Athanasius on Mary

Athanasius of Alexandria Doctor of the Church circa 295-373 The essential contribution of Athanasius to the development of Christology gives importance to his theology of Mary. This is found principally in the treatise on the Incarnation and the writings on virginity, all objects of much critical research, and in the Letter to Epictetus which raises no critical problem. The rich Marian texts, the Coptic sermons, do. Alexandria was, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the home of orthodoxy. Within 60 years of Athanasius’s death, his authority would count in the defense of Mary’s title, Theotokos. It had been used by Alexander of Alexandria, but Athanasius gave it currency. It matched his Christology. Dealing with errors in this domain for Epictetus, as bishop of Corinth, he insisted too on the physical reality of Mary’s motherhood. The Letter, which occupies ten columns in Migne refers to Christ as Son of Mary six times, calling him also Son of the Father; it mentions Mary 33 times, twice as the Virgin. The “Word was not consubstantial with his body,” for then “the mention and ministry of Mary would be superfluous.” Everything shows that she was truly human: her spouse; the manner of the birth of Jesus. Here Athanasius uses language which has been difficult to reconcile with the virginity in partu. His general conclusion is, “Therefore what came forth from Mary, according to the divine Scriptures, was human and the Lord’s body was real; real I say, since it was the same as ours. For Mary is our sister, in that we are all sprung from Adam.” Athanasius, as some of the Fathers before him, saw Lk 1:35 as a reference to the Son of God himself. He saw the virginal conception as a sign of the divinity: “Therefore also in the beginning, when he came down to us, he fashioned for himself the body from a virgin, in order to give no small indication of his divinity; for he who fashioned this is himself the Maker of these others. For who seeing that the body came forth from a virgin alone, without a man, would not think that he who was revealed in it was the Creator and Lord of other bodies?” Athanasius used the patristic metaphor of the ‘unploughed earth’ for the virginal conception, like most of the Fathers, and he interpreted Is 7:14 in this sense. He continued the title aieparthenos first used by Peter of Alexandria. He was probably first among the Fathers to use Jn 19:25-27 as an argument for the perpetual virginity: “By saying that, he teaches us that Mary had no other sons but the Savior. If, in fact, she had another son, the Savior would not have neglected him to entrust her to others ... But because she was a virgin after having been his Mother, he gave her to the disciple as mother. The theme of the Letter to the Virgins, where this idea is expressed, is Mary as model of virgins, an idea already taught by Athanasius’ predecessor, Alexander. This occasions a famous portrait of Mary taken over literally by St. Ambrose in the West, its origin linked with the gnomai or proverbs of the Council of Nicaea: “Mary was then a pure virgin, serene in her state of soul, doubly enriched. In fact, she liked good works while fulfilling her duties, and holding upright thoughts on faith and purity. She did not like to be seen by men but prayed to God to be her judge. She was in no haste to leave her home, had no acquaintance with public places, remained constantly indoors living a withdrawn life, like the honey bee. She gave generously to the poor whatever in her housework was left over ... Her words were discreet, and her voice measured; she did not shout and was watchful in her heart to speak no wrong of another, not even willingly to listen to wrong spoken.” So, for over 800 words Athanasius centers on Mary’s personality his program for Christian perfection, especially in the virginal way. Athanasius thought that St. Paul had got his ideas about virginity from Mary’s example. The slight blemishes which St. Ambrose removed from the portrait were Mary’s need to struggle against bad thoughts and to control her anger, Athanasius scarcely meant them as faults. Mary, in the Annunciation, is lifted to the Holy Trinity: “As the grace of the Trinity is one, the Trinity is undivided; which is to be seen in holy Mary. For the angel Gabriel sent to announce the forthcoming descent of the Word upon her said ‘the Holy Spirit will come upon you’ knowing that the Spirit was in the Word, and consequently he immediately added: ‘And the power of the most high will overshadow you’. For Christ is the power and wisdom of God.” If the Coptic sermons were authentic, we should have in Athanasius as great a figure in Marian theology as he was in Christology. He would be prior to St. Epiphanius with the key concept of Mary as Mother of the living; he would see the Eve-Mary contrast in terms of death and life, as he also would have drawn it out in the context of purity, and he would have clearly seen the typology of the Ark of the Covenant. The glory of angels, to come to us, would come through Mary, the Mother of life. But the question mark remains on authenticity. .

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