But there had for ages been among primitive
peoples the belief that impregnation was caused by spirit possession or
by sorcery. This explanation had survived in a but slightly altered form
in the ancient mythologies, all of which contained traditions of heroes
and demi-gods who were born supernaturally of a divine father and a
human mother. In the myths of Buddha, Zoroaster, Pythagoras and Plato,
it was intimated that the father had been a god or spirit, and that the
mother had been, and moreover remained after the birth, an earthly
virgin. These old and precious notions of the supernatural origin of
great men were not willingly renounced by those who accepted the new
religion; nor was it necessary to make such a sacrifice, because men
thought that they could recognize in the Jewish traditions something
corresponding to the heathen legends.[18]
The proper conditions for the development of a mother cult within
Christianity existed within the church by the end of the second century.
At the Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.) it was settled that the Son was of
the same nature as the Father. The question of the nature of Mary then
came to the fore. The eastern fathers, Athanasius, Ephraim Syrus,
Eusebius and Chrysostom, made frequent use in their writings of the
term Theotokos, Mother of God. When Nestorius attacked those who
worshipped the infant Christ as a god and Mary as the mother of God
rather than as the mother of Christ, a duel began between Cyril of
Alexandria and Nestorius "which in fierceness and importance can only be
compared with that between Arius and Athanasius.
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