* Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, 8.0. MARTYRS, R&LICS, Wonpers, Licuts,
1 See Gieseler, E.H. ii. p. 24 ff.; Bede, H.E. Angl. i. 30; Augusti, Denkw. iii. 9 ff.; Maitland, Dark Ages, p. 149 f., Homily on Jdolatry, parts 2 and 3; J. J. Blunt, Vestiges of Ancient Customs in Modern Italy.
Σ ‘The fact that some ancient heretics actually did maintain the Holy Ghost to be a female (Iren. i, 38; Gospel of the Hebrews, ap. Orig. Comm. in Joan. ii. 6), only serves to show the reluctance with which mankind bade adieu to that sex as objects of worship.’ Blunt, 1.6. ch. 3.
§ This phrase, condemned by Coleridge (Bng. Div.i. 45), though accepted by most Anglican divines (¢.9. Pearson, Creed, p. 177), is open to the objection contained in Augustine's words (de Fide et bolo, 9), ‘nec nos ad negandam Christi matrem | cogit uod ab eo dictum est Quid mihi et tibi est mulier}.. . | acne potius ut intelligamus secundum Deum non ! habuisse matrem.’
290 MARY
MARY
tween man and God’), vied with one another in devising new phrases in her honour; and the glowing
hyperboles of an earlier generation were fixed in the dogma or ritual of a later generation, which again quickly gathered to itself a new halo of senti- ment, to be followed by a yet further advance both in theory and practice. We may consider this development under three heads: (1) the personal holiness of the Virgin ; (2) her power and dignity ; (3) the nature of the worship due to her.
(1) We have seen that Augustine thought Mary might be exempt from actual sin, though sharing the general corruption of man’s nature. Pelagius and his disciple Julian denied thishereditary sinfulness. * Paschasius Radbertus(c.830),in his controversy with Ratramnus, maintained that Mary was sanctified in the womb; and this was the doctrine of Bernard (b. 1091), who, however, protested strongly against the institution of the feast of the Conception by the Canons of Lyons, Dee. 8, 1140, as sanctioning the belief in the Immaculate Conception, which he re- garded as superstitious and opposed to the tradition of the hurd, Bernard was illegal by the greatest schoolmen, including Thomas Aquinas (ἃ. 1274) ; but about the year 1300 Duns Scotus maintained that, since it was as much in the power of God to blot out sin in the moment of conception as at a later
eriod, it was more congruous to attribute to the yirgin the higher perfection. This view was adopted by the Franciscans and supported by the visions of St. Brigitta, while the older view was maintained by the Dominicans and supported by the visions of St. Catharine of Sienna. Pope Sixtus Iv. (1476) declared it an open question, but gave his sanction to the festival. Finally, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was pro- claimed by Pius 1x., Dec. 1854.+
(2) By the end of the 7th cent. the belief in wonder- working pictures, icons, and the honouring of these with osculation, lights, and incense, to- gether with the invocation of the Virgin and other saints, had become so common in the Eastern Church, that Christians were regarded as idolaters by the Mohammedans. Leo the Isaurian, who became emperor in 716, tried to avert this charge by forbidding the use of images altogether; and his prohibition was confirmed by the Synod of Constantinople in 754. The chief opponents of the Iconoclasts were Germanus of Constantinople and John of Damaseus, who, in their writings, assign to Mary the highest place in heaven next to the Blessed Trinity, though they guard them- selves against the imputation of deifying her, as the pagans did their Mater Deorum (see Damase. Hom I. in Dorm. Marie, §§ 11, 15). John addresses her as ‘the rest of the weary, comfort of the sorrowful, healing to the sick, pardon to the sinful, a ready help to all.’ In the llth cent. Damiani speaks of her as ‘non solum rogans sed imperans, domina non ancilla.’ In the 12th cent. Bernard, in the 13th Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura, carry their adoration to a still higher pitch. Thomas is cited as say- ing that ‘in Mary is all our hope of salvation,’ and that she has obtained half the kingdom of God, ‘ut ipsa sit Regina misericordie, ut Christus est Rex justitie’; Bonaventura speaks of her as the ‘porta celi, quia nullus potest jam cxlum intrare nisi per Mariam transeat tanquam per portam,’ and to him are ascribed the contemporary adaptation of the Psalter and Te Deum to the worship of the Virgin, as a speci- men of which may be quoted the versicles of the
* Of. Aug. de Nat. et Grat. c. 86, and the words of Julian quoted by Aug. contra Jul. iv. 122, ‘ipsam Mariam diabolo nascendi conditione transcribis.’
+ See the very careful catena of earlier declarations on this subject, contained in Pusey’s Letter to Newman, 1869.
latter—‘ All the earth doth worship Thee, Spouse of the Eternal Father’ ; ‘ Vouchsafe, O sweet Mary, to keep us now and ever without sin.” What is perhaps even more remarkable is that, in an early sermon of Wyclif’s * (d. 1384), we read: ‘It seems to me impossible that we should obtain the reward without the help of Mary. There is no sex or age, no rank or position, of any one in the whole human race, which has no need to call for the help of the Holy Virgin.’+