MARY IN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM – POINTS TO PONDER
By Cinthia Mascarell
Mary has a long history in Orthodox Christianity, and even before. Mary was never indifferent to Christians, some degraded her and attacked her and others went so far as to believe that, as the mother, she was obeyed by God Himself. Keep in mind that in those moments, in the first centuries of Christianity, the great majority of the first Christians in the Roman Empire were people who used to worship multiple deities before. Accustomed to worship female deities, they needed a female/maternal figure.
In the beginning, the Fathers of the Christian church strongly opposed worshiping Mary because they were well aware that she was just a combination of Mariamne, the Semitic God-Mother and Queen of Heaven; Aphrodite-Mari, the Syrian version of Ishtar; Juno the Blessed Virgin; Isis as Stella Maris, Star of the Sea; Maya the Oriental Virgin Mother of the Redeemer; the Moerae or the trinity of Fates; and many other versions of the Great Goddess. The men of the Church knew that the same titles applied to Mary as to her pagan forerunners: “Queen of Heaven, Empress of Hell, Lady of the whole world”.
The Speculum beatae Mariae[1] said that Mary was like the Juno-Artemis-Hecate trinity: “queen of heaven where she is enthroned in the midst of the angels, queen of the earth where she constantly manifests her power, and queen of hell where she has authority over the demons.”
Therefore, the Fathers of the Church tried to humanize and belittle Mary, to prove that she did not deserve worship. Epiphanius ordered: “Let the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be worshipped, but let no one worship Mary.”[2] Anastasius said: “Let no one call Mary the Mother of God, for Mary was but a woman, and it is impossible that God should be born of a woman.”[3] Until the fifth century, the church persecuted as heretics a sect that called itself the Marianists, who claimed that Mary possessed the true quality of divinity.[4] Mariolatry has plagued Christian patriarchy throughout its history, because the popular need to worship the figure of the Mother always arose spontaneously.
Some early church fathers sought a way out of the dilemma by attacking Mary’s motherhood, to prove that she was neither divine nor truly maternal. Some affirmed that Jesus was not born in the ordinary way, but that he materialized suddenly before Mary.[5] Marcionists said that Jesus could never touch the vulgar female flesh, therefore, he was never born at all. He descended from heaven as a fully formed adult.[6] Some church fathers rejected Mary’s motherhood by saying that she was not just a mere mortal, but even a sinful woman.[7]
On the other hand, Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople in 717, called Mary “Lady most venerable“, maintaining that no one could be saved or receive the gift of grace except through her, since God obeys her “through and in all things, as his true mother.” Henri Boudon, archdeacon of Evreux, said that his people thought that Mary “was as much or more than God himself“. Isidore Glabas said that Mary ruled in heaven before her earthly birth; as a creator, she brought all things into existence, and all the angels obeyed her. Louis-Marie de Montfort declared that Mary had absolute power over God.[8]
The people of the Middle Ages often saw God as their persecutor, Mary as their defender. The wood engravings of the early sixteenth century showed God shooting arrows of pestilence and war in the world, while the inscription begged Mary to stop Him.[9] It was said that “Mary stands for Mercy, and it is only because of her influence at court not because of love or goodwill on God’s part, that heaven is within reach.”[10] A Franciscan of the fourteenth century wrote:
When we have offended Christ, we should go first to the Queen of Heaven and offer her … prayers, fasting, vigils, and alms; then she, like a mother, will come between thee and Christ, the father who wishes to beat us, and she will throw the cloak of mercy between the rod of punishment and us, and soften the king’s anger against us.[11]
Ashe says: “Christian scripture and doctrine totally preclude placing Mary above Christ. Yet the vitality of Christ’s own Church has often seemed to depend on her rather than him… Without her, he would probably have lost his kingdom.“[12] During its first five centuries, the church of Christ discovered that no amount of force would make people renounce their Mother Goddess. She had to be preserved in some way:
The church seemed doomed to failure, destined to go down to bloody death amidst the bleeding corpses of its victims when the people discovered Mary. And only when Mary, against the stern decrees of the church, was dug out of the oblivion to which Constantine had assigned her and became identified with the Great Goddess was Christianity finally tolerated by the people… The only reality in Christianity is Mary, the Female Principle, the ancient goddess reborn.[13]
Although the Christian God took the ancient Trinitarian character of the Triple Goddess at the Council of Nicaea, there is some evidence that the early Christians perceived Mary as a trinity. Like the Mara of Buddhists, it was sometimes a spirit of death.[14] The Gospel of Mary[15] identified all three of the Marys at Jesus’s crucifixion with one another, as if they were the same Triple Goddess who attended the death of the pagan Savior.[16]
For some centuries, eastern churches worshiped a Father-Mother- Son trinity modelled on such pagan triads as Osiris-Isis-Horus, Zeus-Rhea-Zagreus, Apollo-Artemis-Heracles, etc.
Theologians always feared to impute too much power and glory to Mary. Pope John XXIII, presuming to know the inner thoughts of Mary, announced: “The Madonna is not pleased when she is put above her Son“, although in reality it was the church that was not happy. The same Catholic doctrines attributed to her two of the three basic characteristics of the divinity: she was immortal because of the assumption to heaven, and free from sin because of the Immaculate Conception. The third requirement of divinity, omniscience, was granted to her by popular belief.
A hidden reason for the adoption of Mary by the church was the successful amputation of her pre-Christian sexuality. Of all the attributes of Mary that she inherited from the ancient Goddess, Mary’s virginity was much emphasized. She was called “the Virgin”, not “the Mother”. Church fathers insisted that she never engaged in sexual intercourse in her life, even though the Bible clearly spoke of Jesus’ brothers and sisters.[17] St. Ambrose asked: “Would the Lord Jesus have chosen for his mother a woman who would defile the heavenly chamber with the seed of a man, that is to say, one incapable of preserving her virginal chastity intact?“[18] Marian legends insisted that, although Mary was incredibly beautiful, no man could look at her with desire.[19]
However, some monasteries institutionalized the desire for Mary, who “married” the monks as Christ “married” nuns. If a knight placed his ring on the finger of Mary’s statue, she would grip it firmly so it couldn’t be removed, the knight considered himself the virgin’s bridegroom and entered a monastery. The same tales were told of the pagan statues of Venus, who “married” any man who placed a ring on her marble finger.[20]
The Gothic cathedrals were not dedicated to God or Jesus, but to Notre Dame; collectively they were called “Our Ladies” or “Palaces of the Queen of Heaven.”[21] Many of them were built on pagan shrines of the Great Goddess. The Cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome was built on the sacred cave of the Magna Mater. Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Capitoline Hill was previously a temple to Tanit. The churches of Mary throughout Italy were founded on the shrines of Juno, Isis, Minerva, Diana and Hecate. A church was even naively called Santa Maria sopra Minerva: Santa Maria on (the sanctuary of) Minerva.[22]
In the sixth century, the great temple of Isis in Philae was dedicated to Mary.[23] The sanctuaries of Aphrodite in Cyprus became churches of Mary, whom the Cypriots continued calling by the name of Aphrodite.[24] In Chartres, the pagan idol of the virgo paritura (virgin birth) was preserved in the so-called druid grotto under the cathedral. It was said to be a black statue of Mary.[25]
But not all minds in the modern era are modern minds. Many remain ignorant of what was discovered about the physical universe. Many ignore the theories and doctrines professed by their own religion. The Roman Catholic Christians saw God as a severe and strict Father. Therefore, they worshiped Mary because the Church presented her as a sort of maternal archetype intermediator. They do not know how many “Marys” there were before Christianity. But the educated men of the church know. Canon John de Satge wrote: “The evangelical has a strong suspicion that the deepest roots of the Marian Cultus are not to be found in the Christian tradition at all. The religious history of mankind shows a recurring tendency to worship a mother-goddess… May it not be the case, the evangelical wonders, that what we have here is, in reality, an older religion, a paganism which has been too lightly baptized into Christ and whose ancient features persist under a thin Christian veil?” [26]
Concluding, the Church did not subdue the worship of female deities, it had simply renamed it.
Mary in Qur’an
In contrast to those who worship Mary, putting her in such a high position to say that she is the actual mother of God and those who despise her saying that she was an ordinary woman, is the view of Mary in Islam. Islam maintains a balanced position between these two extreme thoughts.
Mary is not a deity, nor the mother of God. She is nothing more and nothing less than the mother of one of the greatest prophets in History, Jesus (PBUH) and one of the best women who have ever lived in this world.
There is a chapter in the Holy Quran, called Surah Maryam, named after Mary, the mother of Jesus (PBUH); as crucial as Mary and Jesus are to Christianity, such an honour is not to be found in the Bible. Among the 66 books of the Protestants and among the 73 of the Catholics, none is named after Mary or her son. You will find books called Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and dozens of names, but not Jesus or Mary.
“My Lord, indeed I have pledged to You what is in my womb, consecrated [for Your service], so accept this from me. Indeed, You are the Hearing, the Knowing”. (Noble Qur’an 3:35)
The Qur’an begins to tell the life of Mary from before her conception, when Hannah, wife of ‘Imran, sterile, begged God for a son, to whom she would place at God service in the Temple if her prayers were answered.
“My Lord, I have delivered a female.” (Noble Qur’an 3: 36)
God gave her a girl was born. According to the custom, men were the ones being consecrated to the service of the temple of Jerusalem.
Hannah called the girl Mary, and supplicated to God to protect her and her offspring from Satan:
I have named her Mary, and I seek refuge for her in You and [for] her descendants from Satan, the expelled [from the mercy of God]. (Noble Qur’an 3: 36)
God answered her prayer and protected Mary and then would grace her with the miraculous birth of Jesus, and Satan could never harm them.
“So her Lord accepted her with good acceptance and caused her to grow in a good manner and put her in the care of Zakariya.” (Noble Qur’an 3: 37)
What was Hannah going to do now? She had made a promise to God. When the time came, Hannah took Mary to the temple, to hand over for temple services. Knowing the nobility and piety of her family, all the priests cried out for being the godfather of this adorable girl. They cast lots for her, like the tossing of the coin, head or tail? Eventually, she fell to the lot of the prophet Zakariya, who was her educator and mentor.
“Every time Zakariya entered upon her in the prayer chamber, he found with her provision. He said, “O Mary, from where is this [coming] to you?” She said, “It is from God. Indeed, God provides for whom He wills without account.” (Noble Qur’an 3: 37)
Mary was visited by the angels.
“And [mention] when the angels said, “O Mary, indeed God has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of the worlds. O Mary, be devoutly obedient to your Lord and prostrate and bow with those who bow [in prayer].” (Noble Qur’an 3: 42- 43)
“God has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of the worlds” Again, such honour given to Mary is not to be found in the Christian Bible!
[And mention] when the angels said, “O Mary, indeed God gives you good tidings of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary – distinguished in this world and the Hereafter and among those brought near [to God]. He will speak to the people in the cradle and in maturity and will be of the righteous.” She said, “My Lord, how will I have a child when no man has touched me?” [The angel] said, “Such is God; He creates what He wills. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is. And He will teach him writing and wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel. (Noble Qur’an 3: 45-48)
“He will speak to the people in the cradle”, this was a great proof to support Mary since although she was known for her piety, she was accused of being immoral.
After this, the angel Gabriel blew Jesus’ (PBUH) spirit into Mary’s womb and he was conceived.
“So We blew into it (her womb) through Our angel.” (Noble Qur’an 66:12)
It is important to mention here the similarity with Christianity. Islam confirms that Jesus’ (PBUH) birth was miraculous because he was born without a father. But in Islam, this is not a reason to believe that he is divine or he shares a divinity with God. For God is capable to create from nothing; something that humans can’t do. And that’s the case of Adam (PBUH) and Jesus (PBUH), who were brought into existence simply by the word “Be”.
The Prophets were supported with miracles. The objective of those miracles were to support them so people would believe and follow them. Therefore, the miraculous birth of Jesus is nothing but a miracle of God to support Jesus and Mary (may God be pleased with them)
God says in another chapter of the Noble Qur’an:
“And [the example of] Mary, the daughter of Imran, who guarded her chastity, so We blew into [her garment] through Our angel, and she believed in the words of her Lord and His scriptures and was of the devoutly obedient.” (Noble Qur’an 66: 12)
When the pregnancy was evident, Mary feared for what people would say, since she was not married. Then she went away to a distant land, God says:
“So she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a remote place.” (Noble Qur’an 19: 22)
Mary, because of her anguish and her pain wished she had not been created:
And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm tree. She said, “Oh, I wish I had died before this and was in oblivion, forgotten.” (Noble Qur’an 19: 23)
After giving birth, God helped her miraculously:
“But he called her from below her, ‘Do not grieve; your Lord has provided beneath you a stream. And shake towards you the trunk of the palm tree; it will drop upon you ripe, fresh dates. So eat and drink and be contented. And if you see from among humanity anyone, say, ‘Indeed, I have vowed to the Most Merciful abstention, so I will not speak today to [any] man.'” (Noble Qur’an 19: 24-26)
Jesus, being a newborn child, spoke to calm down the people, who rebuked Mary when they saw her with the child:
Then she brought him to her people, carrying him. They said, “O Mary, you have certainly done a thing unprecedented.” (Noble Qur’an 19: 27)
Jesus (PBUH) said:
[Jesus] said, “Indeed, I am the servant of God. He has given me the Scripture and made me a prophet. And He has made me blessed wherever I am and has enjoined upon me prayer and Zakah [27] as long as I remain alive. And [made me] dutiful to my mother, and He has not made me a wretched tyrant. And peace is on me the day I was born and the day I will die and the day I am raised alive.” (Noble Qur’an 19: 30-33)
A major difference between Islam and Christianity
Let’s remember, at the beginning of this section, that Mary’s mother made a supplication:
“I seek refuge for her in You and [for] her descendants from Satan, the expelled [from the mercy of God].” (Noble Qur’an 3: 36)
“I seek refuge for her in You and [for] her descendants from Satan”: This prayer was answered by God. He protected Mary throughout her entire life, as well as her son, Jesus (PBUH). Jesus (PBUH), as any other prophet of God, had enemies. His enemies plotted against him, but God protected them.
In the Bible, Mary was present in Jesus’ (PBUH) crucifixion. This doesn’t happen in the Qur’an. The Qur’an absolutely denies the crucifixion. God, glory be to Him, protected His prophet Jesus (PBUH) and ascended him to Heaven.
Something to Ponder About:
In the Gospel of Luke we find:
…when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord,”) and Lord; a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons . Luke 2:21-24
Hence it is clear that Jesus was a normal first-born, similar to any other human first-born. Moreover, he and his mother were completely subject to the Law of Moses. We affirm that Jesus came from the same substance as other humans. He was given birth to by the Virgin Mary, who was one of the descendants of Adam. Adam was created from dust. The miracle here was that Allah, Most Glorified, is just as capable of giving a child to a barren woman as He is to a virgin. Allah says, “Indeed, the example of Jesus to Allah is like that of Adam. He created him from dust; then He said to him, “Be,” and he was.” (Qur’an 3:59)
It was a miracle when Allah, Most Glorified, Most Exalted, created Adam. Similarly, when He created Eve from Adam’s body, wasn’t that a miracle?
On the other hand, like Ahmad Deedat says: where did Muhammad (PBUH) get this knowledge? He was an illiterate. He could not read or write.
A non-Muslim can say that the Qur’an is a pure invention of Muhammad (PBUH), who copied this story from the Bible, that he plagiarized it, forged it.
For a moment, let’s suppose he wrote the Qur’an.
Now, there is something curious: Muhammad (PBUH) was an Arab man. This Arab, in the first place, was addressing other Arabs. He was addressing his own people. Whether they agreed or not with him, he told them in the most sublime way, words that were recorded in the hearts and minds of his people: that Mary, the mother of Jesus, A JEWESS, was chosen over the women of all nations. Not his own mother, not his wife, not his daughter, nor any other Arab woman, but a Jewess! Can one explain this? Naturally, for everyone, his own mother, wife or daughter would come before other women.
Why would the Prophet of Islam honour a woman of his opposition, belonging to a race that had been looking down upon the Arabs for three thousand years? And they still look down upon their Arab brethren today.
The Jews became racist from their Holy Bible, where they are told that their father, Abraham, had two wives, Sarah and Hagar. The Jews say that they are the children of Abraham and Sarah, his legitimate wife and that their Arab brethren descend through Hagar, a slave, and that is why the Arabs are an inferior breed.[28]
Can someone explain why Muhammad (PBUH) (if he is the author) would choose a Jewess for such a high honour?
The answer is simple: he had no choice.
“It is no less than an inspiration sent down to him.” (Noble Qur’an 53: 4)
References:
[1] Speculum beatae Mariae, A book of praise attributed to St. Bonaventura (13th century), but probably written anonymously some centuries later.
[2] Ashe, Geoffrey. The Virgin. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, 151
[3] De Riencourt, Amaury. Sex and Power in History. New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1974, 150
[4] Briffault, Robert. The Mothers. New York: Macmillan, 1927. Vol. 3, p. 183
[5] Ashe, Geoffrey. The Virgin. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, 134
[6] Bullough, Vern L. The Subordinate Sex. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1973, 112
[7] Encyclopaedia Britannica, Third Edition, 1970, “Mary”.
[8] Ashe, Geoffrey. The Virgin. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, 203, 215, 223
[9] Wilkins, Eithne. The Rose-Garden Game. London: Victor Gallanez Ltd., 1969, 193
[10] Ashe, Geoffrey. The Virgin. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, 203.
[11] Bullough, Vern L. The Subordinate Sex. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1973, 169-170
[12] Ashe, Geoffrey. The Virgin. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, 236
[13] Daly, Mary. Beyond God the Father. Boston: Beacon Press, 1973, 92
[14] Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology. New York: Viking Press, 1962, 352
[15] The Gospel of Mary is one of the first Gnostic gospels, once included with the books of the New Testament but then removed from the canon. A copy was rediscovered in the 1940s in Nag Hammadi.
[16] Malvern, Marjorie. Venus in Sackcloth. Carbondale, 111.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1975, 39
[17] Coulton, G.G. Inquisition and Liberty. Boston: Beacon Press, 1959, 308
[18] Ashe, Geoffrey. The Virgin. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, 182
[19] De Voragine, Jacobus. The Golden Legend. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1941, 152
[20] Baring-Gould, Sabine. Curious Myths of the Middle Ages. New York: University Books Inc., 1967, 224, 226.
[21] Ashe, Geoffrey. The Virgin. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, 217
[22] Wilkins, Eithne. The Rose-Garden Game. London: Victor Gallanez Ltd., 1969, 69
[23] Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology. London: Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., 1968, 19
[24] Ashe, Geoffrey. The Virgin. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, 192
[25] Swaan, William. The Gothic Cathedral. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1969, 18
[26] Ashe, Geoffrey. The Virgin. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, 7-8
[27] An annual expenditure for the benefit of the Islamic community required of those Muslims who have excess wealth. Prayer and zakah are among the pillars of Islam.
[28] Ahmed Deedat, Christ in Islam, 10-11