ABSTRACT
The thrust of Chadwick’s remarks is that the Virgin Mary becomes the link between God and humankind because the Christ of popular piety has become too divine to effect such a link. St John Damascene, despite his fierce rejection of Monophysitism in many treatises, would be regarded from this perspective as embracing ‘Monophysite piety’ in virtue of his enthusiastic endorsement of the doctrine of the Assumption. There is an interesting question to be discussed about the relationship between learned theology and popular piety especially in the case of devotion to the Mother of God, but Chadwick’s remarks (made
a long time ago, and certainly not to be held against his memory now) seem to short-circuit that discussion.
