Theotokos

‘God-bearer’

The word joins theos, ‘God’, to a word for giving birth. It is not itself in Scripture, but its root is. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, greeted Mary while Jesus was still in her womb:

And why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Luke 1:43

Paul says that God "sent His Son, born of a woman" (Galatians 4:4). The one born of Mary was the Son of God from the first moment. The title does not make Mary the source of his divinity or place her above God. The Son is begotten of the Father from eternity and was born of Mary in time; the Definition of Chalcedon sets the two births side by side and adds the words ‘according to the Manhood’:

begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood

The Definition of Chalcedon

English has usually rendered the title ‘Mother of God’, as the traditional translation of Chalcedon does here; ‘God-bearer’ is closer to the Greek.

The Council of Ephesus

The title was already in use in the fourth century. Gregory of Nazianzus went so far as to write that whoever does not believe Mary to be Theotokos is cut off from the Godhead Gregory of Nazianzus, Letter 101. In 428 Nestorius became bishop of Constantinople. Uneasy with saying that God was born, he proposed ‘Christ-bearer’ (Christotokos) instead. Cyril of Alexandria saw in this a way of dividing Christ into two sons, the Son of God and the son of Mary. Mary, he wrote, "bare not a simple man as ye say, but rather the Word incarnate, and made man of God the Father" Cyril.

The Council of Ephesus in 431 received Cyril's letter to Nestorius and upheld the title Cyril, Second Letter to Nestorius. Historians still debate how far Nestorius himself divided Christ (see Nestorianism). What the church meant to guard is clear: the one who lay in the manger and died on the cross is one person, the Son of God. That is the confession of the hypostatic union.

How the churches use it

The Orthodox churches name Mary as the Theotokos constantly in their worship, honour her, and ask her prayers. The Catholic Church says ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God’ in the Hail Mary and keeps 1 January as the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. The Lutheran Formula of Concord confesses that because Mary conceived and bore not a mere man but the true Son of God, she is rightly called the mother of God Formula of Concord, art. 8.

Reformed and many other evangelical churches confess Chalcedon and so accept what the title means. Many rarely use it in worship, however, for fear that honour for Mary might go beyond what Scripture warrants. They prefer Elizabeth's words, ‘the mother of my Lord’, and teach that believers pray to God through Christ, for there is "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). The traditions differ on asking for Mary's prayers, but the truth the title protects, that Mary's son is truly God, is held in common. See also the lessons Truly God and truly man and Chalcedon: one person, two natures.