The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1500 page)

 
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(1818–83).
German social and political theorist. He advocated a form of humanism and is widely regarded as an important critic of religion, although he himself attached little importance to this aspect of his thought. Marx was primarily interested in religious life as a symptom of a more general self-estranged and unfulfilled human existence. Marx thus extended the Feuerbachian critique of religion into a more general critique of society by extending analogically the idea that God is alienated human nature into a general theory of social alienation.

 
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Mary, Blessed Virgin
.

The mother of Jesus, counted pre-eminent among the
saints
. She is prominent in the ‘infancy stories’ in Matthew 1–2 and especially Luke 1–2. According to both gospels, she conceived Jesus while a virgin (see
VIRGIN BIRTH OF CHRIST
). She appears in the background during his career (Mark 3. 31; Luke 11. 27–8; John 2. 1–11), then at the foot of the cross (John 19. 25), and with the apostles after Easter (Acts 1. 14).
By the earliest
Church
fathers Mary is mentioned rarely and usually in contrast with
Eve
.
Mariology
(devotion to Mary) probably owed much of its impetus to two currents of early and medieval Christian thought:

(i) the predilection for celibacy and virginity as a style of life superior to marriage; and
(ii) the removal of Jesus from the human level, particularly in breaking the entail of sin (see
ORIGINAL SIN
). The first of these was congenial to the tradition of Mary's ‘perpetual virginity’ (i.e. even after giving birth to Jesus), which was current by the time of
Athanasius
, and later to the doctrine of the
immaculate conception
, according to which Mary was without stain of original sin from the moment of her being conceived. The second current of thought may be observed in the canonization of the title
Theotokos
(‘Mother of God’) for Mary at the council of
Ephesus
(431). She eventually became known in the W. Church as ‘co-redemptress’ and ‘mediator of all graces’, the latter title being popularized by St Alphonsus
Liguori
. The doctrine of her bodily
assumption
into heaven was first formulated in orthodox circles by Gregory of Tours (d. 594), and was defined as Catholic dogma in 1950

.
At the Reformation there was a strong reaction against Marian devotion, partly owing to the rejection of the cult of saints, and partly in keeping with a more positive view of sex and of the married state. The main feasts of Mary are the Assumption (15 Aug.), Nativity (8 Sept.), Annunciation (25 Mar.), Purification (2 Feb.;
Candlemas
), and Visitation (2 July; in the RC Church now 31 May).
In Islam, Maryam is the mother of ‘
s
(Jesus); the name is probably derived from Syriac-Christian usage. S
ra 19 of the
Qur’
n
, ‘Maryam’, relates a version of the
annunciation
, followed by an account of Maryam's giving birth, alone, at the foot of a date palm (19. 17–33; cf. 3. 45–51, a slightly different version of the annunciation). The
ad
th
relate that Maryam and ‘
s
were preserved from the ‘touch of Satan’ which affects all children at birth, i.e. were free from sin; further, she is considered one of the four best women of Paradise, along with
F
ima
,
siy