Behold Your Mother:An Introduction to Mariology

Part 1: The Four Dogmasby Søren Filipski

The Marian Dogmas

• Divine Motherhood• Perpetual Virginity• Immaculate Conception• Assumption

Mariology is Christological

When the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

(Gal 4:4)

Mariology is Salvific

The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in bringing about death, so also a woman should contribute to life.

Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 56

Divine Motherhood

Theo-tokos“God-bearer”

Council of Ephesus (a.d. 431)

Theotókos

Our Lady of Vladimir

12th Century

Theotókos

Giovanni Battista Salvi de Sassoferrato (1609-1689)Madonna and Child

Theotókos

Roberto Feruzzi (1854-1934)Madonna (1897) “Our Lady of the Streets”

Origins of Theotókos

Who am I that the Mother of my lord should come to me? (Luke 1:43)

The Visitation, 1491

Origins of Theotókos

He said to his Mother, “Woman, behold your son.” Then he says to the disciple, “Behold your mother.” And from that hour, the disciple

took her into his own.(John 19:26-27)

Stabat MaterPorto Alegre, Brazil, 19th Cent.

Alexander of Alexandria (A.D. 324)

…our Lord Jesus Christ, who in very deed, and not merely in appearance, carried a body, of Mary, Mother of God, who at the end of times came to the human race to put away any sin… Ep. Ad Alex. Const. 12

Nestorius (A.D. 386-451)

Mary is “Christotokos,” or “Christ-bearer.”

Christ is one “person” in the sense that he possesses one honor.

Nestorianism/Homo Assumptus

St. Cyril of Alexandria (A.D. 376-444)

He was God in an appearance like ours, and the Lord in the form of a slave. This is what we mean when we say that he became flesh, and for the same reasons we affirm that the holy virgin is the Mother of God.-On the Unity of Christ

Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431)

It was not as though the distinctness of the natures was destroyed by the union, but divinity and humanity together made perfect for us on Lord and one Christ.

Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431 )

So he who existed and was begotten of the Father Before all ages is also said to have been begotten according to the flesh of a woman, without the divine nature either beginning to exist in the holy virgin, or needing of itself a second begetting after that from his father.

Communication of Idioms

• What is said according to Christ’s divine nature is said of divine person.

• What is said according to Christ’s human nature is also said of his divine person.

Communication of Idioms

• Mary is the Mother of Jesus according to his human nature.

• Therefore, Mary is the mother of the Divine Word.

Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431)

The Word is said to have been begotten according to the flesh, because for us and for our salvation he united what was human to himself in person and came forth from a woman.

Lumen Gentium

She is endowed with the high office and dignity of being the Mother of the Son of God, by which account she is also the beloved daughter of the Father and the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Lumen Gentium

Because of this gift of divine grace, she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth.

Lumen Gentium

By reason of the gift and role of divine maternity, by which she is united with her Son, the Redeemer, and with His singular graces and functions, the Blessed Virgin is also intimately united with the Church.

Perpetual Virginity

• Ante partum -Before birth

• In partu -During birth

• Post partum -After birth

Ante Partum

Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14; Matt 1:23)

“How shall this be, since I do not know man?” (Luke 1:34)

Annunciation, Rogier van der Weyden, 1399

John Paul II

[The Fathers] observe that the virginity of the Mother is a requirement flowing from the divine nature of the Son; it is the concrete condition in which, according to a free and wise divine plan, the Incarnation of the eternal Son took place.Discourse at Capua, 1993

John Paul II

As a consequence, for Christian tradition Mary’s virginal womb, made fruitful by the divine Pneuma without intervention, became, like the wood of the Cross of the wrappings of the tomb, a reason and sign for recognizing in Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God.Discourse at Capua, 1993

St. Irenaeus of Lyons (d. A.D. 202)

The pure one purely opens the pure womb, which regenerates men in god, which he himself had made pure. -Against Heresies, IV.33.11

Tome of Pope Leo the Great (449)

“Her virginity was as untouched in giving him birth as it was in conceiving him.”

Adopted by Council of Chalcedon, 451 a.d.

Punishment of Eve

I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall have dominion over you. (Gen 3:16)

Divine Sonship

He is not born of blood(s),nor of the will of the flesh,Nor of the will of man,But he was begotten of God.(John 1:13)

John Paul II

Mary’s virginal life inspires in the entire Christian people esteem for the gift of virginity and the desire that it should increase in the Church as a sign of God’s primacy over all reality and as a prophetic anticipation of the life to come.Marian CatechesisAug 7, 1996

The Visitation

“Who am I that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?”

(Luke 1:43)

The Visitation, Ghirlandaio, 1494

The Ark of the Covenant

And David was afraid of the LORD that day; and he said, “How can the ark of the LORD come to me?”

(2 Sam 6:9)

The Ark of the Covenant

Lumen Gentium

For in the mystery of the Church, which is itself rightly called mother and virgin, the Blessed Virgin stands out in eminent and singular fashion as exemplar both of virgin and mother.

Immaculate Conception

The Blessed Virgin Mary in the first instance of her conceptionwas preserved exempt from all stain of original sin by a singular privilege and grace granted by God,in view of the merits of Christ, the Savior of the human race.Ineffabilis Deus,Dec 8, 1854, Pius IX

Kecharitomēnē, “Full of Grace”

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:35)

Assumption

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.Pope Pius XII, Munificentissimus

Deus, Nov. 1 1950

Titian, Assumption, 1516

St. Epiphanius (A.D. 315-403)

Whether she died and was buried we do not know. … Say she died a natural death. In that case she fell asleep in glory, and departed in purity received the crown of her virginity.

St. Epiphanius

Or say she left this world without dying, for God can do what he will. Then she was simply transferred to eternal glory.-Against Eighty Heresies

St. John Damascene (A.D. 676-749)

It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth should keep her own body free from corruption even after death. It was fitting that sheho carried the Creator as a child at her breast should dwell in the divine tabernacles.Encomium on the Dormition

Psalm 132:8

Arise, O Lord, and go into Thy resting place,Thou and the ark of Thy might.

Bl. John Henry Newman

They [Marian doctrines] are startling and difficult to those whose imagination is not accustomed to them, and whose reason has not reflected on them;

Bl. John Henry Newman

But the more carefully and religiously they are dwelt on, the more, I am sure, they will be found integral to the Catholic faith, and integral to the worship of Christ.

Bl. John Henry Newman

This simply is the point which I shall insist on—disputable indeed by aliens from the Church, but most clear to her children—that the glories of Mary are for the sake of Jesus; and that we praise and bless her as the first of creatures, that we may duly confess him as our sole Creator.Discourses, 344

Bl. John Henry Newman

…. and that we praise and bless her as the first of creatures, that we may duly confess him as our sole Creator.Discourses, 344