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. . . that fals Apostat preist,
Ennemie to Christ and mannis saluation,
Your maister Knox, that vicked, venomous beist . . .
To rais his kingdome tentation did sau
Into the hairtis of men in all degrie;
First to blaspheme the name of God so hie,
Nixt of his sone from death that did vs saue,
And then all sanctis vith his mother MARIE.
(Nicol Burne, attr., 'Ane Admonition to the Antichristian Ministers in the Deformit Kirk of Scotland', 15811)
John Knox has not entered the annals as a controversialist regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary, but the men and women of his time felt the consequences of his beliefs about Mary acutely, whether for good or for ill. To be certain, Knox spoke of Mary in few words - in the six volumes and 3,450 pages of his collected works, what he says about her would fill a few typed pages 2- but to great effect. Although no contemporary scholar has yet devoted a treatise to Knox's mariology,3his notion of who Mary is - and is not - has influenced the lives of many, including Scots from the sixteenth century until the present.
The cult of Mary is a powerful lens with which to look at Knox's contributions to the Scottish Reformation; mariology sits at the confluence of scripture, tradition and magisterial authority, and as such Mary serves as a synecdoche for the whole pre-Reformation church. Looking at Knox on Mary gives us a condensed view of his theological enterprise, and most especially his distinctive understanding of sola scriptura and the context from which it arose. To that end, we will first examine the practice of Marian devotion and the growing unrest regarding it in sixteenth-century Scotland, followed by Knox's own consideration of the subject.
Marian devotion in Scotland before the preaching of John Knox
Marian devotion was a constitutive element of religion, culture and daily life in Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Popular piety gave the Blessed Virgin pride of place in art, private devotion, liturgical prayer, festivals, shrines and pilgrimages, celebrating the Marian dimension of every aspect of life. 4Scottish Christians likewise practised a robust Marian...