Theotokos
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Theotokos (Greek: Θεοτόκος, translit. Theotókos; Latin Deipara, Dei genetrix; Slavonic: Богородица translit. Bogoroditsa, Georgian: ღვთისმშობელი transl. ghvtismshobeli, Armenian: Asdvadzamayr, or Asdvadzadzin, Romanian Născătoare de Dumnezeu) is a title of Mary, the mother of Jesus. This term is used especially in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern traditions within the Catholic Church. Its literal English translations include "God-bearer" and "the one who gives birth to God"; less literal translations include "Mother of God Incarnate"[1] and "Mother of God".
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[edit] Etymology and translation
Theotokos is a compound of two Greek words, Θεός "God" and τόκος "parturition, childbirth." Literally, this translates as "God-bearer" or "the one who gives birth to God." However, since many English-speaking Orthodox find this literal translation awkward, in liturgical use "Theotokos" is often left untranslated, or paraphrased as "Mother of God". However, the latter title is also the literal translation of a separate title in Greek, Μήτηρ Θεού. Mother of God also accurately translates the Greek words Θεομήτωρ (also spelled Θεομήτηρ) and Μητρόθεος which are found in patristic and liturgical texts.
[edit] Mother of God
The main occasion of the use of the English term "Mother of God" has been, and still is, as an imprecise translation of Theotokos that is in need of frequent explanation.[2] The other principal occasion of the use of "Mother of God" has been as the precise and literal translation of Μήτηρ Θεού, a Greek term which has an established usage of its own in traditional Christian theological writing, hymnography, and iconography. In an abbreviated form as "ΜΡ ΘΥ" it often is found on Orthodox icons (see illustration above), where it is used to identify Mary.
A hymn normally sung as part of the Greek eucharistic liturgy includes both titles in close proximity, in both cases referring to Mary, showing that the titles are not synonymous: "It is truly fitting to call you blessed, the Theotokos, ever-blessed and wholly pure and the Mother of our God (Ἄξιόν ἐστιν ὡς ἀληθῶς μακαρίζειν σὲ τὴν Θεοτόκον, τὴν ἀειμακάριστον καὶ παναμώμητον καὶ μητέρα του Θεοῦ ἡμῶν...", emphasis added.) The difference between the two terms is that the former, "Theotokos" explicitly refers to physical childbearing, while the latter, Mother of God, describes a family relationship but not necessarily physical childbearing. Within the Christian tradition, Mother of God has not been understood, or intended to be understood, as referring to Mary as Mother of God from eternity, that is, as Mother of God the Father, but only with reference to the birth of Jesus, that is, God's birth on earth in flesh; but this limitation in the meaning of Mother of God must be understood by the person employing the term. By contrast, Theotokos makes it explicit, thus excluding any misunderstanding of Mary's divine maternity.
However, those reading or hearing the English phrase "Mother of God" as a translation of a Greek text cannot -- unless they know the Greek text in question, or obtain additional information -- know whether the phrase is a literal translation of Μήτηρ Θεού or an imprecise rendering of Θεοτόκος or one its Latin equivalents ("Deipara", "Dei genetrix"), or equivalents in other languages.
The fact that "Mother of God" can be misinterpreted[4] as asserting that Mary was the mother of God the Father means that the title is less precise than Theotokos, which excludes the concept of Mary as a parent of God the Father. While the title "Mother of God" does not of itself exclude that concept, the manner in which it has traditionally been used and understood by Christians does exclude it, since the title has been understood (at least among Orthodox and Roman Catholics) as referring only to her maternity of Jesus. (For example, when used on icons in its abbreviated form "ΜΡ ΘΥ" as mentioned above, such icons nearly always display Mary holding the baby Jesus. This association of the actual title "Mother of God" with Mary's maternity of Jesus, may help to point the viewer of an icon that bears that title, towards the proper understanding of the title.) The impreciseness of "Mother of God" perhaps explains why the use of the title in traditional theology is more limited, and why the term is far less important dogmatically than Theotokos. (Thus it was the title "Theotokos" and not "Meter tou Theou" [Mother of God] which was debated at the Third Ecumenical Council, some of the dogmatic texts of which appear below in the present article.)
The Third Ecumenical Council, at the City of Ephesus, represented the decision of the Ecumenical Church, to include the Roman Catholic Church of the West, and the Eastern Orthodox Church which were one Church at the time of the council in 431. The council decreed that Mary should rightly be revered as THEOTOKOS. (Ware, 1999, and Saint John Maximovitch, 2004).
[edit] Theology
The title "Theotokos" specifically excludes the understanding of Mary as Mother of God in the eternal sense. Christians believe that God is the cause of all, with neither origin or source, and thus without mother. This stands in contrast to classical Greco-Roman religion in particular, where a number of divine female figures appear as mother of other divinities, demi-gods, or heroes. For example, Juno was revered as the mother of Vulcan; Aphrodite, the mother of Aeneas.
On the other hand, Christians believe the Son of God is begotten (born) of God the Father from all eternity (see Trinity and Nicene Creed), but is born in time of Mary, the Theotokos. "Theotokos," then, refers to the incarnation, when the divine person of God the Son took on human nature in addition to his pre-existing divine nature, this being made possible through Mary's cooperation. Christians do not believe that she is the mother of God the Father in any sense (who, being without origin or beginning, has no mother), nor is she the mother of Jesus from all eternity, but only from the moment he entered into her womb and his incarnation began.
Since mainstream Christianity understands Jesus Christ as both fully God and fully human, they call Mary "Theotokos" to affirm the fullness of God's incarnation. The Council of Ephesus decreed, in opposition to those who denied Mary the title Theotokos ("the one who gives birth to God") but called her Christotokos ("the one who gives birth to Christ"), that Mary is Theotokos because her Son, Christ, is one person who is both God and man, divine and human. As Cyril of Alexandria wrote, "I am amazed that there are some who are entirely in doubt as to whether the holy Virgin should be called Theotokos or not. For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how is the holy Virgin who gave [him] birth, not God-bearer [Theotokos]?" (Epistle 1, to the monks of Egypt; PG 77:13B). Thus the significance of the title "Theotokos" lies more in what it says about Jesus than in what it says about Mary.
In the Orthodox church, because of the significance of Mary's status as "Theotokos" to Orthodox doctrine, it is defined as one of only two indispensable dogmas relating to her. The other is that she is a Virgin; cf. Nicene Creed. Other beliefs about Mary are expressed in the worship of the Orthodox Church but are not formally dogmatized or made a precondition of baptism. By contrast, the Roman Catholic Church has formally defined as dogma numerous Marian beliefs.
[edit] Use of "Theotokos" in the early Christian Church
Many Fathers of the early Christian Church used the title Theotokos for Mary, at least since the third century AD.
Often Origen (died 254) is cited as the earliest author to use the title Theotokos for Mary but the text upon which this assertion is based is not genuine (Socrates, Ecclesiastical History 7.32 citing Origen's Commentary on Romans).
Dionysios of Alexandria used the term in about 250, in an epistle to Paul of Samosata.
Athanasius of Alexandria in 330, Gregory the Theologian in 370, John Chrysostom in 400, and Augustine all used the term Theotokos.
Theodoret wrote in 436 that calling Virgin Mary Theotokos was an apostolic tradition.
[edit] Third Ecumenical Council
The use of Theotokos was formally affirmed at the Third Ecumenical Council held at Ephesus in 431. The competing view (advocated by Nestorius, then Patriarch of Constantinople) was that Mary should be called Christotokos, meaning "Mother of Christ," to restrict her role to the mother of Christ's humanity only and not his divine nature.
Nestorius's opponents, led by Cyril of Alexandria, viewed this as dividing Jesus into two distinct persons, one who was Son of Mary, and another, the divine nature, who was not. Such a notion was unacceptable, since (in the Orthodox view) by destroying the perfect union of divine and human nature in Christ, it sabotaged the fullness of the incarnation and, by extension, the salvation of humanity. Nestorius's view was anathematised by the Council as heresy, (see Nestorianism), and the title "Theotokos" for Mary was affirmed.
In letters to Nestorius which were afterwards included among the council documents, Cyril explained his doctrine. He noted that "the holy fathers . . . have ventured to call the holy virgin [T]heotokos, not as though the nature of the [W]ord or his divinity received the beginning of their existence from the holy virgin, but because from her was born his holy body, rationally endowed with a soul, with which [body] the [W]ord was united according to the hypostasis, and is said to have been begotten according to the flesh" (Cyril's second letter to Nestorius).
Explaining his rejection of Nestorius's preferred title for Mary of "Christotokos" ("Birth-giver of Christ"), Cyril wrote: "Confessing the Word to be united with the flesh according to the hypostasis, we worship one Son and Lord, Jesus Christ. We do not divide him into parts and separate man and God as though they were united with each other [only] through a unity of dignity and authority . . . nor do we name separately Christ the Word from God, and in similar fashion, separately, another Christ from the woman, but we know only one Christ, the Word from God the Father with his own flesh. . . . But we do not say that the Word from God dwelt as in an ordinary human born of the holy virgin . . . For . . . we understand that, when he became flesh, not in the same way as he is said to dwell among the saints do we distinguish the manner of the indwelling; but he was united by nature and not turned into flesh . . . There is, then, one Christ and Son and Lord, not with the sort of conjunction that a human being might have with God as in a unity of dignity or authority; for equality of honor does not unite natures. For Peter and John were equal to each other in honor, both of them being apostles and holy disciples, but the two were not one. Nor do we understand the manner of conjunction to be one of juxtaposition, for this is insufficient in regard to natural union. . . . Rather we reject the term 'conjunction' as being inadequate to express the union. . . . [T]he holy virgin gave birth in the flesh to God united with the flesh according to hypostasis, for that reason we call her Theotokos . . . If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is, in truth, God, and therefore that the holy virgin is Theotokos (for she bore in a fleshly manner the Word from God become flesh), let him be anathema." (Cyril's third letter to Nestorius)
By the end of his life, Nestorius had agreed to the title Theotokos, stating the apparent communication of the attributes (idiomata).
[edit] Hymns
Calling Mary Theotokos or, for that matter, "Mother of God" (ΜΡ ΘΥ) was never meant to suggest that Mary was coëternal with God, or that she existed before Jesus Christ or God existed. Rather, her divine maternity is only in regard to the mystery of the Incarnation. The Church acknowledges as much in the words of this ancient hymn: "He whom the entire universe could not contain was contained within your womb, O Theotokos."
The title "Theotokos" continues to be used frequently in the hymns of the Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Oriental Orthodox churches.
An example of such a hymn is the Sub tuum praaesidium dating from the third century, as well as the Hail Mary in its Eastern form.
[edit] Icons
 Theotokos Panachranta, illumination from the Gertrude Psalter. |
 Mother of God (ΜΡ ΘΥ), mosaic icon, Hagia Sophia |
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 Theotokos Panachranta from the Svensky Monastery, by St. Alypios of Kiev |
 Mother of God, mosaic fresco, Gelati Monastery |
[edit] Notes
- ^ "We recognize the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Theotókos, the mother of God incarnate, and so observe her festivals and accord her honour among the saints." Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC II)
- ^ For example [1], [2] and [3]
[edit] References
- Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ, John Anthony McGuckin, trans. ISBN 0-88141-133-7
- McGuckin, John Anthony, St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy (1994, and reprinted 2004) ISBN 0-88141-259-7 A full description of the events of Third Ecumenical Council and the people and issues involved.
- Saint John Maximovitch,""The Orthodox Veneration of Mary, The Birth Giver of God"(2004, Sixth Printing, Third Edition). ISBN 0-938635-68-9
- Ware, Bishop Kallistos, "The Orthodox Way" (1979, Revised Edition, 1995, and reprinted 1999). ISBN 0-913836-58-3
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Theotokos article on the Orthodox Wiki
- Study of the Mother of the Lord the All-Holly Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary by St. Nectarios (in Greek)
