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Athanasius on Mary

This Rock Volume 14, Number 1   January 2003     Frontispiece By Karl Keating   Letters   Apologist’s Eye   Are Apologetics and Evangelization at Odds? By Peter Kreeft   Are There Cults in the Catholic Church? By Jay Dunlap   How to Explain Marian Devotion to a Sola Scriptura Protestant By Dwight Longenecker   Muslims and the One True God By Fr. Brian Harrison   Sharing the Gospel with Muslims   Step by Step How Can a Priest Forgive Sin? By Kenneth J. Howell   Fathers Know Best Resurrection of the Body   Brass Tacks The Six Days of Creation By Jimmy Akin   Reviews   Classic Apologetics Nuggets of Faith By Walter Jewell and R. G. Flaxman   Quick Questions    Subscribe    Permissions

O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all. O [Ark of the New] Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides. Should I compare you to the fertile earth and its fruits? You surpass them. . . . If I say that heaven is exalted, yet it does not equal you. . . . If we say that the cherubim are great, you are greater than they, for the cherubim carry the throne of God, while you hold God in your hands.

—St. Athanasius, quoted by L.Gambero in Mary and the Fathers of the Church (Ignatius Press, 1999), pp. 106-7