Mary: A History of Doctrine & Devotion | With a New Chapter Covering Vatican II and Beyond

by Hilda Graef, Thomas A. Thompson (Contributor)

This timely addition to the best-selling Christian Classics imprint is an updated edition of the author's masterwork, updated by a leading Marian Scholar, Fr. Thomas A. Thompson, S.M. It remains an essential reference text for anyone interested in Marian studies.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Christianity, History

608 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1985

About the author

Hilda Graef was a German of Jewish and Protestant ancestry who found her way into the Catholic Church as a young adult through the writings of Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross, and G.K. Chesterton. During World War II, Graef fled to London in order to escape the threat of the Nazis. While in London, she wrote from an attic home that she described as frequently shaken by bombs. Graef later moved to Oxford and worked as assistant to the editor of the Lexicon of Patristic Greek.

Reviews

[Sarah Myers]

This book by Hilda Graef was a much denser read than Jaroslav Pelikan's Mary Through the Centuries, but as a thorough history of Marian doctrine, it was much more satisfying and presents a much fuller and historically continuous study of the way that Christian thought about Mary has unfolded.

While some may think that Graef gives undue attention to the medieval exaggerations, I also appreciated the author's frank treatment of the excesses which Marian devotion has sometimes--especially during the late middle ages--fallen into. In fact, the exaggerations helped, by contrast, to illustrate what a properly balanced theological understanding of Mary ought to look like.



Graef's accounts of Marian apparitions are fairly skeptical, though, and she seems to have a general preference for naturalistic explanations. While this was a fairly satisfactory alternative to over-credulity, I would also look elsewhere for a more sympathetic approach to the subject of Marian apparitions.

[Erik]

Listed by Patrick Madrid in the Reading Plan of Search and Rescue in Phase 3 (Advanced).

[Kristofer Carlson]

This is a worthy addition to any library that concerns itself with Marian theology. Hilda Graef's is obviously a theological liberal; at times she sounds more like a Protestant than a Catholic. Yer her book is in many ways more comprehensive than Gambero's "Mary and the Father's of the Church"; Graef does not shy away from controversial issues involving the development of doctrine, showing how some Marian doctrine such as her virginity in partu, or in the birth, first appeared in Gnostic literature. This is not a problem, but ignoring the issue is. Likewise she does not read the Immaculate Conception back into the hymns of St. Isaac of Syria, but shows how later apologists try to proof text their positions from the fathers. She also points out the difference in interpretation between the Greek East and the Latin West, particularly in the explanation of the supposed other children of Mary, which is something I'd never seen discussed elsewhere. Unfortunately, the majority of this book is a discussion of Marian issues in the west, and gives short shrift to Marian developments in the Christian East. Nevertheless, I recommend this book to anyone interested in Marian issues.

[Stephen Victor]

Wonderful survey of the development of Mariology from the Fathers to just before Vatican II. A scholarly, critical, and often witty discussion. I particularly enjoyed her skeptical analysis of the private revelations reported in the 18th and early 20th centuries. Thomas Thompson's final chapter ably discusses developments during and after Vatican II.