Theotokos - Mary, the Mother of God
How often do we pray the Hail Mary and stop to reflect on the words “.. holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death”? For most of us it is natural to call Our Lady the Mother of God. But in the early days of the Church this was not always the case...
In the first few centuries of Christianity, as it emerged from the catacombs and no longer persecuted by the Roman Emporers, it became an official established religion. However disagreements soon started to arise as to how to explain what they believed. This is where faith and philosophy started to come together and the Church Fathers were formulating our faith for us, defending the faith against false interpretations and heresies. Over time they gathered together in Councils to discuss, define and proclaim the faith. These are called the Ecumenical Councils and the Creed we say at Mass every Sunday was formulated at these councils - specifically the Council of Nicea in 325 and fine tuned later at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
One of the most complicated issues in the early Church was to really explain and understand who Jesus Christ is and was. We easily and without hesitation profess that we believe that Jesus Christ is “true God & true man” - but what does this mean? How can he be both? Surely he was a person who would veryine became divine right? Or was he the Eternal God who became human and looked like a human but wasn’t really a human, he only appeared to be one.
The way that the Church Fathers agreed to understand this mystery is called the “Hypostatic Union” - a human nature and divine nature, united as one person. This is a mystery and difficult to understand of course, but that’s the beauty of our faith and the rich theological tradition we have inherited! These two natures/substances were unified, united and joined to create one person - Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
The second person of the Trinity - the Son, the Eternal Word came into the womb of the Virgin Mary, took flesh from her, creating a body for Himself and became a human baby. But the human baby was not just an empty shell that was possessed by God, it was a normal human being just like us but without original sin. This baby was a new creation just like Adam was, but instead of being formed from the earth like Adam was, this baby was formed from the virgin “earth” of Mary - her humanity. This baby was fully human and fully divine, not a hybrid or a monstrosity - but a wonderful, mysterious new creation. The Son (second Person of the Trinity) created this human body and He assumed it, became one with it, and this created human nature was simultaneously and mysteriously divine - a human person was God! This new being is something that had never exited before , nor could anyone comprehend it. This new being, fully human and fully divine, was a single unified person, whole and indivisible - the Godman, Jesus. The union of divinity and humanity in this baby is the Hypostatic Union. This is the wonderful mystery we have been celebrating this Christmas period!
As the Magnificat Antiphon from the Divine Office for today proclaims:
“Marvelous is the mystery proclaimed today: man’s nature is made new as God becomes man; he remains what he was and becomes what he was not. Yet each nature stays distinct and for ever undivided.”
This is why we invoke Our Lady in our prayers and call her the “Mother of God”. Because she gave birth to God Himself! The human nature of Jesus was taken from Mary, in the same way that all of us take out biological make up from our parents to become a unique person. So too Jesus was a unique person - human nature from Mary, divine nature of the Son. But these two natures are unified in a wonderful harmony. There is no opposition between them, nor is it the case of the humanity being absorbed by the divinity. The two natures miraculously exist as one united whole person, this Hypostatic Union is Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, our Lord and Saviour who died on the cross for us, but defeated death, and now reigns in the glory of heaven.
Because most of us are not able to really understand this mystery, many people instead dismiss it or try to explain it incorrectly and fall into heresy. This is what happened in the early Church. Some people agreed that Jesus was fully human and divine, however they said that Mary could only have given birth to the human nature of Jesus. Their logic was that if they said Mary gave birth to God then it would mean that she somehow became greater than God Himself and this was too scandalous for them to consider.
But this is exactly the scandal of the incarnation - of God becoming flesh. God “stripped off” His glory, he emptied Himself to become human (Philippians 2:6-7). This emptying of Himself is called “Kenosis” in theology, because it is the Greek word meaning to self empty. The Church Fathers also spoke of this in terms of God “Condescending” - which comes from Latin meaning to “come down with/together”. The Eternal God coming down to us, making himself little, small, understandable and tangible. He “humbled himself” in this action of condescension and kenosis in the Incarnation.
This humility of God, this coming down with us, this self emptying, can help us to understand what St Paul is referring to in his wonderful hymn in Philippians 2:5-12. In another letter he juxtaposes this imagery with another term - “Pleroma” which means fullness. So in Colossians 1:29, he speaks of the fullness, the pleroma that dwelt in Christ - that is the fullness of divinity, the Godhead. So God was fully present and dwelt in the person of Jesus Christ, but without showing His glory. Jesus was fully God and fully human, divinity emptied of glory to unite with humanity, and humanity now containing the infinite fullness of divinity. This is the mystery of the Hypostatic Union.
The Hypostatic Union is two natures - human and divine, united in one Person - Jesus Christ. They cannot be separated or confused. The two natures united and fused in a new creation, they cannot be separated or distinguished. There’s no such thing as Jesus the human acting one way, and then Jesus acting a different way as God. The two natures although different, we’re fully united and joined. They cannot be separated or one seen as an addition to the other - the two natures existed together as a united and indivisible whole. Everything that Jesus did - breathing, walking, speaking, eating, sleeping - his entire existence was the one action of his human nature and divine nature, completely in harmony and union.
This meant he also only had will. He did not have a human/divine split personality, not was he schizophrenic. The fully human and fully divine natures of Jesus are united as one single person, who has one will, one mind, one body, one soul, one existence. (How we understand the two natures in one person, yet with one Will, was further developed at addressed at the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451. That is a different and complicated topic that I will not go into here.)
So when Our Lady gave birth to Jesus at Bethlehem - she did not give birth to a human body only. She gave birth to Jesus, the baby boy who was human and divine, one person. This means that she gave birth to God!
This is why from the earliest days we have honoured Mary and invoked her with the title of Mother of God. The original Greek term for this is Theotokos which actually means the “God bearer” or you could even say “birth giver of God”. This is how the Slavic peoples translated Theotokos when they call her the Bogorodica.
Mary the Mother of God, the Theotokos, was proclaimed a Dogma at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431. This Council was presided over by St Cyril of Alexandria who we have to thank today not only for our theological language, but also for the Creed we recite at Mass on Sundays and Solemnities. This is why St Cyril is not only a Church Father, but he is also a Doctor of the Church.
The Council of Nicea when formulating the Dogma of the Theotokos, Mary the Mother of God proclaimed the following anathemas:
1. If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore that the holy virgin is the mother of God (for she bore in a fleshly way the Word of God become flesh, let him be anathema.
2. If anyone does not confess that the Word from God the Father has been united by hypostasis with the flesh and is one Christ with his own flesh, and is therefore God and man together, let him be anathema.
An anathema is a declaration of the Church that is you reject a Dogma, then you are “accursed”. You have removed yourself from the True Faith, you are not part of the Church and therefore you have lost your salvation - you are excommunicated.
So to deny that Mary is the Mother of God, the Theotokos, is to fall into christological heresy. It is serious stuff! So remember this next time you take your prayers or devotions for granted, when rushing through the rosary without realising what you’re praying, Everytime you invoke Our Lady as Mother of God, you are affirming and declaring your belief in the Hypostatic Union! You are showing you are in continuity with the Apostolic Faith as defined and proclaimed by the earth Church Councils. Everything we do and say always has meaning! It is impregnated with meaning!
One of the earliest prayers recorded to Our Lady is known as the “Sub tuum praesidium”. The oldest papyrus copy of this prayer is dated to the year 259. This is older than many of the codexes we have of the scripts of the Bible itself! Even the canon of the New Testament was not codified until sometimes between the years 382 - 405, depending on what scholars agree on.
In this prayer to Mary, she is referred specifically referred to as the Theotokos, the Godbearer, Mother of God. The Latin version of the prayer uses the term “Dei Gentrix” which is closer to the Greek Theotokos. However over time, the terminology changed and so in many Latin prayers like the Hail Mary, the words used are “Mater Dei” - which we know in English as Mother of God.
So devotion to Mary is truly Apostolic, it is an integral part of what it means to be Christian. The evidence for this speaks for itself when the papyrus for the “Sub tuum praesidium” prayer is at least 130 years older than before the agreed canon of the New Testament was codified by the Church. Devotion to Mary is not only Apostolic, it is also Christological - whatever we say about Mary reflects our belief in Jesus Christ himself.
This is also why many of the Church Fathers and saints throughout the ages have symbolically interpreted passages of the Old Testament as prefiguring Mary ie.. she is the mother of Life, the New Eve (Genesis 3:20), she is the Virgin Earth from which the New Adam is created (Genesis 2:7), she is the Burning Bush who was consumed by the fire God (Exodus 3:2), the Closed Garden that meant she was a perpetual Virgin (Song of Songs 4:22), the Ark of the New Covenant that contained the word of God (Exodus 25:10-20), the pure Cloud that brings the Rain of Righteousness (1 Kings 18:44).
These are just to name a few that the Church Fathers identified. Others are mentioned in the Litany of Loreto - such as Tower of David, Mystical Rose, House of Gold, Gate of Heaven, Morning Star..
All of these titles come from images in the Bible, and although the refer to Mary, they all highlight an aspect of Christ. So they are also Christological. All our devotion and honour for Mary always points back to Christ. It’s that simple. We have such a rich symbolic and mystic tradition that is constantly reaffirming and proclaiming our belief in Christ, even when it’s the simplest of prayers or actions. Even our statues and icons only exist because if the Incarnation, because as St John Damascene points out, the invisible God became visible, he became flesh and has a face, so now even physical reality points towards the Incarnation.
Today we celebrate the fact that Mary is the Mother of God, the Theotokos. She bore God, gave birth to God, taught God to walk and talk. The Eternal Word became silent and learnt how to speak from Mary his mother! Love made flesh received love and learnt how to love from his Mother Mary.
The Maternity of Mary, the Divine Motherhood is the hinge of our faith. It is such an essential and intrinsic part of our faith we can easily overlook it or take it for granted. But it’s been hidden in the Old Testament and then in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4-7) been made manifest on the New Testament. When you understand scripture as the early Christian’s and Church Fathers did, as the Church still reacted is to - then your eyes will open in wonder, you will sing the praise of God with joy, and you’ll want to ensure all generations (Luke 1:48) call the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Full of Grace (Luke 1:26), Blessed among women (Luke 1:42) - the Most holy Theotokos, Mother of God.
Let us make these our prayers that the Church boldly proclaims with all the saints in the Divine Office during the antiphons for Evening prayer for the Solemnity of the Mother of God :
Antiphon #1
O wonderful exchange! The Creator of human nature took on a human body and was born of the Virgin. He became man without having a human father and has bestowed on us his divine nature.
Antiphon #2
You were born of the Virgin in a mysterious manner of which no man can speak; you fulfilled the scriptures; like rain falling gently on the earth you came hither to save the human race. We praise you: you are our God.
Antiphon #3
Moses saw the thorn bush that was on fire yet was not burnt up. In it we see a sign of your virginity, which all must honour. Mother of God, pray for us.
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