History of the Theotokos

Why the Blessed Virgin tittle Theotokos and not Christotokos?

The Council of Ephesus (431 AD) was assembled by Pope Celestine on request of St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, to refute the heresy of Nestorius, Patriarchs of Constantinople. Nestorius held that the Blessed Virgin should be called Christotokos, meaning "Mother of Christ," because she was the mother of Christ's humanity, not of his divinity. Against this heresy, which separated the two nature of Christ, the Council declared that Mary was the Theotokos, since she gave birth to Christ, who is God, therefore she could rightly be called Mother of God.

The dogmatic definition of Ephesus declared: " If somebody does not believe that the Emmanuel is God, and that therefore the Blessed Virgin is Theotokos, since she generated in the flesh the Word who is God, be excommunicated."





The Council also defined that the two natures of Christ ( Divine and Human) are "united in one divine person but not confused, are distinct but not seperated."

The dogma of the Theotokos was never meant to suggest that the Blessed Virgin was God, or Mother of God from eternity, but only Mother of the Incarnate Son of God. After the declaration of Mary as the Theotokos, the people of Ephesus, full of rejoicing, escorted the fathers to their houses with torches and incense. Nestorius requested permission to retire to his former monastery, and before his death accepted the decrees of Ephesus.

Mary Mother of God in the Bible

Blessed Virgin in the Bible as Mother of God

The dogma of our Blessed Virgin of " Mary the Theotokos" is based on the faith in the divinity of Christ. Thus, those who do not believe that Christ is God will necessarily deny that Mary is Mother of God.

The biblical proof of the divinity of Christ are: The Prologue to John's Gospel, which state that: " In the beginning was the word ; the word was with God and the word was God" and John 1:1,14 "Jesus words to Philip: " He who has seen ma has seen the Father;how can you say, " Show as the Father?" Do you not believe that I am with the Father and the Father in me?" (John14:8-11); The profession of St. Thomas "My Lord and my God" ( John 20: 28-29).





Having accepted the divinity of Christ, the Biblical proofs of Mary as the Theotokos are:

1. The Annuciation of the Blessed Virgin : " You will concieve in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High" (Luke 1:31-32). Since Jesus is called the Son of God her mother could be called Mother of God.

2. The Visitation: After Mary enteredher house, Elizabeth inspired by the Holy Spirit said: " How does this happen that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke 1:43). The title Lord use by Elizabeth, or Kyrios in Greek was applied only for od, therefore she proclaimed the Blessed Virgin as the Mother of God

The Dogma of Mary Mother of God

Mary, Mother of God

Mary Mother of God was one of the first dogma of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
A dogma is doctrine of our faith officially proclaimed by the church. With reference to Mary, there are four Marian Dogmas namely: 1. Mary Mother of God 2. The Virginity of Mary 3. The Immaculate Conception of Mary 4. The Assumption of Mary.




The first Marian Dogma, which was defined by the Council of Ephesus in 431, states that " The Virgin Mary is the Theotokos." This Marian title, which is compound of two greek words Teos (God) and Tokos (bearer) or the one who give births to God; however in liturgical use, it is paraphased as Mother of God. Nonetheless, the church has never meant to refer to Mary as Mother of God the Father from eternity, lest she herself would be God, but only as Mother of the Incarnate son of God.

Some objective that Mary should be called Mother of Christ ( Christotokos) and not mother of God, since God is eternal and cannot have any beggining. However, the Council of Ephesus asserted that the title Christotokos would reduce Christ into a mere man, no longer as God. Therefore, as Mary was the mother of Jesus, who is God she can be truly Venerated as Mother of God., Moreover, the council clarified that the Divine nature of Jesus Christ is begotten of God the Father from eternity; while his human nature was conceived in the womb of Mary in time.

The Blessed Virgin and the Prophecies

The Blessed Virgin Mary

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ, the mother of God .

In general, the theology and history of Mary the Mother of God follow the chronological order of their respective sources, i.e. the Old Testament, the New Testament, the early Christian and Jewish witnesses.

Mary in the gospels

The reader of the Gospel is at first surprised to find so little about Mary; but this obscurity of Mary in the Gospel has been studied at length by Blessed Peter Canisius , Auguste Nicolas, Cardinal Newman, and Very Rev. J. Spencer Northcote . In the commentary on the "Magnificat", published 1518, even Luther expresses the belief that the Gospel praise Mary sufficiently by calling her (eight times) the Mother of Jesus. In the following paragraphs we shall briefly group together what we know of Our Blessed Lady's life before the birth of her Divine Son, during the hidden Life of Our Lord, during His public Life and afterHis resurrection.

The Blessed Virgin Mary prophesied even in the Old testament.

Genesis 3:15

The first prophecy referring to Mary is found in the very opening chapters of the Book of Genesis (3:15): "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." This rendering appears to differ in two respects from the original Hebrew text.

The second prophecy referring to Mary is found in Isaias 7:1-17. Critics have endeavoured to represent this passage as a combination of occurrences and sayings from the life of the prophet written down by an unknown hand . The credibility of the contents is not necessarily affected by this theory, since prophetic traditions may be recorded by any writer without losing their credibility. But even Duhm considers the theory as an apparent attempt on the part of the critics to find out what the readers are willing to bear patiently; he believes it is a real misfortune for critism itself that it has found a mere compilation in a passage which so graphically describes the birth-hour of faith.

A third prophecy referring to Our Blessed Lady is contained in Micah 5:2-3 : "And thou, Bethlehem, Ephrata, art a little one among the thousands of Juda: out of thee shall be come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel, and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity. Therefore will he give them up till the time wherein she that travaileth shall bring forth, and the remnant of his brethren shall be converted to the children of Israel ." Though the prophet (about 750-660 B.C.) was a contemporary of Isaias , his prophetic activity began a little later and ended a little earlier than that of Isaias . There can be no doubt that the Jews regarded the foregoing prediction as referring to the Messias. According to St.Matthew (2:6) the chief priest and scribes, when asked where the Messias was to be born, answered Herod in the words of the prophecy, "And thou Bethehem the land of Juda . . ." According to St.John (7:42), the Jewish populace gathered at Jerusalem for the celebration of the feast asked the rhetorical question: "Doth not the Scripture say that Christ cometh of the seed of David , and from Bethlehem, the town where David was?" The Chaldee paraphrase of Micah5:2 , confirms the same view: "Out of thee shall come forth unto me the Messias, that he may exercise dominion in Israel". The very words of the prophecy admit of hardly any other explanation; for "his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity ".

A fourth prophecy referring to Mary is found in Jeremias 31:22; "The Lord has created a new thing upon the earth: A woman shall compass a man". The text of the prophet Jeremias offers no small difficulties for the scientific interpreter; we shall follow the Vulgate version of the Hebrew original. But even this rendering has been explained in several different ways: Rosenmuller and several conservative Protestant interpreters defend the meaning, "a woman shall protect a man"; but such a motive would hardly induce the men of Israel to return to God. The explanation "a woman shall seek a man" hardly agrees with the text; besides, such an inversion of the natural order is presented in Isaias 4:1 , as a sign of the greatest calamity. Ewald's rendering, "a woman shall change into a man", is hardly faithful to the original text. Other commentators see in the woman a type of the Synagogue or of the Church, in man the type of God , so that they explain the prophecy as meaning, " God will dwell again in the midst of the Synagogue (of the people of Israel)" or "the Church will protect the earth with its valiant men". But the Hebrew text hardly suggests such a meaning; besides, such an explanation renders the passage tautological: " Israel shall return to its God, for Israel will love its God ". Some recent writers render the Hebrew original: " God creates a new thing upon the earth: the woman (wife) returns to the man (her husband)". According to the old law ( Deuteronomy 24:1-4; Jeremiah 3:1) the husband could not take back the wife once repudiated by him; but the Lord will do something new by allowing the faithless wife, i.e. the guilty nation, to return to the friendship of God. This explanation rests upon a conjectural correction of the text; besides, it does not necessarily bear the Messianic meaning which we expect in the passage.