. . . Mechtild of Magdeburg argued that the Incarnation joined the Logos
(the preexistent Son of God) with a pure humanity, created along with Adam, but
preserved as pure in Mary after the fall. Thus, Mary became a kind of
preexistent humanity of Christ. Such a notion is reinforced even in iconography
where we find that Mary has a place of honor on eucharistic tabernacles. For
Mary, the source of Christ’s physicality and his humanity, is in some sense the
reliquary or chest that houses Christ’s body. (Caroline Walker Bynum, “Women Mystics
and Eucharistic Devotion in the Thirteenth Century,” in Fragmentation and
Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion [New
York: Zone Books, 1992], 148)
