-sainte Vierge Marie, 2 vols. (Bruxelles, 1857). On the source collections
of Bourassé and Roskovany, already mentioned (supra, note 15), and on that of R. de Fleury, likewise
uncritical, see Roschini, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 301, 302, 304-305.

1421

Cf. Grabmann, op. cit., p. 231; C. Feckes, in Scheeben-Feckes, Die Braeutliche Gottesmutter (Freiburg im
Br., 1936), pp. VIII-IX. Scbeeben’s Mariologie is found in the third volume of his Handbuch der katholischen
Dogmatik (Freiburg im Br., 1882), pp. 455-600 (§§ 274-282), as the fifth and final chapter of the treatise on
Christology: “The virginal Mother of the Savior and her relation to the work of the Redemption.” However,
the divine Maternity and the virginal conception of Christ are treated in earlier chapters of the Christology.
Feckes has gathered these separated materials together and adapted them for easier reading, in the above-mentioned Die Braeutliche Gottesmutter. A similar compilation is the Flemish translation by H. van Waes,
S.J., Systematische Mariologie, ed. 2 (Bruxelles, 1943), with introduction and notes by E. Druwé, S.J. The
foregoing has been rendered into English by T. Geukers, Mariology, 2 vols. (St. Louis, 1946-1947), with
translator’s preface, Vol. 1, pp. III-XXXIV. An article by Scheeben in the periodical Das oekumenische Konzil
vom Jahre 1869, discussing the parallel between the definition of Papal infallibility and that of the Immaculate
Conception, has been hailed as “a gem of Mariology” by J. Schmitz, who republished the article in Maria,
Schutzherrin der Kirche (Paderborn, 1936). Of interest also are Scheeben’s early work, Marienbluethen
(Schaffhausen, 1860), and a few pages in Die Herrlichkeiten der goettlichen Gnade, ed. 15 (A. Weiss, O.P.)
(Freiburg im Br., 1925), pp. 111-117, 580-582, 592, 651.

1422

La Vierge Mère d’après la théologie, 2 vols. (Paris, 1866).

1423

La Vierge Marie dans le plan divin, 4 vols. (Paris, 1869). This work of Nicolas, a lay theologian, was
acclaimed in its day as the definitive treatise on Marian doctrine (an exaggeration, as Roschini notes,
Mariologia, Vol. 1, p. 304). Scheeben knew it in one of its many translations, and praised its rich theological
content (Die Mysterien des Christentums, ed. J. Weiger [Mainz, 1931], note 266); in fact, he gave dogmatic
foundation to many of its intuitions; cf. Geukers, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. XVII.

1424

Maria nel consiglio dell’Eterno, 3 vols. (Neapoli, 1872). Scheeben applauded the Franciscan’s work as “sehr
geistreich”; Handb. der kath. Dogmatik, Vol. 3, p. 478.

1425

Author of Beatissima Virgo Maria, one of his several excellent monographs on Thomistic teaching; cf.
Grabmann, op. cit., p. 272.

1426

Cf. E. Druwé, S.J., Position et structure du Traité Marial, in Bull. de la Soc. Franç. d’Études Mariales
(Juvisy, 1936), pp. 24-29; Geukers, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. XVIII-XXXIII; C. Feckes, Die Stellung der Gottesmutter
Maria in der Theologie M. J. Scheebens, in M. J. Scheeben, der Erneuerer katholischer
Glaubenswissenschaft, ed. by Katholischen Akademikerverband, 1935.

1427

Preface to Handb. der kath. Dogmatik, Vol. 3, p. VI.

1428

E. Druwé, S.J., La Médiation universelle de Marie, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1, p. 565. Among those
who espoused Scheeben’s version of the supreme principle of Mariology we may mention F. Schueth, S.J.,
Mediatrix (Innsbruck, 1925); C. Feckes, Das Fundamentalprinzip der Mariologie, in Scientia Sacra,
Theologische Festgabe … (Duesseldorf, 1935), pp. 252-276; idem, Das Mysterium des goettlichen
Mutterschaft (Paderborn, 1937) — Engl. transl., The Mystery of the Divine Motherhood (London, 1941); E.
Druwé, art. cit., in Bull. de la Soc. Franç. d’Etudes Mariales (Juvisy, 1936), pp. 24-29. Cf. Roschini,
Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 328-330.

1429

E. Druwé, art. cit., in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1, p. 565. On the importance of the principium consortii
for the right of Mariology to exist as a distinct theological treatise, cf. Druwé, art. cit., in Bull. de la Soc. Franç.
de l’Études Mariales, (Juvisy, 1936), pp. 16-29.

1430

Geukers, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. IV.

1431

Cf. E. Druwé, art. cit., in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1, pp. 566-567; Geukers, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. XXI.

1432

Strange to relate, Scheeben’s enthusiasm for Marian dogma was shared by few German theologians until
quite recent years; cf. K. Rahner, S.J., Probleme heutiger Mariologie, in Aus der Theologie der Zeit, ed. G.
Soehngen (Regensburg, 1948), p. 85.

1433

Cf. supra, note 154; Theology Digest, 1, 1953, pp. 145-146, summary of the article on Mary and the Church,
by R. Laurentin, in La Vie Spirituelle, Vol. 86, 1952, pp. 295-304. The link between Mary and the Church was
also known to, and exploited by, the Bérullian school, before Scheeben came to give a more theological
expression to this tradition; cf. H. Rondet, preface to Terrien, La Mère des hommes, Vol. 1, ed. 8, p. 39.

1434

Cf. X. Le Bachelet, art. Immaculée Conception, in DTC, Vol. 7, cols. 1209-1218.

1435

Cf. supra, note 204.

1436

Cf. C. Balić, O.F.M., Testimonia de Assumptione B. V. M. ex omnibus saeculis. Pars altera: Ex aetate post
Concilium Tridentinum (Romae, 1950), pp. 281-464; Hocedez, op. cit., Vol. 3, pp. 314-315; J. Bellamy, art.
Assomption, in DTC, Vol. I, cols. 2140-2141; E. Campana, Maria nel dogma Cattolico, ed. 6 (Torino, 1946),
pp. 744-751.

1437

Cf. Bellamy, La théologie catholique au XIXe siècle, ed. 3 (Paris, 1904), pp. 274-275.

1438

Cf. J. Bainvel, S.J., art. Marie, in Dict. Apologétique de la Foi Catholique, Vol. 3 (Paris, 1926), cols. 285-302; E. Dublanchy, art. Marie, in DTC, Vol. 9, cols. 2389-2409; Hocedez, op. cit., Vol. 3, pp. 315-316.

1439

F. Faber, The Foot of the Cross (London, 1857); O. Van den Berghe, Marie et le Sacerdoce, ed. 2 (Paris,
1875); J. De Concilio, The Knowledge of Mary (New York, 1878); P. Jeanjacquot, Simples explications sur
la coopération de la Très-Sainte Vierge à l’oeuvre de la Rédemption et sur sa qualité de Mère des Chrétiens,
ed. 3 (Paris, 1889); F. Risi, Sul motivo primario dell’Incarnazione del Verbo (Brescia, 1898). On these and
other authors, cf. J. Carol, De Corredemptione B. V. M., pp. 382-480; L. Riley, Historical Conspectus of the
Doctrine of Mary’s Co-Redemption, in Marian Studies, Vol. 2, 1951, pp. 81-92.

1440

R. de la Broise, Sur cette proposition: Toutes les grâces nous viennent par la Sainte Vierge, in Études, Vol.
68, 1896, pp. 5-31; reproduced in R. de la Broise and J. Bainvel, Marie Mère de grâce (Paris, 1921); R. de la
Broise, La sainte Vierge au XIXe siècle, in Études, Vol. 83, 1900.

1441

J.-B. Terrien, Marie, Mère de Dieu, 2 vols. (Paris, 1896-1900), and Marie, Mère des hommes, 2 vols. (Paris,
1899-1902); on this influential work see H. Rondet’s preface to the eighth edition of La Mère des hommes,
Vol. 1, pp. 44-48.

1442

J.-V. Bainvel, Le “Fiat” de l’Incarnation, in Quatrième Congrès marial breton tenu au Folgoät en
l’honneur de Marie, Mère de grâce (4-6 sept. 1913), Compte rendu (Quimper, 1915), pp. 139-146; De la Broise
and Bainvel, Marie, Mère de grâce (Paris, 1921). Cf. also Hocedez, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 316, on Bainvel’s paper
read at the International Marian Congress at Fribourg, Switzerland, August, 18-21, 1902.

1443

E. Hugon, La Mère de grâce (Paris, 1904).

1444

At Fribourg, 1902; Folgoät, 1913; etc. For a chronological list of these and similar events which have
spurred Marian studies in the past fifty years, see J. Besutti, O.S.M., Cinquante ans (1900—1950), in Marie
(Nicolet, Quebec, ed. R. Brien), Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 14-16. For data on the proceedings of the many Marian
Congresses, cf. E. Campana, Maria nel culto Cattolico, Vol. 2, ed. 2, cura G. Roschini, (Torino, 1946), pp. 487-652.

1445

J. Coppens, art. Belgique, in DTC, Tables générales (Paris, 1953), col. 401: Mariology received a remarkable
impetus from what one has called the “intuitions” of Cardinal Mercier, who wished the Church to proclaim
the universal Mediation of Mary as a dogma; he obtained the co-operation of C. Van Crombrugghe, B.
Merkelbach, J. Lebon, J. Bittremieux.

1446

Cf. Campana, Maria nel dogma Cattolico, ed. 6 (Torino, 1946), pp. 171-184, 250-252; E. Druwé, S.J., La
Médiation universelle de Marie, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1, pp. 417-572; T. Koehler, S.M., Maternité spirituelle
de Marie, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1, pp. 573-600; extensive bibliographies are provided in and at the
end of both articles; literature on the question of the Coredemption will be cited below.

1447

Certainly the most comprehensive treatise, and one indispensable to all theologians, is that of G. Roschini,
O.S.M., Mariologia, 4 vols., ed. 2 (Romae, 1947-1948); an adaptation of this work, somewhat more up to date,
is the same author’s La Madonna secondo la Fede e la Teologia, 3 vols. (Roma, 1953); there is also Roschini’s
smaller manual, Summula Mariologiae (Romae, 1952). A select list of other established treatises would
include: G. Alastruey, Mariologia, 2 vols. (Vallisoleti, 1934/1942); J. de Aldama, S.J., Mariologia, in Sacrae
Theologiae Summa, Vol. 3 (Matriti, 1950), pp. 288-418; D. Bertetto, S.D.B., Maria nel dogma cattolico
(Torino, 1950); C. Boyer, S.J., Synopsis Praelectionum de B. M. Virgine (Romae, 1952); F. Dander, S.J.,
Summarium tractatus dogmatici de Matre-Socia Salvatoris (Oeniponte, 1952); idem, Mariologia, in L.
Lercher, Institutiones Theologiae Dogmaticae, ed. 3, Vol. 3 (Oeniponte, 1942), pp. 279-359; R. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Mother of the Saviour, Engl. transl. by B. Kelly, C.S.Sp. (Dublin, 1949); J. Keuppens, Soc. Miss.
Afr., Mariologiae Compendium (Antwerpiae, 1938); A. Janssens, De Heilige Maagd en Moeder Gods Maria,
4 vols. (Anvers, 1928-1932); H. Lennerz, S.J., De B. Virgine, ed. 3 (Romae, 1939); B. Merkelbach, O.P.,
Mariologia (Parisiis, 1939); E. Neubert, S.M., Marie dans le dogme, ed. 2 (Paris, 1946); A. Plessis, S.M.M.,
Manuale Mariologiae dogmaticae (Pontchateau, 1942); Pohle-Preuss, Mariology (St. Louis, 1926); Pohle-Gierens, Lehrbuch der Dogmatik, Vol. 2, ed. 9 (Paderborn, 1937), pp. 248-315; Scheeben-Geukers, Mariology,
2 vols. (St. Louis, 1946-1947); M. Schmaus, Katholische Dogmatik, Vol. 2, ed. 3-4 (Muenchen, 1949), pp. 609-638, 879-908. Nor may we overlook the classic works of E. Campana, Maria nel dogma Cattolico, ed. 6
(Torino, 1946), and Maria nel culto Cattolico, 2 vols., ed. 2, cura G. Roschini (Torino, 1946).

1448

Maria. Études sur la Sainte Vierge, sous la direction d’Hubert du Manoir, S.J., Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949); Vol.
2 (Paris, 1952); Katholische Marienkunde, ed. Paul Sträter, S.J., 3 vols. (Paderborn, 1947-1951).

1449

Cf. Roschini, La Madonna secondo la Fede e la Teologia, Vol. 1, pp. 161-164; J. Carol, The Mariological
Movement in the World Today, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, esp. pp. 27-29. Valuable materials are also
contained in the published proceedings of Mariological Congresses.

1450

Gregorianum, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Nouvelle Revue Théologique, Theological Studies,
The Thomist, etc. The American Ecclesiastical Review has for years included an article on Our Lady in every
issue; a select cross section of these articles was published as Studies in Praise of Our Blessed Mother
(Washington, D. C., 1952).

1451

Marianum, edited by G. Roschini, O.S.M., published at Rome, since 1939; Ephemerides Mariologicae,
published by the Claretian Fathers in Madrid, since 1951. Mention may also be made of Marie, edited by R.
Brien at Nicolet, Quebec, since 1947; although this periodical is not primarily theological in character, it often
contains short papers by theologians of note.

1452

Cf. Roschini, La Madonna secondo la Fede e la Teologia, Vol. 1, pp. 167-170. A critical and complete
Marian bibliography does not yet exist, although one is in preparation by the Servites of the International
College of St. Alexius Falconieri in Rome. Some idea of their task may be gotten from the prodigious literary
output of just two of the century’s leading Mariologists, the late J. Bittremieux and Roschini; the 175 distinct
publications of the former are listed by J. Coppens, L’enseignement et l’oeuvre théologique de M. le Chanoine
J. Bittremieux, in Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Vol. 23, 1947, pp. 367-377; a partial catalogue of
Roschini’s writings down to 1949 runs to nine pages in the compilation of J. Besutti, O.S.M., Gli scritti del P.
M.o Gabriele M. Roschini, O.S.M., in Marianum, Vol. 11, 1949, pp. 496-505. Abundant bibliographical
information is available in the issues of Marianum, Ephemerides Mariologicae, Ephemerides Theologicae
Lovanienses, etc.; and in the Ragguaglio Mariano, published annually by the International Marian Center,
Rome. H. Rondet gives a select bibliography at the end of his preface to J.-B. Terrien, La Mère des hommes,
Vol. 1, ed. 8, pp. 62-76.

1453

Cf. L. Monheim, S.M., Some Marian Collections in the World, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp. 46-55.
The 1949 Booklist of the Marian Library, University of Dayton, Ohio, contains 10,539 entries.

1454

As all know, it is not only in the solemn pronouncements of popes and of ecumenical councils but also in
the exercise of her ordinary and universal teaching office that the Church sets forth things to be believed with
divine and Catholic faith; cf. Concilium Vaticanum, sessio 3, cap. 3 (Denzinger-Bannwart-Umberg,
Enchiridion Symbolorum, n. 1792). See the valuable article by P. Franquesa, C.M.F., Magisterio Ordinario
y Mariología, in Ephemerides Mariologicae, Vol. 4, 1954, pp. 25-66.

1455

Cf. Pope Pius XII, ency., Humani generis, August 12, 1950; A.A.S., Vol. 42, 1950, p. 567; N.C.W.C.
translation, nn. 18, 21.

1456

Cf. C. Dillenschneider, C.SS.R., Marie au service de notre Rédemption (Hagenau, Bas-Rhin, 1947), p. 45.

1457

J. Dillersberger, Das neue Wort ueber Maria (Salzburg, 1947), p. 10; C. Feckes, The Mystery of the Divine
Motherhood (London, 1941), pp. 137-138: the popes “have indicated the way which the theologian must follow
to complete the portrait of Mary.”

1458

Cf. Le Encicliche Mariane, ed. A. Tondini (Roma, 1950); reproduces, in their original language and with
Italian or Latin translations, 56 documents from February 2, 1849, to May 1, 1948, with a complete elenchus
(pp. 579-626) of all documents from 1849 to July 16, 1949; R. Graber, Die marianischen Weltrundschreiben
der Paepste in den letzten hundert Jahren (Wuerzburg, 1951) — includes several useful indexes; W. Doheny
and J. Kelly, Papal Documents on Mary (Milwaukee, 1954) — 36 documents from 1849 to 1953.

1459

Cf., for example, G. Roschini, I Papi e Maria, in Marianum, Vol. 4, 1942, pp. 153-166; J. Bittremieux,
Doctrina Mariana Leonis XIII, in Ephemerides Theol. Lovanienses, Vol. 4, 1927, pp. 359-383; idem, Ex
doctrina Mariana Pii XI, in Ephemerides Theol. Lovanienses, Vol. 11, 1934, pp. 95-101; G. Roschini, La
Madonna nel pensiero e nell’insegnamento di Pio XI, in Marianum, Vol. 1, 1939, pp. 121-172; idem, La
Madonna nell’Enciclica ‘Mystici Corporis Christi,’ in Marianum, Vol. 6, 1944, p. 108-117; J. Dillersberger,
Das neue Wort ueber Maria (Salzburg, 1947) — the entire book is a commentary on the Marian epilogue of
the encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi; C. Balić, O.F.M., De doctrina philosophica et theologica Pii Papae XII
eiusque momento (Ad Claras Aquas, 1949), pp. 91-98; D. Bertetto, S.D.B., La dottrina Mariana di Pio XII,
in Salesianum, Vol. 11, 1949, pp. 1-24; J. Carol, O.F.M., Mary’s Co-Redemption in the Teaching of Pope Pius
XII, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 121, 1949, pp. 353-361; and, of course, the innumerable
commentaries on the Apostolic Constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, November 1, 1950, defining the bodily
Assumption of Our Lady into heaven.

1460

To cite but a few, cf. H. Seiler, S.J., Corredemptrix. Theologische Studie zur Lehre der letzten Paepste
ueber die Miterloeserschaft Mariens (Rom, 1939); J. Carol, O.F.M., De Corredemptione B. V. M. (Civitas
Vaticana, 1950), pp. 509-539; A. Baumann, Maria Mater nostra spiritualis. Eine theologische Untersuchung
ueber die geistige Mutterschaft Mariens in den Aeusserungen der Paepste vom Tridentinum bis heute
(Brixen, 1948); G. Shea, The Teaching of the magisterium on Mary’s Spiritual Maternity, in Marian Studies,
Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 35-110; E. Carroll, O.Carm., Our Lady’s Queenship in the magisterium of the Church, in
Marian Studies, Vol. 4, 1953, pp. 29-108; A. Robichaud, S.M., The Immaculate Conception in the
magisterium of the Church before 1854, in Marian Studies, Vol. 5, 1954, pp. 73-145; A. Wolter, O.F.M., The
Theology of the Immaculate Conception in the Light of ‘Ineffabilis Deus,’ in Marian Studies, Vol. 5, 1954, pp.
19-72.

1461

J. Carol, O.F.M., has gathered and analyzed episcopal teaching on his favorite subject: Episcoporum
doctrina de Beata Virgine Corredemptrice, in Marianum, Vol. 10, 1948, pp. 210-258; idem, De
Corredemptione B.V.M., pp. 539-619. The mind of Pope Pius IX’s fellow bishops on the Immaculate
Conception was expressed in their replies to his encyclical, Ubi primum (February 2, 1849), which were
published in Pareri dell’Episcopato Cattolico … sulla definizione dogmatica dell’lmmacolato Concepimento
della Beata Vergine Maria, 10 vols. (Roma, 1851-1854). The mind of many bishops on the doctrine of the
Assumption, as indicated in petitions sent to the Holy See between 1869-1941, can be seen in the monumental
work of W. Hentrich, S.J., and R. De Moos, S.J., Petitiones de Assumptione Corporea B. V. Mariae in caelum
definienda ad Sanctam Sedem delatae, 2 vols. (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1942). The materials in this work,
in the Pareri …, in the Collectio Lacensis and similar collections, in pastoral letters, catechisms, etc., invite
study insofar as they reflect the mind of the universal episcopate on many other Mariological topics, e.g.,
Mary’s spiritual Maternity; cf. G. Shea, art. cit., in Marian Studies, Vol. 3, 1952, pp. 39, 53-54.

1462

Cf. D. Unger, O.F.M.Cap., The Use of Sacred Scripture in Mariology, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp.
67-116; S. Alameda, O.S.B., La Mariología y las fuentes de la revelatión, in Estudios Marianos, Vol. 1, 1942,
pp. 41-72.

1463

Cf. A. Robert, P.S.S., La Sainte Vierge dans l’Ancien Testament, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1, pp. 21-39; A. Bea, S.J., Das Marienbild des Alten Bundes, in Katholische Marienkunde, ed. Sträter, Vol. 1, pp. 23-43;
G. Hilion, La Sainte Vierge dans le Nouveau Testament, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1, pp. 43-68; A.
Merk, S.J., Das Marienbild des Neuen Bundes, in Katholische Marienkunde, ed. Sträter, Vol. 1, pp. 44-84;
Scheeben-Geukers, Mariology, Vol. 1, pp. 9-41; Scheeben-Feckes, Die Braeutliche Gottesmutter, pp. 1-18.

1464

F. Ceuppens, O.P., De Mariologia biblica (Theologia biblica, 4), ed. 2 (Taurini, 1951).

1465

F.-M. Braun, O.P., La Mère des fidèles. Essai de théologie johannique (Paris, 1953); P. Gächter, S.J., Maria
im Erdenleben. Neutestamentliche Marienstudien (Innsbruck, 1953).

1466

J.-F. Bonnefoy, O.F.M., Le mystère de Marie selon le Protévangile et l’Apocalypse (Paris, 1949); T. Gallus,
S.J., Interpretatio mariologica Protoevangelii (Gen. 3, 15) tempore postpatristico usque ad Conc.
Tridentinum (Romae, 1949); idem, Interpretatio mariologica Protoevangelii posttridentina usque ad
definitionem dogmaticam Immaculatae Conceptionis. Pars prior: aetas aurea … usque ad annum 1660
(Romae, 1953); B. Le Frois, S.V.D., The Woman Clothed With the Sun (Rome, 1954); D. J. Unger, O.F.M.Cap.,
The First-Gospel: Genesis 3, 15 (Saint Bonaventure, N. Y., 1954).

1467

Cf. E. Dublanchy, art. Marie, in DTC, Vol. 9, cols. 2345-2347; E. Campana, Maria nel dogma Cattolico, ed.
6, pp. 603-606, 625-652.

1468

For orientation in this field, cf. Katholische Marienkunde, ed. Straeter, Vol. 1, pp. 85-136 (articles on the
Eastern Fathers and liturgies), pp. 137-267 (articles on the Latin Fathers and liturgies); G. Jouassard, Marie
à travers la Patristique, in Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1, pp. 71-157; see also pp. 215-361, articles on Mary
in the liturgies.

1469

Mention may he made here of the small hut useful anthology of P. Palmer, S.J., Mary in the Documents of
the Church (Westminster, Md., 1952), containing annotated selections from the ecclesiastical magisterium
, from Church Fathers and theologians.

1470

Cf. F. Connell, C.SS.R., Toward a Systematic Treatment of Mariology, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp.
56-66.

1471

Cf. Connell, art. cit.; E. Druwé, S.J., Position et structure du Traité Marial, in Bull. de la Soc. Franç.
d’Études Mariales (Juvisy, 1936), pp. 7-34; R. Laurentin, Le problème initial de méthodologie mariale, in
Maria, ed. H. du Manoir, Vol. 1, pp. 695-706.

1472

Cf. L. Everett, C.SS.R., The Nexus between Mary’s Co-Redemption and her other Prerogatives, in Marian
Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp. 132-137.

1473

Cf. for discussion and bibliography, G. Roschini, La Madonna secondo la Fede e la Teologia, Vol. 1, pp. 97-116; idem, Mariologia, Vol. 1, pp. 324-337; A. Mueller, Um die Grundlage der Mariologie, in Divus Thomas
(Fribourg), Vol. 29, 1951, pp. 385-401 (summary in Theology Digest, Vol. 1, 1953, pp. 139-144); E.
Ledvorowski, Maternitas divina fundamentum Mariologiae, in Marianum, Vol. 15, 1953, pp. 176-194.

1474

Cf. G. Philips, Sommes-nous entrés dans une phase mariologique?, in Marianum, Vol. 14, 1952, pp. 1-48;
idem, Les problèmes actuels de la théologie mariale, in Marianum, Vol. 11, 1949, pp. 24-53; A. Michel,
Chronique de Théologie mariale, in L’Ami du Clergé, Vol. 60, 1950, pp. 33-48, 97-112; J. Carol, The
Mariological Movement in the World Today, in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp. 32-45.

1475

Cf. J. B. Carol, art. cit., in Marian Studies, Vol. 1, 1950, pp. 34-37; idem, De Corredemptione B. V. Mariae
(Civitas Vaticana, 1950), bibliography, pp. 9-42; idem, The Problem of Our Lady’s Coredemption, in The
American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 123, July, 1950, pp. 32-51; idem, Our Lady’s Coredemption in the
Marian Literature of Nineteenth Century America, in Marianum, Vol. 14, 1952, pp. 49-63; Marian Studies,
Vol. 2, 1951 (the volume is devoted mainly to this question); C. Boyer, S.J., Thoughts on Mary’s Coredemption,
in Studies in Praise of Our Blessed Mother, ed. Fenton-Benard (Washington, D. C., 1952), pp. 147-161; Alma
Socia Christi (Acta Congressus Mariologici-mariani Romae anno sancto 1950 celebrati), Vol. 2 (Romae, 1952),
entirely devoted to this question; additional bibliography in L. Leloir, La médiation mariale dans la théologie
contemporaine (Bruges-Paris, 1933), and in C. Dillenschneider, Marie au service de notre Rédemption
(Haguenau, 1947); idem, Pour une Corédemption mariale bien comprise (Rome, 1949); idem, Le mystère de
la Corédemption mariale. Théories nouvelles (Paris, 1951). Closely connected with Our Lady’s Coredemption
is the specific question of Mary’s share in the priesthood of Christ. By far the best publications on this subject
are those of René Laurentin, Maria, Ecclesia, Sacerdotium; essai sur le développement d’une idée religieuse
(Paris, 1952); and Marie, l’Eglise et le Sacerdoce; étude théologique (Paris, 1953); cf. also the same author’s
important contribution Rôle de Marie et de l’Eglise dans l’oeuvre salvifique du Christ, in Bulletin de la
Société Français d’Études Mariales, Vol. 10, 1952, pp. 43-62.

1476

Cf. G. Philips, Perspectives mariologiques. Marie et l’Eglise. Essai bibliographique, in Marianum, Vol. 15,
1953, pp. 436-511; H. Lennerz, S.J., Maria-Ecclesia, in Gregorianum, Vol. 35, 1954, pp. 90-98; Études
Mariales. Marie et l’Eglise, I (Bull. de la Soc. Franç. d’Etudes Mariales, Paris, 1951); H. de Lubac, S.J.,
Méditation sur l’Église (Paris, 1953), pp. 273-329; K. Delahaye, Maria: Typus der Kirche, in Wissenschaft
und Wahrheit, Vol. 5, 1949, pp. 79-92; Y. Congar, O.P., Le Christ, Marie, et l’Église (Bruges, 1952); additional
bibliography in Theology Digest, Vol. 1, 1953, pp. 139-145, and particularly in R. Laurentin, Bibliographie
critique sur Marie et l’Eglise, in Bulletin de la Société Française d’Études Mariales (Paris, 1953), pp. 145-152.

1477

Cf. the “Vorwort” of O. Bardenhewer’s monograph, Der Name Maria, Biblische Studien, Vol. 1, pp. 1-161
(Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1896). With remarkable patience Bardenhewer collected and criticized all the
etymologies proposed for the name Mary from Philo to the end of the nineteenth century. G. Roschini, O.S.M.,
Mariologia, Vol. 2, Pars Prima (Romae, 1947), p. 59, note 1, observes of Bardenhewer’s work “ex quo auctores
communiter hauriunt.” The author of this article is no exception.

1478

Many examples could be cited. Cf. the article “Name” by G. B. Gray, Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, Vol.
3, pp. 478-481; also “Nom,” H. Lesêtre, Dictionnaire de la Bible, Vigouroux, Vol. 4, cols. 1669-1677.

1479

The thesis expressed as follows by Roschini is common with mariologists: “Mariae nomen ab aeterno, ab ipso
Deo, praefinitum fuit, tamquam expressivum dignitatis ad quam praedestinata fuit” (op. cit., p. 58). Cf. M. J.
Scheeben, Mariology, transl. by T. Geukers, Vol. 1 (New York: B. Herder, 1948), p. 6; B. Merkelbach, O.P.,
Mariologia (Paris: Desclée, 1939), p. 103. Cf. S. Laurentius a Brundusio, Mariale (Patavii, 1928), p. 177.

1480

S. Petrus Canisius, De Maria Virgine Incomparabili et Dei Genetrice Sacrosancta libri quinque (Taurini,
1934), p. 1.

1481

Cf. Roschini, op. cit., p. 58.

1482

The Massoretic text of 1 Par. 4:17 mentions a Miryām, apparently a male descendant of Ezra of Juda. The
text is evidently corrupt. The LXX lists, in place of this Miryām, a son of Jether called Marôn according to
most codices and preferred by Ralphs, or Maiôn according to Vaticanus and Alexandrinus and preferred by
Swete, or Môeôr according to Colberto-Sarravianus and Purpureus Vindobonensis and preferred by Lagarde.
Thus it is quite certain that the only bearer of the name Mary in the Old Testament is the sister of Moses.

1483

The Targum form of Mary’s name was Maryām. Cf. Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament
aus Talmud und Midrasch, Vol. 1, p. 36.

1484

There is no evidence that any Christian woman was named Mary in the early Christian centuries. Cf. Rohault
de Fleury, La Sainte Vierge. Études archéologiques et iconographiques, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1878), p. 41; also F.
Zorell, S.J., Verbum Domini, Vol. 7, 1927, p. 257.

1485

Cf. Deissmann, Urgeschichte, p. 22, cited by Moulton-Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament
Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources, edition of W. Eerdmans Publishing Company
(Grand Rapids, Mich., 1949), p. 388.

1486

Cf. H. Lesêtre, “Marie,” Dict. de la Bible, Vig., Vol. 4, col. 774.

1487

Bardenhewer, op. cit., p. 16, points to the “echt hebräisches Gepräge” of Miryām: three radicals and the
denominative termination Am, like Shephupham and Hupham sons of Benjamin, ‘amram father of Moses.
The root, he holds, is M R’, Mārā’.

1488

Philo, De somn., II, 20, cited by Bardenhewer, op. cit., p. 17.

1489

The loci of the rabbinical literature are given by J. Levy, Neuhebräisches und chaldäisches Wörterbuch über
die Talmudim und Midraschim (Leipzig, 1876-1889), s.v. Mērûr.

1490

Onomastica Sacra, Paulus de Lagarde edidit (Gottingae, 1870), s.v. Μαρία, 176, 49; 179, 31; 183, 34; 195,
66 lists the meanings: κυριεύουσα, πικρὰ θάλαςςα, κυρία ἡμων, ἀπὸ ἀοράτων, φωτίζουσα; s.v. Μαριάμ, 175,
22; 179, 32; 195, 66; 203, 17, φωτίζουσα, φωτιζομένη η φωτίζουσα άυτούς, η κύριος ἐκ γένους μου, η σμύρνα
θαλλασία, κυρίου σφραγίς.

1491

Cf. PG, 43, 488 f., (attributed to Epiphanius); PG, 94, 1157, John Damascene; also PG, 96, 689. J.
Knabenbauer, S.J., Evangelium secundum S. Matthaeum, Pars Prior (Cursus Scrip. S.), 1892, p. 44, is one
of the very few, if not the only modern, who prefers the meaning “myrrh”: “Nomen myrrhae ex eo multum
commendatur, quia puellarum nomina ex arboribus plantisque deprompta revera in usu erant.”

1492

Cf. Jerome’s Preface to this work, PL, 23, 771 f.; also A. Penna, S. Girolamo (Roma, 1949), p. 151 f.

1493

Liber interpretationis Hebraicorum nominum, PL, 23, 841-842; 789.

1494

Peter Chrysologus, PL, 52, 579; Isidore of Seville, 82, 289; Venerable Bede, 92, 316; Walafrid Strabo, 114,
859; Rabanus Maurus, 111, 75; Notker Balbulus, 131, 1005; Fulbert of Chartres, 151, 322; Herman Contractus,
143, 443; Peter Damian, 144, 508; Rupert of Deutz, 168, 361; Bernard of Clairvaux, 182, 1142 and 183, 70;
Amadeus of Lausanne, 188, 1344; Innocent III, 217, 499.

1495

Cf. Quintillian, Inst. Orat., Vol. 1, iv, 17; also Varron, Rer. rustic., I, ii, 14, xlviii, 2, cited by Lesêtre, “Marie,”
op. cit., col. 775.

1496

PL, 76, 405 and 76, 867.

1497

Bardenhewer, op. cit., p. 73.

1498

In the appendix of the fifth volume, which contains “interpretationes … nominum N.T.” cited by
Bardenhewer, op. cit., p. 122, also by E. Vogt, S.J., De nominis Mariae etymologia, in Verbum Domini, Vol.
26 (1948), p. 164.

1499

De locis S. Scripturae hebraicis, Angeli Caninii commentarius, (Antverpiae, 1600), pp. 63-64. Roschini (op.
cit., p. 64), who, like the present author, probably depends on Bardenhewer for this citation, erroneously
attributes this work to St. Peter Canisius.

1500

Annotationes in praecipua ac difficiliora S. Scripturae loca, 1621, p. 479 b, in Lk. 1:27, cited by Vogt, art.
cit., p. 164.

1501

Bardenhewer, op. cit., p. 125. Merkelbach, op. cit., p. 104, observes that Van Hoonacker suggests a root Rûm
with the meaning “to desire’’ like the Arabic Rama, as the source of Mary’s name. In view of the silence of the
lexicons it is pure conjecture to attribute such a meaning to the Hebrew root.

1502

Vogt, art. cit., pp. 164-166.

1503

C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Grammar (Romae, 1940), pp. 44, 103.

1504

St. Peter Canisius, op. cit., pp. 2-5.

1505

Christophorus de Vega, S.J., Theologia Mariana, Pars II (Lugduni, 1653), pp. 85-114.

1506

M. Hiller, Onomasticum Sacrum (Tübingen, 1706), pp. 173, 876, 886. As early as 1577 St. Peter Canisius
had proposed Marah as the root of Mary’s name. Cf. above, note 28.

1507

Roschini’s attempt to apply this meaning to Our Lady seems very arbitrary and farfetched, op. cit., p. 64.

1508

Cf. Gesenius, Neues hebräisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, also Thesaurus philologicus criticus linguae
hebreae et chaldaeae veteris Testamenti, Editio Altera (Lipsiae, 1835-1839), Vol. 2, p. 819.

1509

P. Schegg, Die heiligen Evangelien übersetzt and erklärt, Vol. 1, Evangelium nach Matthäus (München,
1856), p. 419; also Jacobus der Bruder des Herrn (München, 1882), p. 56.

1510

Vogt, art. cit., p. 167.

1511

C. Beckermann, O.S.A., Et nomen Virginis Maria, Verbum Domini, Vol. 1, (1921), pp. 130-136, gives
arguments contra; Bardenhewer, op. cit., pp. 147-151, gives the arguments pro, the association of beauty and
corpulence.

1512

F. Zorell, S.J., Was bedeutet der Name Maria? in Zeitschr. für Kathol. Theol., 30 (1906), pp. 356-360.

1513

Roschini, op. cit., p. 65.

1514

F. Zorell, S.J., Lexicon Graecum Novi Testamenti, Editio Altera (Parisiis, 1931), col. 798.

1515

Cf. Vogt, art. cit., p. 167.

1516

Mary’s murmuring against Moses does not disqualify her as a type of Our Blessed Lady. The relation
between type and antitype is never perfect. David and Solomon are types of Christ Our Lord and King, in spite
of the adultery and murder of the one, and the profligacy of the other.