What is Mariology?

MARY: BLESSED AMONG WOMEN OR "CO‑MEDIATOR"?

Scripture calls the virgin Mary highly favored and blessed among women, but to Roman Catholics Mary is much more. Special honor and veneration for the Virgin began in the early centuries of the Church and turned into what many evangelical Protestants believe is the pure and simple worship of Mary, which has finally reached the point of saying her role in Redemption is of equal importance with Christ's.

Mary-Worship

The worship of the Virgin Mary originally sprang from the ascetic spirit which became so prevalent in the fourth century. Before this period, there is no trace of the worship of Mary. About the same time — the close of the fourth century — it was discovered and circulated that there were in the temple at Jerusalem virgins consecrated to God, among whom Mary grew up in vows of perpetual virginity. This new doctrine led to the veneration of Mary as the very ideal of the celibate state, and sanctioned the profession of religious chastity. Soon after this it became customary to apply to the virgin the appellation, "Mother of God;" which gave rise to the Nestorian controversy. But, in spite of all opposition, Mary-worship prevailed; and, in the fifth century, images and beautiful paintings of the virgin, holding the infant Jesus in her arms were placed in all the churches. Thus introduced she rapidly rose into an object of direct worship; and Mariolatry became the ruling passion of the Romish church. The daily office for Mary, and the days and festivals which had been dedicated to her honour, were confirmed by Urban II. in the Council of Clermont, A.D. 1095.

Reverence for the blessed virgin was now an established doctrine and practice in the church of Rome, and has so continued down to the present day. Romanists may affect to deny that they honour Mary with the worship due to God only, but in their books of devotion prayers to the virgin occupy a prominent place. No prayer, we believe, is in more constant use than the "Aye Maria," or "Hail Mary," which, after quoting a passage from the salutation of the angel Gabriel to the virgin, adds these words, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and in the hour of death, Amen." Again, in another prayer, the virgin is thus addressed, "We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God, despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us from all dangers, O ever glorious and blessed Virgin." Another runs thus, "Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! to thee we cry, poor banished sons of Eve, to thee we send up our sighs, mourning, and weeping in this valley of tears, turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us," etc. She is also called, "Ark of the Covenant," "Gate of heaven," "Morning Star," "Refuge of sinners," and many other such terms, which plainly show the idolatrous place which Mary occupies in the devotions of the Romish church.*

Further it is informative to see how Scripture refers to our Lord’s mother, when it is a question of a SPIRITUAL, and not a human setting. Incidentally it is a deeply interesting study as rebuking Mariolatry, that is the worship of the Virgin Mary, or setting her up as an intercessor with our Lord.

The Ritualists, in other words the Roman Catholics, exalt the Virgin Mary to be “the mother of God,” to whom worship and prayer are to be made. Further on her behalf a papal decree has falsely set forth that hers was an “immaculate birth,” that is the Virgin Mary was born sinless, and without a trace of the fall.

Catholics, however, have an answer for the "you worship Mary" charge by pointing out the different levels of worship used in the Catholic church: latria, adoration for the triune God alone; dulia, veneration due the angels and canonized saints; and hyperdulia, a category reserved for Mary alone in which she is given 'superveneration'.

Protestants note that the superveneration has grown through the centuries, beginning with tradition taught as early as the fourth century that Mary's virginity continued after the birth of Jesus and that she never had any more children. Other doctrines that grew out of tradition include the Immaculate Conception (she was conceived without sin and lived a sinless life), proclaimed dogma in 1854 by Pope Pius IX, and the doctrine of the Assumption (that she was taken up body and soul directly to heaven), proclaimed dogma in 1950 by Pope Pius XIL

Beginning in the late nineteenth and continuing into the twentieth century, several papal encyclicals referred to Mary in different ways as "Mediatrix" - co-mediator with Christ between God and man - and "Redemptrix," Christ's "associate in the redemption." Most explicit, perhaps, were the words of Pope Leo XIII in 1891: "As no man goeth to the Father but by the Son, so no man goeth to Christ but by His mother."

Mary the mother of Jesus is seen here for the last time in Scripture. She takes her place simply with the rest, humbled, no doubt, rather than exalted by God's grace towards her. What a grief it would have been to her to have known the place in which an apostate church would set her in the time to come! She is neither prayed to, nor even leads in prayer, but remains as in the beginning "the handmaid of the Lord," and with this passes out of the history. In the doctrine of the epistles she has no place, and is never mentioned. Blessed and honored she is, and always will be; by none so dishonored as by those who would force her into a place impossible for a creature, that of a Pagan goddess rather than a Christian saint.

Now there are other statements in the Bible that are only true, when not unduly pressed, and which may become positively dangerous, if divorced from a just perspective. And such, it would seem, is the case with what is said in scripture about the mother of our Lord. At first sight the language of Christ in correcting the woman who pronounced His mother blessed, might seem to be at variance with the language of Mary's own inspired song. Did she not say that from henceforth all generations would call her blessed? Yet here we see the Lord reproving undue, or at least exclusive, occupation with her, whom the angel Gabriel had greeted as highly favoured [and blessed among women].* To superficial minds it might seem rather harsh to damp such generous homage. But the interpretation is perfectly simple. Mary was in the flesh most highly favoured, singled out by a supreme distinction. It is even possible that, in a laudable desire to steer clear of Roman error, Protestants may have somewhat overlooked the signal honour of the Virgin, though this were doubtless to err, if to err at all, on the right side.

[*"Hail, favoured one!" said Gabriel to Mary; who in her turn said to her cousin Elizabeth, "Blessed art thou among women." So the R.V. admits in accordance with the best authority. The Vulgate leaned to the heaping of honour on Mary; and many followed it. Ed.].

But our Lord evidently intended His hearers to understand that no mere emotional admiration of Himself or His words could take the place of faith and godliness and holy life. Rather blessed, said He, were those that heard the word of God and kept it. This is spiritual blessing, which is far beyond fleshly. Nor is it fanciful to suppose that the Saviour was guarding against undue exaltation of the creature, to which the human heart is so prone, and which may perhaps have sometimes claimed to justify itself by those very words of the angel, recorded earlier in this Gospel. In short it is right to account Mary favoured; it is grievously wrong to pay her honours due only to God; it is a mistake to forget that even spiritual blessedness exceeds any honour in the flesh.

In brief: Mary had a very special place – but one of privilege, not of authority or power. Praying to Mary is simply idolatry. Worship belongs to God.

Let us see the place Scripture gives to the Virgin Mary. Reading the Scriptures in the knowledge of the lengths of unscriptural adulation to which Ritualism has gone in regard to the Virgin Mary, it looks as if this tendency was foreseen. Quietly, and none the less effectively, the Virgin Mary is given rightful honour, but no more. She is indeed “blessed among women.”

The angel tells her she is “highly favoured” (Luke 1:28). Could any woman have a higher favour than to be the mother of our Lord according to the flesh? “Blessed art thou among women” (Luke 1:28), is the salutation of the angel. “Blessed” she certainly was. Note, it does not say “Most blessed.” The language is restrained. No room for Mariolatry there.

Amid it all, He has still the human tenderness which shows unchanged the Man Christ Jesus. His mother, standing by His cross, He commends to the care of His beloved disciple, the spiritual link being more than the natural, even while the natural is being recognized. Here, with one exception in the first chapter of Acts, we part with Mary; she is not mentioned in the after-books. In all the doctrine of the epistles she has no place. Blessed among women as she is surely by her connection with the human nature of our Lord, the entire silence of Scripture as to her in that fulness of Christian truth which it was the office of the Spirit of truth to communicate is the decisive overthrow of the whole Babel-structure of Mariolatry which Romanism has built up upon a mere sand-foundation. She remains for us in the word of God, a simple woman rejoicing in God her Saviour, — a stone in the temple to His praise, and with no temple of her own. To use the grace of the Redeemer in taking flesh among us by her means to exalt the mother to the dishonor of Christ her Lord is truly a refined wickedness worthy of the arch-deceiver of mankind.