Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 80:317 (Jan 1923)
Article: A Study Of The Traditional “Virgin Mary” In The Light Of The Word
Author: Norvelle Wallace Sharpe

BSac 80:317 (Jan 1923) p. 74

A Study Of The Traditional “Virgin Mary” In The Light Of The Word

Norvelle Wallace Sharpe

I

Alike to Christendom and to the Mystical Body of Christ has the virgin-mother proved an individuality of striking interest. Prose and Verse have conspired to laud her charms, Tradition has haloed her with entrancing legends, Ecclesiasticism has dwelt lovingly and insistently upon her notable powers, prerogatives, and personality; while Art has enshrined her in the darkling shadows of monastic crypts, the sun-lit vistas of world-famed galleries, and on the wide-flung incensed spaces of towering cathedral walls.

Only momentary thought is required to realize that her direct maternal relation to The Master has sufficed to evoke an age-long tenderness of concept and a delicacy of comprehension that, beyond question, has served to exalt her to a commanding preeminence among women. Nor should be minimized the interesting fact that this very relationship has also served to stimulate the thoughtful study of philosophers, scientists, and theologians.

While freely admitting the utter futility of endeavoring to present an accurate composite view of Mary, nor yet of recording the protean interpretations of her person and personality that have tended to crystallize through the passing centuries, but have, of necessity, varied with the equation of each individual, whose contemplative mind has busied itself with this theme; yet it is submitted that the following summary, while doubtless failing to interpret the concept of any single mind, or of any ecclesiastic group, or of any nation, or of any century, will probably fairly outline the more significant opinions and impressions.

Mary, as customarily conceived, was a woman of pure

BSac 80:317 (Jan 1923) p. 75

character, of good stock, of reverent mind; strongly maternal in type, with whole-hearted concentration in, and worship for, her Son, a concrete and significant exemplification of ideal wifehood and motherhood. Furthermore, in most minds, she is probably visualized as definitely beautiful in face and form, and in addition adorned with all the gracious charms of an abundant womanhood.

A very generous proportion of Christendom is led in its faith and its religious life by the dominating influence of ecclesiastics. To this group Mary, of supernatural origin, is seen clothed with supernatural powers, is the arbitress of destinies, the accepted mediatrix between humanity and The Throne, herself an appropriate object of worship.1

A presentation of the multitudinous Marys of legend, of tradition, and of myth, would serve but to confuse judgment,...