I. History

The term “Mariology,” used to refer to theological interest in the Mother of Jesus Christ (Mary) − and to the systematic subdiscipline of dogmatics that developed out of this interest − first appeared in the title of the work Summa sacrae Mariologiae by Placido Nigido (Palermo 1602, ²1623); the variant “Marialogy” was introduced by Vincent Contenson (see below) in 1669. Thereafter, the concept disappeared until the 19th century. The matter i…