ABSTRACT

Mary has commonly been associated with nature, especially in her appearance in folk religious traditions. However, her association with the biblical figure of wisdom is, perhaps, less well appreciated. Rather than survey all the possible links between Mary and wisdom, this chapter focuses on Mary as portrayed in the writing of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and compares his views with those of the Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov. It explores how Teilhard interpreted the feminine in his cosmic vision of reality mainly to the Virgin Mary that he turns when considering the possibility of the feminine. Yet, while reference to the Virgin Mary is relatively scant in his work, the way she is portrayed shows the depth to which Teilhard himself integrated her into his understanding of spirituality. For Vladimir Solovyov, Sophia is the Eternal Feminine, incarnate in the Virgin Mary.