MARY THROUGH THE CENTURIES: Her Place in the History of Culture.

By Jaroslav Pelikan. Yale University Press. 240 pp. $25

Vestiges of Mary, the mother of Jesus, are not as ubiquitous as those of her son, from whose birth (approximately) we date our checks and our letters. But traces of Mary's prominence are not hard to find: witness this past summer's Hunchback of Notre Dame or, in high culture, the recordings of medieval Marian music by the Anonymous 4, which have repeatedly gone to the top of the classical charts.

Do only vestiges remain? Not according to the distinguished Yale religions historian Jaroslav Pelikan. His new book'a short, suitable companion to his earlier Jesus through the Centuries (1985)--concludes by calling Mary "The Woman for All Seasons"--And All Reasons." Without sentimentality, Pelikan chronicles Mary's eminence in both expected and unexpected ways.

Among the expected are discussions of the quite limited references to Mary in the New Testament, historical expositions of important Marian titles and doctrines, such as Theotokos (mother of God), Assumption, and Immaculate Conception, and reports of the Virgin's still-multiplying apparitions. Pelikan's method is historical, but he also engages the theological debate. For example, he defends the notion of doctrinal development against those who, out of fundamentalist literalism or modern historicism, would restrict interest in Mary to the mentions of her in the Bible.

Unexpected is Pelikan's discussion of the tribute paid by the Protestant Reformers to the person of Mary, even as they attacked Roman "Mariolatry." The Reformers saw Mary as the model of faith, and faith was for them the sole path to salvation. Equally surprising is the extensive account of Mary in the Qur'an, which likens her to Hagar, servant of Abraham and Sarah and mother of Ishmael. Just as Judaism looks to Isaac as its progenitor, so Islam looks to Ishmael--and through him to Abraham. Mary, Pelikan suggests, is not only the link between Judaism and Christianity; she is also, by reason of her similarity to Hagar, a connection joining all three faiths.

The image of Mary's womanhood affects even nonbelievers. Yesterday's romantics found in Mary "the eternal feminine"; today's historians would do well to study her in the same light, Pelikan argues: "Because Mary is the Woman par excellence for most of Western history, the subtleties and complexities in the interpretation of her person and work are at the same time central to the study of the place of women in history, which has begun to claim its proper share both of scholarly and of popular attention." Pelikan makes no proposals, but plainly he believes that reflection on Mary would make all three divides--Catholic-Protestant, Christian-Muslim, and believer-unbeliever--easier to span.