Galilee: a critical matrix for Marian studies

Theological Studies, June, 2009 by Elizabeth A. Johnson

"THE DOOR WHEREBY one enters on a question decides the chances of a happy or a less happy solution," observed Yves Congar, because the concepts one uses in starting out largely determine what follows. (1) For Christian faith, the life of the first-century woman Miriam of Nazareth is woven into the story of salvation coming from God in Jesus through the power of the Spirit. Over time many different doors have served as portals for theological interpretation of her significance. In the first Christian centuries when Docetic tendencies attempted to blot out the genuine humanity of Jesus Christ, Mary's genuine female pregnancy and birthgiving protected his identification with the human race. It was even written into the creed that he was born of the Virgin Mary, ex Maria Virgine, out of her very stuff, not through her, like water passing through a tube, as Gnostic opponents wished to maintain. (2) A very different door opened in the late Middle Ages when the church's juridical practice and its attendant theology divided the so-called kingdoms of justice and mercy. While the lion's share of justice went to Christ, Just Judge of sin, Mary ruled the realm of mercy. As a mother, she did not want one of her children to be lost; as Jesus' mother, she could and would intercede with him on their behalf; as at the wedding in Cana, she would succeed. The experience of divine mercy survived under the outstretched folds of her protective mantle. (3)

THEOLOGY WITH A HISTORICAL IMAGINATION

In our day yet another door has opened to Marian studies, an approach through critical history. Part of a larger shift in contemporary theology, this approach ramifies out from the insight that God's self-revelation takes place in history, in specific times and places, rather than in the Platonic realm of eternal ideas. The postconciliar renewal of biblical scholarship underscored this insight, with significant impact on all areas. Consider Christology as a prime example. Critical studies of the Gospels emphasize that, since these writings reflect the kerygmatic interests of the early church, they are not biographical but profoundly theological in character. At the same time, their witness to the grace and truth of God's saving love keeps a sound link to historical time and place as the locus of this gracious revelation. In addition to work on the genre, literary formation, and social contexts of the Gospels, broader literary studies of extrabiblical writings along with historical studies of the political, economic, social, and religious conditions of Roman-ruled first-century Palestine have lent concreteness to Gospel depictions of the Messiah's life and ministry. As a result, interpretations of Jesus as Word and Wisdom of God have arisen that have their roots in time and place. Broadly speaking, Christology now operates with a historical imagination.

As part of this project, Galilee research has proved to be a potent tool. The very idea that Galilee is a distinct region with its own viable subculture to be investigated is itself relatively recent, much previous archeological work having concentrated on Jerusalem and other centers of ancient Israel. (4) Scholarly attention focused on this district in recent decades has brought to light salient concrete conditions of the immediate world in which Jesus lived and ministered. This knowledge in turn forms part of the matrix in which the salvific good news of the gospel can be construed.

In an analogous development, this scholarship spills over to limn an evocative picture of the person of Mary, embedded in this same location. Each of the canonical Gospels places her there: "After being warned in a dream, he [Joseph] went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth" (Mt 2:22-23); "In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan" (Mk 1:9); "In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary" (Lk 1:26-27); "On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there" (Jn 2:1). Entering through the door of Galilee allows theology of Mary to construe her as an actual historical woman in the concrete. In turn, this insight guides interpretation of her significance within the revelatory narrative of God's self-gift in history.

The trajectory of scholarship to date affords something of a surprise. While Galilee research has been largely the province of white, educated men of First World nations, its results have intersected with theologies being done by new practitioners of this ancient craft, not persons of the dominant race, class, or sex, but people in poor, marginalized communities and women the world over. From the vantage point of their distinctive experiences of struggle, these groups inevitably raise questions and see connections that eyes trained by classical forms of privilege have missed. People in Latin American comunidades eclesiales de base, for example, have grasped the concrete similarity of their lives to that of the Galilean Mary, a poor village woman who suffered from state violence. With this identification, they interpret her Magnificat, omitted from traditional Mariologies, as an anthem of fierce hope in God and countercultural resistance to oppression. "For poor women," explains Latina theologian Maria Pilar Aquino, "Mary is not a heavenly creature but shares their lives as a comrade and sister in struggle." (5) Indeed, in her own person as a Galilean woman she becomes a lodestone of hope for those who have been cheated of their lives.