Continued from Historical Retrospect.—Second Period.

HISTORICAL RETROSPECT. 402 A.D.

POPE INNOCENT I., a saint of the Romanists, and fourteen other bishops, met in the first Milevitane Council, and condemned Pelagius and Celestinus for denying the taint of original sin. That Pope wrote (see Augustine, I. and II. contra Julianum):

“There is one faith of all Catholics: By one man sin entered into the world, and all men who have been carnally generated have sinned in him (Rom. v. 12); and unless they shall have been purged and freed from sin by the grace of Christ, they must come under eternal damnation. For the image of God in little infants would not be visited with so terrible a punishment as death, unless they had inherited original sin from their parents.”

“This we believe with one heart, and with one mouth we confess; and we triumphantly oppose Catholic antiquity to your presumptuous novelties. Wherefore all the saints and holy priests who became famous in the study of the word of God: Irenaeus, Cyprian, Rethicius, Olympius, Hilary, Ambrose, Gregory, John, Basil, Jerome the Presbyter—I refrain from mentioning those who are still alive—they all oppose you by asserting the doctrine that all mankind come under original sin, and that no one is excepted but He whom the Virgin conceived without the law of sin.”

In order to escape this argument, so fatal to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the Romanists have invented the fable that Mary was “assumed” into heaven and placed on the throne of Christ at His right hand. Yet they have made a clumsy invention, for they admit that she died and was buried first; and therefore they admit that she had sin.

In the days of Epiphanius, Archbishop of Constantia in Cyprus (386 A.D.), there were certain heretics called Collyridians, who used to address the Virgin Mary as the Romanists do now. They worshipped her with hyperdulia, as the Romanists do now; although in practice there is no difference between hyperdulia, dulia, and latria. Those heretics derived their name from the offerings of little wafers or cakes which they made—κολλυρίδας τινας προσφέροντες—fulfilling the words of Isaiah, “They offer cakes to the queen of heaven.”

Epiphanius (adv. Haer. lxxviii., § 11), with regard to the mariolatry of his time, used these remarkable words: “They may seek for hints in the Scriptures, and they will not be able to find one concerning Mary, whether she died, or did not die; whether she was buried, or was not buried. . . . For the Scriptures maintain an absolute silence concerning her.”

Of the Collyridian heresy he says (adv. Haer. lxxix., lib. iii.) that it was an “idolatrous heresy,” and had for followers only fickle, weak, and narrow-minded women. He adds, most ungallantly, “as no mere man can be made an object of worship, much less can the Virgin, as being a woman and therefore belonging to the inferior sex, be an object of worship.” It appears from this that even the Collyridians did not suppose that the Virgin Mary was in any way superhuman.

Epiphanius also utters a warning voice: “Let no man be led away by this error concerning Mary; for although the tree be pleasant to the eyes (Gen. iii. 6), yet it is not good for food.” He thereby intimated his belief that mariolatry was due as much to the seduction of Satan as was the eating of the apple in Paradise.

He continues: “Yet those women, in their worship of Mary, renew the mingling of wine and water, as used to be done in the sacrifices to the goddess Fortuna; and they prepare a table for the devil, and not for God; as it is written: They eat the food of wickedness. Again it is written (Jer. vii. 18): The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough to make wafers to the queen of heaven. Let the prophet Jeremiah repress those women, and let them no more trouble the world; and let them not say any more, We are honouring the queen of heaven.”

In the mass of the Roman Catholics, they invoke Mary; they mingle wine and water in their “sacrifice,” as the pagans used in their sacrifices to the goddess Fortuna; and they also make and offer wafers, preparing a table for the devil and not for God.

But the most important passage for the purpose in hand is the following:

“Truly the body of Mary was holy; but she was not a God. Truly she was a virgin, and therefore in honour; but she was not given to us to worship. No! she herself worshipped Him whom she bore in the flesh, who had descended from heaven, from the bosom of His Father.

Therefore the Gospel sounds a warning to us, telling us that the Lord said: Woman! what have I to do with Thee? Mine hour is not yet come. That was said in order to prevent some from holding that the holy virgin was something excellent; and therefore he called her merely woman, as if prophesying what would come on the earth, such as these sects and heresies. This he did so that some might be prevented from yielding too much admiration to her, slipping thus into this heresy and all its madness.

For that whole heresy is something too ridiculous; a mere old-wife’s fable, so to speak. For what does Scripture teach us on the subject? Which of the prophets ever told us to worship her who was a mere woman? A most excellent vessel truly, but still a woman, a woman with her woman’s nature unchanged. . . .

Elijah was a virgin from his mother’s womb, and was ever a virgin, and was translated so that he did not see death. John leaned on Jesus’ breast, and was loved by Jesus. Thecla was holy. But yet Mary was in greater honour, because of the dispensation of the mystery (of the incarnation), of which she was doubtless worthy. But Elijah is not to be worshipped, because he was a man. Nor may we bow down to John, although he secured our admiration, or rather the grace of God, by leaning on Jesus’ breast. No! nor may Thecla nor any other saint be worshipped.

Oh! let not that error of the ancient pagans have dominion over us, making us desert the living God and bow down to creatures that have been made by Him. For the ancient pagans served (ἐλάτρευσαν) and worshipped (ἐσεβάσθησαν) the creature rather more than the Creator, and were made fools. For if God wills that we bow not down to angels, how much less would He have us worship her (Mary) who was born of Anna!”

From the beginning of the fifth century, prayers for the dead saints were discontinued. That practice was inconsistent with the more recent custom of praying to them. It was absurd to suppose that dead saints should require the prayers of living men, and yet that living men should pray to those dead saints (see Bingham, lib. xv. c. 3, § 16, 17, vol. vi.).

S. Augustine was supposed to have written as follows (Serm. 17), although I do not believe the writing was his: “It is an insult to the martyrs that we should pray for them, for we ought rather to commend ourselves to their prayers.” That passage was cited by Pope Innocent III. as “Holy Scripture” (Extra, lib. iii. tit. xli. c. 6), and he alleged it as his authority for changing the old formula: “Annue nobis, Domine, ut animæ famuli tui Leonis, hæc prosit oblatio,” into: “Annue nobis, quæsumus Domine, ut intercessione Beati Leonis hæc nobis prosit oblatio.”

I do not think Augustine could have written the passage which Pope Innocent quoted under the authority of that great name, for Augustine wrote in a very contradictory sense. For example (De quant. Animæ, cap. 34; De moribus Eccl. Cath. et Manich., lib. i. c. 30): “Therefore it has been, by God’s care, a tradition handed down in the Catholic Church, and peculiar to it, that no one may worship any creature, but that all prayers should be directed to Him alone who is the Creator of all things.”

Further (De Cura Gerenda pro Mortuis, cap. 13): “The prophet Isaiah (lxiii. 16) says: ‘For Thou art our Father, because Abraham knew us not, and Israel was ignorant concerning us. If such great patriarchs were ignorant what occurred to the people that had been begotten of their loins—the patriarchs who trusted to God to fulfil His promise to raise up that great people from their seed—how can any of the dead be cognisant of the affairs of living men, and know what they do, and help them? . . . The spirits of the defunct are there where they cannot see what is done on earth, and cannot come forth among living men.”

Further he asks (cap. 16): “Can the dead really be personally at the same time in so many different places? . . . Can they be in the places of their memorial churches? or, away from their memorial churches, can they be everywhere they are supposed to be (so as to be invoked)?”

Hugo de S. Victore quoted those words in his book De Spiritu et Anima, as fitly expressing his own ideas. That book was, indeed, for a long time ascribed to Augustine, until the fraud was detected by Trithemius, and then by the divines of Louvain. It was quoted as Augustine’s by Peter Lombard, Baronius, and the Glossa Ordinaria.

Again (De Cura Gerenda pro Mortuis, cap. 14) Augustine says of Dives: “He then had some thought of the living, but was altogether ignorant what they were doing; just in the same way as we think of the dead, but know nothing whatever how it can affect them.”

The first custom which arose was to repair to the tombs of the martyrs, to think of their sufferings for Christ, and then to pray to God, not for the dead, but for the living. The next phase was a very natural error, incident to praying at tombs; namely, to pray for the dead, not knowing that “as the tree falleth, so it shall lie.”

The third phase was the revival of the old pagan error concerning daemones, or apotheosed heroes; namely, praying to the dead as patrons, protectors, advocates, and intercessors, or mediators. The pagan notion can be distinctly traced to the African school, and particularly to the Neoplatonist Christians of Alexandria.

Those Egyptian Fathers referred to the sufferings and virtues of the martyrs in their sermons; and, with true rhetorical instinct, pronounced panegyrics on them, apostrophized them as living and present beings, and finally entreated them for their intercessory prayers.

Those Neo-platonist Fathers were the first to insist on the wonder-working power of the relics of martyrs and saints, and thus encouraged a trade in old bones and other worthless and spurious articles. To such an extent had this trade spread by the year 386 A.D. that a law had to be decreed by the Emperor Theodosius I. (Cod. Theod., ix. 17, l. 7): “No one may remove a corpse that has been buried; no one may disturb the bones of a martyr, nor offer any such thing for sale.”

The practice of holding up the lives and virtues of martyrs to admiration was practised by Augustine; but with what aim and limits, he himself says (Sermo xciii., De Diversis): “This first virtue of the first martyr (Stephen) is commended to your affectionate attention, because his suffering is mentioned in the canonical Scripture; while we scarcely find any record of the doings of other martyrs, so that we cannot speak of them at our solemn worship.”

Again (Tract. in Joan. xxiii., § 5; Contra Faustum, xxi.; De Vera Relig. c. lv.): “Let not our religion be a worship of dead men, who, if they did lead pious lives, cannot be supposed to seek such honours from the living; for they would wish us to worship Him who will give us light to emulate their virtues, and so cause them joy. Wherefore the dead may be honoured by our imitation, but not worshipped as part of our religion. . . . Wherefore let us honour them by loving them, not by invoking them. Nor let us dedicate churches to them. For they would not wish to be thus honoured by us; for we know that, if we are godly, we ourselves are the temples of the Almighty God.”

It may be supposed, from some casual expressions, that Augustine wavered from his own rule, that the dead cannot know anything that is done on earth. But that is not so. Most of the Fathers held that, under the New Testament dispensation, the souls of the godly dead are waiting for a joyful resurrection at the coming of Christ, in that same condition wherein the holy souls of the Old Testament dispensation waited for His first coming. He then went and “preached to the spirits in prison.”

It is certainly very remarkable that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews should enumerate the cloud of witnesses by whom we are surrounded, mentioning Gideon, Samuel, David, and so forth, without the slightest allusion to John the Baptist, Stephen, James, or any soul of the New Testament dispensation.

According to the Apocalypse, those souls are still “under the altar.” So Augustine (in Ps. xxxvi., conc. 1), “Nondum ibi eris, quis nescit?”—“Thou shalt not, as yet, be in heaven; every one knows that.” That place, or rather condition of unconscious waiting, was generally called “Abraham’s bosom,” although the parable does not seem to warrant such an application of the term.

The whole passage of Augustine is as follows: “After this short life, you will not yet be where those holy ones shall hereafter be, to whom it will be said: ‘Come, ye blessed of My Father; receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world.’ You will not yet be there; every one knows that. But you may at once be where that proud and unfruitful rich man saw, from the midst of his torments, that poor man, who had been covered with sores, sleeping a long way off. If you will be gathered into that rest, you may safely wait for the Day of Judgment, when you will also receive back your body, and when you shall be changed, so that you shall be like an angel.”

Many other Fathers, perhaps most of them, held that the souls of holy men do not go to heaven when they depart this life, and will not see God until the day of Christ’s coming. Then they will again be joined to their bodies as glorified and immortal men, and no longer as separated souls. Yet the rest in which the holy dead wait for that consummation is somehow a rest with God—a sleeping in Jesus. The wicked dead, on the other hand, go at once to hell. So Augustine (De Pecc. et Remiss,. Ep. 86): “There is no middle place (no Purgatory) for any; so that he can be nowhere except with the devil, who is not with Christ.”

Of course Augustine’s views as to mariolatry and hagiolatry (worship of the saints) were in contradiction to the Romanist doctrines. Thus, in the tenth book of his Confessions, he says: “To whom shall I look up as my mediator? Shall I go to angels? Many have tried this, and became the sport, as they deserved, of the illusions they loved. A mediator between God and man must have the nature of both.”

So also, in the eighth book of his City of God, he says: “In order to attain to a life of bliss, we do not want, for mediator, any human being, such as one of the apotheosed heroes (daemon) used to be; but such as Christ only is” (see also books vi. and ix., passim; and x. 22, 24).

Further (lib. ii., contra Epist. Parmenian., cap. 8): “If John had written thus: ‘This I have written to you that you should not sin; and if any man sin, you will have me for a mediator with the Father, and I will intercede for your sins’—just as Parmenianus regards the bishop as the mediator between God and the congregation. If John had thus written, what good and faithful Christian would tolerate him? Who would regard him as an apostle of Christ, and not rather as antichrist?”

Again (on Ps. xliv.): “Christ Himself is our High Priest, who has entered in the Holy of Holies, behind the veil, and is there alone, and of all the choir of heaven, He alone makes intercession for us. In order to prefigure that, with the people of Israel, and in the former temple, one high priest used to enter the most holy place, while all the people stood without.”

Now we come to Augustine’s views concerning the immaculate conception of Mary. In the Enchiridion, he says: “By this he clearly shows that every one who is descended from Adam is under sentence of damnation.”

And on 2 Cor. v. 14, he says (Contra Julian.): “All are in sin, and therefore spiritually dead; and for them Christ died. For He died for sinners only.” Alluding to Rom. v. 12 (De Nat. et Gratia), he says: “Both those in olden times, and those in modern times—both we and our posterity—are all comprised in that condemnation.”

The Hypognosticon is, I believe, not a genuine work of Augustine. The forger, in imitating that Father, however, said: “The apostle, by using the word all, made no exception, but condemned the whole human race; for all, without exception, have sinned.”

Speaking particularly, Augustine said (Enarr. in Ps. xxxiv.): “Adam died because of sin; and Mary, who came from Adam’s loins, died because of sin; but the flesh of the Lord, a son of Mary, died in order to take away sin.”

Further (Quando, cur, et quomodo Deus Homo, cap. vi.): “It is well to understand that no one could be naturally propagated of the race of Adam, without being guilty of Adam’s sin; and therefore no one could blot out the handwriting which is against us all, unless he were totally without the universal guilt of original sin, as well as without all sin of his own.”

In his second book on Infant Baptism, he wrote: “Among the sons of men there never was, and never will be, any one free from sin, or any one who shall attain to righteousness without having sinned, excepting only that One Mediator by whom we are reconciled to God, the enmity of our sins being removed. He alone, being made man while He continued to be God, was always free from sin, and did not take sinful flesh upon Him, although He was of the sinful flesh of His mother.”

In his book against Julian (lib. v. cap. 9), Augustine enlarges on the same topic:

“Do you think that the flesh of Christ, born of Mary, was propagated by the seed of Adam, like that of other men? And do you think that the flesh of Christ was, therefore, sinful flesh? Do you imagine that the Apostle made no distinction when he said that Christ was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh?” (Rom. viii. 3). “No, indeed; you say there is no such thing as sinful flesh. But tell me, I pray you, what is a likeness of sinful flesh, if there be no sinful flesh? . . . How can anything be like that which does not exist? There is no doubt that the flesh of Christ is not sinful flesh, but the likeness of sinful flesh.

What follows? We must understand that, excepting only the flesh of Christ, all human flesh is sinful flesh. It follows, also, that the concupiscence of the flesh, by which Christ refused to be conceived, caused, in the human race, the propagation of sin; for the body of Mary, although it had been conceived by concupiscence, yet did not transmit it to the body of Christ, which was not conceived by concupiscence.

Wherefore, the body of Christ is said to have come in the likeness of sinful flesh; because all other flesh of man is sinful flesh. For the original sin is transmitted to all men by concupiscence; but it could not be transmitted to the flesh of Christ, because the Virgin did not conceive it by concupiscence. . . . So then, the flesh of Christ derived the power to die from the mortality of His mother’s body; but it did not derive the contagion of original sin from it.”

In his literal comment on Genesis (lib. x.), he pursued the same thought:

“Wherefore, although the body of Christ was derived from the flesh of a woman, which had been conceived by the propagation of sinful flesh; yet the body of Christ was not sinful flesh, but the likeness of sinful flesh; because it had not been conceived, by the Virgin, in the same manner as the Virgin’s body had been conceived by her mother. Christ derived His body of visible flesh from the Virgin Mary; but it was not conceived of human seed; far otherwise; it was from above.”

In his first book on Infant Baptism, he says:

“The likeness of sinful flesh is that in which there was the penalty without the sin; but sinful flesh is that in which there is both penalty and sin. . . . There is sinful flesh, in which all men are born to damnation; there was but one likeness of sinful flesh, by which all are freed from damnation.”

In his sixteenth sermon on the words of the Gospel, he repeats all this argument, and makes it plain that Pelagius, in asserting that a child of man was without sin, affirmed thereby that the child was of equal purity and goodness with Christ. For purity is the opposite of the taint of sin, and goodness is the opposite of evil. Whoever, then, asserts that Mary was born without sin, affirms that Mary is equal to Christ.

Lastly, on Luke xix. 10, he wrote:

“He who says, I have no sin, or, I have never sinned, is ungrateful to the Saviour. There never was one, and there never will be one, of the human race who is not diseased with original sin. Let no one insinuate any other doctrine, for it would be false. This doctrine the Church has always held; this doctrine she received by faith from those former times; this doctrine she will steadfastly keep to the end of the world; because they that be whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick (Matt. ix. 12).”

He quotes this passage in his third book on Infant Baptism, and adds: “This means that Christ is not needed by those who are without sin; but He came for those who have to be saved from their sins.” As Mary (Luke i. 47) called Christ her Saviour, she needed Him to save her from her sins.

There is a sermon among the Sermones ad Fratres in Eremo, ascribed to Augustine, which has been often quoted: “Therefore, as the Father is, so is the Son in heaven. So on earth, as is His mother in respect of the flesh, so is the Son,” etc.

These sermons are written in mongrel Latin, and were publicly condemned. Baronius (vol. iv. p. 400) says: “None but an impostor could have composed them,” and that frigidus ille fictor . . . multa delira, vana, fabulosa, et portentosa mendacia blatet. (That cold-blooded fabricator . . . babbles forth many nonsensical, empty, fabulous, and monstrous lies.)

There is a passage also which has been quoted as if from the works of S. Maximus, who lived in 415 A.D.: “The glorious Virgin was sanctified while in the womb of her mother, and cleansed by the Holy Spirit from all the contagion of original sin before she was born.”

That passage admits that Mary was conceived in sin; but it pretends, without authority or reason, that she was cleansed from sin in the womb. That was the theory of a much later date; and I am confident that the passage, like most of the passages that have been quoted in favour of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, is a forgery of the later monkish times.

(To be continued.)