THEOTOKOS

By: Sem. JMJ†
In Honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

To further elaborate the term “theotokos or God-bearer”, let us first begin with the biblical grounds,  as well as, the context itself. As the book of Genesis stated the proto-evangelium,  which is called first gospel because it gave a signage about ‘the promise of a redeemer after the fall. Speaking to the serpent, God said, "I will make you enemies of each other; you and the women; your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel" (Genesis 3:15). 'Traditionally the woman and her offspring have been understood to mean Mary and her Son.’¹ In relation, just even in a very practical view, the phrase “your (serpent) offspring and her (woman) offspring”,  talks only of two lines of generation. Obviously, the serpent refers to the devil, while the woman is no other than Mary; but if there’s still doubt about it, I think that’s already unacceptable. We know that our redeemer, Jesus, is the son of Mary, who came into this world to save us; moreover, ‘a woman has seen by John in the book of Revelation who is pregnant and gave birth to a male child (destined to rule all nations) is in a battle against the devil’², then if cross-referenced to Isaiah’s ‘the government shall be upon his shoulder’³; definitely, the child is really referring to Jesus while the woman, is now more obvious, it is indeed referring to Mary. It’s Mary because it was only her who gave birth to the Messiah.

However, theotokos or God-bearer title of Mary was put into question on 5th century when Nestorius, a monk of Antioch tried to nullify Mary as God’s bearer and instead called her as Christ’s bearer. He was challenged by St. Cyril of Alexandria, yet he replied; ‘whenever the Sacred Scriptures speak of Our Lord's activity, they never speak of the birth and suffering of the divinity, but of the humanity of Christ. That is why the most accurate way of speaking about the Holy Virgin is Christ-bearer, not God-bearer[Letter to Cyril 2.11].’⁴ However, more faith defenders had fought the orthodox title of Mary, one of them was St. Alexander of Alexandria ‘Our Lord Jesus Christ in very deed, and not merely in appearance, had a body from Mary, Mother of God [Theotokos]’5, then Gregory Nazianzus ‘If anyone denies that Saint Mary is God-bearer, he is far from God. If anyone says that He passed through the Virgin as through a tube and was not formed in her in a divine and human way, divine because it was without intercourse with man, human because it took place like every other pregnancy, he is equally far from God [Letter 101; Patrologia Graeca, ed j. p. migne, 37:177].’6 In addition, this what I am referring for, that some are only regarding Mary as a mere instrument and has no value afterwards, like of Nestorius who is a heretic, ‘for he regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God's Son. Opposing this heresy7, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man. Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: "Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh."8 After that long-debate on the controversy about theotokos, Nestorius was condemned.

Nestorius has failed to destroy Mary as Theotokos, but if such lesson cannot be embarked in the hearts of the faithful, there is always a tendency that heretics will arise in the future. Mary is also Christ’s bearer but not limited to that for the most appropriate title for Mary is God's-bearer; for we can never disregard Mary, that by flesh she had bore the entirety of Jesus, human and divine; for 'God has assumed humanity and not absorbed.'9

REFERENCES
1 “Catholic Dictionary,” Catholic Culture.org, last accessed Dec. 10, 2017, https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=35865.
2 Revelation 12:1-5.
3 Isaiah 9:6 KJV.
4-7 “Theotokos,” Encyclopedia.com, last accessed Dec. 10,2017, http://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/theotokos.
8 Word & Life Publications and CBCP/ECCCE, Cathechism of the Catholic Church(Philippines: Definitive Edition, 1994), 131.
9 Word & Life Publications and CBCP/ECCCE, 133.