A Brief History of the Cult of Mary

Awake, my harp, your songs

in praise of the Virgin Mary!

Lift up your voice and sing

the wonderful history

Of the Virgin, the daughter of David,

who gave birth to the Life of the World.[1]

 

 

Historians have perpetually endeavored to accurately document early cultures and most especially their religions.  It is therefore fascinating that there exist numerous misconceptions still held concerning what is termed “the Cult of Mary.”  That Mary and her son, Jesus, are historical figures is not a question, for there are non-Christian sources that discuss them.^[2]  The misunderstandings reside in what modernists assume the early and medieval Church believed about the Virgin Mary.

 

The first fallacy is that Mary was only minimally taught about and revered by the Church until the twelfth century when the “Cult of Mary” supposedly arose.  Second, that it was only with this same movement Mary was perceived as a “counterbalance” to Eve, who brought sin into the world.  Third, that it was because the Church was predominantly under male rule that Mary was not revered until the eleven hundreds.^[3]

 

For today’s culture, the term “cult” has negative connotations.  Originally, however, the term meant merely honoring a person or a thing.  More specifically, the word “cult” was divided into three parts: one for worshiping God, the second for the veneration and honor given to Mary, and a third for the esteem in which the saints are held.^[4]   The Catholic Church has consistently stated that the worship and devotion to Mary should never equal the adoration due the triune God.^[5]  In the second century, there are pictorial evidences of Christian devotion to the Virgin Mary within the Roman catacombs.  By the fourth century, hymns and poetry were written in honor of the Blessed Mother.^[6]

The life and devotion to Mary stems as much from Biblical sources as well as those held by the tradition of the early Church Fathers.  From the days of the Apostles, deference has been given to her.^[7]  Mary’s role in the Christian religion as related from the Bible is that of the mother of Jesus.  Although she does not frequently take major roles in the Gospels, Mary was nonetheless viewed by the first Catholics as an important character during and after the life of Christ.  Her body is believed to have been taken into heaven before her death.  The lack of a burial site for Mary attests to the probability of this event,^[8] especially since the martyrs and saints of the Church were always honorably interred, as seen by the martyrdom of St. Polycarp in AD 155.^[9] 

 

Such early writers as St. John Damascene (ca.675–749), a Doctor of the Church,^[10] wrote extensively on her Assumption into Heaven.^[11]  Belief in Mary’s Assumption is also linked to the doctrines the Church has constantly held about her being conceived without sin, ever-virgin (Aeiparthenos), and the Mother of God (Theotokos).^[12] Her body, unknown by the curses of Eve, and her soul, untouched by sin, were taken into heaven as a sign of the last days.  Her constant virginity was a testament not only to her divine conception of the Son of God, but also to her being the Spouse of the Holy Spirit.^[13]  As the Mother of God, Mary had to be clean of sin—for sin cannot exist where God dwells.^[14]

 

The doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, celebrated on the eighth of December^[15], is one that stems from Patristic teachings as well as the Bible.  St. Ephraim wrote a hymn to Mary and her Son in 370 AD, saying:

 

You alone and your Mother

are more beautiful than any others;

For there is no blemish in you,

nor any stains upon your Mother.^[16]

 

For, it is held in the Catholic Church that the beliefs concerning Mary are grounded in what it believes about Jesus, and “what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ.”  As Jesus the Son of God cannot coexist with sin, so Mary, who contained God within her, had to be clean of any sin: hence, Mary had to be Immaculately Conceived, “preserved immune from all stain of original sin.” ^[17]  Even the Angel Gabriel, when greeting Mary, names her “full of Grace,” meaning “sinless” and “one in favor with God.”^[18] 

 

Marian theology in the early Church discussed her Perpetual Virginity and role as the Mother of God as early as ca. 100 by St. Ignatius of Antioch, a student of the Apostle John.  In his letter to the Ephesians, Ignatius writes:

 

For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accordance with God’s plan.… The virginity of Mary, her giving birth, and also the death of the Lord, were hidden from the prince of this world [Satan]: -three mysteries, loudly proclaimed, but wrought in the silence of God.^[19]

 

As with many beliefs of the Church, Mary’s role as the Mother of God had no need of being proclaimed doctrine until it was challenged.  That she was viewed as the divine mother is even mentioned in the Gospels, when Elizabeth (Mary’s cousin), greets her as “the mother of my Lord.”^[20]  In the beginning of the fifth century the Bishop of Constantinople, Nestorius by name, denounced the idea of Mary being the God-bearer, saying that she did not bear God, but bore the husk or flesh in which God would reside once she gave birth to him.  Anger at his theories drew many replies.  St. Jerome would not suffer any error upon the Blessed Virgin.  Cyril of Alexandria wrote an encyclical, proclaiming in a blunt manner, “I am astonished that the question should ever have been raised as to whether the Holy Virgin should be called the Mother of God.”  Immediately convening in Ephesus—the city dedicated to Mary as the traditional site of her Assumption—Cyril and the bishops formally instituted Mary as the Mother of God.  All of the proceedings were affirmed unanimously, and more amazingly, in a single day, for the Church has never been one to rush into decisions.^[21]

 

There was never any debate as to Mary’s being the fulfillment of Eve.  It was not in the eleventh century that this tenant of the faith was first discussed but in the second century by St. Justin the Martyr.  He wrote:

 

[The Son of God] became man through a Virgin, so that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same way it had begun.  For Eve, who was virgin and undefiled, gave birth to disobedience and death after listening to the serpent’s words.  But the Virgin Mary conceived faith and joy; for when the angel Gabriel brought her the glad tidings that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and that the power of the Most High would overshadow her, so that the Holy One born of her would be the Son of God, she answered, “Let it be done to me according to your word.”  Thus was born of her the [Child]…through him, God crushed the serpent, along with those angels and men who had become like the serpent.” ^[22]

 

Other early writers drew Mary/Eve parallels, such as Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 140 – 202), Ephraim the Syrian (ca.306-373), and Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 325-403).^[23]

 

Irenaeus describes Mary by first referencing how Jesus is the counterpart to Adam in clothing himself with human flesh.  He then draws the parallel (recirculatio) that, while Eve was a virgin married to Adam when she sinned, similarly Mary was married and a virgin when she obeyed the Lord.  “Just as, once something has been bound, it cannot be loosed except by undoing the knots in reverse order, even so the first knots were untied by the [undoing of the] second ones and, inversely, these last free the first…and so the knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience.”^[24]

 

It is Ephraim the Syrian who extols Mary in poetry and celebrates the role of women as the defenders of all that is good.  The comparison between Eve and Mary takes the form of a blind eye and an eye of light.  He uses the judgement image, with Eve as the left eye (the damned) and Mary as the right eye (the saved).  Love and devotion towards the Virgin Mary are evident throughout Ephraim’s verses.^[25] A Doctor of the Universal Church, Ephraim is rightly styled as “the Harp of the Holy Spirit” because of his lovingly written stanzas on Mary and her Son.^[26]

 

At the same time as Ephraim wrote his verses on Our Lady, Epiphanius of Salamis—one of the leading Marian theologians—wrote an addendum to Justin and Irenaeus’ New Eve parallels.  Reiterating Mary’s obedience to Eve’s disobedience, he also suggested that one could draw similar connections between Mary, the Church, and the creation of woman:

 

Notice, I pray you, how precise Scripture is.  Of Adam, it is said that he was formed, while, in the case of Eve, it does not say that she was formed but rather that she built up.  “He took”—it says—“one of his ribs and built it up into a woman” (Gen 2:21), to show that the Lord formed himself a body from Mary, but that the Church was built up from his side, when it was pierced and the mysteries of blood and water were poured out for our redemption.^[27]

 

Viewing such enthusiastic lines written about Mary by these men of God, it is surprising that modern historians would claim that the early Church did not honor her because of the sex of these authors.  The subject of courage and fortitude that women possess has enjoyed uninterrupted laudations from these very men who are accused of discrimination. 

 

One of the earliest instances of this is found in 80 AD within the writings of St. Clement.  “To these men who lived such holy lives there must be added a multitude of the elect, who suffered terrible indignities and tortures on account of jealousy, and who became shining examples in our midst.”  Clement continues by saying, “Because of jealousy, women were persecuted, Danaids and Dirces, suffering frightful and unholy indignities.  Stalwart, they finished the racecourse of the faith and received a noble reward….”^[28]

 

Another notable woman honored by the Church is Priscilla, whose tomb has many frescos depicting not only the life of Christ, but scenes specific for the Virgin. These paintings date from the time of the Apostle John’s death, c. 98.^[29]  Priscilla was widowed when her husband, Mancius Aeilius Glabrio was martyred by Domitian.  Undaunted by the persecutions, Priscilla opened her home on the Via Salaria as headquarters for St. Peter.  She emulated the Blessed Virgin and raised her own son, St. Pudens, to become a Roman senator.  When she died, Priscilla’s community honorably interred her in the catacombs beneath her house and carried her name on through the generations.^[30]

 

The early Church Fathers joyously related Mary’s blessings that fell upon all of womankind upon the Virgin’s birth.  One of the most enthusiastic of these was Proclus of Constantinople (ca. 400-446).  When giving homilies, Proclus would refer to Mary with the magnificent elegies that stemmed from his profound admiration for the person and Divine Motherhood of Mary.^[31]

 

In Proclus’ writings, we see a culmination of everything the Church believed.  He was an enthusiastic defender of her role as Mother of God or Theotokos, for the repercussions of the Council of Ephesus still resounded throughout the Christian World.  In homilies he describes her beautiful Virginity, calling her, “…Virgin, unmarried maid, mother without the corruption of birth….” The Eve-Mary comparison is addressed between eloquent adulation of Mary’s Grace or Immaculate Conception.^[32]  

 

In one Proclus’ more enthusiastic homilies, he represents Mary as the ideal not only for every woman, but also for all of mankind.  “What is being commemorated is the boast of the female sex,” he writes, “the glory of women, in her who is both mother and virgin at the same time.  What a lovable and wonderful union this is!”^[33]

 

Compared to previous ages that limited women’s roles to being merely child-bearers, the Church desired all women to have the choice of married, single, or consecrated life and in each vocation, to emulate Mary.  Proclus magnified all women when he said, “Let nature exult and human nature be glad: women are honored!  Let humanity dance: virgins are exalted!”^[34]

 

In the end, Mary not only received honor, love, and admiration from the early Fathers of the Church, but was also given the Church itself to Mother.  Before his death, Jesus gives Mary to the Church (represented by the Apostle John) and the Church to Mary’s keeping.  In John 19:26-27, it says, “When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’  Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’  And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.”

 

Saint Ambrose of Milan (c. 339-397) best explained the relationship existing between the Church and Mary as being made feasible by the union between the Mystical Body of the Church and Christ.  It was in the conception of Jesus, Ambrose says, that Mary conceived the Church.^[35]

 

St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), who was baptized by St. Ambrose in 386, also wrote of Mary as the Mother of the Church.  He expanded on Ambrose’s teachings, showing Mary as the spiritual mother of all:

 

How is it that you do not belong to the Virgin’s birth, if you are members of Christ?  Mary gave birth to our Head; the Church gave birth to you.  Indeed, the Church also is both virgin and mother, mother because of her womb of charity, virgin because of the integrity of her faith and piety. …Nevertheless it is true, the Church is the mother of Christ.  Mary preceded the Church as its type.^[36]

 

It is therefore certain that the Church, since its infancy, has notably honored Mary in all of her roles: as the Mother of God, the Immaculate Conception, Ever-Virgin, the New Eve, and the Mother of the Church.  Her role within Christianity has been consistent and thoroughly documented.  No discrimination was made against Mary because of her sex.  It is indeed a “wonderful history of the Virgin, the daughter of David, who gave birth to the Life of the World.”^[37]

 

God Bless,

 

 

Julie Snyder, 2006

 

 

References

 

Broderick, Robert C. The Catholic Concise Encyclopedia.  Minnesota: Artist and Writers Guild, Inc., 1957.

 

Carroll, Anne W. Christ the King Lord of History. 3^rd Edition. Rockford: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1994.

 

Carroll, Warren H. The Founding of Christendom. Vol. 1 of A History of Christendom. Front Royal: Christendom Press, 1985.

 

Carroll, Warren H. The Building of Christendom. Vol. 2 of A History of Christendom. Front Royal: Christendom Press, 1987.

 

Coffin, Judith G. and Robert C. Stacey. Western Civilizations. Vol. 1, 15^th Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005.

 

Delaney, John J. Pocket Dictionary of Saints Abridged. New York: Image Doubleday, 1983.

 

Flavius, Josephus. “Antiquities of the Jews,” in The Works of Flavius Josephus.

translated by William Whiston. London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1873.

 

Gambero, Luigi Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought. translated by Thomas Buffer. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999.

 

Jurgens, William A. translator and compiler. .The Faith of the Early Fathers. vol. 1 Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1970.

 

Michael Walsh. Ed. . Butler’s Lives of the Saints Concise Edition. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1985.