Ben Pearce: IPCC 2 Blog 15

On Mariology

(Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture)

Iconophily and Iconoclasm

            The book Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture devotes a large portion to Marian devotion and Marian pilgrimage. In this blog post, I will be questioning the quotation of a Church Father which is used to demonstrate certain aspects of Mariology in the modern Marian Pilgrimage.

            The first quote is by the Church Father Irenaeus. He says in his book Adversus Haereses volume 3:

“As Eve, who had Adam as her husband but was nevertheless a virgin, was disobedient, and thereby became the cause of death to herself and to the whole of mankind, so also Mary, who had a preordained husband and was still a virgin, by obedience became a cause of her own salvation and the salvation of the whole human race”.

This quote says that Mary was the cause of her own salvation through Obedience. This has a few possible meanings. It could mean that Mary never sinned and therefore earned eternal life, or she bore a child who in turn saved her from her sins because she was obedient to bear him. This in turn though assumes that God asked Mary to do something rather than told her something that she was going to do no matter her opinion. This would thereby question the statement where Mary calls God her savior in her Magnificat. Had she been perfect, she would not need a savior. Had she no need for a savior, she wouldn’t have called God one. Do we then assume that Mary had sinned and Irenaeus is mistaken?

            Should Irenaeus had been right, by what means does Mary play in the healing during pilgrimage as page 157 suggests? How should she hear those pilgrims who come to her shrines if she is in heaven with the Lord? She would then have to be omnipresent to hear the prayers of pilgrims who come to her shrines on pilgrimage. Would this not make her God though? We know she is not, so there must be another reason. Does Christ, who is omnipresent present her with the request to pray to him for healing. Why then doesn’t the pilgrim simply pray directly to Christ? If we don’t have a righteousness of our own as Philippians 3:9 says, then why would a saint praying for us have a greater affect than a friend praying for us?

            These are just a few questions and thoughts I had while reading the chapter on Iconophily and Iconoclasm in Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture.