The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries

[Stone]

The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries

by Livius, Thomas, 1829?-1903

The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries.
With a Preface by His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.

London: Burns and Oates, Limited.
New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Benziger Brothers.
1893.

By Thomas Livius, M.A., Priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. Author of "S. Peter, Bishop of Rome," etc.


Dedication

To His Eminence Herbert Cardinal Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Priest of the Title of San Gregorio on the Caelian Hill.

My Lord Cardinal,

I am very grateful to your Eminence for having permitted me to dedicate this book to you, and that you have so kindly promised to write for it some words of preface.

It struck me as a circumstance of happy omen that the publication of my volume on S. Peter's Roman Episcopate, should, after several years' labour, coincide with the Sacerdotal Jubilee of Our Holy Father Leo XIII., and be dedicated to the illustrious Cardinal Newman. And it now affords me increased encouragement that this Patristic work in testimony of Our Lady's privileges, should, at length, appear in the year of His Episcopal Jubilee, and be dedicated to your Eminence, who has, in conjunction with all the Bishops of the Province of Westminster, so recently made the solemn act of consecrating our country anew to the Blessed Virgin and S. Peter, at the initiation of the Supreme Pontiff, and after his explicit recognition of England's claim to her ancient and glorious Title of "The Dowry of Mary."

I remain,

My Lord Cardinal,

With much respect,

Your devoted Servant,

T. LIVIUS, C.SS.R.



Preface by His Eminence

This work, to which I gladly prefix a few words of preface, will become a standard book of reference. It was much needed. That which its author had already done for S. Peter, he has now successfully accomplished for the Blessed Virgin Mary. And I am not depreciating his former work by saying that his latter is by far the more important — the more important because, whereas many books have been published containing ample reference to the acknowledgment of S. Peter's authority in the primitive Church, none has hitherto been presented to the English public setting forth the copious testimonies of the writers of the first six centuries to the doctrinal position in the Church of the Blessed Mother of God. This is the task fulfilled in the volume, The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries.

This work is destined to render a double service: first, it will deepen and strengthen the devotion of Catholics to the Blessed Virgin, by setting before them the witness to her prerogatives and to her position, afforded by the earliest Fathers of the Church; it will teach them how closely they are united in sentiment as in faith with the Fathers and Christian writers of the first six centuries; it will supply them with spiritual food by opening to them a granary of golden and delicious corn, the door of which had hitherto been in great measure closed to them. Knowledge, instruction, meditation, piety, and love, concerning Mary, are all combined in rich proportions in the abundant harvest which F. Livius has gathered in from the writings of the early Fathers.

The second service rendered is second only in importance to the first. She, whose office it has been to "destroy all heresies," has ever been a stumbling-block in the way of non-Catholics. It could hardly be otherwise than that the Tower of David, the Ark of the Covenant, the Gate of Heaven should present a sensible and formidable obstacle to the progress of error. She, whose foot was destined to crush the serpent's head, must ever stand in her calm beauty and power as an enemy in the path of the seed of the serpent. But there is a vast multitude of non-Catholics whose souls are being drawn back from the errors they have inherited to the Church of Christ. It is not enough to show them the love which the present children of God bear to the Mother of God; it is not enough to point out to them the devotion and faith of England during a period of a thousand years. All this, in their ignorance and prejudice, they explain away as parasitical overgrowth, attributable, they say, to the distinguishing character of the middle ages, and to man's proclivity to corruption and superstition.

What is needed is to remount the stream of testimony to its source — to exhibit without apology or hesitation our own devotion to Mary — to set forth, as in the Dowry of Mary, the history of the devotion of our Catholic English ancestors to her, up to the seventh century — and then to gather together and display before the eyes of all men, who have eyes to see, the teaching of the primitive Church, as attested in the writings of the first six centuries, as to the position and the prerogatives of the Blessed Mother of God.

The obiter dicta and incidental expressions of those ancient writers on such a subject as Mary are as valuable and as clear an indication of the direction taken by the mind and heart of the Church, during its early youth, as the more developed and studied treatises by writers in modern times are of their own belief and of that of their co-religionists. The faith is the same. But the Church is neither a mechanical nor a petrified creation. She is a living Bride, the Bride of the Lamb. She, like Mary in the Gospel, is "ever pondering in her heart over the things she has heard" in the original revelation made to her by the Bridegroom. And as she gives utterance to the thoughts of her heart in the language and expression which become them, she is perpetually testifying to the truth, the fulness, the life and the joy of the things which she originally heard. Thus you will find in the teaching of Irenaeus, Tertullian, Augustine, the Gregorys, Ephrem, Ambrose and other writers of the first six centuries on Mary's position as the Second Eve, on her excellence, her sanctity, and her power, the teaching of S. Alphonsus and of Blessed Grignon de Montfort and others, who have in modern days popularised devotion to Mary. The truth is ever the same, all through the centuries, carefully guarded by the authority of the Church; but the language in which it is clothed, in which it is conveyed to the mind of the people, is the language of the day, the language which is spoken and understood. And the more the original seed of truth becomes triturated by the devout mind, generation after generation, the more pervasive becomes its fragrance.

I trust that this most valuable addition to our literature upon the Office of Mary in the work of our Redemption and sanctification, will meet with the cordial reception which it deserves from devout Catholics, on the one hand, and from sincere and earnest inquirers outside the Church, on the other.

It is a pleasing incident to record that it has been granted to two sons of S. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori, to give to the English-speaking peoples two standard works on Mary, one dealing with the Devotion of England to Mary from the sixteenth century up to the time of the primitive Church, in his admirable volume, England, Our Lady's Dowry, and the other, completing the period of testimony, by exhaustively gathering together the witnesses, who still speak with no uncertain sound, as to the teaching of the Church about Mary, "the Second Eve," "the Mother of the living," during the first six centuries of the Christian era.

HERBERT CARD. VAUGHAN,
Archbishop of Westminster.

Octave of the Assumption, 1893.



Author's Preface

No one, I suppose, can entertain any doubt as to the general belief and cultus that prevailed amongst Catholics with regard to the Blessed Virgin Mary from the seventh and eighth centuries, through the middle ages, down to the period of the Protestant Reformation. For the numerous works that still survive of men eminent for their sanctity and theological science, as Ildephonsus, John Damascene, Anselm, Bernard, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and many more, who wrote so profusely in her honour and proclaimed her privileges with such great explicitness — as well as the numberless examples of public and private devotion to her to be found in religious biographies, general literature, and historical records of those times — make it quite evident that the attitude of the faithful to Our Lady was then much the same as that of Catholics in the present day. Those too who may be unacquainted with the works I have alluded to must share the same conviction. For we all have still before our very eyes material monuments which bear visible witness to that past faith and devotion. I mean, we have in our midst, whether yet standing or in ruins, so many old cathedrals and churches, monasteries and abbeys, that were raised to Our Lady's name, with their shrines and other memorials in her honour; whilst in countries abroad there are ancient images and pictures, which are still held in veneration by the faithful, and carry down with them a long record of her miraculous favours, and of the people's devotion. Then again, there are so many religious Orders of men and women that have handed down in unbroken succession the same spirit, belief, and devotional practices regarding Our Lady, as they received in their origin.

Herein is a sensible continuity of the past with the present, which forms in men's minds what we may call a veritable actual memory, and is an argument which brings home the truth more forcibly and distinctly than do any proofs derivable from ancient documents.

If aught more were needed, there is the living witness of the existing generations of Catholics here at home and abroad, that have inherited in direct line, and bear testimony to the belief and practices of their forefathers in the same religious faith. Whilst, on the other hand, the notorious fact of the Reformation, and that so many have followed its tenets even to the present day, serves of itself continually to keep alive the memory of what was held about the Blessed Virgin in those former ages, and of the veneration that was then paid to her; since it was the repudiation of this belief and devotion as superstitious, that formed in great part the very reason of the first origin of the Reformation, and of the continued existence of Protestantism as a religion.

I have thus endeavoured to account for the clear and distinct conviction that is universally held of the Blessed Virgin's prominence in Catholic faith and devotion during the Middle Ages, in order the better to illustrate, by way of contrast, the difference of view that is generally taken as to the place which Our Lady occupied in the minds and hearts of Christians during the first six centuries of the Church's history.

Here there is no unanimity, but great diversity of sentiment; people's opinions are for the most part only half-formed, or formed from very insufficient data, on this side or that, according to their religious bias. Some perhaps will go so far as to maintain that the practical exhibition of devotion to the Blessed Virgin was the same in those earlier centuries as in later times; whilst others persistently assert that there was nothing in the primitive Church at all similar or corresponding to the doctrinal system and cultus of Our Lady which have prevailed from medieval times until the present day. All this, they say, was an after-growth quite unknown to the older Fathers, which first began to show itself in the seventh and eighth centuries. Between these two extremes opinions vary with more or less vagueness.

There are many causes for this general diversity and indefiniteness of view on the matter.

First, in the case of the Early Church, we have none of what, for lack of a better term, I called sensible continuity, which serves so much to give us definite notions, and in some sort an actual memory of the real truth in medieval times. Having lost all the religious surroundings of those first centuries, and having no longer any direct results surviving from them, we can hardly picture them to our minds, and how things then happened — at least with any certainty that our picture rightly corresponds to the reality.

It seems to belong to our intellectual nature, that when we hear or read about something of past or distant occurrence, we at once form in our mind, at any rate implicitly, sensible images derived in some way from our experimental knowledge; and by clothing with this imagery the simple ideas presented to our intelligence, we give to what is abstract a concrete shape, and thus assimilate and bring home to our full consciousness the recorded event, realising it more or less vividly in its circumstances. And so far as the subjective images correspond to their objective realities, so also is our mental view of the occurrence accurate and true.

We are now, however, divided by so great an interval from those early centuries, that our break-off from all their ordinary associations is complete. The learned, no doubt, who have made a special study of the first ages of the Church, and are better acquainted with the circumstances that then surrounded the faith and religious life of Christians, will so far be able to gain a clearer view and to approximate to the truth with regard to the attitude of the faithful in those days towards the Blessed Virgin. But most people are not learned, and their ideas on the subject are very vague; or should they have formed for themselves any definite judgment, it is of no real value, being pretty sure to be wide of the truth.

I may be here allowed to apply to our subject two terms of which Cardinal Newman discourses so largely in his Grammar of Assent, and say that the knowledge generally possessed of the Blessed Virgin's place in Medieval religion is a real knowledge, whilst that obtainable of the same in the first six centuries is of a notional character. In making this distinction I would by no means imply that there is less of objective certainty in the latter than in the former kind of knowledge; or, in other words, that truth is less the object of, and actually attainable by notional knowledge than it is by real knowledge; but the difference, conveyed by the two terms, lies rather, as I conceive, in the mind's subjective conviction of truth, and in the means whereby subjective certainty is arrived at.

What, then, was the doctrine held concerning the Blessed Virgin, both in its nature and extent, together with the actual devotion paid to her during the first six centuries of Christianity, is not now to be learnt by any sensible aids — such as existing monuments of antiquity and surviving traditions — as is our knowledge of the same in later ages, but almost exclusively from contemporaneous documents of that period that are still extant.

But here is no easy task, as is evident from the following considerations:

1. Whilst many works of the early Fathers are lost, and of some we have only fragments; those that remain are in great number and very voluminous, treating of manifold topics with wide diversity, and written for the most part very discursively.

2. The Fathers did not treat of the Blessed Virgin ex professo. No formal treatise on her is to be found amongst their writings. There were other matters of a more pressing nature in those early times to engage their attention. [This clause is badly garbled in the scan and the exact wording can't be fully recovered — the surviving fragments suggest it named the primary truths of Christian revelation the Fathers had to set forth: the Nature of God, His Unity of Being and Trinity of Persons, the Incarnation and Divinity of the Word, the personality of the Holy Ghost, the Unity and Communion of Saints, and the doctrines of original sin and grace.]

They had at the same time to contend against and refute many subtle heresies that endangered the faith on all points, and with which heresiarchs from every quarter were continually assailing the Church. They were occupied in interpreting, and composing commentaries on, the Sacred Scriptures. There are, moreover, many patristic writings of an occasional sort, such as sermons and homilies, exhortations, epistles and poems, and besides these, historical works, and others of a moral and philosophical character.

These are the chief subjects of the writings of the Fathers during the first six centuries. In most of them, perhaps, there is something, more or less, said of the Blessed Virgin; but what mention or treatment is made of her is incidental, and introduced only as bearing upon the principal theme and the matter in hand. There are, indeed, some very few treatises that relate especially to Our Lady, as those of S. Jerome and S. Epiphanius, written in defence of her perpetual virginity, or against a blasphemous excess in showing her honour. These, however, deal only with some particular point regarding her, and are of an apologetic nature. There are too some fugitive pieces, as sermons on her Feasts and hymns and prayers entirely devoted to her, especially in the works of S. Ephrem.

I would not be supposed to deny that much, comparatively speaking, is to be found in the early Fathers on the Blessed Virgin; for some of their treatises are full of her, as for example those of S. Ambrose on virginity, and also many portions of their Scriptural exegesis. My voluminous extracts show this. Still, with the exceptions I have made they are fragmentary, and not written on her ex professo.

Nowhere, then, do the early Fathers treat in a formal and positive manner, or as a whole, of the place of Our Lady in revealed Christian doctrine, and of the mutual relations that exist between her and men in the Divine economy of Redemption. What was their general view on this matter must be gathered from the various passages scattered up and down their writings.

Or perhaps I should express myself otherwise, and say that the earliest Fathers of all, who wrote about Our Blessed Lady, viz., S. Justin, S. Irenaeus, and Tertullian, in their exposition of Mary as the Second Eve, give a very distinct view of what they held concerning her, and make most explicit though very brief statements as to her doctrinal position and relation to mankind, and that these are, in fact, so comprehensive as implicitly to contain whatever else any other Fathers of the first six centuries said afterwards in a desultory way about her.

3. What adds to the general impression of indefiniteness attaching to the Blessed Virgin's place in the early Church, is the frequent allegation that discrepant statements regarding her are found in the patristic works of that age. True it is that some few of the Fathers have said certain things respecting Our Lady contrary to the teaching of the greater number. Such instances, however, are after all, but very rare exceptions. They are to be found chiefly in their comments on those passages of the Gospels which bring her into public notice; and are certainly inconsistent with the idea of her absolute sinlessness, or at least of that entire perfection which the Church has of her, and the general teaching of the Fathers bears out.

Cardinal Newman has discussed this question, and the particular passages that have given rise to it, so ably and fully in his Letter to Dr. Pusey, that I have not thought it necessary to go over his ground again: though I have treated of the difficulty from another point of view, especially as regards S. Chrysostom, in the course of this work.

That there should be some discrepancies in the Fathers regarding Our Lady need not, however, excite surprise or cavil, when we find the same upon still graver matters. Thus certain Fathers of the third century, in high repute for their orthodoxy, express themselves on the Consubstantiality of the Son in terms that would be inadmissible after the definition of Nice. So too S. Athanasius and S. Basil speak of the knowledge of Our Lord's soul in a very different way from what S. Augustine and S. Maximus did, and Catholic theologians would now speak.¹

Great indeed is the authority of the Holy Fathers approved as such by the Church, even when taken individually, and especially of the more eminent amongst them who were Bishops, Saints, and Doctors of the Church.² But their chief authority consists in their being witnesses and expounders of the divine traditions that had come down from Christ and the Apostles, and of the Church's teaching at their own time. Hence it is that their unanimous consent on any doctrine pertaining to the Faith is regarded as tantamount to the infallible utterance of the Church herself. We may, moreover, well believe that the Holy Fathers, properly so called, received as individuals, special gifts of divine wisdom and knowledge to enable them to set forth in their purity and integrity the divine traditions and doctrines that had been handed down to them from the Apostles.

Still we are not to take an exaggerated view of the Fathers, as though they were infallible, and none of them could make a doctrinal misstatement, since it is undeniable, that at least some errors, greater or less, are to be found in the writings of individual Holy Fathers, even of those who have been approved of as such by the Church. But we must at the same time bear in mind that the Church has never on this account charged any Father, whom she has once thus approved, with heterodoxy, nor allowed others to do so.

In reading the Fathers, should one chance to come upon some doubtful or ambiguous statement in any of them, the general rule to be followed is, to explain his words as far as possible according to the common concordant sense of the other Fathers' teaching. But where a real discrepancy from the common teaching is discovered, it will be found on mature examination that such error has resulted from the obscurity of the subject-matter, on which nothing had as yet been defined,³ or which had not been sufficiently thrashed out by more prolonged discussion. On verities that are fundamental no real discrepancy of this kind will have place.⁴

Whilst all revealed truths contained in the divine deposit had their place in the primitive Church, they may be said in a certain sense to have been for a time more or less held in solution. To use a perhaps too homely metaphor, the age of the earlier Fathers was the time of churning. By means of the agitation of heretics, and the doctrinal discussions of the Fathers, the several truths of faith were going through the process of coagulation, that so they might be shaped into dogmas and fixed in conciliary definitions. Formal dogmatic definitions were few at that date. Certain broad lines for general guidance were well known, such as Tertullian's rule of Prescription, and those principles that find their expression in the dicta of S. Augustine and S. Vincent of Lerins, "Securus judicat orbis terrarum," "Roma locuta est, causa finita est," "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus"; or again, what first paved the way for the condemnation of Nestorius, the voice of the ecclesia discens, at Constantinople, whereby the old adage, "Vox populi, vox Dei," is illustrative of the Faithful in the Catholic Church.

But principles such as these, however true, were too broad for immediate practical application to every difficult question that might arise, and hence some divergency of longer or shorter continuance on certain points that were afterwards definitely settled, was the inevitable result.

4. Another difficulty in the works of the early Fathers is, that many of them are held to be spurious and unauthentic, whilst the genuineness of others is disputed. I leave the discussion in all cases to the judgment of learned critics. My general rule has been to make my quotations from writings the authenticity of which is commonly acknowledged. Sometimes, however, I have cited works of doubtful genuineness, or which, at any rate, were not written as we now have them by the Fathers to whom they are attributed, but whose date, as assigned to them by critics, falls within the first six centuries, to which period I confine myself. When I quote from a doubtful or unauthentic work, or depart exceptionally from this general rule, I note the fact.

Some modern writers appear to treat such unauthentic works as of no value at all, and even as though their doubtfulness or spuriousness of itself formed a positive argument against doctrines and practices to the existence of which they bear testimony: whereas the truth is, that regarded simply as witnesses their evidence on these matters is of an authority equal to that of any genuine writings with which they are coeval. But besides this: it is held as highly probable by the learned, that many even of those treatises and sermons, which, from intrinsic evidence of language and style, criticism has justly decided to be certainly unauthentic, were yet substantially the utterances of the Fathers whose names they bear, and were composed in their present form by disciples or admiring auditors from notes or memory. In any case it would be very difficult to account for the early and general acceptance of such writings as genuine, unless they really reflected and were in full accord with what was known to be the teaching of the Fathers who were credited with their authorship.

What has principally led me to compose this work is, because I had heard and read much of late years as to the very different view to be found in the writings of the early Fathers, regarding all that relates to the Blessed Virgin, from that which attaches to her in medieval and modern times; and because I knew well how very difficult it is — as in the preceding pages I have been at pains to show — to give a true, clear, full, and impartial exposition of what those Fathers really taught regarding her, and of the veneration or devotion that was paid to her in their days. I determined therefore to examine in detail what they had written on this subject, and to render into English numerous extracts from their writings, that people generally might read the Fathers' own words, and then judge for themselves.

For myself, endeavouring to be as impartial as possible, I have formed the clear conviction, that, saving a very few differences on points of lesser moment, the Fathers of the first six centuries unanimously held Our Blessed Lady in the same high appreciation, as she has been held in by Catholics of all subsequent ages; and that everything that the Church has at any time defined or sanctioned with regard to her privileges and the honour that is her due — together with all that saints and theologians of medieval and modern days have uttered in her praise — is to be found substantially, and at least in principle or germ, in the writings of the great Fathers and Doctors both of East and West, from the age of S. Justin the Martyr to that of S. Gregory the Great. Nay more, it will appear from passages which I quote from their writings, that many of the Fathers within that period were so explicit and profuse in their eulogies of the holy Mother of God, that they have left little for those who came after them to do, but to repeat their own words, and re-echo their praise.

It is to make this truth better known, and so to win some glory for the Virgin Mother, and to gain an increase of devotion to her from English-speaking people, whether Catholic or otherwise, that I have undertaken the task of translating so many passages in testimony of her greatness from the writings of the earlier Greek and Latin Fathers. For whatever value may be attached to this work is due entirely to the numerous patristic extracts which it contains. It has not been my general aim in it to prove or expound the various points of Catholic doctrine regarding Our Lady, which form the subject-matter of the several Chapters; but rather simply to show what were the views and teachings of the Fathers on them, and to produce their own words in witness. Hence the quotations from the Fathers should be looked upon as the principal part of this work, and what I have written of my own as but accessory, and intended to indicate and explain the drift of the patristic passages gathered under the separate headings. This takes the form of short Prolegomena. A few exceptions are made to this rule, in cases where a particular subject seemed to me to demand a larger treatment. These are the Chapters on Mary the Second Eve, on Intercession and Invocation, and on Our Lady's Assumption. The Introductory Chapters on Doctrinal Development also appeared to me necessary, in order to form a right and adequate view of patristic teaching on the Blessed Virgin during so long a period as the first six centuries.

The passages are generally appended to their several Chapters in the Chronological order of the writers.⁵ As many of them are of considerable length, and given with their full context, they will be sometimes found to contain, besides what is directly pertinent to the subject in hand, matters relating to the Blessed Virgin which more fitly belong to some other Chapter. This was unavoidable: for I often judged it better to present passages to the reader in their entirety, with their whole force and beauty, rather than in a curtailed and piecemeal form; and to refer to whatever was extraneous at the proper place.⁶

The edition which I have generally used is Migne's Patrologiae. My rule has been to give a very literal rather than fluent rendering of the original. This may be thought to have been carried sometimes to excess. I have, however, been led to aim at literalness at the expense of elegance, from the danger I constantly feel there is, especially in cases where the Author's meaning is obscure, or his words admit of more senses than one — and this is of frequent occurrence in the writings of the Fathers — lest a translator who aims much at fluency, should attach to a passage his own sense or colouring, and thus misrepresent the Author's mind, or at any rate deprive the reader of judging himself as to the signification of the original. In some few cases I have availed myself of others' translations.

With regard to the Syriac writings of S. Ephrem, I have followed implicitly the English translation of the Rev. J. B. Morris, and the Latin rendering of Canon Lamy. Whatever other extracts I have given from the Saint, that are not contained in their volumes, have been taken from the Roman edition published under Benedict XIV.

I have to acknowledge my obligation to several modern authors from whose works I have made copious extracts, and especially to learned writers in the Dublin Review, to whose articles on Development of doctrine and the Blessed Virgin I have sometimes been more indebted than appears from my direct quotations.

It will be seen that I have gathered in my pages not a few passages very similar to one another in sentiment and expression. This I have not done without design: since the very reiteration of the same praises of Mary from various parts of Christendom during so long a period is of itself a strong argument in favour of our general thesis, showing as it does, that the Fathers of the first six centuries had in common but one and the same appreciation of the great Mother of God; and also what in the mind of the early Church, and in the devotion of the faithful, was the place of her, concerning whom such things were continually being written.

Though my collection is a large one, and by some may be deemed cumbersome and excessive, it is by no means exhaustive. I have passed over many pages in the Fathers, where it appeared to me that there was nothing new, and which had not been said elsewhere; and very probably several important, and perhaps well-known, passages have escaped my notice. Moreover the recent discoveries of manuscripts of long-lost works of the Fathers lead us to expect with hope that many more hidden treasures will ere long be brought again to light, and that thus plentiful gleanings still remain for a yet richer harvest to Our Lady's praise.

S. Joseph's, Teignmouth,
Feast of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, 1893,
The Day of the Solemn Renewal of England's Dedication to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to S. Peter, Prince of the Apostles.



Footnotes

1. "Even on so fundamental a dogma as the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, S. Gregory Nazianzen says: 'The New Testament did but obscurely indicate the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. . . . For it was not safe . . . when the Son's Divinity was not yet (clearly) admitted, that the Holy Ghost should be imposed on us as a sort of heavy burden, so to speak.' Petavius quotes to the same effect S. Epiphanius, S. Augustine, S. Chrysostom, and other Fathers." Dublin Review, April, 1876, p. 294.

2. Although all early Christian writers conspicuous for their learning or antiquity, as v.g. Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Lactantius and Eusebius, are commonly called Holy Fathers, yet properly speaking, those only can claim the title who have been approved as such by the Church, and whom she has declared to be genuine and well-qualified witnesses, teachers, and judges, from their erudition and sanctity, of her doctrine as handed down to her from Christ and His Apostles. The other early authors are more properly called Christian or ecclesiastical writers.

3. "We must regard it," says Fr. Perrone, "as having happened, not without a special Providence, that very many (plurima) truths do but lie hid implexly and adumbratively in the revealed word: viz., in order that the faithful might thence more feel the necessity of the Church's living and infallible magisterium." Treatise on the definableness of the Immac. Conception of the B. V. M. Part ii., ch. i.

4. See Fessler, Institutiones Patrologiae. Ed. Jungmann. Tom. i., pp. 35-47.

5. Except in the Chapter on Scriptural Exegesis, where in the Old Testament the Biblical order is kept, and in the New that of certain mysteries and events of Our Lord's Life. It will be observed that I have taken the term, Exegesis, in a very wide sense.

6. In the Index at the end of the volume, reference is given under various headings to the pages where particular matters find mention throughout the work.

Contents

Introductory Chapters on Doctrinal Development

Chapter I. General Notions.
Accretive or Objective, and Non-Accretive or Subjective Development. Revealed Truths of the Substance of Faith, and Accessory to its Substance. Explicit and Implicit Faith.

Chapter II. Doctrinal Development (Continued).
The Christian Revelation was given once for all to the Apostles exclusively. All subsequent developments are non-accretive, and contained in the original Deposit.
Appendix: S. Vincent of Lerins; B. Thomas More.

Chapter III. Doctrinal Development (Continued).
Causes of Development of Christian Doctrine in the Church.

Chapter IV. Doctrinal Development (Continued).
Its Process examined.
Appendix: From Rev. J. B. Morris.

The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries

Chapter I.
The Primitive Patristic Idea of Mary as the Second Eve.

Chapter II. The Blessed Virgin in the Scriptural Exegesis of the Fathers of the First Six Centuries.
Prolegomena.
Part I. The Old Testament.
Part II. The New Testament.
§ 1. The Annunciation and Incarnation.
§ 2. The Visitation.
§ 3. The Purification, and Presentation in the Temple.
§ 4. Egypt — The Finding in the Temple — Nazareth.
§ 5. The Marriage Feast at Cana — John ii. 1-11.
§ 6. Mary on Calvary.
§ 7. Mary at the Resurrection.
§ 8. Exegesis on some other passages of the New Testament.
§ 9. Some doctrinal passages.

Chapter III. The Dignity and Sanctity of the Blessed Virgin.
Habitual Grace and Holiness.

Chapter IV. The Sanctity of the Blessed Virgin (Continued). Mary's entire Sinlessness.
Some explanatory Notes. — Appendix.

Chapter V. The Sanctity of the Blessed Virgin (Continued). Mary's acquired Sanctity, Practice of Virtues, Holy Virginity.

Chapter VI. The Blessed Virgin and the Church.

Chapter VII. Intercession and Invocation.

Chapter VIII. Examples of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints — of invoking them — and of miracles and graces obtained through their Intercession.

Chapter IX. The Assumption.
Appendix: 1. Poem of S. Fortunatus. 2. From S. John Damascene. 3. From the Epistle, under S. Jerome's name, on the Assumption. 4. From the Chronicle of Eusebius. 5. From S. Willibald. 6. Apocryphal Writings.

Chapter X. Devotional.
The Blessed Virgin's place in the Christian life, and as our spiritual Mother.

Chapter XI. Hymns of S. Ephrem.
Prolegomena. — The Feasts of the Annunciation and Purification.
Hymns.

Chapter XII. Hymns and Poems.

Chapter XIII. An Æthiopic Hymn.

Index of Subjects.
Index of Authors.

[Note from The Catacombs - It is our understanding that a formal imprimatur/nihil obstat as a standard requirement for all Catholic books came with the 1917 Code of Canon Law. Before that, many works — especially ones like this, carrying a cardinal’s own dedication and preface, which functioned as a form of implicit episcopal endorsement — were published without a separate censorship notice.]