The Panakranta, also known as Kyriotissa, Queen of Heaven, She Who Reigns in Majesty
Posted on 12/18/2010 6:01:48 PM PST by Gamecock
It seems as if there might be a sizable number of Christians who are unaware of the text of Jeremiah, particularly Jeremiah 44, which discusses a goddess called … the Queen of Heaven.
John MacArthur uses Jeremiah 44 as his text to introduce two sermons on Mary in Catholic Church dogma. These date from 2006.
The links to the full text are at the bottom of the post. I’ll provide excerpts, indented below, which will give many of us food for thought. Emphases mine throughout.
On Jeremiah 44
God condemns apostate Judah for worshipping this goddess of paganism called the Queen of Heaven that has had a number of different names throughout history. The latest name for this goddess, sad to say, is a name borrowed from the earthly mother of our Lord, none other than Mary who has now been morphed by apostate Christianity into the latest edition of the Queen of Heaven. Is it important to address this issue? It is … [In] Timothy 1:3, Paul says, “I urge you that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor pay attention to myths and endless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation, rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith.”
Christian obligation to point out error
It’s important to say at the outset that this is not because we are mad or hateful or resentful, but it is love from a pure heart. If you do not address error, if you do not address strange doctrine, damning heresy, this is not love, this is indifference. Love from a pure heart and a clear conscience and a sincere faith demands such a confrontation. And so we come to address this same age-old goddess heresy of paganism in its newest form with the modern goddess having stolen the name of Mary, a terrible dishonor to her. But there is nothing sacred to Satan anyway. And to address it is not a lack of love, but is the sincerest, purest kind of love rising out of a good conscience and a sincere faith.
It does make one wonder why the Catholic Church would refer to Mary in this way. Yet, Jeremiah 44 refers specifically to the Queen of Heaven in an idolatrous context. Here are verses 18 and 19:
18But since we left off making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” 19And the women said, “When we made offerings to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands’ approval that we made cakes for her bearing her image and poured out drink offerings to her?”
Much of the text concerns St Alphonsus Liguori‘s The Glories of Mary, a 750-page work first published in 1745 in response to the 17th century Catholic heresy of Jansenism, which originated in the Netherlands, became popular in Paris and, in many ways, bears a close resemblance to Calvinism. Francophones may recall that the philosopher Blaise Pascal and the playwright Jean Racine (for a time) were Jansenists.
I have linked to an 1888 online version of the book above so that you can peruse the text yourselves. An eye-opener, to say the least. MacArthur has read it cover to cover. We didn’t study this book at school, I hasten to add. I never even knew it existed until this week. But then, I do recall one of the nuns telling my mother that there is much about the Catholic Church which would not be included in religion classes. My mother, mentioning Vatican II, said, ‘That’s a relief.’ Sister replied, ‘Oh, no, it’s not so much Vatican II as it is other texts.’ Could she have meant this one?
Unbiblical
MacArthur says that Mariology is unbiblical, much as the Book of Mormon and Christian Science’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. What his sermons show us is the importance of being biblically literate — every book of the Bible. You will wonder how it is that Mary, not only bearing the appellation of a pagan goddess but having so many thousands, probably millions, of words written about her through the centuries is mentioned so seldom in the New Testament. That last one surprised me greatly when I was a teenager, and I suspect many Catholics would be similarly surprised should they read the gospels and epistles.
How could so many details be obtained about her life, from childhood to death? MacArthur reads excerpts from the Glories of Mary and papal documents from latter days to his congregation. You can find them in the sermon text. They are amazing.
Mythical
MacArthur tells us how Mariology began. Many will find this startling, although it ties in with what Dr Gregory Jackson, a Lutheran professor, said on Ichabod and reproduced here:
Now this idea about Mary, though it really wasn’t formally dogmatized until the twentieth century goes way, way back and you start to read about this in the fifth century as paganism and pagan goddess worship at the very earliest gets mingled. Remember the Holy Roman Empire, as it was called, the Holy Roman Empire was really not holy, it was Roman, for sure, but the emperor in the 325 decided that the best thing to do to unify the great empire was to make everybody automatically a Christian. And since the emperor was rife with paganism, they just married a kind of Christianity with paganism and all of this came very early. So it’s in the rule of somebody who calls himself Galacius(?) I, a self-appointed leader of the church in the fifth century, this comes up at that time. There’s a discussion about Mary being assumed into heaven. So already this goddess cult has imposed itself on poor Mary. And it was at first considered heretical. There was no evidence for it historically, there’s no evidence for it biblically, obviously. So the earliest appearance of this idea is in a very apocryphal work, an unreliable work like the gospel of Judas and hundreds of others. It was called Transitus Getti Marii (???) and it was in the fifth century it was denounced as a heresy. So when it first showed up in the fifth century, the 400′s, it is denounced as a heresy. But things began to develop over the years in regard to Mary. Praying to Mary arrives in 600…
A transitus is a service recalling a saint’s death and begins the eve of his feast day. Presumably in Mary’s case, the work mentioned involved the Assumption.
It should be mentioned that John MacArthur has nothing against Mary, just the hype and apparent falsehood built up around her life and death.
‘Mother of God’
MacArthur traces the origins of this title to Alexander, the 4th century Bishop of Alexandria:
Goddess worship, the very outset, the Holy Roman Empire comes into existence in the fourth century, early in the century. This mother of God comes in rapidly by the year 431 and the Council of Ephesus and 451, The Council of Chalcedon, this is established. She is to be called the mother of God, this contributes to centuries and centuries and centuries of accumulated deification of Mary. She becomes equal to God. And though the Church tries its best to wiggle out of this, it tries its best to deny this, the truth of the matter is, she really is superior to God and superior to Christ as becomes very evident in what they say and in how they portray her in cathedrals all over the world. She rules in heaven as queen, sovereign, saving, sanctifying, sympathizing, all this power is given to her that belongs only to God.
Apparitions and their nature
Like many of us, MacArthur wonders how the number of Marian apparitions can be increasing in frequency. I should like to mention here for the benefit of my Protestant readers that it used to be that the Church viewed these with scepticism and was very careful to investigate them thoroughly. Most investigations went no higher than local or diocesan level. Very few were authenticated.
Mary keeps appearing. Have you noticed? She keeps appearing. She descends from heaven to earth to make herself known to people. She comes quite frequently. She always comes with secret messages. She comes with secret messages for very isolated people …
The latest Pope, Pope Benedict XVI … said this, noted this, “In 1984 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the head of the Roman Catholic Church’s congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” that was where he came from, he came from being the doctrinal gate keeper of Roman Catholicism, “declared … : ‘One of the signs of our times is that the announcements of Mary in apparitions are multiplying all over the world,’” … He made this observation as a comment on the many reports of the appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary to individuals located in a wide variety of countries, cultures and political systems. In fact, the last century and a half has seen numerous appearance of the Blessed Virgin, they say, and they have received official approval by the Roman Catholic Church …
A book in 1993 had about a thousand appearances of Mary that were documented thirty times in the eighteenth century, 200 times in the nineteenth century and 450 times in the twentieth century. So they are escalating at a rapid rate. Cardinal Meisner claims that Mary brought Christ to Europe from Fatima and one would ask where was he before that if she brought him? She visited a farm in Georgia, an office building in Clearwater, Florida, and a subway wall recently in Mexico City. She comes so often and she comes to the down and out and she comes to the little children, she comes to the peasant people and this validates the fact that she is this loving, sympathetic, merciful, tender-hearted compassionate person …
The only person if there is someone really appearing to them is right out of hell. This is demonic, for sure….for sure. But what assurances and what cleverness the demons offer for the deceived and the damned with their hellish counterfeits.
‘Mediatrix’
MacArthur quotes from the aforementioned documents, including Liguori’s book, as well as from the latest Catholic catechism from the 1990s — published during John Paul II’s papacy. No wonder so many of these notions — ‘New Eve’, ‘New Ark of the Covenant’ and ‘Co-Mediatrix’ — are so alien to me. When you read the quotes he uses, take note of the word ‘sovereign’ used in connection with Mary. He then offers the commentary below, based on what he reads to the congregation:
The point is, you go to Mary because Jesus can’t resist Mary. And Mary, because she’s so merciful, can’t resist you. Mary, claims the Church, can persuade God to grant what He otherwise wouldn’t grant …
You’re really banging on steel if you go to God yourself. Go to Mary and He listens to Mary …
You see, Roman Catholicism is pagan goddess worship, completely distracted. God is reinvented as judgmental, harsh. Christ is reinvented as indifferent. Everybody worships Mary …
She commands Jesus.
John Paul II
MacArthur tells us of the importance that Mary played in the late pope’s life from his childhood through to his papacy. He reads the congregation excerpts from some of John Paul II’s Marian thoughts and says:
Now that…that’s a pretty bold statement. She is not only the mediatrix of all grace, the channel through which all grace comes, the one to whom we go for everything, but she is even involved in our redemption …
Now I could go on and on with all of this, but I think you get the picture. The Church says nothing comes to us except through Mary’s mediation for such is God’s will. The Church says Mary is the most powerful mediatrix and advocate of the whole world with her divine Son.
nothing recorded as such in scripture.
Sola scriptura aside, Christ as King and Mary as his mother and mothers of Kings... I don't believe that is a big matter of scriptural dispute.
He gave Mary the privledge of being His mother...but more importantly that He came from the Father
It takes both to have the Incarnation. According to the creeds, Christ is both fully man and full God. I think to try to separate and weight portions out of the Incarnation is the way of heresy.
Thanks for your reply.
Regardless...Mary is not a Queen of Heaven. But we certainly do have a King Jesus who will one day make his Royal apperance...of which I see nothing of Mary coming along with...she is not mentioned very often throughout the scriptures...and thank God this is so...look what’s happened in the catholic church concerning her with the little there is written...but then it is in the nature of man to form an Idol to worship when a heart is far from God...or leadership to do so in order to bind people to it’s organization.
RE: Can they say a Prayer centered on Christ Jesus apart from mentiong someone departed?
It never ceases to amaze me the level of theological ignorance and lack of intellectual rigor displayed by some folks who claim the mantle of Christian. Someone somewhere tells them that Catholics only pray to Mary and they lap it up like a bee on a nectar farm.
http://www.mycatholicsource.com/mcs/pr/prayers_and_hymns_Jesus.htm
I think this is at the root of much of the disagreement. I believe that for many Protestants there is only worship and.. nothing - on off. If one give honor to a religious figure, it's worship in this view. Giving a lot of honor is most certainly worsphip. I think a key to understanding is that for the Church we have the Mass, our worship. And it's clear it is for God alone, and it's clear who God is and the Saints we honor are not God. Without the Mass, how is this distinction in worship made clear? I think by not honoring or showing anything close to it to anyone or anything else - since with the Mass, the distinction of worship can only be made clear in other ways.
It's a difference of what is worship and what is an idol.
This strikes me as an example of what I meant by assigning a strictly functional value to Christ. What's not coming through is any adoration of Christ because of Who He is (He Who IS). If it's there, it's quite overshadowed by what He does -- for you, even if you politely add "every individual" -- though that at least sounds as if you're not a Calvinist (I have trouble keeping everyone straight).
I think you don't know what the worship of God is as we live and experience it. And you really won't get it from reading a digest of doctrinal teachings, any more than you can say you know a language because you've memorized a grammar book. You mention Catholics seeming to disagree with one another: Isn't that to be expected? We each have different backgrounds, educations, experiences, modes of expression. I think you'll find the same variety in an in-depth study of anything. You can keep going, or dismiss them as you might the blind men's account of the elephant.
And I think the biggest idol most people should worry about putting before God is the self. Of course, castigating other people's statues is as a good a distraction as any.
Her son is King, the mother of the king is...
it is in the nature of man to form an Idol to worship
What is worship; what is an idol?
Exactly!
RE: Can they say a Prayer centered on Christ Jesus apart from mentiong someone departed?
For your mercies’ sake, O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me. Say to my soul: “I am your salvation.” So speak that I may hear, O Lord; my heart is listening; open it that it may hear you, and say to my soul: “I am your salvation.” After hearing this word, may I come in haste to take hold of you. Hide not your face from me. Let me see your face even if I die, lest I die with longing to see it. The house of my soul is too small to receive you; let it be enlarged by uou. It is all in ruins; do you repair it. There are thing in it - I confess and I know - that must offend your sight. But who shall cleanse it? Or to what others besides you shall I cry out? From my secret sins cleanse me, O Lord, and from those of others spare your servant.
Amen.
Saint Augustine of Hippo
You claimed:
“And the point is they view Mary as more significant in the birth of Christ than the event that He has come.”
An absolute, objective falsehood. When you got called on that you shifted, in typical proddie style, to:
“What they might believe and what is actually spoken, written, and practiced are two different things.”
Now you are claiming to be able read minds?
:)
Pax et Bonum FRiend. Merry Christmas!
“Christ nor God records anything whatsoever making her Queen.”
Really? How odd. Is Our Lord Jesus Christ not King of Kings? What does that make His Mother?
“I believe that for many Protestants there is only worship and.. nothing - on off.”
Close. In most prod sects, prayer IS worship. They do not have any understanding of the various forms of prayer and worship that exist. Most are unstudied, and self satisfied. Their pride blinds them to a true study of the Faith even as they claim to profess it.
Actually, that was FReeper “sauropod” who wrote that, in the previous post, #116. Narses knows that Mary had no other children besides Jesus.
Thanks! I think sauropod might benefit from your observation as well.
“Especially as Jesus has a brother, James.”
Where were you during the last 789,654,485,334,565 rebuttals of that, right here on FR?
For Heaven’s sake, GET IT ALREADY.
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1992/9212fea2.asp
Christians who do not acknowledge Mary as their Queen are thus out of step with the vast majority of their fellow Christians, both Catholic and non-Catholic. A true concern for ecumenism would lead them to join us in devotion to Mary—or at least to refrain from attacking her. The subtitle of the entire CRI article is: “From Lowly Handmaid to Queen of Heaven.”(Elliott Miller, “The Mary of Roman Catholicism,” Christian Research Journal, Summer 1990 and Fall 1990. In these notes the two parts are referred to as Part 1 and Part 2. The articles represent the position of the Christian Research Institute.) We are supposed to see an anomaly here: “How could a mere village girl, a lowly handmaid, ever become Queen of heaven?” The answer to this objection is in our Lord’s words of reproach to the Sadducees about another matter: “Are you not misled, because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God?” (Mark 12:24).
What Scripture says
Scripture is full of the promise that the lowly and poor will be raised to royal dignity: “From the ash-heap he lifts up the poor . . . to make a glorious throne their heritage” (1 Sam. 2:8); “You who have followed me will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28); “If we persevere, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2:12); “I will give the victor the right to sit with me on my throne, as I myself first won the victory and sit with my Father on his throne” (Rev. 3:21). It would be unbiblical to deny this victory and share in Jesus’ royal Davidic throne to his Mother.
Jesus again said to his apostles, “It is you who have stood by me in my trials, and I confer a kingdom on you, just as my Father has conferred one on me” (Luke 22:28-29). But who stood by him most faithfully? The apostles fled at Jesus’ arrest. Only one, the beloved disciple, dared to stand beneath the cross. But Mary stood by him there, and so he will confer the kingdom on her.
Christopher O’Donnell points out the remarkable parallel between Luke 1 and Philippians 2:5-11, between Jesus and Mary as examples of poverty and humility raised to unimaginable glory: “It is worth remarking that the great hymn of redemption in Philippians 2:5-11 finds echoes in the first chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel. Jesus took the form of a slave (Greek doulos, Phil. 2:7); Mary describes herself as a slave (Greek doule, Luke 1:38). Jesus humbled himself (Phil. 2:8); Mary describes her state as one of humiliation (Luke 1:48). God exalted Jesus (Phil. 2:9); the humble are exalted (Luke 1:52). Every knee shall bend...confess that Jesus is Lord (Phil. 2:11); all generations will call Mary blessed (Luke 1:48). The similarity of Greek expressions throughout seems to suggest deliberate borrowing by Luke to illustrate the mystery of poverty being exalted in both Son and mother....One can at least point to a common tradition to which Paul and Luke had access.”(Christopher O’Donnell, Life in the Spirit and Mary (Wilmington: Glazier, 1981), 45.)
Luther’s testimony
Every disciple will share Jesus’ royal dignity. But Mary is the first and holiest disciple, “full of grace” and first to believe in him (Luke 1:28,45). She is even—unimaginable dignity!—the very Mother of her Lord (1:43). This translates to Queen, if human language and divine revelation have any meaning at all. Although Martin Luther was somewhat nervous about applying the title “Queen of Heaven” to Mary, he admits that “it is a true enough name and yet does not make her a goddess.”(Luther’s Works, 21:327.) In a sermon Luther preached on July 2, 1532, the Feast of the Visitation, he said, “She, the Lady above heaven and earth, must...have a heart so humble that she might have no shame in washing the swaddling clothes or preparing a bath for St. John the Baptist, like a servant girl. What humility! It would surely have been more just to have arranged for her a golden coach, pulled by 4,000 horses, and to cry and proclaim as the carriage proceeded: ‘Here passes the woman who is raised far above all women, indeed above the whole human race.’” Five years later, preaching on the same feast day, Luther said, “She was not filled with pride by this praise...this immense praise: ‘No woman is like unto thee! Thou art more than an empress or a queen...blessed above all nobility, wisdom, or saintliness!’”(Ibid., 36:208, 45:107.)
The Panakranta, also known as Kyriotissa, Queen of Heaven, She Who Reigns in Majesty
While you're here, do you know anything about Solrunn Nes and her book, The Mystical Language of Icons? I'm thinking of getting it.
You'd have to think that for over 1500 years that all the Church theologians, bishops, doctors of the Church, councils, etc. - didn't read or notice that scripture or others about the ever-Virgin.
If it's so obvious she wasn't, the Early, mid and late Church fathers must have been really ignorant of scripture.
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