[1] There is an allusion to this escapade addressed by another
anxious parent to the elder Marvell in the Hull Corporation Records
(No. 498) [see Grosart, i. xxviii.]. The document is without address
or signature, but the identification seems safe.
[2] This poem has been highly praised by Goldwin Smith (T. H. Ward's
_English Poets_, ii. 383 (1880)). It was first printed, so far as we
know, in 1776, and the only external testimony to Marvell's
authorship is the statement of Captain Thompson, who had included
many poems by other writers in his edition of Marvell, that this ode
was in poet's own handwriting. The internal evidence in favour of
Marvell may, however, be accepted as conclusive.
MARX, HEINRICH KARL (1818-1883), German socialist, and head of the
International Working Men's Association, was born on the 5th of May 1818
in Trèves (Rhenish Prussia). His father, a Jewish lawyer, in 1824 went
over to Christianity, and he and his whole family were baptized as
Christian Protestants. The son went to the high grammar school at
Trèves, and from 1835 to the universities of Bonn and Berlin. He studied
first law, then history and philosophy, and in 1841 took the degree of
doctor of philosophy. In Berlin he had close intimacy with the most
prominent representatives of the young Hegelians--the brothers Bruno and
Edgar Bauer and their circle, the so-called "Freien." He at first
intended to settle as a lecturer at Bonn University, but his Radical
views made a university career out of the question, and he accepted work
on a Radical paper, the _Rheinische Zeitung_, which expounded the ideas
of the most advanced section of the Rhenish Radical _bourgeoisie_. In
October 1842 he became one of the editors of this paper, which, however,
after an incessant struggle with press censors, was suppressed in the
beginning of 1843. In the summer of this year Marx married Jenny von
Westphalen, the daughter of a high government official. Through her
mother Jenny von Westphalen was a lineal descendant of the earl of
Argyle, who was beheaded under James II. She was a most faithful
companion to Marx during all the vicissitudes of his career, and died on
the 2nd of December 1881; he outliving her only fifteen months.
Already in the _Rheinische Zeitung_ some socialist voices had been
audible, couched in a somewhat philosophical strain. Marx, though not
accepting these views, refused to criticize them until he had studied
the question thoroughly. For this purpose he went in the autumn of 1843
to Paris, where the socialist movement was then at its intellectual
zenith, and where he, together with Arnold Ruge, the well-known literary
leader of Radical Hegelianism, was to edit a review, the
_Deutsch-französische Jahrbücher_, of which, however, only one number
appeared. It contained two articles by Marx--a criticism of Bruno
Bauer's treatment of the Jewish question, and an introduction to a
criticism of Hegel's philosophy of the law. The first concluded that the
social emancipation of the Jews could only be achieved together with the
emancipation of society from Judaism, i.e. commercialism. The second
declared that in Germany no partial political emancipation was possible;
there was now only one class from which a real and reckless fight
against authority was to be expected--namely, the proletariate. But the
proletariate could not emancipate itself except by breaking all the
chains, by dissolving the whole constituted society, by recreating man
as a member of the human society in the place of established states and
classes. "Then the day of German resurrection will be announced by the
crowing of the Gallican cock." Both articles thus relegated the
solution of the questions then prominent in Germany to the advent of
socialism, and so far resembled in principle other socialist
publications of the time. But the way of reasoning was different, and
the final words of the last quoted sentence pointed to a political
revolution, to begin in France as soon as the industrial evolution had
created a sufficiently strong proletariate. In contradistinction to most
of the socialists of the day, Marx laid stress upon the political
struggle as the lever of social emancipation. In some letters which
formed part of a correspondence between Marx, Ruge, Ludwig Feuerbach,
and Mikhail Bakunin, published as an introduction to the review, this
opposition of Marx to socialistic "dogmatism" was enunciated in a still
more pronounced form: "Nothing prevents us," he said, "from combining
our criticism with the criticism of politics, from participating in
politics, and consequently in real struggles. We will not, then, oppose
the world like doctrinarians with a new principle: here is truth, kneel
down here! We expose new principles to the world out of the principles
of the world itself. We don't tell it: 'Give up your struggles, they are
rubbish, we will show you the true war-cry.' We explain to it only the
real object for which it struggles, and consciousness is a thing it must
acquire even if it objects to it."
In Paris Marx met FRIEDRICH ENGELS (1820-1895), from whom the
_Deutsch-französische Jahrbücher_ had two articles--a powerfully written
outline of a criticism of political economy, and a letter on Carlyle's
_Past and Present_. Engels, the son of a wealthy cotton-spinner, was
born in 1820 at Barmen. Although destined by his father for a commercial
career, he attended a classical school, and during his apprenticeship
and whilst undergoing in Berlin his one year's military service, he had
given up part of his free hours to philosophical studies. In Berlin he
had frequented the society of the "Freien," and had written letters to
the _Rheinische Zeitung_. In 1842 he had gone to England, his father's
firm having a factory near Manchester, and had entered into connexion
with the Owenite and Chartist movements, as well as with German
communists. He contributed to Owen's _New Moral World an_d to the
Chartist _Northern Star_, gave up much of his abstract speculative
reasoning for a more positivist conception of things, and took to
economic studies. Now, in September 1844, on a short stay in Paris, he
visited Marx, and the two found that in regard to all theoretical points
there was perfect agreement between them. From that visit dates the
close friendship and uninterrupted collaboration and exchange of ideas
which lasted during their lives, so that even some of Marx's subsequent
works, which he published under his own name, are more or less also the
work of Engels. The first result of their collaboration was the book
_Die heilige Familie oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik, gegen Bruno
Bauer und Konsorten_, a scathing exposition of the perverseness of the
high-sounding speculative radicalism of Bauer and the other Berlin
"Freie." By aid of an analysis, which, though not free from exaggeration
and a certain diffuseness, bears testimony to the great learning of Marx
and the vigorous discerning faculty of both the authors, it is shown
that the supposed superior criticism--the "critical criticism" of the
Bauer school, based upon the doctrine of a "self-conscious" idea,
represented by or incarnated in the critic--was in fact inferior to the
older Hegelian idealism. The socialist and working-class movements in
Great Britain, France and Germany are defended against the superior
criticism of the "holy" Bauer family.
In Paris, where he had very intimate intercourse with Heinrich Heine,
who always speaks of him with the greatest respect, and some of whose
poems were suggested by Marx, the latter contributed to a Radical
magazine, the _Vorwärts_; but in consequence of a request by the
Prussian government, nearly the whole staff of the magazine soon got
orders to leave France. Marx now went to Brussels, where he shortly
afterwards was joined by Engels. In Brussels he published his second
great work, _La Misère de la philosophie_, a sharp rejoinder to the
_Philosophie de la misère ou contradictions économiques_ of J. P.
Proudhon. In this he deals with Proudhon, whom in the former work he had
defended against the Bauers, not less severely than with the latter. It
is shown that in many points Proudhon is inferior to both the
middle-class economists and the socialists, that his somewhat noisily
proclaimed discoveries in regard to political economy were made long
before by English socialists, and that his main remedies, the
"constitution of the labour-value" and the establishment of exchange
bazaars, were but a repetition of what English socialists had already
worked out much more thoroughly and more consistently. Altogether the
book shows remarkable knowledge of political economy. In justice to
Proudhon, it must be added that it is more often his mode of speaking
than the thought underlying the attacked sentences that is hit by Marx's
criticism. In Brussels Marx and Engels also wrote a number of essays,
wherein they criticized the German literary representatives of that kind
of socialism and philosophic radicalism which was mainly influenced by
the writings of Ludwig Feuerbach, and deduced its theorems or postulates
from speculations on the "nature of man." They mockingly nicknamed this
kind of socialism "German or True Socialism," and ridiculed the idea
that by disregarding historical and class distinctions a conception of
society and socialism superior to that of the English and French workers
and theorists could be obtained. Some of these essays were published at
the time, two or three, curiously enough, by one of the attacked writers
in his own magazine; one, a criticism of Feuerbach himself, was in a
modified form published by Engels in 1885, but others have remained in
manuscript. They were at first intended for publication in two volumes
as a criticism of post-Hegelian German philosophy, but the Revolution of
1848 postponed for a time all interest in theoretical discussions.
In Brussels Marx and Engels came into still closer contact with the
socialist working-class movement. They founded a German workers'
society, acquired a local German weekly, the _Brüsseller deutsche
Zeitung_, and finally joined a communistic society of German workers,
the "League of the Just," a secret society which had its main branches
in London, Paris, Brussels and several Swiss towns. For this league,
which till then had adhered to the rough-and-ready communism of the
gifted German workman Wilhelm Weitling, but which now called itself
"League of the Communists," and gave up its leanings towards conspiracy
and became an educational and propagandistic body, Marx and Engels at
the end of 1847 wrote their famous pamphlet, _Manifest der Kommunisten_.
It was a concise exposition of the history of the working-class movement
in modern society according to their views, to which was added a
critical survey of the existing socialist and communist literature, and
an explanation of the attitude of the Communists towards the advanced
opposition parties in the different countries. Scarcely was the
manifesto printed when, in February 1848, the Revolution broke out in
France, and "the crowing of the Gallican cock" gave the signal for an
upheaval in Germany such as Marx had prophesied. After a short stay in
France, Marx and Engels went to Cologne in May 1848, and there with some
friends they founded the _Neue rheinische Zeitung_, with the sub-title
"An Organ of Democracy," a political daily paper on a large scale, of
which Marx was the chief editor. They took a frankly revolutionary
attitude, and directed their criticism to a great extent against the
middle-class democratic parties, who, by evading all decisive issues,
delayed the achievement of the upheaval. When in November 1848 the king
of Prussia dissolved the National Assembly, Marx and his friends
advocated the non-payment of taxes and the organization of armed
resistance. Then the state of siege was declared in Cologne, the _Neue
rheinische Zeitung_ was suspended, and Marx was put on trial for high
treason. He was unanimously acquitted by a middle-class jury, but in May
1849 he was expelled from Prussian territory. He went to Paris, but was
soon given the option of either leaving France or settling at a small
provincial place. He preferred the former, and went to England. He
settled in London, and remained there for the rest of his life.
At first he tried to reorganize the Communist League; but soon a
conflict broke out in its ranks, and after some of its members had been
tried in Germany and condemned for high treason, Marx, who had done
everything to save the accused, dissolved the Communist League
altogether. Nor was a literary enterprise, a review, also called the
_Neue rheinische Zeitung_, more successful; only six numbers of it were
issued. It contained, however, some very remarkable contributions; and a
series of articles on the career of the French Revolution of 1848, which
first appeared there, was in 1895 published by Engels in book form under
the title of _Die Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich von 1848"_ by Karl Marx."
Carlyle's _Latter Day Pamphlets_, published at that time, met with a
very vehement criticism in the _Neue rheinische Zeitung_. The endeavours
of Ernest Jones and others to revive the Chartist movement were heartily
supported by Marx, who contributed to several of the Chartist journals
of the period, mostly, if not wholly, without getting or asking payment.
He lived at this time in great financial straits, occupied a few small
rooms in Dean Street, Soho, and all his children then born died very
young. At length he was invited to write letters for the _New York
Tribune_, whose staff consisted of advanced democrats and socialists of
the Fourierist school. For these letters he was paid at the rate of a
guinea each. Part of them, dealing with the Eastern Question and the
Crimean War, were republished in 1897 (London, Sonnenschein). Some were
even at the time reprinted in pamphlet form. The co-operation of Marx,
who was determinedly anti-Russian, since Russia was the leading
reactionary power in Europe, was obtained by David Urquhart and his
followers. A number of Marx's articles were issued as pamphlets by the
Urquhartite committees, and Marx wrote a series of articles on the
diplomatic history of the 18th century for the Urquhartite _Free Press_
(Sheffield and London, 1856-1857). When in 1859 the Franco-Austrian War
about Italy broke out, Marx denounced it as a Franco-Russian intrigue,
directed against Germany on the one hand and the revolutionary movement
in France on the other. He opposed those democrats who supported a war
which in their eyes aimed at the independence of the Italian nation and
promised to weaken Austria, whose superiority in Germany was the
hindrance to German unity. Violent derogatory remarks directed against
him by the well-known naturalist Karl Vogt gave occasion to a not less
violent rejoinder, _Herr Vogt_, a book full of interesting material for
the student of modern history. Marx's contention, that Vogt acted as an
agent of the Bonapartist clique, seems to have been well founded, whilst
it must be an open question how far Vogt acted from dishonourable
motives. The discussions raised by the war also resulted in a great
estrangement between Marx and Ferdinand Lassalle. Lassalle had taken a
similar view of the war to that advocated by Vogt, and fought tooth and
nail for it in letters to Marx. In the same year, 1859, Marx published
as a first result of his renewed economic studies the book _Zur Kritik
der politischen Ökonomie_. It was the first part of a much larger work
planned to cover the whole ground of political economy. But Marx found
that the arrangement of his materials did not fully answer his purpose,
and that many details had still to be worked out. He consequently
altered the whole plan and sat down to rewrite the book, of which in
1867 he published the first volume under the title _Das Kapital_.
In the meantime, in 1864, the International Working Men's Association
was founded in London, and Marx became in fact though not in name, the
head of its general council. All its addresses and proclamations were
penned by him and explained in lectures to the members of the council.
The first years of the International went smoothly enough. Marx was then
at his best. He displayed in the International a political sagacity and
toleration which compare most favourably with the spirit of some of the
publications of the Communist League. He was more of its teacher than an
agitator, and his expositions of such subjects as education, trade
unions, the working day, and co-operation were highly instructive. He
did not hurry on extreme resolutions, but put his proposals in such a
form that they could be adopted by even the more backward sections, and
yet contained no concessions to reactionary tendencies. But this
condition of things was not permitted to go on. The anarchist agitation
of Bakunin, the Franco-German War, and the Paris Commune created a state
of things before which the International succumbed. Passions and
prejudices ran so high that it proved impossible to maintain any sort of
centralized federation. At the congress of the Hague, September 1872,
the general council was removed from London to New York. But this was
only a makeshift, and in July 1876 the rest of the old International was
formally dissolved at a conference held in Philadelphia. That its spirit
had not passed away was shown by subsequent international congresses,
and by the growth and character of socialist labour parties in different
countries. They have mostly founded their programmes on the basis of its
principles, but are not always in their details quite in accordance with
Marx's views. Thus the programme which the German socialist party
accepted at its congress in 1875 was very severely criticized by Marx.
This criticism, reprinted in 1891 in the review _Die neue Zeit_, is of
great importance for the analysis of Marx's conception of socialism.
The dissolution of the International gave Marx an opportunity of
returning to his scientific work. He did not, however, succeed in
publishing further volumes of _Das Kapital_. In order to make it--and
especially the part dealing with property in land--as complete as
possible, he took up, as Engels tells us, a number of new studies, but
repeated illness interrupted his researches, and on the 14th of March
1883 he passed quietly away.
From the manuscripts he left Engels compiled a second and a third
volume of _Das Kapital_ by judiciously and elaborately using complete
and incomplete chapters, rough copies and excerpts, which Marx had at
different times written down. Much of the copy used dates back to the
'sixties, i.e. represents the work as at first conceived by Marx, so
that, e.g., the matter published as the third volume was in the main
written much earlier than the matter which was used for compiling the
second volume. The same applies to the fourth volume. Although the
work thus comprises the four volumes promised in the preface to the
book, it can only in a very restricted sense be regarded as complete.
In substance and demonstration it must be regarded as a torso. And it
is perhaps not quite accidental that it should be so. Marx, if he had
lived longer and had enjoyed better health, would have given the world
a much greater amount of scientific work of high value than is now the
case. But it seems doubtful whether he would have brought _Das
Kapital_, his main work, to a satisfactory conclusion.
_Das Kapital_ proposes to show up historically and critically the
whole mechanism of capitalist economy. The first volume deals with the
processes of producing capital, the second with the circulation of
capital, the third with the movements of capital as a whole, whilst
the fourth gives the history of the theories concerning capital.
Capital is, according to Marx, the means of appropriating
_surplus-value_ as distinguished from ground rent (rent on every kind
of terrestrial property, such as land, mines, rivers, &c., based upon
the monopolist nature of such property). Surplus-value is created in
the process of production only, it is this part of the value of the
newly created product which is not given to the workman as a
return--the _wage_--of the labour-force he expended in working. If at
first taken by the employer, it is in the different phases of economic
intercourse split up into the profit of industrial enterprise,
commercial or merchants' profit, interest and ground rent. The value
of every commodity consists in the labour expended on it, and is
measured according to the time occupied by the labour employed on its
production. Labour in itself has no value, being only the measure of
value, but the labour-force of the workman has a value, the value of
the means required to maintain the worker in normal conditions of
social existence. Thus, in distinction to other commodities, in the
determination of the value of labour-force, besides the purely
economical, a _moral_ and _historical_ element enter. If to-day the
worker receives a wage which covers the bare necessaries of life, he
is underpaid--he does not receive the real value of his labour-force.
For the value of any commodity is determined by its socially necessary
costs of production (or in this case, maintenance). "Socially
necessary" means, further, that no more labour is embodied in a
commodity than is required by applying labour-force, tools, &c., of
average or normal efficiency, and that the commodity is produced in
such quantity as is required to meet the effective demand for it. As
this generally cannot be known in advance, the market value of a
commodity only gravitates round its (abstract) value. But in the long
run an equalization takes place, and for his further deductions Marx
assumes that commodities exchange according to their value.
That part of an industrial capital which is employed for
installations, machines, raw and auxiliary materials, is called by
Marx _constant capital_, for the value of it or of its wear and tear
reappears in equal proportions in the value of the new product. It is
otherwise with labour. The new value of the product must by necessity
be always higher than the value of the employed labour-force. Hence
the capital employed in buying labour-force, i.e. in wages, is called
_variable capital_. It is the tendency of capitalist production to
reduce the amount spent in wages and to increase the amount invested
in machines, &c. For with natural and social, legal and other
limitations of the working day, and the opposition to unlimited
reduction of wages, it is not possible otherwise to cheapen production
and beat competition. According to the proportion of constant to
variable capital, Marx distinguishes capitals of _lowest average_ and
_highest composition_, the highest composition being that where
proportionately the least amount of variable (wages) capital is
employed.
The ratio of the wages which workmen receive to the surplus-value
which they produce Marx calls the _rate of surplus-value_; that of the
surplus-value produced to the whole capital employed is the _rate of
profit_. It is evident, then, that at the same time the rate of
surplus-value can increase and the rate of profit decrease, and this
in fact is the case. There is a continuous tendency of the rates of
profit to decrease, and only by some counteracting forces is their
decrease temporarily interrupted, protracted, or even sometimes
reversed. Besides, by competition and movement of capitals the rates
of profit in the different branches of trade are pressed towards an
_equalization_ in the shape of an _average rate of profits_. This
average rate of profits, added to the actual cost price of a given
commodity, constitutes its _price of production_, and it is this price
of production which appears to the empirical mind of the business man
as the value of the commodity. The real law of value, on the contrary,
disappears from the surface in a society where, as to-day, commodities
are bought and sold against money and not exchanged against other
commodities. Nevertheless, according to Marx, it is also to-day this
law of value ("labour-value") which in the last resort rules the
prices and profits.
The tendency to cheapen production by increasing the relative
proportion of constant capital--the fixed capital of the classical
economist plus that portion of the circulating capital which consists
of raw and auxiliary materials, &c.--leads to a continuous increase in
the size of private enterprises, to their growing concentration. It is
the larger enterprise that beats and swallows the smaller. The number
of dependent workmen--"proletarians"--is thus continually growing,
whilst employment only periodically keeps pace with their number.
Capital alternately attracts and repels workmen, and creates a
constant surplus-population of workmen--a _reserve-army_ for its
requirements--which helps to lower wages and to keep the whole class
in economic dependency. A decreasing number of capitalists usurp and
monopolize all the benefits of industrial progress, whilst the mass of
misery, of oppression, of servitude, of depravation, and of
exploitation increases. But at the same time the working class
continuously grows in numbers, and is disciplined, united and
organized by the very mechanism of the capitalist mode of production.
The centralization of the means of production and the socialization of
the mode of production reach a point where they will become
incompatible with their capitalist integument. Then the knell of
capitalist private property will have been rung. Those who used to
expropriate will be expropriated. Individual property will again be
established based upon co-operation and common ownership of the earth
and the means of production produced by labour.
These are the principal outlines of _Das Kapital_. Its purely economic
deductions are dominated throughout by the _theory of surplus-value_.
Its leading sociological principle is the _materialist conception of
history_. This theory is in _Das Kapital_ only laid down by
implication, but it has been more connectedly explained in the preface
of _Zur Kritik_ and several works of Engels. According to it the
material basis of life, the manner in which life and its requirements
are produced, determines in the last instance the social ideas and
institutions of the time or historical epoch, so that fundamental
changes in the former produce in the long run also fundamental changes
in the latter. A set of social institutions answer to a given mode of
production, and periods where the institutions no longer answer to the
mode of production are periods of social revolution, which go on until
sufficient adjustment has taken place. The main _subjective_ forces of
the struggle between the old order and the new are _the classes_ into
which society is divided after the dissolution of the communistic or
semi-communistic tribes and the creation of states. And as long as
society is divided into classes a class war will persist, sometimes in
a more latent or disguised, sometimes in a more open or acute form,
according to circumstances. In advanced capitalist society the classes
between whom the decisive war takes place are the capitalist owners of
the means of production and the non-propertied or wage-earning
workers, the "proletariate." But the proletariate cannot free itself
without freeing all other oppressed classes, and thus its victory
means the end of exploitation and political repression altogether.
Consequently the state as a repressive power will die out, and a free
association will take its place.
Almost from the first _Das Kapital_ and the publications of Marx and
Engels connected with it have been subjected to all kinds of
criticisms. The originality of its leading ideas has been disputed,
the ideas themselves have been declared to be false or only partially
true, and consequently leading to wrong conclusions; and it has been
said of many of Marx's statements that they are incorrect, and that
many of the statistics upon which he bases his deductions do not
prove what he wants them to prove. In regard to the first point, it
must be conceded that the _disjecta membra_ of Marx's value theory and
of his materialist conception of history are already to be found in
the writings of former socialists and sociologists. It may even be
said that just those points of the Marxist doctrine which have become
popular are in a very small degree the produce of Marx's genius, and
that what really belongs to Marx, the methodical conjunction and
elaboration of these points, as well as the finer deductions drawn
from their application, are generally ignored. But this is an
experience repeated over and over again in the history of deductive
sciences, and is quite irrelevant for the question of Marx's place in
the history of socialism and social science.
It must further be admitted that in several places the statistical
evidence upon which Marx bases his deductions is insufficient or
inconclusive. Moreover--and this is one of the most damaging
admissions--it repeatedly happens that he points out all the phenomena
connected with a certain question, but afterwards ignores some of them
and proceeds as if they did not exist. Thus, e.g., he speaks at the
end of the first volume, where he sketches the historical tendency of
capitalist accumulation, of the decreasing number of magnates of
capital as of an established fact. But all statistics show that the
number of capitalists does not decrease, but increase; and in other
places in _Das Kapital_ this fact is indeed fully admitted, and even
accentuated. Marx was, as the third volume shows, also quite aware
that limited liability companies play an important part in the
distribution of wealth. But he leaves this factor, too, quite out of
sight, and confuses the concentration of private enterprises with the
centralization of fortunes and capitals. By these and other omissions,
quite apart from developments he could not well foresee, he announces
a coming evolution which is very unlikely to take place in the way
described.
In this and in other features of his work a _dualism_ reveals itself
which is also often observable in his actions in life--the alternating
predominance of the spirit of the scholar and the spirit of the
radical revolutionary. Marx originally entitled his great social work
_Criticism of Political Economy_, and this is still the sub-title of
_Das Kapital_. But the conception of _critic_ or _criticize_ has with
Marx a very pronounced meaning. He uses them mostly as identical with
fundamentally opposing. Much as he had mocked the "critical criticism"
of the Bauers, he is in this respect yet of their breed and relapses
into their habits. He retained in principle the Hegelian dialectical
method, of which he said that in order to be rationally employed it
must be "turned upside down," i.e. put upon a materialist basis. But
as a matter of fact he has in many respects contravened against this
prescription. Strict materialist dialectics cannot conclude much
beyond actual facts. Dialectical materialism is revolutionary in the
sense that it recognizes no finality, but otherwise it is necessarily
positivist in the general meaning of that term. But Marx's opposition
to modern society was fundamental and revolutionary, answering to that
of the proletarian to the _bourgeois_. And here we come to the main
and fatal contradiction of his work. He wanted to proceed, and to a
very great extent did proceed, scientifically. Nothing was to be
deduced from preconceived ideas; from the observed evolutionary laws
and forces of modern society alone were conclusions to be drawn. And
yet the final conclusion of the work, as already noted, is a
preconceived idea; it is the announcement of a state of society
logically opposed to the given one. Imperceptibly the dialectical
movement of _ideas_ is substituted for the dialectical movement of
facts, and the real movement of facts is only considered so far as is
compatible with the former. Science is violated in the service of
speculation. The picture given at the end of the first volume answers
to a conception arrived at by speculative socialism in the 'forties.
True, Marx calls this chapter "the historical tendency of capitalist
accumulation," and "tendency" does not necessarily mean realization in
every detail. But on the whole the language used there is much too
absolute to allow of the interpretation that Marx only wanted to give
a speculative picture of the goal to which capitalist accumulation
would lead if unhampered by socialist counteraction. The epithet
"historical" indicates rather that the passage in question was meant
to give in the main the true outline of the forthcoming social
revolution. We are led to this conclusion also by the fact that, in
language which is not in the least conditional, it is there said that
the change of capitalist property into social property will mean "only
the expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass of the people." In
short, the principal reason for the undeniable contradictions in _Das
Kapital_ is to be found in the fact that where Marx has to do with
details or subordinate subjects he mostly notices the important
changes which actual evolution had brought about since the time of his
first socialist writings, and thus himself states how far their
presuppositions have been corrected by facts. But when he comes to
general conclusions, he adheres in the main to the original
propositions based upon the old uncorrected presuppositions. Besides,
the complex character of modern society is greatly under-estimated, so
that, e.g., such important features as the influence of the changes of
traffic and aggregation on modern life are scarcely considered at all;
and industrial and political problems are viewed only from the aspect
of class antagonism, and never under their administrative aspect. With
regard to the theory of surplus-value and its foundation, the theory
of labour-value, so much may be safely said that, its premisses
accepted, it is most ingeniously and most consistently worked out. And
since its principal contention is in any case so far true that the
wage-earning workers as a whole produce more than they receive, the
theory has the great merit of demonstrating in an admirably lucid way
the relations between wages and surplus-produce and the growth and
movements of capital. But the theory of labour-value as the
determining factor of the exchange or market value of commodities can
with justification be disputed, and is surely not more true than those
theories of value based on social demand or utility. Marx himself, in
placing in the third volume what he calls the _law of value_ in the
background and setting out the formation of the "price of production"
as the empirical determinator of prices in modern society, justifies
those who look upon the conception of labour-value as an abstract
formula which does not apply to individual exchanges of commodities at
all, but which only serves to show an imagined typical example of what
in reality to-day is only true with regard to the production of the
whole of social wealth. Thus understood, the conception of
labour-value is quite unobjectionable, but it loses much of the
significance attributed to it by most of the disciples of Marx and
occasionally by Marx himself. It is a means of analysing and
exemplifying surplus labour, but quite inconclusive as to the proof of
the surplus value, or as an indication of the degree of the
exploitation of the workers. This becomes the more apparent the more
the reader advances in the second and third volumes of _Das Kapital_,
where commercial capital, money capital and ground rent are dealt
with. Though full of fine observations and deductions, they form, from
a revolutionary standpoint, an anti-climax to the first volume. It is
difficult to see how, after all that is explained there on the
functions of the classes that stand between industrial employers and
workers, Marx could have returned to those sweeping conclusions with
which the first volume ends.
The great scientific achievement of Marx lies, then, not in these
conclusions, but in the _details_ and yet more in the _method_ and
_principles_ of his investigations in his _philosophy of history_.
Here he has, as is now generally admitted, broken new ground and
opened new ways and new outlooks. Nobody before him had so clearly
shown the rôle of the productive agencies in historical evolution;
nobody so masterfully exhibited their great determining influence on
the forms and ideologies of social organisms. The passages and
chapters dealing with this subject form, notwithstanding occasional
exaggerations, the crowning parts of his works. If he has been justly
compared with Darwin, it is in these respects that he ranks with that
great genius, not through his value theory, ingenious though it be.
With the great theorist of biological transformation he had also in
common the indefatigable way in which he made painstaking studies of
the minutest details connected with his researches. In the same year
as Darwin's epoch-making work on the origin of species there appeared
also Marx's work _Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie_, where he
explains in concise sentences in the preface that philosophy of
history which has for the theory of the transformation or evolution of
social organisms the same significance that the argument of Darwin had
for the theory of the transformation of biological organisms.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The main writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are
as follow (we give only the titles of the original works and of their
English translations): (1) Of Karl Marx alone: _La Misère de la
philosophie, réponse à la philosophie de la misère de M. Proudhon_
(Paris, 1847; new ed., 1892; English ed., _The Poverty of Philosophy_,
London, 1900); _Lohnarbeit und Kapital_, pamphlet, written 1848 (new
ed., Berlin, 1891); English ed., _Wage, Labour and Capital_ (London,
1900); _Die Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich, 1848 to 1850_ (Berlin, 1895);
_Der Achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte_ (New York, 1852; 3rd
ed., Hamburg, 1889; Eng. ed., New York, 1889); _Enthüllungen über den
Kölner Kommunistenprozess_ (Basel, 1852; new ed., Zürich-Berlin,
1885); "European Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions" (reprints from
the _New York Tribune_, 1851-1852; London, 1897); "The Eastern
Question" (reprints from the _New York Tribune_, 1853-1856; London,
1898); _Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie_ (Berlin, 1859; new ed.,
Stuttgart, 1897); _Herr Vogt_ (London, 1860); _Inaugural Address of
the International Working Men's Association_ (London, 1864); _Value,
Price and Profit_ (written 1865, published London, 1898); _Das
Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie_ (3 vols., Hamburg, 1867,
1885 and 1895; Eng. ed. of 1st vol., 1886); _The Civil War in France,
1871_ (London, 1871; new ed., 1894); _L'Alliance de la démocratie
socialiste_ (London, 1873); articles printed or reprinted in
_Rheinische Zeitung_ (1842-1843), _Deutsch-französische Jahrbücher_
(Paris, 1844), _Das westphälische Dampfboot_ (Bielefeld und Paderborn,
1845-1848), _Der Gesellschaftsspiegel_ (Elberfeld, 1846), _Deutsche
brüsseler Zeitung_ (Brussels, 1847), _Neue rheinische Zeitung_ (daily,
Cologne, 1848-1849; monthly, Hamburg, 1850), _The People_ (London,
1852-1858), _The New York Tribune_ (New York, 1853-1860), _The Free
Press_ (Sheffield and London, 1856-1857), _Das Volk_ (London, 1859),
_Der Vorbote_ (Geneva, 1866-1875), _Der Volkstaat_ (Leipzig,
1869-1876), _Die Neue Zeit_ (Stuttgart, 1883, sqq.); _Sozialistische
Monatshefte_ (Berlin, 1895, sqq.). (2) Of Friedrich Engels alone: _Die
Lage der arbeitenden Klassen in England_ (Leipzig, 1845; new ed.,
Stuttgart, 1892; Eng. ed., London, 1892); _Zur Wohnungsfrage_
(Leipzig, 1873-1874; new ed., Zürich-Berlin, 1887); _Herrn Eugen
Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft_ (Leipzig, 1877; 3rd ed.,
Stuttgart, 1894). Three chapters of the first-named are published in
English under the title Socialism, _Utopian and Scientific_ (London,
1892). _Der Ursprung des Eigenthums, der Familie und des Staates_
(Zürich and Stuttgart, 1885 and 1892); _Ludwig Feuerbach und der
Ausgang der klassischen deutschen Philosophie_ (Stuttgart, 1886).
Introductions to most of the posthumous works of K. Marx and articles
in the same periodicals as Marx. (3) Of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
together: _Die heilige Familie oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik_
(Frankfurt, 1845); _Manifest der kommunistischen Partei_ (London,
1848; Eng. ed., 1848 and 1888). (4) With regard to Marx generally, his
theory and his school, see J. Stammhammer, _Bibliographie des
Sozialismus und Kommunismus_ (Jena, 1893); and Th. G. Masaryk, _Die
philosophischen und soziologischen Grundlagen des Marxismus_ (Vienna,
1899). Much biographical and bibliographical information on Marx and
Engels is to be found in Dr Franz Mehring, _Geschichte der deutschen
Sozialdemokratie_ (Stuttgart, 1897-1898), and in the collection,
edited also by Dr Fr. Mehring, _Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels und Ferdinand Lassalle_ (Stuttgart, 1902).
Of the criticisms of Marx's economics, one of the most comprehensive
is E. von Boehm-Bawerk's _Karl Marx and the Close of his System_
(London, 1898). Marx's historic theory is, apart from Masaryk, very
exhaustively analysed by R. Stammler in _Wirthschaft und Recht_
(Leipzig, 1896). (E. Bn.)
MARY[1] ([Greek: Maria, Mariam]), the mother of Jesus. At the time when
the gospel history begins, she had her home in Galilee, at the village
of Nazareth. Of her parentage nothing is recorded in any extant
historical document of the 1st century, for the genealogy in Luke iii.
(cf. i. 27) is manifestly that of Joseph. In early life she became the
wife of Joseph (q.v.) and the mother of Jesus Christ; that she
afterwards had other children is a natural inference from Matt. i. 25,
which the evangelists, who frequently allude to "the brethren of the
Lord," are at no pains to obviate. The few incidents mentioned in
Scripture regarding her show that she followed our Lord to the very
close of His earthly career with unfailing motherliness, but the
"Magnificat" assigned to her in Luke i. is the only passage which would
distinctly imply on her part a high prophetic appreciation of His divine
mission. It is however doubtful whether Luke really intended to assign
this hymn to Mary or to Elizabeth (cf. especially _Niceta of Remesiana_
by A. E. Burn, Cambridge, 1905; Harnack's "Das Magnificat der Elizabeth"
in the _Sitzungsberichte_ of the Berlin Academy for 1900, and Burkitt's
"Who spoke the Magnificat?" in the _Journal of Theological Studies_,
Jan. 1906). The original text of Luke probably mentioned no name in
introducing the Magnificat; scribes supplied the ambiguity by inserting,
some Mary, others Elizabeth. It is doubtful which represents the
intention of the writer: there is perhaps more to be said for the view
that he meant to assign the Magnificat to Elizabeth. Mary was present at
the Crucifixion, where she was commended by Jesus to the care of the
apostle John (John xix. 26, 27), Joseph having apparently died before
this time. Mary is mentioned in Acts i. 14 as having been among those
who continued in prayer along with the apostles at Jerusalem during the
interval between the Ascension and Pentecost. There is no allusion in
the New Testament to the time or place of her death.
The subsequent growth of ecclesiastical tradition and belief regarding
Mary will be traced must conveniently under the separate heads of (1)
her perpetual virginity, (2) her absolute sinlessness, (3) her peculiar
relation to the Godhead, which specially fits her for successful
intercession on behalf of mankind.
_Her Perpetual Virginity._--This doctrine was, to say the least, of no
importance in the eyes of the evangelists, and so far as extant writings
go there is no evidence of its having been anywhere taught within the
pale of the Catholic Church of the first three centuries. On the
contrary, to Tertullian the fact of Mary's marriage after the birth of
Christ is a useful argument for the reality of the Incarnation against
gnostic notions, and Origen relies upon the references to the Lord's
brethren as disproving the Docetism with which he had to contend. The
[Greek: aeiparthenia] though very ancient, is in reality a doctrine of
non-Catholic origin, and first occurs in a work proscribed by the
earliest papal _Index librorum prohibitorum_ (attributed to Gelasius) as
heretical,--the so-called _Protevangelium Jacobi_, written, it is
generally admitted, within the 2nd century. According to this very early
source, which seems to have formed the basis of the later _Liber de
infantia Mariae et Christi salvatoris_ and _Evangelium de nativitate
Mariae_, the name of Mary's father was Joachim (in the _Liber de
infantia_ a shepherd of the tribe of Judah, living in Jerusalem); he had
long been married to Anna her mother, whose continual childlessness had
become a cause of much humiliation and sorrow to them both. The birth of
a daughter was at last angelically predicted to each parent separately.
From her third to her twelfth year "Mary was in the Temple as if she were
a dove that dwelt there, and she received food from the hand of an
angel." When she became of nubile age a guardian was sought for her by
the priests among the widowers of Israel "lest she should defile the
sanctuary of the Lord"; and Joseph, an elderly man with a family, was
indicated for this charge by a miraculous token. Some time afterwards the
annunciation took place; when the Virgin's pregnancy was discovered,
Joseph and she were brought before the high priest, and, though asserting
their innocence in all sincerity, were acquitted only after they had been
tried with "the water of the ordeal of the Lord" (Num. v. 11). Numerous
details regarding the birth at Bethlehem are then given. The perpetual
physical virginity of Mary, naïvely insisted upon in this apocryphon, is
alluded to only with a half belief and a "some say" by Clement of
Alexandria (_Strom._ vii. 16), but became of much importance to the
leaders of the Church in the 4th century, as for example to Ambrose, who
sees in Ezek. xliv. 1-3 a prophetic indication of so great a mystery.[2]
Those who continued to believe that Mary, after the miraculous birth of
Jesus, had become the mother of other children by Joseph came accordingly
to be spoken of as her enemies--Antidicomarianitae (Epiphanius) or
Antidicomaritae (Augustine)--and the first-mentioned author devotes a
whole chapter (ch. 78) of his great work upon heresies to their
confutation. For holding the same view Bonosus of Sardica was condemned
by the synod of Capua in 391. To Jerome the perpetual virginity not only
of Mary but even of Joseph appeared of so much consequence that while a
young man he wrote (387) the long and vehement tract _Against Helvidius_,
in which he was the first to broach the theory (which has since gained
wide currency) that the brethren of our Lord were children neither of
Mary by her husband nor of Joseph by a former marriage, but of another
Mary, sister to the Virgin and wife of Clopas or Alphaeus. At last the
epithet of [Greek: haei parthenos] was authoritatively applied to the
Virgin by the council of Chalcedon in 451, and the doctrine implied has
ever since been an undisputed point of orthodoxy both in the Eastern and
in the Roman Churches, some even seeking to hold the Anglican Church
committed to it on account of the general declaration (in the _Homilies_)
of concurrence in the decisions of the first four general councils.
_Her Absolute Sinlessness._--While much of the apocryphal literature of
the early sects in which she is repeatedly spoken of as "undefiled
before God" would seem to encourage some such doctrine as this, many
passages from the acknowledged fathers of the Church could be cited to
show that it was originally quite unknown to Catholicism. Even Augustine
repeatedly asserts that she was born in original sin (_De gen. ad lit._
x. 18); and the _locus classicus_ regarding her possible immunity from
actual transgression, on which the subsequent doctrine of Lombardus and
his commentators was based, is simply an extremely guarded passage (_De
nat. et grat._ ch. 36), in which, while contradicting the assertion of
Pelagius that many had lived free from sin, he wishes exception to be
made in favour of "the holy Virgin Mary, of whom out of honour to the
Lord I wish no question to be made where sins are treated of--for how do
we know what mode of grace wholly to conquer sin may have been bestowed
upon her who was found meet to conceive and bear Him of whom it is
certain that He had no sin." A writer so late as Anselm (_Cur deus
homo_, ii. 16), declares that "the Virgin herself whence He (Christ) was
assumed was conceived in iniquity, and in sin did her mother conceive
her, and with original sin was she born, because she too sinned in Adam
in whom all sinned," and the same view was expressed by Damiani. For the
growth of the modern Roman doctrine of the immaculate conception from
the time in the 12th century, when the canons of Lyons sought to
institute a festival in honour of her "holy conception," and were
remonstrated with by Bernard, see IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. The epithets
applied to her in the Greek Church are such as [Greek: amolyntos,
panagnos, hagia, panagia]; but in the East generally no clear
distinction is drawn between immunity from actual sin and original
sinlessness.
_Her Peculiar Relation to the Godhead, which specially fits Her for
Successful Intercession on Behalf of Mankind._--It seems probable that
the epithet [Greek: theotokos] ("Mother of God") was first applied to
Mary by theologians of Alexandria towards the close of the 3rd century;
but it does not occur in any genuine extant writing of that period,
unless we are to assign an early date to the apocryphal _Transitus
Mariae_, in which the word is of frequent occurrence. In the 4th century
it is met with frequently, being used by Eusebius, Athanasius, Didymus
and Gregory of Nazianzus,--the latter declaring that the man who
believes not Mary to have been [Greek: theotokos] has no part in God
(_Orat._ li. p. 738).[3] If its use was first recommended by a desire to
bring into prominence the divinity of the Incarnate Word, there can be
no doubt that latterly the expression came to be valued as directly
honourable to Mary herself and as corresponding to the greatly increased
esteem in which she personally was held throughout the Catholic world,
so that when Nestorius and others began to dispute its propriety, in the
following century, their temerity was resented, not as an attack upon
the established orthodox doctrine of the Nicene creed, but as
threatening a more vulnerable and more tender part of the popular faith.
It is sufficient in illustration of the drift of theological opinion to
refer to the first sermon of Proclus, preached on a certain festival of
the Virgin ([Greek: panêgyris parthenikê]) at Constantinople about the
year 430 or to that of Cyril of Alexandria delivered in the church of
the Virgin Mary at the opening of the council of Ephesus in 431. In the
former the orator speaks of "the holy Virgin and Mother of God" as "the
spotless treasure-house of virginity, the spiritual paradise of the
second Adam; the workshop in which two natures were welded together ...
the one bridge between God and men";[4] in the latter she is saluted as
the "mother and virgin," "through whom ([Greek: di' hês]) the Trinity is
glorified and worshipped, the cross of the Saviour exalted and honoured,
through whom heaven triumphs, the angels are made glad, devils driven
forth, the tempter overcome, and the fallen creature raised up even to
heaven." The response which such language found in the popular heart was
sufficiently shown by the shouts of joy with which the Ephesian mob
heard of the deposition of Nestorius, escorting his judges with torches
and incense to their homes, and celebrating the occasion by a general
illumination. The causes which in the preceding century had led to this
exaltation of the Mother of God in the esteem of the Catholic world are
not far to seek. On the one hand the solution of the Arian controversy,
however correct it may have been theoretically, undoubtedly had the
practical effect of relegating the God-man redeemer for ordinary minds
into a far away region of "remote and awful Godhead," so that the need
for a mediator to deal with the very Mediator could not fail to be felt.
On the other hand, the religious instincts of mankind are very ready to
pay worship, in grosser or more refined forms, to the idea of womanhood;
at all events many of those who became professing Christians at the
political fall of Paganism entered the Church with such instincts
(derived from the nature-religions in which they had been brought up)
very fully developed. Probably it ought to be added that the comparative
colourlessness with which the character of Mary is presented, not only
in the canonical gospels but even in the most copious of the apocrypha,
left greater scope for the untrammelled exercise of devout imagination
than was possible in the case of Christ, in the circumstances of whose
humiliation and in whose recorded utterances there were many things
which the religious consciousness found difficulty in understanding or
in adapting to itself. At all events, from the time of the council of
Ephesus, to exhibit figures of the Virgin and Child became the approved
expression of orthodoxy, and the relationship of motherhood in which
Mary had been formally declared to stand to God[5] was instinctively
felt to give the fullest and freest sanction of the Church to that
invocation of her aid which had previously been resorted to only
hesitatingly and occasionally. Previously to the council of Ephesus,
indeed, the practice had obtained complete recognition, so far as we
know, in those circles only in which one or other of the numerous
redactions of the _Transitus Mariae_ passed current.[6] There we read of
Mary's prayer to Christ: "Do Thou bestow Thine aid upon every man
calling upon, or praying to, or naming the name of Thine handmaid"; to
which His answer is, "Every soul that calls upon Thy name shall not be
ashamed, but shall find mercy and support and confidence both in the
world that now is and in that which is to come in the presence of My
Father in the heavens." But Gregory of Nazianzus also, in his panegyric
upon Justina, mentions with incidental approval that in her hour of
peril she "implored Mary the Virgin to come to the aid of a virgin in
her danger."[7] Of the growth of the Marian cultus, alike in the East
and in the West, after the decision at Ephesus it would be impossible to
trace the history, however slightly, within the limits of the present
article. Justinian in one of his laws bespeaks her advocacy for the
empire, and he inscribes the high altar in the new church of St Sophia
with her name. Narses looks to her for directions on the field of
battle. The emperor Heraclius bears her image on his banner. John of
Damascus speaks of her as the sovereign lady to whom the whole creation
has been made subject by her son. Peter Damian recognizes her as the
most exalted of all creatures, and apostrophizes her as deified and
endowed with all power in heaven and in earth, yet not forgetful of our
race.[8] In a word, popular devotion gradually developed the entire
system of doctrine and practice which Protestant controversialists are
accustomed to call by the name of Mariolatry. With reference to this
much-disputed phrase it is always to be kept in mind that the directly
authoritative documents, alike of the Greek and of the Roman Church,
distinguish formally between _latria_ and _dulia_, and declare that the
"worship" to be paid to the mother of God must never exceed that
superlative degree of _dulia_ which is vaguely described as
_hyperdulia_. But the comparative reserve shown by the council of Trent
in its decrees, and even in its catechism,[9] on this subject has not
been observed by individual theologians, and in view of the fact of the
canonization of some of these (such as Liguori)--a fact guaranteeing the
absence of erroneous teaching from their writings--it does not seem
unfair, to hold the Roman Church responsible for the natural
interpretations and just inferences which may be drawn even from
apparently exaggerated expressions in such works as the well-known
_Glories of Mary_ and others frequently quoted in controversial
literature. There is a good _résumé_ of Catholic developments of the
cultus of Mary in Pusey's _Eirenicon_.
The following are the principal feasts of the Virgin in the order in
which they occur in the ecclesiastical year. (1) That of the
Presentation (_Praesentatio B. V. M._, [Greek: ta eisodia tês
theotokou]), to commemorate the beginning of her stay in the Temple,
as recorded in the _Protevangelium Jacobi_. It is believed to have
originated in the East in the 8th century, the earliest allusion to it
being made by George of Nicomedia (9th century); Manuel Comnenus made
it universal for the Eastern Empire, and in the modern Greek Church it
is one of the five great festivals in honour of the Deipara. It was
introduced into the Western Church late in the 14th century, and,
after having been withdrawn from the calendar by Pius V., was restored
by Sixtus V., the day observed in both East and West being the 21st of
November. It is not mentioned in the English calendar. (2) The Feast
of the Conception (_Conceptio B. V. M._, _Conceptio immaculata B. V.
M._, [Greek: sullêpsis tês hagias Hannês]), observed by the Roman
Catholic Church on the 8th of December, and by all the Eastern
Churches on the 9th of December, has already been explained; in the
Greek Church it only ranks as one of the middle festivals of Mary. (3)
The Feast of the Purification (_Occursus_, _Obviatio_, _Praesentatio_,
_Festum SS Simeonis et Annae_, _Purificatio_, _Candelaria_, [Greek:
hupapantê], [Greek: hupantê]) is otherwise known as CANDLEMAS. (4) The
Feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary (_Annunciatio_, [Greek:
Euaggelismos]). It may be mentioned that at the council of Toledo in
656 it was decreed that this festival should be observed on the 18th
of December, in order to keep clear of Lent. (5) The Feast of the
Visitation (_Visitatio B. V. M._) was instituted by Urban VI.,
promulgated in 1389 by Boniface IX., and reappointed by the council of
Basel in 1441 in commemoration of the visit paid by Mary to Elizabeth.
It is observed on the 2nd of July, and has been retained in the
English calendar. (6) The Feast of the Assumption (_Dormitio_,
_Pausatio_, _Transitus_, _Depositio_, _Migratio_, _Assumptio_, [Greek:
kaimêsis], [Greek: metastasis], [Greek: analêpsis]) has reference to
the apocryphal story related in several forms in various documents of
the 4th century condemned by Pope Gelasius. Their general purport is
that as the time drew nigh for "the most blessed Virgin" (who is also
spoken of as "Holy Mary," "the queen of all the saints," "the holy
spotless Mother of God") to leave the world, the apostles were
miraculously assembled round her deathbed at Bethlehem on the Lord's
Day, whereupon Christ descended with a multitude of angels and
received her soul. After "the spotless and precious body" had been
laid in the tomb, "suddenly there shone round them (the apostles) a
miraculous light," and it was taken up into heaven. The first Catholic
writer who relates this story is Gregory of Tours (c. 590); Epiphanius
two centuries earlier had declared that nothing was known as to the
circumstances of Mary's death and burial; and one of the documents of
the council of Ephesus implies a belief that she was buried in that
city. The Sleep of the Theotokos is observed in the Greek Church as a
great festival on the 15th of August; the Armenian Church also
commemorates it, but the Ethiopic Church celebrates her death and
burial on two separate days. The earliest allusion to the existence of
such a festival in the Western Church seems to be that found in the
proceedings of the synod of Salzburg in 800; it is also spoken of in
the thirty-sixth canon of the reforming synod of Mainz, held in 813.
It was not at that time universal, being mentioned as doubtful in the
capitularies of Charlemagne. The doctrine of the bodily assumption of
the Virgin into heaven, although extensively believed, and indeed
flowing as a natural theological consequence from that of her
sinlessness, has never been declared to be "de fide" by the Church of
Rome, and is still merely a "pia sententia." (7) The Nativity of Mary
(_Nativitas_, [Greek: genethlion tês theotokou]) observed on the 8th
of September, is first mentioned in one of the homilies of Andrew of
Crete (c. 750), and with the Feasts of the Purification, the
Annunciation and the Assumption, it was appointed to be observed by
the synod of Salzburg in 800, but seems to have been unknown at that
time in the Gallican Church, and even two centuries later it was by no
means general in Italy. In the Roman Catholic Church a large number of
minor festivals in honour of the Virgin are locally celebrated; and
all the Saturdays of the year as well as the entire month of May are
also regarded as sacred to her.
The chief apocryphal writings concerned with Mary are the following:
(1) The _Portevangelium Jacobi_, with its derivatives the _De
nativitate Mariae_, the _Evangelium Ps.-Matthaei_, the _Historia
Josephi fabri lignarii_ (all edited by Tischendorf, _Evangelia
apocrypha_; cf. Harnack, _Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur_,
p. 20 seq. and _Chronologie_, i. 598 sqq.). (2) _Evangelium Mariae_
(see _Sitzungsberichte der Berlinischen Akademie der Wissenschaften_
1896, pp. 839-847). (3) [Greek: Iôannou tou theologou logos eis tên
koimêsin tês theotokou], which appears in Latin under the title of the
_Transitus Mariae_ (ed. Tischendorf, _Apocalypses apocryphae_ and
_Evangelia apocrypha_, and see Bonnet, _Zeitschr. f. wissensch.
Theol._, 1880, pp. 222-247). (J. S. Bl.; K. L.)