MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS CHRIST.
I. Mary in the New Testament. Family Relations (§1). Her Character (§ 2). II. Early Growth of Devotion to Her. Causes of Increased Veneration
(§D. Apocryphal Legends (§ 2).
Theotokos and Iconoclastic Controversies (§3). The Middle Ages (§ 4).
III. Feasts of Mary.
IV. Devotion to Mary since the
Reformation. In Protestant Churches (§1).
Growth of Roman Catholic Devotion (§ 2). Pilgrimage Places (§ 3). V. The Glorification of Mary in Art Early Stages (§ 1). Development of Types in Painting (§2).
I. Mary in the New Testament: The question
which naturally arises first in regard to the history
of Mary is that concerning her ancestry, which has
been much discussed and cannot yet be decisively
settled. Both of the genealogies of
i. Family Jesus at the opening of the Gospels,
Relations, those of Matthew and Luke, demonstrate the descent of Joseph, not Mary, from David; but the very incompleteness of the lists lends support to the theory that Mary's descent from David was presupposed as an accepted fact by the evangelists. Her descent from the priestly tribe of Levi may be supported by the fact that Elisabeth, wife of the priest Zacharias, is called her cousin in Luke i. 36, though this need not refer to any closer connection than one arising from a marriage between a priestly ancestor of Elisabeth's with a descendant of David. Thus a double genealogy of Jesus, from David through Joseph, and from the sacerdotal family through his mother, might be shown. The question of her maternal relationship to Jesus on the one hand and to the " brethren of the Lord " on the other is a less difficult one. The designation of Jesus as her " first-born son " (Luke ii. 7) and the statement as to her relations with Joseph (Matt. i. 25, cf. i. 13) seem to point to the conclusion that the persons called in the Gospels and in Acts i. 14 the brethren of the Lord were the younger sons of Joseph and Mary. For various reasons the theory of Jerome that they were cousins, and that of Epiphanius that they were children of Joseph by a former marriage, are untenable. The unprejudiced reader of the New Testament can not avoid the view represented in antiquity by Helvidius and stamped as heresy after Jerome and Ambrose, that they were the children of Joseph and Mary, while Jesus was the son of Mary in a miraculous manner, by the Holy Ghost. The latter assertion rests upon distinct passages of Scripture (Matt. i. 18-25; Luke i. 26- 38, ii. 7-14), whereas the rationalist and Ebionite view that he also was the son of Joseph and Mary finds no support either in the Gospels or elsewhere in the New Testament. The fundamental fact of a supernatural birth was evidently unquestioned by Paul. This is plain from passages like I Cor. xv. 47; II Cor. viii. 9; Phil. ii. 9, 10, and especially Gal. iv. 4, where the mention of Christ's birth simply " of a woman " is explained by the fact that Paul had no thought of an earthly father.
But while the witness of the New Testament is clear in favor of a supernatural birth, it is equally free from the decorative traits with which later legend loved to adorn the story of the birth and childhood of Jesus and the history of his mother. The Gospels neither tell anything of the birth and childhood of Mary, nor place her noticeably in the foreground in his earthly ministry. She is
depicted as a pure maiden, full of childlike innocence and humble piety. It is noteworthy that she understands as little as Joseph her son's profound saying at the age of twelve. At the marriage of Cana she presses him in loving impa- 2. Her tience for the anticipation of the time Character, to reveal his power, and has to be rebuked by him. She is apparently, at least, passive when his brethren show their unbelief in him, and is included in his reproof of them (Matt. xii. 46-50). Her bearing at the cross is human and motherly, and Jesus commends her to John as an evidence of his filial love and reverence for her (John xix. 25-27). After the ascension she appears in the circle of the apostles (Acts i. 14), but without any specially prominent position. Thus the New Testament affords no ground for the undue exaltation of Mary which was later so common; in fact, Jesus utters a warning (Luke xi. 27, 28) against it which ought to be sufficient.
II. Early Growth of Devotion to Her: The first tendency toward this exaggeration of her importance was the outgrowth of the Christological development. The more the awe and reverence of the early Church for the God-Man attempted to find adequate expression, the more i. Causes of natural it was that a portion of it Increased should be transferred to his mother, Veneration, the vehicle of his redeeming incarnation. As early as the middle of the second century, she appears as the antitype of Eve, bringing life into the world as Eve brought death (Justin, Dialogue, c; Irenaeus, III., xxii. 4, V., xix. 1; Tertullian, De carne Chrisli, vii.); and later the Western Church applied Gen. iii. 15 to her (in the Vulgate version with the feminine pronoun, ipsa conteret caput tuum). A further impulse was given to the devotion to Mary by the exaggerated reverence for the ascetic life and for celibacy, as spread by monasticism from the fourth century. She became the type and ideal of virginity. Tertullian had admitted her marriage (De monogarnia, viii.), and Basil had recognized (Homilia in Christi generationem, v.) that the natural sense of Matt. i. 25 favored this view. But Epiphanius (Hcer., Ixxviii.) controverted as heretics (under the name of Antidicomarianites, q.v.) those who said that she had married Joseph and had children by him. From this time on the title of " Virgin " became an inseparable predicate of hers. Pope Siricius (c. 392) confirmed the sentence of the Illyrian bishops against Bonosus on the charge of sharing the heresy of Helvidius. The theory of a merely nominal marriage was generally accepted; Origen accounts for it by the necessity of concealing the mystery of the virgin birth from the princes of this world (Homilia in Lucam, vi.). These developing views took shape as legends in
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ
a long series of Apocryphal narratives. The most
important of these is the Protevangelium Jacobi,
some features of which were known to
2. Apoc- Justin and Tertullian. According to ryphal it, Joachim and Anna, long childless,
Legends, prayed fervently for offspring, and vowed their child, if they should have one, to the service of the Lord. Mary was born and solemnly dedicated. When she was twelve, all the widowers were assembled and their staves blessed in the temple. Out of that of Joseph emerged a dove which settled on his head, designating him as the destined guardian of the maiden. Miraculous signs accompanied the birth of her child; the visit of the Magi and the massacre of the Innocents came in their proper places, but instead of the flight into Egypt the concealment of the child in a corner of the inn, followed by the miraculous rescue of Elisabeth and John the Baptist and the murder of Zacharias by command of Herod. Although the Apocryphal literature was officially repudiated, not a few features of it crept into the tradition of the Church, such as the names of Mary's parents, her education in the Temple, and the nominal marriage with Joseph, already an aged man. A further series of legends deal with the life of Mary after the Ascension, especially in the Apocryphal narrative De transitu Marice, dating from the middle of the fourth century. In the differing versions the duration of her life after the Ascension is variously given as from two to twenty-four years. A tradition assigning her later life (under the care of the apostle John) and death to Ephesus was known to Epiphanius (fleer., lxxviii. 11); other ancient traditions give Jerusalem for both (for the legend of her assumption see below, III.). Yet in spite of all this development of glorifying tradition, there was no tendency before the end of the fourth century to promote a regular cultus of the Virgin, or even to address prayers to her. The change which took place about that time may have been partly due to the great influx of pagans into the Church. Their "old religions, largely growing out of natureworship, and emphasizing the opposition of the sexes, passed by an easy transition to the Gnostic syzygiai, and thus to the idea of the cooperation of a created principle in the work of redemption. This principle was naturally found in Mary, the second Eve. Epiphanius (Hwr., lxxix.) condemns the Collyridians (q.v.), a sect of fanatical women calling themselves priestesses of Mary, who on festival days solemnly offered cakes to her and then feasted upon them, as in the pagan Thesmophoria and in Jer. vii. 18, xliv. 59.
The Nestorian controversy (see Nestoritts) marked the most important turning-point in the development of devotion to Mary. Although in essence Christological, it centered around 3. Theoto- the question debated between the
kos and Alexandrian and Antiochian schools,
Iconoclastic on the basis of their differing views
Controver- as to the relations of the two natures
sies. in Christ and the communicability of
the divine attributes to humanity, as
to whether Mary was to be called the mother of
God (Theotokos) or merely the mother of Christ.
The former was officially adopted at the council of Ephesus in 431, and the devotion became increasingly fervent throughout the whole Church with each succeeding century. The veneration of the martyrs had already spread to such an extent that it was a simple completion to place Mary at their head as queen of the heavenly hosts. Praye* to her became a universal custom. Churches and altars were erected in her honor, and her picture was exposed for veneration. When, in spite of the dogma of Chalcedon, the humanity of Christ had been, in the popular mind, swallowed up in the divinity, the need was felt of further human mediation through which the divine Majesty might be approached and the severity of the awful Judge mitigated. From the lowly recipient of grace, she became a source and giver of grace. The Iconoclastic controversy served still further to enhance the veneration of her (see Images and Image- Wohship, II.). The second Council of Nicsea (787) declared that veneration paid to her image passed on to her, and that he who adored (ho proskunon) the image adored the original. A regular tradition grew up as to her appearance: the most celebrated picture of her was that attributed to St. Luke, which existed in numerous copies, each with its own tradition; others in Italy and Spain were believed to have been painted by angels.
The reverence for woman mentioned as early as Tacitus among the traits of the Germanic peoples developed into the romantic service of medieval chivalry, and Mary was still further exalted as
the crowning glory of womanhood,
4. The enthroned even above the angels.
Middle Among ecclesiastical writers, Ude-
Ages. phonsus (q.v.; d. 667) demonstrated
her perpetual virginity once more against the long-departed Jovinian and Helvidius and against the Jews in his book De illibata beatce virginis virginitate. Rateamnus wrote c. 845 against those who asserted that Jesus was born in some miraculous manner different from the ordinary; but this view was supported by Paschasius Radbert. A still higher level of Marian devotion was reached in the eleventh century. Peter Damiani sings the praises of Mary as the perfect creature, asserts that nothing is impossible to her, and says that she restores hope to the despairing. Bernard of Clairvaux (Sermo in nativitatem, iv.) asks: " Dost thou fear the divine Majesty in the Son? Wilt thou find an advocate before him? Flee to Mary; in her humanity is pure. The Son will listen to the mother, and the Father to the Son." Many more equally strong expressions might be collected from medieval theologians; and liturgical formulas kept pace with theological teaching. Scholasticism attempted to satisfy scrupulous consciences by making a distinction between lairia, the worship due to God alone, and dulia, the veneration which might be lawfully paid to saints and sacred objects; the highest form of the latter, or hyperdulia, was assigned to Mary. From the eleventh century a special office of the Blessed Virgin was recited in the monasteries, which the Synod of Clermont (1095) extended to the clergy in general. Nothing, however, contributed so largely to the spread of daily