Mohammed is reported to have said that many men have arrived at perfection, but only four women ; and that these are,Asia the wife of Pharaoh, Mary the daugh- ter of Amram, his lirst wife Khadijah, and his daughter Fatima.
The commentators on the Koran tell us that every person who comes into the world is touched at his birth by the devil, and therelure cries out ; but that God placed a veil between Mary and her Son and the Evil Spirit, so that he coidd not reach them. For this rea- son they were neither of them guilty of sin, like the rest of the children of Adam. This privilege they had in answer to Hamiah's prayer for their protection from Satan (Jallalo'ddin ; Al Beidawi; Kitada). The Im- maculate Conception therefore, we may note, was a Mo- hammedan doctrine six centuries before any Christian theologians or schoolmen maintained it.
See Sale, Koran, p. 39, 79, 250, 458 (Lond. 1734) ; War- ner, Compendium Historicum eorum qua Muhammedani de Christo tradiderunt (Lugd. Bat. 1643) ; Gaudagnoli, Apolofjia pro Christiana Relir/ione (Rom. 1631); D'Her- helot, Bibliotheque Orienfule, -p. 58 (Paris 1697); W^eil, Biblische Legenden der Muselmanner, p. 230 (Frkf. 1845).
V. Emblems. — There was a time in the history of the Church when all the expressions used in the book of Canticles were applied at once to Mary, Consequently aU the Eastern metaphors of king Solomon have been hardened into symbols, and represented in pictures or sculpture, and attached to her in popular litanies. The same method of interpretation was applied to certain parts of the book of the Revelation. Her chief emblems are the sun, moon, and stars (Rev. xii, 1 ; Cant, vi, 10). The name of Star of the Sea is also given her, from a fan- ciful interpretation of the meaning of her name. She is the Rose of Sharon (Cant, ii, 1) and the Lily (ii, 2), the Tower of David (iv, 4), the Mountain of Myrrh and the Hill of Frankincense ( iv, 6), the Garden enclosed, the Spruig shut up, the Fountain sealed (iv, 12), the Tow- er of Ivory (vii, 4), the Palm-tree (vii, 7), the Closed Gate (Ezek. xliv, 2). There is no end to these metaphor- ical titles. See Mrs. Jameson's Legends of the Madomia, and the ordinary Litanies of the Blessed Virgin.
VI. Festivals, etc. — The Festival ofMarg's Conception is said to have been instituted on the occasion of the preservation from shipwreck of St. Anselra, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, and by the direction of Mary herself, who informed him that the day of her concep- tion was the 8th of December.
The Xativify of the Virgin. — There is a good deal of controversy as to the time of its first celebration and its
origin. It is celebrated on the 8th of September, and is not traceable further back than the 9th century. There is a Romish calumny that queen Elizabeth substituted her own birthday in its place.
Her Presentation in the Temple, November 21, men- tioned in very early martyrologies, and in a constitution of the emperor Manuel Comnenus.
Her Fspousals, January 23.
The A nnunciation, March 25.
The Visitation, July 2, established by Urban VI., and approved by the Council of Basle.
The Purification, February 2, established in the East under the emperor Justmian, and a little later in the West.
The Assumption {KoijxriaiQ, in the Greek Church), cel- ebrated originally at different times, but fixed to be on the 15th of August about the time of Charlemagne.
Besides the great festivals in honor of Marj-, particu- lar churches and fraternities have had their private ones. Several religious orders have chosen her for their espe- cial patroness, and the whole kingdom of France was, in 1638, placed under her protection by a \mv of Louis XIII. Festivals have been established in honor of par- ticular objects connected with her, as the chamber in which she was born, and which was conveyed miracu- lously from Nazareth to Loretto(q.v.), la Cintola at Prato, la Saint Chemise at Chartres, the rosarj^ which she gave to St. Dominic, and the scapular which she gave to Simon Stock ; and indulgences have been granted on the oc- casion of these festivals, and the devotions they elicited. Books have been written to describe her miraculous pict- ures and images, and the boundless extent and diversi- ty of the literature to which her worship has given rise may be inferred from a description of two of the 115 worlvs, all on the same subject, of Hippolyte Maracci, a member of the congregation of the Clerks of the Moth- er of God, born 1604. Bihliotheca Mariana is a bio- graphical and bibliographical notice in alphabetical or- der of all the authors who have written on any of the attributes or perfections of the holy Virgin, with a list of their works. The number of writers amounts to more than 3000, and the number of works in print or MS. to twice as many. This rare and highly-valued work is accompanied by five curious and useful indices. The other is Conceptio immaculatce Deiparce Virginis Marice celebrata MCXV anagrammatibus pirorsus jmris ex hoc salutaiionis A ngelicw programmate dediictis " A ve Mai'ia gratia piletia Dominus tecum." This work, of which Ma- racci was only the editor, certainly exceeils in laborious trifling the production of father J. B. Hepburnc, the Scotch Minim, who dedicated to his patron, Paul V, sev- enty-two encomiums on the Virgin in as many difi'erent languages.