Incarnation at Street Level: Mary and the Roman Imagination.
Recently, I had a few interactions with Christians formed in lower-church traditions within the Church, whose seriousness about Scripture and desire for fidelity in interpreting it I deeply respect. Yet I truly struggle with a certain sense of presumption in such conversation when it comes to Mary, mother of Jesus. It is an argument that begins in a context so far removed from Christianity’s Mediterranean origins, far from those places which inherited the apostolic tradition within living memory and instead takes its form in the Northern Europe of the 16th century. It is from such a remote place and with a frustrating certainty that these conclusions are then made.
The struggle is not in disagreeing but in the confidence in being so removed from a tradition, that we as Anglicans very much treasure (or should, Richard Hooker docet) and yet providing a narrative so confident despite being historically, culturally, geographically removed from the formation of Marian belief, assuming a certain authority in defining it, while not seeing its natural roots, not only in the apostolic tradition right after the mission of the twelve, but also in the physical and iconographical memory that was formed at the time and which we can still see and touch with our own very eyes.
One could wonder why not fully embrace the Mary inscribed in the first councils of the Church, in the frescoes in the catacombs, when adopting uses such as the speaking in tongues, a recent phenomenon that derives from the mistaken English translation of γλώσσα from ancient Greek in which there is no differentiation between the two words "language" or "tongue", as they are but one, hence the confusion and misinterpretation in a context, once again distant from apostolic memory. Having said that, if it brings people closer to God, who am I to judge. Even if one is the result of biblical interpretation, while the other is the result of biblical misinterpretation. Christianity’s understanding of Mary does not arise in abstraction, nor is the fruit of late devotional excess. It is the fruit of the tradition shaped by the apostles, their direct spiritual heirs and the lived memory of early Mediterranean communities whose tradition still lives in the piety of its people. Interpreting Mary without a serious engagement with this world, without looking at Antioch, Jerusalem, Ephesus, indeed Rome, while looking at reforming movements that arose after over a millennium, is a risk for clarity for the sake of reaction.
There is a great risk in doing theology without looking at the sources, sources other than Scripture, and without looking at early Christian archeology, one can’t simply understand the early Church without understanding the physical and geographic nature of the religion of the Incarnation. The Mary who carried God in her womb, the Mary who grieved at the feet of the Cross as Jesus’ blood descended on earth, the Mary who first received the Holy Ghost at Pentecost is no mere necessary secondary element in the great scheme of God’s salvific mission but a central, enabling tool. The 2004 Anglican document Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ proves a useful tool agreed by both Rome and Canterbury to begin to understand her true role within history. Our very own Lancelot Andrewes writes that Mary's overshadowing of the Spirit was a foretaste of sacramental life and strongly backed the theology of the Theotokos, among many Marian lines he writes, one of the most memorable must be: "the womb wherein He lay was a holy place; holier than the Holy of Holies". But let’s go further back, this article aims not at stressing the distrusted reader but to invite them to explore more a significant part of the wider Christian tradition since its very start.
As it happens when facing many subjects, and indeed that of the early Church, let us go back to ancient Rome. Christianity did not become such by suppressing Rome’s religion, it became Roman by fulfilling it. The religion of the empire was embodied, it was visual; the divine was to be encountered, seen, touched, ritually within time and space. Religion was not simply abstract, but it could be lived not just in the temple but in the streets, in the festivals, and within the home. Christianity’s great success derives from being able to preserve this role. At the center of this cultural transformation stands Mary herself.
She is not merely an ornament the Church adopted once it gained cultural dominance, she is the strategy Christianity adopted in order to inherit Rome’s embodiment of the divine presence without falling into polytheism, as well as the cult of the martyrs. From the earliest Marian depictions to imperial mosaics, from street shrines all the way to the triumphant paintings of the Baroque, she occupies positions once only held by the great goddesses of Rome. Repeat with me, there is no problem with religious syncretism, both the atheist and reformed reader should accept that as neither a sign of defeat nor something to escape from with blinded eyes. Mary lives in the home, in the street, in the emotional life of the ordinary people, this piety does not come from the Holy Land. It is inherently Roman. The continuity is not accidental. God revealed himself to the Gentiles, the apostles used Gentile ways to spread the Gospel. Christianity is such because of Rome.
However, Christian devotion to Mary does not begin with art or popular piety, of course it does start in the New Testament, and it is evident in the works of the Church Fathers, it does begin with a very dangerous theological claim. The title Theotokos, “God-Bearer”, does not refer to Mary in herself, it safeguards the identity of Christ, because to affirm this theological argument is to insist the one born of her was God incarnate from the very moment of his birth, not a man who later became divine, not a God who merely passed through human flesh.
The early Church faced much pressure from heterodox sects when it came to undo the theology of the Incarnation. Some schools of thought idealized Christ into a simple apparition, while others saw him as a human temporarily inhabited by divine power (one could argue a similar view on the eucharistic ought to be similarly debatable). Indeed, these were rejected. Mary became the banner of orthodoxy, her motherhood decided the eschatological nature of Christianity in which salvation occurred in the flesh and the bloody, in history and time, to this very day.
When we affirm the Theotokos, consequences start unfolding naturally. When God enters the world through the body of the humble maiden, the matter matters, so do bodies, places, and images. A religion of the Incarnation cannot be abstract, it demands a physical element, that is why the Orthodox, arguably the oldest tradition within the Church, hold icons in high regard not as images but as transcendental vehicles that open a window into heaven with God and all the celestial spheres, Mary being a central iconographical theme.
When the Council of Ephesus affirms this title in 431, it simply ratifies a long-held belief. Once the Theotokos is affirmed, then the question of her earthly destiny arises. Christianity sees the body as non-disposable, her role in the Incarnation makes the question unavoidable. St. Melito of Sardis and St. Epiphanus of Salamis clearly speak of her bodily assumption by the 2nd century, within clear apostolic memory, Gregory of Tours ratifies the position by the 6th century. Indeed, unlike the martyrs, apostles, Mary has no shrine. The doctrine of the assumption begins as the now Orthodox theology of the Dormition arises. By the 7th century figures such as Andrew of Crete take her bodily assumption for granted. Doctrine always follows memory and definition makes room for veneration. Saint Gregory the Great who sent Saint Augustine of Canterbury to England in 597 strongly affirmed her role as Mother of God. The great Cappadocian Father of the Church, Gregory of Nyssa wrote: What came about in bodily form in Mary, the fullness of the godhead shining through Christ in the Blessed Virgin, takes place in a similar way in every soul that has been made pure. The Lord does not come in bodily form, for 'we no longer know Christ according to the flesh,' but He dwells in us spiritually and the Father takes up His abode with Him, the Gospel tells us. In this way the child Jesus is born in each of us.
The very first surviving image of Mary appears in Rome, in the Catacomb of Priscilla, it dates to the late 2ndor early 3rd century. Remember to forget the myth that catacombs were places where Christians hid, they were simple cemeteries. The fresco depicts Mary holding the Christ Child, a prophetic figure points at a star. This image is as simple as theologically dense; it focuses on the Incarnation at a time in which Christ’s following was about to evaporate. Mary is introduced by reclaiming the visual language of Rome of maternal presence. The sacred feminine is embraced, it is translated. The religion of the Incarnation is immediately visual as it hits Rome, Christianity could not exist without Rome, God became incarnate through Rome, so the faith could be truly universal thanks to the great influence of the empire.
As soon as Christianity becomes the religion of the empire in 313 with Constantine the Great, it moves into the great architecture reused and commissioned by Rome, most of Rome's churches are dedicated to Mary, some of them within pre-existing Roman temples, including the very Pantheon itself. The apse of the basilica of Santa Pudenziana is one such example. This is the first mosaic in a church in Rome, it was executed in the early years of the 4thcentury, and it is so early it is not early-Christian in style but fully Roman. Christ is enthroned as emperor; the apostles are wearing senatorial clothing and as such they are arranged. Mary appears too in a place of honor in the imperial order. This is of great theological significance; Rome has crowned the mother of God.
Roman religion saturated the urban space, Christianity used that at its own advantage, the pagan street shrines became Marian shrines early on, these later become the Madonnelle found at every corner of the Eternal City. Among them, in the later Baroque style are the beautiful Madonne della Ciambella, dell’Archetto or the Via della Scrofa. Constant reminders of Marian devotion, of Marian presence as a light to illumine the path to Christ.
Mary is central to the development of Christianity in Rome, perhaps no place is more explicative of this than Saint Mary Major, one of the four papal basilicas. It was founded in 432 after the Council of Ephesus and the affirmation of the doctrine of the Theotokos. Mary features prominently in the 5th century mosaic of the triumphal arch. It marks the coronation of Mary as protector of the Roman people. At the heart of the devotion of the basilica is not just Jesus’ cradle but the ancient icon of the Salus Populi Romani which from late antiquity is carried in procession at moments of crisis for Rome, it replaced Minerva and Juno, not in devotional excess, but as civic infrastructure. However, the first site of Marian devotion in Rome is Santa Maria in Trastevere, a house-church was present here by at least the 2nd century, in 340 a larger church as built. Today Mary’s story is beautifully made visible in the precious gold of Pietro Cavallini’s Medieval mosaics, executed between 1291 and 1295, and depicting her life story from Nativity to Dormition. Here the faithful can enter into dialogue with the very first place of Marian devotion.
Many more examples followed through; many Marian miracles and apparitions occurred at various moments during the Middle Ages. Among them is the Chiesa Nuova, Santa Maria in Vallicella, consecrated in 1599, but built on the site of a Medieval miracle-working image of Mary, initially venerated at street level, eventually when this great temple of the Counter-Reformation was built and decorated by the greatest artists of the time, the image was placed within the high altar, encased by a stunning painting by Peter Paul Rubens, executed between 1606 and 1608. While, Pietro da Cortona, one of the Roman Baroque greatest masters, tells Mary's story in a dramatically triumphant way in breathtaking frescoes over the dome and ceiling of the basilica.
The Renaissance and Baroque do not reinvent Mary, nor her theology. In the Renaissance, she is both stoic Queen and humble maiden, she is both altarpiece and devotional painting, as beautifully depicted by so many great masters, from Lippi to Ghirlandaio, from Botticelli to Raphael. Her devotion is however glorified, this process had already begun in the latter half of the Middle Ages, for a people that needed the constant presence of a Mother. Mary ascends, radiates, intercedes, the light explodes through the domes, surrounded by frenzies of angels. The gold of medieval mosaics makes way for the dynamism and dramatic color of the new iconographic language. Mary’s role remains the same as guardian of the faithful and bearer of the Incarnation.
Caravaggio brings us back to reality, if we walk to the basilica of Sant’Agostino, where Saint Monica, his mother is buried, we will encounter the beautiful Madonna dei Pellegrini, executed between 1604 and 1606. Marian devotion returns to the streets, this particular painting caused much controversy at the time, Mary is standing barefoot in a doorway, much like a lady praying by one of the street shrines in 17th century Rome. The scene is gritty; the pilgrims are also rough. The Christ Child leans naturally to bless the spectator. This realism makes Mary once again approachable, moving but real. She does not stand over the city, crowned by God as in the Middle Ages, or stoically praying as in a Renaissance loggia, she is urban, she is tired, she is unclean, she is real, she lives inside the city, where Roman religion expected divinity to be. This is not about pauperism in itself but about the boundary between the sacred and reality. Caravaggio does not locate Mary in a dome, amidst clouds of angels but amidst you, in a real city, in the ordinary. Her posture denotes effort. The dirt is real work. This is pure theology. This is the completion to the Priscilla iconography, an iconography consistent and well regulated in the Christian tradition, through the centuries - Christian iconography is defined by its defined rules and Orthodoxy. This is no decoration but deep faith and real contact with God.
Kenneth Clark in his wonderful “Civilisation” invites the reader to understand that our mind has been conditioned to see this as superstition by generations of liberal Protestant historians so it is hard to imagine what it meant for the Mediterranean to imagine the Northern iconoclasts to smash pictures of Mary during the Reformation. This was more than a mere revolution, but an attack against one’s own mother and that is why, for this Mediterranean peasant, it is so hard to understand the presumption. For that, I apologize. Mary is our mother, through her devotion as inherited through the centuries, we can truly understand the Incarnation, she is revealed through Rome, she truly is the continuation of Rome’s sacred life, because it is through Rome that God chose to become human among us. The world learned of Jesus through her blessed name. Every year, Saint Mary Major has more congregants than any mega church for its patronal feast, hundreds of thousands; millions of Africans and Latinos are deeply devoted to Mary. Mary sits comfortably at the center of the wider Church, she makes the margins its center.
I will leave you with a favorite line from Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation": Harmonizing, humanizing, civilizing. Take the cult of the Virgin. In the early 12th century, the Virgin had been the supreme protectress of civilization. She taught a race of tough and ruthless barbarians the virtues of tenderness and compassion. The great cathedrals of the Middle Ages were her dwelling places upon earth. And then in the Renaissance, while remaining the Queen of Heaven, she became also the human mother in whom everyone could recognize those qualities of warmth and love and approachability. Now, imagine the feelings of a simple-hearted man or woman, a Spanish peasant, an Italian artisan, on hearing that the northern heretics were insulting the Virgin, desecrating her sanctuaries, pulling down or decapitating her images. He must have felt something deeper than indignation. He must have felt that some part of his whole emotional life was threatened, and he would have been right.
