APPLICATION OF THE FIFTH NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT.
ANTICIPATION OF ITS FUTURE.
It has been set down above as a fifth argument in favour of the fidelity
of developments, ethical or political, if the doctrine from which they
have proceeded has, in any early stage of its history, given indications
of those opinions and practices in which it has ended. Supposing then
the so-called Catholic doctrines and practices are true and legitimate
developments, and not corruptions, we may expect from the force of logic
to find instances of them in the first centuries. And this I conceive to
be the case: the records indeed of those times are scanty, and we have
little means of determining what daily Christian life then was: we know
little of the thoughts, and the prayers, and the meditations, and the
discourses of the early disciples of Christ, at a time when these
professed developments were not recognized and duly located in the
theological system; yet it appears, even from what remains, that the
atmosphere of the Church was, as it were, charged with them from the
first, and delivered itself of them from time to time, in this way or
that, in various places and persons, as occasion elicited them,
testifying the presence of a vast body of thought within it, which one
day would take shape and position.
§ 1. _Resurrection and Relics._
As a chief specimen of what I am pointing out, I will direct attention
to a characteristic principle of Christianity, whether in the East or in
the West, which is at present both a special stumbling-block and a
subject of scoffing with Protestants and free-thinkers of every shade
and colour: I mean the devotions which both Greeks and Latins show
towards bones, blood, the heart, the hair, bits of clothes, scapulars,
cords, medals, beads, and the like, and the miraculous powers which they
often ascribe to them. Now, the principle from which these beliefs and
usages proceed is the doctrine that Matter is susceptible of grace, or
capable of a union with a Divine Presence and influence. This principle,
as we shall see, was in the first age both energetically manifested and
variously developed; and that chiefly in consequence of the
diametrically opposite doctrine of the schools and the religions of the
day. And thus its exhibition in that primitive age becomes also an
instance of a statement often made in controversy, that the profession
and the developments of a doctrine are according to the emergency of the
time, and that silence at a certain period implies, not that it was not
then held, but that it was not questioned.
2.
Christianity began by considering Matter as a creature of God, and in
itself "very good." It taught that Matter, as well as Spirit, had become
corrupt, in the instance of Adam; and it contemplated its recovery. It
taught that the Highest had taken a portion of that corrupt mass upon
Himself, in order to the sanctification of the whole; that, as a
firstfruits of His purpose, He had purified from all sin that very
portion of it which He took into His Eternal Person, and thereunto had
taken it from a Virgin Womb, which He had filled with the abundance of
His Spirit. Moreover, it taught that during His earthly sojourn He had
been subject to the natural infirmities of man, and had suffered from
those ills to which flesh is heir. It taught that the Highest had in
that flesh died on the Cross, and that His blood had an expiatory power;
moreover, that He had risen again in that flesh, and had carried that
flesh with Him into heaven, and that from that flesh, glorified and
deified in Him, He never would be divided. As a first consequence of
these awful doctrines comes that of the resurrection of the bodies of
His Saints, and of their future glorification with Him; next, that of
the sanctity of their relics; further, that of the merit of Virginity;
and, lastly, that of the prerogatives of Mary, Mother of God. All these
doctrines are more or less developed in the Ante-nicene period, though
in very various degrees, from the nature of the case.
3.
And they were all objects of offence or of scorn to philosophers,
priests, or populace of the day. With varieties of opinions which need
not be mentioned, it was a fundamental doctrine in the schools, whether
Greek or Oriental, that Matter was essentially evil. It had not been
created by the Supreme God; it was in eternal enmity with Him; it was
the source of all pollution; and it was irreclaimable. Such was the
doctrine of Platonist, Gnostic, and Manichee:--whereas then St. John had
laid it down that "every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh is the spirit of Antichrist:" the Gnostics obstinately
denied the Incarnation, and held that Christ was but a phantom, or had
come on the man Jesus at his baptism, and left him at his passion. The
one great topic of preaching with Apostles and Evangelists was the
Resurrection of Christ and of all mankind after Him; but when the
philosophers of Athens heard St. Paul, "some mocked," and others
contemptuously put aside the doctrine. The birth from a Virgin implied,
not only that the body was not intrinsically evil, but that one state of
it was holier than another, and St. Paul explained that, while marriage
was good, celibacy was better; but the Gnostics, holding the utter
malignity of Matter, one and all condemned marriage as sinful, and,
whether they observed continence or not, or abstained from eating flesh
or not, maintained that all functions of our animal nature were evil and
abominable.
4.
"Perish the thought," says Manes, "that our Lord Jesus Christ should
have descended through the womb of a woman." "He descended," says
Marcion, "but without touching her or taking aught from her." "Through
her, not of her," said another. "It is absurd to assert," says a
disciple of Bardesanes, "that this flesh in which we are imprisoned
shall rise again, for it is well called a burden, a tomb, and a chain."
"They execrate the funeral-pile," says Cæcilius, speaking of Christians,
"as if bodies, though withdrawn from the flames, did not all resolve
into dust by years, whether beasts tear, or sea swallows, or earth
covers, or flame wastes." According to the old Paganism, both the
educated and vulgar held corpses and sepulchres in aversion. They
quickly rid themselves of the remains even of their friends, thinking
their presence a pollution, and felt the same terror even of
burying-places which assails the ignorant and superstitious now. It is
recorded of Hannibal that, on his return to the African coast from
Italy, he changed his landing-place to avoid a ruined sepulchre. "May
the god who passes between heaven and hell," says Apuleius in his
_Apology_, "present to thy eyes, O Emilian, all that haunts the night,
all that alarms in burying-places, all that terrifies in tombs." George
of Cappadocia could not direct a more bitter taunt against the
Alexandrian Pagans than to call the temple of Serapis a sepulchre. The
case had been the same even among the Jews; the Rabbins taught, that
even the corpses of holy men "did but serve to diffuse infection and
defilement." "When deaths were Judaical," says the writer who goes under
the name of St. Basil, "corpses were an abomination; when death is for
Christ, the relics of Saints are precious. It was anciently said to the
Priests and the Nazarites, 'If any one shall touch a corpse, he shall be
unclean till evening, and he shall wash his garment;' now, on the
contrary, if any one shall touch a Martyr's bones, by reason of the
grace dwelling in the body, he receives some participation of his
sanctity."[404:1] Nay, Christianity taught a reverence for the bodies
even of heathen. The care of the dead is one of the praises which, as we
have seen above, is extorted in their favour from the Emperor Julian;
and it was exemplified during the mortality which spread through the
Roman world in the time of St. Cyprian. "They did good," says Pontius of
the Christians of Carthage, "in the profusion of exuberant works to all,
and not only to the household of faith. They did somewhat more than is
recorded of the incomparable benevolence of Tobias. The slain of the
king and the outcasts, whom Tobias gathered together, were of his own
kin only."[404:2]
5.
Far more of course than such general reverence was the honour that they
showed to the bodies of the Saints. They ascribed virtue to their
martyred tabernacles, and treasured, as something supernatural, their
blood, their ashes, and their bones. When St. Cyprian was beheaded, his
brethren brought napkins to soak up his blood. "Only the harder portion
of the holy relics remained," say the Acts of St. Ignatius, who was
exposed to the beasts in the amphitheatre, "which were conveyed to
Antioch, and deposited in linen, bequeathed, by the grace that was in
the Martyr, to that holy Church as a priceless treasure." The Jews
attempted to deprive the brethren of St. Polycarp's body, "lest, leaving
the Crucified, they begin to worship him," say his Acts; "ignorant,"
they continue, "that we can never leave Christ;" and they add, "We,
having taken up his bones which were more costly than precious stones,
and refined more than gold, deposited them where was fitting; and there
when we meet together, as we can, the Lord will grant us to celebrate
with joy and gladness the birthday of his martyrdom." On one occasion in
Palestine, the Imperial authorities disinterred the bodies and cast them
into the sea, "lest as their opinion went," says Eusebius, "there should
be those who in their sepulchres and monuments might think them gods,
and treat them with divine worship."
Julian, who had been a Christian, and knew the Christian history more
intimately than a mere infidel would know it, traces the superstition,
as he considers it, to the very lifetime of St. John, that is, as early
as there were Martyrs to honour; makes the honour paid them
contemporaneous with the worship paid to our Lord, and equally distinct
and formal; and, moreover, declares that first it was secret, which for
various reasons it was likely to have been. "Neither Paul," he says,
"nor Matthew, nor Luke, nor Mark, dared to call Jesus God; but honest
John, having perceived that a great multitude had been caught by this
disease in many of the Greek and Italian cities, and hearing, I suppose,
that the monuments of Peter and Paul were, secretly indeed, but still
hearing that they were honoured, first dared to say it." "Who can feel
fitting abomination?" he says elsewhere; "you have filled all places
with tombs and monuments, though it has been nowhere told you to tumble
down at tombs or to honour them. . . . . If Jesus said that they were
full of uncleanness, why do ye invoke God at them?" The tone of Faustus
the Manichæan is the same. "Ye have turned," he says to St. Augustine,
"the idols" of the heathen "into your Martyrs, whom ye honour
(_colitis_) with similar prayers (_votis_)."[406:1]
6.
It is remarkable that the attention of both Christians and their
opponents turned from the relics of the Martyrs to their persons.
Basilides at least, who was founder of one of the most impious Gnostic
sects, spoke of them with disrespect; he considered that their
sufferings were the penalty of secret sins or evil desires, or
transgressions committed in another body, and a sign of divine favour
only because they were allowed to connect them with the cause of
Christ.[406:2] On the other hand, it was the doctrine of the Church that
Martyrdom was meritorious, that it had a certain supernatural efficacy
in it, and that the blood of the Saints received from the grace of the
One Redeemer a certain expiatory power. Martyrdom stood in the place of
Baptism, where the Sacrament had not been administered. It exempted the
soul from all preparatory waiting, and gained its immediate admittance
into glory. "All crimes are pardoned for the sake of this work," says
Tertullian.
And in proportion to the near approach of the martyrs to their Almighty
Judge, was their high dignity and power. St. Dionysius speaks of their
reigning with Christ; Origen even conjectures that "as we are redeemed
by the precious blood of Jesus, so some are redeemed by the precious
blood of the Martyrs." St. Cyprian seems to explain his meaning when he
says, "We believe that the merits of Martyrs and the works of the just
avail much with the Judge," that is, for those who were lapsed, "when,
after the end of this age and the world, Christ's people shall stand
before His judgment-seat." Accordingly they were considered to intercede
for the Church militant in their state of glory, and for individuals
whom they had known. St. Potamiæna of Alexandria, in the first years of
the third century, when taken out for execution, promised to obtain
after her departure the salvation of the officer who led her out; and
did appear to him, according to Eusebius, on the third day, and
prophesied his own speedy martyrdom. And St. Theodosia in Palestine came
to certain confessors who were in bonds, "to request them," as Eusebius
tells us, "to remember her when they came to the Lord's Presence."
Tertullian, when a Montanist, betrays the existence of the doctrine in
the Catholic body by protesting against it.[407:1]
§ 2. _The Virgin Life._
Next to the prerogatives of bodily suffering or Martyrdom came, in the
estimation of the early Church, the prerogatives of bodily, as well as
moral, purity or Virginity; another form of the general principle which
I am here illustrating. "The first reward," says St. Cyprian to the
Virgins, "is for the Martyrs an hundredfold; the second, sixtyfold, is
for yourselves."[407:2] Their state and its merit is recognized by a
_consensus_ of the Ante-nicene writers; of whom Athenagoras distinctly
connects Virginity with the privilege of divine communion: "You will
find many of our people," he says to the Emperor Marcus, "both men and
women, grown old in their single state, in hope thereby of a closer
union with God."[408:1]
2.
Among the numerous authorities which might be cited, I will confine
myself to a work, elaborate in itself, and important from its author.
St. Methodius was a Bishop and Martyr of the latter years of the
Ante-nicene period, and is celebrated as the most variously endowed
divine of his day. His learning, elegance in composition, and eloquence,
are all commemorated.[408:2] The work in question, the _Convivium
Virginum_, is a conference in which ten Virgins successively take part,
in praise of the state of life to which they have themselves been
specially called. I do not wish to deny that there are portions of it
which strangely grate upon the feelings of an age, which is formed on
principles of which marriage is the centre. But here we are concerned
with its doctrine. Of the speakers in this Colloquy, three at least are
real persons prior to St. Methodius's time; of these Thecla, whom
tradition associates with St. Paul, is one, and Marcella, who in the
Roman Breviary is considered to be St. Martha's servant, and who is said
to have been the woman who exclaimed, "Blessed is the womb that bare
Thee," &c., is described as a still older servant of Christ. The latter
opens the discourse, and her subject is the gradual development of the
doctrine of Virginity in the Divine Dispensations; Theophila, who
follows, enlarges on the sanctity of Matrimony, with which the special
glory of the higher state does not interfere; Thalia discourses on the
mystical union which exists between Christ and His Church, and on the
seventh chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians; Theopatra on
the merit of Virginity; Thallusa exhorts to a watchful guardianship of
the gift; Agatha shows the necessity of other virtues and good works, in
order to the real praise of their peculiar profession; Procilla extols
Virginity as the special instrument of becoming a spouse of Christ;
Thecla treats of it as the great combatant in the warfare between heaven
and hell, good and evil; Tysiana with reference to the Resurrection; and
Domnina allegorizes Jothan's parable in Judges ix. Virtue, who has been
introduced as the principal personage in the representation from the
first, closes the discussion with an exhortation to inward purity, and
they answer her by an hymn to our Lord as the Spouse of His Saints.
3.
It is observable that St. Methodius plainly speaks of the profession of
Virginity as a vow. "I will explain," says one of his speakers, "how we
are dedicated to the Lord. What is enacted in the Book of Numbers, 'to
vow a vow mightily,' shows what I am insisting on at great length, that
Chastity is a mighty vow beyond all vows."[409:1] This language is not
peculiar to St. Methodius among the Ante-nicene Fathers. "Let such as
promise Virginity and break their profession be ranked among digamists,"
says the Council of Ancyra in the beginning of the fourth century.
Tertullian speaks of being "married to Christ," and marriage implies a
vow; he proceeds, "to Him thou hast pledged (_sponsasti_) thy ripeness
of age;" and before he had expressly spoken of the _continentiæ votum_.
Origen speaks of "devoting one's body to God" in chastity; and St.
Cyprian "of Christ's Virgin, dedicated to Him and destined for His
sanctity," and elsewhere of "members dedicated to Christ, and for ever
devoted by virtuous chastity to the praise of continence;" and Eusebius
of those "who had consecrated themselves body and soul to a pure and
all-holy life."[410:1]
§ 3. _Cultus of Saints and Angels._
The Spanish Church supplies us with an anticipation of the later
devotions to Saints and Angels. The Canons are extant of a Council of
Illiberis, held shortly before the Council of Nicæa, and representative
of course of the doctrine of the third century. Among these occurs the
following: "It is decreed, that pictures ought not to be in church, lest
what is worshipped or adored be painted on the walls."[410:2] Now these
words are commonly taken to be decisive against the use of pictures in
the Spanish Church at that era. Let us grant it; let us grant that the
use of all pictures is forbidden, pictures not only of our Lord, and
sacred emblems, as of the Lamb and the Dove, but pictures of Angels and
Saints also. It is not fair to restrict the words, nor are
controversialists found desirous of doing so; they take them to include
the images of the Saints. "For keeping of pictures out of the Church,
the Canon of the Eliberine or Illiberitine Council, held in Spain, about
the time of Constantine the Great, is most plain,"[410:3] says Ussher:
he is speaking of "the representations of God and of Christ, and of
Angels and of Saints."[410:4] "The Council of Eliberis is very ancient,
and of great fame," says Taylor, "in which it is expressly forbidden
that what is worshipped should be depicted on the walls, and that
therefore pictures ought not to be in churches."[411:1] He too is
speaking of the Saints. I repeat, let us grant this freely. This
inference then seems to be undeniable, that the Spanish Church
considered the Saints to be in the number of objects either of "worship
or adoration;" for it is of such objects that the representations are
forbidden. The very drift of the prohibition is this,--_lest_ what is in
itself an object of worship (_quod colitur_) should be worshipped _in
painting_; unless then Saints and Angels were objects of worship, their
pictures would have been allowed.
2.
This mention of Angels leads me to a memorable passage about the honour
due to them in Justin Martyr.
St. Justin, after "answering the charge of Atheism," as Dr. Burton says,
"which was brought against Christians of his day, and observing that
they were punished for not worshipping evil demons which were not really
gods," continues, "But Him, (God,) and the Son who came from Him, and
taught us these things, and the host of the other good Angels who follow
and resemble Him, and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, paying
them a reasonable and true honour, and not grudging to deliver to any
one, who wishes to learn, as we ourselves have been taught."[411:2]
A more express testimony to the _cultus Angelorum_ cannot be required;
nor is it unnatural in the connexion in which it occurs, considering St.
Justin has been speaking of the heathen worship of demons, and therefore
would be led without effort to mention, not only the incommunicable
adoration paid to the One God, who "will not give His glory to another,"
but such inferior honour as may be paid to creatures, without sin on the
side whether of giver or receiver. Nor is the construction of the
original Greek harsher than is found in other authors; nor need it
surprise us in one whose style is not accurate, that two words should be
used in combination to express worship, and that one should include
Angels, and that the other should not.
3.
The following is Dr. Burton's account of the passage:
"Scultetus, a Protestant divine of Heidelberg, in his _Medulla Theologiæ
Patrum_, which appeared in 1605, gave a totally different meaning to the
passage; and instead of connecting '_the host_' with '_we worship_,'
connected it with '_taught us_.' The words would then be rendered thus:
'But Him, and the Son who came from Him, who also gave us instructions
concerning these things, and concerning the host of the other good
angels we worship,' &c. This interpretation is adopted and defended at
some length by Bishop Bull, and by Stephen Le Moyne; and even the
Benedictine Le Nourry supposed Justin to mean that Christ had taught us
not to worship the bad angels, as well as the existence of good angels.
Grabe, in his edition of 'Justin's Apology,' which was printed in 1703,
adopted another interpretation, which had been before proposed by Le
Moyne and by Cave. This also connects '_the host_' with '_taught_,' and
would require us to render the passage thus: '. . . and the Son who came
from Him, who also taught these things to us, and to the host of the
other Angels,' &c. It might be thought that Langus, who published a
Latin translation of Justin in 1565, meant to adopt one of these
interpretations, or at least to connect '_host_' with '_taught these
things_.' Both of them certainly are ingenious, and are not perhaps
opposed to the literal construction of the Greek words; but I cannot say
that they are satisfactory, or that I am surprised at Roman Catholic
writers describing them as forced and violent attempts to evade a
difficulty. If the words enclosed in brackets were removed, the whole
passage would certainly contain a strong argument in favour of the
Trinity; but as they now stand, Roman Catholic writers will naturally
quote them as supporting the worship of Angels.
"There is, however, this difficulty in such a construction of the
passage: it proves too much. By coupling the Angels with the three
persons of the Trinity, as objects of religious adoration, it seems to
go beyond even what Roman Catholics themselves would maintain concerning
the worship of Angels. Their well-known distinction between _latria_ and
_dulia_ would be entirely confounded; and the difficulty felt by the
Benedictine editor appears to have been as great, as his attempt to
explain it is unsuccessful, when he wrote as follows: 'Our adversaries
in vain object the twofold expression, _we worship and adore_. For the
former is applied to Angels themselves, regard being had to the
distinction between the creature and the Creator; the latter by no means
necessarily includes the Angels.' This sentence requires concessions,
which no opponent could be expected to make; and if one of the two
terms, _we worship_ and _adore_, may be applied to Angels, it is
unreasonable to contend that the other must not also. Perhaps, however,
the passage may be explained so as to admit a distinction of this kind.
The interpretations of Scultetus and Grabe have not found many
advocates; and upon the whole I should be inclined to conclude, that the
clause, which relates to the Angels, is connected particularly with the
words, '_paying them a reasonable and true honour_.'"[414:1]
Two violent alterations of the text have also been proposed: one to
transfer the clause which creates the difficulty, after the words
_paying them honour_; the other to substitute +stratêgon+ (_commander_)
for +straton+ (_host_).
4.
Presently Dr. Burton continues:--"Justin, as I observed, is defending
the Christians from the charge of Atheism; and after saying that the
gods, whom they refused to worship, were no gods, but evil demons, he
points out what were the Beings who were worshipped by the Christians.
He names the true God, who is the source of all virtue; the Son, who
proceeded from Him; the good and ministering spirits; and the Holy
Ghost. To these Beings, he says, we pay all the worship, adoration, and
honour, which is due to each of them; _i. e._ worship where worship is
due, honour where honour is due. The Christians were accused of
worshipping no gods, that is, of acknowledging no superior beings at
all. Justin shows that so far was this from being true, that they
acknowledged more than one order of spiritual Beings; they offered
divine worship to the true God, and they also believed in the existence
of good spirits, which were entitled to honour and respect. If the
reader will view the passage as a whole, he will perhaps see that there
is nothing violent in thus restricting the words _worship and adore_,
and _honouring_, to certain parts of it respectively. It may seem
strange that Justin should mention the ministering spirits before the
Holy Ghost: but this is a difficulty which presses upon the Roman
Catholics as much as upon ourselves; and we may perhaps adopt the
explanation of the Bishop of Lincoln,[414:2] who says, 'I have sometimes
thought that in this passage, "_and the host_," is equivalent to "_with
the host_," and that Justin had in his mind the glorified state of
Christ, when He should come to judge the world, surrounded by the host
of heaven.' The bishop then brings several passages from Justin, where
the Son of God is spoken of as attended by a company of Angels; and if
this idea was then in Justin's mind, it might account for his naming the
ministering spirits immediately after the Son of God, rather than after
the Holy Ghost, which would have been the natural and proper
order."[415:1]
This passage of St. Justin is the more remarkable, because it cannot be
denied that there was a worship of the Angels at that day, of which St.
Paul speaks, which was Jewish and Gnostic, and utterly reprobated by the
Church.
§ 4. _Office of the Blessed Virgin._
The special prerogatives of St. Mary, the _Virgo Virginum_, are
intimately involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation itself, with
which these remarks began, and have already been dwelt upon above. As is
well known, they were not fully recognized in the Catholic ritual till a
late date, but they were not a new thing in the Church, or strange to
her earlier teachers. St. Justin, St. Irenæus, and others, had
distinctly laid it down, that she not only had an office, but bore a
part, and was a voluntary agent, in the actual process of redemption, as
Eve had been instrumental and responsible in Adam's fall. They taught
that, as the first woman might have foiled the Tempter and did not, so,
if Mary had been disobedient or unbelieving on Gabriel's message, the
Divine Economy would have been frustrated. And certainly the parallel
between "the Mother of all living" and the Mother of the Redeemer may be
gathered from a comparison of the first chapters of Scripture with the
last. It was noticed in a former place, that the only passage where the
serpent is directly identified with the evil spirit occurs in the
twelfth chapter of the Revelation; now it is observable that the
recognition, when made, is found in the course of a vision of a "woman
clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet:" thus two women are
brought into contrast with each other. Moreover, as it is said in the
Apocalypse, "The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went about to make
war with the remnant of her seed," so is it prophesied in Genesis, "I
will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her
Seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." Also
the enmity was to exist, not only between the Serpent and the Seed of
the woman, but between the serpent and the woman herself; and here too
there is a correspondence in the Apocalyptic vision. If then there is
reason for thinking that this mystery at the close of the Scripture
record answers to the mystery in the beginning of it, and that "the
Woman" mentioned in both passages is one and the same, then she can be
none other than St. Mary, thus introduced prophetically to our notice
immediately on the transgression of Eve.
2.
Here, however, we are not so much concerned to interpret Scripture as to
examine the Fathers. Thus St. Justin says, "Eve, being a virgin and
incorrupt, having conceived the word from the Serpent, bore disobedience
and death; but Mary the Virgin, receiving faith and joy, when Gabriel
the Angel evangelized her, answered, 'Be it unto me according to thy
word.'"[416:1] And Tertullian says that, whereas Eve believed the
Serpent, and Mary believed Gabriel, "the fault of Eve in believing, Mary
by believing hath blotted out."[416:2] St. Irenæus speaks more
explicitly: "As Eve," he says . . . "becoming disobedient, became the
cause of death to herself and to all mankind, so Mary too, having the
predestined Man, and yet a Virgin, being obedient, became cause of
salvation both to herself and to all mankind."[417:1] This becomes the
received doctrine in the Post-nicene Church.
One well-known instance occurs in the history of the third century of
St. Mary's interposition, and it is remarkable from the names of the two
persons, who were, one the subject, the other the historian of it. St.
Gregory Nyssen, a native of Cappadocia in the fourth century, relates
that his name-sake Bishop of Neo-cæsarea, surnamed Thaumaturgus, in the
preceding century, shortly before he was called to the priesthood,
received in a vision a Creed, which is still extant, from the Blessed
Virgin at the hands of St. John. The account runs thus: He was deeply
pondering theological doctrine, which the heretics of the day depraved.
"In such thoughts," says his name-sake of Nyssa, "he was passing the
night, when one appeared, as if in human form, aged in appearance,
saintly in the fashion of his garments, and very venerable both in grace
of countenance and general mien. . . . Following with his eyes his
extended hand, he saw another appearance opposite to the former, in
shape of a woman, but more than human. . . . When his eyes could not
bear the apparition, he heard them conversing together on the subject
of his doubts; and thereby not only gained a true knowledge of the
faith, but learned their names, as they addressed each other by their
respective appellations. And thus he is said to have heard the person in
woman's shape bid 'John the Evangelist' disclose to the young man the
mystery of godliness; and he answered that he was ready to comply in
this matter with the wish of 'the Mother of the Lord,' and enunciated a
formulary, well-turned and complete, and so vanished."
Gregory proceeds to rehearse the Creed thus given, "There is One God,
Father of a Living Word," &c.[418:1] Bull, after quoting it in his work
upon the Nicene Faith, refers to this history of its origin, and adds,
"No one should think it incredible that such a providence should befall
a man whose whole life was conspicuous for revelations and miracles, as
all ecclesiastical writers who have mentioned him (and who has not?)
witness with one voice."[418:2]
3.
It is remarkable that St. Gregory Nazianzen relates an instance, even
more pointed, of St. Mary's intercession, contemporaneous with this
appearance to Thaumaturgus; but it is attended with mistake in the
narrative, which weakens its cogency as an evidence of the belief, not
indeed of the fourth century, in which St. Gregory lived, but of the
third. He speaks of a Christian woman having recourse to the protection
of St. Mary, and obtaining the conversion of a heathen who had attempted
to practise on her by magical arts. They were both martyred.
In both these instances the Blessed Virgin appears especially in that
character of Patroness or Paraclete, which St. Irenæus and other Fathers
describe, and which the Medieval Church exhibits,--a loving Mother with
clients.
FOOTNOTES:
[404:1] Act. Arch. p. 85. Athan. c. Apoll. ii. 3.--Adam. Dial. iii.
init. Minuc. Dial. 11. Apul. Apol. p. 535. Kortholt. Cal. p. 63. Calmet,
Dict. t. 2, p. 736. Basil in Ps. 115, 4.
[404:2] Vit. S. Cypr. 10.
[406:1] Act. Procons. 5. Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 22, 44. Euseb. Hist.
viii. 6. Julian, ap. Cyr. pp. 327, 335. August. c. Faust. xx. 4.
[406:2] Clem. Strom. iv. 12.
[407:1] Tertull. Apol. fin. Euseb. Hist. vi. 42. Orig. ad Martyr. 50.
Ruinart, Act. Mart. pp. 122, 323.
[407:2] De Hab. Virg. 12.
[408:1] Athenag. Leg. 33.
[408:2] Lumper, Hist. t. 13, p. 439.
[409:1] Galland. t. 3, p. 670.
[410:1] Routh, Reliqu. t. 3, p. 414. Tertull. de Virg. Vel. 16 and 11.
Orig. in Num. Hom. 24, 2. Cyprian. Ep. 4, p. 8, ed. Fell. Ep. 62, p.
147. Euseb. V. Const. iv. 26.
[410:2] Placuit picturas in ecclesiâ esse non debere, ne quod colitur
aut adoratur, in parietibus depingatur. Can. 36.
[410:3] Answ. to a Jes. 10, p. 437.
[410:4] P. 430. The "colitur _aut_ adoratur" marks a difference of
worship.
[411:1] Dissuasive, i. 1, 8.
[411:2] +Ekeinon te, kai ton par' autou hyion elthonta kai didaxanta
hêmas tauta, [kai ton tôn allôn hepomenôn kai exomoioumenôn agathôn
angelôn straton,] pneuma te to prophêtikon sebometha kai proskynoumen,
logô kai alêtheia timôntes kai panti boulomenô mathein, hôs
edidachthêmen, aphthonôs paradidontes.+--_Apol._ i. 6. The passage is
parallel to the Prayer in the Breviary: "Sacrosanctæ et individuæ
Trinitati, Crucifixi Domini nostri Jesu Christi humanitati, beatissimæ
et gloriosissimæ semperque Virginis Mariæ foecundæ integritati, et
omnium Sanctorum universitati, sit sempiterna laus, honor, virtus, et
gloria ab omni creaturâ," &c.
[414:1] Test. Trin. pp. 16, 17, 18.
[414:2] Dr. Kaye.
[415:1] Pp. 19-21.
[416:1] Tryph. 100.
[416:2] Carn. Christ. 17.
[417:1] Hær. iii. 22, § 4.
[418:1] Nyss. Opp. t. ii. p. 977.
[418:2] Def. F. N. ii. 12.