Syllabus 2015

 “All the steam in the world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartres.”

--Henry Adams (1918)

More than a saint but still herself a creature of God, no figure of Christian devotion other than Christ himself has inspired as much piety or excited as much controversy as Mary, the Virgin Mother of God. In this course, we will study the development of the Virgin’s image and cult from her descriptions in the Gospels through the modern papal definitions of Marian dogma so as to come to some understanding how and why this woman “about whom the Gospels say so little” has become a figure of such popular and theological significance. We will consider both the late antique origins and medieval flowering of her cult as well as its dismantling, transformation, transmission, and reinvention in the centuries since.

Books Available for Purchase from the Seminary Co-op Bookstore

Mary B. Cunningham, ed., Wider Than Heaven: Eighth-century Homilies on the Mother of God (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008) [ISBN 9780881413267]

Bernard of Clairvaux, Homilies in Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary, trans. Marie-Bernard Saïd, Cistercian Fathers Series 18A (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1993).  [ISBN pb 0879071486]

Amadeus of Lausanne, Eight Homilies on the Praises of Blessed Mary, trans. Grace Perigo, Cistercian Fathers Series 18B (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1979).   [ISBN 0897074183]

Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, The Mystical City of God: A Popular Abridgement of the Divine History and Life of the Virgin Mother of God, trans. Fiscar Marison (Tan Books, 2009).  [ISBN 0895550709]

St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, trans. Mary Barbour (Bay Shore, NY: Montfort Publications, 1954).  [ISBN 0895550563]

All other readings will be available on e-reserve through the course Chalk site under “Library Course Reserves” or under "Course Documents" for those marked [on Chalk].

Course Requirements

1.  Read as much as you can of the assigned readings and come to class prepared to participate in the discussion. This course has a fairly heavy reading load (how could anyone say enough about the Virgin?); the more you are able to read, the more you will get out of our discussions.  (Mary would, of course, want you to read everything carefully, but she understands if it is all a bit overwhelming.)

2.  Post three reflections (900-1200 words each) on the course blog following our class discussion for that day. Reflections must be posted within 48 hours of our class discussion: by Thursday at 1:30pm for Tuesday discussions; by Saturday at 1:30pm for Thursday discussions.  There will be a sign-up on the first day for you to choose which days you will be responsible for a reflection. For days on which you are responsible for reflections, you should be sure to read everything assigned for that day. Everyone will login as “Mary’s Servant,” so be sure to sign your blog posts with your initials! These reflections will be worth 35% of your final grade.

3.  Comment (about 200 words each) on at least five posts for five different discussions/class days different from the days on which you post your reflections. Blog comments plus attendance and discussion in class will be worth 20% of your final grade.

4.  Final project worth 45%. This project will be due on December 10. You may choose one of two options: either a work of devotion (prayer, hymn, meditation, image, poem, play, narrative, comic book, film, or whatever the Virgin inspires you to create) or a research paper (12-15 pages, double-spaced, 11 or 12 pt font, not including bibliography) on some aspect of Marian devotion or Mariology. If you choose the first option, you will also need to write a 5-7 page (double-spaced, 11 or 12 pt font) description of your project, explaining how your project is grounded in the materials that we will have read and discussed this quarter. You should start thinking about your project or research paper as soon as possible; I will send round a sign-up on October 27 for you to let me know what you will be doing.

5. HIST 32111 and HCHR 32111 only: Book review (5-7 pages, 11 or 12 pt font), due December 3 in the Chalk Dropbox. Choose one work of modern scholarship (published since 1960) on the history of devotion to the Virgin Mary. Your review should take account of the readings and discussions that we have done for the quarter. Describe the methodology that the author uses, his or her assumptions about the meaning of Mary's cult, and the ways in which he or she integrates devotion to the Virgin into the larger historical conversation about the context in which the cult developed. This review will be worth 20% of your final grade. Your final papers will be worth 45%, your blog posts 20%, and your blog comments and participation 15%.

Reading and Discussion Assignments

If all the world turned into quills

And atoms scribes, for all their skills

This host could not her praise reveal

Nor even match the Virgin’s heel.

As many scribes as there are leaves,

Rocks, pebbles, groves, or dripping seas

Could not the Virgin worthily

Describe in all eternity.

If scribes were numbered with the stars

That twinkle in the face of Mars

Or drops of rain that on earth fall,

The matter’s weight would crush them all.

--Walter of Wimborne (fl. 1260), Marie carmina,

stanzas 4-5a, trans. A.G. Rigg and Rachel Fulton Brown

September 29 Mary in the Scriptures

Genesis 3:15; 1 Samuel (Kings) 2:1-10; Psalm 44 (Vulgate) | 45 (Hebrew); Proverbs 8; Song of Songs (Song of Solomon); Wisdom of Solomon 7-8; Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 24; Isaiah 7:14, 11:1; Ezekiel 44:2-3; Micah 5:2-3; Zechariah 2:10

Matthew 1-2, 12:46-50; Mark 3:31-5, 6:3; Luke 1-2; John 2:1-12, 19:17-30; Acts 1:14; Galatians 4:4; Revelation 12:1-6

October 1 Mary in the Apocrypha

“The Protoevangelium of James,” in J.K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 48-67 [BS3832.E5 1993]

“The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew,” in Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 84-99 [BS3832.E5 1993]

Jacobus de Voragine, “The Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” in The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 2:149-58 [BX4654.J3340 1993]

Jacobus de Voragine, “The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” in The Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, 2:77-97 [BX4654.J3340 1993]

October 6 The New Eve

Ireneus, Against Heresies, book III, chapters XXI-XXII; book V, chapter XIX, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 1, ed. Philip Schaff [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.html]

Tertullian, “On the Flesh of Christ,” chapter XVII, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 3, ed. Philip Schaff [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.v.vii.xvii.html]

Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion, trans. Frank Williams, 2 vols. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1987-1994), 2:620-29 (“Against Collyridians”) [BR65.E653P360 1987] [on Chalk]

Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns, Hymns of the Nativity nos. 2, 4, 8, 11, 12, 14-17, 28, trans. Kathleen E. McVey (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), pp.  75-81, 89-109, 118-23, 131-35, 140-57, 214-17 [BR65.E632E50 1989]

October 8 Theotokos

Proclus of Constantinople, “Homily 1: On the Holy Virgin Theotokos Delivered while Nestorius was seated in the Great Church of Constantinople,” “Homily 4: On the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” and “Homily 5: On the Holy Virgin Theotokos,” in Nicholas Constas, Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity: Homilies 1-5, Texts and Translations, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 66 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 128-56, 212-72 [B701.​Z7N53 2003 or BR65.​P6423 H663 2003eb]

Letters of Cyril and Nestorius read at the Council of Ephesus (431 AD), in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman Tanner, 2 vols. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990) [http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/EPHESUS.HTM]

“The Akathistos Hymn,” in Leena Mari Peltomaa, The Image of the Virgin Mary in the Akathistos Hymn, The Medieval Mediterranean 35 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), pp. 2-19 [BT608.732.P458 2001]

Margaret Barker, "Wisdom Imagery and the Mother of God," in The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium: Texts and Images, ed. Leslie Brubaker and Mary B. Cunningham (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 91-108 [BT652.B99 C85 2011] [on Chalk]

October 13 Wider than Heaven

Andrew of Crete, “On the Nativity I-IV,” Germanos of Constantinople, “On the Entrance into the Temple I-II,” Andrew of Crete, “Oration on the Annunciation of the Supremely Holy Lady, Our Theotokos,” and Germanos of Constantinople, “Oration on the Annunciation of the Supremely Holy Theotokos” and “Oration on the Consecration of the Venerable Church or Our Supremely Holy Lady, the Theotokos, and on the Holy Swaddling Clothes of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” in Wider than Heaven, trans. Cunningham, pp. 71-138, 145-72, 197-255. [BT220 .W86 2008]

Qur’an 3:35-51, 19:16-35, trans. George Sale, in Mary: The Complete Resource, ed. Boss, pp. 480-83 [BT610 .M37 2007]

October 15 The Office of the Virgin Mary

Peter Damian, Letters 17, 106, 142, and 166, trans. Owen J. Blum and Irven Resnick, Letters, Fathers of the Church, Mediaeval Continuation, 6 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1989-2005), 1:145-57, 4: 174-91, 5: 127-42, 6:228-32 [BX4700.P77A40 1989]

The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary [http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/prayers/LittleOfficeBVM.htm]

Rebecca Baltzer, “The Little Office of the Virgin and Mary’s Role at Paris,” in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, eds. Margot Fassler and Rebecca Baltzer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 463-84 [ML3080 .D58 2000]

Roger S. Wieck, Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art (New York: George Braziller, 1997), pp. 51-78 [ND3363.A1 W54 1997]

October 20 Cistercian Mary

Bernard of Clairvaux, Homilies in Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary, trans. Marie-Bernard Saïd, pp. 1-58 [BT608 .B47 1993]

Amadeus of Lausanne, Eight Homilies on the Praises of Blessed Mary, trans. Grace Perigo, pp. 1-75 [BT608.​M2]

October 22 Mater misericordiae

The Miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour, trans. Marcus Bull (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999), pp. 97-108, 111-12, 121, 134, 137-42, 144-46, 150-53, 164-65, 177-79, 184-85 [BT660.​R54 B85 1999]

Gautier de Conci, “The Tumbler of Our Lady,” in The Tumbler of Our Lady and Other Miracles, trans. Alice Kemp-Welch (London: Chatto and Windus, 1908), pp. 1-33 [http://books.google.com/ebooks?id=s7JiAAAAMAAJ]

Alfonso X, Songs of Holy Mary of Alfonso X, the Wise: A Translation of the Cantigas de Santa Maria, trans. Kathleen Kulp-Hill (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2000), pp. 1-29 [PQ9189.A44 C313 2000]

Johannes Herolt, Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary (excerpts), in Medieval Popular Religion, 1000-1500, ed. John Shinners (Peterborough: Broadview, 1997), pp. 130-40 [BR252 .M42 1997]

October 27 Mater dolorosa

Anselm of Canterbury, “Prayers to Christ and Mary,” in The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm, trans. Benedicta Ward (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), pp. 93-99, 106-126 [BX2110.A57 1979]

Stabat mater [http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/poetry/stbmat.html]

Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 403, 444-58 (on William of Newburgh's commentary on the Song of Songs) [BT590.​C85 F85 2002]

“Meditation by Bernard on the Lamentation of the Blessed Virgin,” in Thomas H. Bestul, Texts of the Passion: Latin Devotional Literature and Medieval Society (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), pp. 165-85 [PA8030.C47B470 1996]

“The Passion of the Lord Jesus,” in John of Caulibus, Meditations on the Life of Christ, trans. Francis X. Taney, Anne Miller, and C. Mary Stallings-Taney (Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, 2000), pp. 236-68 [BT306.4.M4413 2000]

October 29 NO CLASS  Meet with Dan to talk about your final projects

November 3 Mater sponsi, sponsa Dei

Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum, "Mother and Son," trans. Barbara Newman, 2nd ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), pp. 110-37 [BV469.H534S95130 1988]

Elisabeth of Schönau, The Complete Works, trans. Anne L. Clark (New York: Paulist Press, 2000), pp. 46-47, 50, 58, 64-67, 77-78, 80-81, 103-5, 123-25, 209-11 [BX2350.2 .E4513 2000]

Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, trans. Frank Tobin (New York: Paulist Press, 1998), pp. 49-52, 70-75, 103, 110-11, 197-204, 258-59, 265, 291-92 [BV5091.V6 M43413 1998]

Gertrude of Helfta, The Life and Revelations of Saint Gertrude: Virgin and Abbess of the Order of St. Benedict (Westminster, Md: Christian Classics, 1983), pp. 102-5, 131-33, 177-80, 227-30, 308-13, 334-38, 368-73, 432-46, 453-58, 478-85, 546-52, 559-60 [BX4700.G473A35 1983]

November 5 Unspotted Mirror of God's Majesty

Conrad of Saxony, Mirror of the Blessed Virgin Mary, trans. Sr. Mary Emmanuel (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1932), prologue, ch. 1-3 [http://www.intratext.com/ixt/ENG0025/]

John Duns Scotus, “Was the Blessed Virgin Conceived in Original Sin,” in Four Questions on Mary, trans. Allan B. Wolter, OFM (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2000), pp. 34-75 [BT600.D86 2012 ][on Chalk]

Walter of Wimborne, "Ave Virgo Mater Christi," in The Poems of Walter of Wimborne, ed. A.G. Rigg (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1978), pp. 144-83 [B720.T7][trans. Rachel Fulton Brown, on blog]

Stephen Mossman, Marquard von Lindau and the Challenges of Religious Life in Late Medieval Germany: The Passion, the Eucharist, the Virgin Mary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 243-334 [BS500 .M67 2010] [on Chalk]

November 10 Reforming Mary

Martin Luther, Luther on Women: A Sourcebook, ed. and trans. Susan C. Karant-Nunn and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 32-57 [BR333.3.L88 2003]

Hugh Latimer, The Works of Hugh Latimer, sometime Bishop of Worcester, martyr, 1555, ed. for the Parker Society by George Elwes Corrie, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1844-45), 1:393-95, 2:225-32 [http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007684311]

Paul Williams, “The English Reformers and the Blessed Virgin Mary,” in Boss, Mary: The Complete Resource, pp. 238-55 [BT610 .M37 2007]

Diarmaid MacCulloch, “Mary and Sixteenth-Century Protestants,” in The Church and Mary, ed. R.N. Swanson, Studies in Church History 39 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004), pp. 191-217 [BR141.S94 v. 39]

November 12 Mary in the New World

William A. Christian, Jr., Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 26-32, 40-49, 57-72, 88-92 [BV5091.V6C55]

Louise M. Burkhart, Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies 13 (New York: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, 2001), pp. 9-21, 99-113 [F1221.N3 B87 2001]

“The Nican Mopohua,” in Carl Anderson and Msgr. Eduardo Chávez, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love (New York: Doubleday, 2009), pp. 171-83 [BT660.G8 A63 2009]

November 17 Counter-Reformation Mary

Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, The Mystical City of God, trans. Fiscar Marison, pp.  TBA

Louis de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary

November 19 The Immaculate Conception

Pope Pius IX, Apostolic Constitution on the Immaculate Conception Ineffabilis Deus (December 8, 1854) [http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_pi09id.htm]

Sandra L. Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary: From La Salette to Medjugorje (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 25-91 [BT650.Z560 1991]

Ruth Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age (New York: Viking, 1999), pp. 55-82 [BT653 .H37 1999]

November 24 Modern Mary

Henry Adams, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), pp. 87-105, 168-69, 183-86 [DC801.​M7515 A3 1986eb]

________, The Education of Henry Adams (New York: Modern Library, 1931), chapter XXV: "The Dynamo and the Virgin (1900)," pp. 379-90 [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=image;size=100;id=mdp.39015043154825;q1=Virgin;page=root;seq=399;num=379]

Pope Pius XII, Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus Defining the Dogma of the Assumption (November 1, 1950) [http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus_en.html]

Vatican II, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: Lumen Gentium” (1964), chapter VIII: The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God in the Mystery of Christ and the Church [http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html]

November 26 HAPPY THANKSGIVING! NO CLASS

December 1 Postmodern Mary

Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), pp. 81-92 [HQ1154.D18]

Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), pp. xix-xxv, 333-39 [BT602.W28]

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “Thoughts on the Place of Marian Doctrine and Piety in Faith and Theology as a Whole,” in Mary: The Church at the Source, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), pp. 19-36 [BT613 .B43513 2005]

Sarah Jane Boss, Mary (London: Continuum, 2003), "The Mother of God and the Cosmos," pp. 3-32 [BT613 .B67 2004]

FINAL PAPERS due December 10 in the Chalk Dropbox.