Continued from Historical Retrospect.—Third Period, 627 A.D.

HISTORICAL RETROSPECT.—FOURTH PERIOD. 942 A.D.

IN 1020 A.D., the great canonist, Burchardus, Episc. Wormatiensis, flourished. He adhered firmly to the old opinion (Summa, lib. xx. cap. 11): “By the falsehood of Adam all men naturally lost their innocence; and no one can rise out of that abyss of destruction, unless the grace of a commiserating Redeemer shall raise him.” Pope Innocent clearly defined this in a letter to the Council of Carthage. According to the present faith of the Romanists, that definition of Pope Innocent was infallibly true; although it was directly contradicted by another infallibly true definition of Pope Pius IX.!

Now we come to Cardinal S. Peter Damianus in 1050 A.D. (Sermo xliv., idest in Nativ. B. V., Sermo I.): “Thou Mary dost come and stand before that golden altar of human reconciliation, not praying, but commanding (thy Son); as a queen, and not as a handmaiden… There is given to thee, O Mary, all power in heaven and in earth; and nothing is impossible with thee.” He utters the same blasphemy in Sermon X. on the Annunciation; and in Sermon XL. on the Assumption. A further blasphemy he elsewhere wrote: “God could not become man without the consent of Mary.” The period of Cardinal Damian is an epoch in mariolatry.

The practice of saying the “Office of the Virgin Mary” was first begun at this time in convents. It had its origin in mere hymns to her praise, which were introduced into the daily service by Ulrich, Bishop of Augsburgh, in 924 A.D. (Mabillon, Annales Ben., lib. xlii. no. 71). According to Peter Damian (Opusc., xxxiii. c. 3), Saturday was sacred to the Virgin as early as 1000 A.D., just at the time when the new idea, as to her sanctification in her mother’s womb, first took its rise. The “Salve Regina” has been ascribed to Hermannus Contractus, in A.D. 1050. There Mary is called “the blissful gate of heaven,” and is prayed to “loose the chains of us criminals; and give light to us who are blind.” The “Ave Maris Stella” probably dates from much the same time. Therein Mary is prayed to exert the maternal authority over our Lord Jesus, and command Him to save us: “Monstra te esse matrem.”

Such were the ideas of that period. Yet Theophylact, who flourished in 1077, denied the Immaculate Conception of Mary. This Franciscus Peyna admits in his Directorium Inquisitorum (P. ii. Comment. 21); he admits too that all the great Fathers of his Church had also denied that dogma.

In 1080, Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote (Cur Deus homo, lib. ii. cap. 15): “For although the conception of Christ was pure and without the sin of carnal pleasure; yet the Virgin, from whom He took flesh, was conceived in iniquities and in sin did her mother conceive her; and she was born in sins”: “est in iniquitatibus concepta, et in peccatis concepit eam mater ejus.” Addressing God in his Meditations, he says: “Thou didst create the soul of the glorious Virgin Mary with the taint of Original Sin; but afterwards Thou didst purify her from that primal contagion, and didst clothe her in the robe of righteousness, and didst subsequently strengthen her in the purity of holiness.”

Again, in his book, De Conceptu Virginali, cap. 2, he says: “If Adam had not sinned, he would have transmitted, to his posterity, that nature which he had received from God. So, after his sin, he transmitted that nature which he had, as sin had caused it to be. Wherefore all children of men are born subject to the debt of Adam, and have to give satisfaction for the first sin.” (Cap. 8) “God gave, to our first parent, grace to be just and rational… But when Adam would not remain in subjection to God’s will, he lost that grace, and could not transmit it to his posterity. How then could the Virgin’s Son not be subject to sin, and to the death of Adam? This is not hard to understand: Adam was created just and free from sin, and from the debt and penalty for sin; and that state, or Original Righteousness, he could have preserved… but, as he did not preserve it, but threw away that grace, he became subject to the contrary; he became the servant of sin, and of injustice, and incurred the debt; and therefore every one who descended from him lost that Original Righteousness, and became subject to the opposite evils.” (Cap. 13) “Although Christ assumed flesh from the sinful mass (of Mary), yet He did not receive any of the sin of the sinful mass.”

This is repeated in chapter 16; and in chapter 19 he says: “No one can be born naturally without sin; on which follows damnation; for all the children of Adam, except the Virgin’s Son, are sinners and children of wrath, as the Apostle says.” (Chap. 20) “From Adam to the Virgin, the mother of Jesus, all were propagated naturally, and the seed was sown by the will and desire of the parents, and germinated according to nature; and so, by that natural course, they all derived their being from Adam. But the will of no creature sowed the seed in Mary, nor was there any germination according to nature. But it was the Holy Spirit, and the power of the Most High which miraculously propagated that Man. The Virgin conceived Him of the Holy Ghost; and therefore He was born without original sin, which all the children of Adam derive from their origin; for with Original Righteousness the Son of that Virgin was born.”

Two books, Miracula de Festo Conceptionis and De exordio humanæ salutis, have been falsely ascribed to Anselm. They were written long after Anselm’s time, and were two of the very numerous forgeries of the Church of Rome. It seems to me that the Liber de excellentiâ B. V. must be another forgery. Let the reader judge whether a divine who had composed the foregoing passages could have penned the following: (cap. 6) “Salvation is often more quickly obtained by invoking the name of Mary, than by calling on the name of Jesus, her only Son.” (Cap. 8) “Accompanied by thousands of thousands, yea, by an infinite number of armies of angels, God Himself came to His most pious mother, as she was about to die and depart from the earth, and He exalted her above all the heavens, and gave her an eternal right to rule over all creation, and placed her by Himself on the throne of His glory.” (Cap. 11) “As God, by His power, made all things, and is therefore Father and God of all; so Mary, the blessed mother of God, by restoring or regenerating all things through her merits, became the mother and queen of all.”

Pope Urban II., he who sanctioned the indiscriminate murder of all excommunicated persons, came to the papal throne in 1088. While presiding over a council, he made the following declaration, and all the members of the council shouted “Amen”: “The hands of all priests are exalted to an eminence denied to all the angels; for priests create God, the Creator of the Universe; then, with their hands, they offer Him up for the sins of the whole world.” (Labbé and Cossart, Concil., vol. x. col. 617. Ed. Paris, 1671). I quote this here because of the commentaries of two Jesuits: that of Cornelius a Lapide on Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 29; and that of Salazar on Proverbs ix. 4, 5 (quoted by Dr. Pusey, in his Eirenicon, part i. 168–172). For both of them assert, as Catholic truth, that Mary is bodily present, with Christ, in the sacrament, and is there fed upon by the communicants! Priests therefore are greater than even that wicked Urban II. declared them to be; for they create both Mary and Jesus, and then offer them both up for the sins of the whole world.

Cardinal Goffridus flourished in that same year 1088. In his eighth sermon we read: “If,” it is hypothetical, “If any saint can obtain, from the just Judge, whatever the saint has a right to demand; much more may the Virgin Mary, who is the Judge’s mother, be sure of not being defrauded by Him of her mother’s right… The blessed Mary, mother, virgin, and wife, intact and most holy, will obtain from her most Holy Son, that not a single one shall perish for whom she has prayed but once. And no wonder; for if she chooses, she can save the whole world by her prayers; and she is most ready to pray for the whole world; and all the world will be saved, if they only make themselves worthy of her prayers.”

All the divines of that day were not quite as foolish as Cardinal Goffridus. For Petrus, Archiepiscopus Mediolanensis (In Apparatu; cap. Firmissimé. De Consecr. Dist. iv.) wrote: “The Conception of Saint Mary should not be celebrated; because she was conceived in Original Sin; although she was afterwards made holy.”

Let us pass to Euthymius Zigabenus, who wrote in 1116 A.D. I believe that no genuine writings of his are extant; nevertheless, the Benedictine Zoller has forged or extracted the following quotation (De Zonâ Deiparæ): “Protect us, in thy great and abundant mercy, by thy never-failing intercessions, oh thou most best of all! Recommend us to thy Son, our God, the merciful and just Judge; for thou hast a mother’s authority and infinite boldness with God, and canst do all things.”

Pope Innocent II. was made Pope in 1130 A.D. Preaching on the Assumption of the Virgin, he said: “Eve was indeed created without sin; yet she brought forth children in sin. The glorious Virgin was born in sin, and yet brought forth a Son without sin.” How was it that an infallible Pope in 1130 could contradict, not only the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, but also the notion that the Virgin Mary was born holy?

Perhaps it was due to the great authority and influence of Hugo de S. Victore, who flourished in 1120 A.D. In his book of Sentences, he says: “The flesh of Christ, as Augustine avers, was at the first in His mother subject to Original Sin; but, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, before the Word of God took that flesh on Him, it was cleansed from all sin.”

Again (De Sacramentis, pars ii. cap. 4): “The definition of the Catholic Faith asserts that the Son of God, who was born of sinful parents, and for sinners, took on Him flesh which was free from sin, although it was derived from the Virgin’s flesh which was tainted with sin. His flesh was free from sin, because it had been freed from sin; not because it was never sinful flesh, but because it had ceased to be sinful flesh. For, as He took it on Him, it was purged from the lust of sin… That flesh which Christ took on Him, was by grace cleansed from the sin which had affected it since the time of Adam; and, being cleansed and made free from sin, it was assumed by the Son of God.”

Among the Benedictine Zoller’s numerous forgeries, there appear the following passages, attributed to Hugo de S. Victore (De Propriet. et Epithet. rerum, iv. 2): “The blessed Virgin was poor, humble, obedient, quiet, modest, simple-minded, wise, announced by the angel, and sanctified in the womb.”

Again (Apolog. de Verbo incarn., c. 3): “In heaven, the Son is as the Father; and on the earth, the mother is as the Son. In heaven the Son is the image of the Father; but on earth the Son was the imitator of His mother.”

Now we come to the great opponent of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the great S. Bernard (1130 A.D.); although he was a devoted worshipper, as very many at his time were, of the Virgin Mary. That great Abbas Clarævallensis said, in a sermon on the Advent: “The Virgin brought forth her own Redeemer, and the Redeemer of all mankind.” In another sermon, on the Assumption: “It is on every ground quite clear that the blessed Virgin was cleansed from her sins by the grace of God.”

Again (De Error. Abailardi, c. vi.) he wrote, “If One has died for all, then have all died; that is to say, so that the satisfaction given by One should be reckoned to all; just as He bore the sins of all.” That doctrine, which comprised the Virgin Mary in its terms, involved a renunciation of all merit and good works in every child of Adam. It was discarded by the Council of Trent, in favour of the “inherent righteousness” of some men; nay more, in favour of a supererogatory merit in some men and women, which may be put to the credit of others.

In the time of S. Bernard, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was invented (1140 A.D.) by some Canons of Lyons. Of course the invention gave rise to a great public controversy. Some said that, as Christ was conceived without the taint of Original Sin, therefore His mother must have been perfectly holy from the first instant of her conception. S. Bernard very logically retorted that such an argument would also prove that, not only she herself, but also Anna her mother, and every one of her ancestors up to, and including Eve, must have been conceived without sin. And if that were so, then David spoke falsely when he declared: “In sin hath my mother conceived me.”

The Jesuit Malagrida, and various other writers also, were bold enough to extend this privilege to Anna, the mother of Mary. But every divine shrank from logically proceeding ad infinitum. S. Bernard, the great panegyrist (eulogist) and worshipper of Mary, seeing the falseness of the reasoning, wrote with great vehemence against the doctrine.

I shall quote a few extracts from his letter; but I wish first to remark that the time when this doctrine was invented, was a period of the most awful profligacy of the clergy; and that Lyons was one of the most profligate places, even at that wicked time. It is also a fact that every step in mariolatry has been taken at times of debased morals, and also by persons who were distinguished by their excessive corruption.

The Epistle is 174 Ad Canonicos Lugdunenses: S. Bernard declared that he was “very much puzzled to know what could have been the object of some of you Canons, in desiring to alter the present excellent settlement of religious worship, by introducing a new celebration, which was quite foreign to the ritual of the Church, and was not approved by reason, nor recommended by any ancient tradition. Do you imagine that you are more learned, or more pious than the Fathers of the Church? It is a very dangerous thing to presume to introduce anything in religion which their prudence carefully passed by.”

He then stated his belief that Mary was sanctified in her mother’s womb, just as Jeremiah was (i. 5), and John the Baptist (Luke i. 41), and David (Ps. li. 5); but he adds these significant words: “and how far such a sanctification could have been operative against Original Sin, I have not the temerity to assert.”

His argument as to the sanctification of Mary is worth recording: “If therefore the blessed Virgin could not possibly have been sanctified before she had been conceived, because she did not exist before conception; so also, in the act of the conception of her, she could not have been sanctified, because of the concupiscence involved in that act; it remains therefore for us to believe that she received sanctification while in the womb, and subsequent to conception; which, supposing no other sin to have occurred, would have made her birth holy, but not her conception. Wherefore, although it has been given to very few children of men to be born holy, yet to not a single one has it been given to be conceived in holiness; and this was in order that the prerogative of a holy conception might be reserved to One who should sanctify all; and He alone, of all men, came without sin, and purged away all sin. The Lord alone was conceived of the Holy Spirit. He alone was holy in conception… That being so, what, I ask, is the sense of a Festival of the Conception of Mary? Or how can that conception be alleged to have been holy, which was not of the Holy Spirit; not to say, which was of sin? And why should that be celebrated, by a festival of the Church, which was not at all holy? The virgin queen would gladly forego that honour whereby either an act of sin will be honoured, or else a false holiness alleged.”

S. Bernard rehearsed the argument of the Canons as follows: “We must honour the conception of her, because we have already decreed honours to her birth of Him.” And he replied: “But what if some one should allege the very same ground for decreeing festivals to each of Mary’s parents, because they produced a holy Mary? Then we have, again, exactly the same ground for decreeing festivals to her grandparents, and her great-grandparents; and so we should have to proceed ad infinitum; and we should have numberless festivals on every day of the year.” He then showed that the notion was totally opposed to both reason and authority.

It was a very remarkable inconsistency in S. Bernard to pray to Mary, and yet to assert, in accordance with the general faith of the apostolic Church, that the souls of the righteous will not see or hear before the day of the Lord’s coming. That was the belief of the Church; nor was it altered until the Council of Florence in 1439 A.D. His fatuous devotion to Mary may account for it; I will give three examples from his writings (Sermo, In Nativ. B. Mariæ de Aqueductu, § 7): “But perhaps you are in awe of Jesus’ Divine majesty? Because, although He has made man, yet He continued to be God. Yes! you want an advocate, even with Jesus? Well then, run to Mary. The humanity in Mary was pure; and not merely pure from all contamination, but also pure by a prerogative of her nature… The Son will hear His Mother, and the Father will hear the Son.”

Again (Sermo I, In Salve Regina): “She is fitly called the Mother of Mercies, because she is believed to open the abyss of Divine love to whom she will, and when she will; so that every sinner, how enormously however he may have sinned, should not perish, when she has given him the most holy suffrage of her advocacy.”

Further (Sermo, De Verbis Apoc.): “Mary is become all things to all men; she is debtor to the wise and the unwise, through her superabundant love; and has opened her bosom of mercy to all, so that we all may receive of her fulness; the captive obtains, from her, redemption; the sick receives health; the mourner gets consolation; the sinner is given pardon by her; the just man acquires grace; the angels, joy; and the whole Trinity receives glory.”

Peter Lombard, Archbishop of Paris, the great “Master of Sentences” (A.D. 1140), was precise on the point under consideration (III. Sent., Dist. iii. q. 1): “Verily we must believe, in accordance with the united testimony of the saints, that even the flesh of the Son of God, as it existed in Mary before He was conceived, was under sin, just as the rest of the Virgin’s flesh was. But after the operation of the Holy Spirit had come over her, His flesh was so cleansed from the contagion of all sin, that it was united, free from all sin, to the Word of God; only the penalty for sin remained, not of necessity, but because it was voluntarily assumed. Moreover, the Holy Spirit, by coming into Mary, cleansed her entirely from sin, and freed her from the desire to sin.”

It will be observed that the supposed purification of Mary took place, according to the “Magister Sententiarum,” at the time when she conceived the Lord Jesus. This he makes more plain in the following passage. Having quoted John Damascene, viz., “The Holy Spirit overshadowed the Virgin, cleansed her from sin, and gave her power to receive the Word of God, and to generate a Son”; he added: “From that authority, what we have already said is made clear beyond doubt, that the Holy Ghost, anticipating the conception of the Son, purified the Virgin entirely from every taint of sin.”

But let us return to the former passage. Peter Lombard continues: “Christ was begotten without human concupiscence, and therefore the flesh of the Word was not under sin. But it was only His flesh alone that was not sinful flesh; because He alone was conceived by His mother by grace, and not through concupiscence. He alone had none of the pollution which comes from the (parental) motion of concupiscence and carnal pleasure at the time of conception.”

With regard to prayers to Mary and the saints, Peter Lombard says (IV. Sent., Dist. 45): “We ask the saints to intercede for us, that is, that their merits might be applied in satisfaction for us; and also that they might wish well to us; because if they determine to do us good, God will decide to do so, and it will be done.” He adds: “But perhaps you will ask: Do the saints hear the prayers of us suppliants, and do the desires and vows of those who pray come to their knowledge? It is not incredible that the souls of the saints, which are in the hiding-place from the face of God, should be comforted with a ray of true light, and should, by contemplating Him, be able to know things which take place on earth, so far, at least, as would be necessary to give to them joy, or to us assistance.”

Guerricus, Abbas Ignasiensis, near Rheims, writing at the same time, took the same view as the great Master of Sentences: “The blessed Virgin, and all other human creatures except Christ, were conceived in Original Sin. Therefore the Scripture says: One man among ten thousand have I chosen,—meaning Christ;—but among women have I found none,—that is, there never was a woman without sin.”

Continued in Historical Retrospect.—Purification Before Birth.