448 - The Mary Myth: On the Femininity of God

The Mary Myth: On the Femininity of God
By Andrew M. Greeley
New York, Seabury Press, 1977. 229 pp. $12.95.

Greeley accomplishes two tasks in The Mary Myth: he demonstrates his recently developed theological method, and in the process gives a contemporary explication of the Mary symbol as pointing to a feminine nature within God.

Methodologically, he approaches religion as a meaning-system expressed and developed through symbols derived from limit experiences. Human needs push us to the boundaries of our existence; as we encounter our finitude, we sense a "beyondness" breaking in that shatters previous perspectives, lending new meaning to our lives. That which mediates the sense of limitation and beyondness e.g., elements of nature, sexual differentiation, death-becomes a symbol of the intuited nature of ultimate reality. Since all humanity encounters essentially the same limitations, a certain universality of religious symbolism obtains; differentiation occurs in the various responses to limit experiences manifested in each of the world's religions. Further differentiation occurs within a religious tradition as new situations call forth new insights into a traditional response.

Greeley applies his method by exploring and developing a Christian response to the experience of sexual differentiation as symbolized by Mary. His concern is to formulate a contemporary response which, while continuous with the past, highlights hitherto unemphasized aspects of the Mary myth. Feminism, ecological problems, and secularism provide a twentieth century context through which new insights may be elicited from the ancient symbol, thus illustrating the development of religion through the dynamic interaction between limit experience symbolism and cultural context.

Beginning with the universal dimensions of Mary, Greeley utilizes Erich Neumann's analysis of the various functions of the feminine found in the myths and symbols of the world. (Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype.) In Neumann's analysis, the feminine symbol (archetype according to Neumann; paradigm according to Greeley, who eschews the Jungian associations of "archetype") is composed of spiritual and physical axes, each of which contains a negative and a positive pole. The spiritual axis represents woman positively as inspiring psychic transformation (Muse, Sophia) and negatively as seducing men to spiritual dissolution and madness through sexuality (Circe, Lilith). On the physical axis, woman positively symbolizes the life-giving mother nurturing her young (Demeter, Isis), and negatively symbolizes the death mother, retaining and

449 - The Mary Myth: On the Femininity of God

devouring that to which she has given birth (Medusa, Kali). While these four dimensions are usually symbolized by different goddesses, Neumann sees an essential interrelationship and dynamism uniting the dimensions into one complex: the Great Mother. Within the totality of the feminine symbol, each dimension becomes transformed into its opposite-e.g., the death mother devours only to give birth again as the good mother. Thus Mary, who symbolizes both positive poles within the Christian tradition, must also imply the negative poles if she is to be understood within the universality of this paradigm.

Accordingly, Greeley formulates his insights in terms of all dimensions of the paradigm: Mary is Madonna, Virgin, Sponsa, and Pieta. However, in his own response to the paradigm, Greeley transforms the negative poles into positive emphases. For example, while he cites Mary as historically functioning in the death mother role insofar as she has been exalted as "Queen of Battles," Greeley softens this by portraying Mary negatively only toward the enemies of her children, the church. Insofar as the church is concerned, the death mother is the Pieta: mother of sorrows, mourning the death of her son and all her children-yet harboring within herself the quickening knowledge of resurrection and rebirth.

The negative pole of the spiritual axis likewise receives a positive interpretation in Greeley's exposition. The seductive goddess becomes, in Mary, the loving spouse who playfully lures her lover-husband into the joys of marriage. In this role, Mary intimates the sense in which "God wants us and he is leading us on pursuing us toward eventual union" (p. 162). Historically, Greeley might well have pointed to a more unembellished association of Mary with the sexual aspects of the goddess in the Scandalous Virgin paintings of the Renaissance. Well known mistresses and prostitutes posed for portraits of the Virgin. The period came to an abrupt end when the Council of Trent consigned all such paintings to the flames; it nevertheless serves as an interesting intrusion of the seductress pole of the paradigm into historical Mariology.

Greeley's treatment of the positive poles shows Mary as life-giving love and as transforming, inspiring wisdom. He particularly emphasizes that Mary, seen as earth mother, calls forth a tender care of the earth as "Mary's garden," answering the ecological concerns of our day. As transforming wisdom, Mary offers the continuous hope of renewal. Throughout, the major revelation offered through Mary is that Ultimate Reality is "not only creating, organizing, ordering, directing, planning, bringing to completion, but also tenderly caring, seductively attracting, passionately inspiring, and gently healing" (p. 20). Through exposition, poetry, and selected art works Greeley argues that the God Mary reveals through the limit-experience of sexual differentiation is feminine as well as masculine.

Greeley clearly points out that his explication of Mary represents a departure from traditional Mariology: historically, Mary has not been understood to express the femininity of God. Functionally, however,

450 - The Mary Myth: On the Femininity of God

Greeley feels that such a revelation has been operative throughout Christian history; the problems of our time are such that we are now in a position to make explicit that which has been present within the Mary myth from the beginning. By emphasizing this aspect of Mary, we will not only be enabled to recognize the androgynous God, but to recognize our own androgynous nature as well and to order our actions accordingly.

Greeley invites criticism on the basis of the usefulness of his approach to Mary (p. 17). Two distinctions must be made: first, there is the usefulness of his theological method per se, which is the utilization of limit-experiences as the key to symbolism and theology; second, there is the usefulness of his actual development in eliciting new meaning from the Marian symbol. I shall focus upon this second aspect, although I do so at some risk, since Greeley suggests that "some brittle, bitchy feminist reviewer will tell me that modern liberated woman simply cannot find anything meaningful in Marian symbolism" (p. 106). In the hope that to question the usefulness of Greeley's Mariology is not to deserve his epithet, I raise a basic feminist concern.

The problem is simply the usefulness of continuing to separate human qualities which obviously belong to men and women alike into "masculine" and "feminine." In an age grown conscious of the power of symbols, can we afford to perpetuate symbolism in terms which delimit nurturing and caring qualities to the "feminine" side of human existence? If caring is characterized as feminine, is it not the case that we put an unnecessary obstacle in the path of male children in their own development of such falsely feminized human values? Is it not wiser to characterize nurturing and caring as just that-human values-and leave the feminine title for more exclusively female characteristics, such as the ability to give birth to children? Alternatively, the characterization of creating, organizing, and planning as masculine presents similar difficulties for girls. When thinking qualities are "masculine," and feeling qualities are "feminine," then the individual appropriation of both types of value, which Greeley clearly desires, is hindered rather than helped. The divinization of such sexual stereotyping seems a questionable way to overcome the already deeply engrained cultural assignations.

That androgynizing the so-called masculine and feminine values does not overcome the damage caused by this naming might be shown even through Greeley's present work. Historically, the division of human qualities has functioned to the disadvantage of women. Too frequently, women have been appendages to the "real world" of men, and have been defined accordingly. Their feminized qualities have been defined primarily insofar as they are of value to men. Greeley indicates his intention to overcome such a problem through statements such as "among the followers of Mary, sharp, exclusive, and oppressive distinctions between men and women are not appropriate" (p. 125). Nevertheless, his approach does not alleviate the difficulty. Again and

451 - The Mary Myth: On the Femininity of God

again, he defines women according to their value for men. On page 62, he writes that men encounter women, and so come to know women (not themselves) as givers of life, sexual lovers, sources of inspiration, and receivers in death. Since he is writing of the human experience of sexual differentiation, one would then expect a parallel construction to follow, so that women in encountering men would know the male sphere as it functions symbolically for women. Not so; instead, we find that "women came to know themselves in their encounter with men." The male experience is presented as the defining experience, not only for men, but for women as well. This represents a continuation of the "oppressive distinctions" Greeley wishes to avoid.

An even more objectionable treatment occurs in Greeley's description of a stagnant marriage. He describes the responsibility of the stagnation solely in terms of the woman, even as he attempts to attribute mutual responsibility. The woman "is content to co-exist, to accept, and to nag intermittently (or perhaps interminably)" (p. 144). The husband's failure is described not through his own shortcoming, but through the wife's: "all the mystery, allure, and fascination has gone out of her. He takes her for granted. She is commonplace, ordinary, part of the environment." Just as Greeley has portrayed women as knowing their good qualities through their relation to men, here he portrays a man as knowing his bad qualities through a woman, with a good deal of ambiguity whether the bad qualities are really the man's at all.

The above two examples illustrate a pervasive tone throughout the book. The sexism is subtle, consisting largely in the assumption that women receive their identity through men while the reverse is not necessarily the case. Greeley's high value of the feminine ("femininity is as good as masculinity," p. 124) may release him to acclaim the so called feminine qualities within men, but it does not appear to lead to a valuation of women as persons in their own right.

Nevertheless, one is also deeply conscious of Greeley's desire to avoid any sexist treatment of women. His claim that "the Mary myth is a useful way to propound the femininity of God in an era when feminism is strong" (p. 20) implies that he sees his approach as a viable answer to feminist concerns. Therefore, the fact that he unwittingly falls into the very problems feminists decry indicates that divinizing and androgynizing sexual stereotypes is not a useful way to overcome the problems which those stereotypes create.

But there is another problem from the point of view of theology. If one grants Greeley's thesis that the experience of sexual differentiation becomes the limit-experience revealing the femininity of God, it should also be the case that the projected masculinity of God derives from the same source. That is, just as Greeley presents God as basically masculine for men, yet including a feminine side, then ought not women to consider God as primarily feminine, yet including a masculine side? If God's femininity derives from the experience of sexual differentiation, then certainly God's masculinity has a similar

452 - The Mary Myth: On the Femininity of God

origin. Does not this lead to the absurdity of a feminine doctrine of God and a masculine doctrine of God? Are we not then deep into the difficulties of anthropomorphism running even more rampantly throughout our theological efforts? Limit-experiences such as sexual differentiation may indeed provide helpful leads in our attempts to formulate theology, but they create more problems than they solve-at least in the case of sexual differentiation-if they become the core of theologizing.

Two further criticism must be leveled. Greely argues that his approach to Mary brings to light what has been present in Mary all along. Historically, he feels she has always functioned to show the feminine side of God and to release us for androgyny and for respect between men and women. This claim requires more substantiation than Greeley gives. The more obvious correlations between Mary and the doctrine of God, and Mary and androgynous action, is that, historically, the Christian God has been considered almost exclusively in masculine terms, and that as Mary was crowned Queen of Heaven, women were being burned at the stake as witches.

Greeley should also take more care in his strong differentiation of Mary from her sister goddesses. He makes much of the fact that Mary, unlike the others, is in fact historical (p. 71), and this despite the fact that the only records we have of Mary do not give much historical information (p. 84). Christianity, however, is not alone in providing an historical woman as a revelation of the femininity of God. India has a long tradition of women (with historical records) who are considered to be manifestations of Shakti, or the female nature of the Lord. Greeley claims that only Mary is of such a quality to inspire love poetry, but India provides much erotic religious poetry. On nearly every point, Mary meets a parallel in the feminine deities from other religious traditions. Her most notable departure may be the extreme development of misogyny which occurred in her tradition in the above-mentioned centuries of witch hunting.

If one can assent to the separation of human qualities such as thinking and caring into masculine and feminine spheres, then there is much to admire in Greeley's book. He is witty, urbane, and insightful as he develops a case for the femininity of God; he writes movingly and beautifully of the God who cares, inspires, attracts, consoles. If one must be feminine, or have a feminine component within one's personality, in order to manifest these qualities, then it is indeed important to argue for the femininity of God.

However, in our time we appear to be at a crossroads in our ancient process of symbolization. Our symbols no longer function automatically; we have reached the point in our evolutionary history where we consciously join in the creation of our symbols, as Greeley himself illustrates in his explication of the Mary myth. We now exercise a greater responsibility for our symbols and for their effects. It behooves us, then, to reconsider carefully the value of continuing to employ sym-

454 - The Mary Myth: On the Femininity of God

bolism that divides richly human qualities into the separate spheres of the masculine and the feminine. God may, after all, be neither, but one who transcends both.

Marjorie Suchocki
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania