Mary Through The Centuries: Her Place in The History of Culture - Reformers in Praise of Mary

Reformers in Praise of Mary

Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture (1996) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-07661-4 includes sermons, theological works and devotion oriented text to document his claim that the Protestant reformers continued the traditional Catholic teachings on Mary in such areas as perpetual virginity, and Theotokos. Biblical texts, which might cast shadows or raise questions are interpreted in line with Catholic teachings. Thus, the biblically mentioned brothers of Jesus, - whose existence would undermine the claim of perpetual virginity of Mary — were actually cousins according to Martin Luther.

Luther clearly opposed what he considered Catholic exaggerations of Mary. but her strong faith is to him, according to Pelikan, a model of a Christian life lived by faith alone (Sola Fide) “Mary became the obvious case study of this for Luther, as the opening words of Mary’s Magnificat showed him that ‘holiness of spirit... consists in nothing else than faith pure and simple.’

Mary Through the Centuries takes issue with the notion, that Marian views of Luther and other reformers are nothing but traces of the past. Mary is vital for their theology centering on the divinity of Christ. Thus Mary is in the theology of Martin Luther “the guarantee of the reality of the incarnation and of the human nature of Christ.”