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Some of the figures I'm going to talk about here are Franciscan,

and the Franciscans took a special interest in certain Marian doctrines,

I think probably because the mother church of the Franciscan order was

Our Lady of the Angels, and so that probably gave them an impetus to do so.

I'm going to read some remarks, and then I'm going to turn to this overly lengthy handout.

I won't read everything that's in here, but I wanted to give you a good sense for some aspects of the genesis of the doctrine of the

magical conception. So it's both brief and selective. I'm just going to read some opening remarks,

and then we'll start to look at some things from the handout. Who is this that comes forth like the dawn?

Mary is the dawn, dawn that broke forth in the continuing words of Song of Song

610, as beautiful as the moon, pure as the sun, awe-inspiring as visions, or in some translations,

as formidable as an army set in a ray. An ambiguity in the Hebrew text causes this difference in translations.

At this point in the songs, the man has been the object of the woman's futile search

for him.

He now suddenly appears and begins to speak.

But the specific words of verse 610 are those he puts on the lips of all women who see

the lady he praises.

And the sight of this woman is both dazzling and unsettling. This text has for long

centuries been used in reference to both Mary and the church. Like the dawn, Mary's first

...