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Index to All Eight Articles on Mary
Index to All Five Sections of Apparitions of The Virgin Mary
(1) Worldwide Apparitions, (2) Solar Phenomena, (3) Psychological Factors.
(4) Return of The goddesses, (5) Conclusion
Also See Excerpts from The History of Mary Veneration: A Protestant Perspective BELOW
The Recurring Tendency Of Mankind To Worship A Mother-Goddess
ie. Mankind's Deep Seated Need For A 'Mother Figure'.
Ever wonder why virtually every culture features primary female deities. In fact, the worship of mother goddesses has come down from early prehistoric fertility cults to sophisticated organized religions and remains a significant part of modern pagan beliefs.
The pull toward a mother figure is a deeply felt worldwide impulse that has kindled the veneration of female sacred images for thousands of years. Mankind seems to have a deep seated need for the 'Eternal Feminine' perhaps because it is likely a regression into the experience of total dependence, safety, and nourishment provided by the biological mother.
Reconnecting with a female deity seems to allow adults to psychologically reengage with primary comfort. Thus virtually every culture features important female deities - mother goddesses who embody the concepts of motherhood and fertility.
Although they are too numerous to count, some examples are
Isis: represented maternal strength was one of the most important goddesses of ancient Egypt whose worship eventually spread across the entire Greco-Roman world.
Incidentally: The Daughters of Isis is an organization that serves as the female auxiliary to the Prince Hall Shriners. HERE
Inanna: whose primary title was "Queen of Heaven" is possibly the oldest known goddess whose name and symbols appear in cuneiform records dating back to around 3200 BCE in ancient Mesopotamia. She later became identified by the Akkadians and Assyrians as the goddess...
Ishtar: in Mesopotamian religion, goddess of war and sexual love. Ishtar is considered a member of the special class of Mesopotamian gods called the Anunnaki.
From Artemis/Diana of Ephesus ...... To Mary
The societies of the time of the first apostles were
... steeped in a world of gods and semi-divine human beings. Doubtless for many converts to Christianity, the old ways of thinking could not have been easily shed, even after Baptism... the loss of the feminine element in Western Christianity created a "Goddess-shaped gap." The Virgin Mary was the obvious candidate to fill that gap". [01]
Artemis (known to the Romans as Diana) the chief goddess of Ephesus was the most influential goddess of the time - her magnificent temple constructed entirely of marble was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and attracted pilgrims from across the Mediterranean.
Her followers called her "magnificent," "great goddess," "savior," and "Queen of Heaven."
See Mary - Queen of Heaven?
Acts 19:23-31 describes the riot that took place because Paul's preaching was threatening the livelihood of the silversmiths who made shrines and statues of Artemis to sell to the public. The account also tells us that she was worshipped in all of Asia and the world. (Emphasis Added)
"Not only is there danger that this trade of ours fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis be regarded as worthless and that she whom all of Asia and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence." (Acts 19:27 NASB)
Artemis was the Greek goddess of the hunt, wild animals, the Moon and chastity. Diana, the Roman equivalent of Artemis was also the goddess of the hunt, the moon and birthing, but was also one of the three maiden goddesses along with Minerva and Vesta who swore never to marry. In other words she was a virgin goddess, something that even Shakespeare wrote about more than once
The original temple of Artemis/Diana in Ephesus was built in the 8th century BC, but was destroyed more than once - by flood and arson etc. It's final destruction came in a raid by the Goths somewhere around the second half of the third century (some sources date the event to 401 AD).
Apparently, the conversion to Christianity left a void in people that had worshipped a female deity for centuries, which was probably enhanced when the city was also suddenly bereft of her temple.
Mary
The Council of Ephesus was held in 431 AD, anywhere from 30-60 years after the destruction of the temple of Diana. So it is hardly surprising that, although many in Ephesus had converted to Christianity, the concept of a divine mother still held a strong attraction.
However, the Bible is very patriarchal, describing the Creator as "Father", and Jesus as His "Son", which left little room for a mother image. Since other deities could not be assimilated into Christianity, the veneration of Mary provided an outlet for what, even now, seems to be a common desire for a divine mother.
Thus it is no surprise that it was at this council that the Virgin Mary was officially proclaimed Theotokos (Mother of God) which some argue acted as a functional replacement for the titles given to Artemis. Many scholars believe this was more than a theological debate - it was a cultural shift. The reverence once given to Artemis as Queen of Heaven was now transferred to Mary in Ephesus.
Mary became the "Queen of Heaven" Mary - Queen of Heaven?
Reverence for her (Diana) was as so deeply entrenched in the community of this city, that after her temple was destroyed, and Christian churches were built on top of her sacred places, her citizens brought forward the only female character in the new ruling religion of Christianity, the Virgin Mary, and re-named her Theotokos, Mother of God, within its city walls.
The fundamental position of this work is that a fusion took place between the ancient worship of Artemis in Ephesus, and the elevation of Mary to Theotokos, and that this fusion is not a result of the church-initiated action to convert the Ephesians, but rather the Ephesians forcing the early church to accommodate their traditions of Artemis by re-shaping and re-interpreting the authority and responsibilities of the Virgin Mary. [02]
Diana survived this new religion under the guise of Mary, Mother of Jesus." After all
if Eve sinned and humanity was doomed through the error a woman, how can humanity saved without the faithfulness of a woman? We need a Mary that genuinely participated in the story of salvation to reverse the damage that was done during the fall. [03]
In fact, the Biblical account of the virgin birth of Christ tied in very nicely with the story of Diana as a maiden goddess. Mary was considered the new Eve who, in complete contrast to the first Eve who brought death into the world, was the instrument of hope for mankind.
It is little wonder that the people demanded she be called "Mother of God" and that, from then on, countless statues, paintings and hymns would be devoted to her.
Particularly interesting is one of the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez's earliest known works, The Immaculate Conception (1618-19) shows Mary standing on the moon or earth with a small image of a temple in the bottom left hand corner. the question of why there is a temple at all in the painting may be answered by the fact that it bears some resemblance to the temple of Diana.
Footnote I "Mother of God" vs. Theotokos
There is a subtle but important difference between the title "Mother of God" and the word Theotokos
"Mother of God" implies that Mary was the originator of God thus predated Him. This is clearly unbiblical as God is eternal - nothing and no one predated Him.
On the other hand
"Theotokos" simply implies that Mary carried God in her womb and gave birth to Him in His human form.
In other words, Mary contributed to the development of Jesus' human not divine nature. She was the human agent through whom the Son of God took on a human body and a human nature and entered the world, thus it is not wrong to say that Mary carried God in her womb - she was the "God-bearer"
And that is exactly how the Council of Ephesus used the word to express the Incarnation. However, as said in an article on Pulpit and Pen,
Even though the term Theotokos was originally used to help explain the Incarnation, many people today use the term, or the related mother of God, to communicate something different. Through the years, many legends accumulated around the person of Mary, and she became an object of worship in her own right. About 350 years after the Council of Ephesus used the term Theotokos in reference to Mary, the Second Council of Nicaea declared, "We honor and salute and reverently venerate . . . the image of . . . our spotless Lady the all-holy mother of God."
This shows the trend within the Roman Church to move from a focus on the Incarnation of God to a veneration of the "Mother of God," even to the point of honoring her images and praying to her as the "Queen of Heaven," "Benefactress," and "Mediatrix." The necessity of such veneration is not implied by the term Theotokos, but some people wrongly infer it. [04]
Excerpts from The History of Mary Veneration: A Protestant Perspective
Note: The original article is very enlightening and I suggest you read it with caution simply because it mentions people like Augustine, Origen, and Martin Luther although not necessarily positively.
The first two were extreme heretics.
Origen: Origen's theology had little in common with Scripture.
See Is God a Trinity? - Part VI. (The Cappadocian Fathers.. Greek Philosophers and Catholic Mystics)
Augustine:
In spite of the fact that Augustine was Catholic to the core in his beliefs and held that due to apostolic succession the Catholic Church was the supreme teaching authority, he is revered, quoted, and looked up to by much of the Protestant World. What exactly is wrong with us? See The Sins of Augustine
And then we have
Martin Luther: who got some things right.
However, for the most part Luther's theology did not markedly differ from that of the Catholic church. Several Catholic doctrines remained firmly entrenched in his belief system including Infant Baptism, Consubstantiation, and Purgatory. To add to which he vehemently abused and vilified those he considered to be 'enemies' of the faith.
The horrible things he said about the Jews were taken very seriously by the Nazis.
Besides which, historical accuracy that is invariably quite complex has, all too often, given place to popular legend and over simplification that most Christians unquestioningly and uncritically accept. It is more than likely that popular legend has dramatized the entire incident of him supposedly posting ninety five theses on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg. See Martin Luther
The Excerpts
The uncomfortable truth about Mary veneration is that the historical evidence is a lot less black or white than most parties would like it to be. The veneration of Mary started waaaaay earlier than your average Protestant would hope, but it also happened waaaay later than your average Catholic assumes. First and second century Christians would have found any prayers to Mary a totally alien practice, but in the midst of the raging battles against heresy in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries, it started to develop as a way of preserving the same orthodoxy that Protestants and Catholics share today.
In the centuries that followed, it continued to grow and intensify, leading to eventual skepticism from Protestants that wanted to go back to the basics. Even though our tradition ceased the practice of Marian veneration (and had a reasonable claim on recovering early orthodoxy in doing so), a study of how the practice came to be can help us appreciate how that veneration helped our theological ancestors cling to orthodoxy at a time when the nature of Jesus was under fire.
The First Century.
"... There's no evidence for Marian veneration in this era at all. If we take the Scriptures as the clearest evidence of first-century Christian thought and practice, there's just not much there.
The gospels bring up Mary sparingly, usually during the birth narrative, and the epistles only reference her a handful of times, usually indirectly (for example, Galatians 4:4 reads "God sent forth his Son born of a woman"). If you're going Sola Scriptura, Mary is a relatively minor Bible character that exists within the narrative as Jesus' mom. You can definitely find some commentaries out there that try to push the mystical importance of certain passages. For example, some Catholic commentators make much about John 19:26-27:
"When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, 'Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, 'Here is your mother.’
You can read that to mean that Jesus is mystically speaking to every disciple today, encouraging them to accept Jesus as their own mother ... or you can conclude that Jesus was worried about his mom and sent her off with John. The latter seems a great deal more likely than the former. Emphasizing the small passages that Mary does appear in doesn't solve the big problem: nobody in the Scriptures is venerating Mary or explicitly telling others to do it.
First-century Christians just don't seem particularly concerned with the place of Mary within the order of Christianity. She was Jesus' mom and that's about it.
The Second Century.
All things considered the evidence is still pretty scant,
The Third Century.
Mary continues to increase in stature.
Things are really starting to get moving. The water is starting to get muddied. Even though the claims don't have much legitimacy' ... We start to see Mary stuff start to pop up more and more in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries.
We still regularly see theologians say that Mary was sinful and there are very few clear recommendations of praying to her from leading Christian figures, but language about perpetual virginity that started popping up in the second century is carrying forward. She is not only a mother, but she is a mother that remained ever-virgin. And again, we have the odd scraps of evidence (like the Sub tuum papyrus) that seem to suggest that some communities are starting to pray to Mary and hold her in particularly high esteem.
We could spend ages looking at the slow evolution of the practice of Marian veneration, but I think I've already established the trend — Marian veneration slowly developed as a way of battling heresies that claimed that Jesus was not both all-man and all-God. She established both realities; her miraculous birth established Christ’s divinity, while her humanity established Christ's humanity.
But the fifth century offers one more large leap in the history of Mary veneration: the Council of Ephesus and their official endorsement of the title "theotokos."
A fifth-century archbishop by the name of Nestorius didn’t approve of the title "theotokos" that some Christians had started using. [05]
See more on Nestorius' refusal to use the term theotokos (Mother of God)
in relation to the Virgin Mary" HERE
End Notes - Chapter 4
[01] Miriam Lambouras .The Marian Apparitions: Divine Intervention or Delusion?
http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/marian_apparitions.aspx
[02] The Enduring Goddess: Artemis and Mary, Mother of Jesus
https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/items/c1098527-4ba6-4061-a8cb-13b51d78aa20
[03] The History of Mary Veneration: A Protestant Perspective
https://classictheology.org/2021/11/29/the-history-of-mary-veneration-a-protestant-prospective/
[04] Why calling Mary "Mother of God" at Christmas Time is Not Helpful
https://pulpitandpen.org/2018/12/22/why-calling-mary-mother-of-god-at-christmas-time-is-not-helpful/
[05] Vincent Pontius, Excerpts from The History of Mary Veneration: A Protestant Perspective
https://classictheology.org/2021/11/29/the-history-of-mary-veneration-a-protestant-prospective/
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