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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
There has been a tendency in recent years among feminist and liberationist theologians to read the Magnificat primarily as a proclamation of social justice and liberation for the oppressed. A publication called Mary, Mother of Socialism, offers a number of essays which evaluate the liberative potential of the Magnificat, including one by Graham Dowell called “The Magnificat — a Christian Manifesto?” which offers a side-by-side comparison of Mary’s Magnificat and Marx’s Manifesto, with some fascinating juxtapositions and resonances between the two.
This essay is not intended to detract from these imaginative rereadings of the Magnificat to challenge a dehumanising economic order, but I want to suggest that the prophetic vision of social justice which the Magnificat proclaims is secondary to its message that in the redemption of Mary, womankind is liberated from the consequences of the fall and invited into a new world of integrity, freedom and dignity through the incarnation. This is the way in which a number of patristic writers interpreted the Magnificat, and it has profound implications for some of the vexed questions of sexual difference and equality which risk tearing apart the fabric of contemporary Catholic theology. I should add that I do not think that the seamless robe of salvation history is so easily torn apart by theological squabbles, but I do believe that we could save ourselves much hostility and grief if we could only look anew at our rich theological heritage, and setting aside the rhetoric and polemics of secular feminism, ask in all honesty and faithfulness what it means to be woman who bears the image of God no more and no less than man does.
1 I See Delmege, Andy (ed.), Mary, Mother of Socialism (Croydon: The Jubilee Group, 1995), 25–36Google Scholar.
2 Severian, De Mundi Creatore, Orat. vi. 10. int. Opp. S. Chrysost. Tom. vi. p. 497, Migne, in Livius, Thomas, The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries (London: Burns and Oates Ltd.; New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Benziger Brothers, 1893), 56Google Scholar (translation modified).
3 James of Sarug (Jacobus Sarugensis), Homily on the Visitation of Mary in Sergius Alvarez Campus, O.F.M. (collected by), Corpus Marianum Patristicum, Vol. 5, 5189,46.
4 Augustine, “Sermon 190” in Sermons J84–229Z in The Works of Saint Augustine ‐ a Translation for the 21st Century, III, under the auspices of the Augustinian Heritage Institute, trans, and notes, Edmund Hill, OP. and John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Vol. 6 (1993), 39.
5 See Bosrresen, Kari Elisabeth, Subordination and Equivalence: The Nature and Role of Woman in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas (Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1995 [1968]), 75.Google Scholar
6 Ruether, Rosemary Radford, Sexism and God‐Talk: Towards a Feminist Theology (London: SCM Press, 1992 [1983]), 116Google Scholar.
7 Power, Kim, Veiled Desire: Augustine on Writings on Women (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1995), 172Google Scholar.
8 Ibid, 173
9 Augustine, De diversibus questionibus 83, 11. CC. 44A, p. 18, quoted in Bosrresen, Subordination and Equivalence, 74.
10 Bosrresen, ibid, 75.
12 Serm. 123, In Nat. Dom. vii. nn. 1,2, 3, int. Opp. S. Augustine, in Livius, The Blessed Virgin, 73.
12 Ibid.
13 Gregory Thaumaturgus, “On the Annunciation to Mary ‐ the Second Homily” in The Writings of Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius of Alexandria, and Archelaus in Ante‐Nicene Christian Library, Vol. 20 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1871), 133Google Scholar (translation modified).
14 Paul, John II, Mulieris Dignitatem: apostolic letter on the dignity and vocation of women on the occasion of the Marian year, 15 August 1988 (London: Catholic Truth Society), n. 11,43Google Scholar.
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