Whilst references to Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the canonical New Testament texts are notoriously thin on the ground, there is a well-attested tradition of theological thinking about her that spans two millennia and the breadth of the Christian tradition. One distinct element of this theological thought is the drawing of a typological connection between Mary and the Temple. A typological relationship is one in which a connection is established between two things, people, or events; “the first of which signified not only itself but also the second, while the second encompasses or fulfills the first.”Footnote 1 To suggest that the Temple is a type of Mary is to say that key aspects of that which was true about the Temple are true in and of themselves, but are also true, to an even greater extent, with regard to Mary.
Beginning with a brief exploration of the history of the use of this typology and its development alongside the establishment of Marian doctrines, this article will then consider the theological implications of the typology. When theologians are drawing this connection, what is it they are saying about Mary (and often Jesus) when they are doing so? Finally, I will consider this typology from a feminist perspective considering why feminist theologians might wish to reject such an image of Mary, as well as the reasons why a rehabilitation of such typology might be possible.
1. The History of the Marian-Temple Type
The typological association of Mary with the Temple has been in use since the first century CE. It is found in the opening chapter of Luke's Gospel. The Infancy Narrative in Luke calls to mind the story of Abraham and Sarah, Daniel's description of Gabriel, the story of Samuel and common annunciation-to-birth patterns. Most significant is Luke's use of the word “overshadow” in 1.35. This word used here to describe how Mary will become pregnant is the same word used in the Septuagint to describe the cloud of God's glory over the Tabernacle in the desert (Ex. 40.35; Num. 9. 18, 22) and the winged cherubim who overshadowed the Ark of the Covenant (Ex. 25.20; 1 Chron. 28.18). The use of this term calls to mind these ancient texts and connects the overshadowing that Mary experiences with the physical presence of God, as the clouds and the cherubim had filled those places with the spiritual presence of God. As the Ark of the Old Covenant had contained the word of God - his Laws, so the Ark of the New Covenant, Mary, contained the Word of God incarnate.
The doctrines of the Church associated with Mary, namely those concerning her Perpetual Virginity, her status as Theotokos (her status as Mother of God), her Immaculate Conception, and her Assumption, developed over the following centuries. With each new doctrine, the connection between Mary and the Temple was developed further.
1.1 Perpetual Virginity
In the period subsequent to Luke's use of the Temple typology and prior to the Nestorian controversy of the fifth century, Temple typology is used interchangeably for both Christ and Mary. For example, the image is employed by Gregory Nazianzen as he writes “[T]hey are not few in number who say that the God-man was born from the Virgin's womb, which the Spirit of the great God formed, constructing a pure temple to house the Temple. For the Mother is the temple of Christ, while Christ is the Temple of the Word.”Footnote 2 Significantly here Gregory uses the image of the Temple for both Mary and Christ—a feature common in the writings of early Church fathers, before the implications of considering the body of Jesus as merely a dwelling place for Christ became controversial.
The most explicit typological connection between Mary's Perpetual Virginity and the Temple from this period comes from Jerome in the early fifth century. Jerome traced the typology of Mary throughout the Old Testament and considered the prophecy of Ezekiel to refer to her; “The Lord said to me: This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it; therefore it shall remain shut.” (Ez. 44. 2). The gate is a gate of the Temple and thus Jerome writes “[O]nly Christ opened the closed doors of the virginal womb, which continued to remain closed, however. This is the closed eastern gate, through which only the high priest may enter and exit and which nevertheless is always closed.”Footnote 3 The closed gate of the Temple, through which only the High Priest can pass, and which is always closed, is the virginal womb of Mary, through which Jesus entered and exited but which, nevertheless, always remains closed - virginal. The Temple imagery of the fourth and early fifth centuries reflects the Christological concerns of the age. Brian Reynolds notes that such typology reveals:
[a] reverence towards sacred spaces, such as temples or vessels, present in Greek and Latin culture, but particularly marked in the Hebraic tradition. In this regard it is no coincidence that two of the more prominent Marian typologies among the Fathers are the Ark of the Covenant and the burning bush, both loci made sacred by the presence of God.Footnote 4
1.2 Theotokos
The second formal doctrinal development concerning Mary is the confirmation of her status as Theotokos meaning Mother of God. Once again, Marian-Temple typology is employed to support the establishment of the doctrine. A key example of this usage is found in the Akathistos hymn from the early sixth century. Hilda Graeff characterises the Akathistos as a “compendium of Byzantium Mariology”Footnote 5 and thus it gives an excellent snapshot of the Mariological thinking of that era. This ancient, Marian hymn is still sung in full during the fifth week in Lent in the Greek Orthodox Church.
Divided into twenty-four strophes, the first twelve are narrative and the subsequent twelve are doctrinal in character. For the purposes of Marian Temple typology, it is the twenty third strophe that is of interest.
As we sing in honour of your giving birth,
We all praise you as a living temple, O Theotokos.
For the Lord who holds all in his hands
Dwelt in your womb -
Made you holy, made you glorious, and taught us all to cry to you:
“Hail, tabernacle of God and the Word;
Hail, greater than the Holy of Holies;
Hail, ark gilded by the Spirit;
Hail, inexhaustible treasury of life;
Hail, precious diadem of pious kings;
Hail, holy exaltation of devout priests;
Hail, immovable tower of the Church;
Hail, impregnable wall of the kingdom;
Hail, through whom trophies are raised up;
Hail, through whom enemies fall;
Hail, healing of my body;
Hail, protection of my soul;
Hail, bride unwedded.Footnote 6
This strophe is commonly referred to as the Proclamation of the Theotokos and indeed it is intended to confirm the official status of the Theotokos in the Empire. The Temple typology is clearly seen in references to the ‘temple’, the ‘tabernacle’, the ‘holy of holies’ and the ‘ark’. They constitute a testimony to Mary in referring to a place sanctified to the Lord and showing Mary as a place of God i.e. the Theotokos.Footnote 7 These typological images of Mary were in use from the fourth century onwards (although more common in the late fifth century). Leena Mari Peltomaa, in her analysis of the hymn, does not consider the word ‘Temple’ found in the second line of the strophe to be of typological intent. Claiming that it lacks any “explicit Old Testament reference of patristic interpretative tradition”,Footnote 8 she argues that the phrase “living temple” invokes an ascetical understanding of Mary as a model for imitation or a guide. Whilst this is almost certainly an element of the hymn, it is also possible to see this phrase “living temple” as a typological contrast to ‘dead’ temple, built of stone, of the Hebrew Bible.
The resulting image of Mary in the Akathistos Hymn is markedly different from the image Luke portrayed. The intent in the Akathistos, as it was in Luke, is primarily Christological, the Mariology serves the Christology. However, in the aftermath of the Nestorian controversy and the confirmation of the title Theotokos—that Jesus was fully God from his conception—the theological understanding of Mary as Temple becomes more pronounced. Here, the typology is not incidental but deliberate; portraying Mary as a space sanctified for the Lord and thus worthy of veneration and adoration in the context of Christology.
1.3 The Immaculate Conception
The next significant use of Marian Temple typology is that of Eadmer of Canterbury in the twelfth century. Presenting a theological defense of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, Eadmer sought to show how Mary was preserved from Original Sin from the moment of her conception. He writes:
[I]f God allows the chestnut to be conceived, to grow and to be formed amid spines without being punctured by them, could he not grant to a human [body], which he prepared for himself as a temple in which he might dwell bodily and from which he would come forth as the perfect man in the unity of his Person, that, though this body be conceived among the spines of sins, it would nevertheless be completely unharmed by their sharp points? He certainly could do it, and he wanted to do it. Therefore, if he wanted to do it, he did it.Footnote 9
Regardless of the validity of Eadmer's defence of the Immaculate Conception, it is noteworthy that, again, a theologian employs the typology of the Temple in order to support a Marian doctrine. Here the Temple evokes the imagery of a dwelling place for God, a place of sanctity and purity as evidenced by the Immaculate Conception of Mary. For it was only fitting that Christ should dwell within one who was without stain of sin, preserved from Original Sin from the moment of conception. The human body of Mary is the Temple of the Lord.
1.4 The Assumption
A hundred years later, Anthony of Padua used this Temple typology to support the doctrine of Mary's Assumption (only confirmed by the Catholic Church in the twentieth century). Building on the apocryphal accounts of Mary's Assumption into heaven, where a Jew's “hand is withered when attempting to assail Mary's funeral bier, just as Uzzah is struck down by God for having touched the Ark of the Covenant (II Kings 6.6-7),”Footnote 10 Anthony used the typology of the Temple to support the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary as he writes:
So the Psalm says: ‘Arise, O Lord, into thy resting-place; thou and the ark which thou hast sanctified.’ [Psalms 131.8] The Lord arose when he ascended to the right hand of the Father. The ark of his sanctification arose too, when on this day the Virgin Mother was taken up to the heavenly bride-chamber.Footnote 11
Anthony went further with his use of Marian Temple typology when he writes “O cherubim! O seraphim! O angels and archangels! Cast down your faces, bow your heads, and reverently adore the Temple of the Son of God, the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit.”Footnote 12 This use of Temple typology supports the adoration of Mary as Theotokos but also indicates that there is a lasting element to her sanctity. The child Jesus no longer physically dwells within her, but she remains the dwelling place, the sanctuary (a word often connected to the Temple) of the Holy Spirit.
1.5 Early Modern Usage
The key Marian doctrines—that of her establishment as the Theotokos, her virginity, her Immaculate Conception and her Assumption, have all seen the relatively early use of Marian Temple typology in the support developed for each of them. But the use of such Marian imagery does not cease with the close of the Middle Ages. The French theologian Pierre de Bérulle used the imagery in his seventeenth century work on The Life of Jesus. He writes:
Jesus finds in her his peace and his delight. Outside of her he meets only sinners and sin. Being in her is like being in heaven, for he experiences life and glory, seeing God and enjoying his divine Essence. He is in her as in a temple where he praises and adores God; where he offers his respects to the eternal Father, not only for himself but for every creature. It is a holy and sacred temple where Jesus dwells, the true ark of the true covenant. It is the first and holiest temple of Jesus. The heart of the Virgin is the first altar on which Jesus offers his first sacrifice, making the first and perpetual oblation of himself, through which, as we have said, we are all made holy. Thus Jesus is in the Virgin. In her he finds his peace, his paradise, his highest heaven, his temple, his mother…the Virgin is a sanctuary.Footnote 13
Rather than using Temple typology to establish and support Marian doctrine, as previous theologians had done, Bérulle employed the device to explore the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. Mary's soteriological role is developed as this womb-Temple becomes the location of the Son's first sacrifice and the first altar of communion in the era of the New Covenant. The Marian Temple typology that Bérulle exercises has moved away from the Marian doctrines and become an integral part of broader theology with soteriological, incarnational, trinitarian, eucharistic and ecclesiological implications woven deeply into its imagery. The typology has evolved and its usage has become even more powerfully developed than had been seen in the preceding centuries.
In tracing the development of the use of Marian Temple typology it is possible to see the circle in which the usage has travelled. Just as Luke's employment of the device was for Christological purposes, so is Bérulle's use of the same imagery. The Temple typology has taken its own circuitous route through the development of Marian dogma much in the way the understanding of the person of Mary has, and arrived back at the point of its departure—Christ and his Incarnation. In tracing the development and usage of just one element of Marian typology, what is true of Mariology in general can be seen in microcosm. There is a rich history and powerful legacy of Marian Temple typology that dates from the times of the earliest Christians.
2. The Theology of the Marian Temple Type
Having traced the usage of Marian Temple typology from the Gospels through to the seventeenth century and seen the various ways in which it has been employed to support Christological intentions as well as the development of Marian doctrines, let us now consider the theology of this typology—what exactly are theologians saying about Mary, and thus about Christ, when they claim that the Temple is a type of Mary? The three key theological themes we will consider in answer to this question are fertility, divine presence, and sacrifice.
The Temple, which in Old Testament times is a building of stone, metal and dead wood, is consistently referred to as a garden; a place of fecundity and fertility. In Ezekiel's great vision of the Temple, he speaks of the fertility of the Temple when he refers to the rivers of paradise that flow throughout the earth. He writes
Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple; there water was flowing from below the threshold of the temple towards the east (for the temple faced east); and the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. then he brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me round on the outside to the outer gate that faces towards the east; and the water was coming out on the south side.
(Ez. 47. 1–2)It is, perhaps, these rivers that Jesus has in mind when, in John's Gospel, he invites those listening to him at the Temple to drink of rivers of living water (John 7. 37–9).
In the Garden of Eden there grows the Tree of Life, itself a fertility motif. In the Temple, this is represented by the seven-branched candlestick—the menorah. Margaret Barker has convincingly argued that the Tree of Life, and its subsequent iconic representations, are symbols of the Mother of the Lord in the Hebrew Temple. Specifically identified with the feminine attribute of wisdom, this tree was removed from and restored to the Temple many times over the centuries. There is a deeper connection with Mary in this symbolic tree. Representing the female, Mary, this tree bears fruit, as her womb did. Indeed, in the fourth century poetry of St. Ephrem, the fruits of the Tree of Life become synonymous with the body of Christ in the Eucharist:
The assembly of saints
bears resemblance to Paradise;
in it each day is plucked
the fruit of Him who gives life to all.Footnote 14
The Temple, as a place of supernatural fertility, is a clear Marian type. The presence of God within the Temple caused dead wood to blossom and inanimate objects to bear real fruit. The overshadowing of Mary by the Holy Spirit causes her virgin womb to become a place of unexpected and powerful fertility and the fruit of her womb becomes the actual body of Christ in the Eucharist. Furthermore, she becomes, as Temple, intimately connected to the Holy Spirit. Not only does she conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit, but if she is to be considered the Temple of the New Covenant, then it is from her that the “living waters”, of which John writes, flow. These waters are prophetic of the gift of the Holy Spirit that will descend at Pentecost.
Sergei Bulgakov notes that Mary is not an incarnation of the Holy Spirit, but rather that “[H]e [the Holy Spirit] abides, however, in the ever-virgin Mary as in a holy Temple.”Footnote 15 He also notes: “[H]e [the Spirit] does not at all leave her after the birth of Christ, but remains forever with her in the full force of the Annunciation.”Footnote 16 Therefore, if it is claimed that the Temple is a type of Mary, then it is implied that it is in her the Holy Spirit has made His home and from her that He flows, like a river, to all believers. Leonardo Boff makes exactly this point when he notes:
[W]e maintain the hypothesis that the Virgin Mary, Mother of God and of all men and women, realizes [sic] the feminine absolutely and eschatologically, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit has made her his temple, sanctuary and tabernacle in so real and genuine a way that she is to be regarded as hypostatically united to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.Footnote 17
The Temple, like the Eden garden, stands at the threshold between the divine and the material worlds, with access to both. The Temple is “the place from which the material world took form because it could at this point be permeated by the creative power and presence of the divine.”Footnote 18 In the same way, Mary stands at the threshold of the divine and the material worlds. She is the mediator between the two worlds. Mary is the meeting point of these two worlds, or two natures. She is, because of her perfect, active receptivity, the most fully human nature, but also full of divine grace. The hypostatic union of nature and super-nature in the form of Christ might seem to be a more perfect expression of human nature. Yet it is Mary and not Christ that points to the unity-yet-distinction of nature and grace. Christ has no need of grace, rather, He delivers grace to humankind. Mary, uniquely receptive and aware of what, in her nature, she cannot accomplish, needs the grace of her Son in order to bear him. Christ, fully God and completely supernatural, has no human need of this grace and thus the fullest expression of human nature belongs to Mary.
To consider the Temple as a type of Mary is to place her at the meeting point of heaven and earth. She is fully permeated, through the Holy Spirit, by the creative power and presence of the divine—this presence of God takes up residence in her womb. This gives support to the dogma of Mary as Mediator—she is uniquely placed between heaven and earth, with access to both. She can hear the prayers of the faithful and present them before God. The intercessory role that Mary fulfils firstly in her actions at the Wedding at Cana is reaffirmed here. She is the Mediatrix between God and humankind.
Alongside a theme of fertility, a theological connection between Mary and the Temple also draws our attention to the issue of presence. This is described as being found in the Holy of Holies or the sanctuary (Lev. 16.2). What does it mean, then, to typologically connect Mary to this place of God's presence? To say that the Temple is a type of Mary is to suggest that the physical presence of God was within her. The Nestorian Controversy of the fifth century centred on exactly that debate. If Mary is the place of God's presence, then it is not merely the human nature of Christ that resides within her, but rather the full and complete presence of God hypostatically united to His human nature that is to be found within her womb. Robert Jenson notes that Mary functions as a kind of space for God; “a place to turn for sure and direct communication.”Footnote 19 He makes the connection with concrete locations of God in the Hebrew Bible—the old tabernacle, the Jerusalem Temple, the Ark of the Covenant—before suggesting that Mary is a new figuration of that space: “[A]s the created space for God, Mary is a kind of matrix for divine revelation, and for that direct and dialogic communication with the divine that such a localisation promises.”Footnote 20
The Temple was the place of sacrifice, the place of the shedding of blood and the place of redemption. N. T. Wright notes that
[F]orgiveness, and consequent reintegration into the community of Israel, was attained by visiting the Temple and taking part in the appropriate forms of ritual and worship, and it was natural that the Temple should thus also be the centre of communal celebration.Footnote 21
To refer to the Temple as a type of Mary must take these aspects into account and consider their theological implications. Does this typological connection perhaps give credence to the idiom - to Jesus through Mary? This is a phrase attributed to the eighteenth-century priest Louis de Montfort. He presented devotion to Mary as the most effective means of consecration to Jesus. Louis de Montfort writes:
For the more we honor the Blessed virgin, the more we honor Jesus Christ, because we honor Mary only that we may the more perfectly honor Jesus, since we go to her only as the way by which we are to find the end we are seeking, which is Jesus.Footnote 22
Must Mary be approached as Mediator and Co-Redemptrix in order to receive forgiveness from Christ? The Temple did not forgive the sins of the people, but was the locus of forgiveness. In the same way, Mary does not forgive sins but is, perhaps, the place that can be approached in order to receive forgiveness from God.
Mary herself is a place of sacrifice, as well as one who sacrifices. Cleo McNelly Kearns points out:
The composite picture of Mary in the gospels … establish[ing] Mary's role as the mother of the chosen son, and then progressively distancing her from his life and mission, until, near the cross, she relinquishes him to the Father. He is restored to her only in a religious, symbolic, and sacerdotal context in which she becomes the sacrifier par excellence, the first beneficiary of the grace that flows into the community from his saving work. At the same time, however, the gospels also inaugurate a more generous and open discourse of sacrifice, the alimentary sacrifice of communal bonding.Footnote 23
In the Scriptures, Mary is intimately associated with not only the birth but also the death of Christ—she provides His flesh and witnesses His death. This death which is remembered in the Eucharistic celebrations of the Church puts Christians in direct contact with Mary. Pope John Paul II argues:
[E]very Mass puts us in intimate communion with her, the Mother, whose sacrifice “becomes present” just as the Sacrifice of her Son ‘becomes present’ at the words of consecration of the bread and wine pronounced by the priest.Footnote 24
Mary is, therefore, as was the Temple, the location of sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. Her presence was essential in bringing about the birth of Jesus and beginning the journey that would lead Him to the cross. Therefore, as Temple, the place of sacrifice and redemption, Mary might be considered to be Co-Redemptrix.
3. A Feminist Response
What, then, is a feminist theologian to make of Marian-Temple typology? Such typology is fundamentally connected to gender, as much theological consideration of Mary inevitably is. Therefore, it is perhaps helpful to consider such typology from a feminist perspective and draw some conclusions from this critique. There is much feminist writing about Mary but almost nothing about Marian Temple typology. It would seem clear that connecting Mary to the image of the Temple, potentially, has many negative connotations. As a building, she becomes passive and de-personalized. As the Temple building in particular, Mary is penetrated repeatedly by the exclusively male priesthood that functioned at the heart of the Temple. She is subsumed into the andro-centric masculinity of the hierarchy. Although Mary Daly does not specifically consider Mary as Temple, it is all too easy to see the Temple image in her description of
[t]he ideal, static woman, who is so much less troublesome than the real article. Since she belongs to ‘another world’, she cannot compete with man. Safely relegated to her pedestal, she serves his purpose, his psychological need, without having any purpose of her own. For the celibate who prefers not to be tied down to a wife, or whose canonical situation forbids marriage, the ‘Mary’ of his imagination could appear to be the ideal spouse.Footnote 25
Thus, as the Temple, Mary only has value and use when she is filled with the masculine presence of God. She is de-feminized through the Temple cleansing rituals which seek to shame and humiliate her for her natural feminine functions. Such understanding of Marian-Temple typology would see this as the humiliation and masculinisation of Mary.
However, there is a further element to this hypothetical feminist criticism of Marian Temple typology, although it is one that feminist theologians have levied against male-dominated interpretations of Mary for a number of years now. To consider the Temple as a Marian type reduces Mary to a mere symbol. Daly argues that the church has harnessed the diversity, irregularity and exceptionality of women by “standardizing it into its bland and monolithic image of Mary. It has captured this power of diversity and imprisoned it in a symbol.”Footnote 26 The comparisons between this image of Mary and the monolithic structure of the Temple are clear. The characterless nature of a monolithic structure is seen in Mary, ironically, in the predominant Protestant understanding of her, reducing her to “a walk-on part in the Sunday school Nativity play.”Footnote 27 In contrast, Catholic Christianity has elevated Mary as the ideal image of woman, a role model for all Christian women. Whilst this may seem a superior approach, the effect is just as bland and monolithic as the Protestant reductionist approach. There is, ultimately, no such thing as ‘woman’ as a single, monolithic, characterless entity. Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendell argues:
Mary as a women's symbol depicting fertility, the norm of a new women's culture and a monolithic sisterliness derived from her without wrinkles or flecks—as is dreamed of by some women in feminist theology—will never become a model for all women. Nor will she be able to become a model for a women's culture which is constantly developing and not stagnating… The expectation of a new society of women and men is the expectation of many human models…Mary of Nazareth also has her place—as our sister.Footnote 28
As Temple, Mary is a bland, monolithic symbol trapped in a masculine idealization of woman and is thus an impossible ideal for women. Daly concludes that “[T]his impossible ideal ultimately has a punitive function, since, of course, no woman can really live “up” to it. (Consider the impossibility of being both virgin and mother.) It throws all women back into the status of Eve and essentially reinforces the universality of women's low caste status.”Footnote 29
However, a redemption of this symbolic element to Marian Temple typology is possible. Upholding the Temple image of Mary as a model and symbolic ideal for woman (in her impersonal, purely gendered state), is clearly an unhelpful image when faced with the plethora of experiences of femininity that women have. However, it is possible to see this Marian Temple typology as providing a symbol and model for all believers. As archetype Temple, Mary is prototype Christian. Again, there is a vast array of experience in being Christian, but Mary, through this Temple connection, embodies the traits that the scriptures encourage all Christians to develop. Returning to the theology of this Temple typology, Mary is filled with the Holy Spirit and a source of that living water from which Christ encourages all who are thirsty to drink (John 4. 14). Mary's body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit, as Paul encourages the believers in Corinth to recognize that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit too (1 Cor. 6. 19). Hans Urs von Balthasar suggested that:
Mary, in giving birth spiritually and physically to the Son, becomes the universal Mother of all believers, for the Church as body is born of Christ and is herself Christ. Mary is the prototype of the Church, not only because of her virginal faith but also equally because of her fruitfulness.Footnote 30
As a symbolic ideal of woman and role model to women, Mary as Temple is static, monolithic, lifeless, but as symbolic ideal of faith and role model to believers, she is vibrant, multi-faceted and alive. The Temple is no longer the dead brick of the Old Covenant, but rather the living flesh of the New. The symbol of the Temple is perhaps better seen as the image which connects Mary to the historical Jewish reality and affirms her historical Jewish status. Mary is not merely symbolic as Temple, she is historic as well.
This brief history of Marian Temple typology and its use by theologians confirms that this typology offers a deep insight into the Marian beliefs of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Temple was the place made sacred by the presence of God, with the gate that remained closed, therefore Mary is perpetually virgin. The Temple is the place that housed the presence of God, therefore Mary is the Mother of God; Theotokos. The Temple is pure as befitting the place of God and so Mary is Immaculately Conceived. Finally, as the Psalms reveal that the Lord and his Ark both went up to their resting place, so Mary is assumed into Heaven with her Son. Through understanding the Temple as a type of Mary, we come to much deeper and richer understanding of Mary and her role in theology. Indeed, there is little to support the Marian dogmas in scripture if one does not take into account typology and particularly Temple typology.
This connection of Mary and the Temple does not necessarily have to be negative and oppressive to women, nor does it necessarily have to provoke feminist outrage at the unobtainable idealization of ‘woman’. As Temple, Mary is full of the presence of God—a positive image for all Christians. Thus, as the psalmist could write of his adoration of the Temple when he sung “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts! My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord;” (Ps. 84. 1–2) so this Marian-Temple typology gives space for the adoration of Mary. If the Psalmist could encourage the Jews to venerate the Temple building which housed the spiritual presence of God, how much more would he encourage the Christians to venerate Mary who housed the physical presence of God? It would seem to me that a feminist response to this Marian Temple Typology need not be negative. The image of the Temple is one of purity, intimacy with God, purpose and presence - surely these are not negative associations, regardless of the gender to which they are initially applied?
A final strand in this evaluation of Marian Temple typology is a consideration of cultural biases that colour interpretations of Mary. The art historian Yrjö Hirn has drawn attention to Mary's status as a “sacred vessel which, like the Ark of the Covenant, was incomprehensibly the bearer of the true God.”Footnote 31 Sarah Jane Boss extends the connection further by reminding the reader that it is a feature of contemporary European culture to regard a vessel as something purely functional, whereas even in recent memory, a vessel or container could be something precious, cared for and handed down through generations. She concludes:
[R]eliquaries containing the remains of saints, and altars, which themselves are vessels containing relics, are among the most obvious examples of sacred containers; but eucharistic chalices and patens, which must be lined with the most precious materials and purified with cloths set aside for that purpose, have perhaps been the most common. The font, likewise, is the precious bearer of the waters of rebirth for all who are baptized into Christ. All these things are holy objects in themselves, because of the precious contents which they may bear. Mary's body, therefore, which carried God incarnate, and part of whose very substance became God's flesh, is necessarily the most sacred of all vessels.Footnote 32
To consider a vessel as a derogatory term, implying unimportance and insignificance, is a feature of modern culture rather than the implications Patristic or Medieval writers would have had in mind when they employed Temple typology in their writings about Mary. That said, if the objective of this chapter is to consider whether or not Marian Temple typology provides an appropriate image of Mary for the twenty-first century, then this mis-match in meaning must be considered. Whilst I agree with Boss’ conclusion that Mary's body is the most sacred of all vessels, I would argue that the image requires qualification and explanation in order to be a positive connection in the twenty-first century.
4. Mary, Prototype Christian?
The aim of this paper has been to explore and evaluate Marian Temple Typology in the context of contemporary Christian feminism. This paper serves to highlight specifically how Marian Temple Typology has been moulded and shaped to reflect the development of Marian dogmas across the centuries. Furthermore, the exploration of the theology implicit in this typology gives a new perspective on Mary and the rich Christology surrounding any consideration of her. The evaluative nature of the research has shown that even within the modern (or post-modern) context, this typology can still be of great interest and value to theologians and Christians.
What, therefore, can be said about such typology? In the first instance, unsurprisingly, the use of Marian-Temple typology matches the development of Marian doctrine and is frequently used in support of such doctrines. Second, the more deeply the theology of this Marian type was considered, the more Christological the conclusions became. Marian Temple typology is intimately connected to Christology. Every element of the Temple that was considered, drew its fundamental meaning from Mary's relationship with Christ. Third, although of little attention has been paid to this typology, the Marian-Temple type is still a powerful, positive and influential image for the twenty-first century—one that should be given value and consideration in theology today. Rather than considering Mary as a role model for woman, Marian-Temple typology reveals her to be a prototype Christian and thus a role model for all Christians.
