From Quasi-Goddess to Protestant Woman: Martin Luther's Re-imagining of the Virgin Mary

From Quasi-Goddess to Protestant Woman: Martin Luther's Re-imagining of the Virgin Mary

CHAN Hiu Ki

Contrary to the reluctance of the Protestants to talk about saints and the Virgin Mary today, Martin Luther, the main initiator of the Protestant Reformation in history, talked a lot about the Mother of God, and in a surprisingly positive way. Indeed, throughout his life, Luther did not abandon his devotion to Mary completely, and he still retained a remarkable amount of Catholic teaching about Mary, which was only discarded by his successors. Luther articulated clearly the importance of Mary to Christian tradition and theology. However, as is well known, Luther castigated the multiform abuses of Marian devotion and veneration in the Catholic Church. Beginning with his rebuking the practice of idolatry, Luther eventually transformed and reevaluated the role of the Virgin Mary in his scattered writings. Although he did not intend to provide a Mariology, Luther recreated an understanding of Mary in line with his reform theology. From the medieval portrait of being the heavenly Queen and an intercessor, Mary was remodeled by Luther into a far more human and pious mother, who paradoxically remained a virgin, and who faithfully bore and raised the Son of God. Luther's re-imagining of Mary has, notably, shaped almost all the subsequent Protestant attitudes toward Mary, so it deserves a close examination. Based on the existing scholarship, and the conviction that Luther, the pioneer of the Protestant Reformation and the most influential reformer in the early years, should be considered independently of the tradition he helped to found, this essay aims to analyze Luther's view of the Virgin Mary further. In particular, it pinpoints Luther's re-imagining of Mary. Through investigating Luther's views of Mary in response to his time, my contention is that Luther turned the lay enthusiasm toward Mary into a Protestant pedagogy. Intentionally and sometimes unintentionally, he accommodated Mary within his theological framework, and created a new image of Mary as a mere human, a subordinate figure to Christ and a Protestant example. This essay consists of three parts. It first studies the shape of Marian devotion in Luther's time. Then, it gives a chronological survey on Luther's developing attitude toward the Virgin throughout his life. After that, it synthesizes Luther's doctrine arguments on Mary to show how Mary is re-imagined theologically.