The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 9

"Come ye virgins to a virgin, come ye who conceive to her who conceived, ye who bear to one who bore, mothers to a mother, ye that suckle to one who suckled, young girls to the young girl. It is for this reason that the Virgin Mary has taken on her in our Lord Jesus Christ all these divisions of nature, that to all women who have recourse to her she may be a succor, and so restore the whole race of women who come to her, being the new Eve, by keeping virginity, as the new Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, recovers the whole race of men."

Such is the rudimental view, as I have called it, which the fathers have given us of Mary, as the second Eve, the mother of the living. I have cited ten authors. I could cite more were it necessary. Except the two last, they write gravely and without any rhetoric. I allow that the two last write in a different style, since the extracts I have made are from their sermons; but I do not see that the coloring conceals the outline. And, after all, men use oratory on great subjects, not on small; nor would they, and other fathers whom I might quote, have lavished their high language upon the Blessed Virgin, such as they gave to no one else, unless they knew well that no one else had such claims as she had on their love and veneration.

And now I proceed to dwell for a while upon two inferences, which it is obvious to draw from the rudimental doctrine itself; the first relates to the sanct.i.ty of the Blessed Virgin, the second to her greatness.

1. Her _sanct.i.ty_. She holds, as the fathers teach us, that office in our restoration which Eve held in our fall. Now, in the first place, what were Eve's endowments to enable her to enter upon her trial? She could not have stood against the wiles of the devil, though she was innocent and sinless, without the grant of a large grace. And this she had--a heavenly gift, which was over and above and additional to that nature of hers, which she received from Adam, as Adam before her had also received the same gift, at the very time (as it is commonly held) of his original creation. This is Anglican doctrine as well as Catholic; it is the doctrine of Bishop Bull. He has written a dissertation on the point. He speaks of the doctrine which "many of the schoolmen affirm, that Adam was created {63} in grace--that is, received a principle of grace and divine life from his very creation, or in the moment of the infusion of his soul; of which," he says, "for my own part I have little doubt." Again, he says: "It is abundantly manifest, from the many testimonies alleged, that the ancient doctors of the church did, with a general consent, acknowledge that our first parents, in the state of integrity, had in them something more than nature--that is, were endowed with the divine principle of the Spirit, in order to a supernatural felicity."

Now, taking this for granted, because I know that you and those who agree with you maintain it as well as we do, I ask, Was not Mary as fully endowed as Eve? is it any violent inference that she, who was to co-operate in the redemption of the world, at least was not less endowed with power from on high, than she who, given as a helpmate to her husband, did in the event but co-operate with him for its ruin? If Eve was raised above human nature by that indwelling moral gift which we call grace, is it rash to say that Mary had a greater grace? And this consideration gives significance to the angel's salutation of her as "full of grace"--an interpretation of the original word which is undoubtedly the right one, as soon as we resist the common Protestant a.s.sumption that grace is a mere external approbation or acceptance, answering to the word "favor;" whereas it is, as the fathers teach, a real inward condition or superadded quality of soul. And if Eve had this supernatural inward gift given her from the moment of her personal existence, is it possible to deny that Mary too had this gift from the very first moment of her personal existence? I do not know how to resist this inference--well, this is simply and literally the doctrine of the immaculate conception. I say the doctrine of the immaculate conception is in its substance this, and nothing more or less than this (putting aside the question of degrees of grace); and it really does seem to me bound up in that doctrine of the fathers, that Mary is the second Eve.

It is to me a most strange phenomenon that so many learned and devout men stumble at this doctrine, and I can only account for it by supposing that, in matter of fact, they do not know what we mean by the immaculate conception; and your volume (may I say it?) bears out my suspicion. It is a great consolation to have reason for thinking so--for believing that in some sort the persons in question are in the position of those great saints in former times who are said to have hesitated about it, when they would not have hesitated at all if the word "conception" had been clearly explained in that sense in which now it is universally received. I do not see how any one who holds with Bull the Catholic doctrine of the supernatural endowments of our first parents, has fair reason for doubting our doctrine about the Blessed Virgin. It has no reference whatever to her parents, but simply to her own person; it does but affirm that, together with the nature which she inherited from her parents, that is, her own nature, she had a superadded fulness of grace, and that from the first moment of her existence. Suppose Eve had stood the trial, and not lost her first grace, and suppose she had eventually had children, those children from the first moment of their existence would, through divine bounty, have received the same privilege that she had ever had; that is, as she was taken from Adam's side, in a garment, so to say, of grace, so they in turn would have received what may be called an immaculate conception. They would have been conceived in grace, as in fact they are conceived in sin. What is there difficult in this doctrine? What is there unnatural? Mary may be called a daughter of Eve unfallen. You believe with us that St. John Baptist had grace given to him three months before his birth, at the time {64} that the Blessed Virgin visited his mother. He accordingly was not immaculately conceived, because he was alive before grace came to him; but our Lady's case only differs from his in this respect, that to her grace came not three months merely before her birth, but from the first moment of her being, as it had been given to Eve.

But it may be said, How does this enable us to say that she was conceived without _original sin_? If Anglicans knew what we mean by original sin, they would not ask the question. Our doctrine of original sin is not the same as the Protestant doctrine. "Original sin," with us, cannot be called sin in the ordinary sense of the word "sin;" it is a term denoting the _imputation_ of Adam's sin, or the state to which Adam's sin reduces his children; but by Protestants it is understood to be sin in the same sense as actual sin. We, with the fathers, think of it as something negative; Protestants as something positive. Protestants hold that it is a disease, a change of nature, a poison internally corrupting the soul, and propagated from father to son, after the manner of a bad const.i.tution; and they fancy that we ascribe a different nature from ours to the Blessed Virgin, different from that of her parents, and from that of fallen Adam. We hold nothing of the kind; we consider that in Adam she died, as others; that she was included, together with the whole race, in Adam's sentence; that she incurred his debt, as we do; but that, for the sake of him who was to redeem her and us upon the cross, to her the debt was remitted by antic.i.p.ation; on her the sentence was not carried out, except indeed as regards her natural death, for she died when her time came, as others. All this we teach, but we deny that she had original sin; for by original sin we mean, as I have already said, something negative, viz., this only, the _deprivation_ of that supernatural unmerited grace which Adam and Eve had on their creation--deprivation and the consequences of deprivation. Mary could not merit, any more than they, the restoration of that grace; but it was restored to her by G.o.d's free bounty from the very first moment of her existence, and thereby, in fact, she never came under the original curse, which consisted in the loss of it. And she had this special privilege in order to fit her to become the mother of her and our Redeemer, to fit her mentally, spiritually, for it; so that, by the aid of the first grace, she might so grow in grace that when the angel came, and her Lord was at hand, she might be "full of grace," prepared, as far as a creature could be prepared, to receive him into her bosom.

I have drawn the doctrine of the immaculate conception, as an immediate inference, from the primitive doctrine that Mary is the second Eve. The argument seems to me conclusive; and, if it has not been universally taken as such, this has come to pa.s.s because there has not been a clear understanding among Catholics what exactly was meant by the immaculate conception. To many it seemed to imply that the Blessed Virgin did not die in Adam, that she did not come under the penalty of the fall, that she was not redeemed; that she was conceived in some way inconsistent with the verse in the _Miserere_ psalm. If controversy had in earlier days so cleared the subject as to make it plain to all that the doctrine meant nothing else than that, in fact, in her case the general sentence on mankind was not carried out, and that by means of the indwelling in her of divine grace from the first moment of her being (and this is all the decree of 1854 has declared), I cannot believe that the doctrine would have ever been opposed; for an instinctive sentiment has led Christians jealously to put the Blessed Mary aside when sin comes into discussion. This is expressed in the well-known words of St. Augustine. All have sinned "except the holy Virgin Mary, {65} concerning whom, for the honor of the Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all, when we are treating of sins" (de Nat. et Grat. 42); words which, whatever St. Augustine's actual occasion of using them (to which you refer, p. 176), certainly, in the spirit which they breathe, are well adapted to convey the notion that, apart from her relation to her parents, she had not personally any part in sin whatever. It is true that several great fathers of the fourth century do imply or a.s.sert that on one or two occasions she did sin venially or showed infirmity. This is the only real objection which I know of; and, as I do not wish to pa.s.s it over lightly, I propose to consider it at the end of this letter.

2. Now, secondly, her _greatness_. Here let us suppose that our first parents had overcome in their trial, and had gained for their descendants for ever the full possession, as if by right, of the privileges which were promised to their obedience--grace here and glory hereafter. Is it possible that those descendants, pious and happy from age to age in their temporal homes, would have forgotten their benefactors? Would they not have followed them in thought into the heavens, and gratefully commemorated them on earth? The history of the temptation, the craft of the serpent, their steadfastness in obedience--the loyal vigilance, the sensitive purity of Eve--the great issue, salvation wrought out for all generations--would have been never from their minds, ever welcome to their ears. This would have taken place from the necessity of our nature. Every nation has its mythical hymns and epics about its first fathers and its heroes. The great deeds of Charlemagne, Alfred, Coeur de Lion, Wallace, Louis the Ninth, do not die; and though their persons are gone from us, we make much of their names. Milton's Adam, after his fall, understands the force of this law, and shrinks from the prospect of its operation:

"Who of all ages to succeed but, feeling The evil on him brought by me, will curse My head? Ill fare our ancestor impure; For this we may thank Adam."

If this antic.i.p.ation has not been fulfilled in the event, it is owing to the needs of our penal life, our state of perpetual change, and the ignorance and unbelief incurred by the fall; also because, fallen as we are, from the hopefulness of our nature we feel more pride in our national great men than dejection at our national misfortunes. Much more then in the great kingdom and people of G.o.d--the saints are ever in our sight, and not as mere ineffectual ghosts, but as if present bodily in their past selves. It is said of them, "Their works do follow them;" what they were here, such are they in heaven and in the church. As we call them by their earthly names, so we contemplate them in their earthly characters and histories. Their acts, callings, and relations below are types and antic.i.p.ations of their mission above.

Even in the case of our Lord himself, whose native home is the eternal heavens, it is said of him in his state of glory, that he is a "priest for ever;" and when he comes again he will be recognized, by those who pierced him, as being the very same that he was on earth. The only question is, whether the Blessed Virgin had a part, a real part, in the economy of grace, whether, when she was on earth, she secured by her deeds any claim on our memories; for, if she did, it is impossible we should put her away from us, merely because she is gone hence, and not look at her still, according to the measure of her earthly history, with grat.i.tude and expectation. If, as St. Irenaeus says, she did the part of an advocate, a friend in need, even in her mortal life, if, as St. Jerome and St. Ambrose say, she was on earth the great pattern of virgins, if she had a meritorious share in bringing about our redemption, if her maternity was earned by her faith and obedience, if her divine Son was subject to her, and if she stood by the {66} cross with a mother's heart and drank in to the full those sufferings which it was her portion to gaze upon, it is impossible that we should not a.s.sociate these characteristics of her life on earth with her present state of blessedness; and this surely she antic.i.p.ated, when she said in her hymn that "all generations shall call her blessed."

I am aware that, in thus speaking, I am following a line of thought which is rather a meditation than an argument in controversy, and I shall not carry it further; but still, in turning to other topics, it is to the point to inquire whether the popular astonishment, excited by our belief in the Blessed Virgin's present dignity, does not arise from the circ.u.mstance that the bulk of men, engaged in matters of the world, have never calmly considered her historical position in the gospels so as rightly to realize (if I may use the word a second time) what that position imports. I do not claim for the generality of Catholics any greater powers of reflection upon the objects of their faith than Protestants commonly have, but there is a sufficient number of religious men among Catholics who, instead of expending their devotional energies (as so many serious Protestants do) on abstract doctrines, such as justification by faith only, or the sufficiency of holy Scripture, employ themselves in the contemplation of Scripture facts, and bring out in a tangible form the doctrines involved in them, and give such a substance and color to the sacred history as to influence their brethren, who, though superficial themselves, are drawn by their Catholic instinct to accept conclusions which they could not indeed themselves have elicited, but which, when elicited, they feel to be true. However, it would be out of place to pursue this course of reasoning here; and instead of doing so, I shall take what perhaps you may think a very bold step--I shall find the doctrine of our Lady's present exaltation in Scripture.

I mean to find it in the vision of the woman and child in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. [Footnote 14] Now here two objections will be made to me at once: first, that such an interpretation is but poorly supported by the fathers; and secondly, that in ascribing such a picture of the Madonna (as it may be called) to the apostolic age, I am committing an anachronism.

[Footnote 14: _Vid_. "Essay on Doctr. Development," p. 384, and Bishop Ullathorne's work on the "Immaculate Conception," p. 77.]

As to the former of these objections, I answer as follows: Christians have never gone to Scripture for proofs of their doctrines till there was actual need from the pressure of controversy. If in those times the Blessed Virgin's dignity were unchallenged on all hands as a matter of doctrine, Scripture, as far as its argumentative matter was concerned, was likely to remain a sealed book to them. Thus, to take an instance in point, the Catholic party in the English Church (say the Non-jurors), unable by their theory of religion simply to take their stand on tradition, and distressed for proof of their doctrines, had their eyes sharpened to scrutinize and to understand the letter of holy Scripture, which to others brought no instruction. And the peculiarity of their interpretations is this--that they have in themselves great logical cogency, yet are but faintly supported by patristical commentators. Such is the use of the word [Greek text] or _facere_ in our Lord's inst.i.tution of the holy eucharist, which, by a reference to the old Testament, is found to be a word of sacrifice.

Such again is [Greek text] in the pa.s.sage in the Acts, "As they _ministered_ to the Lord and fasted," which again is a sacerdotal term. And such the pa.s.sage in Rom. xv. 16, in which several terms are used which have an allusion to the sacrificial eucharistic rite. Such, too, is St. Paul's repeated message to the _household_ of Onesiphorus, with no mention of Onesiphorus himself, but in one place, with the addition of a prayer that "he might find mercy of the Lord" in the day of {67} judgment, which, taking into account its wording and the known usage of the first centuries, we can hardly deny is a prayer for his soul. Other texts there are which ought to find a place in ancient controversies, and the omission of which by the fathers affords matter for more surprise; those, for instance, which, according to Middleton's rule, are real proofs of our Lord's divinity, and yet are pa.s.sed over by Catholic disputants; for these bear upon a then existing controversy of the first moment and of the most urgent exigency.

As to the second objection which I have supposed, so far from allowing it, I consider that it is built upon a mere imaginary fact, and that the truth of the matter lies in the very contrary direction. The Virgin and Child is _not_ a mere modern idea; on the contrary, it is represented again and again, as every visitor to Rome is aware, in the paintings of the Catacombs. Mary is there drawn with the Divine Infant in her lap, she with hands extended in prayer, he with his hand in the att.i.tude of blessing. No representation can more forcibly convey the doctrine of the high dignity of the mother, and, I will add, of her power over her Son. Why should the memory of his time of subjection be so dear to Christians, and so carefully preserved? The only question to be determined, is the precise date of these remarkable monuments of the first age of Christianity. That they belong to the centuries of what Anglicans call the "undivided church" is certain; but lately investigations have been pursued which place some of them at an earlier date than any one antic.i.p.ated as possible. I am not in a position to quote largely from the works of the Cavaliere de Rossi, who has thrown so much light upon the subject; but I have his "Imagini Scelte," published in 1863, and they are sufficient for my purpose. In this work he has given us from the Catacombs various representations of the Virgin and Child; the latest of these belong to the early part of the fourth century, but the earliest he believes to be referable to the very age of the apostles. He comes to this conclusion from the style and the skill of the composition, and from the history, locality, and existing inscriptions of the subterranean in which it is found. However, he does not go so far as to insist upon so early a date; yet the utmost liberty he grants is to refer the painting to the era of the first Antonines--that is, to a date within half a century of the death of St. John. I consider then that, as you fairly use, in controversy with Protestants, the traditional doctrine of the church in early times, as an explanation of the Scripture text, or at least as a suggestion, or as a defence, of the sense which you may wish to put on it, quite apart from the question whether your interpretation itself is traditional, so it is lawful for me, though I have not the positive words of the fathers on my side, to shelter my own interpretation of the apostle's vision under the fact of the extant pictures of Mother and Child in the Roman Catacombs. There is another principle of Scripture interpretation which we should hold with you--when we speak of a doctrine being contained in Scripture, we do not necessarily mean that it is contained there in direct categorical terms, but that there is no other satisfactory way of accounting for the language and expressions of the sacred writers, concerning the subject-matter in question, than to suppose that they held upon it the opinions which we hold; that they would not have spoken as they have spoken _unless_ they held it. For myself I have ever felt the truth of this principle, as regards the Scripture proof of the Holy Trinity; I should not have found out that doctrine in the sacred text without previous traditional teaching; but when once it is suggested from without, it commends itself as the one true interpretation, from its appositeness, because no other view of doctrine, which can be ascribed to the inspired writers, so happily {68} solves the obscurities and seeming inconsistencies of their teaching. And now to apply what I have said to the pa.s.sage in the Apocalypse.

If there is an apostle on whom, _a priori_, our eyes would be fixed, as likely to teach us about the Blessed Virgin, it is St. John, to whom she was committed by our Lord on the cross--with whom, as tradition goes, she lived at Ephesus till she was taken away. This antic.i.p.ation is confirmed _a posteriori_; for, as I have said above, one of the earliest and fullest of our informants concerning her dignity, as being the second Eve, is Irenaeus, who came to Lyons from Asia Minor, and had been taught by the immediate disciples of St.

John. The apostle's vision is as follows:

"A great sign appeared in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet; and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered. And there was seen another sign in heaven; and behold a great red dragon ... And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered, that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son. And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod; and her son was taken up to G.o.d and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness." Now I do not deny, of course, that, under the image of the woman, the church is signified; but what I would maintain is this, that the holy apostle would not have spoken of the church under this particular image _unless_ there had existed a Blessed Virgin Mary, who was exalted on high, and the object of veneration to all the faithful.

No one doubts that the "man-child" spoken of is an allusion to our Lord; why, then, is not "the woman" an allusion to his mother? This surely is the obvious sense of the words; of course it has a further sense also, which is the scope of the image; doubtless the child represents the children of the church, and doubtless the woman represents the church; this, I grant, is the real or direct sense, but what is the sense of the symbol? _who_ are the woman and the child? I answer, They are not personifications but persons. This is true of the child, therefore it is true of the woman.

But again: not only mother and child, but a serpent, is introduced into the vision. Such a meeting of man, woman, and serpent has not been found in Scripture, since the beginning of Scripture, and now it is found in its end. Moreover, in the pa.s.sage in the Apocalypse, as if to supply, before Scripture came to an end, what was wanting in its beginning, we are told, and for the first time, that the serpent in Paradise was the evil spirit. If the dragon of St. John is the same as the serpent of Moses, and the man-child is "the seed of the woman,"

why is not the woman herself she whose seed the man-child is? And, if the first woman is not an allegory, why is the second? if the first woman is Eve, why is not the second Mary?

But this is not all. The image of the woman, according to Scripture usage, is too bold and prominent for a mere personification. Scripture is not fond of allegories. We have indeed frequent figures there, as when the sacred writers speak of the arm or sword of the Lord; and so too when they speak of Jerusalem or Samaria in the feminine; or of the mountains leaping for joy, or of the church as a bride or as a vine; but they are not much given to dressing up abstract ideas or generalizations in personal attributes. This is the cla.s.sical rather than the Scripture style. Xenophon places Hercules between Virtue and Vice, represented as women; AEschylus introduces into his drama Force and Violence; Virgil gives personality to public rumor or Fame, and Plautus to Poverty. So on monuments done in the cla.s.sical style, we {69} see virtues, vices, rivers, renown, death, and the like, turned into human figures of men and women. I do not say there are no instances at all of this method in Scripture, but I say that such poetical compositions are strikingly unlike its usual method. Thus we at once feel its difference from Scripture, when we betake ourselves to the Pastor of Hermes, and find the church a woman, to St.

Methodius, and find Virtue a woman, and to St. Gregory's poem, and find Virginity again a woman. Scripture deals with types rather than personifications. Israel stands for the chosen people, David for Christ, Jerusalem for heaven. Consider the remarkable representations, dramatic I may call them, in Jeremiah, Ezechiel, and Hosea; predictions, threatenings, and promises are acted out by those prophets. Ezechiel is commanded to shave his head, and to divide and scatter his hair; and Ahias tears his garment, and gives ten out of twelve parts of it to Jeroboam. So, too, the structure of the imagery in the Apocalypse is not a mere allegorical creation, but is founded on the Jewish ritual. In like manner our Lord's bodily cures are visible types of the power of his grace upon the soul; and his prophecy of the last day is conveyed under that of the fall of Jerusalem. Even his parables are not simply ideal, but relations of occurrences which did or might take place, under which was conveyed a spiritual meaning. The description of Wisdom in the Proverbs, and other sacred books, has brought out the instinct of commentators in this respect. They felt that Wisdom could not be a mere personification, and they determined that it was our Lord; and the later of these books, by their own more definite language, warranted that interpretation. Then, when it was found that the Arians used it in derogation of our Lord's divinity, still, unable to tolerate the notion of a mere allegory, commentators applied the description to the Blessed Virgin. Coming back then to the Apocalyptic vision, I ask, If the woman must be some real person, who can it be whom the apostle saw, and intends, and delineates, but that same great mother to whom the chapters in the Proverbs are accommodated? And let it be observed, moreover, that in this pa.s.sage, from the allusion in it to the history of the fall, she may be said still to be represented under the character of the second Eve. I make a further remark; it is sometimes asked, Why do not the sacred writers mention our Lady's greatness? I answer, she was, or may have been, alive when the apostles and evangelists wrote; there was just one book of Scripture certainly written after her death, and that book does (if I may so speak) canonize her.

But if all this be so, if it is really the Blessed Virgin whom Scripture represents as clothed with the sun, crowned with the stars of heaven, and with the moon as her footstool, what height of glory may we not attribute to her? and what are we to say of those who, through ignorance, run counter to the voice of Scripture, to the testimony of the fathers, to the traditions of East and West, and speak and act contemptuously toward her whom her Lord delighteth to honor?

Now I have said all I mean to say on what I have called the rudimental teaching of antiquity about the Blessed Virgin; but, after all, I have not insisted on the highest view of her prerogatives which the fathers have taught us. You, my dear friend, who know so well the ancient controversies and councils, may have been surprised why I should not have yet spoken of her as the Theotocos; but I wished to show on how broad a basis her greatness rests, independent of that wonderful t.i.tle; and again, I have been loth to enlarge upon the force of a word, which is rather matter for devotional thought than for polemical dispute. However, I might as well not {70} write on my subject at all as altogether be silent upon it.

It is, then, an integral portion of the faith fixed by ec.u.menical council, a portion of it which you hold as well as I, that the Blessed Virgin is Theotocos, Deipara, or Mother of G.o.d; and this word, when thus used, carries with it no admixture of rhetoric, no taint of extravagant affection; it has nothing else but a well-weighed, grave, dogmatic sense, which corresponds and is adequate to its sound. It intends to express that G.o.d is her Son, as truly as any one of us is the son of his own mother. If this be so, what can be said of any creature whatever which may not be said of her? what can be said too much, so that it does not compromise the attributes of the Creator?

He, indeed, might have created a being more perfect, more admirable, than she is; he might have endued that being, so created, with a richer grant of grace, of power, of blessedness; but in one respect she surpa.s.ses all even possible creations, viz., that she is Mother of her Creator. It is this awful t.i.tle, which both ill.u.s.trates and connects together the two prerogatives of Mary, on which I have been lately enlarging, her sanct.i.ty and her greatness. It is the issue of her sanct.i.ty; it is the source of her greatness. What dignity can be too great to attribute to her who is as closely bound up, as intimately one, with the Eternal Word, as a mother is with a son? What outfit of sanct.i.ty, what fulness and redundance of grace, what exuberance of merits must have been hers, on the supposition, which the fathers justify, that her Maker regarded them at all, and took them into account, when he condescended "not to abhor the Virgin's womb?" Is it surprising, then, that on the one hand she should be immaculate in her conception? or on the other that she should be exalted as a queen, with a crown of twelve stars? Men sometimes wonder that we call her mother of life, of mercy, of salvation; what are all these t.i.tles compared to that one name, Mother of G.o.d?

I shall say no more about this t.i.tle here. It is scarcely possible to write of it without diverging into a style of composition unsuited to a letter; so I proceed to the history of its use.

The t.i.tle of _Theotocos_ [Footnote 15] begins with ecclesiastical writers of a date hardly later than that at which we read of her as the second Eve. It first occurs in the works of Origen (185-254); but he, witnessing for Egypt and Palestine, witnesses also that it was in use before his time; for, as Socrates informs us, he "interpreted how it was to be used, and discussed the question at length" (Hist. vii.

32). Within two centuries (431), in the general council held against Nestorius, it was made part of the formal dogmatic teaching of the church. At that time Theodoret, who from his party connections might have been supposed disinclined to its solemn recognition, owned that "the ancient and more than ancient heralds of the orthodox faith taught the use of the term according to the apostolic tradition." At the same date John of Antioch, who for a while sheltered Nestorius, whose heresy lay in the rejection of the term, said, "This t.i.tle no ecclesiastical teacher has put aside. Those who have used it are many and eminent, and those who have not used it have not attacked those who did." Alexander again, one of the fiercest partisans of Nestorius, allows the use of the word, though he considers it dangerous. "That in festive solemnities," he says, "or in preaching or teaching, _theotocos_ should be unguardedly said by the orthodox without explanation is no blame, because such statements were not dogmatic, nor said with evil meaning." If we look for those, in the interval between Origen and the council, to whom Alexander refers, we find it used again and again by the fathers in such of their works as are extant: by {71} Archelans of Mesopotamia, Eusebius of Palestine, Alexander of Egypt, in the third century; in the fourth, by Athanasius many times with emphasis, by Cyril of Palestine, Gregory Nyssen of Cappadocia, Gregory n.a.z.ianzen of Cappadocia, Antiochus of Syria, and Ammonius of Thrace; not to speak of the Emperor Julian, who, having no local or ecclesiastical domicile, speaks for the whole of Christendom.

Another and earlier emperor, Constantine, in his speech before the a.s.sembled bishops at Nicaea, uses the still more explicit t.i.tle of "the Virgin Mother of G.o.d;" which is also used by Ambrose of Milan, and by Vincent and Ca.s.sian in the south of France, and then by St.

Leo.

[Footnote 15: _Vid_. "translation of St. Athanasius," pp. 420, 440, 447.]

So much for the term; it would be tedious to produce the pa.s.sages of authors who, using or not using the term, convey the idea. "Our G.o.d was carried in the womb of Mary," says Ignatius, who was martyred A.D.

106. "The word of G.o.d," says Hippolytus, "was carried in that virgin frame." "The Maker of all," says Amphilochius, "is born of a virgin."

"She did compa.s.s without circ.u.mscribing the Sun of justice--the Everlasting is born," says Chrysostom. "G.o.d dwelt in the womb," says Proclus. "When thou hearest that G.o.d speaks from the bush," asks Theodotus, "in the bush seest thou not the Virgin?" Ca.s.sian says, "Mary bore her Author." "The one G.o.d only-begotten," says Hilary, "is introduced into the womb of a virgin." "The Everlasting," says Ambrose, "came into the Virgin him." "The closed gate," says Jerome, "by which alone the Lord G.o.d of Israel enters, is the Virgin Mary."

"That man from heaven," says Capriolus, "is G.o.d conceived in the womb." "He is made in thee," says Augustine, "who made thee."

This being the faith of the fathers about the Blessed Virgin, we need not wonder that it should in no long time be trans.m.u.ted into devotion.

No wonder if their language should be unmeasured, when so great a term as "Mother of G.o.d" had been formally set down as the safe limit of it.

No wonder if it became stronger and stronger as time went on, since only in a long period could the fulness of its import be exhausted.

And in matter of fact, and as might be antic.i.p.ated (with the few exceptions which I have noted above, and which I am to treat of below), the current of thought in those early ages did uniformly tend to make much of the Blessed Virgin and to increase her honors, not to circ.u.mscribe them. Little jealousy was shown of her in those times; but, when any such n.i.g.g.ardness of devotion occurred, then one father or other fell upon the offender, with zeal, not to say with fierceness. Thus St. Jerome inveighs against Helvidius; thus St.

Epiphanius denounces Apollinaris, St. Cyril Nestorius, and St. Ambrose Bonosus; on the other hand, each successive insult offered to her by individual adversaries did but bring out more fully the intimate sacred affection with which Christendom regarded her. "She was alone, and wrought the world's salvation and conceived the redemption of all," says Ambrose; [Footnote 16] "she had so great grace, as not only to preserve virginity herself, but to confer it upon those whom she visited." "The rod out of the stem of Jesse," says Jerome, "and the eastern gate through which the high priest alone goes in and out, yet is ever shut" "The wise woman," says Nilus, who "hath clad believers, from the fleece of the Lamb born of her, with the clothing of incorruption, and delivered them from their spiritual nakedness."

"The mother of life, of beauty, of majesty, the morning star,"

according to Antiochus. "The mystical new heavens," "the heavens carrying the Divinity," "the fruitful vine," "by whom we are translated from death to life," according to St. Ephrem. "The manna which is delicate, bright, sweet, and virgin, {72} which, as though coming from heaven, has poured down on all the people of the churches a food pleasanter than honey," according to St. Maximus.

[Footnote 16: "Essay on Doctr. Dev.," p. 408]

Proclus calls her "the unsullied sh.e.l.l which contains the pearl of price," "the church's diadem," "the expression of orthodoxy." "Run through all creation in your thought," he says, "and see if there be one equal or superior to the Holy Virgin, Mother of G.o.d." "Hail, mother, clad in light, of the light which sets not," says Theodotus, or some one else at Ephesus--"hail, all-undefiled mother of holiness; hail, most pellucid fountain of the life-giving stream." And St. Cyril too at Ephesus, "Hail, Mary, Mother of G.o.d, majestic common-treasure of the whole world, the lamp unquenchable, the crown of virginity, the staff of orthodoxy, the indissoluble temple, the dwelling of the illimitable, mother and virgin, through whom he in the holy gospels is called blessed who cometh in the name of the Lord, .... through whom the Holy Trinity is sanctified, through whom angels and archangels rejoice, devils are put to flight, .... and the fallen creature is received up into the heavens, etc, etc." [Footnote 17] Such is but a portion of the panegyrical language which St. Cyril used in the third ec.u.menical council.

[Footnote 17: Opp., t. 6, p. 355. ]

I must not close my review of the Catholic doctrine concerning the Blessed Virgin without directly speaking of her intercessory power, though I have incidentally made mention of it already. It is the immediate result of two truths, neither of which you dispute: first, that "it is good and useful," as the Council of Trent says, "suppliantly to invoke the saints and to have recourse to their prayers;" and secondly, that the Blessed Mary is singularly dear to her Son and singularly exalted in sanct.i.ty and glory. However, at the risk of becoming didactic, I will state somewhat more fully the grounds on which it rests.

To a candid pagan it must have been one of the most remarkable points of Christianity, on its first appearance, that the observance of prayer formed so vital a part of its organization; and that, though its members were scattered all over the world, and its rulers and subjects had so little opportunity of correlative action, yet they, one and all, found the solace of a spiritual intercourse, and a real bond of union, in the practice of mutual intercession. Prayer, indeed, is the very essence of religion; but in the heathen religions it was either public or personal; it was a state ordinance, or a selfish expedient, for the attainment of certain tangible, temporal goods.

Very different from this was its exercise among Christians, who were thereby knit together in one body, different as they were in races, ranks, and habits, distant from each other in country, and helpless amid hostile populations. Yet it proved sufficient for its purpose.

Christians could not correspond; they could not combine; but they could pray one for another. Even their public prayers partook of this character of intercession; for to pray for the welfare of the whole church was really a prayer for all cla.s.ses of men, and all the individuals of which it was composed. It was in prayer that the church was founded. For ten days all the apostles "persevered with one mind in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." Then again at Pentecost "they were all with one mind in one place;" and the converts then made are said to have "persevered in prayer." And when, after a while, St. Peter was seized and put in prison with a view to his being put to death, "prayer was made without ceasing" by the church of G.o.d for him; and, when the angel released him, he took refuge in a house "where many were gathered together in prayer."

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We are so accustomed to these pa.s.sages as hardly to be able to do justice to their singular significance; and they are followed up by various pa.s.sages of the apostolic epistles. St. Paul enjoins his brethren to '"pray with all prayer and supplication at all times in the Spirit, with all instance and supplication for all saints," to "pray in every place," "to make supplication, prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks for all men." And in his own person he "ceases not to give thanks for them, commemorating them in his prayers," and "always in all his prayers making supplication for them all with joy."

Now, was this spiritual bond to cease with life? or had Christians similar duties to their brethren departed? From the witness of the early ages of the church, it appears that they had; and you, and those who agree with you, would be the last to deny that they were then in the practice of praying, as for the living, so for those also who had pa.s.sed into the intermediate state between earth and heaven. Did the sacred communion extend further still, on to the inhabitants of heaven itself? Here too you agree with us, for you have adopted in your volume the words of the Council of Trent which I have quoted above.

But now we are brought to a higher order of thoughts.

It would be preposterous to pray for those who are already in glory; but at least they can pray for us, and we can ask their prayers, and in the Apocalypse at least angels are introduced both sending us their blessing and presenting our prayers before the divine Presence. We read there of an angel who "came and stood before the altar, having a golden censer;" and "there was given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne of G.o.d." On this occasion, surely, the angel Michael, as the prayer in ma.s.s considers him, performed the part of a great intercessor or mediator above for the children of the church militant below. Again, in the beginning of the same book, the sacred writer goes so far as to speak of "grace and peace" being sent us, not only from the Almighty, but "from the seven spirits that are before his throne," thus a.s.sociating the Eternal with the ministers of his mercies; and this carries us on to the remarkable pa.s.sage of St.

Justin, one of the earliest fathers, who, in his "Apology," says, "To him (G.o.d), and his Son who came from him, and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels who follow and resemble them, and the prophetic Spirit, we pay veneration and homage." Further, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul introduces, not only angels, but "the spirits of the just" into the sacred communion: "Ye have come to Mount Sion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels, to G.o.d, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the just made perfect, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Testament." What can be meant by having "come to the spirits of the just," unless in some way or other they do us good, whether by blessing or by aiding us? that is, in a word, to speak correctly, by praying for us; for it is by prayer alone that the creature above can bless or aid the creature below.

Intercession thus being the first principle of the church's life, next it is certain again that the vital principle of that intercession, as an availing power, is, according to the will of G.o.d, sanct.i.ty. This seems to be suggested by a pa.s.sage of St. Paul, in which the supreme intercessor is said to be "the Spirit:" "The Spirit himself maketh intercession for us; he maketh intercession for the saints according to G.o.d." However, the truth thus implied is expressly brought out in other parts of Scripture, in the form both of doctrine and of example.