Directory | Site Map | HaYom | The Hasidic Mother of Yeshua Deification of Christ and Veneration of Mary by Friederich Heer This dangerous process of deification [of Christ] had three momentous consequences for Christianity and for those "outsiders" who had the misfortune to come up against these God-fixated Christians during the next fifteen hundred years. The first was the development of a special cult of Mary; secondly, the development of a brutal intolerance towards "heretics" — that is, those who held other beliefs; and thirdly, the cutting off of Christianity from its roots, from its foundations in the Old Testament and in the piety of the people of Israel. Let us consider this first development, the special cult of Mary. Important Catholic theologians like Otto Karrer, Karl Rahner and Michael Schmaus have recognized that in the struggle against Arianism in the fourth century direct devotion to Christ was replaced by an excessive stress on the divinity of Christ, so that His character as brother and human example was obscured. . . Many people then proceeded to fill the place formerly occupied by the humanity of Christ, our brother and intercessor, with the merciful figure of Mary, transferring to her all the characteristics of Christ mentioned in the Bible. A mediator was needed between them and the remote and awesome Christ-God. This role was filled by the mother of Christ, who remained human and cared for the wretched sinner. Medieval Germany made no distinction in language of thought between God, God the Father and Christ."God" is both the Christ-God who has absorbed the Father into His awesome divinity, and God the Father who has absorbed the Son. St Bernard of Clairvaux [1090-1153], whose fanatical warfare against heretics, unbelievers, Islam, Abelard and intellectuals we have already briefly encountered, determined the character of this devotion to Mary for the next five centuries. In a famous sermon he said, for instance, of the text "For our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12, 29): "How should the sinner not fear to be destroyed if he approach God, even as wax melts near the flame?' Therefore we have need of a mediator — Mary." Mary has a softening effect on her harsh Son, on the anger of his awesome God: she is exalted to the position of "mediator of all mercies", of "co-redeemer". Without Mary, God (Christ) can achieve nothing; her will is law to Him, the Son. The believer flees to Mary, dedicates to her his whole life and his family. Popes have pledgedthe whole of the human race to the heart of Mary. Mary is the universal remedy against liberalism, questioning intellectuality and doubt, against the spirit of the moderns and Bolshevism. Friedrich Heer God's First Love: Christians and Jews Over Two Thousand Years (London: Phoenix, 1999, orig. 1970), pages 412-13 Translated from German by Geoffrey Skelton [Top] Directory | Site Map | HaYom | Virgin Israel: Mother of Messiah