Devotion to Mary has always existed

Corrado Gnerre

Dear friends, I have thought of you to resolve my doubt. I am a devotee of Our Lady. I cannot imagine my prayer life without the beautiful and tender figure of Mary. However, some say that Marian devotion did not always exist in the Church, that is, that it arose afterwards. How can you respond to such nonsense?

Dear …, as you said: it’s just nonsense!

It was the Council of Ephesus in 431 that decreed the “divine motherhood” of Mary and so the Protestants claimed that Marian devotion among Christians began from there. But in reality this is not the case at all: Marian devotion existed for as long as Christianity had existed.

To confirm what I am saying, I would like to reiterate that the Council of Ephesus was celebrated in a building dedicated to the Virgin, which makes it clear that the Marian cult had already existed.

The oldest known prayer addressed to Mary, Sub tuum praesidium (We fly to thy protection, O holy Mother of God. Despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.), was found in Alexandria, Egypt inscribed in an Egyptian Coptic papyrus purchased in 1917 by the John Rylands Library in Manchester and first published in 1938. According to scholars, it dates back to the early third century. It certainly dates back to a time much earlier to the Council of Ephesus (431) which – as we have already said – will attribute to Mary the title of “Mother of God”.

In an ancient column in the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, probably from the 2nd century or at the latest from the 3rd century, an inscription in Greek can be found that was written by a pilgrim on her knees (so she writes), “beneath the sacred place of Mary”. She left engraved her name and that of her loved ones, to entrust them to the Madonna. But the interesting thing to be noted is that in the inscription the pilgrim specifies that she has performed the prescribed rites and prayers.

Furthermore, in Nazareth, at the same time as the discovery of this inscription, another one was found (also from the 2nd century, latest from the 3rd), which testifies with certainty to the cult status that the first Christians gave to Mary. In this inscription, discovered by the archaeologist Father Bellarmino Bagatti (1905-1990), one can easily read the angelic greeting: “Ave Maria”.

In the catacombs of Priscilla, in Rome, there is a representation that dates back to the third century. In it we see the figure of a bishop, who, imposing a sacred veil on a virgin, points to Mary Most Holy as her model, who is painted with the Child Jesus in her arms.

Moreover, in the catacombs of Via Salaria you can see an epitaph placed in front of the niche of a deceased named Vericundus. The name is traced on two tiles joined together, which closes the niche. Between these two tiles, on the lime plastering that unites them, stands out, most probably painted by the same hand that traced the name of the deceased, an “M” which, according to the well-known scholar Margherita Guarducci, means Mary. In short, they wanted to place the soul of the deceased under the protection of the Virgin. Well, this epitaph dates back to the 2nd century.

In Rome, under the altar of confession in St. Peter’s Basilica, in the so-called “wall G2”, which contained the bones of the apostle Peter identified by the scholar Margherita Guarducci, various writings dating back to the beginning of the fourth century were found engraved, therefore before the Council of Ephesus (431). Among these graffitis, many of which were written to implore the happiness of Heaven for the dead, there is often an acclamation of victory from Christ, from his Mother and obviously from the apostle Peter. There is also graffiti in which the name of Mary appears in full and not abbreviated, as was used in ancient times.

In order to more fully understand how much devotion to the Virgin preceded the Council of Ephesus (431), it should be remembered that long before this council various feasts in honor of Mary Most Holy were established in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and also in Nazareth. It is certain that a Marian solemnity existed in Constantinople before the Council of Ephesus. There are, in fact, all the elements necessary to consider an authentic speech made by St. Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople in 429, in which mention is made of a liturgical solemnity in honor of the Madonna.

There are also beautiful prayers addressed to the Virgin that were composed by Saint Athanasius, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine. These were saints who lived before the Council of Ephesus.

And then, dear …, how can we forget the representation of the Mother of Jesus in the cemetery of Priscilla, on Via Salaria Nuova, in Rome? In this representation, the Virgin holds Jesus tightly to her breast. The work dates back to the second century, therefore well before the Council of Ephesus.