Indeed, down to the time of the Nestorian controver- sy of A.U. 430, the cultus of the Blessed Virgin, it would appear, was wholly external to the Church, and was re- garded as heretical. It was this controversy that first produced a great change of sentiment in men's minds. Nestorius had maintained, or at least it was the ten- dency of Nestorianism to maintain, not only that our Lord had two natures, the divine and the human (which was right), but also that he was two persons, in such sort that the child born of Mary was not divine, but merely an ordinarv human being, until the divinity subsequently united itself to him. This was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in the year 431 ; and the title idioTi)K.oc, loosely translated " Mother of God," was sanctioned. The object of the council and of the Anti- Nestorians was in no sense to add honor to the Mother, but to maintain the true doctrine with respect to the Son. Nevertheless the result was to magnify the Moth- er, and, after a time, at the expense of the Son. For now the title Geot-o/coc became a shibljoleth, and in art the representation of the Madonna and Child became the expression of orthodox belief. Very soon the purpose for which the title and the picture were first sanctioned became forgotten, and the veneration of Mary began to spread within the Church, as it had previously existed external to it. The legends, too, were no longer treated as apocrj'phal. Neither were the Gnostics any longer the objects of dread. Nestorians, and afterwards Icon- oclasts, in turn became the objects of hatred. The old fables were winked at, and thus they universally be- came the mythology of Christianity among the south- ern nations of Europe, while manj^ of the dogmas which they arc grounded upon have, as a natural consequence, crept into the faith. " Thenceforth the Sf oro/coc was a test of orthodox Christology, and the rejection of it amounted to the beginning or the end of all heresy. The overthrow of Nestorianism was at the same time the victory of INIarj^-worship. With the honor of the Son, the honor also of the Mother was secured. The opponents of Nestorius, especially Proclus, his succes- sor in Constantinople (f 447), and Cyril of Alexandria (f 444), could scarcely find predicates enough to express the transcendent glory of the jNIothcr ()f God. She was the crown of virginity, the indestructible temple of God, the dwelling-place of the Holy Trinity, the paradise of the second Adam, the bridge from God to man, the loom of the incarnation, the sceptre of orthodoxy ; through her the Trinity is glorified and adored, the devil and daemons put to llight, the nations converted, and the fallen creature raised to heaven. The people were all on the side of the Kphesian decision, and gave vent to their joy in boundless enthusiasm, amid bonfires, pro- cessions, and illuminations" (Schaif, ii, 426). " Yet it is not exactly the fact that the giving of this title (Theotokos) was the cause of the cultus, for some of the fathers before that time had employed the word to express the doctrine of the incarnation, as the two Gregorys did ; it was the Nestorian heretics who really
drove the Catholic mind to paying her the tribute of devotion ; and even then it seems as if the culliis of that time was far more in honor of the Son than of the Mother, more a mode of testifj'ing the belief in the ver- ity of the true doctrine of the incarnation, denied by the heretics, than of giving her an undue worship. When she was addressed as the ' Slother of God,' when she was represented as the Mother -with her infant Son, she appeared, it is true, as the prominent figure; but it was to express clearly the Catholic doctrine of the in- carnation— the two natures in the one person of Christ, We can see how easily the mind of the worshipper would penetrate further, and, from looking at her mere- ly as the Theotokos, would see in the IMother of God one possessed of a mother's influence and power" {Chris- Han Remembrancer, 1868, July, p. 136, 137).
From this time the worship of Mary grew apace; it agreed well with many natural aspirations of the heart. To paint the mother of the Saviour an ideal woman, with all the grace and tenderness of womanhood, and yet with none of its weaknesses, and then to fall down and >vorship that which the imagination had set up, was what might easily happen, and did happen. Evidence was not asked for. Perfection was becoming the mother of the Lord, therefore she was perfect. Atloration "was befitting" on the part of Christians, therefore the}' gave it. Any tales attributed to antiquity were received as genuine, any revelations supposed to be made to favored saints were accepted as true ; and the Madonna reigned as queen in heaven, in earth, in purgatory, and over hell. The mother of the Saviour soon became the Mother of Salvation, as John of Damascus calls her (//o- mil. in A nnim.), " the common salvation of all in ex- tremity" (») TravTwv 6/^1011 rCov TcipuTioi' rijg yTig koivi) <TojTi]pia). " The alone Mother of God, who art to be worshipped (»/ TrpoaKm'ijTtj') forever."' Nestorianism Uved on, and lives still, when other earlier heresies on the nature of Christ — like Arianism — have died; nay, it was once a great ecclesiastical power. Catholics showed their orthodoxy by honoring the Mother of God, their abhorrence of heresy by rendering her wor- ship. Thus arose the story of her assumption, and the festival (Aug. 15) in honor of that supposed event. She then became the Mater Coronata, endued with power both in heaven and earth. Language was addressed to her such as belonged only to (iod ; e. g. Peter Damian, in a sermon (/^^A7^^u•.i>. I'. ^1/.), speaks thus; "Et data est tibi omnis potestas in coclo et in terra : nil tibi im- possibile, cui possibile est desperates in spem beatitudi- nis relevare. Quomodo enim ilia potestas tua; potentiie poterit obviare, quaj de carne tua carnis suscepit origi- nem ? Accedis enim ante illnd aureum humanai recon- ciliationis altare, non solum regnans sed imperans, dom- ina non ancilla." Under such teaching as this we need not wonder at the extent to which her cultus went. '• From that time," says Dr. Schaff, '' numerous churches and altars were dedicated to the holy Mother of God. the perpetual Virgin; among them also the church at Ephesus in which the anti-Nestorian Council of 431 had sat. Justinian I, in a law, implored her interces- sion with God for the restoration of the lioman empire, and on the dedication of the costly altar of the church of St. S(>]>hia he expected all blessings for church and empire from her powerful praj-ers. His general, Narses, like the knights in tlie Middle Age, was unwilling to go into battle till he had secured her protection. Pope Boniface IV, in 608, turned the Pantheon in Rome into a temple of Mary ad martyres ; the pagan Olympus into a Christian heaven of gods. Subsequently even her images (made after an original pretending to have come from Luke) were divinely worshipped, and, in the pro- lific legends of the superstitious Middle Age. performed countless miracles, before some of which the miracles of the Gospel history grow dim. She became almost co- ordinate with Christ, a joint redeemer, invested witb most of his own attributes and acts of grace. The pop= ular belief ascribed to her, as to Christ, a sinless concep-