Mary - 01

Mother of Good Counsel
Genazzano, Italy

As was also the case with the topic of prayer, Augustine never wrote a separate work on the topic of Mary.

There was no separate feast day for her in the church in North Africa of Augustine’s time. Christmas, however, was considered not just a celebration of the birth of Christ, but also a feast day of Mary, hence she was celebrated in conjunction with Christ.

Because some of the martyrs had died not too many generations previously, the cult of martyrs was strong in the devotional life of the Christians of North Africa, and this was possibly another reason that the cult of Mary was left relatively undeveloped there.

The main themes of Mariology in Augustine emerge in De santa virginitate (“On holy virginity”). There he explains that, like the church itself, Mary is both virgin and mother, both physically and spiritually.

Since Jesus insisted that “whoever does the Will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother (Matt. 12.50), Augustine says that Mary was more blessed in accepting faith in Christ than in conceiving the flesh of Christ (De santa virginitate 3.3).

Augustine regarded Mary not so much as above all Christians, but in the centre of the Christian assembly as the most perfect of all Christians. Augustine said that for her own salvation, it was more important that Mary have God in her heart than the Son of God in her womb.

Augustine’s interest in Mary’s maternity was Christ-centred; it underscored both the full humanity and full divinity of Christ. He never used for Mary the title of "Mother of God", but rather "mother of the Lord", or "mother of the Saviour."

Augustine’s relative restraint in this is partly explained by the fact that he died in the year 430, which was just before the Council of Ephesus declared Mary to be the Mother of God, after which proclamation Marian devotion advanced to new levels.

In the matter of Mary’s perpetual divinity (i.e., even after Christ’s birth), Augustine was a constant advocate, even though a few other Christian scholars questioned or challenged this.

Because of his very strong views about the totus Christus (metaphorically, the “whole Christ” that comprised of Christ as the head and the church as the body), he often spoke of Mary in that context. Mary is in some sense inferior to the church in that she is only a part of the church.

He preached, “Mary is holy, Mary is blessed, but the church is something much better than the Virgin Mary. Why? Because Mary is part of the Church, a holy member, a quite exceptional member, the supremely wonderful member, but nevertheless a member of the whole body." (Sermon 72a.7)

(Continued on the next page)

For the Augnet page on the Augustinian Shrine to the Mother of Good Counsel at Genazzano, Italy, click here.

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Mary - 01