Mary Through the Centuries
Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture is a book by Jaroslav Pelikan, published in New Haven by Yale University Press in 1996. It is based on the 1962 publication of Walter Tappolet, Das Marienlob der Reformatoren. Mary Through The Ages is a collection of texts from Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, and Heinrich Bullinger, whom Pelikan called "the Reformers in Praise of Mary". Reformers in praise of Mary Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture includes sermons, theological works, and devotion-oriented text to document his claim that the Protestant reformers continued the traditional Catholic teachings on Mary in such areas as perpetual virginity and Theotokos. Biblical texts which might cast shadows or raise questions are interpreted in line with Catholic teachings. Thus, the biblically mentioned brothers of Jesus – whose existence would undermine the claim of the perpetual virginity of Mary – were actually cousins according to Martin Luther. Luther clearly opposed what he considered Catholic exaggerations of Mary, but her strong faith is to him, according to Pelikan, a model of a Christian life lived by faith alone (sola fide): "Mary became the obvious case study of this for