Defining the Virgin Mary:  The Church’s Legacy

By Glinda Harrison

            One of the most interesting recent issues involving the church is the question of whether to give Mary the titles Mediatrix, Coremptrix and Advocate of the People of God.  The recent surge in Marian devotion has raised numerous controversies raised about Mary’s role in the Church and in the doctrine of salvation. At the heart of the controversy is the growing movement among devotees of Mary to have these titles for the Virgin declared official dogma, a position that is viewed by many as extreme.  At a time when there is a strong ecumenical focus within the Catholic Church, such an official doctrine would present a stumbling block in talks with other world religions, especially those involving the Protestant churches and the Orthodox church. The Catholic veneration of Mary is already a point of contention in ecumenical discussions with Protestants, who view such devotion as non-scriptural Mariolatry. And while the Orthodox Church also venerates the Virgin, on the whole, they do not agree with the Catholic Marian dogmas that have evolved over the past several hundred years  (Caldecott).

            Even within the Catholic Church itself, there is a marked division between those who see Mary in a minimalist role or a maximalist one, a division which has grown sharply since the Vatican II council.  Schillebeeckx points out that at Vatican II, two kinds of Marian theology were evident:  “a church or church-theological mariology (the standpoint of the majority): Mary is our sister, an eminent and model member of the church’s community of faith” and  “a christological mariology (the standpoint of the minority) which puts Mary alongside Jesus to such a degree that she - the mother of Jesus, who as Christ is head of his redeemed church - is herself also called “mother of the church”  (Schillebeeckx 16).

The controversy itself is interesting because many of the titles in question have, in many cases been given to Mary by the Church or, at the very least, promoted by it.   The intense Marian devotion from both clergy and the church membership seems to echo another period of intense Marian devotion—the Middle Ages, a time when Mary was also invoked as intercessor, mediator and advocate.  By claiming this sanctioned status for Mary, are her followers simply seeking to make official the role she has fulfilled for centuries in both the tradition of the Church and in popular piety and practice?  Is Mary being denied titles rightfully due her based on centuries of tradition?  And in the light of Mary’s special relationship with the Church, why is it so reticent to make these titles official?

The church’s official position itself is somewhat confusing and complicated, an attitude evidenced by some of the documents that were issued during Vatican II.  The Council sidestepped dealing directly with the most controversial aspects of the issue, choosing instead to address Marian issues through the Constitution of the Church rather than in a separate schema on Mary  (Schillebeeckx 13-14).  While Lumen Gentium acknowledged the special relationship between Mary and the Church and specified that she is “the eminent example of the saints,” it took considerable care to differentiate Mary’s role as a mediator from that of Christ  (Carroll). 

Yet, while Vatican II did not make the official statement about Mary that the maximalists who were present would have desired, it did not totally negate the concept of Mary as mediator. Lumen Gentium, no. 62 states, “The Blessed Virgin is invoked by the Church under the titles of Advocate, Auxilliatrix, Adjutrix and Mediatrix”  (qtd. in Carroll).  The definitions themselves are confusing:

Short of Access to a Greek/Latin thesaurus the ordinary reader is poorly served by the words joined to “-trix.”  “Advocate” conveys the Blessed Virgin’s intercession, and is familiar from the “Hail Holy Queen,” said at the end of Mass in bygone days.  But “Auxilliatrix” and “Adjutrix” are transliterations that suffer from the same over indebtedness to Latin as “Mediatrix.”  Some translators suggest “helper” or simply “help” for “Auxilliatrix” - one thinks of “Help of Christians,” the title John XXIII used in opening the Council on October 11, 1962.  For “Adjutrix” “Benefactress” has been proposed.  (Carroll)

If Mary can be viewed as Advocate, Auxilliatrix, Adjutrix and Mediatrix in the light of the Constitution of the Church, what is the problem with making the titles official dogma?

            While the titles obviously have christological interpretations that raise serious questions, there are serious ecclesiastical issues as well (as represented by the two points of view at Vatican II).  In actuality, the two are intimately inter-connected.  Mary has been construed as symbolically representing the Church, yet from the beginning, Mary has been used by the church to define important christological issues. 

            There are scant references to Mary in the scriptures, but the ones that exist show portraits of her that in many ways say much more about Christ and the community of believers than they do about Mary herself.   Luke’s account of the Annunciation, the Visitation and the Virgin birth are all written in such a way as to call to mind Old Testament prophecies and strengthen the apostolic church’s claims about Jesus.  Rosemary Radford Ruether notes concerning the Virgin birth that “originally this idea expressed the sense of Christ’s advent as totally dependent on divine initiative, not the product of the ‘works of man’ ”  (150).  Thus Luke not only uses Mary to reinforce the Old Testament prophecy, but also to define the primary christological assertion about Jesus’ divinity that is more fully developed and articulated in John’s Gospel. This is reinforced by the Visitation’s portrayal of the divine power of Jesus operating even from within his mother’s womb.  The unborn John recognizes this divine power, and according to St. Ambrose, even in the womb “preached the good news of the advent of the Lord”  (qtd. in Saward). 

            Mariologists have placed an enormous amount of emphasis on Mary’s response to the Angel of the Annunciation.  The claim of Coredemptrix rests solely on Mary’s conscious consent to the will of God.   The moment of the Incarnation (and therefore our salvation) is said to be when Mary said to the Angel, “let it be with me according to your word”  (Lk 1.38).  Ruether points out that “Luke goes out of his way to stress that Mary’s motherhood is a free choice. . . . Luke sees this free choice as an expression of faith. This is the key to the new redemptive community of Jesus. . .”  (153).  Saward points out that “Thus, at the Annunciation, Mary gives assent for us all”  (56).  In his eyes, salvation would be impossible without her.

            The symbolic significance of Mary’s answer is inescapable.  Humanity must play a role in its own salvation.   Just as man chose freely to sin, mankind must freely choose to be redeemed.  (Later the Church would take this concept even further, blending it with Paul’s view of Jesus as a New Adam:  Mary would become the New Eve.  Just as a woman was responsible the original sin, a woman would be responsible for the means to redemption.)  The critical question is whether that choice was impossible without Mary. Luke’s treatment of the Annunciation seems to imply a more metaphorical interpretation of event, with Mary symbolically representing both humanity in general and the followers of Christ who participate through faith in their own redemption.[1] 

            John’s Gospel portrays two accounts of involving Mary:  The wedding at Cana and Mary’s presence at the crucifixion.  Neither of these events are recorded in the Synoptic Gospels. John obviously had access to a different source than the other writers or, he added these stories for their symbolic meaning.  While much has been written about the ecclesiastical meaning of Mary’s witness to the crucifixion and Jesus’ imparting the mother-son relationship to Mary and John, there seems to be very little information interpreting the wedding at Cana.  The story is obviously the biblical source for the role of Mary as intercessor and the thought that “the Son would deny his mother nothing.”  Yet, despite whatever can be gleaned from an exegesis of the text, if the stories are intended symbolically as part of the Christology of the early church, what that meaning was meant to be is unclear.

            At the time of the Arian heresy, the church once again used Mary to define Christ, this time with the title of Theotokos.  Just as the virgin birth had been used by the early church to show Jesus’ divinity, Mary was now being used as the means of guaranteeing the humanity of Christ.[2] Athanasius may very well have used the popularity of Mary to his own advantage during the controversy.  Pelikan notes that in his arguments, Athanasius was “ echoing the language of popular devotion. . .”  (59).  In several of his writings, Athanasius cites the “commemoration of Mary” as a vindication of his argument  (Pelikan 59).  Because this commemoration was considered a chreia, a “given fact in the history of salvation,” then according to both the creed and the calendar of the church:

[It] attested the doctrine that that the human nature of Christ was a creature, just as they attested the doctrine that the divine nature of Christ was not a creature; and the sign of the bond between Christ the creature and mankind the creature was ‘the commemoration and the office of Mary,’ which would have been superfluous if the humanity of Christ had been some sort of component of his preexistence as the Logos of God.  (Pelikan 61)

Mary is not only used as the “proof” that Christ is human, but part of the “proof” is the fact that Mary is already remembered in the church for her role in salvation![3]

            While naming Mary Theotokos made Jesus fully human, it also helped make Mary semi-divine.  In response to the Arian teachings about the “participation by the saints in the sonship of Christ,” Athanasius taught the doctrine of “participation by divinization,” where closeness to the body of Christ had the power to transform a person into a saint (Pelikan 63).  What greater closeness could there be than to carry the actual physical body of Christ within the womb?  The result was, as Harnack noted, “what the Arians had taught about Christ, the orthodox now taught about Mary”  (qtd in Pelikan 64).

            By the seventh century, popular piety expressed towards this semi-divine Mary was rapidly becoming what would eventually come to be known as the “Cult of the Virgin.”  Her titles were legion:  Queen of Heaven, Mother of Truth, Mother of Peace, even the City of God  (Pelikan 130).  It is this semi-divine Mary that the church had created that would inflame the hearts and minds of medieval thinkers who would systematically clarify the title of Mediatrix for Mary  (Pelikan 125).  For the medieval writers, the title had great Christological significance.  Pelikan notes:

The author of the most influential theological treatise ever written about Christ as Mediator, Why God Became Man, Anselm of Canterbury at the end of the eleventh century, also wrote a treatise On the Virginal Conception and on Original Sin, as well as fervent prayers addressed to the Virgin as Mediatrix.26  As Anselm himself pointed out, the two treatises were closely connected, because consideration of Christ the Mediator provoked the question of “how it was that God assumed a man from the sinful mass of the human race without sin,” which was also a question about Mary.27  (Pelikan 129-130)

            The title Mediatrix is believed to have developed in Eastern Theology and spread to the West in its Latin form  (Pelikan 130-131).  It primarily referred to Mary’s active role in the incarnation and in redemptive salvation.  Mary was both the means by which Christ came into being and the means by which we ascended to Christ, much as the Marian devotees believe today.[4]  In both intellectual thought and popular practice, it was the dominant theology during the Middle Ages.  This view of Mary as Mediatrix was so pronounced that the only thing that kept the hyperdulia reserved for Mary from becoming full-fledged latria was the common consensus that Mary had indeed been saved by Christ  (Pelikan 133).[5]

            The term Mediatrix also referred to Mary’s role as intercessor between Christ and humanity. When one thinks of Mary in the Middle Ages, what first comes to mind is generally images of shrines and pilgrimages.  But probably most of all, Mary as intercessor in Medieval thought is overwhelmingly associated with miracles.  All of these are inextricably tied together in the Medieval Church.

             The shrines and pilgrimage routes that were such an inherent part of medieval life were controlled by the Church.  Because of donations from pilgrims, churches and monasteries that were popular places of pilgrimage did well financially.  Those that did not struggled to survived or folded altogether.  Twelfth century Spanish hagiographer Gonzalo de Berceo’s Miracles of Our Lady were thought to have been recited to pilgrims at a hostel owned by his monastery as a way of enticing the pilgrims to visit the monastery’s nearby shrine of the Virgin at San Millan.  These tales were specifically designed to aid the economic situation of the monastery and illustrate how the Church used Mary’s popularity to their own financial advantage. 

            Like most miracle tales, Berceo’s Miracles follow a basic form:  The Virgin Mary is confronts an evil force (the devil or his demons, or extremely wicked sinners). Usually in the stories, a good person who has sinned repents and is saved by the Virgin. What is amazing about the tales is how often the clergy are involved in these tales either as the sinner or the institution that Mary is opposing because of their immoral actions. The tales showcase not only the intercessory role of Mary, but also the corruption of the clergy and the church as an institution.

            In the tale of “Saint Peter and the Proud Monk,” a monk who had lived a very sinful lifestyle (even fathering an illegitimate child), dies without confessing his sins and is taken off to Hell by devils. Because the monk was of Saint Peter’s monastery, the Saint takes pity on him and prays to Christ for mercy.   Christ responds that the man has sinned and must reap what he has sown.  Peter says prayers to the Angels but still receives the same answer.  Peter then turns to Mary who goes before Christ with a train of Virgin saints.  Christ thinks that it must be a special soul indeed to merit such a procession and is shocked to learn that she is petitioning for the monk.  While he states that it wouldn’t be right for such a person to enter the heavenly paradise, because it is Mary who asks, Christ decrees that the Monk be returned to his body where he can do penance.  Peter then wrests the monk’s soul from the devils and gives it to the spirit of a holy friar to be returned to earth (Berceo 46-48).

            The story reinforces the role of Mary as intercessor and works on the premise that Christ can deny his mother nothing.  What is fascinating is the fact that Mary (as well as Saint Peter) intercedes with Christ, the Just Judge, for a monk who has broken God’s law just as she does for sinners in other tales.[6]  In many of the other stories Mary rescues the innocent.  She seems to have a passion for the underdog and the downtrodden, emphasizing in the miracle stories her title of advocate. There are a number of tales where she rescues drunk or inept priests and clergy who desert their diocese illegally. In one story an unchaste abbess becomes pregnant. When some of the nuns inform the bishop, Mary delivers the child and restores the abbess so that when the bishop comes to check, there is no sign of the pregnancy.   In the stories, rather than the “wages of sin being death,” Mary seems to represent the quality of mercy versus the exacting nature of Christ’s law, especially when directed toward the clergy.  (This perhaps can be explained by the fact that these stories may have been written by clergy!)  But as these stories were written during a time when ecclesiastical abuse was becoming more and more prevalent (as witnessed by the stories themselves), one wonders whether the intent of the stories was to convey something of christological significance or if it was to use Mary’s forgiveness to excuse a corrupt clergy.  Mary was so much the mediator, she seemed no longer to be the model of faith for the Christian community.

It is ironic that after the Reformation, the Protestants rejected the image of Mary as Mediatrix, yet fostered the image of Mary as the model of Faith. Once again, the church, this time the Protestant church, had redefined who Mary was.

In today’s Marian movement, groups such as the Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici actively and passionately support reclaiming Mary’s Medieval titles. They insist that the titles themselves are not controversial—in their eyes, “what is controversial is the idea of “defining” them - which would mean the Pope’s employing his infallible magisterium to declare them an intrinsic part of Catholic dogma”  (Caldecott). While Popes have done so regarding Mary on such issues as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, perhaps a different type of definition is needed now.  While the titles Mediatrix and Advocate of the People have some historical validity, the question may really be if they still have the same significance in today’s church as they did in Medieval times.

Throughout history, Mary has been used by the Church to define Christ.  Do we know who the person of Mary is when she is not symbolically representing someone or something else?  Perhaps it’s time to look for a new definition of Mary using the historical critical methods that have been used to redefine our view of the Christ.  Throughout the centuries, Mary has been portrayed as whatever she was needed to be.  While we cannot find the real historical Mary any more than we can the historical Jesus, we can begin to strip away the layers of titles and images that obscure who Mary is.

Bibliography

Berceo, Gonzalo de.  Miracles of Our Lady.  Trans. Richard Terry Mount and Annette Grant Cash.  Kentucky:  University Press of Kentucky, 1997.

Caldecott, Leonie and Stratford.  “The Future of Mariology?  Towards a New Marian Dogma.”  Inside the Vatican.  Online Ed.  (August 1996). n. pag.  Internet.  3 March, 1998. Available: http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Inside/08-96/maria.html.   

Carroll, Eamon R.  “Light On Our Blessed Lady:  Chapter Eight of Lumen Gentium.”  Catholic Dossier.  Online Ed.  (May/June 1996).  n. pag.  Internet.  3 March 1998.  Available:  http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Dossier/0506-96/Article2.html.

Pelikan, Jaroslav.  Mary Through the Centuries:  Her Place in the History of Culture.  New Haven and London:  Yale University Press, 1996.

Ruether, Rosemary Radford.  Sexism and God-Talk:  Toward a Feminist Theology:  With a New Introduction.  Boston:   Beacon Press, 1993.

Saward, John.  Redeemer in the Womb.  San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 1993.

Schillebeeckx, Edward and Catharina Halkes.  Mary:  Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.  New York:  Crossroad, 1993.