Mary in the Early Church

 

The study of the content of the early Christian Church’s faith, and what shape it took, is certainly a matter of historical curiosity. But more than this, such an investigation can shed light on whether the Catholic Church today—and throughout its long history—has essentially maintained the same identity which was present in those early times. What this type of investigation also confirms, by its very endeavor, is that the early Church’s faith is a continual source of renewal. Historical awareness is one of the ways in which we stay in touch with our identity, and therefore one of the ways which enables us to creatively move forward in history without losing it.

 

At first glance, comparing the content of the burgeoning Church’s faith during and after the New Testament period with the current teachings of the contemporary Church—such as papal infallibility, the Immaculate Conception, and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary—can, at the surface, lead to some perplexity. Where do we find these in the early Church? In this blog post, I will focus, in general terms, on the place and role of Mary in the early Church’s faith.

 

Saint John Henry Newman gives us a great question to start with: “What is the great rudimental teaching of Antiquity from its earliest date concerning her?”[1] Newman goes on to explain that,

 

“In that awful transaction [of original sin] there were three parties concerned,—the serpent, the woman, and the man; and at the time of their sentence, an event was announced for the future, in which the three same parties were to meet again, the serpent, the woman, and the man; but it was to be a second Adam and a second Eve, and the new Eve was to be the mother of the new Adam. ‘I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.’ The Seed of the woman is the Word Incarnate, and the Woman, whose seed or son He is, is His mother Mary.”[2]

 

Newman further elaborates and shows that this understanding of Mary as the new Eve is present in St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 120-165), St. Irenaeus (12O-200), and Tertullian (160-240), to which he adds: “Tertullian represents Africa and Rome; St. Justin represents Palestine; and St. Irenaeus Asia Minor and Gaul;-or rather he represents St. John the Evangelist, for he had been taught by the Martyr St. Polycarp, who was the intimate associate as of St. John, so of the other Apostles.”[3] After drawing out the implications of Mary’s role in the economy of salvation by comparing it to Eve’s role in the economy of our fall, he proceeds to quote each of these Fathers to make his point (as Eve contributed to our fall, so Mary contributes to our redemption).[4]

 

But the purpose of drawing out these observations is to shed light on the three-step move in the early Church from Eve to Mary to the Church. The new Adam, the new Eve, and the serpent of old all appear in the twelfth chapter of Revelation, as the drama of redemption is there represented. The woman in this scene clearly represents this Eve-Mary-Church logic. Take for instance the following text from the prophet Zephaniah:

 

“Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! […] The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: ‘Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness’” (Zephaniah 3:14-17, NRSV).[5]

 

The parallels to Luke’s account of the annunciation are quite striking:

 

“[The angel] came to her and said, ‘Rejoice, favored one! The Lord is in your midst. […] Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. […] The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Lk 1:28, 30, 35).

 

Thus, Mary embodies Israel and in her are fulfilled the prophetic aspirations of God dwelling within his chosen people. As Amy Carman writes: “Mary responds to the miraculous event with spontaneous song. She expresses the depth of her gratitude and thankfulness; this song radiates from the very core of her being.”^[6] In the mystery of the annunciation, the dialogue between God and Mary represents the relationship between the creator and the creature. In this manner, Mary, who conceives the Word, is the archetype of all of creation, indeed of redeemed creation, which is the Church.

 

This personification of the community in Mary is further elaborated by Joseph Ratzinger, who notes that,

 

“Matthew, in his account of Jesus’ conception, makes one alteration to the words of Isaiah. He does not repeat the phrase ‘she [the virgin] shall call his name Emmanuel.’ Instead, he says ‘they shall call his name Emmanuel (which means, God with us.’ This ‘they’ is an allusion to the future communion of believers, the Church, which shall call Jesus by this name.”[7]

 

And so, based on Newman’s geographically dispersed, apostolically linked, primitive and patristic historical evidence which ties Genesis 3 to Revelation 12, and based on the textual evidence (which is of course also historical evidence) which ties Mary to the Church, we are able to glimpse a general idea of the place and role of Mary in the early Church’s faith. Now, what additionally comes to the fore is the textual evidence for the praise which Mary received from the very beginning of the Church’s life. Ratzinger remarks:

 

“The Church invented nothing new of her own when she began to extol Mary; [… Saint Luke] would certainly not have transmitted Mary's prophecy if it had seemed to him an indifferent or obsolete item. He wished in his Gospel to record ‘with care’ what ‘the eyewitnesses and ministers of the word’ (Lk 1:2-3) had handed on from the beginning, in order to give the faith of Christianity, which was then striding onto the stage of world history, a reliable guide for its future course. […] The continued existence of such praise at least in one strand of early Christian tradition is the basis of Luke's infancy narrative. The recording of these words in the Gospel raises this veneration of Mary from historical fact to a commission laid upon the Church of all places and all times.”[8]

 

But we still seem to be miles from the Church’s contemporary teachings within the study of Mariology. Is there a historically grounded logic which can bridge this gap? Or has theology gone too far?

 

To understand the identification of Mary with the Church is not without consequences. Ratzinger’s words now make sense to us: “Everything said about the ecclesia in the Bible is true of [Mary], and vice versa: the Church learns concretely what she is and is meant to be by looking at Mary”[9] and “Mariology can never be purely Mariological. Rather, it stands within the totality of the basic Christ-Church structure and is the most concrete expression of its inner coherence.”[10] This is the logic which grounds the continuity between the early Church and the contemporary Church, it is what grounds the unique identity of both. How so? Ratzinger, once again, gives us the answer:

 

“The patristic period foreshadowed the whole of Mariology in the guise of ecclesiology, […] The virgo ecclesia [virgin Church], the mater ecclesia [mother Church], the ecclesia immaculata [immaculate Church], the ecclesia assumpta [assumed Church]-the whole content of what would later become Mariology was first conceived as ecclesiology.”[11]

 

And so, we now see the logic which the Catholic Church has operated from throughout its long history, thereby essentially maintaining the same identity which was present in those early times. And we also see how Ratzinger’s theology, in returning to the early Church’s faith, restores the proper ecclesiological emphasis of Mariology (which had been somewhat eclipsed) by drawing from the early Church’s faith, which is a continual source of renewal. Thus, historical awareness is one of the ways in which the Church stays in touch with her identity, and one of the ways which enables her to creatively move forward in history without losing it.

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[1] John Henry Newman, Mary as the New Eve (http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/marian/newman1.html), chapter IV The Second Eve.

[2] Newman, Mary as the New Eve.

[3] Newman, Mary as the New Eve.

[4] For example, Saint Irenaeus says, “the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith.” In W. A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1970), 93.

[5] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (New York, American Bible Society, 1865).

[6] Amy Smith Carman, “Ave Maria: Old Testament Allusions in the Magnificat,” Priscilla Papers 31, no. 2 (2017), 15.

[7] Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Ratzinger, Mary the Church at the Source (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1980), 86.

[8] Balthasar, Ratzinger, Mary the Church at the Source, 61-62.

[9] Balthasar, Ratzinger, Mary the Church at the Source, 66.

[10] Balthasar, Ratzinger, Mary the Church at the Source, 30.

[11] Balthasar, Ratzinger, Mary the Church at the Source, 28.