Tertullianus over Maria

In zijn boek Over het Vlees van Christus, hoofdstuk XVII, beschrijft Tertullianus de analogie tussen Eva en Maria die door Irenaeus en Justinus de Martelaar ook was genoemd; Tertullianus gebruikt daarbij taal die aan Maria een belangrijke rol geeft in de verlossing van de wereld:

Into a virgin’s soul, in like manner, must be introduced that Word of God which was to raise the fabric of life; so that what had been reduced to ruin by this sex [dat is door Eva], might by the selfsame sex [dus door Maria] be recovered to salvation. As Eve had believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced.

Om een indruk te hebben van context waarin Tertullianus deze analogie tussen Eva en Maria plaatste, hier de tekst, die laat zien dat het de schrijver hier in wezen niet om Maria ging, maar om een beschrijving van de manier waarop Christus de wereld kon verlossen:

But the whole of [the] new birth was prefigured, as was the case in all other instances, in ancient type, the Lord being born as man by a dispensation in which a virgin was the medium. The earth was still in a virgin state, reduced as yet by no human labour, with no seed as yet cast into its furrows, when, as we are told, God made man out of it into a living soul. As, then, the first Adam is thus introduced to us, it is a just inference that the second Adam likewise, as the apostle has told us, was formed by God into a quickening spirit out of the ground, in other words, out of a flesh which was unstained as yet by any human generation.
But that I may lose no opportunity of supporting my argument from the name of Adam, why is Christ called Adam by the apostle, unless it be that, as man, He was of that earthly origin? And even reason here maintains the same conclusion, because it was by just the contrary operation that God recovered His own image and likeness, of which He had been robbed by the devil. For it was while Eve was yet a virgin, that the ensnaring word had crept into her ear which was to build the edifice of death. Into a virgin’s soul, in like manner, must be introduced that Word of God which was to raise the fabric of life; so that what had been reduced to ruin by this sex, might by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve had believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. But (it will be said) Eve did not at the devil’s word conceive in her womb. Well, she at all events conceived; for the devil’s word afterwards became as seed to her that she should conceive as an outcast, and bring forth in sorrow. Indeed she gave birth to a fratricidal devil; whilst Mary, on the contrary, bare one who was one day to secure salvation to Israel, His own brother after the flesh, and the murderer of Himself. God therefore sent down into the virgin’s womb His Word, as the good Brother, who should blot out the memory of the evil brother. Hence it was necessary that Christ should come forth for the salvation of man, in that condition of flesh into which man had entered ever since his condemnation.

Tertullianus draait er niet om heen dat Maria een aandeel had in Gods heilsplan, maar waar het gaat om verlossing, wijst hij toch alleen op Christus. De rol van Maria was, gelovig te aanvaarden dat Christus door haar op de wereld zou komen.

Tertullianus noemt in de boeken die we van hem hebben Maria regelmatig in de context van zijn bewijsvoering dat Jezus een echt mens van vlees en bloed was. Die voorbeelden zal ik hier niet aanhalen; ze leggen de nadruk op de menselijkheid van Maria, en worden door niemand betwist.