Source: Shameless Popery
By Joe Heschmeyer
By Joe Heschmeyer
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| Rylands Papyrus 470, containing the Sub Tuum Prayer |
What does the history of praying to Mary look like? It’s easy to think of Marian prayer as a later addition to the faith, a sort of Medieval superstition that seeped in slowly. Michael Reeves, a lecturer at Wales Evangelical School of Theology, acknowledges that, from “the very earliest days” of the Church, theologians reflecting upon Scripture have had an elevated Marian theology (for example, seeing her as the New Eve who helps to bring about our salvation). But, he claims:
That was a theological trajectory. It didn’t do an awful lot popularly for praying to Mary until something else happened. So from the 500 to 1500 or so there was for various reasons a tragic decline in the knowledge of God. The gospel became increasingly cloistered. Knowledge of it became restricted to monasteries. People weren’t being well taught. And as the knowledge of God declined so Christ receded into heaven. People felt they simply couldn’t approach him. They didn’t know of him as a Savior. And so that being the case, if you can’t approach Christ as a compassionate and faithful high priest who will intercede for us, we need mediators between us and Christ himself. So the thought grew: Well, if I can’t approach Christ, I will approach his mum who will put in a good word for me to Christ. And so people would begin to pray to Mary who would pray to Christ who would intercede with the Father
So is that true? Is it only after 500 A.D. or so that we see people turning towards Mary?
Not at all. I was pleasantly surprised, in this past week, to discover the world’s oldest recorded Marian prayer. It’s the Sub Tuum Praesidium, and it goes like this:
Beneath your compassion,
We take refuge, O Mother of God [Theotokos]:
do not despise our petitions in time of trouble:
but rescue us from dangers,
only pure, only blessed one.
Different languages have slightly different variations. The oldest version of it that we have is on a little scrap of papyrus called the Rylands Papyrus 470. The scrap reads, “Mother of God [Theotokos] (hear) my supplications: suffer us not (to be) in adversity, but deliver us from danger. Thou alone….” and it’s clearly the Sub Tuum. (For the probable reconstruction of the rest of the Greek prayer, I’d refer you here).
I. How Old is It?
So how old is this scrap of papyrus? Based on the handwriting, it’s probably from about 250 A.D. If that answer is good enough for you, feel free to skip down to part II. Otherwise, I’ll explain. The University of Manchester, which houses the papyrus, dates it to the 3rd – 4th century, which is to say a good deal before the 6th-16th century timeframe that Reeves gave for the rise of Marian prayer.
However, there are some (like this Reformed blog) that reject the early dating of c. 250. The reasoning is generally based on two arguments: (1) it’s too early for Christians to be praying to Mary; and (2) it’s too early for Christians to be calling her Theotokos, Mother of God. The later-dating argument is made clearly by C.H. Roberts:
Mr. Lobel has pointed out to me that the hand resembles somewhat that of the letter of Subatianus Aquila (Schubart, Papyri Graecae Berolinenses, 35; cf. id. Paeleographie, p. 73) with its large and narrow characters; the ο, ι, and to a less extent the ε, are similar in both texts, but the peculiar [hand drawing of character] found in 470 is missing in the other, which on the whole is less decorative. Lobel would be unwilling to place 470 later than the third century. But such individual hands are hard to date, and it is almost incredible that a prayer addressed directly to the Virgin in these terms could be written in the third century. The Virgin was spoken of as Θεοτόκος by Athanasius ; but there is no evidence even for private prayer addressed to her (cf. Greg. Naz. Orat. xxiv. II) before the latter part of the fourth century, and I find it difficult to think that our text was written earlier than that (cf. art. ‘Mary’ in Hastings,Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics).
So the writing style would suggest the third century, but the theology seems (according to Roberts) like it must be later… no earlier than the late fourth century. How should we resolve this?
Well, look at the two reasons that Roberts gives. First, that Mary is referred to as Theotokos, Mother of God. This term becomes widespread after it’s endorsed at the the Council of Ephesus in 431. But it was in use before then. As Roberts notes, we find Mary referred to by this title by St. Athanasius of Alexandria (296-373), but the evidentiary trail goes back even further. The (Protestant) historian Philip Schaff notes that
