The Virgin Mary is the most mythical figure in Catholic belief, and it is also an important factor to attract a large number of female believers to actively join Catholicism. They revered Mary as the mother of God. Although she is a human being and has no worldly desires, she can be flawless at the beginning of pregnancy, exempt from all kinds of debts of human original sin, and has a beautiful face and perfect divinity. She will ascend to heaven after her death, and will not leave her body to rot and stink in the grave.
Who is the Virgin Mary?
In the biblical text, the record of Mary is quite simple. She is a devout Jewish girl in Nazareth, married to Joseph, a carpenter, but before marriage she felt pregnant with the Holy Spirit, and after marriage she gave birth to Jesus.
Generally speaking, religious stories can't be delved into, because they are not historical stories, but fairy tales deduced according to religious needs. Just like the story that Mary felt pregnant with the Holy Spirit before she got married, it is to prove that Jesus is the Messiah (Christ) predicted by the prophets of the Old Testament. According to the mistranslation of 70 Greek articles, the gospel story of a virgin who feels pregnant is compiled by gospel writers Matthew and Luke. In fact, in the Hebrew Old Testament, Isaiah said that young women give birth to children, not virgins. The mistranslation of Seventy Sons in Greek caused the misunderstanding between Matthew and Luke, which led to the first myth about Mary and became the creed of Christianity.
However, if there is no first myth about Mary, does the Christian church have the power to sweep Europe to America?
What will Maria be like in the male-dominated world in history? Some Israeli scholars believe that the ideal of ancient Israelis is "having many children and grandchildren" (see Genesis 1), and the value of Jewish women is also measured by her fertility. According to the insistence of Catholicism, Mary, the mother of Jesus, had only one son. If it is not clearly described in the Bible, she may have another son, Jacob. Obviously, Mary gave birth to too few children, which is different from the values of ancient Israelis.
Maria in history is actually unfortunate. She is a woman. When she was born, no man was noble. Leviticus 12 stipulates that a woman who gives birth to a boy is unclean for only seven days. If she gives birth to a girl, she will have two unclean days, and she must stay at home for 66 days. But Maria's misfortune goes far beyond being a woman. Her greater misfortune is that she lost her spouse early and her child was killed early when she was older. The death of Jesus is a sign of human suffering, but for his mother Maria, it is tantamount to killing her. Religion sometimes really covers up the unfortunate facts of human beings, especially after the death of Jesus was dramatized by religion, the unfortunate people were compensated and Maria became the happiest woman. However, the Virgin Mary is a silent statue. Inadvertently, her paintings will peel off, revealing the simple nature of mud tires.
It is said that Mary followed Jesus all the time during his missionary work. When Jesus was crucified, Mary was imprisoned under the cross, and Jesus entrusted her to johanna. After Jesus ascended to heaven, Mary was present when the disciples gathered at Kyle's home in Jerusalem to pray. Legend has it that Mary was later taken from Johanna to Ephesus, where she retired and died. Nevertheless, the special relationship between Mary and Jesus will inevitably inspire people to make more reverie beyond the doctrine. Maybe the masculine god needs female factors to correct it, otherwise it will lack aesthetic feeling. If we think about the evolution of Guanyin Bodhisattva in Buddhism from male to female in China, we will naturally understand the inevitability and rationality of why the unfortunate Maria in western beliefs went to the altar.
Of course, Mary belief is also the legal result of the impact of the ancient western goddess belief on Christianity. After the Christian church gained the status of state religion, the original western religions and Christianity repeatedly competed for the dominance of religious influence. In order to cope with this challenge peacefully, the church chose to use the special relationship between Mary and Jesus to transform the pagan goddess belief into the worship of Mary. In 43 1 AD, the patriarch Cyril of Alexandria praised Mary by calling the great goddess themis-Diana by many Ephesian pagans in a sermon at Ephesus. Although the patriarch of Constantine, Nie Storey, protested, the Ephesian Conference that followed gave Maria the title of "Mother of God" and attributed the most beautiful and gentle features of the goddess of nature, Artemis, Diana and other gods to Maria.
By the middle ages, people's enthusiasm for worshipping the virgin Mary was high. With their rich imagination and incomparable enthusiasm, the masses "created the most beautiful roses in the Middle Ages, making Maria the most beloved figure in history". In this context, the Gospel of Mary also came into being. People spread all kinds of miracles about Maria widely. Driven by this situation, the attitude of the Catholic Church changed greatly from12nd century to13rd century. 1230, a French abbot compiled the legend about Maria into a poem of 30,000 lines, which described countless deeds and stories of Maria. Although the church does not recognize all the stories, the life stories of the Virgin Mary have evolved into major festivals-Angel's Day (March 25th), Conference of the Virgin Mary (July 2nd), Candle Day (February 2nd), Ascension Day of the Virgin Mary (August 15) and so on. 1854, Pope pius ix declared that Mary had no original sin, and "Virgin without original sin" became the orthodox doctrine.
As a Christian, from the standpoint of maintaining orthodox beliefs, I naturally don't want the worship of the Virgin to impact the worship of Jesus Christ. It was once a strategy of the church to turn the pagan goddess belief into the worship of Mary, but now the church has the power to alienate Catholicism, which is an unexpected problem. Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria played the role of a speculator in religious belief, while Patriarch Nie Storey of Constantine who insisted on his own belief was exiled as a heretic and died in another country. Finally, he left a famous saying: "Mary is not the one who gave birth to God, but the one who gave birth to Christ. God is not a baby of two or three months old. "
The rise of the worship of the Virgin Mary in the history of Catholic development is an excellent example of the game interaction between Christianity and paganism. At least, as a result, people's wishes and needs have created a tribute to the Madonna. Maria made a painted clay tire herself, and always accepted the devout worship of the believers with a silent smile.