MAGNIFICAT. - Canticle of praise to God uttered by the Virgin Mary during her visit to Elizabeth (v.), who, inspired, had greeted her as mother of God (Luke 1:46-55). Grateful for the mystery of the Incarnation accomplished in her, Mary raises praises to the Lord because he deigned to favor his humble handmaid, so that all generations will call her blessed, accomplishing great wonders in her (vv. 46-50); because he casts down the proud rich, raises up and satisfies the starving poor (vv. 51-53); because he protects Israel, keeping the promises made to Abraham and to his descendants (v. 54 f.).
In this hymn resound echoes of the canticle of Hannah (1 Sam. 2) and of several psalms, with which devout Israelites used to express their religious sentiments. These echoes, in the spirit of the Virgin, merge in wonderful unity with references to the wonders accomplished in the history of Israel and praises for those begun with the Incarnation.
The six aorists of vv. 51-53 (rendered by the Vulgate with the perfects fecit, dispersit, deposuit, exaltavit, implevit, dimisit) according to some would refer to past historical events, according to others they would be gnomic (valid for all times), or prophetic (concerning the future), or inceptive (for the benefits that God has begun to accomplish).
The entire context of the M. reflects the sentiments of the Virgin on that occasion. St. Luke may have drawn the canticle either from the author herself, or from the Semitic source that reveals itself in the style of his first two chapters. The poetic parallelism and other peculiarities confirm the Semitic origin of the M.
Some, with A. Harnack and A. Loisy, claimed that the M. was the work of Elizabeth. But textual criticism demonstrates that only three codices of the ancient Latin version of the Gospels (a, b, l*) and a few Latin codices of the works of St. Irenaeus and of Origen, as well as some attestation of Nicetas bishop of Remesiana (in Dacia, 5th century) attribute the M. to Elizabeth. All the other witnesses of the text (Greek and of other versions) are in favor of Mary.
The Pontifical Biblical Commission, on June 26, 1912, summarizing the discussion, declared that «the extremely scanty and singular documents, in which the M. is attributed to Elizabeth, cannot in any way prevail against the concordant testimony of almost all the codices both of the original text and of the versions, nor even against the interpretation that the context, the spirit of the Virgin herself, and the constant tradition of the Church absolutely require» (Denz-U, 2158).
The origin of the strange reading «Et ait Elisabeth» (in Luke 1:46), in codices a, b, l* of the old Latin version is explained by some as interpreting Elisabeth in the dative. This word, introduced as a gloss by some copyist (Et ait Maria Elisabeth, «and Mary said to Elizabeth») would have supplanted Mary under the pen of a subsequent copyist. Others make other hypotheses.
In the Latin rites the M. is sung (or recited) at Vespers, in the Byzantine and Antiochene rites at Matins.
Bibliography3 works
Pietro De Ambroggi