When cultural
accommodation goes too far!
Dr.
Joseph Fuiten
Sunday Night,
When
Jesus taught us to pray he said "This,
then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your
name…” (Matt 6:9) So when we pray,
we pray to the Father. Nowhere in the
Bible are we ever instructed to pray to anyone else. In the Catholic world, during the months of
December and May, there is a strong emphasis upon Mary and the prayers that are
to be offered to her.
The question that is worth asking is how did we get from “Our Father” to “Hail Mary?”
There
are two answers that are commonly given.
The first is that it is a demonic plot to draw worship from the
uncreated Savior to an earthly person.
The second is that it is the accumulation and residue of several
centuries of trying to compete with pagan culture. In the process of competition, Christians put
forward their best alternative to the fertility cults of the pagans.
If
we put the best face on it, they were trying to bring the people over in the
best way possible. One of their methods
was the conversion of pagan shrines into
This
happened all over the ancient world. In
On
a Catholic website devoted to Mary there is a frank discussion of why Mary is
often shown with the clam or scallop shell.
Their discussion is shown below.
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Madonna and Child |
![[Mary and the shell]](011125pm_files/image002.jpg)
“The shell or clam shell has symbolic value
in many cultures, from
The origin of this symbol is to be found
probably in Judges 6,36f. ("concham rore implevit") and becomes
a Marian symbolism thanks to the famous Physiologus.
…the shell symbol is commonly applied to the incarnation of the divine logos.
The shell as symbol of divine conception
(virginal conception) is prominent in Italian Renaissance, especially in
representations of Mary and child standing below the symbol of the clam shell.
So in paintings by Neri di Bicci, Tavernelle, Pieso della Francesca, Buttinone. A particularly telling example can be found on
the west portal of the Pisa dome where the Annunciation is accompanied with the
symbol of shell and pearl, titled" "Rore coelesti foecundor"
(heavenly dew will make me fruitful). The symbol is widely used in baroque
emblems regarding Mary's virginal conception.
What is clear is the adoption of the
emblems of mythology to embellish the character of Mary. In particular, I think the goal was often to
use familiar ideas to convert the population to Christian ways of
thinking. Unfortunately, this sometimes
brought along unintended connotations and connections. The case of Mary in
Ephesus
We wonder if there was not
some connection between the desire of the people to acknowledge an ancient
female deity and a church dedicated to Mary. In that city there was no
reluctance to honor the female goddess.
That had been a key issue with which the church had contended in the
early years. If my wondering has merit,
how might this situation have come about?
Even though the church was
separating from paganism, there was still considerable accommodation and interchange.
The Christian emperors were being memorialized in coins and inscriptions as
“deified,” still divus in the mid-fifth century. The father of Theodosius received honor in
The inclination of the
church to try to capture pagan holidays and activities, reorienting them to
Christian ideas has been around for some time. Many of the traditions that are
part of Christian celebrations today had their roots in pagan practices. Even
the tune to a song like “Amazing Grace” has its origins in less than a holy
place. As a teenager, my generation took
the popular song, Bridge over Troubled
Waters, and set it to pictures about Jesus. We gave a new, and Christian,
meaning to the old terms and melodies that were strictly secular when they were
written.
While I cannot be certain, I
wonder if something like this was not partly in operation in
I have not been able to
discover the precise date when the Church was named in Mary’s honor. I seem to recall, although I am not positive
and have been unable to locate the source, that
The naming of a single
church in honor of Mary, which is not necessarily negative, is a very small
thing compared to what would later transpire in that church building. In that church dedicated to Mary, a
significant theological decision was made which still reverberates into our
time. That decision was to shift the
title of “Mary, Mother of Jesus” to “Mary, Mother of God.”
How did Mary, 400 years after her death, get designated the Mother of God?
We think of the conflict
around the definition of Mary’s role and title as something of the
Reformation. In fact, the controversy
goes back many centuries.
The decisive spark of
conflict was lit when Emperor Theodosius II appointed Nestorius
to be Patriarch of Constantinople, the leading Ministry post in the
empire. Somewhere around 428 or 429 Nestorius preached the first of his famous sermons against
the word Theotokos,
and detailed his Antiochian doctrine of the
Incarnation. As the theological battle intensified, so did the rhetoric. In a
couple of sermons preached December 13th and 14, 430, Nestorius
said, “If Mary is called the Mother of God, she will be made into a goddess,
and the Gentiles will be scandalized.” [5] Nestorius was
opposing the growing tendency to elevate the status of Mary. Even though he had
the most influential church position and spoke for the tradition of the church,
he did not ultimately carry the day.
The views of Nestorius were finally overturned, possibly in part because
of his lack of political skills. Nestorius was outflanked
at the Council of Ephesus, refusing to participate in meetings unless also
accompanied by his loyal bishops. Theology can, at times, have a political
side. The story of the Council of
Ephesus in 431 AD was one of those times. Stephen Ulrich wrote the following
account of that Council. [6]
“Nestorius
arrived on Easter, April 16, with 16 bishops and an armed escort. He had heard
of the reputation of Cyril. He had also faced opposition and physical threats
from some monks in
The next day, June 22, Cyril
opened the council presiding over 60 like-minded bishops (Kelly 327), and
dispatched four bishops to summon Nestorius. He
refused to appear before the oriental bishops arrived. In the absence of Nestorius, the supporters of Cyril moved quickly to depose
him. They finally pronounced a formal statement against Nestorius.
Meanwhile, outside there was a crowd gathered, eagerly anticipating the
outcome. It is worthy to note that there were demonstrations of women in
The Mother of our Lord
through a late tradition seems to be connected to
Meanwhile, Nestorius
met with a group of 43 rival bishops in a synod and issued a similar verdict
against Cyril and the rest of the bishops. (Atiya
250)
Finally, on June 26, the
oriental delegation of bishops arrived under the leadership of John of Antioch.
John petitions Emperor Theodosius and describes the city in a state of civil
war and "all manner of confusion." (Gregory 104) In his letter, he
squarely places the responsibility on the shoulders of Cyril and Memnon. Theodosius, after hearing of the condemnation of Nestorius and his teaching (June 29) dispatched a letter to
The story continues on in typical
Byzantine fashion with enough intrigue and deception to satisfy any modern
student of politics.
One surprising aspect of this
Council was its relatively small size, particularly the sixty who were present
when eliminating Nestorius’ influence. This handful
of bishops compares quite unfavorably to the Council of Nicea
where some 400 bishops were present.[7] Even though it was over a hundred years
later, the number of bishops present was less than half of the Nicean Council. Like
modern elections, the Ephesian Council was notable
for how few actually participated.
It is common to assign this conflict to spiritual
issues. Without a doubt, there were spiritual issues. In those days, most of
the discussion centered on the appropriate use of the term theotokos ("she who bore God"
or "Mother of God") for the mother of our Lord. Nestorius disliked
the term. He preferred Christotokos
("Mother of Christ" or "Messiah bearer"), Anthropotokos
("Mother of man"), or Theodokos ("God-receiving").
As a theological term, Theotokos first appeared in a
letter written in 324 by Bishop Alexander of
What Ulrich’s text points out is the
political side to the conflict. Ultimately, Cyril of Egypt anathematized Nestorius. “What is the benefit gained by Cyril
anathematizing Nestorius? The evidence seems to
suggest that within
Ulrich notes that eventually Nestorius
agreed that the title theotokos
was acceptable enough when properly explained and qualified. Both Cyril and Nestorius
agreed that Christ had two natures.
Cyril, for his part, emphasized the differences and called the
difference heresy. Nestorius was not as politically clever as
his opponent was and, as a result, we have the idea “Mary, Mother of God.”[9]
I am particularly interested in Ulrich’s comments on the
role of the women demonstrators outside the Church. Does it mean anything that these were women
and not men? Is this more of the ancient
traditions of
What does it say about the spiritual climate of
that city that the women believed the outcome could be influenced by a popular
demonstration? Rather than an appeal to the words of Scripture these women
somehow appealed to the passion of the street. What significance does their
personalization of the argument hold? That is, they attached the personalities
of various people to their side of the argument. So when the decision of Nestorius'
deposition was announced, they formed a procession or demonstration to show
their support. I am aware that theology had a lot more participation at the
popular level in that time. Even that,
however, does not fully explain to me why the women of
In Peter Wagner’s short Queen of Heaven booklet on this subject, he stops a fraction of a
millimeter short of saying outright that the deification or elevation of Mary
was a spiritual substitute for their previous loyalty to Artemis. In fact, I suspect he really believes that
but didn’t want to say it outright for fear of being misunderstood by faithful
Catholics and Orthodox.
This much we can say with certainty.
Was Mary always a virgin, or did she have a
normal relationship once she married Joseph?
Matthew 13:54-56 is quite
clear that after Jesus was born, several other children were eventually born to
the union of Mary and Joseph.
“Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" they asked. "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?"
Acts
Did Mary remain a life-long
virgin, or did she have other children as the Scripture indicates. Origen, one of the
church fathers from the middle 200’s AD gives us a clue to the background. He tells us where the idea came from the Mary
had no other children. In doing so, Origen is letting us know that the “ever-virgin” idea was
not a universal idea. It was not widely believed. It came from a single source. He is tracing the idea to its source. Then he tells us why people would invent such
an idea. Their reason was to honor
purity.
“And depreciating the whole of what appeared to be His nearest kindred, they said, "Is not His mother called Mary? And His brethren , James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?" They thought, then, that He was the son of Joseph and Mary. But some say, basing it on a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled, or "The Book of James," that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end, so that that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the word which said, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee," might not know intercourse with a man after that the Holy Ghost came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the first-fruit among men of the purity which consists in chastity, and Mary among women; for it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the first-fruit of virginity.”[10]
In order to successfully challenge
the culture, you have to be willing to be different than the culture. There has to be a missionary heart in the
Christian.