L'wisioQ T5T&0I 
 Sect! ob , W72 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/motherofjesusinfOOwill 
 
MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
/ 
 
 Nihil obstat. 
 
 Joseph Wilhelm, S.T.D., 
 
 Censor deputatus. 
 
 Imprimi potest. 
 
 Gulielmus, 
 
 Episcopus Arindelensis, V.G. 
 
 Westmonasterii, 
 
 die I Junii, 1906. 
 
THE 
 
 J MAY 13 1915 
 
 MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 IN THE FIRST AGE AND AFTER 
 
 BY 
 
 \/ 
 
 J. HERBERT WILLIAMS 
 
 Ouroi 7ravres rjcrav TTpocrKaprcpowres o/JLoOvfxacov rfj 
 7rpouev\f) Kai rfj Serycrei, crvv ywatft kcu Map/a rrj 
 fJ-yrpl rod ’Iycrov. —ACTS i. 14 
 
 LONDON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. LTD. 
 
 DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W. 
 
 1906 . 
 
(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved) 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The English people holds perhaps naturally the 
 favour of Heaven. Providence rules the world, 
 and the country is evidently destined to achieve, 
 and has actually achieved, a great work in the 
 order of the Providence that rules the world. 
 What is the future in store for it ? Accordingly, 
 no doubt, as it corresponds with the designs of 
 that Supreme Ruler. But at least in the matter 
 of religion, the English people dares not only to 
 expect but to claim the divine favour. 1 
 
 England is in the main without religion, 
 without knowledge of God or of Christ ; it has 
 been so any time these 350 years ; in origin of 
 the time of Shaftesbury, in the time p r n 0 f e s h 
 of Queen Caroline, in our own time. tantlsm ' 
 But that is in small degree the fault of the English 
 
 1 The matter was misunderstood by the Tractarians, and 
 by others before and after them, as if it were the Established 
 Church that received at least divine toleration. A closer 
 and more candid scrutiny discovers easily the truth of the 
 facts. Apart from England and the English this Episco¬ 
 palian Protestantism has no success, and at home the Non- 
 conforming sects are equally or more prosperous. 
 
 V 
 
PREFACE 
 
 people. Heresy is the wilful choice of error, 
 and the English people are accordingly no 
 heretics. Their religion was plundered and de¬ 
 molished by a banded conspiracy of Machiavels ; 
 the people did not reject, no section of them 
 rejected, Christ or Christianity, as could un¬ 
 happily not be said of other nationalities then or 
 later ; they took up arms for their religion, they 
 were masters of the field—and they were cajoled by 
 perjury and the last degree of human depravity. 1 
 The ministrations of religion were excluded by 
 penal laws, the penalties being hanging and 
 quartering. The press was muzzled. Every 
 vestige of Missal or Catechism was hunted up 
 and destroyed; the printing and publishing 
 of anything Catholic involved fine and imprison¬ 
 ment ; the Catholic faith was stamped out by 
 severe and organised repression. After two 
 generations the bulk of the population, the 
 people of England, were, it is true, not Catholic, 
 because they had never heard of any such thing, 
 they had no opportunities of hearing. And 
 then, after all is done, in this nineteenth or 
 
 1 In the Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536, the king had no farces 
 on which he could rely to check the insurgents, and must 
 capitulate. He promised in the most solemn terms the 
 pardon of all concerned and the redress of their grievances, 
 and thereupon the gathering dispersed. Within a fortnight 
 the leaders were all burnt or hanged and the Protestant 
 profanity and pillage proceeded as before. See Green, 
 History of the English People, and Bright, History of England. 
 
 VI 
 
PREFACE 
 
 twentieth century, there are poor purblind 
 creatures who rail against the Catholic Church 
 on the score of obscurantism, oppression, persecu¬ 
 tion ; who denounce the Catholic Church in the 
 name of freedom of inquiry, free speech and free 
 writing ! God bless my soul! if there had been 
 this freedom observed in the past, England 
 would be Catholic to-day. Or at least you 
 cannot deny it, you who dragooned her into free- 
 thought, forsooth ; into unbelief, unbelief in God 
 and Church attendance left to hypocrites and 
 women! 1 ‘ Moi,’ exclaims a French country 
 
 cobbler in our day, with enthusiasm, to the 
 English tourist, 4 moi, je suis Protestant aussi; 
 je ne crois a rien ! 5 
 
 Yes, Christianity in England is mostly dead 
 and forgotten. The notion of a Revelation is 
 lost. Forgotten all the old beliefs, the i ts 
 old devotions, like the fashions of a character> 
 century ago, like the roses of the bygone year. 
 What is to be done ? The fortunate and favoured 
 isles reduced to such a pass ! How is the Gospel 
 to be preached at the end of the second millennium 
 in favoured England ? Obviously the forgotten 
 
 1 It must be allowed that revivals have occurred, of 
 emotional religious sentiment, as, e.g., in Methodism. But 
 the influence does not strike deep and is evanescent. What 
 percentage of the adult male population regularly attends 
 upon public worship from a sense of religious duty ? A 
 very small one. 
 
 vii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 must be recalled, if it may be. But the difficulty 
 is that in place of the forgotten realities there are 
 false Duessas now everywhere appearing. 
 
 * Then did he set her by that snowy one, 
 
 Like the true saint beside the image set ; 
 
 The enchanted damzell vanisht into nought, 
 
 Ne of that goodly hew remayned ought 
 
 But th’ emptie girdle which about her wast was wrought.’ 
 
 There are people who achieve a reputation, 
 amid a little circle—or in parabola—as having 
 read, no more than at second hand, some foolish 
 German stuff, and as having thereupon even 
 written a book upon the God of Genesis or the 
 Genesis of God. How prophesy amid these 
 ‘ daubers with untempered mortar 5 ? St. Paul 
 might reason of justice and judgment to come 
 till Felix trembled, but the English mechanic 
 and the English man of culture alike take no 
 heed ; they have heard it all before. St. Peter 
 might preach the Resurrection of the crucified 
 Nazarene, and his hearers thereupon be pricked 
 at the heart, and ask, ‘ What shall we do ? ’ 
 But in our day they ask instead—whether 
 Balaam’s ass could speak! Instead of the 
 Christianity of Revelation we have the Protestant 
 caricature, and that is what the intelligence of 
 the hearer holds, what he conceives to be the 
 
 vm 
 
PREFA CE 
 
 thing spoken of, when one would preach to him 
 the Gospel. 
 
 It is always a malentendu. Conversion—real con¬ 
 version, to the faith of Christ—appears a happy 
 chance and nothing more. Confessedly nothing 
 more in the opinion of the great English Or at ori an. 1 
 How turn the world of England upside down 
 to-day, as was turned the Roman world by the 
 first Christian missionaries ? What appears to 
 be wanted, what seems to offer at least some 
 possible prospect, is recalling some one of those 
 forgotten things that is wholly forgotten, of which 
 there remains no semblance or counterfeit at all. 
 Just as one might restore a true philosophy, not 
 by discussing cause and effect, or the nature of the 
 syllogism, or the mentality of nerve ganglia, 
 but by exhibiting again the Realism of a former 
 age. Or as one might revolutionise political 
 science by starting with the Decalogue. 
 
 England, Christian England, Catholic England, 
 was distinguished in Christendom by her devotion 
 
 1 The motif of Newman’s Grammar of Assent appears to 
 be his perception that religious profession in his own country- 
 does not rest upon, and is not in any degree proportionate 
 to, reason or argument, or ‘ inference,’ as he names it (see 
 in especial ch. iv. § 3). He attempts to justify or account 
 for this as according to the fundamental character of the 
 human mind. The theory is one of philosophic scepticism, 
 and admits the familiar reply, ad hominem, that if argument 
 does not produce conviction, what is the use of Newman’s 
 arguing for that theory ? I say ‘ a happy chance,’ of course, 
 apart from the considerations of piety. 
 
 IX 
 
PREFACE 
 
 of the 
 
 Blessed 
 
 Virgin. 
 
 to the Mother of God. The island was called 
 by the name of Mary’s Dowry. The shrine of 
 Exclusion our Lady of Walsingham was celebrated 
 on an equality with any other anywhere 
 in Europe. The Blessed Virgin has no 
 place in the fictitious Christianity of modern 
 England. It is not that there is a false idea of her. 
 She does not occur at all. The Mass is trans¬ 
 muted in the Communion Service, Good Friday 
 is a general holiday ; but our Lady is exiled, 
 from devotion, from thought, from everything. 
 If we could bring back Mary, we should bring 
 back all the rest. And the Virgin’s honour is a 
 virgin theme. No counter theory, no false image, 
 a blank possibly to fill up, but a blank undeniably. 
 
 Under the circumstances it will not be wise in 
 any such enterprise to show complaisance , to 
 make the most of the rags and tatters 
 of Christianity that survive, to give a 
 
 avoided; 
 
 accommo- moderate account, to leave unsaid what 
 
 dation. , ^ __ — . _. - ^ , 
 
 might offend prejudice, to make things 
 easy and acceptable, so that the exhibition of the 
 Catholic faith may approve itself as reasonable 
 and just. This would be confuting the Pro¬ 
 testant creed, while confirming the Protestant 
 temper. But the guilt of heresy, the poison of 
 heresy, resides in the temper. 
 
 The Revelation has not to approve itself. 
 That there has been a Revelation made, judge 
 
 Things 
 to be 
 
 X 
 
PREFA CE 
 
 you of that; judge of it by the historical fact, 
 by the historical outcome, by 4 the superexcellence 
 of the power ’ (2 Cor. iv. 7), by the light that 
 enlightens every soul of man. But of the Revela¬ 
 tion you may not judge. The Revelation is a 
 Revelation, of the things of God, of things 
 beyond your knowledge ; you can only listen and 
 learn. To make the Catholic faith approvable 
 to human reason, is to overthrow the Protestant 
 by Protestantism, Deum per mendacium glori- 
 ficare . 1 It is the wrong way, and has no promise 
 of blessing or success. 
 
 The converts secured are callow. They have 
 not become Catholics, they are but Protestants 
 who judge the Church to be right. The thin ears 
 will devour the good ears (Gen. xli. 24). The 
 callow convert levels down the general attain¬ 
 ment in the Catholic faith, and that is already 
 lowered, at least in utterance, to mollify the 
 callow convert and make him feel at home. 
 After some years the Catholicity of the country is 
 sensibly impaired. It is a foolish policy to bring 
 strangers in at the cost of turning the family out. 
 
 If thus accommodation is excluded, there is 
 nothing apposite in argument. The opponent 
 does not argue. He makes assertions, 
 
 ^ Argument. 
 
 unqualified assertions, outrageous asser¬ 
 tions sometimes, to the discredit of the Church ; 
 
 1 ‘ To glorify God by a lie.’ 
 
 XI 
 
PREFA CE 
 
 he offers no proof of them. He is to be met by 
 counter-assertions, as unqualified and as definite, 
 and let these be weighed against those. To argue 
 is weakness. The Church originally holds pos¬ 
 session, and it is for the Protestant to make good 
 his protest. It is not the Church’s proofs but 
 the Protestant’s disproofs that are required. 
 When the Protestant gives his reasons, it will be 
 time enough to show their unreason. 
 
 Moreover the fundamental articles of the Chris¬ 
 tian creed, and it is upon these that all serious 
 controversy turns, do not want proof. If you 
 accept Scripture, they are there ; if you appeal 
 to tradition, the earliest historical references 
 to Christian institution reveal something at any 
 rate that is not Protestantism. Let anyone, e.g., 
 read the account of the celebration of Mass 
 given by St. Cyril of Jerusalem (a.d. 315-386). 
 If you will have neither Scripture nor tradition, 
 we must wish you good morning. There is 
 nothing to argue about or for which to offer 
 proof. You might as well require one to give 
 reasons to show that St. Paul’s Cathedral stands 
 on Ludgate Hill. 
 
 It follows equally that erudition is thrown 
 away—quotations from ancient doctors or from 
 the schools or from ecclesiastical instru- 
 
 Erudition. 
 
 ments of various sorts and kinds. I am 
 doubtful about more than a select few among 
 
 xii 
 
PREFA CE 
 
 Catholics reading anything in that style, and I 
 am sure that the modern Protestant does not care 
 two straws about the usual authorities, which are 
 all, whatever their date, Romish and benighted. 
 Primitive Christianity, the fourth or fifth century, 
 is nothing to the modern Protestant ; he begins 
 with the fifteenth, or he begins just with himself. 
 Even the 4 Ritualist 5 of the Established Protes¬ 
 tantism does not trouble about 4 the Fathers, 5 
 as his forbears did. The 4 Sarum use 5 is dropped, 
 has long been. What he is copying is the actual 
 Catholic Church, what he calls 4 the Italian 
 mission, 5 in his neighbourhood. Why waste 
 time and space over the collation of authorities 
 testifying to the elementary doctrines of Chris¬ 
 tianity ? No one disputes that there are such 
 authorities to be found and that they do so 
 testify. It is absolute ignoratio elencki —a bad 
 fault in argument. 
 
 Besides the collation of authorities, there is 
 another species of erudition which I cannot help 
 thinking to be better away ; a kind of 
 
 Mysticism. 
 
 accepted mannerism it is in religious 
 exposition, on the plea that the things dealt 
 with are not simple incidents, words and actions 
 as they occur, but are mysteries, and must not 
 be so much as named without adding their 
 proper halo. For example, let the subject be 
 the Purification of our Lady (Candlemas Day), 
 
 xui 
 
PREFACE 
 
 and we are to behold an anticipation of Calvary 
 and Mary offering up her Son, as Abraham 
 offered up Isaac. Or we are invited to make the 
 words dies purgationis ejus 1 the occasion of a 
 meditation after the manner of the Exercises of 
 St. Ignatius Loyola. It is all quite right and 
 beautiful, merely out of place. For the Protes¬ 
 tant any such admixture makes Chinese of 
 everything. And again I should not feel extremely 
 sure of the Catholic being interested. 
 
 The modern reader is what he is. One has a 
 simple elementary article of the faith—one would 
 not wisely go beyond that in the present age— 
 to exhibit and expound, and must not drop it for 
 a moment; step by step its significance must be 
 developed, without allowing the reader to leave 
 the subject or miss the connection of each suc¬ 
 ceeding portion with that which preceded. 
 
 An elementary article of the faith is as such 
 necessarily integral. Erudition and argument 
 are not required, and accommodation 
 
 Integration 
 
 to be made would be mischievous, but there is still 
 the deposi- a design to be followed. The reason¬ 
 able, the actual, the necessary inclusion 
 of the particular article within the four corners 
 of the Revelation should be made out. This, 
 in the first place on literary obligation; but 
 also on that of controversial exigence. Being 
 
 1 ‘ The days of her purification.’ Luke ii. 22. 
 
 XIV 
 
PREFACE 
 
 integral, the article is accepted along with the 
 creed, and if rejected, the creed must also go. 
 That is the controversial issue, which should 
 plainly appear. 
 
 I am unable to agree with a very different 
 conception and policy which has been sometimes 
 proposed. For example, it was laid No human 
 down, and on very high authority, that fjamesii. 
 English Catholics should take no step I_4 ^ 
 to aid the abrogation of the Protestant Establish¬ 
 ment, because there are no existing resources 
 by which the Church could provide for the 
 religious care of those who would thus be left 
 destitute. But supposing provision was made 
 for whatever percentage ? The glory of God is 
 promoted and the salvation of so many souls 
 advanced. And will anyone tell me how those 
 unprovided for suffer loss ? Or is it really meant 
 that they were in the way of salvation under 
 Protestant teaching ? 
 
 It is said that Protestants, as being duly bap¬ 
 tised, belong to c the soul of the Church,’ and 
 that we should not disturb their imperfect belief 
 at the risk of driving them into further negation. 
 The same argument applies. They are materially 
 Christians, but not formally; they do not 
 ‘ believe the Gospel ’ (Mark i. 15). 1 For the 
 
 1 At least in this passage ‘ the Gospel ’ is not any written 
 
 XV 
 
PREFA CE 
 
 Gospel is a Revelation, and the religion of the 
 Protestant is what he believes to be true ; he is 
 not 4 taught of God ’ (John vi. 45). The God of 
 / human opinion is not the God of Christianity ; 
 Brahma or Ormazd has no worse credentials. 
 And is the Protestant a Christian even materially ? 
 Is the matter and form of the Sacrament observed, 
 and what is to be said regarding intention ? 
 There is a simple test to apply. How often would 
 a priest take the responsibility of receiving a 
 Protestant into the Church without baptism, 
 and if he threw the responsibility on to his 
 catechumen, would the catechumen generally 
 elect to stand by the validity of the Protestant 
 administration ? The speech about ‘ the soul 
 of the Church 9 is therefore unsound and— 
 flens dico —may be not unfrequently insincere. 
 It does not mean charity, but has another 
 motive. And the proof is that the charitable 
 suggestion takes account of the Established 
 religion alone and not of other forms of Protes¬ 
 tantism in the country. The repudiation of 
 sympathy with Disestablishment has certainly 
 to appearance the same signification. Mean¬ 
 while this so-called Church of England, will 
 anyone show how its position in any ecclesiastical 
 or theological aspect differs from that of the 
 
 life of our Saviour. Why should it elsewhere express a 
 Biblical Christianity ? 
 
 XVI 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Church of the Donatists in ancient times which 
 St. Augustine denounced, and the inexpugnable 
 parallel led to the defection of the logical mind of 
 Newman ? Or if there is a difference, it is not 
 in favour of the English separation. 1 
 
 Thus I propose to discover the office and 
 dignity of our Lady to exist in the first age and 
 to form an integral portion of the Apostolic 
 tradition, and I shall hope to vindicate the entire 
 existing devotion and belief as the explication of 
 what is unavoidably implicit in the Revelation of 
 the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I cannot spoil my 
 workmanship, such as it may be, out of kindness 
 for the self-imposed beliefs of Protestants and 
 
 1 The Jesuit (?) apologetic— e.g., Rev. F. M. de Zuluetta, 
 S.J,, in The Weekly Catholic of Nov. io, 1905—urges that a 
 sincere Protestant is a virtual Catholic. For the Protestant 
 intends to believe in the religion or Church of Christ, and 
 that is in fact the Catholic Church, so that he is virtually 
 adhering to the faith and communion of the See of Rome. 
 The apologetic should, however, be extended to the sincere 
 pagan of the first Christian centuries, who similarly intended 
 to believe in God, and there is in fact no God but the God 
 of the Christians, so that he virtually confessed the Christian 
 creed, while still throwing his co-religionists to the lions. 
 And then people might object that both the modern Pro¬ 
 testant and the Fourth Century pagan had Christianity 
 plainly put before them, existing in their midst, and de¬ 
 liberately or thoughtlessly rejected it through obtuseness or 
 prejudice, or whatever disqualification mental or moral; 
 that the Protestant or the pagan believed in Christ or in 
 God, but in their own imagination of either, not in the 
 Christ and God revealed ; that this belief is no more faith, 
 as theological virtue and divine gift, than is believing in the 
 Kneipp cure. 
 
 XVII 
 
 a 
 
PREFACE 
 
 through fear of unsettling them. Incidentally it 
 belongs to my design, on the contrary, to unsettle 
 them. Nor have I any temptation to go out of 
 my way to conciliate anyone or to avoid giving 
 offence. The friends whom I care to retain are 
 possessed of ordinary intelligence. 
 
 By elementary I mean what belongs to the 
 first and necessary outline of the Revelation— 
 
 Elementary elementa exordii sermonum Dei (Hebr. 
 doctrine. I2 ^i Sublime truths, and revealed 
 
 from above, mysteries beyond our intelligence 
 to invent or discover. But undeniably the ABC 
 of Christian instruction. The things, it may be 
 objected, have been said before, everyone knows 
 them, and their detailed iteration in this year of 
 grace is merely tedious. I reply, first, that I 
 am by no means so sure that everybody knows 
 them, or at any rate that those know them 
 with whom I am mainly concerned, grown-up 
 men, educated men, notwithstanding. Contro¬ 
 versy, I am persuaded, often goes astray through 
 not beginning at an earlier stage, and we ought 
 not to take for granted that what is commonplace 
 to ourselves must be equally ready knowledge 
 to some other, whether Protestant or Catholic. 
 Besides, to assume a certain acquaintance and 
 to pass over the initial facts, is a defect of his¬ 
 torical style. I found an educated and fervid 
 1 * The first elements of the words of God.’ 
 
 xviii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Protestant to be greatly surprised, and interested, 
 when I showed him that our Lady was recorded 
 < in Matthew 5 to be St. Joseph’s wife only in 
 name ! 
 
 Secondly, though the things have been said 
 before—and I should imagine that there was 
 nothing in my pages that had not—yet I submit 
 there is a difference when they are presented in 
 their connection, in their totality, and this still 
 remained to be done for English readers. I con¬ 
 fidently expect the most critical to allow that 
 there is a difference. The facts were familiar, 
 but the meaning they bear appears as something 
 hardly realised before. The meaning was missed, 
 though the facts were there, so long as the facts 
 were without their connection. But if I am to get 
 the total effect, I must have all in ; I cannot 
 leave this or that out because it is familiar, and 
 be content with a selection. 
 
 Another point. Abjuring erudition, I may be 
 charged with that very fault, though I think it 
 is a different thing, because I have made, scripture 
 especially in the first Part, somewhat references - 
 copious references to Holy Scripture. Catholics, 
 moreover, are not, I think, very fond of such 
 references, through vexation at the Protestant 
 hap-hazard use of them, and as being conscious 
 of possessing another warrant for the faith they 
 hold themselves. Nevertheless Holy Scripture 
 
 xix 
 
PREFACE 
 
 is testimony, and Catholic theologians without 
 exception appeal to it. I have employed Holy 
 Scripture rather for its literary and historical 
 value in evidence than on the ground of its in¬ 
 herent authority as the inspired oracles of God. 
 The reason for this limitation will be readily 
 perceived, and the difference of employment may 
 serve to condone my fault with those wiio w r ould 
 have wished for less of such reference. 
 
 May I be allowed to say something more ? 
 I have refused to set about this work for many 
 years, and the only semblance of qualification 
 I have been able to discover in myself is a rather 
 ready familiarity with the text of the New Testa¬ 
 ment, which is indeed possessed by others besides 
 me, but not by the generality in the same sense 
 or degree, a familiarity in my own case due to 
 fortuitous circumstances. Thus the references 
 I give are my own ; even if they may have been 
 employed before by others, they are still original 
 in my use, I have not got them from others. 
 The references are not merely corroborative and 
 supplying a parallel Scripture expression for the 
 particular passages of my text—wdiere they would 
 be merely this, I leave them out—but they are 
 additions to my argument, and even frequently 
 form the climax of it. The argument is only 
 complete with the reference, and I pledge myself 
 that in every case the passage of Scripture is well 
 
 xx 
 
PREFACE 
 
 worth the reader’s looking up, if I can find 
 anyone to give my exposition a serious study. 
 But it would have increased the bulk of my 
 volume unduly to have quoted every passage at 
 length as in a Papal Encyclical, and quotations, 
 however apposite and essential to the argument, 
 certainly do interrupt. 
 
 There is nothing that I have written for which 
 I could not, but for considerations of expediency 
 as above explained, have adduced ^ 
 authority enough. I have no occasion Catholic 
 
 . account. 
 
 to use the common expression of a 
 Catholic writer, that I write in submission to the 
 judgment of the Church. The things I have 
 written are all things that the Church has already 
 judged, simple matters also (except for one 
 chapter) which every instructed Catholic believes 
 and of which no one will dispute the statement. 
 I exhibit the plain Catholic belief and opinion 
 
 for the sake of Protestants and others who do not 
 
 \ 
 
 know what these are. Let them be plainly and 
 fully informed. 
 
 I ought to explain the use I have made of the 
 term 4 Protestant. 5 I am quite aware that 
 Protestantism as a maimed and per- An 
 verted edition of the Christian creed apology ' 
 belongs to the past, and anyone would show 
 himself behind the times who should set out 
 seriously to-day to refute that archaic religious 
 
 xxi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 system. For example, the belief in the infalli¬ 
 bility of Scripture is gone, that in the Divinity 
 of our Saviour likewise ; in fact, pretty well 
 everything dogmatic is gone, and this is now 
 generally expressed with some unction as the 
 aim in view. The assertion of dogma anywhere 
 is suspected, not without truth, as a step in the 
 direction of Rome. Protestant has become in 
 general acceptation a generic name, embracing 
 a thousand diversities ; quot homines tot Christi ; 1 
 the thing is intangible, elusive, Protean ; there 
 is nothing to proceed upon in argument, nothing 
 more, that is to say, than is found with the Deist 
 or the Agnostic. But I want a generic name. 
 I do not understand Protestantism to have any 
 positive character, I do not make that mistake. 
 I mean by Protestant everything that has subse¬ 
 quently issued out of the rebellion of the fifteenth 
 century, the rebellion of Luther and Calvin. 
 All the free-thought and unbelief in England, 
 or with microscopic exception, has come out of 
 the ranks of professing Protestants, and I do 
 not distinguish the variety of species. Hence 
 I may at one time refer to the c High-Churchman ’ 
 of the Establishment or to the Salvation Army 
 private, at another to the ultra-Agnostic or the 
 would-be exterminator of any and every creed. 
 But I want a generic name. And on the whole 
 
 1 ‘ As many Christs as there are many men.’ 
 
 XXII 
 
PREFA CE 
 
 Protestant seemed the best. For it would not be 
 understood that spurious forms of Christianity 
 were included, though in reality they would be, 
 if I had spoken of infidel or non-Christian instead. 
 I had to choose between offending free-thinkers 
 by classifying them with the pretending Christian 
 sects, or offending the sects by classifying them 
 with free-thinkers. Equally full of animosity 
 both may be, but the free-thinker would be 
 better able to appreciate a literary apology. 
 
 J. Herbert Williams. 
 
 xxiii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I.—IN THE FIRST AGE 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE . 
 
 II. THE RECORD OF THE NATIVITY . . . 
 
 III. THE RECORD OF THE LIFE . 
 
 IV. THE OMISSIONS OF THE GOSPELS . . . 
 
 V. THE OMISSIONS OF THE ACTS AND EPISTLES 
 
 VI. THE MOTIVE OF THE OMISSIONS . 
 
 VII. CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 VIII. MODERN ISSUES. 
 
 PART II.—AFTER 
 
 I. THE GROUND OF DEVELOPMENT . . . 
 
 II.‘DELEGATION OF THE DIVINE DOMINION 
 
 III. MARY QUEEN. 
 
 IV. MARY QUEEN; SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 
 
 V. MARY MOTHER. 
 
 VI. MARY ADVOCATE. 
 
 VII. MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY . . . 
 
 VIII. MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 14 
 
 33 
 
 52 
 
 70 
 
 79 
 
 88 
 
 98 
 
 115 
 
 125 
 
 140 
 
 160 
 
 173 
 
 187 
 
 207 
 
 237 
 
 b 
 
PART I 
 
 IN THE FIRST AGE 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 
 
 The quadrifid Gospel history of the Ministry of 
 our Lord is fairly substantiated as authentic and 
 genuine. If the narratives were not Date and 
 written by the disciples whose names of th° nty 
 they commonly bear, they belong at Gospels * 
 latest to the sub-Apostolic age, and they represent 
 the current traditions of the beginnings of 
 Christianity. For centuries, indeed, the Gospels 
 were acknowledged to be the writings of the 
 four Evangelists, and no question was raised 
 about it. A certain weight must be allowed by the 
 most sceptical, even if it be only a trifling weight, 
 to this constant tradition of centuries. But the 
 fashion of destructive criticism which belonged 
 to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made 
 a change. Holy Scripture was as unpopular 
 as hereditary monarchy or aristocratic privilege. 
 
 B 
 
 i 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Only a few years ago it still needed courage on 
 the part of an apologist to make a positive 
 assertion about authorship, or even date, of the 
 Gospels. 
 
 The beginning of the sceptical prevalence is 
 not difficult to trace. The doubts cast upon the 
 origin of the records of our Lord’s life issue out 
 of the general dogmatic degradation of German 
 Protestantism within the last 200 years. The 
 degradation—which some would term elevation 
 instead—is a very natural result of disturbance 
 of the established order, whether religious or 
 civil. Each original thinker finds his ambition in 
 further cavil —saefie trans finem iaculo nobilis 
 exp edit 0 ; 1 the more extreme, the higher purity ; 
 in the phrase of Carlyle, ‘ the revolution devours 
 itself.’ The orthodox Protestantism shaded off 
 into a dogmatic indifference or dissatisfaction that 
 left little unassailed. Thereupon the authen¬ 
 ticity of the Evangelical history appeared to be a 
 vulnerable point, as the writings belonged to a 
 pre-historic age, pre-historic, that is to say, 
 in Christian ecclesiastical record, and there would 
 be no proofs to hand. Moreover, it would inflict 
 a deadly blow upon Christianity if its credentials 
 could thus be proved unsound, and the actuating 
 and antecedent motive of those who started the 
 
 1 * Famed for throw of spear beyond the limit.’ Hor. 
 Carm. I. viii. 12. 
 
 2 
 
EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 
 
 idea, before they started it, and directing their 
 selection of this or that idea to start, was an 
 unreasoning antipathy to Christianity and a 
 desire to deal it the deadliest blow they could. 
 
 The objective of the assault once determined, 
 there was plenty of strength to employ; but one 
 might have doubted the tactical wisdom of the 
 way in which the attack was developed. The 
 critics were unreasonably severe and niggling. 
 Allusions in ancient writings, which an ordinary 
 man would not have thought twice about, even 
 apparent, glaringly apparent, quotations from 
 our Gospels, as, e.g., in Justin Martyr 1 (a.d. 137- 
 167), were set on one side, were not allowed to 
 be produced. They need not be, they were not, 
 allusions to the record of the Evangelist or quota¬ 
 tions from it, but belonged to some common 
 source (which no one could produce or attempted 
 to identify), the common source to which both 
 the Evangelist and his apparent transcriber were 
 indebted. The explanation was far-fetched and 
 ad hoc , if anything ever was; but, the doubt once 
 started, it was allowed to pass, it held. The 
 venture was intended to have important and 
 far-reaching results. The strength of the attack¬ 
 ing position always lay in this, that proof of an 
 ancient writing and of an ancient tradition must 
 in the main be constructive proof. Constructive 
 
 1 Dial. 49, p. 146 c ; Apol. i. pp. 62 c, and 80 c. 
 
 3 b 2 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 proof, therefore, should at once be ruled out. 
 The assault met with considerable and widely 
 diffused success. The critics had all the talking, 
 and no one else was allowed to say a word. The 
 ordinary man doubtless did not study the argu¬ 
 ments of the critics, but he heard of their conclu¬ 
 sions, and he heard of nothing else. What 
 was the use, said the ordinary man, of arguing 
 from Scripture, when we could not know whether 
 the words ascribed to our Lord were anything 
 but the conjectural suitabilities of centuries 
 after His time ? Bring the documents into court; 
 but the first step will be that the documents 
 should be authenticated. The documents cannot 
 be authenticated. The case of Christianity is 
 not such as we had believed, and all our regret 
 will not alter the fact. ‘Christianity, shorn of 
 some fictions of superstition and some ecclesias¬ 
 tical accretions, was a noble and sublime pre¬ 
 sentation of God and of our relation to the 
 Supreme Majesty. But what we know as Chris¬ 
 tianity has no necessary relation to any actual 
 events ; it is not the revelation of Christ, but the 
 invention of hundreds of years after Him. Chris¬ 
 tianity is all too hazy for a sensible mind to 
 trouble over; so much guess-work, so much 
 bibliological and exegetical technicality in the 
 first stages of it, that one must be content to hold 
 dogma altogether at a distance ; submitting to be 
 
 4 
 
E VIDENTIAL VAL UE OF HOL V SCRIPTURE 
 
 outwardly a Christian of one or other sect, while 
 having one’s own thoughts about the thing.’ 
 With the insidious and covert action of every 
 evil influence, the mischief grew and spread. 
 Christianity ceased to be a real and living faith, 
 not only among educated people, but among 
 large numbers of the population who had heard 
 of the current notions. To the poor the Gospel 
 was preached, and by the poor the Gospel was 
 now let alone. The Church had gone by the wall 
 long ago, and in due time the Bible went as well. 
 
 But the very concentration of the sceptical 
 assault led with time to its triumphant repulse, 
 however unlikely and beyond need of serious 
 consideration any such event had at first appeared. 
 The energies, the studies, the researches of 
 apologists were withdrawn from other positions 
 and adversatively concentrated on the defensive 
 side. Success was assisted by archaeological 
 discoveries, which, perhaps, were not altogether 
 gifts of fortune, but connected with that concen¬ 
 tration. Thus the Gospel attributed to St. John 
 had been thought the most certainly discredited 
 of the four. But the Diatessaron of Tatian 
 (circa a.d. 160) begins with the first verses of 
 St. John’s Gospel. The Diatessaron is a 4 Har¬ 
 mony’ of the Gospels, and such a compilation 
 presumes the existence of the originals in familiar 
 use and cognizance for a considerable time before. 
 
 5 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 The date of composition, then, of the four Gospels, 
 of the last written of the four, is brought within 
 the penumbra of the first age, and the authorship 
 is hardly any longer worth disputing for the 
 critic, as neither perhaps for the apologist worth 
 asserting. When it was denied that the Gospel 
 of St. Mark was written by St. Mark, the impli¬ 
 cation was that it had been written long after 
 him. If it is proved to belong to the first century, 
 the negative loses its application. The Gospel 
 narratives represent the Apostolic tradition; 
 they record what was taught and accepted in 
 the earliest ages of Christianity; they express the 
 primitive opinion and belief, the aspect of the 
 Incarnation and Ministry of the Son of God 
 current among those who had been in association 
 with His disciples. 
 
 They are an authentic record, our earliest 
 record, of what Christianity is. The record may 
 not be complete—it would be unlikely that it 
 should be; and it makes no claim or profession of 
 being complete ; it may even be inexplicit, mis¬ 
 leading, and, saving the Divine Inspiration, 
 erroneous. But for all that it is a record. Prima 
 facie , what it states must stand. It is our chief 
 documentary evidence ; in some sense, our only 
 record. In arguing any point of belief or prac¬ 
 tice with reference to primitive Christianity, 
 it would be utterly paradoxical to leave the 
 
 6 
 
EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 
 
 Gospels out of account; it is natural to start 
 with them. There may be other evidence. 
 Our present Christianity comes from the tradi¬ 
 tion of the Apostolic teaching as orally delivered 
 and independently of any written record, and the 
 evidence for the validity of any belief or practice 
 is primarily that the belief or practice is found 
 existing. The Church of the third or fourth 
 century would be the outcome of the original 
 tradition, and the testimony of early writings 
 to what was in use at their date must carry 
 authority. But the earliest writing, and therefore 
 the chief witness, to the Apostolic tradition is the 
 Gospel narrative. The faith rests on Tradition, 
 but it rests on Scripture as well; each of the two 
 supplements and confirms the other. 
 
 There is very little reference made to the 
 Blessed Virgin in the very earliest Christian 
 writings, unless we can hold the works insignifi- 
 of St. Ephrem the Syrian to be genuine SvIm. 
 throughout, and not to have been inter- Q 0 * e els 
 polated in a later age (while the principal tcTprote? 
 or sole ground of suspicion would be tants - 
 just precisely the inclusion of devotional expres¬ 
 sions and attributions which anticipate, and 
 perhaps exceed, the language of any subsequent 
 expositor of the glories of Mary; it is really a 
 petitio principii , even if it should turn out a true 
 surmise). The earliest Christian writings other- 
 
 7 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 wise that remain to us have nothing quite of this 
 kind. 1 There are those who find a similar differ¬ 
 ence in the New Testament, inasmuch as our 
 Lady occupies no prominence in the Gospel 
 narratives. However, if these narratives are 
 now thus established as of pretty nearly the date 
 that tradition assigns to them, and as of corre¬ 
 sponding authenticity and authority, it must 
 certainly be germane to discover what precisely 
 is the account they give of our Lord’s Mother. 
 It may not amount to much, but it is at any rate 
 very solid ground, which criticism will find now 
 difficult to disturb, and which is accepted by all 
 whose Christian faith is based upon the evidence 
 of Holy Scripture. Moreover, if the narratives 
 are of that early date, we may accept their account 
 as representing the tradition and belief then 
 current, so that we are enlightened regarding 
 devotion to the Blessed Virgin, whether it 
 existed or was wholly absent, or to what extent 
 it was carried, in Primitive Christianity. 
 
 There is, then, very little reference made to 
 the Blessed Virgin in any one of the Gospels, 
 or in fact in any portion of the New Testament. 
 It is commonly said by Protestants that she 
 appears only twice in the Ministry of our Lord—at 
 the marriage of Cana (John ii. i-ii), and again 
 
 1 But St. Epiphanius (a.d. 367) is conclusive and clear, 
 (See below, p. 64 note.) 
 
 8 
 
E VIDENTIAL VAL UE OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE 
 
 at Capharnaum, when 4 His mother and His 
 brethren 9 sought to speak with Him (Matt. xii. 
 46 -fin, etc.), and on both occasions only to meet 
 with rebuff. The Protestant account is not quite 
 accurate (there are other occasions), and the in¬ 
 terpretation of the narrative is unintelligent; but, 
 broadly, and on the whole, this account depicts 
 the effect of the Gospel record, and the force of 
 the argument is not met by particular exceptions 
 and corrections that could be made. Let anyone 
 reflect upon the position assigned to our Lady 
 in the existing Church, as sole or palmary Channel 
 of Grace, as Immaculate, as Queen of angels 
 and of men, as Gate of Heaven-—and he is possibly 
 struck with surprise that in our Lord’s Ministry 
 she should have apparently so little share, that 
 no Gospel writer should have apparently any 
 notion of the attitude, e.g., of St. Theresa : 4 1 
 never can think of them [of our Lord and His 
 Mother] apart,’ that the Evangelists should all of 
 them, speaking in general terms, leave her out of 
 the narrative. No better illustration can be 
 found of the failure of the Gospel than the fact 
 that, on the Feast of the Assumption of our 
 Lady, the Church has been driven to select for 
 the proper Gospel of the Feast a passage which 
 has no reference to her whatever, except for the 
 name of Mary occurring in it. 
 
 The case is not altered, but immensely 
 
 9 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 strengthened, when we pass on to consider the 
 other writings embraced in the New Testament. 
 The veneration of our Lady, the doctrine regard¬ 
 ing our Lady, seems to be wholly unknown to any 
 Apostolic writer. If it existed in that age, it may 
 well be thought beyond all bounds of probability 
 that St. Paul should leave it out, St. Paul who, in 
 one Epistle or another, not only elaborates an 
 extensive system of Christian doctrine, but who 
 has occasion to allude to the routine of ecclesias¬ 
 tical procedure and practice, over a considerable 
 area, to the Orders of the Ministry, the various 
 spiritual gifts, the status of widows and of virgins, 
 the behaviour and position of women generally 
 in the Church. How is it that he can help re¬ 
 minding his converts, if he believed it himself, 
 that our Lord was born of an immaculate 
 virgin ? Whereas his phrase is merely c born of 
 a woman ’ (Gal. iv. 4). The death of Christ, 
 the resurrection of Christ, are themes for him ; 
 but the birth of Christ, except that once, he 
 leaves out altogether. Nor does any other one 
 of the Epistolary writers anywhere allude to it. 
 How is it that St. Paul does not say to the widow 
 and the virgin that their model should be found 
 in her who was both in one ? The name of Mary 
 nowhere occurs in the rest of the New Testament; 
 after the first chapter of the Acts, there is no 
 mention at all of our Lord’s Mother. The 
 
 10 
 
EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 
 
 earliest expositors of the glories of Mary, when 
 they would find for them some foundation in 
 Scripture, had nothing better than the obscure 
 allusion of the Apocalypse (xii. i) to the 6 woman 
 clothed with the sun,’ which might be considered, 
 and was alternatively so interpreted, to refer 
 to our Mother the Church and not to our Mother 
 Mary. c Jerusalem which is above,’ exclaims 
 St. Paul (Gal. iv. 26), ‘is free, which is our 
 mother.’ He appears to have no knowledge of 
 the Mother of Christendom ! 
 
 Perhaps the Protestant case might be given 
 more powerfully, as it often is more coarsely, 
 than here. But there is no intention of burking 
 it. Let the reader supply for himself anything 
 whatever else of which he has cognizance, to 
 make the indictment the strongest that may be. 
 Here is only a coup d'ceil —nothing more intended, 
 and space not admitting more—but a coup Tceil 
 which should give the effect of the whole, easily 
 seized and possibly quite as urgent as detailed 
 description. Let the apparent failure of the 
 New Testament to correspond with the mind and 
 practice of the Church subsequently in our 
 Lady’s regard, stand prominently forward, nothing 
 extenuated, no urgence missed. We have the 
 Gospels, according to the preceding evaluation 
 of their authority as recognised at length in our 
 time, constituting sure ground, constituting our 
 
 11 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 earliest and palmary written record. We have 
 the history of the Acts of the Apostles, and the 
 allusions of Epistolary writers as further evidence 
 of the received opinion and belief of the earliest 
 Christian age. Is it possible within the covers 
 of the New Testament to find any rebutting 
 evidence against the prima facie appearance 
 that has been described—any evidence, however 
 small or scanty, of our Lady occupying at all the 
 position in the Apostolic Church which she held 
 in that of the sixth or thirteenth or nineteenth 
 centuries ? That is the enterprise in hand. 
 Let the Protestant take his look round, and give 
 his judgment at the outset, whether the attempt 
 seems to his apprehension likely to issue in mere 
 jugglery and legerdemain, or in the thinnest of 
 literary identification. Perhaps there may be 
 others besides Protestants who are inclined to 
 shake their heads, who would recommend reliance 
 rather on the doctrine of Development, on the 
 determination otherwise reached of the Church 
 having the truth with her, and thus on the later 
 testimony of established Doctors, a Cyril, a 
 Jerome, a Bernard of Clairvaux, on the existing 
 outcome of Christian doctrine. Still it is hoped 
 to carry the acquiescence of all such cavillers or 
 doubters along with the succeeding argument, 
 in most, if not in all, of its successive steps. 
 For evidence may be overlooked, and the effect 
 
 12 
 
E VIDENTIAL VAL UE OF HOL V SCRIPTURE 
 
 of evidence fail to be appreciated, without careful 
 study and reflection. Somewhere, the other day, 
 was quoted : 4 A violet beneath a mossy stone.’ 
 It is as easy to read amiss as to recollect amiss. 
 We read what we think is there, not what the 
 writer put there. We read Holy Scripture very 
 little as literature, for its historical sense and 
 connected meaning. 4 Understandest thou what 
 thou readest ? ’ (Acts viii. 30). 
 
 13 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE RECORD OF THE NATIVITY 
 
 Before making particular search in the New 
 Testament for indication of the same honour 
 ^ . that is now allowed to the Mother of our 
 
 Omissions 
 
 in the New Lord, one might reflect whether reason 
 could be assigned for any omission, and 
 what sort of veneration one expected to find. 
 The veneration and invocation of Saints are 
 generally absent from the New Testament. They 
 were things of later development, and originated, 
 as is well known, in the commemoration of 
 martyrs and preservation of their relics. 1 In 
 the first age there was, indeed, the beginning 
 (Matt. xiv. 12; Acts viii. 2), but there could be 
 no more; and a ritual order requires time in 
 which to be formed and to take its mould. A 
 further consideration arises. There is no doubt 
 that SS. Peter and Paul are set before us as 
 extraordinary personages, such as we call, and 
 as were even then called, Saints (Acts xii. 1-9 ; 
 
 1 See Cyprian Ep. 34, and Eusebius, Prcepar. Evang. 
 1. xiii. c. 11. 
 
 14 
 
THE RECORD OF THE NATIVITY 
 
 xxvii. 23-26, etc.), and their aid was not seldom 
 invoked (viii. 24 ; xx. 10, etc.). But SS. Peter and 
 Paul were still alive at the date of the record, 
 so that their veneration and invocation after 
 death, whether fitting or not, is necessarily left 
 without decisive reference. There is something 
 here which may reasonably modify our expecta¬ 
 tions regarding devotion to our Lady also in the 
 Apostolic age. The roll of the saints has scarcely 
 yet begun, and there can be expected no such 
 general practice of devotion and no such deter¬ 
 minate belief as that to which we are accustomed. 
 Because there are no commemorations in the 
 Mass, and no invocations in prayer, so neither is 
 the Mother of God invoked or commemorated. 
 
 And yet the case of the Blessed Virgin is 
 hardly covered by that of any lesser personage, 
 and ritual immaturity will not account for all. 
 The Queen of Saints should receive some superior 
 recognition without waiting for her assumption 
 into heaven ; she should be paid a peculiar 
 homage by the early disciples, by the Apostolic 
 Church. And this should appear in the record; 
 in the history of the Acts of Apostles, in the 
 writings of Apostles, there should be read some¬ 
 thing of her who was their head —Regina Aftosto- 
 lorum. 
 
 Or, again, omission, no doubt, is not to be 
 taken as equivalent to rejection. If Mary’s name 
 
 15 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 is absent, there are other blanks to fill up no 
 less inexplicable. For example, the doctrine o^ 
 Purgatory and the Sacrament of Penance obtain 
 no direct mention. The Sacrifice of the Mass 
 belongs exclusively to St. Paul (i Cor. v. 7), or 
 possibly to the Apocalypse (v. 6) ; it is presumed 
 in the Gospels in the institution of the Eucharist, 
 but not, perhaps, directly expressed, 1 and it is 
 nowhere else affirmed or explained in our Lord’s 
 recorded discourse. There are several other 
 things belonging to faith or religious observance 
 which obtain only an occasional reference, or are 
 recognised by inference alone ; as the celibacy 
 of the clergy, the religious state, the baptism of 
 infants, the use of chrism, etc. The Protestant 
 will no doubt say that all these omissions stand 
 on the same ground with that of the dignity and 
 office of the Blessed Virgin, being the whole of 
 them additional to the first institution, and un¬ 
 mentioned by Apostles and Evangelists because 
 unknown to them. In the first place, however, 
 the point argued is no more than that they do 
 rest on the same ground. It is not only for the 
 one but for the others that we should have to 
 account. Either all are to be rejected as not 
 belonging to Christianity, or we must admit, if 
 any of them do so belong, that the witness of 
 
 1 Some writers endeavour to give a sacrificial sense to the 
 employment of Troielv and o yd/nvi)<ris, but it is somewhat forced. 
 
 16 
 
THE RECORD OF THE NATIVITY 
 
 Scripture is meagre or incomplete in those par¬ 
 ticular instances. 
 
 It must be recollected also that some among 
 Protestants would extend the omissions or 
 ambiguities still further. The doctrine of the 
 Most Holy Trinity is recognised only by infer¬ 
 ence. If the word 4 Transubstantiation 5 is not 
 found in Scripture, neither is 4 Homoousios, 5 
 which, being Greek, would seem to have a better 
 chance of inclusion. Because our Lord promises 
 that the Father will send the Holy Ghost 
 (John xiv. 26), and also that He will Himself 
 send the Paraclete, who is the same as the Holy 
 Ghost (xvi. 7), it is a very wide leap to consider 
 it declared that the Holy Ghost in His essential 
 Being 4 proceeds from the Father and the Son. 5 
 It is not only the subsidiary articles—if such 
 they may be called—of the Christian faith whose 
 omission or scanty mention we may find dis¬ 
 turbing. 4 The dignity of the Blessed Virgin does 
 not belong to the New Testament, not clearly, 
 not in the fulness of the modern assertion. It is 
 not the primitive Christianity ; it must be scored 
 out. 5 Shall we, then, also score out the several 
 articles of the Nicene Creed for the same in¬ 
 sufficiency ? 
 
 No; there are certainly these two canons. 
 The observance of the Apostolic age cannot be, 
 is precluded from being, the same in every 
 
 17 
 
 c 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 particular as the later devotion ; the later devo¬ 
 tion is not therefore condemned for the earlier 
 lack of it. Also the devotion, in its simple 
 primitive shape, may be existent in the Apo¬ 
 stolic age, and need not therefore find men¬ 
 tion in Holy Scripture ; on the contrary, it is 
 the style of Holy Scripture to omit such things. 
 We should be content with suggestion, with 
 constructive evidence, with slight and incidental 
 allusion. It is not only in regard to the dignity 
 of our Lady that this necessity occurs. 
 
 At the same time that the absence of the 
 Blessed Virgin’s personality, whether from Gospel 
 But our or Epistle, supposing there is such 
 ‘Motherof absence, and to the extent of such 
 fn°clrna- he absence, would be particularly unex- 
 tion. pected and surprising. But in fact 
 
 the attributes and the place in Redemption 
 which the Church assigns to her, are no less 
 assigned in the record, and it is untrue that the 
 Gospels make such total omission of reference 
 as is supposed. We should observe what and 
 where precisely the omission is. It is in the 
 record of our Lord’s Ministry, or it is in the 
 extant writings of Apostles. 
 
 But, to begin with, the Birth of our Lord is 
 recorded by two Evangelists with some fulness, 
 and it cannot be denied that the personality 
 of His Mother Mary is very prominent indeed 
 
 18 
 
THE RECORD OF THE NATIVITY 
 
 in this portion of the narrative. St. Matthew 
 describes the Child that was born of her, without 
 any qualification or limitative phrase, as being 
 God—‘ Immanu-El, God-with-us.’ The Child had 
 no human father ! Nor was this all. The place 
 of the human father is asserted with the same 
 categorical directness to have been taken by the 
 Holy Ghost — 6 that which is begotten in her is 
 of the Holy Ghost.’ The Evangelist gives these 
 stupendous particulars, not as initiating a fresh 
 view, without any special accent or introduction, 
 as recording merely the received account, the 
 current tradition, the general understanding of 
 the Church of that early age. The age is that of 
 the Apostles or immediately succeeding it. The 
 representation is that of the iVpostoiic teaching, 
 lifted intact out of the year of the first Christian 
 Pentecost into whatever year—recent, observe, 
 and not to be postponed to the fifth or sixth 
 century—when it was written. How, we may 
 boldly ask, did the Evangelist, how did the 
 general body of the disciples of Christ, regard a 
 woman about whom they believed this stupendous 
 history ? 
 
 Do not let it be said that such a birth is nothing 
 especially strange in its own period, that it be¬ 
 longed to the surrounding paganism as a common¬ 
 place. Christianity does not belong to paganism. 
 It first takes root and germinates in the Jewish 
 
 19 c 2 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 people, who are rigid monotheists, who would 
 not dare to image, who would turn with horror 
 from, such a legend. God to the Jew is not a 
 magnified man ; He is formless, He is a Spirit, a 
 Mystery, whose Name none may utter. ‘ Son 
 of God 5 in J ewish phrase meant nothing thus 
 literal and real (John x. 34, 35) ; or it belongs* 
 as in Christian theology, to the arcana of Deity 
 (Dan. iii. 25). Observe that the record of this 
 Gospel is of early date ; the stamp of its J ewish 
 birth is still upon the Church; it is the tradition 
 received by Jews and from Jews that is re¬ 
 corded. 
 
 Or again. What is paganism at the Christian 
 era ? You may assert Julius Caesar to be divine, 
 divus Iulius , and not without reason from your 
 pagan standpoint, 1 and may offer incense to his 
 statue. But it is flattery, it is hyperbole, it is 
 theosophy; it is not belief. Here was a faith 
 for which many suffered death with torment 
 rather than qualify it, the faith that Jesus was 
 God made flesh of the Virgin Mary; and that 
 faith hung from the record of His birth— c be¬ 
 gotten of the Holy Ghost.’ As a belief— to die 
 for—it has nothing to do with the character of 
 that age, with the easy apotheoses of that age ; 
 
 1 J. A. Froude, in his Caesar , draws a profane parallel 
 between his hero and our Lord, as a literary tour de force, 
 perhaps. 
 
 20 
 
THE RECORD OF THE NATIVITY 
 
 it has to do with human nature, we may judge 
 it as the case of you or of me. How should we 
 regard the woman who bore a child and re¬ 
 mained virgin, we believing it ? With uplifted 
 hands, with astonishment, with awe. Add that 
 her Husband is the Creator of the universe, that 
 her Child is the Son of God, that she is bride of 
 the Holy Ghost, let this also be our belief, the 
 current and credited understanding—we should 
 hardly dare to go within ten feet of her, we should 
 enter her presence with abashed gaze, even if we 
 did not kneel before her. Will anyone say that 
 this is not so ? Bride of the Holy Ghost—you 
 may phrase it as you please, but the fact is 
 that, the recorded fact, beyond evasion, the fact 
 of that first age, for Apostles, for Evangelists, 
 for all the first disciples or the later converts. 
 And it is a matter of human nature. As it 
 would be for you or me, it was for them. If 
 they believed her the Mother of God, they had 
 awe, inevitable inward awe. If they did not 
 believe her so, they were not Christians. 
 
 So much is reached without going beyond the 
 first chapter of the first of the Gospels. Is it not 
 fairly all there ? Can anyone pretend that any¬ 
 thing has been read into the narrative which it 
 does not contain ? On the contrary, the meaning 
 lies quite on the surface, and it is astonishing 
 that anyone should be able to miss it. But the 
 
 21 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Gospel is a familiar book, which we were first 
 acquainted with before we had reached sufficient 
 years to reflect, and as it is familiar now, we 
 read it without reflection. It is a sacred book, 
 which we read as a religious exercise, and its 
 language belongs to our religious phraseology, 
 which we take as matter of course, without re¬ 
 flecting what is its real effect and connected 
 sense. And still less do we commonly think of 
 going beyond the written text to discern the 
 mind of the writer and his attitude towards the 
 events and circumstances of which he writes. 
 The Evangelist is representative of his age, and 
 we ought thus to obtain from him, not only the 
 picture of our Lord’s life, but another picture of 
 the Christian community in the years imme¬ 
 diately succeeding. Thus, to take an illustration 
 from pagan history. In the pages of the historian 
 Livy we have a picturesque account of the early 
 years of Rome ; we have also a picture of the 
 attitude of the Romans in the Augustan age 
 towards their early history. The first account 
 is hardly at all historical and of little importance 
 for us, but the other picture is historically im¬ 
 portant and quite authentic. You grant the 
 facts of the Gospel narrative to be true history, 
 or you may view them critically. But, either 
 way, you should accept St. Matthew’s account 
 with the utmost confidence as depicting the atti- 
 
 22 
 
THE RECORD OF THE NATIVITY 
 
 tude and belief of the time in which he wrote, 
 which is the primitive age of Christianity. 
 
 St. Luke’s Gospel makes additions to what is 
 believed the earlier narrative of St. Matthew. 
 These additions are very probably new ‘Fuiiof 
 matter, new to the Church at large, new the Annun- 
 even to Apostles and original disciples. ciatl0n - 
 The tradition is that at a somewhat later 
 date, when the Crucifixion of our Lord and the 
 events immediately following it were not merely 
 over, but belonged to a receding past, St. Luke 
 was brought into constant and intimate associa¬ 
 tion with the Mater desolata , and that for the 
 beginning of his Gospel she was his informer. 
 About this we may take our choice, and the 
 argument is assisted either way. The tradition, 
 if accepted, allows an importance to our Lady 
 within the Church beyond the Protestant notion, 
 if she was thus placed under the special charge 
 of the future Evangelist, and if she was specially 
 consulted in his work. If the tradition is not 
 accepted, the additions of St. Luke become, as 
 the account of St. Matthew, representative of the 
 current belief; and, even with the tradition, a 
 large portion of St. Luke’s narrative would still 
 be of that character. This is worth while observ¬ 
 ing. But in the argument the critical position 
 is allowed so far, and St. Luke’s authorship set 
 aside (though the date of composition does not 
 
 23 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 necessarily preclude it for modern research). 
 Consequently there is argumentatively no tradi¬ 
 tion of the sort to be reckoned with, and for the 
 purposes of the argument the other alterna¬ 
 tive is available in its entirety ; the language 
 of the Gospel expresses the public existing 
 belief. 
 
 In St. Luke the marvel of the birth of Christ 
 is artistically heightened—the design is quite on 
 the surface—by being brought into juxtaposition 
 with the other marvel of the birth of His fore¬ 
 runner, the Baptist, the circumstances of which 
 are accordingly detailed. St. John the Baptist 
 is, like Isaac, the child of aged parents, the 
 child thus of miracle, the child of promise. But 
 he is conceived and born in the natural way of 
 generation. His birth is a sign to the Virgin 
 (i. 36, 45) of the reality of the angelic message 
 to herself, as the less is a sign of the greater, as 
 Jonas of the Resurrection of Christ (Matt. xii. 
 40), or as Elias of the Baptist himself (xvii. 12); 
 his separate life is coincident with, if not due to, 
 her visitation (Luke i. 41, 44); his mother under 
 divine inspiration (ver. 41) abases herself before 
 the future mother of her Lord as before a royal 
 personage. How Mary conceived by the Holy 
 Ghost, is again declared in the most awe-inspiring 
 language—could we but rid ourselves of the 
 attitude of religious reading, and read the Gospel 
 
 24 
 
the record of the nativity 
 
 as literature with natural apprehension and 
 reflection. Who is she who can be brought into 
 such relation with the Supreme Majesty of the 
 Universe— c the Holy Ghost shall come upon 
 thee and the power of the Most High shall over¬ 
 shadow thee ’ (ver. 35)—and not, as in pagan 
 fable, be consumed to ashes in the intensity of 
 the white original light of flame (Exod. xxiv. 
 17) ? Compare, e.g., the attitude of Agar (Gen. 
 xvi. 13), of Jacob (xxxii. 30), of Moses (Exod. 
 xxxiii. 20-23), of Elias (3 Kings xix. 13), or of 
 Manue (Judges xiii. 22). 
 
 All the attributes and titles held by the Mother 
 of God in the confession of the Catholic Church 
 are first given her by the angel of the Annuncia¬ 
 tion and by the sequence of St. Luke’s gospel. 
 The epithet c full of grace 5 (KsxapLToofxsvTi, 
 Luke i. 28) is not open to misunderstanding, 
 however inadequately expressed in English 
 phrase. We have to conceive what the expres¬ 
 sion was in the language used by the angel, of 
 which the Greek of St. Luke is in the first place 
 a translation. 1 It is not, as in the expression, 
 
 1 The Greek x a ?P e Ktx a P iro} P-* v 'P appears to be a jeu de 
 mots, but probably attempts to give what was a verbal 
 identity in the original. In the Old Testament we do not 
 find any form of salutation in use, not even Shalom (Luke 
 xxiv. 36) in the earlier time, and Shalom is not x a 'ipeLv 
 (cp. Matt, xxviii. 9). We might conjecture the Hebrew 
 verb Hanan twice occurring, or combined with the cognate 
 substantive Hen or other derivative. The verbal identity 
 
 25 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 God be gracious to thee 5 (Gen. xliii. 29), or 4 If 
 I have found grace in thy sight 5 (xviii. 3), in 
 spite of the angel actually using the latter phrase 
 (ver. 30); which is not, therefore, a bare repeti¬ 
 tion of the first address. Rather, as in 6 The 
 Lord will give grace to the meek 5 (Prov. iii. 34), 
 and 4 Grace is poured on thy lips 5 (Ps. xliv. 3). 
 The word 4 grace, 5 independently of St. 
 
 Paul’s elucidation of it, is perfectly determinate 
 in New Testament usage; and the verb is cognate, 
 expressing the bestowal of grace (See Eph. i. 6, 
 a locus classicus, which puts the matter beyond 
 dispute). The participle, then, expresses that 
 already, at the time of the Annunciation and 
 anterior to it, Mary^has been given some extra¬ 
 ordinary endowment, qualifying her for the pre¬ 
 rogative of becoming Mother of God and for the 
 part which she was thus called to play in the 
 order of Redemption. Mary is one who 4 has 
 been given grace, 5 a special gift of God (ver. 28), 
 because she 4 found grace, 5 favour, in the sight 
 of God, or perhaps she found this grace because 
 she had been given the other. In justification, 
 then, of the translation gratia ftlena> 4 full of grace, 5 
 it may be remarked that /cexapiTcofisvT} may 
 easily be equivalent to irsirX^pwfisvT] apiros , and 
 only differ from the attribute 7 rXyprjs dpiro 5, 
 
 or jeu de mots is continued in ver. 30 : ‘ thou hast found 
 grace (x“P £>/ ) with God.’ 
 
 26 
 
THE RECORD OF THE NATIVITY 
 
 which is applied to the Divine Word—a great 
 difference, however—as in the one case the fulness 
 of grace is bestowed and in the other original. 
 This necessary and proper distinction is no doubt 
 missed both in the Latin and in the English, 
 but is a commonplace in Catholic instruction, 
 and fully understood by the merest child who 
 says the Hail Mary. 
 
 Mary is called 4 blessed ’ by Elizabeth on the 
 occasion of her visitation. It is futile to attempt 
 here any distinction between the verbal „ 
 
 J _ ‘ Blessed' ; 
 
 adjective (ver. 68) and the participle, as mthe 
 the same word is applied in the imme¬ 
 diate context to our Lord also : 4 Blessed— svXoyr]- 
 fjLsvr ]—art thou among women, and blessed— 
 svXoyri/AEvos —is the fruit of thy womb 5 (ver. 42). 
 The epithet belongs to Catholic devotion, and is 
 common in the ordinary language of Catholics. 
 It is avoided by Protestants, and excites un¬ 
 reasonable antipathy, considering that it origi¬ 
 nates in the Gospel narrative. If it is blame¬ 
 worthy in the Church’s use, it must likewise be 
 so in the mouth of St. Elizabeth, who in thus 
 addressing her visitor is declared to have been 
 4 filled with the Holy Ghost.’ 
 
 Besides the title 4 Mother of God ’ and the 
 appellatives 4 blessed ’ and 4 full of grace,’ Catholics 
 call Mary pre-eminently 4 Virgin,’ and style her 
 4 Immaculate.’ The first of these titles is already 
 
 27 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 proclaimed in the prophecy quoted by St. Mat¬ 
 thew, ‘ Behold, the Virgin shall be with child 5 
 , Immacu _ (i- 23 ; cp. Is. vii. 14; in the Hebrew also 
 
 virgin ’ • ar ^ c ^ e prefixed), where the addition 
 
 in the of the article seems to make her pre¬ 
 narrative # ... 
 
 through- eminently virgin, Virgo virginum , or, at 
 any rate, to denote one who should be 
 distinguished above others by the name, as being 
 her proper designation. 1 St. Matthew adds that 
 she was married to Joseph only in name (vv. 18, 
 25).] This becomes more unmistakable in St. 
 Luke’s narrative (if we were not so obtuse, and 
 if we could read it as literature), where, at the 
 Annunciation, Mary replies to the angel: ‘How 
 shall this be, seeing I know not a man ? ’ The 
 sentence must mean that she is vowed to per¬ 
 petual virginity, or else it has no meaning. 
 ‘ Thou shall conceive, Mary, for thou art be¬ 
 trothed.’ There is no meaning in the reply, ‘ I 
 am a maid,’ because she is about to be a wife. 
 The reply must be : 6 Though a wife, I remain a 
 maid, and nothing else shall I ever be.’ Virgo 
 prius ae posterius is the account of both Evan¬ 
 gelists, and, in the version of the third, beyond 
 
 1 There is no possible evasion by the supposition of a 
 generic use of the article, which is unknown in Hebrew. 
 The ‘ Douay * English version omits the article as translating 
 the Latin ‘ Vulgate/ but it may be feared that the Protes¬ 
 tant ‘ Authorized Version ’ had a different reason for the 
 same omission. 
 
 28 
 
THE RECORD OF THE NATIVITY 
 
 evasion or misunderstanding. To think of all 
 that has been written on this head, whether the 
 4 brethren ’ of our Lord (Matt. xii. 46, etc.) were 
 the natural children of Mary and Joseph, and 
 about several other things, by Protestants ! And 
 it was plain in the Evangelical account—and 
 what else is there anywhere except the Evan¬ 
 gelical account to go upon ?—that Joseph, as 
 constantly affirmed in Catholic tradition, know¬ 
 ingly married a consecrated virgin, being 4 a just 
 man ’ (i. 19), and his 4 fear,’ when he knew that 
 she was pregnant—every other interpretation 
 being ipsis verbis excluded—was lest it should be 
 supposed that, being thus consecrated, she had 
 been his wife otherwise than in name (See Judges 
 xi. 39). This matter also may be somewhat 
 obscure in the sentence of St. Matthew’s gospel; 
 but St. Luke’s account, as above, gives the key. 
 But, even in St. Matthew, the ordinary Protestant 
 explanation is as clearly excluded as anything 
 can be. For how, if the case were ordinary, 
 would it less 4 expose ’ (TrapaSscy/xaTLcrai) Mary, 
 if she were divorced, that is, in our manner of 
 expression, if the betrothal (i. 18) were not com¬ 
 pleted by marriage ? Surely this would be pre¬ 
 cisely what would 4 expose ’ her, and she would 
 not be exposed without it! But only an excep¬ 
 tional Protestant will admit that he spoke hastily 
 in this matter, as he did also in the former. 
 
 29 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Clear both densities out of the mind, and it is 
 hardly calculable how much advance is made 
 towards appreciation of the simple witness of 
 Evangelists to the magnificence of Mary. 
 
 The immaculate sanctity of Mary is suggested 
 by her pre-eminent virginity, as above, by her 
 virgin consecration, and still more as she is 
 entitled 4 full of grace 5 and has 4 found grace 
 with God 5 (Luke i. 30). Those who thus receive 
 4 grace for grace’ are saints, as Noe was ‘per¬ 
 fect in his generations ’ (Gen. vi. 9; cp. v. 22, 
 24), and 4 found grace in the eyes of the Lord ’ 
 (vi. 8); or as Daniel was 4 homo dilectionum ’ 1 
 (Dan. x. 11), or as Job was 4 a simple and an 
 upright man ’ (Job ii. 3), these three singled out 
 as the favourites of heaven and prevailing inter¬ 
 cessors, if any (Ezech. xiv. 14, 20). Nor yet had 
 any been so highly favoured as Mary, who was 
 to bring forth the Desire of all nations ; Regina 
 sanctorum omnium , therefore, supreme among 
 Saints, immaculate. It need make no difference 
 to the truth and propriety of any epithet or title 
 applied to the Blessed Virgin, though it should 
 have been neither written nor equivalently ex¬ 
 pressed in the sacred narrative. It is not un¬ 
 suitable to speak of St. John as 4 the divine,’ 
 and it is theologically true to call God 4 in¬ 
 divisible.’ But neither of these words occurs, in 
 
 1 ‘ A man of desires.’ 
 
 30 
 
THE RECORD OF THE NATIVITY 
 
 fact or in sense, anywhere in the New Testament. 
 It cannot be too often repeated that the testi¬ 
 mony of Scripture is neither final nor complete. 
 The] testimony, however, to its extent is valid 
 and preferential, not to be ignored; our earliest, 
 our most trustworthy, testimony. And the word 
 ‘ virgin ’ and the sense of 4 immaculate 5 do belong 
 to the first chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke. 
 The language belongs to the writers of the 
 Gospels, it belongs to their age, which, if not 
 the Apostolic, immediately succeeds the Apo¬ 
 stolic, and is the direct creation of Apostles. 
 4 Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. 
 Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is 
 the fruit of thy womb. Holy Mary, Mother of 
 God, pray for us sinners 5 —might have been 
 addressed to the Blessed Virgin during her life¬ 
 time by anyone of the Eleven, and such speech 
 was according to their mind to address to her, 1 
 They could not have shrunk from using the 
 language, they must have felt themselves happy 
 to use the language, which was consecrated by 
 the mouth of an angel of God. And they be¬ 
 lieved it to have been so consecrated, because an 
 Evangelist believed it, and what he believed they 
 also believed. The manner of address was not 
 otherwise than according to their national style, 
 
 1 In the Protevangelium Iacobi Mary is continually thus 
 addressed—as a kind of scenic characterisation. 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 because St. Elizabeth, who was one of their 
 company, employed it (cp. Gen. xiv. 19, 20 ; 
 Ruth iii. 10 ; 1 Kings xv. 13, etc.). ‘ Pray for 
 us sinners.’ As the queen-mother Bethsabee was 
 moved to intercede with her son Solomon (3 Kings 
 ii. 17). Or as God accepted the prayer of Job 
 (Job xlii. 9), which he offered for his offending 
 friends. As St. Paul asked the prayers of his 
 Ephesian converts (Eph. vi. 19), or of his ‘ dearly 
 beloved ’ Philemon (Philem. 22)—‘ Pray for me a 
 sinner ’ (1 Tim. i. 15)—and believed that through 
 their prayers he would gain from God additional 
 grace. 
 
 32 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE RECORD OF THE LIFE 
 
 The story of the birth of Christ becomes in 
 St. Luke’s narrative one of poetry and romance— 
 the arrival at Bethlehem, the birth in The virgin 
 the stable, the adventure of the shep- and ChlkL 
 herds, the multitude of singing angels, the Babe 
 lying in the manger. This romantic aspect had 
 not escaped altogether the earlier historian, who 
 told of the journey of the Magi following the 
 sign of the star to adore the new-born King in 
 Jewry. We must certainly inquire, in what 
 character does Mary appear in these scenes ; is 
 she conspicuous or thrown into the shade ? In 
 the painting of the ‘Adoration of the Shepherds,’ 
 by Correggio, the glory of the face of the Divine 
 Infant is reflected in that of His Mother as she 
 bends over Him. Do the narrators, then, con¬ 
 ceive of the Christmas marvel and mystery 
 ending in the Babe ? 
 
 We may, in the first place, again rest the 
 evidence on human nature. For nothing is so 
 universally and properly human as birth, unless 
 
 33 d 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 it is death. In any birth, surely the mother 
 has her part in the honour and rejoicing. We 
 do not need to investigate the usage of the Jews ; 
 it is enough to know our own customs at the 
 present time ; human nature does not alter. 
 4 God,’ said royal Sara at the birth of Isaac, 
 4 has made me to laugh, so that all they that hear 
 will laugh with me ’ (Gen. xxi. 6). When John 
 the Baptist was born, it is recorded that his 
 mother’s 4 neighbours and kinsfolk heard how 
 the Lord had showed great mercy upon her, and 
 they rejoiced with her ’ (Luke i. 58). 4 Thus 
 
 has the Lord dealt with me,’ said Elizabeth, 4 in 
 the days wherein He looked upon me to take 
 away my reproach among men ’ (ver. 25). So 
 Mary said : 4 He that is mighty— El Gibbor — 
 has done to me great things.’ 
 
 The shepherds 4 came with haste and found 
 Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in the 
 manger.’ The Magi 4 saw the young Child and 
 Mary His mother,’ 1 and poured out their treasures 
 before the Child in His Mother’s lap. This was 
 the King of the Jews whom they had come to 
 adore. And who was she ? The Queen-Mother, 
 therefore, and that to the Oriental mind. We 
 have to think of an Atossa, an Athalia, a Semi- 
 
 1 It is illustrative of the mind of either Evangelist that 
 Joseph is named second in the one passage, and is not men¬ 
 tioned at all in the other. _^ 
 
 34 
 
THE RECORD OF THE LIFE 
 
 ramis. The Magi, who had faith to recognise 
 the Monarch in the stable, were able also to 
 bow themselves before the Queen-Mother (3 Kings 
 
 ii. 19), though shorn of her royal state. Though 
 her raiment be not of the gold of Ophir, yet she 
 is ‘ glorious within 5 (Ps. xlv. 13). 
 
 Both of the Evangelists of the Nativity give 
 genealogies of Jesus, which trace His descent 
 from David (See also Matt. xx. 30; xxi. The Queen- 
 9, etc). There would not, perhaps, Mother ' 
 be any difficulty in obtaining such a genealogy, 
 as the Jews above every people were particular 
 in observing their family descent, and the con¬ 
 nection once made with the reigning line in 
 Jechonias, the last King of Judah before the 
 Captivity, or in Zorobabel of the Return (1 Esdras 
 
 iii. 2, etc.), or in whatever last legitimate descend¬ 
 ant of David actually reigned in Jerusalem, 
 the' rest became easy, as not being a family 
 matter any longer, but belonging to the chronicles 
 of the nation. The difficulty, however, of the 
 genealogies in the Evangelical narratives is 
 two-fold ; first, that the genealogy in St. Matthew 
 J s not identical with that given by St. Luke; 
 and secondly, much more bewildering, that 
 both genealogies are traced through Joseph ! 
 Now Joseph according to both Evangelists is 
 not the father of Jesus, and St. Luke at the 
 beginning of his genealogy (iii. 23) expressly 
 
 35 D2 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 recalls this. The general explanation is either 
 that Mary is of the same family as Joseph, so 
 that the genealogy of both is after one or two 
 generations the same, or else it is really the 
 genealogy of Mary that is given, and Joseph’s 
 name as the husband’s is substituted for hers. 1 
 The latter explanation may receive colour from 
 the expression of St. Matthew: ‘Joseph the 
 husband of Mary ’ (i. 16). At any rate, if Jesus 
 is the son of David, Mary must be in the royal 
 line, and this is intended by the genealogy. 
 Thus to the Evangelists, and therefore, accord¬ 
 ing to the argument already expressed more 
 than once, to the Apostles and early disciples, 
 equally as to the Magi, Mary would be the Queen- 
 Mother. The current belief and opinion is that 
 our Lord sits upon the throne of His father 
 David (Luke i. 27 ; Acts ii. 30), that is to say, 
 that He is the de jure King of Judaea at that 
 
 1 Although among the Jews, where there was more than 
 one family, a man was distinguished by the name of his 
 mother (3 Kings i. 5, etc.), or might be so for particular 
 dignity (2 Kings ii. 13. Cp. 1 Paralip. ii. 16); yet generally 
 he was the son of his father (1 Kings x. 21, etc.), even of his 
 legal though not actual father (Deut. xxv. 6). In the 
 succession of the crown females are excluded (Athalia, in 
 4 Kings xi. 1-16, a clear illegality). Accordingly, even if 
 Mary belonged to the elder branch, and was therefore, 
 according to our notions, in the direct line, still the succession 
 would be reckoned through Joseph, and our Lord’s claim 
 to be ‘ King of the Jews ’ would to the popular mind be as 
 son of His putative father. (See the Note at the end of the 
 chapter.) 
 
 36 
 
THE RECORD OF THE LIFE 
 
 epoch. Mary is, then, of the blood royal in 
 direct descent, and this is appreciated by the 
 early Christian community with all the national, 
 the tribal, the family intensity of the Jewish 
 mind. Mary is no mere peasant woman to the 
 Evangelists, and therefore to the primitive 
 Church, but as Bethsabee herself or as Sara. 
 Being so esteemed—and is there any room for 
 supposing her not to be ?—if Mary is of little 
 importance, if she is passed over in the history, 
 it does seem very extraordinary. And yet any 
 earthly title must be of infinitesimal worth as 
 compared with the dignity of Mother of the King 
 of kings. 
 
 St. Luke records the subsequent presentation 
 of the Holy Child in the Jewish Temple, where 
 He is greeted by Simeon and Anna, The p re - 
 and neither there does His mother pass i^the 10 ” 
 without observation (ii. 34, 35). She lemple ’ 
 is connected, we discern, by the prophetic utter¬ 
 ance of Simeon (‘ by the Spirit,’ ver. 27) with 
 the future conflict of the Light of the world (ver. 
 32), who will be ‘ a sign to be contradicted, and 
 through her soul also the sword shall pierce ’ 
 (ver. 34). The Virgin and Child are not to be 
 separated in the future years. 1 When the days 
 
 1 It should be observed that Simeon has no word for 
 Joseph. After the Babe there is only the Mother in the 
 tableau. 
 
 37 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS - ” 
 
 of His manifestation are arrived, when He is 
 become the Light of the Gentiles and the Glory 
 of Israel, when He is set up for the fall and 
 resurrection of many, in His public life, in the 
 work He has come down from heaven to do, as 
 Teacher and Redeemer of mankind, then, too, 
 His Mother is to be throughout concerned. A 
 prophetic utterance, recorded as such by the 
 Evangelist, and of its actual accomplishment the 
 recorder is aware (for if known to have failed, 
 would the prophecy be recalled ?). A record, 
 then, to be noted and to find its application in 
 the sequel. Our Lady is to have part not only in 
 the Birth but in the Passion, and this is told us 
 in the record of the Birth. Along with his con¬ 
 fession of the Mother of God, the believing 
 student is committed to that of the Mother of 
 Sorrows also. 
 
 For the present, however, the stress of the 
 argument lies here—what is the attitude of mind 
 of the Evangelists in recording these several 
 particulars of the birth and infancy ; how did 
 they feel towards the person of Mary, who had 
 shared in all these wonders and glories ? And 
 thence—what was the feeling of the Apostolic 
 age towards the Mother of Jesus ? It is no later 
 development or perversion that worships the 
 Virgin and Child. We are set on to do it by the 
 Gospel narrative of the birth of Jesus— Venite , 
 
 38 
 
THE RECORD OF THE LITE 
 
 adoremus, in Bethlehem . 1 The beauty, the joy, 
 the glory, of the Nativity was known to Apostles, 
 to the first disciples, to the Church of the first 
 age. When they listened to the words of the 
 Divine Master, when in the after time they 
 celebrated the memory of His atoning Death 
 and triumphant Resurrection from the tomb, 
 their thoughts turned also sometimes meanwhile 
 to His Incarnation, His Infancy, and His Birth. 
 The Mother who had borne and nursed Him, in 
 whose arms He had lain (Luke xi. 27), was still 
 amongst them. Could she be unregarded ? Was 
 she unregarded ? How, if she was, did Evan¬ 
 gelists thus write of her ? It is hardly a matter of 
 inference, it is not mere constructive argument, it 
 belongs to the narrative, it belongs to the age 
 of the narrative ; as St. Theresa said, so must 
 Apostles and earliest disciples have said to them¬ 
 selves when they looked upon Mary : 4 I cannot 
 think of them, of Jesus and of Mary, apart. 5 
 They said to her, as Barac said to Debbora 
 (Judges iv. 8) : 4 If thou wilt go with me, then 
 I will go; but if thou wilt not go with me, then I 
 will not go. 5 
 
 It is an error, then, to object that our Lady 
 is scantily mentioned in the Gospel, whereas, 
 she occupies the entire foreground ; or that she 
 is depicted for us as 4 a pious peasant woman, 5 
 1 ‘ Come to Bethlehem, let us [there] adore.’ 
 
 39 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 and nothing more, not as the highest attainment 
 of human nature, which Catholics assert her to 
 be, whereas in the Gospel too she is Mother of 
 God, Virgin of virgins, full of grace, blessed as 
 her Son is blessed, and immaculate ; or that we 
 have no evidence of the Apostles and first dis¬ 
 ciples observing that reverence and devotion 
 towards her that later times show, whereas St. 
 Matthew and St. Luke so wrote of her and so 
 esteemed her, and what their attitude was, such 
 should be the attitude of the others ; or if not 
 St. Matthew and St. Luke, then at least some 
 writers of the first age, who reflected precisely 
 the Apostolic model. 
 
 The objection, however, may take another form. 
 Yes, Mary is naturally and necessarily mentioned 
 Absence of in the story of the Nativity, and as she 
 ourTord^ is the Mother of the Word made flesh, 
 forF?otes- s0 s ^ ie Mother of God, and her virtues 
 tants> are depicted and her high prerogatives 
 enlarged upon, when the birth of the Redeemer 
 is to be told. But that being done with, she 
 passes out of the history ; she passes out of it, as 
 the work of Christ, the revelation He made of the 
 Father and His redemption of human kind, are 
 matters in which she is not concerned; Christ, 
 as born into the world, has a human mother, but 
 Christ, as teaching, as working miracles, as dying 
 for men, has no more any relation to His family : 
 
 40 
 
THE RECORD OF THE LIFE 
 
 4 If anyone come to Me and hate not his father 
 and mother, he cannot be My disciple ’ (Luke 
 xiv. 26)— 4 Who is My mother and who are My 
 brethren ? And He stretched forth His hand 
 toward His disciples and said, Behold My mother 
 and My brethren 5 (Matt. xii. 48, 49). His 
 mother has nothing to do with the ministry of 
 Jesus ; she has passed out of His life. Therefore 
 she has no such part and office in our Redemption 
 and our Christianity as Catholics pretend ; the 
 exaltation, the devotional inclusion, of Mary is 
 a later perversion, without any warrant in the 
 Gospel. 
 
 When thus amended, shorn of its lofty abso¬ 
 lutism—no vague generalization now, but precise 
 and definite statement—there is not so i gnora tio 
 much to cavil at in the representation ; elenchu 
 though there is still something, and certainly 
 we have here also to sweep on one side the 
 inferences and explanations, the commentary and 
 excursus, by which the text is accompanied. 
 For, granting that our Lady’s part in the Gospel 
 ceases with the infancy of her Son, still she has 
 so far a part; it does not alter a syllable of what 
 has been already written ; if she is known to 
 the Apostles—and she is known—and not only 
 amid the scenes of our Lord’s life, but if also in 
 especial subsequently to the Ascension, it follows 
 that she must be regarded with reverence and 
 
 4i 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 devotion as the Mother of the Lord, and there 
 is evidence that she was so regarded in the 
 language of the Evangelists in this beginning 
 of the Gospel, in their account of the Nativity. 
 Devotion to the Blessed Virgin would still belong, 
 and would be proved to belong, to the Apostolic 
 age. It cannot be denied, and there is nothing 
 lost by admitting, that in the Evangelical record 
 Mary is not allowed to have any conspicuous 
 part in the Ministry of Jesus, that is to say, in 
 His teaching, His working of miracles, His 
 forming a company of disciples. ‘ Did you not 
 know,’ said the Child of twelve years old, ‘ that 
 in what is My Father’s, in that I must be ’ (Luke 
 ii. 49) ? 1 They should have known, therefore, 
 where to find Him, in the Temple of His Father. 
 For that time, nevertheless, the Child went 
 down with them to Nazareth, and was subject 
 to them, and for eighteen more years was only 
 the Carpenter, both one and the other being the 
 dispensation He had received from His Father ; 
 at Nazareth He was still to be found ‘ in what 
 was His Father’s.’ For thirty years the work 
 
 1 eV to7s rod TlaTp6s jxov Set efoai fxe. The expression is so 
 general as to have a double meaning ; primarily, ‘ in My 
 Father’s house [where I am],’ but further of any and every 
 occasion in the future, of which the present may be taken 
 as typical. * I am in the Temple because it is My Father’s 
 house, and the works that I do now or hereafter are those 
 of Him who sent Me ’ (John v. 36). 
 
 42 
 
THE RECORD OF THE LIFE 
 
 of God for Him was to be with His Mother. 
 But later His Mother might seek for Him in vain 
 among their kindred and acquaintance (Luke ii. 
 44) ; He was engaged in other affairs, which were 
 those of His Father as before, more pre-eminently 
 and specially than before. 
 
 But if Mary is excluded from the teaching and 
 the working of miracles and the forming of the 
 company of disciples, it makes no difference. 
 Because the office assigned her in the Church, 
 the devotion paid to her, is not as she is con¬ 
 ceived to have a share in any of these things, but 
 solely as she is recorded to be the Mother of God. 
 You must exclude her, not from the Ministry, but 
 from the Nativity, if you are to shake the Catholic 
 position. It is ignoratio elenchi. You admit her 
 in the Nativity. 
 
 But, further, it is not quite true that Mary 
 has no share in the Ministry, and it is certainly 
 untrue that she is recorded as being 
 
 & The 1 be- 
 
 absent from it. As she opens the ginning of 
 Gospel, so does she open the Ministry. 
 
 Was it said above that her mediation might be 
 sought as the queen-mother Betlisabee was 
 moved to intercede with her son Solomon ? 
 This precisely actual and parallel thing occurs 
 in the ‘beginning of miracles’ at Cana (John ii. 3). 
 And it is the same with the beginning of every¬ 
 thing, the beginning of the public life. The 
 
 43 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 first whom our Lord made disciples, St. Andrew 
 and (probably) St. John, came to His house and 
 were invited to stay (i. 39). This was the house 
 of Mary at Nazareth (Matt. ii. 23). The dis¬ 
 ciples, when they first knew their Master, knew 
 Him with His Mother. And thence at Cana, 
 Mary being a wedding-guest, ‘ both Jesus and 
 His disciples were invited.’ The public life of 
 our Lord takes origin, and is recorded as taking 
 origin, from Nazareth, from His association with 
 His Mother. His work was begun while still 
 with her. Before there was any Andrew or Philip 
 (John i. 43) in His company, those who would 
 reach the future Prophet of Galilee must come 
 to His Mother Mary : 4 Madonna, we would see 
 Jesus (xii. 21).’ Were there none who would 
 do the same in the early days at least of the 
 Galilean preaching ? 
 
 Thereafter also, as the three years succeed 
 and pass over, we need to bear in mind that the 
 disciples were not only men, but of 
 
 The women r J 
 
 from both sexes, perhaps especially women 
 (Luke viii. 2, 3 ; xxiii. 55. Comp. Acts 
 xvii. 4). Women are not allowed to rule in the 
 Christian economy (1 Tim. ii. 12), as neither in 
 the economy of nature (1 Cor. xi. 9, 10) ; but 
 they are an essential part of both, essential in 
 Christianity, free and honoured in Christianity, 
 as in no other religious or political system before 
 
 44 
 
THE RECORD OF THE LIFE 
 
 it. With the monk the nun ; with a St. Benedict 
 a St. Scholastica ; the priest instructs, but before 
 him the mother and the wife ; in the train of the 
 Apostle is ‘ a sister, a woman ’ (i Cor. ix. 5) ; 
 there is Jerusalem and the upper room, but there 
 is also Nazareth and Mary. 
 
 Nevertheless this feature might easily be 
 missed by an unreflecting reader. Only occa¬ 
 sionally is special mention made of women among 
 those who listened to our Lord’s teaching, as, e.g., 
 of her who sat at his feet and heard His word 
 (Luke x. 39). The Jews are Orientals, and, 
 according to the social customs of Orientalism, 
 women, except in the case of extraordinary 
 personages, are kept in the background. Thus 
 (John iv. 27) the disciples wonder that our Lord 
 should talk with a woman. Five thousand are 
 recorded as having been miraculously fed with 
 five loaves (Matt. xiv. 21, etc.), that is to say, 
 five thousand besides women and children; the 
 Evangelist only conceives the number of men as 
 worth recording. 
 
 But the reticence of the Gospel narratives 
 respecting the appearance of women, for which 
 there may be also other reasons outside the 
 nationality of the narrators, should not make 
 us miss the true facts of the case. When * dis¬ 
 ciples ’ are mentioned, it is always possible that 
 women are included, because sometimes the 
 
 45 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 context informs us that they are (comp. Acts i. 14 
 with ver. 15). And if thus women are present 
 on one or other occasion, though their presence 
 is not particularly mentioned, we may equally 
 include the Virgin Mary as Mary Magdalene 
 (Luke viii. 2), or as Mary the mother of James 
 and Joses (Matt, xxvii. 56). According to the 
 tradition His Mother was among the wailing 
 women who met our Lord as He bore His cross 
 to Calvary (Luke xxiii. 28). Then 4 a great 
 company of people and of women ’ are mentioned 
 as following. But are, then, women absent from 
 the multitude of Palm Sunday, when no mention 
 of them is made ? It is impossible to conclude 
 that it was so. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, 
 obtains occasional mention in the Gospel, and 
 when her name does not occur, we cannot still 
 conclude that she was not in the company. It is 
 apparent from the passages already noticed, 
 when His mother and His brethren inquire for 
 Him, that our Lord, even after He has fully 
 entered upon His ministry, is still not altogether 
 severed from His home (He is perhaps staying 
 there in John vii. 1-9). The holy women, if 
 left without mention in the rest of the narrative, 
 appear at any rate by name on the scene at the 
 close (Matt, xxvii. 56 ; Mark xv. 40 ; Luke xxiii. 
 55 ; John xix. 25). The Mother of Jesus stood be¬ 
 side His cross (John xix. 25), and!was particularly 
 
 46 
 
THE RECORD OF THE LIFE 
 
 commended to the devotion of the favourite 
 disciple, whether in his individual character, 
 or, as seems more likely, as representative of 
 the Eleven, by the dying Master. John, we 
 are told, thereupon took her ad sua (ver. 27), which 
 apparently means, at least in the immediate 
 consequence, to his lodging in Jerusalem, 1 and 
 she reappears at the beginning of the Acts (i. 14) 
 as a conspicuous personality in the widowed 
 Church. 4 If thou wilt go with me, then I will 
 go ; but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will 
 not go.’ The Eleven were 4 persevering in 
 prayer' 2 in the company of the women and of 
 Mary the Mother of Jesus. 5 Mary was present 
 by implication at the election of St. Matthias, 
 and on the occasion of the Descent of the Holy 
 Ghost (for the 7 tclvtss 6 fio 6 v/xaBov of ii. 1, with¬ 
 out specific distinction, may reasonably recall 
 the same expression in i. 14, which includes 
 Mary). 3 . v ■* 
 
 1 The Greek is ets ra ?Sta, which had occurred before, 
 (i. ii), when the Word is said to have come ‘ to His own/ 
 that is, to the world, which is His possession, or to the chosen 
 land of Judah. In the later passage it will then be similarly 
 chez lui, to his belongings, to his private dwelling-place. The 
 difficulty or ambiguity of the expression is not unlike that of 
 iv t oh t ov naTpds fxov (mentioned above, p. 42, note). 
 
 2 The expression occurs again in Rom. xii. 12, as also 
 something similar in Acts, ch. ii. 42, 46. 
 
 3 Also identically ii. 46. But the point here is the proximity 
 of the repetition, prior to any recorded addition to those our 
 Lord left behind Him. When * all ’ are named, it should 
 
 47 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Mary appears thus both at the beginning of 
 the Gospel and at the beginning of the Acts ; 
 her personality is present and recognised by the 
 Apostolic body ; she is not only allowed among 
 them and recognised, but she is apparently con¬ 
 ceded a position of honour, being the only one 
 mentioned by name among the women, as the 
 Eleven are alone mentioned among the men (the 
 names of all, if enumerated, would amount to a 
 hundred and twenty. Acts i. 15); we may say 
 that she has been ‘ chosen ’ as the Eleven were 
 chosen, and holds her office as they hold theirs, 
 and that this is intended by her being named 
 when they are named; at any rate, the disciples, 
 it is clear, have accepted with reverence and 
 punctuality, as they could hardly have failed to 
 do, the legacy of their Master. ‘Behold thy 
 mother,’ was said to the beloved disciple, and, 
 like Eve (Gen. iii. 20), she was to be the mother 
 of all living. At any rate, the disciples of Jesus, 
 when He was gone, regarded His Mother whom 
 He had left behind, as sacred to them, as their 
 Mother, 4 a Mother in Israel ’ (Judges v. 7). 
 Those who had been distinguished, beloved, by 
 Jesus, were not men alone. The women are there. 
 The inclusion of women in the Church, in its reli¬ 
 gious life and organization, hardly less repugnant to 
 
 apparently mean the same persons in one place as in the 
 other. 
 
 48 
 
THE RECORD OF THE LIFE 
 
 Jewish ideas than the inclusion of Gentiles, is 
 rendered possible, is compelled, by the original 
 exalted and unique position, from the first, of 
 the Virgin Mother, as the medium of the Incarna¬ 
 tion, the mediating link between God and man. 
 4 Both of Mary,’ writes St. Ignatius (ad E piles. viii.) 
 4 and of God.’ 
 
 Mary, then, with other holy women, and 
 supreme among them, obtains recognition, as 
 recorded, in the Pentecostal Church. And not 
 only supreme among them, but the supreme 
 glory of the entire human race, as being privileged 
 by divine grace beyond every other. 4 He hath 
 put down the mighty from their seat, and hath 
 exalted the humble.’ 
 
 Note.—On our Lord’s Connection with 
 the Jewish Monarchy. 
 
 It is impossible to read the Gospels reflectively 
 without discovering that Joseph and his house¬ 
 hold represent in the general belief the Davidic 
 royalty, according to the account of things 
 the Evangelists give. Even though Joseph is 
 derisively styled 4 the carpenter ’ (Matt. xiii. 55), 
 it is evidently by an opposing party, and then 
 his royal pretension in fact gives point to the 
 sneer. The charge preferred against our Lord, 
 when His putative father was now dead, of 
 
 49 e 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 claiming the kingdom of Judaea, was meant in 
 a perfectly material sense, and the claim was so 
 understood by His immediate disciples (Acts i. 6). 
 He is a second Solomon, who is to build the Temple 
 4 in three days ’ (Matt. xxvi. 61). He was 
 popularly known as the 4 son of David 5 (xx. 30; 
 xxi. 9, etc.), and this was not understood by 
 His biographers in the sense of His Messianic 
 character—a merely titular descent—because 
 Joseph is represented as also addressed by the 
 title: 4 Joseph, thou son of David ’ (Matt. i. 20; 
 comp. Luke i. 27 ; ii. 4). The multitude would 
 fain have crowned 4 the son of Joseph ’ (John 
 vi. 15) and set Him up against the Roman power 
 (xi. 48 ; xix. 12, etc.) ; He was their King (Luke 
 xix. 38) and while He lived might be a disturbing 
 element in the province. Pilate is familiar with, 
 or easily informed of, the situation, and asks his 
 Prisoner at once : 4 Art thou the King of the Jews ? 5 
 (Mark xv. 2). Pilate sends Him in mockery to 
 the Idumasan usurper (Luke xxiii. 7), and with 
 two-edged malice puts upon His cross the royal 
 title. Certainly to the Jewish authorities our 
 Lord’s pretension was fully known (ib. ver. 2). 
 We require but the smallest grain of historic con¬ 
 structive imagination to understand that all 
 this hubbub of royalty is not raised about one 
 who has no pretension. The Jews do not give 
 the name 4 Son of David ’ to the first comer. The 
 
 50 
 
THE RECORD OF THE LIFE 
 
 descent is there, in fact or in partisanship. Our 
 Lord is either claimant, or at worst pretender. 
 To the partisan, or to the general consciousness, 
 the man and woman who came to David’s town 
 were David’s lineage (Luke ii. 4 ; Matt. ii. 5 ; 
 John vii. 42), though in the eclipse of the national 
 independence the genealogy had little or no 
 significance. 
 
 But when an Evangelist, who repudiates the 
 fatherhood of Joseph, or an Apostle (Acts ii. 30), 
 who must be understood to do the same, attributes 
 to our Lord a descent from David and proclaims 
 Him to be the prophesied King-Messiah, it can 
 only mean that the direct line passes from 
 Joachim (or Jacob; Matt. i. 16) through Mary 
 to Jesus. Mary is in the direct Davidic line. 
 
 E 2 
 
 51 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE OMISSIONS OF THE GOSPELS 
 
 It was not, then, true to object that His Mother 
 is absent from the Ministry of our Lord, or even 
 that she does not belong to the organized body 
 of disciples, in other words, to the representative 
 Church, as in our Lord’s lifetime, or as consti¬ 
 tuted and endowed by the Pentecostal sign ; 
 on the contrary, she may seem to hold rank and 
 office, as the Apostles held rank and office. The 
 occasional references of the Gospel narrative are 
 sufficient to dispel the idea that Mary was un¬ 
 known to the disciples of the years of the Ministry, 
 or that she was not in the history up to the end of 
 all, or that she was not recognised after the 
 Ascension in the Apostolic Church. From the 
 first miracle of Cana to the Crucifixion and to 
 Pentecost, she is there, in the scenes of our Lord’s 
 life, in the record of His biographers. Never¬ 
 theless the references are certainly scattered 
 and scanty, and this may need to be explained, 
 if the personality of the Blessed Virgin has the 
 importance that is assigned to it in the Catholic 
 
 52 
 
THE OMISSIONS OF THE GOSPELS 
 
 Church, or even that her reappearance at the 
 beginning of the Acts may be plausibly argued 
 to lend her. The explanation entails some con¬ 
 siderable preliminary digression. 
 
 The Gospel of St. John is generally admitted, 
 by critics and apologists alike, to have been 
 written many years after the Synoptics 
 appeared ; at a late period in the distinction 
 Apostle’s life, if his work ; and when John’s 
 accordingly most or all of the actors 1 e 
 were dead and gone. The writer is thus able 
 to allude to matters which his predecessors 
 thought themselves precluded from mentioning, 
 and in especial he identifies the actors and gives 
 them their names. It would be tedious to 
 enumerate all the examples of this being done. 
 
 The beginning of his Gospel has many personal 
 reminiscences (e.g. i. 40 -fin.). The episode of 
 Nicodemus is quite new, whether in chapter iii. 
 or in the supplementary allusions of vii. 50 
 and xix. 39 ; and similarly the intervention of 
 Caiaphas in xi. 49, or the insistence that he and 
 not Annas was the High Priest of the year of 
 the Crucifixion (ver. 51 ; xviii. 13 ; the beloved 
 disciple was notus pontifici , ver. 15). It is 
 unnecessary to suggest reasons why reticence 
 should be observed during the lifetime of these 
 high personages. Again, the miracle of the 
 raising of Lazarus is only recorded by St. John, 
 
 53 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 and the silence of the Synoptics has even thrown 
 doubt upon its authenticity with minds sceptically 
 disposed. And yet it was certainly proper to 
 mention, unless there had been some strong 
 reason the other way ; it was the most stupendous 
 and beyond evasion of the public miracles, 1 and 
 directly led to the conspiracy of the priests to 
 put our Lord to death (John xi. 46, foil.) ; the 
 narrative was thus actually incoherent without 
 it. But so long as Lazarus was alive, surely a 
 man who had come back from the other world, 
 from whence or from what, who shall say or even 
 dare to think ?—surely such a man would beyond 
 everything be reluctant to be made a public 
 character ; besides, his life, we are positively told, 
 was in danger (xii. 10). 
 
 Or again. An Evangelist on his part might 
 shrink from identifying in his narrative a privi¬ 
 leged (John xix. 25; xx. 11-18) Saint with the 
 4 woman who was a sinner 5 of Luke vii. 39. 
 St. Mary Magdalene accordingly appears at the 
 Crucifixion and the Resurrection (Matt, xxvii. 
 56, 61; xxviii. 1, etc.), but nowhere else in the 
 Synoptics by name. So that some ingenious 
 
 1 A reflective mind might consider the Stilling of the 
 Storm, or the Multiplying of the Loaves, or even the Answer¬ 
 ing Voice of John xii. 28 to be not less stupendous ; but 
 these miracles did not apparently appeal so much to the 
 popular imagination. The first was not public; and see the 
 sequel of the other two (John vi. 30, 31 ; xii. 29). 
 
 54 
 
THE OMISSIONS OF THE GOSPELS 
 
 commentators have distinguished Mary Magdalene 
 from Mary the sister of Lazarus, and both from 
 the 4 sinner ’ ! On her part, St. Mary Magdalene 
 would shrink with the utmost sensitiveness from 
 her meeting with Jesus in the garden after His 
 Resurrection (John xx. n, foil.) being made 
 public, and herself thus given peculiar distinction. 
 
 St. John, however, when he came to write, 
 after her death, or at least her disappearance, 
 has no scruple on either head. He refers on 
 the first introduction of the Saint (xi. i) to his 
 predecessor’s account (ver. 2), and says plainly 
 that the sister of Lazarus was the same as the 
 sinner who anointed our Lord with ointment 
 and wiped His feet with her hair. 1 And he 
 relates the meeting in the Garden in full detail. 
 
 Or once more. St. John writes his Gospel 
 beyond a doubt subsequently to the martyrdom 
 of St. Peter. Certainly St. Mary Magdalene 
 might object to her own intimate relation with 
 our Lord being introduced into the Gospel 
 narrative. But St. Peter after Pentecost was a 
 person of supreme authority. He would not 
 only object ; he would forbid. The episode of 
 
 1 Besides that this reference precedes his own account of 
 the familiar anointing at Bethany, the locality is not the 
 same in Luke vii. 37, nor the attendant circumstances. 
 It is, moreover, an elementary matter of grammar. 7/ dA .etyao-a, 
 
 ‘ who did anoint/ will hardly refer to an incident still to be 
 told. Compare a parallel reference in John xviii. 14. 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Ananias would assist his prohibition. He would 
 not allow, for example, any palliation of his 
 denial of the Lord (as in John xx. 3-10, or xxi. 
 15-19) being placed on record. Like his ‘ brother 
 Paul ’ (2 Petr, iii. 15), he was anxious to be 
 esteemed ‘ the chief of sinners.’ But when St. 
 John wrote, the first of the Popes was no longer 
 there to launch a prohibition. It is even sup¬ 
 posed—and there is every probability of the 
 supposition being right—that the remark of the 
 Evangelist in John xxi. 19 is made with know¬ 
 ledge of the actual fulfilment of our Lord’s 
 saying in the martyrdom, the saying being other¬ 
 wise obscure. One other instance may be adduced. 
 That it was St. Peter who cut off the ear of the 
 High Priest’s servant (John xviii. 10), no one of 
 the Synoptics mentions, though all three narrate 
 the incident ; and only St. John gives the ser¬ 
 vant’s name. Anyone can see the reasons for 
 the reticence while the actors were living. In 
 the imperfect light St. Peter was not generally 
 recognised, and only a few knew of its being he 
 (e.g., some kinsman who was present, ver. 26). 
 Nor did Malchus the servant wish to be identified ; 
 the recipients of our Lord’s miraculous bounty 
 are roughly treated (ix. 34) ; Malchus may very 
 probably have been converted by the miracle, 
 as the blind man ( ib. ver. 38), and others (Luke 
 viii. 35 ; xviii. 43, etc.). 
 
 56 
 
THE OMISSIONS OF THE GOSPELS 
 
 By the Synoptics allusion to individuals by 
 name was avoided through the use of the 
 generalizing plural, which is quite an elementary 
 device of style. Thus, when our Lord appeared 
 to His disciples after His resurrection, we hear 
 that 4 some doubted ’ (Matt, xxviii. 17), or that 
 He 4 upbraided them ’ because 4 they believed 
 not 5 (Mark xvi, 14). The unbelief of St. Thomas 
 is intended, or it is at least covered by the general 
 statement. When the Fourth Gospel was pub¬ 
 lished, St. Thomas had long been far away in 
 India and was unlikely to be still living. Accord¬ 
 ing to St. Matthew (xxviii. 9) the women who 
 came to the Sepulchre on Easter morning were 
 met by our Lord on their return. But St. Luke 
 (xxiv. 22-24) describes the two disciples on the 
 road to Emmaus observing with melancholy that 
 our Lord had not been seen by those of their 
 number who had gone to the Sepulchre to verify 
 the report of the women, and the context implies 
 that the women also had not seen Him. It is 
 of course only one of the women to whom our 
 Lord appeared, and the name of St. Mary Mag¬ 
 dalen is again withheld. So in St. Luke are the 
 names of St. Peter and St. John (John xx. 3), 
 who are only 4 some of those with us.’ Even 
 the name of the traitor Judas is suppressed on 
 the occasion of the Anointing at Bethany, when 
 there are recorded to have been 4 some who had 
 
 57 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 indignation ’ (Mark xiv. 4), or even quite generally 
 4 the disciples ’ (Matt. xxvi. 8), over the extrava¬ 
 gant expense. The Fourth Gospel identifies 
 the objector, as not being several persons, but 
 Judas by himself (John xii. 4-6), though both 
 the betrayal (Matt. xxvi. 14, etc.) and the suicide 
 of the traitor are passed over. A missing detail 
 is supplied at a later period, when the arch-crime 
 was cold, and there was no fresh feeling of abhor¬ 
 rence against the criminal which might be exacer¬ 
 bated. 
 
 Finally, then, the Fourth Gospel abounds in 
 names, even of localities difficult to identify 
 (iii. 23). The only unnamed person among 
 those prominent in the narrative is the Evangelist 
 himself, 1 and his name is suppressed with the 
 same motive that governed some of the sup¬ 
 pressions in the Synoptics. 2 
 
 1 As regards the periphrasis which St. John uses to 
 describe himself (but not always, e.g., i. 35 ; xxi. 2), we 
 should recall to mind that the writing is by inspiration 
 (below, p. So) and not by his own instance. Among the 
 revelations of St. Theresa in one of the colloquies we have : 
 * “ They call me Theresa of Jesus.” “ And they call Ale Jesus 
 of Theresa.” ’ Moreover the appearance of vain-glory is 
 consequent upon our recognising the writer, but he wrote 
 anonymously and conceived his identity to be concealed. 
 Sceptics should not find fault here, because for them the 
 writer is unidentified still. 
 
 2 The argument of the text might obviously have a reverse 
 application, and go to establish the early date of the Synoptic 
 Gospels. These are anterior to the Fourth, and certainly 
 there seems to be no explanation of their omissions so 
 
 58 
 
THE OMISSIONS OF THE GOSPELS 
 
 It is difficult for ordinary mortals to under¬ 
 stand the absolute humility, which seems to 
 belong to Saintship, and is frequently Humili 
 expressed in the language and behaviour of Samt- 
 
 ship in the 
 
 of Saints of every age—‘morbid ’ humi- Apostolic 
 
 age. 
 
 lity some confident moralists of our time 
 term it—an unreserving self-abasement, which 
 is not merely unwilling to have any creditable or 
 praiseworthy action ascribed to oneself, but 
 would wish to be covered with shame and obloquy. 
 ‘ Morbid ’ it is termed as displayed in the later 
 hagiology of the Church. But St. Paul’s styling 
 himself ‘ the chief of sinners ’ is also ‘ morbid 
 exaggeration,’ without adequate apology or ex¬ 
 planation from expositors who cannot get into 
 sympathy or touch with it, expositors learned 
 in the higher ethics. From similar motive we 
 observe that St. Peter also in his First Epistle 
 ignores (inconveniently enough for Papal con¬ 
 troversy ‘) his own title of the Rock, and his 
 
 plausible as this of the actors being alive when they appeared. 
 Otherwise, the common experience is the reverse—names 
 are given in narratives written nearer the events, but omitted, 
 through forgetfulness or uncertainty, in later compilations. 
 (Or we must suppose the Fourth Gospel to make up names 
 according to the writer’s fancy !) But if the actors are 
 still alive, the period of writing is within the age of the 
 Evangelists whose names the Gospels bear. 
 
 1 Except that the images of the Rock and the Shepherd 
 (cp. ii. 25) are characteristic and elaborated, and there is 
 a self-consciousness of manner in their avoidance from 
 himself. 
 
 59 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 unique commission (John xxi. 15-17) to feed the 
 flock ; the Rock is Christ (1 Peter ii. 6-8), and 
 the presbyters whom he addresses are to be the 
 pastors (v. 2). And thus the characteristic, 
 the 4 note,’ of humility does not merely belong 
 to a later St. Francis or St. Rose of Lima ; it 
 belongs to the Apostles and to the Apostolic 
 age, even to-(Matt, xxvii. 14). 
 
 We apprehend, then, that omission of the names 
 of persons and omission of incidents may occur 
 Humility without the persons being really absent 
 
 obstructs from the history, and without the 
 the record. j nc id en ts being unauthentic. And we 
 
 understand what is frequently a leading motive 
 of these omissions. Our Lady, as Queen of 
 Saints, possesses all the characteristics of Saint- 
 ship in a pre-eminent degree, and among them 
 the extreme height or depth of humility which 
 has been portrayed. 4 Behold the handmaid 
 of the Lord ’—the slave —rj Bov\tj K vpiov. ‘ He 
 hath regarded the humbleness of His handmaid ’ 
 —of His slave —rrjs SovXijs avrov. 4 He hath 
 exalted the humble.’ 
 
 She would not ever speak of the marvels of 
 her youth—of the Annunciation, of the Nativity, 
 of the wondrous Infancy, when she suckled 
 and tended quod natum est ex ea Sanctum , l of the 
 holy Childhood. The humility of Mary is depicted, 
 
 1 ‘ The Holy that was born of her.’ 
 
 60 
 
THE OMISSIONS OF THE GO SEE IS 
 
 with the graphic simplicity of the inspired 
 narrative, in a single phrase—the humility of 
 the self-effacing silent mother : ‘ Mary kept all 
 these sayings, pondering over them in her heart 5 
 (Luke ii. 19, 51). Only the youthful St. Luke, 1 
 the consoler and comfort of those with him (Col. 
 iv. 14; 2 Tim. iv. 11) might some fortunate 
 hour be told something. It would be revealed 
 to her that he was the future Evangelist. Or, 
 again. The record of the Virgin Mother within 
 the period of the Ministry of our Lord, the merely 
 incidental and all too scanty record, is replenished 
 in the Gospel of St. John (ii. 1-11 ; xix. 25-27). 
 But, besides the consideration already advanced, 
 of his record being subsequent to the Virgin’s 
 death and therefore unrestricted, St. John had 
 been since Calvary the best beloved of the dis¬ 
 ciples'with Mary also, and he might naturally be 
 another who knew. 2 But otherwise of the early 
 mysteries, beyond the outline of St. Matthew, 
 it is extremely likely, as already suggested, 
 that nothing was known generally, not even 
 to Apostles and intimate disciples, and the 
 narrative of St. Luke, published also, it would 
 
 1 For the supposed connection of St. Luke with our Lady, 
 see above, p. 23. 
 
 2 What he records, however, are simply incidents in which 
 he was specially present. (See pp. 43, 46.) Still his larger 
 knowledge might give more importance in his view to these 
 additions. 
 
 6l 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 seem, 1 2 after the death of the Virgin, was all new. 
 Afterwards, in the public life of our Lord, there 
 might be little to record of His Mother. Except 
 her devotion still to Him, and the reverent and 
 affectionate regard in which she was held by 
 those who became His disciples. And either of 
 these things it would be most offensive to her 
 to have recorded. 
 
 Otherwise, what part would Mary play, and 
 where would she come into the narrative ? 
 Optimam partem elegitr She kept herself in the 
 background, still observing the events of the 
 Divine Manifestation as they occurred, and 
 pondering them over in her heart. There might 
 occur again in the three years such an occasion 
 as that of the marriage at Cana, or as the one or 
 two other interventions recorded by the Evan¬ 
 gelist ; but they were only such occasions. 
 The occasions are trivial and sufficiently exhibited 
 by specimen. The acts of our Lord Himself 
 are not always needful to record. ‘ Many other 
 signs Jesus did in the presence of His disciples 
 which are not written ’ (John xx. 30). 
 
 1 St. Luke’s Gospel is apparently composed after his 
 association with St. Paul (2 Cor. viii. 18), and the critics 
 find in it some traces of the influence of the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles (below, p. 71) or at any rate of special adaptation 
 to the lines of his teaching. This would be, according to the 
 tradition, after the Virgin’s death. 
 
 2 ‘ She has chosen the best part.’ 
 
 62 
 
THE OMISSIONS OF THE GOSPELS 
 
 The Gospels, if read with intelligence, fully 
 express the situation, so far as our curiosity is 
 concerned with it. What we want to know, 
 and it is blindness not to find that in the Gospel, 
 is that our Lord in His public life is not parted 
 from His Mother ; she does not lose Him as a 
 mother may sometimes lose her son in the career 
 he has chosen. And the little that is told of her is 
 thus little out of respect for her wishes, and for 
 fear of anything that would give her pain. To 
 thoughtful consideration there is nothing to be 
 explained or accounted for in the omission of 
 Mary’s personality from the public Ministry. 
 She would not have been the chosen Handmaid, 
 alone found worthy to bear the name of Mother 
 of God, if she had broken for a moment her 
 nun-like stillness. Dilectus mens mihi et ego illi} 
 Yet the virtues of Mary, the glories of Mary, are 
 evidenced as being known to the first age, and 
 are mirrored for us, but for our perverseness, 
 in the Gospel. Accordingly, there is nothing 
 novel, nothing of 4 development,’ 2 in our present 
 attitude as Catholics to our Lady. Queen of 
 
 1 ‘ Mv beloved is mine and I am his.’ 
 
 2 Cardinal Newman, but while still a Protestant, seems to 
 suppose that devotion to our Lady began with the Council 
 of Ephesus (Development of Christian Doctrine, chap. iv. 
 sect. ii. io) ! He must, however, often have read the opening 
 chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke. These writers 
 esteemed her as Mother of God, etc. (as above, p. 40), and 
 had no devotion to her, nor did it prevail in the primitive 
 
 63 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Saints, Mother of God, she is to us and was to 
 the first disciples ; the one above all others in earth 
 or heaven, who, if we can obtain her prayers, 
 will best avail with God for us, as at Cana what 
 she asked, or hardly asked, was done. Pray 
 for us, Mother of God, now and at the hour of 
 our death. As thou didst pray for the dying 
 Joseph, thy spouse ; as thou didst pray for John 
 thy adopted son, and for Luke the beloved 
 physician. These also knew thy glories and 
 desired thy prayers. 
 
 For all is not yet told. The Assumption of 
 our Lady is perhaps first mentioned in the 
 The As- Transitus Mariae (i.e. the ‘Translation,’ 
 sumption. though some editions have actually 
 
 ‘ Assumptio ’) attributed to St. John the Apostle. 1 
 The Assumption is, for Protestants, a fable. And 
 yet this first account of it is dated by Tischendorf 
 as not later than the fourth century, 2 and the 
 Gospel of St. John was considered by numbers 
 of Protestants, only a few years ago, to claim no 
 earlier date and no better authenticity. The 
 
 age ! It was an age of unexampled dulness and insensi¬ 
 bility ! 
 
 1 Johannes Theologus. The authorship is no doubt 
 erroneously attributed. 
 
 2 One of the Latin versions is composed or edited by 
 pseudo-Melitus, who asserts the doctrine in his preface. 
 This goes towards fixing a date. St. Epiphanius ( Adv . Haer. 
 Lib. i. Tom. iii.; Haeres. xlii. 352) accepts the account ; also 
 St. John Damascene ( De Dormit. B. V. M .). 
 
 64 
 
THE OMISSIONS OF THE GOSPELS 
 
 evidential value, then, of the Transitus , as 
 evidencing the belief of the age in which it 
 appeared, if evidencing no more, must obtain 
 no inferior respect to that which was allowed 
 to the Fourth Gospel in the time of our fathers. 
 The Assumption is not to be set aside as having 
 ‘ no evidence in early historical documents.’ 1 
 It is no modern, no medieval, embellishment. 
 Fable or not, the belief in it is primitive. 
 
 The Assumption belongs to the ordinary belief 
 of Catholics. 2 Its commemoration is a principal 
 Feast of the Church ; it forms one of the Mysteries 
 of the Rosary ; religious societies and edifices 
 
 1 Morris, Jesus, the Son of Mary, Part III., Chap. VIII. 
 
 2 It is not de fide, or, as some say, not an article of faith. 
 The distinction is theological; what is de fide is to be believed 
 under pain of damnation. There are many matters to 
 which no such solemnity attaches, but which equally belong 
 to the tradition and are accepted without hesitation. It 
 is not de fide that St. Peter was martyred at Rome, or that 
 the Gospel attributed to St. Luke was really written by him. 
 Again, what is de fide concerns the Christian revelation and 
 redemption. All the propositions of preceding pages regard¬ 
 ing our Lady are confessed by Catholics, but only some 
 few are to be received as de fide, only such as bear upon 
 her having been Mother of God. It makes no difference 
 to the general belief. E.g., it is not de fide that Mary is 
 our Mother. But who doubts it ? The Immaculate Concep¬ 
 tion of Mary has been recently declared to be de fide, because 
 the Mother of God must have no contact at all with evil. 
 But it was generally believed from the first. (See below, 
 Part II. chap, viii.) If Benedict XIV. ‘ saw no sufficient 
 grounds for making the Assumption an article of faith ’ 
 (Morris), neither did Sixtus IV. for making the Immaculate 
 Conception. But did he therefore disbelieve or doubt it ? 
 
 65 F 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 are under its dedication. For Catholics the 
 Assumption is an event that actually occurred. 
 It occurred during the lifetime of most of the 
 Apostles ; it was known to Apostles and to the 
 Church of the Apostolic times. 
 
 The Apostles went to the tomb of Mary, as 
 they had gone to that of her Son, and found it 
 empty. She had not risen as He rose ; she did 
 not appear to them, as He had appeared, in the 
 body of her resurrection. But the seal of the 
 grave had been broken in her case just the same. 
 God had taken her sacred body, the body in 
 which He had lain, up to His right hand (Ps. 
 xlv. 9). Whatever awe might have been felt 
 before for the Mother of God, was heightened 
 and deepened by this stupendous parallel. St. 
 Paul writes of our Lord (Rom. i. 4), that He was 
 determined to be the Son of God by His Resurrec¬ 
 tion. What, then, was Mary determined to be 
 by her Assumption ? For the moment, and 
 apart from the divine assistance which the 
 Apostles continually possessed, if one considers 
 it, there might well have been the danger lest 
 Mary should really be exalted in Christian idea 
 —as Protestants falsely accuse the Church of 
 having subsequently exalted her—to a semi¬ 
 divinity, to a share in the inalienable preroga¬ 
 tive of the Supreme Being. Let her be, as she is, 
 but one of God’s creatures, yet she is determined 
 
 66 
 
THE OMISSIONS OF THE GOSPELS 
 
 by her Assumption to be the highest of created 
 beings—by her Assumption, which follows, and 
 is inevitably compared with, the Resurrection 
 of Christ. To the Apostles, who are witnesses 
 of her body having left the tomb, she appears 
 now evidently, if she had not appeared before, as 
 on a different level altogether from their own. 
 
 Does anyone really suppose that they did not 
 observe the memory of this wonderful day, that 
 the day of the Assumption was no sacred day to 
 the Apostles in the first age ? If you do not 
 grant that, if you are in any doubt about it, if 
 you imagine the devotion of the Assumption to 
 originate in the fourth century, to be no Apostolic 
 tradition, then you do not honestly believe in 
 the Assumption as an occurrence, but you let it 
 go as only not disprovable, as possible and no 
 more, as belonging to religion and not to history. 
 Is not that so ? 
 
 But devotion to Mary after her death and 
 assumption alters its character there and then ; 
 it becomes a religious devotion, a solemnity, a 
 ritual of the other world and not of this, of the 
 world to which divine faith and prayer and the 
 worship of God belong. If the Assumption is a 
 fable, cadit quaestio ; this part of the argument 
 falls to the ground. Yet even then it is only this 
 part; the preceding exposition remains. But 
 the Transitus Mariae belongs to the fourth 
 
 67 F 2 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 century. What is the meaning of that ? Did 
 pseudo-Johannes invent not only his narrative 
 but also the theme of it ? Not altogether, one 
 would say, neither theme nor narrative. That 
 is not the manner of forgeries. There must be 
 a likelihood ; the common understanding cannot 
 be directly traversed, if the forgery is to pass 
 unobserved. Nor is it the manner of the Catholic 
 Church to canonize any belief whatever on the 
 authority of any pseudo-Johannes. Thus the 
 Transitus is not the origin of the belief, but is 
 evidence of the belief existing in its day; just 
 as the language of St. Epiphanius is evidence. 
 For Catholic belief, in the primitive as in the 
 later age, the Assumption is an actual fact. It 
 was known to the Apostles. Can anyone see 
 any possible evasion, then, granting the Assump¬ 
 tion to have actually occurred, and within the 
 knowledge of the Apostles—any possible evasion 
 of the preceding hypothesis of what the character 
 would subsequently be of the devotion to Mary 
 within the Apostolic age and for Apostles them¬ 
 selves ? In the Christian religion as preached, 
 in the Christian worship as practised, within 
 the first age, the commemoration of Mary had 
 incontrovertibly its place. The Apostles could 
 not preach Jesus born of a pure Virgin without 
 commemorating the glory of Mary who was 
 Mother of God, and they knew her now to have 
 
 68 
 
THE OMISSIONS OF THE GOSPELS 
 
 been crowned Queen of Saints by her Assump¬ 
 tion. 
 
 Whether her prayers were asked in her exalta¬ 
 tion, as they had been asked undoubtedly in her 
 humility on earth , 1 of this, as of so many things 
 about Mary, of the reverence and regard for the 
 Mother of God while yet alive, we have no 
 information . 2 But whether prayer or not, there 
 was certainly, one would say, religious devotion, 
 a sacred remembrance. Assumpta est Maria in 
 caelum ; collaudantes benedicunt Dominum . 3 
 
 1 See above, p. 31. 
 
 2 That the prayers of saints are still offered in heaven may 
 perhaps be conceded to Apoc. vi. 10. Whether their assist¬ 
 ance was invoked by those on earth is alone in question. 
 In the inscriptions on some of the tombs in the catacombs 
 the departed is invoked to pray for surviving friends. Sancta 
 Maria, ora pro nobis, if not Apostolic, is certainly very 
 early in use. 
 
 3 ‘ Mary is assumed into heaven ; praising they bless the 
 
 Lord.’ 
 
 69 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE OMISSIONS OF THE ACTS AND EPISTLES 
 
 By natural inference and by necessary hypothesis, 
 according to the argument of preceding chapters 
 —will anyone say that the inference is not 
 natural and the hypothesis not necessary ?—a 
 position is discovered for our Lady within the 
 first age not materially different from that which 
 is at present assigned her. She is for St. Luke 
 and for all his contemporaries as much Queen 
 in heaven as Princess of the house of David on 
 earth. Tn post Jesum Christum omnis spes mea 1 
 —was the aspiration of every earliest Christian 
 disciple. Queen of Apostles no less. Glorious 
 
 within, her clothing is of gold. And yet- 
 
 There is not a word of Mary anywhere in the 
 rest of the New Testament after the Gospels, not 
 anywhere in the Acts (after the first 
 
 Absence of 
 
 Mary’s chapter), her name not once occurring 
 
 name from 
 
 inspired in any Epistle. What are we to make 
 EpisUes. ^ p Thgj-g i s the necessary hypo¬ 
 thesis, and it does not suit the facts. The 
 
 1 ‘ Thou after Jesus Christ all my hope.’ 
 
 70 
 
OMISSIONS OF THE ACTS AND EPISTLES 
 
 natural inference is contradicted to all appear¬ 
 ance absolutely. Were the inference and the 
 hypothesis ab initio false ? Or what is the 
 matter ? It is something fairly to rub one’s 
 eyes over. One may carefully reconsider the 
 arguments and reflections preceding. Surely some 
 small conclusion, some conclusion of the kind 
 suggested, though it were not so large and abso¬ 
 lute, must be drawn. But this failure of Episto¬ 
 lary writers does not permit any conclusion of 
 the kind at all to be drawn. It is strange. 
 Look, for example, at the book of the Acts. It 
 is thought to have been written by the same 
 St. Luke who made the Prologue to his Gospel 
 about Mary, giving her a glory no mortal even 
 dares to envy. It is cited as his work by the 
 very earliest writers. Supposing there was any¬ 
 thing to be written about Mary, could St. Luke 
 (in the Acts) designedly leave it out, and if so, 
 from what possible motive ? 
 
 But the connection of St. Luke with the post- 
 Evangelical writings goes further. He was the 
 special friend of St. Paul (Col. iv. 14 ; 2 Tim. iv. 
 11), and is said 1 to have written his Gospel at the 
 instigation of the Apostle of the Gentiles, under 
 his direction, and for the use of the Gentile 
 churches he had founded ; 2 traces are discovered 
 
 1 Tertullian, adv. Marcion. iv. 15. 
 
 1 The introduction of the name of Theophilus (Luke i. 3 ; 
 
 71 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 of the Apostle’s influence and even of verbal 
 identity with his teaching (comp. Luke xxii. 19, 
 20 ; 1 Cor. xi. 23-26). St. Paul, then, knew 
 about the Prologue ; it was inserted in the Gospel 
 authorised bv him; he knew that in Marv was 
 fulfilled most conspicuously the supereminence of 
 our race : 4 Thou hast made him a little lower 
 than the angels, and hast crowned him with 
 glory and honour ’ (Ps. viii. 5; comp. Heb. ii. 7). 
 And yet not a word of Mary, to his converts, to 
 Timothy, to Titus. Imagine how anyone in these 
 days at the earliest likely stage would introduce 
 into Catholic instruction the name of Mary ; how 
 to those who knew their religion every exhorta¬ 
 tion, every appeal, would be by Mary, by the 
 model of Mary, by our duty to Mary, by her 
 patronage, in her name. And never a word of 
 her in all these Epistles of St. Paul, no chance 
 reference even, as if for him she did not exist. 
 He had gone up to Jerusalem to see Peter (Gal. i. 
 18), and had not seen Mary ! 
 
 Or St. Peter, on his part ? He was evidently 
 in the company of St. John at the time of our 
 Lord’s Passion (John xviii. 15 ; xx. 2). And 
 even independently, the families of Jonas and 
 Zebedee are intimately allied (Luke v. 10 ; 
 
 comp. Acts i. 1) merely represents a dedication. The name 
 cryptically designates a powerful patron, who has the same 
 title as the Procurator Felix (Acts xxiii. 26). 
 
 72 
 
OMISSIONS OF THE ACTS AND E PI STIES 
 
 John xxi. 2). Whe r St. John took the stricken 
 Mary ad sua, he took her where St. Peter was ; 
 with that solemn commendation from the Cross 
 fresh in his memory ; here was she who was 
 to be henceforth mother of the disciple, of 
 every disciple. And St. Peter writes Epistles 
 in most moving terms, with every impassioned 
 appeal (e.g., 1 Pet. ii. 21-jin ), and leaves Mary 
 out ! 
 
 Or what is to be said of St. John himself ? 
 He had added to the history of the Ministry of 
 our Lord the record of His Mother’s prevailing 
 intercession at Cana, and to the history of the 
 Passion the record of Mary’s appointment to be 
 the Mother of all redeemed. He writes nothing 
 in public or private epistle, nothing about her. 
 He writes to a woman whom he styles ‘ elect ’ 
 (2 John 1), and forgets to name her who was 
 mother of the chosen Seed, that is, if you admit 
 the Epistle as authentically his. Or, at any rate, 
 he writes, without question of authenticity, in 
 his First Epistle, to insist that ‘Jesus Christ is 
 come in the flesh,’ verum corpus natum ex Maria 
 virgine and refuses to add ex Maria virgine. 
 
 Or what is to be said of St. James Minor and 
 St. Jude, among the ‘ brethren of the Lord,’ 
 nephews, that is to say, of Mary, who, one would 
 imagine, would not leave her out ? 
 
 1 ‘ True body born of the Virgin Mary.’ 
 
 73 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 It is most extraordinary, if our preceding argu¬ 
 ment here is reliable ; and one cannot see where 
 it breaks down; even a Protestant, one would 
 think, must subscribe to every step except the 
 final reference. It does not seem that it could 
 have happened so by accident. Given the re¬ 
 cognition of Mary and the devotion to her that 
 we have found existing, in SS. Matthew and 
 Luke and therefore in the Apostles generally, or 
 as a tradition of Apostles lifted intact out of 
 their teaching, and the chances are anything you 
 please against her name being nowhere. If lifted 
 out of the Apostles’ teaching, why is it not 
 found in their teaching ? It looks as if it was 
 done with a studied purpose, by a common 
 understanding. Let the name of Mary be tabooed 
 like the name of Judas ; let us carefully revise 
 everything we have written and strike her name 
 out wherever occurring ; all reference to her or 
 allusion to her, let us spare the feelings of those 
 we address by avoiding it altogether ! 
 
 Doubtless there is one explanation of this dis¬ 
 crepancy that readily suggests itself and that 
 Refutation influences, both consciously and uncon- 
 
 scepticai sciously, the religious mind of many 
 rationale. p e0 pi e w ho have a notion that they 
 
 must fashion their beliefs for themselves, though 
 without the intellectual qualifications of Plato, 
 and even Plato being disallowed in Christianity 
 
 74 
 
OMISSIONS OF THE ACTS AND EPISTLES 
 
 (i Cor. i. 26). The explanation has occurred on 
 a former page, and the language is but little 
 varied. Mary is not mentioned in Acts or 
 Epistles, so we are to conclude, because she is of 
 no importance whatever ; no one has ever heard 
 of her or thought of her. Our Lord was born of 
 simple Galilean peasants ; He forgets His own 
 people and His father’s house, He and not the 
 king’s daughter, not Mary (Ps. xlv. 10) ; He has 
 a mission to accomplish, the greatest of all mis¬ 
 sions ; He is reproached with His origin (Mark vi. 
 3), but He brushes aside the entanglement and 
 evades it (iii. 31-35) : 4 1 give up My mother for 
 you My chosen friends ; you are mother, brother, 
 sister, to Me ; I have no mother else to call so.’ 
 The story of His preternatural birth is a later 
 addition, such as the enthusiasm of his followers 
 with the lapse of time invents for any prophet, 
 for any religious founder ; and that it is merely 
 such later legend is proved by St. Paul knowing 
 nothing of it. Christ, according to St. Paul, is 
 to be the Son of God because He rose from the 
 dead ; there was nothing to say about His birth, 
 which was no different from ours. 
 
 This is the first-hand explanation, no doubt ; 
 the natural explanation for hundreds in our indi¬ 
 vidualistic age, who decide to look into the 
 matter for themselves, having no literary or 
 scholastic competence of any kind, and never 
 
 75 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 thinking that such competence is required. There 
 is one objection to the validity of the explana¬ 
 tion. Suppose there to be no more, this one 
 objection absolutely fatal—the evidence of date. 
 Just as Carlyle tells us we may have the most 
 harmonious economical and financial system, 
 which yet breaks against the evidence of ‘ cash 
 deficit.’ Owing to the concentration of attention 
 upon the date of the Gospels, as observed at 
 the outset, we have it now established that they 
 belong to the Apostolic age or are scarcely re¬ 
 moved from it. If Mary is not found in Acts or 
 Epistles, she is found in the Gospels, which are 
 contemporaneous in composition. St. Paul him¬ 
 self, if his ignorance of Mary’s personality is 
 alleged, alludes to St. Luke’s writing his Gospel, 
 the Gospel of the Annunciation (2 Cor. viii. 18, 
 19) ; or if that is not the allusion, it altogether 
 escapes us. The modern sceptic, indeed, is now 
 so hardy (he has no other resource) as to reject 
 all but a few of the Epistles of St. Paul; some 
 reject all without exception. 1 But since the 
 failure of the attack upon the authenticity of 
 the Gospel, one need not spend time over this 
 kind of thing. Again, the composition of the 
 Acts of the Apostles is professedly subsequent to 
 the production of some Gospel (Acts i. 1), which 
 is generally supposed to be that of St. Luke, 
 
 1 E.g., the recent Encyclopedia Biblica, art. Paul. 
 
 76 
 
OMISSIONS OF THE ACTS AND EPISTLES 
 
 who would be the writer of both Acts and 
 Gospel. 1 
 
 We may make it clear to our minds, then, 
 that the writers of Epistles ought to have the 
 beliefs about our Lady, and the consequent rever¬ 
 ence and devotion towards her, which are 
 evidenced to belong to the Apostles by being 
 entertained by St. Luke, their contemporary and 
 associate. But the writers of Epistles have not 
 these beliefs, to judge from their writings. Is 
 this contradiction to be left unsolved ? How is 
 it to be accounted for ? 
 
 The reasons that excluded our Lady from the 
 continuous narrative of the Gospels, would not 
 apply to the present case. It is not a question 
 of whether she is retiring and her sanctity accom- 
 
 1 These literary identifications are thought to be too 
 intangible to bear any weight of argument, and may be 
 viewed with a smile by the sceptically erudite. But this 
 is to misconceive the situation. If the Gospels were written 
 no one knows precisely when, the allusions they furnish 
 might no doubt be more easily disallowed. But when the 
 date of the Gospels is already by external evidence brought 
 so near that of their titular origin, any internal evidence 
 discovered in them occupies a very different footing. Just 
 as also with allusions to the Gospels in very early Patristic 
 writings. Prima facie there are such allusions, or there 
 is at least an appearance of such being intended. Suppose 
 the Gospels to be of later date, and we might explain the 
 apparent allusions to have another reference ; but when the 
 Gospels are evidenced to bear something approaching their 
 ostensible date, they hold the field as against any rival 
 authority which might be cited by such early writers, and 
 the allusions have a much nearer certainty. 
 
 77 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 panied by the most extreme humility, whether 
 the writer is afraid of writing what she would 
 not wish. The question is how Apostles, if they 
 have our present beliefs and feelings towards the 
 Blessed Virgin, can speak (in the Acts) or write 
 (in the Epistles) on the mysteries of Christianity 
 or the devotions of Christians without once men¬ 
 tioning her. Even with no such feelings and 
 beliefs, it is a chance beyond credibility that 
 there should be no mention at all. 
 
 78 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE MOTIVE OF THE OMISSIONS 
 
 The truth is, the sceptics do not state the case 
 in its full enormity. Let us have it so stated. 
 We must take a long time seeking for a solution, 
 and make many false detours, if the truth is 
 kept back. On the other hand, it is possible 
 that the very enormity suggests some solution, 
 when we have the full facts before us. Truth¬ 
 fully presented, it is not an ordinary case, to be 
 treated with an airy remark that the Virgin is 
 unmentioned because no one knows of her. 
 Even so, by chance, by coincidence, it is incon¬ 
 ceivable that Mary’s name should not appear 
 somewhere in these several writings, that the 
 writers who wrote of our Lord’s death should 
 never inadvertently allude to His being born 
 into the world. It is not, then, that the writers 
 fail to mention our Lady, but that they shun it ; 
 the omission belongs not to some, but to all ; 
 it is done on purpose, it is agreed upon, a com¬ 
 mon understanding, whoever writes any one of 
 the Epistles included in the Canon of the New 
 
 79 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Testament. Hostile criticism only observes that 
 our Lady is left out. That will not do ; she is 
 kept out. 
 
 Meanwhile we know of nothing in the dis¬ 
 positions of the writers that should induce them 
 to ignore Mary. On the contrary, from the 
 Gospel of St. Matthew and that of St. Luke it 
 seems legitimate to infer that mention might 
 be made of her, and even that the disposition 
 of the Apostles would be to pay her due dis¬ 
 tinction. 
 
 There is here a direct contradiction. On the 
 one side the exclusion of Mary’s name from the 
 writings ; on the other the entire absence of any 
 motive for it in the disposition of the writers. 
 The logic, then, is clear. There must be a 
 motive for the exclusion, and the motive must lie 
 elsewhere than with the writers. 
 
 The writings of the New Testament are Scrip¬ 
 ture, and all Scripture is by inspiration (2 Tim. 
 
 iii. 16); the sacred writers were guided 
 
 Canonical 
 
 writers by the Holy Ghost (2 Pet. 1. 21). 
 
 by their Inspiration is not a haphazard affair, 
 
 inspiration. , ..... . 
 
 so that an Epistle is inspired because 
 the Church decided to have it so, and placed it 
 in the Canon. The letters an Apostle wrote 
 under inspiration were so written to his own 
 consciousness, otherwise than the hundreds of 
 other letters that he wrote of his own motion. 
 
 80 
 
THE MOTIVE OF THE OMISSIONS 
 
 Let anyone read the fourteenth chapter of the 
 First Epistle to the Corinthians and understand, 
 at any rate, so much. 1 The creed of the Chris¬ 
 tian Church is not that the prophets spoke by 
 the Holy Ghost, but that the Holy Ghost ‘ spoke 
 by the prophets.’ 2 The language may indeed 
 be that of the writer ; it is Hebrew and not 
 Coptic, Greek and not Latin ; the message is 
 given in the form familiar to its medium, whether 
 linguistic idiom or expression or phrase or even 
 topic—an inspired writer is not commissioned to 
 write of things wholly unfamiliar to him and 
 beyond his knowledge—but the message, the 
 thing spoken, is divine. Balaam (Num. xxiv. 
 13) must speak the words that are put into his 
 mouth, and an inspired writer must write only— 
 or woe betide him—the words that are given 
 him to write. St. John uses, by inspiration too, 
 terrible words ; £ If any man add to the words of 
 this prophecy, God shall add to him the plagues 
 that are written here ’ (Apoc. xxii. 18). The 
 particular medium is chosen, and he is chosen, 
 among other reasons, as being faithful to his 
 witness, to his inspiration. The exclusion, the 
 absolute exclusion, of Mary from all but the 
 Gospel records, is done by God Himself. 
 
 1 The celebrated texts 1 Cor. vii. 6. 10, 12, 25, 40, may 
 be also studied. 
 
 2 e57]A .ov rb iv avrols Uvevfj.a Xpiarov. i Pet. i. II. 
 
 8l 
 
 G 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 There are three things, wrote St. Ignatius 
 (ad Eplies.), three mysteries, that were done in 
 ‘ a silence of God ’—the Virginity of Mary, the 
 Nativity in the Stable of Bethlehem, the election 
 of the Cross of Calvary (John xii. 32, 33). This 
 silence, as relating to the Virgin-Mother, is still 
 observed by the divine counsels. If God speaks, 
 let the whole earth be silent before Him (Ps. lxxvi. 
 8 ; Zech. ii. 13). If God speaks. But who, then, 
 is he who shall dare to break in upon a silence of 
 God ? 
 
 However, such reticence in the divine com¬ 
 munication, such hiatus in inspired record, the 
 unrevealed in Revelation, is no isolated 
 
 The unre¬ 
 vealed in phenomenon. The Gospel of Jesus Christ 
 
 Revelation. 
 
 has many an unwritten page. Let us 
 reflect how many things in the human life of the 
 Son of God, things that we should have wished 
 to know, things that it imperils our salvation—so 
 it would certainly seem—to have remaining un¬ 
 known, are nevertheless not recorded, at least 
 such is the appearance to our imperfect vision— 
 the entire instruction, to take a capital instance, 
 of the Forty Days after the Resurrection; the 
 instruction on which the Church was principally 
 built and the Christian faith elaborated; the 
 instruction of the promised time, when our 
 Lord was no more to speak to His disciples in 
 proverbs but would show them plainly of the 
 
 82 
 
THE MOTIVE OF THE OMISSIONS 
 
 Father (John xvi. 25); the instruction from 
 whence proceeds the Apostolic tradition , the 
 Divine tradition, which is the possession of the 
 infallible Church, and of the infallible Church 
 alone. How many controversies, to our human 
 apprehension, might have been avoided if we had 
 chapter and verse for the whole of the Church’s 
 tradition ? ‘ He spoke to them of things that 
 
 concerned the kingdom of God 5 (Acts i. 3). 
 But no ; we must not learn the Creed by our own 
 critical appreciation, but by submitting to be 
 taught (Rom. x. 2, 3). Such is the divine dis¬ 
 pensation for us. Or again—a much smaller 
 thing, perhaps, but still—if we only knew what 
 Lazarus said, a traveller returned from the 
 bourne! No undiscovered country then, we 
 think. But God knows better. ‘ Neither will 
 they be persuaded though one come back from 
 the dead ’ (Luke xvi. 31). 
 
 One may safely judge, besides, that there are 
 things too sacred for literature, to be abandoned 
 to our profanity. As, for example, hardly any 
 word spoken by our Lord, only six words in all 
 (Mark v. 41 ; vii. 34 ; Matt, xxvii. 46), are allowed 
 to come down to us. The confusion, the terrible 
 condemnation, if we could take in our profane 
 mouths the actual speech of God Incarnate ! 
 
 So that there have been often in Scripture, 
 often no doubt also in life and in the events of 
 
 83 G2 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 this or that succeeding century, things withheld, 
 which seem to our inexperience as if they would 
 have been good things, but they are even then 
 withheld because of greater harm otherwise; or 
 the rhythm of the universe might have been 
 disturbed by their inclusion. We do not know. 
 It is impossible for us to penetrate to the mind 
 of God (Rom. xi. 34). In the moral order, as in 
 the physical, we must accept catastrophes with¬ 
 out understanding them. In the spirit of Job 
 (ii. 10) : ‘ Shall we receive good at the hands of 
 God, and shall we not receive evil ? ’ It is a 
 disappointment to find nothing about our Lady, 
 to have nothing beyond constructive proof 
 (though it is more than constructive in the case 
 of the two Evangelists themselves who record 
 the Birth of Christ) of the reverence and devo¬ 
 tion we pay her to-day having been also paid 
 by those who knew her and had seen her. Mary 
 is the destroyer of heresies, in the sense that to 
 discover her and to be won to revere her is more 
 than half-way to the bosom of the Church. 
 What a grand thing, to our inexperience, if we 
 had it actually recorded of the first Christians 
 that they repeated, as it has been shown 1 that 
 they certainly might have repeated, the Hail 
 Mary! Or if the Assumption was not only to 
 
 1 Above, p. 31. But in that case Protestants would 
 expunge the text, as many now expunge 1 John v. 7. 
 
 84 
 
THE MOTIVE OF THE OMISSIONS 
 
 be found in the Tr(insitus, but named or alluded 
 to somewhere among Apostolic writings ! Where 
 would at least Protestantism be, would it ever 
 have been, then ? How many souls now lost 
 for lack of it! So it appears to our incomplete 
 vision and narrowness of view. 4 We see, as in 
 a mirror, but the imperfect reflection and image ; 
 we know only a part 5 (i Cor. xiii. 12). Yet 
 something we may perhaps discern. 
 l ; -_The reason of the Assumption—as David sang : 
 4 Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer 
 Thy Holy One to see corruption,’ and Mary’s 
 the words were applied by St. Peter to withdraws 
 the Son of Mary (Acts ii. 31); or, as our our k°ow- 
 Lord Himself interpreted the law: ledge - 
 4 Whoever swears by the temple, swears by it 
 and by Him that dwells therein ’ (Matt, xxiii. 
 21)—the reason of the Assumption taking place 
 is, perhaps, also the reason, or one reason, of our 
 missing it, and other things of like sacred import, 
 from any divine communication. Mary is holy, 
 she has been the shrine of the Holy One— Deum 
 de Deo , Lumen de lumine, gestant puellae viscera 1 ; 
 she abides under the shadow of the Almighty. 
 
 Even by our unaided judgment and intelligence 
 we can understand that it is the glory of woman 
 not to be spoken of (Thuc. ii. 45). What nature 
 
 1 ‘ True God of true God, true Light of true Light, lo ! 
 He abhors not the Virgin’s womb.’ 
 
 85 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 teaches is so ordered by the Author of nature, 
 who is also the Author of Revelation. We can 
 less understand the glory of the religious, of the 
 nun, presented as a pure virgin to Christ, enclosed 
 in a religious solitude. The one supreme among 
 women, dedicated to God by the threefold tie 
 of child and wife and mother, what must not 
 her seclusion be ! Unknown, unheard of, a life 
 without incident and without record. Or the 
 Mother of God left childless ? Who is to share 
 her mourning or her memories ? In the narra¬ 
 tive of the Incarnation it is unavoidable that 
 she should be presented to us. But nothing 
 more. In the Gospel, if a glimpse of her is seen 
 besides, it is only to inform us that she is hidden. 
 ‘ What have I to do with thee, Madonna ? 5 — 
 4 Who is My mother, and who are My brethren ? ’ 
 —. c Blessed is the womb that bore Thee and the 
 breasts that suckled Thee. Hush! no ; blessed 
 are those who hear the word of God and keep 
 it. 5 £ I have nought to do with thee here, in the 
 public gaze; My mother is different, separate 
 from the nearest of My disciples, not to be named 
 as they are named. What if she heard the word 
 of God first in her Annunciation, what if she kept 
 every saying about Me or speech of Mine, ponder¬ 
 ing it in her heart ? I died, and she stood 
 beneath My Cross. I rose and appeared to My 
 disciples, but if I appeared to her, it shall never 
 
 86 
 
THE MOTIVE OF THE OMISSIONS 
 
 be known. Enough ; I left her as My last legacy, 
 in My dying agony, My last charge. I left her 
 to My beloved, to all who are Mine, to be their 
 Mother, as she was My Mother. The rest is 
 faith. You believe in God ; believe also in Me, 
 and if you believe in Me, believe also in My 
 Mother.’ 
 
 Of our Lord it is written (Mark vii. 37) : 4 He 
 hath done all things well,’ in His providence as 
 in His miracles of mercy. Dimly, as in a glass, 
 a blurred and broken mirror, yet see we do that 
 what has been done is best. Blessed are the 
 poor, the persecuted, the meek—that is God’s 
 order, not our way. Blessed the pure in heart 
 who see God. Blessed Mary above all, the Virgin 
 of virgins, the pure Virgin. She shall be known 
 best, not by record, but by the silence about 
 her. Dilectus mens mihi et ego illi. Left out of 
 the record, left to God ! 
 
 87 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 CONCLUSIONS 
 
 Inspiration is a reality. 4 The Breath of God 
 blows where He wills.’ 4 It is the Spirit who 
 Natural testifies.’ Language and expression 
 Epfsto£ry f belong to the writer, but the things 
 writers. written are not his own; they are 
 
 things given to him to write, and he 
 may not, he dares not, diminish or add to them. 
 That is the manner of authorship of Holy Scrip¬ 
 ture. 4 All Scripture is God-inspired.’ The 
 explanation regards, among other things, the 
 things that are written, and the things that are 
 left unwritten, in Scripture about our Lady, 
 the mention or the total exclusion of the name of 
 Mary. Nevertheless it may now appear that 
 the silence of Epistolary writers, though due to 
 the divine control, was not out of accord with 
 their natural disposition ; there need be no strain 
 or irksome curb in this respect over the human 
 medium. Of themselves, and Inspiration apart, 
 it might always be an understood thing among 
 the Eleven, among the early disciples, that 
 
 88 
 
CONCL USIONS 
 
 nothing should be said about Mary beyond her 
 simple identification in the Gospel. Why should 
 they say more ? They could not foresee of 
 themselves that her prerogatives would be 
 rejected in our far-off time, that there would 
 arise a generation long after them too dull to 
 understand what was meant by being the Mother 
 of the Only-Begotten ; they could not anticipate 
 that dishonour should ever be done to her with 
 a pretence of jealousy for His honour whose 
 infant kisses were hers. They had not a mysteri¬ 
 ous consciousness, it was a very obvious and 
 natural feeling, against talking about her. 
 Obvious, while they were treasuring her, in her 
 loneliness, in her patient waiting, wherever the 
 abode might be. Not less obvious, when she 
 was gone from them, when she was crowned 
 in heaven, when her holy body had gone to that 
 place where ‘ bone of her bone and flesh of her 
 flesh 5 1 was already gone before. She had been 
 a mother to them. Who talks of his dead 
 mother ? And if his mother was more holy 
 than the holiest memory that we can picture ? 
 It was their mission to preach Christ, and they 
 could not preach Him without preaching her 
 so far. But they had nothing further to say ; 
 they had no instruction, no commission, to say 
 more. 
 
 1 Not merely Gen. ii. 23, but xxix. 14, etc. 
 
 89 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 They could not, with their recent recollection, 
 tell their converts to love Mary. Those who 
 learned to love their Saviour, must find out 
 for themselves that His Mother was also theirs. 
 And the confidence that this would come about 
 was not mistaken. The earliest theological 
 history is a logical process towards the definition 
 of her queenly estate ] ; the earliest writers, an 
 Augustine of Hippo, an Ephrem the Syrian, 
 expound her glories. Things defined, as every 
 student of ecclesiastical history knows, are 
 things current in the Church long before; they 
 are not defined in order that they may be believed, 
 but because the existing belief has, at the par¬ 
 ticular time, begun to be questioned. When 
 was it, then, since the first age, that Mary was 
 not the object of the devotion of Christendom ; 
 when was it that the devotion was not a growing 
 and expanding thing, and therefore the root, 
 the plant, already there ? We should have no 
 prepossessions, we should reflect, we should be 
 reasonable, we should try to understand. What 
 are the facts, what is the evidence, not as we 
 thought it was, but as it is really found to be ? 
 
 ‘ That is not what we believe.’ But, surely, 
 anyone would wish to know what the thing he 
 believed was, whether ens or non-ens. To believe 
 and know nothing about it, not care to know, 
 
 1 Newman, Development, chap. iv. sect, ii, 
 
 90 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 is laughable. People now think it strange, and 
 revealing an unusually subtle disposition of 
 mind, if anyone is dissatisfied. Certainly, within 
 the Church, doubt is excluded because of the 
 Revelation, and the Church affirms what is 
 affirmed here. But outside the Church, where 
 no Revelation is possessed, where everyone must 
 judge and decide for himself, how, if you do not 
 judge and decide, can you call it believing ? Are 
 you so simple as to take for Gospel what you 
 learnt at school ? Or what 4 most people think ’ ? 
 Look into things for yourself, and you will see 
 that you were told all wrong, and people in 
 general are hopelessly wrong, about primitive 
 Christianity and the religion of the Bible, so 
 far, at least, as concerns rejection of the office and 
 dignity of the Mother of God. 
 
 Where the argument is now arrived, it is 
 difficult to get back to the puerilities of our 
 beginning, when some difference was allowed 
 and some explanation appeared suit- cogency 
 able regarding the position of the Receding 
 Blessed Virgin in Holy Scripture and ar § ument - 
 in the Christianity of the first age ; when there 
 was a serious suspicion about the literary and 
 archaeological enterprise in hand, and yet possibly 
 some indulgent interest and curiosity, as when one 
 expects an ingenious piece of reasoning and an 
 impossible paradox to be maintained. All that 
 
 9i 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 is now left behind. And yet, retrace the steps 
 of the argument; where is the flaw ? There is 
 not any debate or real discussion introduced, 
 no contravention imagined or assertion main¬ 
 tained ; it is only that the language of Scripture 
 is noted and as it were underlined, so that it shall 
 not escape attention. Observe also that it is 
 the language of Scripture. Only one reference 
 —that concerning the Assumption—to any other 
 authority, and the Assumption may be left out 
 of the evidence without any great difference in 
 the issue. 
 
 It is untrue, then, that our Lady is passed 
 over in the Gospel. You arrived at that idea 
 by leaving the Nativity and its prologue out of 
 your purview. It is untrue that the honours of 
 our Lady belong to a later age. They are 
 ascribed to her by St. Matthew and by St. Luke; 
 they belong to the age of St. Matthew and of St. 
 Luke. Or, if not, they belong to an age lying 
 side by side with it, so that its furniture is the 
 same, moved just as it stood from one room 
 to the other. The Gospels may belong to the 
 Apostolic, and must (by confession of the critics) 
 to the sub-Apostolic age. Protestantism means, 
 beyond error, incapacity. 
 
 How did it come to make the muddle ? How 
 did it come to leave our Lady out, when the 
 Gospels put her in ? And to say the Gospels left 
 
 92 
 
CONCL US 10 NS 
 
 her out ? The English Protestant Established 
 Church has had of late a leaven of better 
 notions. It is always perhaps a less p 
 extreme Protestantism, because of its lack of 
 
 lucidity. 
 
 retention of Bishops and Cathedrals, 
 and because of its preservation of mutilated Office 
 and Liturgy, links of language and institution 
 with the former Church of the land. In an 
 authorised and widely used hymn-book of the 
 E.P.E.C., there was included the kyrielle of a 
 famous writer : ‘ Jesus, Son of Mary, hear.’ 
 The refrain was editorially metamorphosed into 
 ‘Jesus, Son of David.’ Not even in the E.P.E.C., 
 can our Lord be allowed to be the Son of Mary. 
 But the Gospel allows Him to be. If He is, we 
 must not say so ; it is Mariolatry, and displeasing 
 to God. But the Gospel does say so. Either 
 it is not Mariolatry, or Mariolatry is not dis¬ 
 pleasing. Protestantism is anyhow wrong and 
 cannot possibly be right. 
 
 Supposing the Catholic devotion to Mary to 
 be immoderate, to exceed due bounds, to have 
 become a limitless hierurgical system, bordering 
 on idolatry, or over the border. Still the 
 devotion is there, whatever it may be. And the 
 devotion was in the sub-Apostolic age, in primitive 
 Christianity. Not in Protestantism. 
 
 If we could find an ordinary level-headed man, 
 might he not therefore reasonably argue : ‘ No ; 
 
 93 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Protestantism is clearly wrong here ; there is an 
 
 obvious lacuna. With the lacuna , and with the 
 
 • 
 
 error, how am I to take the Protestant account 
 of what in particular the devotion is outside 
 Protestantism ? Not having got the right version, 
 having itself no version at all, how can Pro¬ 
 testantism assert that outside version to be 
 wrong ? You want to get your line from the 
 primitive age under this head. There is cer¬ 
 tainly a start in the Gospel. Now here in Pro¬ 
 testantism the line breaks off short. There in 
 the Church it is still traceable. Or at any rate 
 there is a line. And why not then the primitive ? 
 You have no position for denying it. Because 
 at first you denied that there was any start in 
 the Gospel, any primitive line, at all. And as 
 you had missed that altogether, I cannot now 
 recognise your qualification for deciding what 
 sort of line it properly is. I shall—reasonably, 
 I think—take the Church’s devotion as mv 
 point of departure, as at present holding the 
 field. You must discover for me how and where 
 it is wrong. It is not wrong ab initio as not being 
 your devotion, because you have got no devo¬ 
 tion, and are convicted besides of yourself being 
 wrong without one.’ 
 
 There is no development in our age—no sub¬ 
 stantial development—from the belief and atti¬ 
 tude of the first age. What suggests the idea, 
 
 94 
 
CONCL USIONS 
 
 what, perhaps, sets Protestantism also wrong— 
 though it should not, considering that Protes¬ 
 tantism asserts ‘the Bible only’ and The witness 
 does not regard tradition or ecclesias- p^Tshc 
 tical record—is a temporary subsidence llterature - 
 of the outer radiations of the Christian creed 
 during the age of the Martyrs, during the perse¬ 
 cution under the Roman Empire, which began 
 before the close of the first Christian century. 
 The centra] nucleus alone, the vital and essential 
 dogma, all else unlearnt, such an Apostles’ Creed 
 as that of St. John (i John v. 5-11) or of St. Paul 
 (1 Tim. iii. 16), sufficed for the inchoate and 
 embarrassed Christianity of that time. 1 The 
 Church was a fugitive, hiding in holes, hunted 
 down. There was no active ecclesiastical life ; 
 it was enough if the immortal spark was still 
 glinting here and there ; if unbelief and profligacy 
 and superstition were defied and God adored, the 
 true God, revealed not imagined, God who had 
 become man— et homo factus est. 4 Believe in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ,’ said St. Paul to the 
 jailer, 4 and thou shalt be saved.’ E contra, 
 where the Church had freer scope, as in Syria, the 
 devotion to Mary, the language employed about 
 her, retained the expression of the Apostolic age 
 
 1 The tendency of persecution is, however, the same in 
 any Christian century. Thus in a distant Scotch county, 
 even to-day, the indigenous Catholics refuse the Rosary 
 in their devotions. 
 
 95 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 as exemplified in the Gospels of SS. Matthew and 
 Luke, and a hundred years before the Council 
 of Ephesus, we get the writings of St. Ephrem, 
 as already noticed, equalling or exceeding those 
 of St. Alphonsus Liguori, in their exposition of 
 ‘ the glories of Mary. 5 
 
 But, generally, it was a time of distress and 
 struggle, and though the tradition of the Apostles 
 was maintained entire within the teaching Church, 
 yet opportunities of teaching were precarious, and 
 its scope was limited accordingly. There were 
 special considerations besides which kept back 
 some phases of Christian doctrine from the 
 exoteric teaching of the Church within the Roman 
 world. The enemy was not then Protestantism, 
 Deism, Agnosticism; but either idolatry—the 
 adoration of the graven image ; or philosophy— 
 the creed of human imagination in place of the 
 Revelation of God ; philosophy, with its curious 
 conceits and false spirituality, the 4 wranglings of 
 men corrupt in mind 5 (i Tim. vi. 5). Hence, on 
 the one hand, as has been often remarked, the 
 absence of images, while still in wall paintings the 
 mysteries of Christianity were depicted, and the 
 Virgin and Child (above, p. 38) appeared. On the 
 other hand, the progress of ecclesiastical definition 
 concerned the central essence of the faith, against 
 Gnosticism, Sabellianism, the Nestorian and 
 Monophysite heresies, etc. Nevertheless, even 
 
 96 
 
CONCL USIONS 
 
 such progress led directly up to the proclamation 
 of Mary as 4 Mother of God 5 at Ephesus, and 
 her dignity was indissolubly connected with the 
 Incarnation of God, with an article of the Creed, 
 to be refused under anathema. 
 
 By the stress of persecution, then, and by the 
 presence of paganism and outlandish philosophies, 
 we are to account for the meagreness of allusion 
 —but there is allusion, though meagre 1 —to the 
 dignity of our Lady and to her devotion in early 
 Patristic literature, if Protestants were con¬ 
 cerned with this. Meanwhile the testimony of 
 Holy Scripture and the evidence it furnishes of 
 its own age is unmistakable, and, from whatever 
 period of the Church’s emergence to free life 
 and peace, we can look back to the Evangelists’ 
 description and recognize the original model as 
 in no respect exceeded. It is no new devotion, 
 but the old devotion recalled, if it is the age of 
 St. Bernard or of St. Alphonsus or our own. 
 The Christian hymn of praise, whenever the 
 Church freely and really lived, was the Magnificat 
 that St. Luke indited for her. 
 
 1 See Justin, Tryph. ioo; Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 22; Origen, 
 Horn. vi. in Luc. etc. 
 
 97 
 
 H 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MODERN ISSUES 
 
 The Blessed Virgin Mary is Defender of the 
 Christian Faith in the sense that failure in recog- 
 Appiica- nition of her royalty, denial of her pre- 
 
 Christian 6 rogatives and powers, lapse of devotion 
 Revelation. £ 0 h erj j s sure iy and certainly a first 
 
 breach with Christianity itself. It may almost 
 be said to be petitio principii , if one attempts to 
 prove our Lady’s claim from the evidence of the 
 Gospels, because, along with rejection of her 
 exaltation, the validity of the Gospel narrative 
 is simultaneously impugned, the Inspiration of 
 Holy Scripture is abandoned or explained away. 
 It is true that the early Protestants professed to 
 substitute the infallibility of Scripture for the 
 rule of the Church, and the more earnest and 
 religious-minded among Protestants, down to 
 quite recent years, have made of the Bible a 
 devotional Object; like the Tables of the Mosaic 
 Covenant, it is esteemed that the Bible is written 
 by the finger of God, every word of it belongs to 
 the divine Source of inspiration. So it is still 
 
 98 
 
MODERN ISSUES 
 
 with some simple and old-fashioned sectaries. 
 But among the generality no severe and particular 
 reverence can long endure, and Protestantism 
 with the progress of the centuries has protested 
 and doubted ever deeper and more widely. 
 To-day it has given up, or is arguing in favour 
 of such a step being taken—given up all the 
 miraculous portion of the biography of our Lord, 
 His Resurrection and Ascension, His being born 
 of a Virgin Mother. The Gospels, then, which 
 record these things, are unveracious or garbled. 
 And when they are discovered to be untrue in 
 one place, they may be also in another. The 
 Bible needs editing. 
 
 So the Christian faith is not now revealed to 
 babes, but waits for the last word of the literary 
 critic. We have no solid ground, no revealed 
 truth. The Revelation makes no difference. God 
 is what our moral sense and scientific intelligence 
 allow Him the title to be, and Jesus Christ is 
 not He who was preached by SS. Peter and 
 Paul, who was written of by St. Matthew, but 
 instead He is that particular historical figure 
 which is restored or created by critical insight 
 and the historical sense. 
 
 With this, the dogmatism of the Christian 
 Faith disappears. If 4 behold the Virgin shall 
 conceive ’ is a mistranslation, 1 or before that an 
 
 1 The Hebrew word translated ‘ Virgin 1 is to be for 
 
 99 H2 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 interpolation or a mythe, then c Immanu-El, God- 
 with-us,’ belongs to the same context; the Holy 
 Ghost does not especially intervene, there is no 
 angel Gabriel except in painted windows, and 
 the Holy Thing is born in the natural manner of 
 generation and is not the Son of God. 
 
 Protestantism is deeply leavened with Socinian- 
 ism. God is no longer born into the world, 
 coming to His own —genuisti qui te fecit 1 —but it 
 is only, at most, some mysteriously exalted pre¬ 
 sentation of humanity that receives accordingly, 
 or may claim for himself, equally the title of 
 Son of God or Son of Man, and whom His dis¬ 
 ciples designate as Lord— fcvpios, nor in so doing 
 necessarily allow him any godship (Acts xvi. 31, 
 etc.). 
 
 Thus does ecclesiastical, equally as secular, 
 history 4 repeat itself.’ If honour is refused to 
 the Virgin Mother, the Babe of Bethlehem pre¬ 
 sently ceases to be adored ; one deviation from 
 the common belief is linked with and implies the 
 other. The Council of Ephesus, in 431 a.d., 
 which declared Mary to be Theotokos , Mother of 
 God, was the sequel of Nicaea, 325 a.d., which 
 declared our Lord to be of one Substance with 
 the Father. 2 The Nestorian assigned to our Lord 
 
 advanced critics merely * woman,’ and especially a married 
 woman ! 
 
 1 ‘ Thou didst bear thy Maker.’ 
 
 - In that earlier age there were those who called our 
 
 100 
 
MODERN ISSUES 
 
 a mixed personality, or at least one which was 
 not purely divine; Mary was the mother of 
 Christ, and not of God. If the faith of the In¬ 
 carnation was to be preserved intact, Mary must 
 have that title which Protestants now refuse her. 
 Protestants refuse it her, and accordingly are 
 infected with Nestorianism in their generation. 
 The late Bishop (Creighton) of London objected 1 
 to the Christmas hymn which sang 4 Glory to 
 the new-born King. 5 For the Scripture had it 
 4 Glory to God. 5 We gather, therefore, that to 
 the Bishop 4 the new-born King ’ is not here an 
 equivalent. Protestants have up and down been 
 taught to reject the Immaculate Conception, and 
 the rejection has avenged itself, at least in Eng¬ 
 land, where the Immaculate Conception [of Mary] 
 is by nineteen out of twenty Protestants under¬ 
 stood to mean the miraculous Birth [of her Son] 
 from a Virgin Mother ! The faith, then, of the 
 Apostles’ Creed— 4 conceived by the Holy Ghost, 
 born of the Virgin Mary ’—is Roman corruption, 
 and belongs to 4 Mariolatry. 5 
 
 Christianity in its modern fashion of dress 
 
 Lady Mother of Jesus or of Christ, but who hesitated to 
 entitle her * Mother of God ' ; so now our Lord is the Son 
 of God; but if anyone should declare (with St. Ignatius) 
 that ‘ Jesus my God was crucified for me,’ the phrase appears, 
 to forty-nine out of fifty Protestants, both precarious and 
 over crudely conceived. 
 
 1 Sermon preached in Fulham Parish Church, on Christmas 
 Day, 1897. 
 
 IOI 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 dispenses with dogma, which has these dangerous 
 implications and associations, and becomes the 
 milk-and-water of charitable advertisement and 
 the altruism of the day. The decadence cannot 
 be denied ; it begins, as above exposed, with 
 the excision of the name of Mary from the sacred 
 record and from all religious observance. Hence 
 the vindication of the preceding pages presents 
 itself as a defence of the Christian faith at the 
 point where the main assault is now delivered, 
 and where already serious breach is made ; no 
 piece of Catholic controversy, but a defence of 
 the creed which is nominally, and was originally, 
 held in common by Catholic and Protestant 
 alike. 
 
 But also to establish the superior dignity of 
 our Lady must be the most cogent demonstra¬ 
 tion of the authenticity of the Church’s 
 
 To the 
 
 claims of claims as against Protestantism. It has 
 Catholic been pointed out above that, as her 
 dignity is only recognised by Catholics, 
 there must be, at any rate, so much of error 
 among dissidents and of truth in the Church, 
 supposing the recognition to be right and to be 
 traced back into the primitive age. It has also 
 been suggested, as a matter of practical experi¬ 
 ence, that devotion to the Mother of God is 
 generally attended sooner or later by submission 
 to the Church, while, conversely, any lapse into 
 
 102 
 
MODERN ISSUES 
 
 heresy and infidelity begins with estrangement 
 from our Lady, or is quickly followed by it. 
 
 Protestantism is a religion of abstraction ; it 
 rejects all mediation. Sacraments, in its view, are 
 not spiritual media, but signs and symbols, if 
 not corruptions 1 ; prayer unmediated suffices, 
 and the Holy Ghost is given for the mere asking 
 (Luke xi. 13). The souls of the dead, without 
 any intermediate state, diverge immediately into 
 the presence of God, or the exterior darkness. 
 There is no intercession possible across the barrier 
 of death, neither of Saints in bliss for us, nor of 
 ourselves for the souls of our departed. Mediators 
 are not required in presence of our being God’s 
 elect—and this becomes in the sequel that the 
 mediatorial office of Christ Himself is nothing 
 real, and the abstraction is complete when we are 
 back in the philosophic deism of pre-Christian 
 times. 
 
 Especially the adoration of Saints and Relics 
 was always regarded by Protestantism as a 
 blasphemy. We should pray to God alone, and 
 Him only adore. Catholics (it was alleged) put 
 the Virgin Mary almost on an equality with God. 
 4 More than half the civilised world,’ said the 
 late Lord Beaconsfield, 4 worship a Jew, and the 
 large majority of those worship also a Jewess.’ 
 
 1 ‘ Grown of the corrupt following of the Apostles. 
 Articles of Religion, 1562, art. xxv. 
 
 IO3 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 The 4 worship ’ of our Lady is certainly one of 
 three or four salient characteristics (Masses, 
 Fasting, etc.) that distinguish the Church before 
 the eyes of those outside, and if this could be 
 justified and proved consonant with the first 
 preaching of Christianity, it must shake the entire 
 position. Imagine it to be allowed that the 
 Catholic devotion is right, and imagine the en¬ 
 deavour accordingly made to introduce it into 
 Protestant Christianity. It must be like the 
 piece of unshrunk cloth or the new wine that 
 rends the garment and bursts the wine-skins. 
 
 Catholic devotion to our Lady has the advan¬ 
 tage over other salient characteristics that it does 
 not require to be argued from Scripture, but is 
 itself Scripture. 4 Hoc est Corpus meum 5 1 —well, 
 is it necessarily transubstantiation ? Why not 
 imagery and metaphor : 4 1 am the vine, and you 
 are the branches 5 ? But 4 Quomodo fiet istud 
 quoniam virum non cognosco ? ’ 1 2 and 4 Spiritus 
 sanctus superveniet in te 5 3 —there is the Virgin 
 Mother and Bride of the Holy Ghost, absolutely 
 beyond evasion ; you can only expunge or ignore 
 the words. This is no irrelevant matter. For 
 although the Bible is not at present so much 
 revered and implicitly accepted by Protestants, 
 
 1 ‘ This is My Body.’ 
 
 2 * How shall this be done, because I know not man ? ’ 
 
 * ‘ The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee.’ * 
 
 IOq 
 
MODERN ISSUES 
 
 it was revered and accepted in the original of 
 Protestantism. On the authority of the Bible 
 the Church’s doctrine and institution was to be 
 arraigned. But then, supposing the Virgin Mother 
 and the Bride of the Holy Ghost, Protestantism, 
 at least in its origin, is shown on its own ground 
 to be in the wrong in diverging from the Church 
 as to this particular matter. Ought not this to 
 weaken the position of those who have come out 
 of that original Protestantism (and who of our 
 Protestants, of our free-thinkers, has not ?), whose 
 Christian ideas and prepossessions are derived 
 from it ? Now indeed the Church appears to 
 them at fault on other ground altogether, on the 
 ground of reason and intelligence. But they 
 judge her to be so as she appears to their Pro¬ 
 testant understanding. Human intelligence is 
 not infallible, nor do we ever make, except 
 indeed by supernatural grace, a pure judgment, 
 one without antecedent judgments leading to it 
 and qualifying it. What we think and judge 
 to-day is the psychological consequent of a long 
 train of thoughts, both our own and theirs by 
 whom we are taught and whose dispositions we 
 have inherited. You judge as a Protestant. But, 
 in order to be assured of judging rightly, you 
 require to know how you came to be a Protestant, 
 and how Protestantism came to be. The original 
 divergence out of which you come must be first 
 
 105 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 approved. Can the stream or any branch of it 
 be sweet water if the fountain is tainted ? Can 
 the tree bear good fruit if the original stock was 
 savage ? The fruit here is the decadence of 
 Christianity, as observed ; the original is varia¬ 
 tion from the absolute word of the Gospel, and 
 that when the Gospel was the authority pro¬ 
 claimed. 
 
 If Holy Scripture, if the Apostolic tradition, 
 be so, then what in particular is the honour paid 
 to our Lady by the Church to-day—whether a 
 divine honour, or only of the kind we pay to an 
 earthly sovereign, or to those of higher spiritual 
 and moral endowment among our friends—this 
 is no material matter. If there is some honour 
 to be paid, if our Lady, though a creature, is 
 the acme of creation, and though a woman, the 
 supreme human personality, then, whatever the 
 Church may be, Protestantism must revise its 
 constitution; the demand is not for reform but 
 for the referendum. 
 
 As above said, the decadence of Christian 
 faith, dogmatic faith, is undeniable, not only in 
 t our own country, but perhaps in others 
 social still more. The late Pope Leo XIII. 
 
 morality. . . 
 
 advocated, tor reparation of the mischief, 
 that appeal should be made to the intercession 
 of the Mother of God, and that increased devo¬ 
 tion should be displayed in her service. We live 
 
 106 
 
MODERN ISSUES 
 
 in a fool’s paradise if we suppose for a moment 
 that with the decay of religion social morality 
 can remain. Human nature is corrupt, and needs 
 the assisting and restraining power of divine 
 grace. Even Voltaire saw that if no God existed 
 it would be necessary to invent one. To the 
 discerning eye there is already evident amongst 
 us the emergence of pagan vices. 
 
 Social morality is more the work of women 
 than of men. The mother speaks to the heart 
 of her child while it is still unwritten upon, ere 
 it has known choice or aversion. If ‘ the child 
 is father of the man,’ then each generation de¬ 
 pends much for good or for evil on the women 
 of the generation that preceded it. And the 
 influence of good women does not end with the 
 mother’s influence. Reverence for good women, 
 association with good women, is for the growing 
 man an amulet against anything sordid and un¬ 
 worthy. If the tone of society is not maintained 
 by women, it cannot be maintained at all; for 
 the man who attempts it is perhaps a prig, or if 
 not, his influence is not the influence of daily 
 contact, of household detail. 
 
 Now the freedom and equality of women is the 
 invention of the Christian Church. There is no 
 difference between male and female, as neither 
 between bond and free, in Christ. Freedom and 
 equality did not exist, in any country or race, 
 
 107 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 in any polity, in any creed, before Christianity, 
 and subsequent to Christianity they are not 
 found outside the Christian Church. In Moham¬ 
 medanism, for example, women fall back into 
 their ancient degradation. Do you say that 
 Mohammedanism is an Eastern religion, and that 
 this accounts for its difference of institution ? 
 So was Christianity, an Eastern religion. It 
 originated among the Jews, and in Judaism there 
 is no equality. Or again. Milton, the noblest, 
 or certainly the most celebrated, of the English 
 Puritans, wrote in advocacy of divorce, and 
 would allow the husband to put away his wife 
 for mere change of fancy and disinclination 
 towards her—without allowing the wife. Many 
 of the earlier, and even of the later, sectaries 
 along with their doctrinal innovations combined 
 some meddling with marriage and the sexual 
 relation. Witness the Albigenses and Utraquists 
 in former ages. In our own time we have some 
 conspicuous examples. 
 
 c Set on one side such extreme innovators.’ In 
 the more respectable forms of Protestantism it is 
 claimed that the sanctity of the home is especially 
 honoured. But in Protestantism, on the con¬ 
 trary, divorce is a growing evil, and with the 
 liberty of divorce women are necessarily de¬ 
 graded. Or again. The ‘ rights 5 of women are 
 advocated along with the extension of free 
 
 108 
 
MODERN ISSUES 
 
 thought. But this implies a contention for 
 supremacy between the sexes, in which women 
 seek to rule instead of being ruled. The differ¬ 
 ence lies on the surface. 
 
 No ; freedom and equality were first granted 
 by and in the Church, and subsist wherever and 
 however now in consequence of that original 
 grant. Subsisting outside the Church in conse¬ 
 quence, their tenure is still then insecure. But, 
 as regards this feature in Christian civilisation, 
 distinguishing it from all other civilisations of 
 any age or country, it is the merest common¬ 
 place, which no ecclesiologist would care to ques¬ 
 tion, that the position attained by women is 
 originally due to that which is held by the 
 Madonna. 
 
 It made the difference of Christianity at the 
 outset from the social conditions around. It 
 started the idea in Christianity, which had never 
 been started before, of a womanhood without 
 inferiority. It progressed and disseminated itself 
 through Europe during the centuries in which 
 the Church was supreme and the c worship of the 
 Jewess 5 established. It created chivalry, of 
 which only the derelictions are censured. It 
 gave the world Dante’s Beatrice, the guide of 
 Paradise. It made romantic art. Spenser and 
 Sidney and Shakespeare in England were because 
 
 109 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 the Church and the Madonna had gone before, 
 not because the Puritan and the Rationalist 
 were to follow after. 
 
 You may speculate, you may theorise, you 
 may experiment (as in Protestantism), but in 
 the historical outcome and in the teaching of 
 experience the sanctity of family life is not main¬ 
 tained without the ideal of virginity beside it. 
 You may kick against any such conclusion, as 
 you belong to the modern age, but you cannot 
 avoid it. No nun, no true wife. The Virgin- 
 Mother, who was the wife of Joseph, sanctifies 
 the three estates of mother, wife, and maid. 
 Home ? The first Christian home is the home of 
 Nazareth. Marriage is holy and virginity is holy 
 in the institution of Christ and by the Apostolic 
 regulation. Religion, the religion of Christ, must 
 consecrate both the one and the other. Without 
 religious consecration, celibacy is barren. With¬ 
 out the Sacrament, marriage is debased. ‘ Holy 
 Mary, Mother of God, to thee I consecrate myself 
 wholly ; take me for thy servant, thy handmaid, 
 as thou wast thyself Ancilla Domini , the hand¬ 
 maid of the Lord.’ Not only for Christianity, for 
 the Church, but also for our society, for our 
 civilisation, for the preservation and progress of 
 our race—the vindication of our Lady’s title is 
 no unfruitful work. Happy is that nation, 
 
 no 
 
MODERN ISSUES 
 
 effective in the world is that people, which is 
 under the patronage and protection of the Queen 
 of angels and of men. At any rate, those who 
 refuse her their homage, and still profess them¬ 
 selves Christians, must clearly be, as Matthew 
 Arnold said, a people wanting in ‘ lucidity.’ 
 
 hi 
 
PART II 
 
 AFTER 
 
 i 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GROUND OF DEVELOPMENT 
 
 The Evangelists—and inferentially, therefore, 
 the immediate disciples and chosen Apostles of 
 our Lord, or, at latest, the aftermath summary 
 of the Apostolic age—regarded our Lady ° f f ^ y ence 
 as being Mother of God (Matt. i. 23; Scrl P ture - 
 Luke i. 35), as being the Blessed Virgin (28, 45), 
 as being Virgo virginum (Matt. i. 20 ; Luke i. 34), 
 as being Ancilla Domini (38), as purissima, and 
 thence, by suggestion, immaculata. At the Cruci¬ 
 fixion she is recorded as having been named 
 Mother of the Apostolic Body, and thence of 
 Christendom, Mater nostra (John xix. 27) ; she is 
 commemorated as sharing in the Sacrificial 
 Offering of her Son, Mater dolorosa , Mater con- 
 dolens (Luke ii. 35 ; John xix. 25), and as being 
 associate, with pre-eminent position, of the 
 expectant Church between the Ascension and 
 Pentecost (Acts i. 14). She is expressly and 
 unmistakably declared of high Jewish rank, 
 of the highest. Our Lord was regarded as 
 descended from David (Matt. i. 6; Luke iii. 31; 
 
 115 12 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Acts ii. 30), and hence was popularly known, 
 according to the narrative, by the title 4 Son of 
 David 5 (Matt. xx. 30; xxi. 9, etc.), not merely in 
 a metaphorical and purely titular sense 1 2 as being 
 the Messiah, but His actual genealogy is traced ; 
 He is the de jure king of Judaea of His age (Matt, 
 ii. 2 ; Luke i. 32 ; John vi. 15), and that necessarily 
 —since He has no human father—in His Mother’s 
 right, who is therefore of royal blood, Regina 
 (Luke i. 27; ii. 4), and so handed down in Christian 
 tradition, and by her relation to God Incarnate 
 transcending the immediate and earthly sov- 
 reignty, carrying it to a higher elevation, uni- 
 versalising it; besides Regina Apostolorum , there¬ 
 fore, also Regina Sanctorum omnium , Regina 
 Angelorum, Queen of heaven as well as Queen on 
 earth. For the prophecy of the angel of the 
 Annunciation (Luke i. 32, 33) spoke of her Son : 
 c The Lord God—J ehovah Elohim—shall give to 
 Him the throne of, His father David, and He 
 shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and 
 of His kingdom there shall be no end.’ The 
 Queen-Mother, of the same royal house, shares in 
 the eternal reign of the Heir and Lord of David ; 
 when He shall sit upon the throne of His glory 
 
 1 Incontrovertible’ so in St. Paul’s phrase (Rom. i. 3; 
 
 2 Tim. ii. 8) : ‘ Jesus Christ of the seed of David.’ St. Paul 
 must be evidence of the belief of his age, which is surely 
 Apostolic. 
 
 Il6 
 
THE GROUND OF DEVELOPMENT 
 
 (Matt. xxv. 31), upon His right hand stands the 
 Queen in gold of Ophir (Ps. xlv. 9 ; Matt. xx. 23). 
 He that comes in glory, in 4 the clouds of heaven,’ 
 is the Son of Man (Matt. xxvi. 64), and He is only 
 Son of Man as being Son of Mary. 
 
 All this belongs to the Sacred Narrative. A 
 moment, if you please. That it so belongs is no 
 proof of the truth or justice of the estimate—no 
 argumentative proof, as against possible contra¬ 
 venes. Our present bias is sceptical, and the 
 nature of Divine Inspiration, to the few who 
 admit its existence, is not yet ascertained—the 
 idea is still fluid—whether an inspired writing 
 would be accurate in all its parts, or only in some 
 particulars, or not necessarily accurate in any. 
 For large numbers Holy Scripture is only inspired 
 in the sense that it is good and excellent, as a 
 beautiful countenance is inspired, or as an eloquent 
 speech. For large numbers Inspiration is nothing 
 real. That a story or an allegation occurs in a 
 Gospel, is in itself no proof of its being true. 
 
 But it is proof of the ideas belonging to the age 
 of composition of the Gospel. Our present bias 
 is historical, and this secondary evidence of 
 original records is particularly favoured. Whether 
 Scripture is inspired, or in some sense inspired, 
 or in no sense, still this proof holds with us all. 
 The ideas a writer expresses are very generally 
 those of his age or of his immediate surroundings, 
 
 n 7 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 and, when they are otherwise, it is revealed by the 
 literary manner of their introduction. The 
 writers of the Gospels are not clever writers ; 
 they are not equal to invention or embellishment 
 of their own. Thus the dignity assigned to our 
 Lady so far must be the concern of the first age ; 
 we are dealing with no later development of any 
 sort; we are still on the ground of Scripture 
 and have not started any 4 Tradition 5 in excess 
 or independence of it. It becomes quite syllo¬ 
 gistic, as it might be in a treatise of the Schools. 
 After this fashion. You must repudiate the 
 authority of the New Testament writings, in 
 order to deny the dignity of the Blessed Virgin. 
 But, as evidence of the primitive age, you cannot 
 repudiate the authority of the New Testament 
 writings. The dignity of the Blessed Virgin 
 accordingly belongs to the primitive age. 
 
 The further inquiry concerns the general and 
 current belief within the Church regarding our 
 Lady’s prerogative and office. The 
 
 Nature of 
 
 theological design is altered. We have not to 
 exposition. ^* scover w k a t j s the belief and senti¬ 
 ment of the present age, as previously of the 
 Apostolic age. There is no dispute about it. 
 Nor can the Scriptural narrative or discourse be 
 employed as evidence of opinion prevailing so 
 many centuries later. Nor is there anything to 
 prove by evidence. Whether the beliefs are 
 
 118 
 
THE GROUND OF DEVELOPMENT 
 
 true and the opinions just, is not the ques¬ 
 tion, but merely what they are. So that they 
 may be compared with what has been ascer¬ 
 tained to have been the devotion of the primitive 
 age. 
 
 At the same time, these current beliefs of the 
 Church are commonly much travestied by those 
 outside, and unnecessary prejudice is created 
 against them. Even when they are presented 
 with something more nearly approaching accuracy, 
 their effect is misrepresented, exaggerated con¬ 
 sequences are deduced from them, and they are 
 made irrational and impossible by false premisses 
 on which the counter argument proceeds. Hence, 
 though no external evidence or proof is to be 
 adduced, the belief respecting our Lady and the 
 devotion accorded her may be examined to 
 ascertain what precisely they are, their internal 
 coherence may be exhibited, and they may be 
 vindicated according to reason and human in¬ 
 telligence, as nothing monstrous or inconsistent 
 with our experience of the nature and constitu¬ 
 tion of things about us, of the world in which we 
 live, and of the unseen world which is inferred to 
 exist besides. The office of the Blessed Virgin, 
 as conceived by the Church, is discovered not to 
 contradict the order of Providence and the law 
 which God has imposed on the universe of His 
 creation, but to be in complete harmony with the 
 
 119 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 common beliefs of mankind regarding the one 
 and the other. 
 
 We necessarily encounter theological aspects. 
 Theology is an extensive science and runs into 
 collateral branches. It touches upon topics 
 apart from its proper domain. Thus, strictly 
 speaking, the existence and nature of angels has 
 nothing to do with theology ; nor has the existence 
 and nature of the future state for human souls. 
 But it would be pedantic to exclude these ques¬ 
 tions. Much more clearly is the present inquiry 
 a concern of theology. The Mother of God 
 Incarnate cannot be excluded from exposition of 
 the doctrine of the Incarnation, and her name 
 appears as an integral adjunct of the Christian 
 Creed—‘ born of the Virgin Mary } ; the deter¬ 
 mination of her proper title is associated with the 
 definition of the true faith regarding the Divinity 
 of Christ against the Nestorian heresy. 
 
 Then, further, theology is a deductive science. 
 Necessarily so, if the fact is admitted of a Revela¬ 
 tion having been made . 1 A deductive science is 
 one that proceeds from first principles which are 
 admitted as necessary truths. But in a Revelation, 
 that which is revealed is true beyond our question. 
 
 1 But in the modern acceptation of the term outside the 
 Church the Revelation does not reveal. On the contrary, 
 we have ourselves to make out with great trouble and conten¬ 
 tion what Christianity is. 
 
 120 
 
THE GROUND OF DEVELOPMENT 
 
 It is less certain that two and two make four, 
 than that 4 1 and My Father are One 5 (John x. 30), 
 or that c God so loved the world that He gave His 
 only begotten Son 5 (iii. 16), or that ‘ the bread 
 that I will give is My Flesh, which I will give for 
 the life of the world 5 (vi. 51). 1 The mathematical 
 truth is certain according to the constitution of 
 our minds, but the truths of Revelation are certain 
 apart from us altogether. They are from God. 
 The one is a truth of the present constitution of 
 things ; the other is truth eternal. Consequently, 
 if mathematical science is legitimately deductive, 
 if we may unhesitatingly infer that two sides of 
 any triangle are together greater than the third, 
 still more unhesitatingly may we affirm the 
 deductions of theology, supposing them to be 
 true deductions, that is to say, to follow from the 
 theological first principles without violating any 
 deductive canon. If Revelation has revealed 
 nothing, it is not a revelation. But if anything 
 is revealed, we have absolutely certain truths, 
 from which deduction may proceed. Theology 
 is a deductive science. 
 
 This is the main ground of what is called 
 development in Catholic theology. Deductive 
 inference, whether in the lucubrations of the 
 learned or in popular native logic, may enlarge 
 
 1 The only elenchus would be that these propositions 
 did not belong to the Revelation. 
 
 121 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 the scope of an accepted doctrine or propose some 
 subsidiary addition to the creed. If you would 
 refute any such development, your business is to 
 show that the doctrine is not legitimately inferred 
 from the data of the original Revelation. To 
 show the doctrine to be uncomely or unreasonable 
 in itself, is to waste your labour. That merely, 
 if the deduction be correct, refutes the original 
 Revelation! But with every fresh definition of 
 doctrine, to be professed under pain of anathema, 
 the Church has always taken special care to 
 discover and to proclaim that the doctrine is of 
 a piece with the received creed. Thus if you do 
 not admit such development, you either do not 
 admit Revelation, or you dispute the validity of 
 reasoning. You might as well or better dispute 
 that two and two make four. 
 
 There is, then, a recognisable development in 
 theological doctrine. And belief regarding the 
 Mother of God, and such devotional practice as 
 is consequent on that belief, comes within the 
 province of theology without any great expansion 
 of its boundaries. The Christian Revelation, from 
 which our theology takes its origin, is primarily 
 the doctrine and discipline in the possession of the 
 Apostles of our Lord by His commission. What 
 we discover within the first age of the Church may 
 be understood to belong to the Revelation, to be a 
 
 122 
 
THE GROUND OF DEVELOPMENT 
 
 divine tradition, as instituted through that 
 commission. That there is a dignity ascribed to 
 our Lady and a devotion paid her in the first age, 
 has been discovered in the former part of the 
 present work. We have, then, a Revelation 
 regarding our Lady, her office and attributes are 
 part of the Revelation, and we obtain thus a datum 
 for future deduction, as in the case of any article 
 of the revealed creed. 
 
 If anyone objects that it is not the traditional 
 institution of the Apostles, but the written 
 Scripture, which is the Revelation, at least as far 
 as it exists for us at this date ; though the objection 
 is demonstrably invalid; 1 yet, even then, we may 
 observe that the evidence for the belief of the first 
 age regarding our Lady, for the Apostolic institu¬ 
 tion, has been obtained from Scripture. We may 
 rest the argument on either interpretation. Is 
 the Scripture inspired, and does that imply that 
 it is divine and infallible truth ? Or is the 
 Apostolic tradition that with which we are con¬ 
 cerned, and is the evidence of Scripture adduced 
 to substantiate that a particular belief regarding 
 our Lady belonged to the first age ? In either 
 
 : We desire—and it is evidently the safest course—to ap¬ 
 proach the knowledge of Christianity in the mode of the 
 first converts. But this is evidently by Apostolic tradition 
 and not the consultation of texts. 
 
 123 
 
THE MOTHER OE JESUS 
 
 case we have our revealed and certain data, and 
 theological science, as applied to our Lady, 
 becomes legitimately deductive. There is a 
 legitimate development in the doctrine and belief 
 of the Catholic Church regarding the Queen- 
 Mother. 
 
 124 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 DELEGATION OF THE DIVINE DOMINION 
 
 The general government of God appears to be 
 conducted by delegation of power. In the 
 physical world there is thus the appear- 
 
 1 J Delegation 
 
 ance of self-evolution, of a machinery set to natural 
 
 forces. 
 
 in motion and working thenceforward by 
 its own forces and according to the law of its 
 original construction. In the ordinary course 
 the Creator does not interfere. ‘ God makes 
 His sun to rise on the evil and on the good and 
 sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 5 That 
 is to say, the forces of nature operate uniformly, 
 and their action is indiscriminate. The most 
 valuable life may be struck down by the earth¬ 
 quake or the pestilence, while the worthless life 
 escapes. There is dissolution and recomposition 
 in a regular rhythm. The mouldering of the 
 slain upon a battle-field enriches the soil, and 
 from more luxuriant crops more life is fed. 
 There is nothing lost and nothing added ; the 
 same original elements decompose and reunite 
 by their own impulses, by their intrinsic attrac- 
 
 125 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 tions and repulsions. The material of the earth’s 
 entourage is constant and only alters its form ; 
 the sea recedes on one shore and encroaches on 
 another ; in order that an additional entity may 
 emerge upon the globe, there must somewhere be 
 a gap made. 
 
 So complete is this delegation of power that 
 the great natural philosophers of antiquity— 
 and the disposition of modern science is largely 
 the same—discovered in the uniformity of 
 natural law a proof that there were no gods at 
 all, or, if any gods existed, that they did not 
 concern themselves with the world in which we 
 live. The most complex processes go on, the 
 most marvellous evolutions are effected—the 
 acorn becomes an oak, the granite rock grows, 
 Alps are piled on Alps—by internal forces, and 
 without any impulse or interference beyond the 
 forces themselves. The mystery of life itself is 
 hidden in the secret of nature’s alchemy, the 
 mystery of revolving orbs, and the transit of a 
 thousand years of the light of distant stars. 
 God has given nature powers, and these are left 
 alone to direct, control, and govern. 
 
 Further, it did not need the direct teaching of 
 Scripture (Gen. i. 26, 28 ; Ps. viii. 6)— 
 unless, indeed, for the silliness of some 
 human philosophies—to inform us that 
 man holds a certain supremacy and exercises some 
 
 126 
 
 To man 
 
 over 
 
 nature. 
 
DELEGATION OF THE DIVINE DOMINION 
 
 kind of dominion over the earth, and over the 
 life upon it. By his natural intelligence he 
 turns the wilderness into a garden, and impene¬ 
 trable forests become homesteads and villages ; 
 he cultivates fruits and tames animals for his 
 use and profit; even the physical forces serve 
 his will; wind and water turn his mills ; hydraulic 
 power, steam, the electric current, work for him. 
 Nature is dependent upon him for life and happi¬ 
 ness. Where the human dominion is intelligent 
 and conscientious, the earth wears a smiling 
 face ; where man neglects his part, there is rank¬ 
 ness and swamp and pestilence ; even the climate 
 is changed by clearing of the forest growth ; 
 even the creatures that serve him for food live a 
 span of life they would not else have had, cattle 
 upon a thousand hills are happy and tended. 
 The misery in nature, 4 red in tooth and claw,’ 
 if we are to believe the Revelation, belongs like¬ 
 wise to human responsibility. Evil entered into 
 the world through man’s original fault, evil and 
 suffering and death (Gen. iii. 17 ; Rom. v. 12), 
 and the expectation of the creature is waiting for 
 the restoration of original justice (viii. 19, folk). 
 Over the earth man is God’s vicegerent. 
 
 Then, again, within the human race itself 
 some are superior to others and the one exercises 
 dominion over the many. Rank is conceded 
 and government is administered. Not only 
 
 127 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 civil government, but moral also, left to human 
 discretion. The moral law is enforced in com¬ 
 munities ; the law is the law of God, but 
 
 And to 
 
 man over He does not Himself put it into opera¬ 
 tion ; God does not govern us directly, 
 but through governors from among ourselves. 
 The dominion of a man over men is c ordained 
 by God ’ (Rom. xiii. i). The king is 4 the figure 
 of God’s Majesty, His captain, steward, deputy 
 elect.’ You do not end kingship because you 
 have done with kings. You must alter human 
 nature before you can get equality, before you 
 can do away with the distinction between rulers 
 and ruled, before you can abrogate difference 
 of class, the superior and the inferior in intelli¬ 
 gence, in force, in craft. But human nature is 
 according to God’s design ; the rule and order 
 which belong to His Mind, He delegates to the 
 human creature when He thus creates him. 
 
 4 The rule of many is not good ; let one be lord.’ 
 
 When we acknowledge all this various delega¬ 
 tion of dominion, no one supposes that it dero¬ 
 gates from the honour of God, or 
 no irreligi- diminishes His glory. No religious 
 
 ous idea. . . , , x i r 
 
 man is shocked when I speak of an 
 avalanche destroying a village or of a vessel 
 being overwhelmed by a storm. We make a 
 garden rose, a British Queen strawberry, a 
 pointer dog—things which would not exist 
 
 128 
 
DELEGATION OF THE DIVINE DOMINION 
 
 except for our intervention ; we dam back the 
 ocean and create the little continent of Holland. 
 It is not regarded as profane to speak of such 
 things being done. The judge condemns the 
 criminal, the general issues his order of the 
 da}/; and no one says, whatever his creed, that 
 the community or the army put judge or general 
 in the place of God. Ordinary observation 
 and experience are concerned. What we see 
 about us, what impression we obtain, we express 
 in ordinary language. 
 
 But this is not the end. The delegation which 
 we observe in our experience of nature, exists 
 also beyond nature. On the word of Delegation 
 Holy Scripture, we may notice, there count of 
 exist distinctions of rank in the other heaven - 
 world equally as in this. And what information 
 have we, apart from Revelation, regarding the 
 other world, the supernatural world, at all ? 
 What is taught us, what the Revelation declares, 
 we must accept as it stands ; we cannot correct 
 it—we have no data on which to do so—regard¬ 
 ing the unseen universe. Angel, then, we are 
 told, is set above angel; there are archangels ; 
 there are ‘ thrones, dominations, princedoms, 
 virtues, powers 5 ; * one star differs from another 
 star in glory 5 (i Cor. xv. 41); Michael is ‘the 
 chief of the prince-angels 5 (Dan. x. 13). The 
 Apostles of our Lord in the future life are to 
 
 129 K 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 4 sit upon twelve thrones 5 (Matt. xix. 28, etc.); 
 
 # 
 
 in the parable one faithful servant receives 
 4 authority over ten cities,’ another over five, 
 and there is necessarily something correspondent 
 in the reality which the parable is designed to 
 express (Luke xix. 17, 19) ; blessed is the faithful 
 and wise steward whom his Lord when he comes, 
 as Christ comes at the end of the world, shall 
 find doing his Lord’s commands ; the Lord 
 shall make him 4 ruler over all his goods ’ (Matt, 
 xxiv. 47). Even in the immediate Presence, round 
 about the great white Throne, where is adored 
 the Ail-Wise, the All-Present, the Almighty, 
 King of kings and Lord of lords, that was and 
 is and is to come, even there He delegates the 
 exercise of His sovereignty, He has viceregents 
 and servants who bear rule. Dominion by 
 divine right, is not confined to this world ; God 
 in His own court does not rule directly but by 
 delegation of power, as in our visible universe. 
 There is no Democracy in heaven ; reserving 
 the supreme over-ruling Sovereignty of God, 
 still beneath it there is no equality ; or if there 
 is equality, if the State is Democratic, there are 
 at least Officers of the Purple and Thegns; 1 there 
 are those who occupy higher rank and who 
 
 1 ‘ Their distinction [that of the Thegns] rested, not on 
 hereditary rank, but on service done to the King.’ Green, 
 Hist, of the Engl. People, p. 15. 
 
 130 
 
DELEGATION OF THE DIVINE DOMINION 
 
 govern, though with nothing antagonistic to 
 repress or to control ; it is a legitimate question : 
 ‘ Who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven ? ’ 
 (Matt, xviii. i). 
 
 The argument should be fully seized. In the 
 visible world God rules by delegation. We do 
 not see God ; we need not, it would 
 
 Univer- 
 
 seem, infer His existence. ‘The earth saiityof 
 
 . ... . delegation. 
 
 rolls round its daily turn and lives its 
 life and ages, all by itself. The sun blazes on, 
 the stars come out and shine by night, new 
 moons succeed, and it seems to require neither 
 hand to create nor eye to watch. With the 
 original atom and with the original force and 
 with the law of evolution, everything goes on 
 its way, and the simple becomes complex, tohu- 
 bohu arranges itself.’ The religious man says 
 no ; the religious man does not believe this to 
 be true at all. Nor yet that morality is only a 
 branch of sociology, which is again the adapta¬ 
 tion of the creature to its surroundings, a more 
 complex physiology. The argument, however, 
 holds thus far—that law and order prevail and 
 continue through the action of natural forces 
 and the properties with which the elements are 
 endowed, and that God does not show Himself ; 
 you can scientifically construct the universe 
 without introducing theology, and the religious 
 man who believes in God, believes in Him as 
 
 131 
 
 K 2 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 an inference and not as contained in the 
 phenomena; ‘ the heavens declare the glory 
 of God and the firmament showeth His handi¬ 
 work,’ because He has left with them the impress 
 of His splendour, because He has delegated to 
 them the operations of His omniscient rule. 
 
 All this does not happen so by accident or 
 incidentally. The archetype of this visible dele¬ 
 gation—so Revelation informs us—exists in the 
 invisible Heaven of God’s immediate Presence. 
 Nature is not so ordered because it is nature, 
 but because it is the creation of God, and because 
 the Mind of God is so. It belongs to God, to 
 His character and disposition—if we may use 
 such words—to rule by deputy, to mediate the 
 glory of His sovereignty. We are not per¬ 
 mitted to think of this mediation occurring, 
 so to speak, only in the final terms of the series ; 
 so that seed-time and harvest succeed by a 
 mechanical process, but the original formation 
 of earth and water was the direct work of God. 
 Nor that there are delegated powers in the 
 material world, but not in a higher sphere, 
 in the kingdom of grace and of spiritual opera¬ 
 tion. We ascend from the material to the 
 spiritual, from the wisdom and beauty and order 
 of the created world to the creating, sustaining, 
 and regulating original, and still there is the 
 multiplicity of hnite dominion, there glitters 
 
 132 
 
DELEGATION OF THE DIVINE DOMINION 
 
 and shows resplendent the secondary sovereignty. 
 Quando praeparabat caelos , aderam; quando certa 
 lege et gyro vallabat abyssos . 1 2 We do not reach 
 the Supreme Majesty, across the ‘ sea of glass 
 mingled with fire,’ without passing through 
 tiers on tiers of Angels and Archangels, of Priests 
 or Elders, of white-robed Martyrs,-' of regnant 
 Apostles, of mysterious manifold Creatures, of 
 the seven Spirits that surround the Throne ; all 
 in their order and degree, doing service and 
 ruling by commission and resplendent in their 
 sovereignty—‘ a great multitude, like the sound 
 of many waters,’ wrote the Apostle; as it were 
 the waves and waves of heaving flame that 
 
 1 * When He prepared the heavens, I was there ; when 
 with certain law and compass He enclosed the depths.’ 
 
 2 It is characteristic of the Protestant aberration, as indeed 
 of some of the heresies preceding it, that the Protestant 
 appropriates to himself all the particular glories of the future 
 state which are described in the Apocalypse. He is himself 
 the elect servant, the Saint. He thus misses the notion of 
 any gradation in the kingdom. He is to stand on the sea 
 of glass, harp in hand, and sing the song of the Lamb (Apoc. 
 xv. 2,3). He is to be one of those who are * arrayed in white 
 robes,’ and whom ‘ the Lamb shall lead unto living fountains 
 of waters ’ (vii. 13-17). He is to be sealed among the hundred 
 and forty-four thousand, who are ‘ without fault before the 
 throne of God,’ the virgin souls whose glory is revealed 
 to the virgin Apostle (xiv. 1-5). It is difficult to explain to 
 anyone who does not at least exclude himself from the last 
 company; it is difficult to explain to the Protestant that 
 as he has no part or lot with the Saints in this life, so in 
 heaven they are chosen from among the redeemed and none 
 else share their glory. 
 
 133 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 shut out from view or vision the central core of 
 the sun. 
 
 It must not be mistaken. The analogy of the 
 natural world should be accepted. We should 
 Analogy be- expect to find in the administration 
 
 earthly and °f the government of the Almighty 
 heavenly. a i wa y S an d everywhere a delegation— 
 
 in any yet unexplored tract, in the higher equally 
 as in the lower, in the supernatural as in the 
 natural. It should not surprise us or put us 
 out of our calculation, if it were so ; we should 
 expect it; and, on the contrary, should be startled 
 and find it unaccountable if any other appear¬ 
 ance prevailed. Moreover, it is not left to 
 analogical argument, but the nature of the 
 heaventy things is revealed to us, as a mediated 
 sovereignty. The analogy disposes us to believe 
 that it would be so, and we are told that it is so. 
 
 Then the further aspect is this, that as little 
 as the terrestrial government by creatures is 
 conceived to detract from the supreme rule of 
 God or derogate from His Majesty, so little should 
 we suppose that either impiety is done by a 
 similar subordination of authority in the supra- 
 sensible world. 6 I am the Lord ; My glory I 
 will not give to another ’ (Is. xlii. 8). True; 
 but, in the sense in which the text is frequently 
 applied, the glory is given to the magistrate, 
 to the rational human intelligence, to the slow 
 
 134 
 
DELEGATION OF THE DIVINE DOMINION 
 
 unfailing revolution of an astral system. If 
 one does not even smile but deems it the dullest 
 of pleasantries, when the chance is suggested 
 of the honour paid to the magistrate being a 
 robbery of God, how does anyone assert this 
 of the honour paid to a Saint ? That the magis¬ 
 trate belongs to earth and the Saint to heaven, is 
 an irrelevant detail. For if the glory of God 
 is not diminished on earth, it is surely possible 
 that it should not be diminished elsewhere under 
 similar circumstances. 
 
 It has been already observed that the govern¬ 
 ment of God nevertheless remains. That is an 
 imperfect expression of the truth. We The auto- 
 have to contemplate the insignificance Qo^un- 
 of all delegated dominion in face of touched - 
 Omnipotence. 4 Be still, then, and know that 
 I am God.’ The ground is the intrinsic trans¬ 
 cendence of Infinity, whereas the whole of 
 creation is finite. The difference between a 
 finite power or wisdom or beauty and the infinite, 
 is more than a difference of degree. The fairest 
 of all we have within our ken, becomes in the face 
 of infinite Perfection like the transit of a planet 
 across the sun, a dark spot upon the disc of 
 original light. ‘ Who among us,’ asks the seer 
 (Is. xxxiii. 14), c shall dwell with the devouring 
 fire ? ’ The heavenly sphere is finite as the 
 earthly and has no better title. The angel of 
 
 135 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 the Apocalypse forbade St. John to worship 
 before his feet : £ I am thy fellow-servant; 
 worship God. 5 There were the two terrible 
 occasions, the first of them never forgotten by 
 the Jewish people, when the waters of the 
 Red Sea were driven back: ‘ The waters saw 
 Thee, O God, and were afraid ; the depths were 
 troubled ’ (Ps. lxxvii. 16). And the other occa¬ 
 sion, the black night upon the Sea of Galilee, 
 when Christ stood up in the boat and told the 
 wind and rain to stop, and there was peace. 
 
 ‘ The Lord sitteth upon the flood ; the Lord 
 remaineth a King for ever ’ (Ps. xxix. io). 
 
 The exercise of human power and sovereignty, 
 how great soever, is small indeed in presence 
 of the Empire of the universe. The great monarch 
 of the ancient world is in a moment reduced to 
 helplessness, for his own behoof indeed, and 
 that he may learn to know himself : ‘Till thou 
 know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom 
 of men ’ (Dan. iv. 25)—not Nabuchodonosor 
 even in this world, but God’s sovereignty alone 
 is real. That is the nature of the earthly delega¬ 
 tion. And there is no need to suppose delegation 
 elsewhere to be of another character. The 
 great king has his head higher than the heads 
 of others who walk upon the globe, but that 
 does not make him any less one of the fan¬ 
 toccini. 
 
 136 
 
DELEGATION OF THE DIVINE DOMINION 
 
 And yet, so much being granted, there is this 
 delegation and the delegation is real. The 
 power of Caesar is to be dreaded, and the fury 
 of the storm ; Ajax, who defies the lightning, 
 gains merely a statue’s pose. The delegation 
 exists in the spiritual and supernatural region, 
 and there also God’s sovereignty is not for a 
 moment impaired. If God rules in the kingdom 
 of men, He rules equally in the kingdom of 
 Saints and of Angels. 
 
 The Blessed Virgin is represented in the record 
 of Redemption as exalted above every other 
 creature. Man was created a little Delegation 
 lower than the angels, and then later Mother 
 crowned with glory and worship ofGod - 
 (Ps. viii. 5 ; Hebr. ii. 7) by the Incarnation, 
 which reverses the previous order of dignity. 
 Our nature, being thereby united to Deity, 
 becomes supreme. But the Blessed Virgin, as 
 having been chosen to be the Mother of God 
 Incarnate, is obviously the highest attainment 
 of humanity. Above every creature therefore ; 
 above angel and archangel. If God delegates 
 power to His creatures, the highest and pre¬ 
 eminent rule under God must belong to her. 
 She is the Queen. 
 
 The Queen of Heaven holds her sovereignty 
 on several titles. She is the Mother of God, the 
 chosen instrument by whose mediation the 
 
 13 7 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 union of human nature with Deity should be 
 consummated. She is the holiest of the nature 
 thus exalted, the most perfectly in accord with the 
 Mind of the All-Holy—a higher title even than 
 the other. Blessed it is to be Mother of God, 
 but more blessed still to do the Will of God 
 (Matt. xii. 50) and to hear the word of God and 
 keep it (Luke xi. 28). Mary submitted herself 
 wholly to the will of God— £ be it done to me 
 according to Thy word 5 (i. 38); she was from 
 her first Conception, on to her virgin Dedication 
 (i. 34), to her Annunciation and her Dolours, 
 immaculate. As was written of an ancient 
 servant of God— £ in all this Job sinned not ’ 
 (Job i. 22). Further, the doctrine received is 
 that £ if we suffer with Christ we shall also 
 reign with Him’ (2 Tim. ii. 12); £ no cross no 
 crown.’ A doctrine received, the spoken word 
 of Christ. £ Are you able to drink of My cup ’ 
 (Matt. xx. 22), if you would sit on my right 
 hand ? Mary suffered with her divine Son in a 
 literal sense, as only two or three besides— stabat 
 mater dolorosa juxta crucem} She suffered more 
 intensely than any other, beyond the pains of 
 all martyrs— cujus animam pertransivit gladius 
 (Luke ii. 35). Lastly, Beati pauperes spiritu , 
 quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum (Matt. v. 3)-— 
 the first beatitude; and whosoever humbles 
 
 ' ‘ The sorrowful Mother stood beside the Cross.’ 
 
 138 
 
DELEGATION OF THE DIVINE DOMINION 
 
 himself shall be exalted (xxiii. 12). Mary, spite 
 of her divine election to a transcendent dignity, 
 was ancilla Domini—Respexit humilitatem Do- 
 minus ancillae suae} Therefore the kingdom of 
 heaven belongs first to her of all disciples, and 
 she is exalted as her Son was exalted (Phil. ii. 9) 
 above every name that is named in heaven or 
 on earth, having humbled herself and become 
 obedient to sorrow, the sorrow of the Cross. 
 
 Meanwhile, what in particular this delegation 
 is, what it covers, where it stops—just as one 
 might ask the question within the finite limits 
 of earthly dominion—there may be light shed 
 upon such questioning through succeeding pages, 
 at any rate as our Lady is concerned, and under 
 some aspects of her dominative power. 
 
 1 ‘ The Lord hath regarded the humility of His hand • 
 maid.’ 
 
 139 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MARY QUEEN 
 
 Mary is Queen of Saints— Regina Sanctorum 
 omnium. From the Church upon earth venera¬ 
 tion and devotion are due to her above every 
 other. But the Saints have their office and 
 prerogative power also in heaven—‘ Take thou 
 authority over ten cities ’ (Luke xix. 17). In 
 heaven their intercession is effective. The 
 voice of the Martyrs—a loud voice—cries: 
 4 How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou 
 not judge and avenge our blood ? ’ (Apoc. vi. 10). 
 ‘ Shall not God,’ our Lord Himself inquires, 
 4 avenge His own elect who cry day and night to 
 Him ? ’ He assures us: 4 1 tell you ’—no lesser 
 authority— 4 He will avenge them ’ (Luke xviii. 
 7, 8). The patronage of Mary is in virtue and 
 power beyond all other patronage. In heaven 
 her rank may be understood in a literal sense as 
 Queen ; her patronage is royal patronage. Do 
 not let anyone (once more) object that God is 
 highest in heaven. So is He supreme on earth. 
 But there is still government on earth and royal 
 
 140 
 
MARY QUEEN 
 
 power besides the power of God. So is there 
 such government in heaven. God created both 
 heaven and earth, and what He has ordained for 
 the earthly condition, He may certainly have 
 ordained similarly for the heavenly. God is 
 Creator and Ruler and final Consummation of 
 things on earth and of things in heaven. Yet on 
 earth there is King and Emperor and Pope. And 
 in heaven Mary is Queen, and all are her sub¬ 
 jects, all Saints in glory, all Angels, all Potencies 
 and Instrumentalities. 
 
 Christians hold that all the gifts of God come 
 to us through Mary. This is an inference from the 
 recognition of her high place and pre- 
 
 Mary the 
 
 rogative in heaven, as above described. Channel 
 The inference can hardly be refused, 
 unless its premisses are materially false, and the 
 premisses belong to all the preceding pages. 
 
 4 God,’ wrote St. Paul (Rom. viii. 32), c who 
 spared not His proper Son, but gave Him up 
 for us all, how shall He not also, with Him, 
 give us all things ? ’ 1 God gave us His Son by 
 Mary. 
 
 A maxim of English law declares the sovereign 
 
 1 The Vulgate has donavit, ‘ has given,’ but all the Greek 
 texts x a P l<TeTai » ‘ shall give.’ We may presume the error of 
 a copyist, and then the change of but one letter— donabit — 
 brings the Latin into accord with the Greek, while it requires 
 a much greater change to bring the Greek into accord with 
 the Latin. ‘ Shall give ’ is therefore pretty certainly right. 
 
 141 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 to be the fountain of honour. So is Mary the 
 Channel of Grace in Catholic belief. The belief 
 must necessarily rest upon testimony, and its 
 validity cannot be matter of our own knowledge, 
 as the supernatural world is beyond us. The 
 ground of the belief is, however, discovered in the 
 records of the Apostolic or sub-Apostolic age, in 
 which the Mother of God was given an exalted 
 place, as argued in the former Part, and the ground 
 is thus an Apostolic tradition. It may even be 
 a Divine tradition. The transcendent grace and 
 dignity belonging to Mary comes immediately 
 from the Apostolic doctrine and belief into the 
 evangelical narratives of St. Matthew and St. 
 Luke. Or, yet earlier, her veneration appears as 
 a last instruction of our Lord in St. John (xix. 
 25-27). 1 An Apostolic or Divine tradition, then, 
 this ground, and we cannot refuse to recognise 
 the transcendent dignity of Mary or to pay her 
 veneration without formal heresy ; we should 
 thereby deny her to be, or should not venerate 
 
 1 If the charge is given to the sole Apostle present as 
 representative, then the whole of Christendom is concerned. 
 But even if it is given to St. John personally, there is venera¬ 
 tion inculcated, if only on him—' Behold thy Mother.’ For 
 the relation of parent to child is determined by the Mosaic 
 law and especially insisted upon by our Lord (Mark x. 18, 19 ; 
 Matt. xv. 4-6). If veneration was enjoined upon St. John, 
 it would not be wrong and it might be intended that others 
 should adopt the same devotion. Veneration of Mary is 
 not left unregarded, and is enjoined in the particular instance. 
 
 I42 
 
MARY QUEEN 
 
 her as being, Mother of God. So much for the 
 ground of the belief. 
 
 But the belief itself, the inference that all the 
 gifts of God come to us through Mary, is perhaps 
 only an Ecclesiastical tradition , 1 and as such not 
 necessary to accept for salvation. An Ecclesiasti¬ 
 cal tradition. If so, it is very likely the largest 
 and most illustrious of Ecclesiastical traditions, 
 and it has a special interest. It furnishes a lucid 
 example of the bearing and particular authority 
 of this kind of tradition, and of the proper relation 
 we should hold to such. 
 
 Anyone, then, might be a Catholic Christian 
 and might attain salvation, without acknowledg¬ 
 ing this supreme effective sovereignty of our Lady. 
 That would be the doctrine and theory of the 
 matter as defined in the books. But, practically, 
 
 1 Tradition is of three kinds, according to the books ; first, 
 Divine tradition, proceeding from our Lord ; secondly. 
 Apostolic, proceeding from the Twelve ; thirdly, Ecclesiastical, 
 of any subsequent date. Only the two first are of obliga¬ 
 tion and concern our salvation to accept. The definition of 
 the three species, however, extends their limits. Any 
 Christian doctrine or practice existing among the Apostles, 
 may be presumed to belong to our Lord’s teaching—to Divine 
 tradition. Any doctrine or institution discovered in the sub- 
 Apostolic age, may be presumed to be derived from the 
 Apostles—an Apostohc tradition. It is only when we leave 
 (suppose) the second or third century, that what is not 
 earlier discoverable may be merely Ecclesiastical. All 
 this is quite reasonable and distinguished with sound logic, 
 but it needs stating for those who have no knowledge of the 
 books. 
 
 143 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 such dissident among Catholic Christians would 
 be a rara avis. Unless, indeed, he was one who 
 had been imperfectly instructed, or who was 
 not accustomed to reflect upon religious topics, 
 or finally who was somewhat lax and indifferent 
 in his religious life—types, unhappily, which 
 belong to all time; but Christian and Catholic 
 for all that; among those of whom it was 
 said : ‘ He that is not against us is on our part 5 
 (Mark ix. 40); these also ‘ children of the king¬ 
 dom, 5 who are not to be cast out. Otherwise, 
 what is generally taught, anyone is naturally 
 disposed to accept, and having a Catholic devotion 
 to our Lady, it does not appear to him anything 
 strange or unlikely that she should have this 
 prerogative. Suppose, indeed, a theologian, one 
 who in the pursuit of his duty studies this par¬ 
 ticular question ; then he for his part will perhaps 
 conclude that it is an Ecclesiastical tradition ; but 
 he will understand what an Ecclesiastical tradition 
 is, and that it is to be received with respect and 
 reverence, though not so absolutely affirmed. 
 Those who are not theologians, are not concerned 
 with questioning the current beliefs. There 
 always will be people who are anxious to be 
 possessed of all kinds of sceptical opinions, or, 
 as they say, ‘ to have something to think about. 5 
 But, even then, it would look to be an unworthy 
 disposition to prefer the person of our Lady as 
 
 144 
 
MARY QUEEN 
 
 the field for exercise of such sceptical imaginings. 
 
 4 To think about 5 our Lady, or any other matter 
 of the faith, within the terms of the Revelation, 
 is not only innocent but our duty, so far as our 
 capacity extends. The wrong thing is only to 
 reject, or look about for reasons why one might 
 reject, any particular portion of what has been 
 revealed. 1 
 
 The belief, then, that all the gifts of God come 
 to us through Mary, is inferential. At the same 
 time it is greatly supported, if not originally 
 suggested, by practical experience of our Lady’s 
 power over the events and circumstances of our 
 world. It would involve a review of all ecclesias¬ 
 tical history through the expired centuries, to 
 illustrate the occasions of our Lady’s assistance 
 and prevalence. There have been many Victories 
 of Lepanto. And our Lady is the c Help of 
 Christians ’ in other kinds of conflicts also. 
 Appeal is continually made to her ; undertakings, 
 enterprises, societies, place themselves under her 
 patronage ; the entire life of the Church in so 
 many ramifications is given over to her direction— 
 with the result that the enterprises attain some 
 prosperity, and the Church continues to subsist, 
 
 1 Or even to examine sceptically whether anything which 
 is taught us as belonging to the Revelation really belongs 
 to it. What the Revelation is, must be determined by the 
 living voice of the Church, or else the Revelation is futile 
 and filters away. 
 
 145 
 
 L 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 not indeed flourishing as human calculation 
 would direct, but flourishing after the manner of 
 God’s order, as the weak things are mightier than 
 the strong, and as the meek possess the earth. 
 
 The argument is not to be contemptuously 
 dismissed as a fallacy —post hoc ergo propter hoc. 
 Under the most varied circumstances, when all 
 other possible factors are different, we have 
 the one condition present, and the same result 
 thereupon achieved. This constitutes the most 
 general form of modern inductive reasoning—the 
 comparison of as large a number of instances as 
 possible of the production of the phenomenon 
 under the greatest possible variation of conditions. 
 The methods which lead to more certain induc¬ 
 tions are not very often available. But the 
 most certain method is available in the present 
 instance, what has been called the Joint Method 
 of Agreement and Difference. Not only where the 
 one condition is present and the other conditions 
 are indefinitely varied, there we find the effect ; 
 but where the one condition is absent, the effect is 
 absent. Ecclesiastical history is again full of 
 illustration. What has become of the Nestorian 
 Church, once so largely extended over Chris¬ 
 tendom, which denied the Mother of God ? Or 
 to go back still earlier. The Apostle St. John, 
 the appointed son of Mary in reversion, wrote his 
 entire Catholic Epistle to contend—against the 
 
 146 
 
MARY QUEEN 
 
 heresy of his age—that ‘ Jesus Christ is come in 
 the flesh,’ in other words, that the Deity In¬ 
 carnate had a human mother. Only the learned 
 are aware to-day of some expiring relics of 
 Gnosticism. But enough of antiquity. In Pro¬ 
 testantism, the residuary heresy of the modern 
 time, there is no recognition of our Lady’s sove¬ 
 reignty, and Protestantism, as a version of 
 Christian belief, is dead or dying. 
 
 The point deserves notice, because the issue is 
 often misrepresented. Only, it is said, as races 
 and countries have accepted Protestantism, do 
 they display vigour and prosperity, and in 
 lands where the Catholic faith is the established 
 religion, there is to be seen a moral and religious 
 decay. Supposing it were true, yet in Catholic 
 countries there is often present the counter force 
 of infidelity and revolution. Where the truth is 
 living and active, there the antagonism of evil is 
 stimulated to greater energy. Is it Catholic 
 Christianity or a revolutionary spirit that is the 
 source of weakness ? 1 Or supposing Catholic 
 Christianity to be in fault, to be really connected 
 
 1 Or it maybe, on the contrary, the lack of liberal ideas and 
 institutions. Liberal and Catholic Belgium prospers. In 
 what are classed as Protestant countries, it may only be 
 that the supreme government is Protestant, not all, or even 
 the majority of, the people. In the recent German empire 
 the Cathohc element of the population is regarded as of 
 salutary influence. 
 
 L 2 
 
 2 47 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 with failure in the race for wealth and political 
 development, there would still be nothing con¬ 
 clusive. The question regards the kingdom of 
 Christ, not the kingdom of this world. The 
 Teutonic Protestant, particularly the English 
 Protestant, attains success, but not Protestantism. 
 As Protestants attain success, they more and 
 more abandon Protestantism—for blank negation 
 and infidelity. The modern Protestant has for¬ 
 saken the traditional observance of Sunday, and 
 his teachers offer him an emasculated Christianity, 
 without dogma or creed. But to return. 
 
 The evidence of our Lady’s sovereignty, in the 
 history of the Church and of Christian institutions, 
 As recog- is naturally repeated, though without 
 ritual m record, in the petty experiences of 
 devotion, individual lives. It was said above that 
 
 the matter was beyond our knowledge. But the 
 average Catholic nevertheless is sure ; he asserts 
 that he knows. His prayers obtain an answer. 
 It may be observed that the efficacy of prayer is 
 confidently asserted in the Church alone. Pro¬ 
 testants find excuse for failure of effect, when 
 prayer is offered, in the universality and per¬ 
 sistence of the natural law ; the virtue of 
 prayer is rather in the attitude; resignation to 
 the Divine Will is better than fulfilment; the 
 palmary Christian petition, c Thy will be done,’ 
 etc.—very truly, but apologetic none the less. 
 
 148 
 
MARY QUEEN 
 
 The Catholic needs no apologetic. He says his 
 Rosary. 
 
 The opinion of our Lady’s office thus exhibited 
 is, meanwhile, nothing individual or belonging to 
 some few ardent clients. The devotional routine 
 of worship within the Church bears witness to 
 her acceptance of the opinion that all gifts come 
 through Mary. It is a constant non-sequitur to 
 external appreciation that when a Catholic is in 
 special need of divine aid, when he is to have 
 recourse to prayer, he is universally recommended 
 to say a Hail Mary. If he were in extreme peril, 
 in face of sudden death, he might invoke the Holy 
 Name, he might ejaculate 4 God help me, 5 but 
 prayer, if he uttered a prayer, would be the 
 Hail Mary at once, as a matter of course, without 
 hesitation, without an idea of anything else. The 
 Hail Mary is continual in devotion ; it generally 
 accompanies the Our Father, meaning apparently 
 that the divine model of prayer is still offered to 
 God through our Lady’s mediation. 4 When 
 you pray, say, Our Father.’ Yes, but when we 
 pray, our Lady is to present the prayer— 4 Pray 
 for us sinners.’ Again, the Rosary is a universal 
 Catholic devotion, publicly as well as privately 
 recited, in the Church equally as in the home ; 
 and the Litany of Loretto is hardly less frequent 
 in public worship ; we seem largely to pray to 
 God indirectly, by proxy ; ten Hail Marys for one 
 
 149 
 
THE MOTHER OE JESUS 
 
 Our Father; the Litany barely introduced by 
 invocation of the Most Holy Trinity, and then 
 subsiding into supplication of our Lady alone. 
 In the Greek (schismatic) Church it is hardly 
 an extension, and nothing heterodox to Catholic 
 notions, that every prayer is addressed 4 through 
 the Mother of God ’—7 rapa ttjv Qsotokov, instead 
 of the Catholic per Jesum Christum. 
 
 It is worth while observing that the Greek 
 schism has lasted long in comparison with the 
 life of other aberrations from ecclesiastical 
 obedience or accepted doctrine; spite of its 
 severance from the trunk and of some doubtful 
 or obstinate rejection of doctrinal definition; 
 spite of the disorder generally belonging to any 
 such severed branch through the supremacy of 
 the civil power; spite of what anyone may esteem 
 its condition to be in this the sixth or the twelfth 
 century of its existence. May its preservation 
 be due, inevitably and by a kind of natural law, 
 to its continued recognition of the sovereignty 
 of the Mother of God ? Just as in the midst of 
 baleful political conditions a people might remain 
 strong and vigorous through their family life and 
 the national love of home. Or as the utter 
 neglect of sanitary laws does not wreck the 
 strength of a population that retains a traditional 
 preference for an open-air life. The induction 
 suggested above might find here a crucial instance, 
 
 150 
 
MARY QUEEN 
 
 or at least one other example to add to those in 
 which the one condition was alone present when 
 all others were varied. For East is East and West 
 is West, and there can be nothing much the same 
 in the archimandrite on the one hand and the 
 ecclesiastic of Latin or Teutonic races on the 
 other. 
 
 But the opinion of our Lady’s sovereignty and 
 the practice of Catholic devotion, as just described, 
 meets with condemnation from external TheSove- 
 criticism, and is even regarded with ofGod 
 scorn, as a degradation of religion and apart 
 little better than the superstition of the pre- 
 Christian pagan world. When it is objected, 
 indeed, that with so much praying to the Virgin— 
 and, more than that, with their ordinary lan¬ 
 guage and with the recommendation of priests 
 and pious people—Catholics put the Blessed 
 Virgin in the place of God, it is difficult to deny 
 that this may be so in the sense of the objector. 
 Matthew Arnold spoke of the God of Pro¬ 
 testantism as being a 4 much magnified man,’ and 
 it might be thought that God in the Protestant 
 view was not even very greatly in excess of the 
 human measure. God agrees with the Protest¬ 
 ant’s opinions, certainly with his religious and 
 moral opinions, and sometimes with his political 
 opinions also ; and if anyone is unable to approve 
 of the God presented to him by one particular 
 
 i5i 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 sort of Protestantism, he migrates to another sort, 
 where his ideal Deity is more nearly approached— 
 where God is credited with a justice, a mercy, 
 and a general conduct of the universe such as 
 satisfies the moral judgment of the worshipper. 
 O, yes ! It is the God of the Bible that he 
 worships, wherever and with whomsoever. But 
 subject to some Christian editing. Rather the 
 God of the New Testament than of the Old. And 
 not quite as depicted in the New Testament 
 either ; not the God of the 6 weeping and gnashing 
 of teeth ’ (Matt. xxiv. 51, etc.), and certainly not 
 the Almighty who has 4 done great things 5 to 
 Mary. If, then, the Blessed Virgin takes the 
 place of any such anthropomorphic Deity or 
 4 much magnified man, 5 which human imagina¬ 
 tion has anywhere or at any time invented, pagan 
 or Protestant or whatever else, it is probably a 
 distinct religious gain. And we might perhaps 
 admit that she has done so in the Catholic 
 Church. 1 
 
 The gain, or one gain, is that there is no imagina¬ 
 tion or human invention in it. Worshipping the 
 
 1 Newman in his Development seems to think that Mary 
 takes the place left vacant by the declaration of our Lord’s 
 Divinity at Nicaea—Chap. iv. sect. ii. 8, io. As if before 
 Nicaea our Lord was not regarded as the Son of God, and 
 as if in subsequent times the Virgin Mother was regarded 
 in religious devotion in any degree as her Son had ever 
 been regarded ! 
 
 152 
 
MARY QUEEN 
 
 Blessed Virgin would at least be worshipping 
 something outside ourselves. Mary is a real and 
 actual person, on whom God has bestowed extra¬ 
 ordinary favour and whom He has raised to high 
 place; God Incarnate yielded her filial obedience 
 (Luke ii. 51), attended to her requests (John ii. 
 3-10), and she was the object of His dying regard 
 (ib. xix. 26). Her power is no doubt very con¬ 
 siderable, and she is not a being of our imagina¬ 
 tion merely. We should nevertheless hardly 
 call it worship. But what reason can there be 
 why we should not pay her reverence, render her 
 devout service, entreat her protection and aid ? 
 She is more than our natural earthly mother, to 
 whom we hold some such attitude as that ; she is 
 more than the sovereign of our country, whom 
 we are expected to kneel before and to acclaim. 
 Much more than either. But those who believe 
 in the God of Revelation, who is 4 a consuming 
 fire’ (Hebr. xii. 29)—‘Get you up from among 
 this congregation that I may consume them in a 
 moment 5 (Numb. xvi. 45) ; who is what He is 
 and what He reveals Himself to be—‘ I am that 
 which I am ’ (Exod. iii. 14) ; beyond exegetical 
 or moral judgment, our part only to ask and to 
 be told—‘ who is He that I might believe on Him ’ 
 (John ix. 36) ; and thereupon to ‘ believe ’ and 
 to ‘ worship ’—those who pronounce the Catholic 
 Credo , one has scarcely patience to explain that 
 
 153 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 for them not the highest, not the holiest, not the 
 most adorable of human kind can take the place 
 of God, can come within the horrescent circle of 
 Infinity. ‘As the hart panteth after the water 
 brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.’ 
 Within the ineffable Presence, those who have 
 the grace to attain thither, cast their crowns 
 before the Throne and adore— 4 Holy, Holy, 
 Holy 5 ; and within our terrestrial atmosphere, 
 the echo is, ‘Whom have I in heaven but Thee, 
 and upon earth is none I desire beside Thee ’ 
 (Ps. lxxiii. 25)—‘ Who shall separate us from the 
 love of Christ ’ (Rom. viii. 35) ?—‘ Yea, come, 
 Lord Jesus ’ (Apoc. xxii. 20). 
 
 Still, if we address the bulk of our prayers to 
 the Immaculate Mother, is it not putting God 
 
 Andundi- in the second place, or at any rate not 
 mimshed. a n 0 wing Him the absolute unapproached 
 
 place that is rightly His ? Besides, is it Chris¬ 
 tianity ? We were ‘ reconciled to God by the 
 death of His Son,’ we obtained ‘ reconciliation ’ 
 (Rom. v. 10, 11). ‘ Through Christ Jesus we 
 
 have access by one Spirit to the Father ’ (Eph. 
 ii. 18, etc.). And our Lord protests : ‘I say not 
 that I will pray the Father for you, for the 
 Father Himself loves you ’ (John xvi. 26)—not 
 even His intercession needed. Why, then, should 
 we want so repeatedly and persistently to ask 
 the Blessed Virgin to pray for us ? We are 
 
 154 
 
MARY QUEEN 
 
 invited to ‘ come boldly to the throne of grace ’ 
 (Hebr. iv. 16), that is, to the throne of God in 
 prayer. Do we need our Lady’s patronage ? 
 We are to 4 cast all our care upon God, because He 
 cares for us ’ (i Peter v. 7). Where is the occasion 
 for her mediation ? 
 
 The sufficient answer, however, is that Chris¬ 
 tianity is a Revelation. The Church is custodian 
 of the Revelation, and the Church appoints for 
 us, or allows, our addresses to the Mother of God. 
 Suppose it thus to be the order of God’s providence 
 that His gifts come to us through her, we should 
 not honour God more, or render Him better 
 allegiance, by disregarding the rule He has 
 instituted. The argument runs through the whole 
 of Christian worship and devotional observance. 
 There is an appointed order. Not choice for us, 
 but obedience. We are taught by the Divine 
 Word (Micheas iv. 2 ; John vi. 45) ; we have a 
 Revelation (1 Cor. iv. 1). The virtue of the Sacra¬ 
 ments themselves is by force of their institution. 
 Otherwise could the priest pronounce absolution ? 
 Or could the Host be the Body of Christ ? If 
 through the abounding charity of God towards 
 us we can do without the intercession of our Lady, 
 we might with as good reason do without the 
 Sacraments on the same plea. In truth the one 
 and the other are alike instituted media. The 
 institution, the rule, the Revelation —that is 
 
 155 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Christianity. We have in Christianity free 
 access to the Father, but then it must be in 
 Christianity, that is to say, according to the 
 Revelation, and while ourselves receiving and not 
 inventing, or even questioning, the doctrine and 
 institution. Christianity is not the rational or 
 illuminated determination of this or that believer 
 for himself, but is that which Apostles ordain as 
 ‘ the ministers of Christ and stewards of the 
 mysteries of God’ (i Cor. 1 . c.), committing their 
 trust to others specially empowered after them 
 (2 Tim. ii. 2). Those who 4 have spoken the 
 word of God 5 to us, the Apostles of Christ and the 
 succession of their representatives through all 
 ages of the Church, 4 their faith we follow 5 (Hebr. 
 xiii. 7), not anything our own minds make up for 
 us to believe and to hold. But if there is a de¬ 
 votional rule at all, it must be observed in its 
 entirety ; you cannot follow the Revelation in 
 one reference, and prefer your own mother wit in 
 another. Our Lord said before He suffered : 
 4 Do this in remembrance of Me. 5 But also in 
 His agony He said : 4 Behold thy Mother. 5 If 
 the sovereignty of Mary is truly asserted, then 
 we may honour God most by praying to her. 
 Or, at any rate, by neglecting to render her due 
 observance we fail to please God, if even we do not 
 fall under His positive displeasure. 
 
 Mary is Queen of heaven and acknowledged 
 
 156 
 
MARY QUEEN 
 
 by the Church to be so ; prayers are addressed to 
 her abundantly by appointment of the p repo i- 
 Church, both in public and in private ; p^f^to 
 she is the sole or principal channel of Mary> 
 Grace. You cannot get light and heat directly 
 from God, they come from the sun ; prayer will 
 not heal the sick, unless you add the advice of a 
 physician ; you might pray to God to receive a 
 free pardon, but at the same time it would be well 
 to petition the sovereign. God’s Sovereignty is 
 not altered by these things being so. Nor is it 
 by the heavenly things being on a like, though 
 transcendent, pattern. 
 
 When the plain case is thus stated, there 
 appears nothing impossible, there appears nothing 
 unreasonable, there appears nothing particularly 
 exceptional, in supposing that invocation of our 
 Lady may be more efficacious than direct prayer 
 to God. While this becomes, as is well known, 
 a further scandal to the uneducated religious 
 mind. In the first place it should be observed 
 that no question is thus raised of direct prayer 
 being offered. The ultimate recommendation 
 of Christian prayer is the divine precept : ‘ When 
 you pray, say, Our Father.’ Prayer to God is 
 more than ordained by our Lord ; it is presumed, 
 and perseverance in prayer is what He inculcates. 
 
 4 Pray without ceasing,’ St. Paul ordains (i Thess. 
 v. 17, 18) ; ‘ in everything give thanks.’ The 
 
 157 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Church exists to worship God. The chief act of 
 Christian worship is a copy of that which is 
 offered in heaven : 4 They fell down before the 
 Throne and before the Lamb and worshipped 
 Him that liveth for ever and ever ’ (Apoc. iv. 10; 
 v. 8). There is no question of prayer, of praise, 
 of worship offered to God, by Christian institution 
 and in the daily devotional practice of the 
 Church. The question regards occasions when 
 choice is open : 4 Shall we pray to God, or shall 
 we ask the prayers of our Lady ? 5 Or even : 
 
 4 Shall we add a prayer to our Lady, will it be 
 better so ? Or will the prayer to God be all- 
 sufficing ? ’ There is the stress of the disputation. 
 It is no impiety, it is probably true, to argue that 
 it is a greater impetrative power, that it is more 
 efficacious, to prefer or to add the Hail Mary. 
 For ‘the powers that exist are ordained of God,’ 
 and Mary should certainly be one of the powers 
 existing in heavenly places, as having been 
 chosen to be Mother of God, and as pre-eminently 
 the recipient of God’s grace and favour. Would 
 it be more efficacious to present our petitions to 
 God disregarding what He has ordained ? If 
 Mary is Queen of Heaven, we must pay her court; 
 it would not be piety but imbecility to fail to do 
 so. If she is the ordained Channel of Grace, it 
 would be the most likely course to expect to re¬ 
 ceive grace through her. If you want water, you 
 
 158 
 
MARY QUEEN 
 
 go to the well, and praying to God will be of little 
 use without. 
 
 In the second place—the point is always ignored 
 —whether we pray to God or pray to Mary, 
 there is still petition that reaches the Almighty. 
 Suppose a man of evil life and within his reach 
 a person saintly in character and assiduous in 
 prayer. It may or may not be right if he fancies 
 that the prayers of the saintly person will avail 
 for him better than his own, but it is very natural 
 for him to fancy it, no one would blame him for 
 fancying it, he would not be guilty of impiety 
 or profanity of any kind by having the fancy. 
 He may pray himself, but the more effective— 
 so he thinks—will be when he asks the saintly 
 person to pray for him. Very well; that is the 
 Hail Mary. When praying to our Lady is said 
 to be more efficacious than praying to God, there 
 is not in reality any suggestion of prayer to God 
 being omitted. The only question is whether 
 our Lady’s prayers are likely to be more efficacious 
 than mine. Well, I think they are likely. 
 
 *59 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MARY QUEEN ; SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 
 
 Practically the sovereignty of Mary comes to 
 this—at least in relation to ourselves—that, as 
 The media- supreme among Saints and Angels, her 
 
 Lord°not U m patronage is chiefly important for us 
 question. p 0ssess? and chiefly through her 
 
 mediation do we obtain any boon or deliverance, 
 of which we have need, within the heavenly 
 domain. In recognising the mediation of Mary 
 we do not put her in the place of her divine 
 Son, who is ‘ the one Mediator between God 
 and man 5 (i Tim. ii. 5), and 4 ever liveth to make 
 intercession’ (Hebr. vii. 25). Any such sugges¬ 
 tion is inarticulate to the ear of the Catholic 
 Church, and represents the Nestorianism which 
 permeates so completely every form of Protest¬ 
 antism ; it is the same misconception as when 
 Catholics are said to ‘ worship ’ the Virgin Mary. 
 Outside the ranks of Protestantism the objec¬ 
 tion is not raised by people of ordinary intelli¬ 
 gence. Unless through being infected with the 
 habit of Protestant speech, or out of sheer 
 
 160 
 
MARY QUEEN; OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 
 
 malice, which cannot bear to leave anything 
 unsaid that appeals to popular prejudice. 
 
 Mediation and intercession are of various 
 kinds and degrees of power. The mediation 
 of our Lord is consequential upon, and hardly 
 distinguishable from, His prevailing Sacrifice. 
 The identification is apparent in the language 
 of the New Testament writers. We are come 
 4 to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, 
 and to the Blood of sprinkling , that speaketh 
 better things than that of Abel ’ (Hebr. xii. 24). 
 The mediation of the priest under the Mosaic 
 covenant is aptly illustrated on the occasion 
 (Numb. xvi. 48) when Aaron 4 stood between 
 the living and the dead and the plague was 
 stayed. 5 The priest 4 offered for himself and 
 for the errors of the people 5 (Hebr. ix. 7). Our 
 Lord, then, after the same manner of mediation, 
 4 by His own Blood entered in once into the holy 
 place 5 (ver. 12). As the Redemption wrought 
 by our Lord, such is also His Mediation, a divine 
 work, beyond the capacity of the holiest of 
 human kind. 
 
 His intercession similarly. What is the prayer 
 of our Lord ? 4 Father, I will that they also 
 
 whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where 
 I am 5 (John xvii. 24). This is not the manner 
 of intercession of any human Saint. Hear 
 Abraham, for example, the friend (James ii. 23) 
 
 161 M 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 of God. ‘ Behold now, I have taken upon me 
 to speak to the Lord who am but dust and 
 ashes. . . . Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and 
 I will speak but this once ’ (Gen. xviii. 27, 32). 
 The Sacrifice of Calvary is all-sufficing (1 John 
 ii. 1, 2); the mediation of the Precious Blood 
 leaves nothing undone (ib. i. 7) ; the intercession 
 of the Son is unfailing: 4 Thou hearest Me, 
 always’ (John xi. 42). But is there, then, no 
 mediation, no intercession, besides ? 
 
 It might, indeed, have been that God com¬ 
 manded us to pray to Him ourselves and let 
 no one pray to Him for us. The same rigorism 
 in prayer, as is found in our natural human 
 relations. According, at least, to the counsel of 
 perfection : 4 Call none your Father upon earth, 
 for One is your Father, who is in heaven 5 (Matt, 
 xxiii. 9). But this is not commanded ; we have 
 no such counsel of perfection regarding prayer. 
 We are expressly enjoined to pray for one another, 
 both by our Lord (Matt. v. 44), and by His 
 Apostles (James v. 16 ; 1 John v. 16). Accord¬ 
 ingly it is a matter of every day occurrence 
 for a Christian to ask some other to pray for 
 him. Just as in the former Part (p. 31) we 
 presumed that the Mother of Jesus in her life¬ 
 time was frequently asked to pray for the first 
 disciples, though it were those who 4 seemed to 
 be pillars.’ 
 
 162 
 
MARY QUEEN; OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 
 
 If, then, we may ask our friends on earth to 
 pray for us, their mediation in heaven is similarly 
 invoked ; whether here or there makes no differ¬ 
 ence ; the Catholic faith asserts the intimate 
 communion of the Church militant with the 
 Church triumphant, of those on earth with those 
 in heaven. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob, equally when they are no longer on 
 the earth, because they are still living (Matt, 
 xxii. 32). The life here or the life there is all 
 one life ; 6 all live to God 5 (Luke xx. 38) no 
 otherwise than do Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
 whose bodies are buried in peace. Accordingly, 
 if it is right that we should ask the prayers of 
 friends while living, we may ask their prayers 
 where their life is perpetual in the presence of 
 God. They are mediators and intercessors for us. 
 
 What has this to do with the one Mediation 
 and the prevailing Advocacy of our Saviour ? 1 
 The things are absolutely apart; no portion of 
 the one circle within the circumference of the 
 other. Except as it is only by the atoning 
 
 1 The mediation of our Lady, alongside of that of her Son, 
 is very perspicuously expressed in the Paschal prayer : 
 ‘ O God, who hast deigned to gladden the world through 
 the Resurrection of Thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ, grant, 
 we beseech Thee, that through the Virgin Mary His Mother 
 we may obtain the joys of everlasting life ; through the same 
 Jesus Christ our Lord.’ If the gift of everlasting life is to 
 come to us ‘ through ’ Mary, what other gift is there which 
 is not to come to us in the same way (Matt. vi. 33) ? 
 
 163 
 
 M 2 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Blood that the prayers we offer or the prayers 
 offered for us have any avail at all; as the 
 atoning Blood is the primal cause and condition 
 of every grace obtained. If any human media¬ 
 tion is supposed to conflict and compete with 
 that One Divine Mediation, by the same reasoning 
 we might be said to share in the Divine Nature 
 because God created us; or Redemption might 
 be called our work, because we are the redeemed ! 
 Raise the mediation and intercession of the 
 Blessed Virgin, as it ought to be raised, to the 
 highest power, still it is human intercession 
 and mediation. She is Queen of Saints, supreme 
 of those who 4 shall judge angels ’ (i Cor. vi. 3), 
 highest set in heaven, the best of God’s creation; 
 but still only first among created myriads, and 
 she wears her crown only by donation from the 
 Eternal Immortal Invisible, the King of kings 
 and Lord of lords. 
 
 Nevertheless, beneath the over-lordship of 
 Omnipotence, she is supreme. With whatever 
 reverence we view the mightiest on earth or the 
 holiest, with whatever awe, with tenfold more 
 must we regard Mary. What is it to be mighty 
 amid our limitations and for our short span ? 
 But to hold supreme authority among those 
 who never knew death or who shall die no more ! 
 Our Lord warns us not to cause a little child 
 to stumble, not to despise one of them, because 
 
 164 
 
MARY QUEEN; OBJECTIONS ANSWER EE 
 
 ‘ their angels ever behold the face of My Father 
 in heaven 5 (Matt, xviii. io). The peril of 
 harming people, however insignificant, who own 
 such powerful patrons! If Mary is queen of 
 heaven, all those angels are subject to her and 
 under her obedience. Her grandeur is beyond 
 the reach of our imagination, and what must her 
 patronage not be ? Is it extraordinary or 
 irrational in us to pay court to her ? The 
 extraordinary thing is that anyone should be 
 found neglecting to seek her aid, or even refusing. 
 And meanwhile her grandeur is but a deduction 
 from what is evidenced to us, as the belief respect¬ 
 ing her in the first age, as the office and dignity 
 ascribed to her in the original Christian institu¬ 
 tion of the chosen Apostles of Christ. 
 
 All aspects of the sovereignty of Mary could 
 hardly be treated with convenience in a single 
 treatise. But there remains still one Union of 
 particular, which should be considered, Jhe Divine 
 so far as the limitations of our discern- Mmd> 
 ment permit. If all God’s gifts come to us 
 through Mary, if she is our Queen, if she exer¬ 
 cises government in any sense under God, how 
 is this practically possible ; how is a finite intelli¬ 
 gence adequate to the task; how does the universe, 
 or whatever part of the universe, not suffer loss 
 in consequence ? 
 
 The answer has been already suggested in the 
 
 165 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 analogy of the general delegation of God’s 
 government. God does not cease to rule because 
 the forces of nature perform their part, nor yet 
 because mankind are given a certain supremacy 
 over the earth, nor yet again because within 
 the human race there is authority and govern¬ 
 ment exercised by one over many, because 
 nations rise and fall, and one empire succeeds 
 another. Nevertheless in the course of the 
 world there is some confusion, and the bene¬ 
 volence of the Omniscient Power does not 
 prevail without conflict, owing to the presence 
 of evil and the counteraction of malevolent 
 designs. But there is no heteronomy of the 
 will in sanctity ; in heaven the Will of God is 
 the will of all, the desire and delight of all. 
 4 O how I love Thy law,’ exclaims David 
 (Ps. cxix. 97); 4 it is my meditation all the 
 day.’ And further. The higher the sanctity, 
 the more nearly the spirit approaches to the 
 Source of Light, by so much the more perfect is 
 the understanding of the Divine Mind, the more 
 complete the identity of action. Our Lord, 
 who has an original and absolute identity, said : 
 4 1 speak that which I have seen with My 
 Father’ (John viii. 38), and: 4 The Son can do 
 nothing of Himself but what He sees the Father 
 do ’ (v. 19). In the beatific vision, the mind 
 of God is revealed by immediate perception, 
 
 166 
 
MARY QUEEN ; OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 
 
 so far as the perfected spirit is advanced to 
 receive. 4 In Thy light shall we see light 5 
 (Ps. xxxvi. 9). Mary is 4 clothed with the sun 5 ; 
 she is the moon in the celestial firmament whose 
 light is wholly reflected from the central Source. 
 The government of Mary cannot be other than 
 the government of God ; the favours she grants 
 us are according to God’s will for us to receive. 
 
 For many years in England there has existed 
 a disposition to 4 minimise ’ the measure and 
 extent of Catholic belief and practical _ 
 
 x Obscura- 
 
 devotion in regard to the Mother of tion of the 
 
 glories of 
 
 God, even among writers of distinction Mary in 
 
 England. 
 
 such as our generation produces. Ever 
 since the large accession, large as we reckon, 
 from the so-called Tractarians sixty years ago. 
 With the view of conciliating some among the 
 Protestants around us, if haply it might be 
 made easier for them to return to the bosom 
 of the Church. The policy was not good, and 
 its initiation might even be deemed repre¬ 
 hensible, both on general grounds, and in 
 particular because the honour of our Lady was 
 not a fit matter for chaffering. The policy 
 failed, it did not make the converts expected, 
 and if an insignificant few were brought in by 
 it, they were not really converted. Mean¬ 
 while there has grown up within the Church 
 itself in this country a dangerous inadequacy of 
 
 167 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 conception. Devotion to our Lady, beyond a 
 supposed moderate limit, is imagined not to 
 belong to Catholic obligation, but to certain 
 sections and individuals. Devotional exercises 
 in her honour, her scapulars, medals, badges, 
 the visitations of her shrines, the offerings of 
 worshippers, even her name , 1 may be heard 
 mentioned, far too commonly, with slighting 
 allusion. Amid e foreign 5 forms of devotion, 
 which the Englishman congratulates himself 
 on omitting through his national difference of 
 temper, are largely those that have collected 
 round the person and pre-eminence of Mary. 
 The faith in her which is displayed in Italy 2 or 
 Spain, surprises the travelled Englishman, with¬ 
 out inciting him to imitation. The treatises 
 that are written about her ; the hierology of 
 her person ; such an exposition of 4 the glories of 
 Mary ’ as is made by St. Alphonsus, an acknow- 
 
 E.g., in the innocent sodality of the Enfants de Marie. 
 
 2 A priest observed to the writer that ‘ the special modern 
 [sic] devotions to the Virgin were things belonging to Italian 
 fervour and the southern temperament, and were not general 
 in the Church or of Catholic example, and that for his part 
 he preferred praying to God to praying to our Lady.’ The 
 truth is that numbers in the Church in England, and even 
 among the priesthood, do not possess the Catholic character 
 (or ethos, Newman would have said), but are merely Protest¬ 
 ants of exceptional intelligence who see Protestantism to 
 be unsound and the English Protestant Church to be 
 Protestant. It is not submission, but acting out one’s 
 convictions. 
 
 l68 
 
MARY QUEEN; OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 
 
 ledged Doctor of the Church, we are content to 
 view as unfamiliar to ourselves , 1 as possibly 
 defensible but excessive in expression, as not 
 demanding our study or acceptance. It is 
 deplorable that such a picture should be able 
 to be drawn (nunc autem et flens dico ), but few 
 will be prepared to dispute its truth and justice. 
 Whether, under such circumstances, an exposi¬ 
 tion of the Catholic belief is an apology for it, 
 and not rather an instruction regarding it, may 
 well be a matter for serious consideration among 
 Church people. 
 
 But the assertion of the sovereignty of our 
 Lady in preceding pages, and of the consequen¬ 
 tial prerogative enjoyed by her—to those Rer 
 who are so obliging as to follow the sovereignty 
 
 already 
 
 argument—must appear beyond the res judi¬ 
 cata. 
 
 licence of any minimiser to dispute 
 as other than the belief of the existing Church 
 at large. In the Litany of Loretto Mary is 
 invoked as Queen of Angels ; Queen of Patriarchs, 
 Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins; 
 Queen of all Saints. In her antiphons she is 
 addressed: Salve Regina; Ave Regina caelorum , 
 Domina Angelorum ; Regina caeli laetare. The 
 
 1 J. H. Newman in 1865 professes himself, with some 
 self-complacency, to be unacquainted with the work of 
 St. Alphonsus (Letter to Dr. Pusey, § 5. The whole section 
 is to be noted). 
 
 169 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Coronation of our Lady—actual occurrence and 
 not metaphor, plain prose and not poetry— 
 has perhaps no express warrant in Scripture, 
 no evidence in Scripture of its being acknow¬ 
 ledged within the Apostolic age. It is an 
 inference, one of those deductions of theological 
 science, whose logical value was appraised on 
 a former page. But the Coronation, separate 
 and distinct from the Assumption, is one of the 
 4 Glorious 5 Mysteries of the Rosary. How sure 
 must not the Church be of the validity of the 
 deduction, before she permits or indeed enjoins, 
 upon millions of faithful, the daily or weekly 
 repetition of a religious exercise before God, 
 a religious meditation and prayer, upon what 
 would otherwise be pure imagination, a thing 
 non-existent, and the meditation then and 
 prayers a mere foolishness and mockery ! These 
 allusions to the royalty of Mary are not the 
 injunctions of a week ago, but have been in 
 vogue for generations ; they are securely estab¬ 
 lished in the devotional practice of Christendom, 
 they belong beyond cavil or contradiction to 
 the religious routine of our time. The devotion 
 of the Rosary has been enjoined by many 
 successive Popes, down to Leo. XIII. of recent 
 pious memory, who was himself an ardent 
 client of our Lady, and might be styled almost 
 promoter of her Rosary, and added to the 
 
 170 
 
MARY QUEEN; OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 
 
 Litany another petition : 4 Queen of the most 
 holy Rosary, pray for us ’—yet another aspect 
 in which Mary is still Queen. 
 
 But in the earliest authoritative writings which 
 enter more particularly into the exaltation of 
 Mary, she is identified with the woman clothed 
 with the sun and having the moon under her 
 feet, of the Apocalypse 1 (ch. xii.), who has also 
 4 upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’ In 
 the earliest exposition of her glories, and not 
 those of a mere thousand years ago, Mary is 
 already a queen. The image is accepted in 
 religious art, just as the Adoration of the Lamb 
 in a former vision (ch. v.). Besides the Virgin 
 and Child there is found this other repre¬ 
 sentation. The pictures of Mary in our 
 churches are not unfrequently designed after 
 the precise description of the Apocalypse ; her 
 statues wear the crown of stars. Mary, then, 
 in the devotional appointment of Catholic 
 authority, and moreover in the popular concep¬ 
 tion, is Queen of Heaven. Her sovereignty 
 within the Church’s obedience must surely be 
 considered beyond dispute. And she cannot 
 
 1 The other interpretation, in which the woman is the 
 Church instead (see above Part I. chap. i. p. n), is certainly 
 inferior. For she is described as ‘ the woman who brought 
 forth the man child 1 (ver. 13). The ‘ great sign ’ in heaven 
 is also referred not unreasonably to the ‘ sign * of the prophecy 
 of Isaias (vii. 14): ‘ The Virgin shall bear a Son.’ 
 
 171 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 be a mere titular queen, a reine faineante , who 
 reigns but does not govern. What is the 
 meaning of her being Queen, if she has no supre¬ 
 macy, no governing authority, in supernatural 
 as well as natural things ; if the ministration 
 of the gifts of God to ourselves can proceed 
 without her ? She is Queen of Heaven, and the 
 ministering angels who do God’s pleasure (Hebr. 
 i. 14) are her servants; those who minister to 
 the heirs of salvation (ib.) among human creatures 
 are under her rule. All the gifts of God come 
 to us through Mary the Queen. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MARY MOTHER 
 
 The contention of the two preceding chapters— 
 a Catholic at once perceives—however true and 
 irrefragable, is only a half statement, and, like all 
 such, conveys a false impression of the reality. 
 Devotion to our Lady is not a thing of loyalty to 
 our sovereign, not only of loyalty. It is before 
 that a thing of piety, towards one who is revealed 
 to us as our Mother, towards the Mother God has 
 given us. This Mother has been exalted to the 
 throne, but she does not cease to be our Mother 
 for that; while we acknowledge her to be Queen, 
 our relation towards her is very little altered by 
 her dignity. Similarly, on the part of our Lady. 
 She is by title, in style and splendour she is, 
 Queen; she is crowned; she is circumdata 
 varietate ; 1 she is intus speciosior ; she is terri- 
 bilis ut castrorum acies ordinata 3 But she does 
 not bear rule, not in our regard, as Queen ; over 
 us her rule is not regal, but maternal. 
 
 1 ‘ In embroidered apparel.’ 2 ‘ More beautiful within.’ 
 
 3 ' Terrible as an army set in array.’ 
 
 1 73 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 In heaven also, as already observed, the nature 
 of rule and government will be different from 
 anything of which we have experience. Because 
 in heaven there is no counteraction ; nothing to 
 restrain or control. Neither in earth or heaven 
 is Mary’s queenship according to any pattern we 
 can construct. 
 
 Where her rule would be operative in the way 
 we are accustomed to conceive of ruling, would 
 
 Adversa- be in relation to evil spirits, the intrusive 
 tnxdiaboh. a p 0S tates of the world of darkness. 
 
 ‘ Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou 
 shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel ’ 1 
 (Ps. ii. 9). Mary is not Queen of Hell, but she 
 is a Queen, a powerful Queen, and Hell cowers 
 beneath her sway. It is again an article of 
 belief such as is reached by theological deduction, 
 but again the belief is also confirmed by accu¬ 
 mulated experience. Our Lady is represented 
 in art as having her foot upon the serpent, 
 although this is not peculiar to her, but other 
 Saints are similarly represented. In our Lady’s 
 case, however, there is an allusion to the text in 
 Genesis (iii. 15), where it is prophesied that 4 she 
 shall bruise the serpent’s head.’ 2 * And in the 
 
 1 Originally of the Son of Mary, but applied also to His 
 servants in Apoc. ii. 27. 
 
 2 Certainly the pronoun may grammatically refer to the 
 
 seed, as Protestants will have it. But this is not natural, 
 
 174 
 
MARY MOTHER 
 
 Apocalypse (xii. 13-17) there is war between the 
 serpent and the woman who wears the crown of 
 stars. Yet more sure is the theological deduc¬ 
 tion. For the enemies of the Son of Mary are 
 her enemies also (Apoc. 1 . c.), and of our Lord it 
 is prophesied 4 the dragon Thou shalt trample 
 under Thy feet 5 (Ps. xci. 13). We may observe 
 that the entire sovereignty of Mary is reflected, 
 not original, and all things are under her feet 
 because they are under the feet of the Son of 
 God (Ps. viii. 6 ; Hebr. ii. 8), who is also Son of 
 Mary. The Saints have 4 power to tread on 
 serpents and scorpions, and over all the might 
 of the enemy ’ (Luke x. 19), power given to them 
 by Jesus and exercised in His name (ver. 17). 
 4 The God of peace,’ writes St. Paul (Rom. xvi. 20), 
 4 shall tread Satan under your feet shortly.’ 
 Such power is given in pre-eminence to the Queen 
 of Saints. 
 
 Mary is, then, under God, the devil’s most 
 formidable adversary. She may be called his 
 Queen in the sense that to her power he is subject. 
 Milton, in his Paradise Lost , represents the 
 beginning of the angelic rebellion as being when 
 the Son of God was proclaimed : 4 1 have anointed 
 My king upon My holy nil ’ (Ps. ii. 6)—an Arian 
 
 and is not according to the balance of the sentence. It is 
 a good argumentative evasion, but no more. 
 
 175 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 blasphemy, no doubt, 1 but Milton was no Catholic. 
 The picture would have been true—and equally 
 dramatic—if he had represented the rage and 
 aggravated malice of the infernal powers upon 
 the Coronation of the Mother of God (Apoc. 1 . c.). 
 They feared her autocracy, and her foot was 
 upon the necks of her enemies ; reluctant and 
 rebellious, they knew and confessed her rule. 
 
 In heaven our Lady holds no such sovereignty. 
 We may say of her, in our way of speaking, that 
 she would be astonished to hear that she ruled 
 at all. The Virgin-Mother of Nazareth, though 
 she might be titular queen of Judaea, was not of 
 the sort, in her gentle human nature, of which 
 rulers, to human conception, are made. Per¬ 
 sonality remains. The soul in glory is the same 
 soul that passed its earthly probation. Mary is 
 now, though glorified and crowned, what she was 
 when the shepherds paid her homage. She is 
 ‘ exalted 5 because she was £ humble and meek,’ 
 and such she remains in her exaltation. In 
 heaven the highest archangel does obeisance to 
 her, as did the refulgent Gabriel when he was 
 
 1 The Patristic account was that the pride of Lucifer could 
 not endure the prospect—which might be antecedently 
 revealed to the angelic host- of the new human creation 
 being raised above the angelic nature by the destined hypo¬ 
 static union with the Word through the Incarnation. This 
 is evidently a different thing altogether. 
 
 i;6 
 
MARY MOTHER 
 
 sent to Nazareth : Ave, gratia plena . 1 The 
 rainbow ranks of the great multitude acclaim 
 her. But that is because she is Mother of God. 
 There is nothing for her to rule, she has no com¬ 
 mands to issue. 
 
 Mary is Mother of God, because she bore our 
 Lord— qui natns est ex Maria Virgine . 2 It 
 demands neither argument nor explana- origin 
 tion. It is deduced from the Creed of ^other- 
 Nicaea and established by the decision hood ’ 
 of Ephesus. Mary was recommended by our 
 Lord upon the Cross to the Apostle St. John to 
 be thenceforward his Mother—to him as the sole 
 present representative of the Eleven, and through 
 the Eleven to the body of the disciples, to Chris¬ 
 tians in general. Mary is our Mother. 
 
 And this may be deduced irrespectively of the 
 actual designation of Calvary. Our Lord took 
 upon Him the human nature. He is 4 the first¬ 
 born among many brethren 5 (Rom. viii. 29). 
 If He has adopted us to be His brothers ( £ He is not 
 ashamed to call them brothers,’ Hebr. ii. 11), we 
 become the adopted children of His Mother also : 
 4 Behold I and the children whom God has given 
 me ’ (ver. 13). Or again, on our part we acknow¬ 
 ledge her to be our Mother—it cannot be evad^ 
 Mary is known to us both in Scriptur 
 
 1 ‘ Hail, full of grace.’ 
 
 2 ‘ Who was born of the Virgin Ma' 
 
 177 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Tradition as the Mother of our Lord, she is most 
 commonly represented in Christian art with the 
 Divine Infant in her arms, her images so represent 
 her. All the devotion we learn towards her is 
 thus in the maternal relation ; she is the perfec¬ 
 tion and type of motherhood; she is called 
 Mother, Mater amabilis, Mater admirabilis} 
 To us she is always the Mother, and this is scarcely 
 removed from being our Mother. Mary would 
 thus be the Mother of Christendom, though our 
 Lord had not adopted us as His brothers, and 
 though He had not specially so designated her. 
 But He has so designated her, and He has so 
 adopted us. Our religious instinct, our natural 
 intelligence, anticipates or at least accepts our 
 Lord’s appointment. Mother we learn to call 
 her who was the Mother of Jesus. The conclusion 
 has far-reaching consequences. 
 
 Fatherhood is a constitutive relation in the 
 order of God’s kingdom over the entire universe. 
 
 He is Himself revealed to us as our 
 
 The 
 
 Mother- Father, and Christ our Lord also occu- 
 Christi- pies that relation —Pater futuri saeculi 
 amty - (Is. ix. 6). It is impossible to over¬ 
 estimate the effect—one would not say in the 
 ulitant first progress of the Christian creed, but 
 after recognition—of the simple revelation 
 
 most amiable, Mother most admirable.’ 
 
 178 
 
MARY MOTHER 
 
 of the Fatherhood of God. 1 But while God was 
 revealed to us as our Father, there was coinci- 
 dently the manifestation of one among ourselves 
 as the Mother of Christendom. No one needs 
 to listen to argument upon the association of the 
 name of Mother. Now Christianity appeals— 
 the life and death of our Lord is full of it—to our 
 affections as much as it satisfies our understanding 
 and spiritual craving. Somewhere in Christianity 
 we might anticipate that the most moving of our 
 associations would appear. It appears blazingly 
 on the first page. Can you omit the Mother and 
 Child from Christianity ? Can you deny the 
 Mother of Bethlehem to be our Mother as well ? 
 
 The Motherhood of Mary must bear relation 
 to her sovereignty. First of all, it is the ground 
 of her sovereignty. She holds supre- The 
 macy as being Mother of God. It is Mother - 
 
 hood in 
 
 there, in that regard, that she is ‘ blessed relation to 
 
 the sove- 
 
 among women.’ Her Assumption, her reignty; 
 
 cx pci I'tC 
 
 Coronation, follow upon her prior elec- subjec¬ 
 tion. to be the Mother of the Chosen Seed. 
 
 But further, after that, after she is assumed and 
 
 1 In paganism God is the Father of men, but only as their 
 Creator. In the Mosaic Revelation He is the Father of the 
 Chosen People alone (Is. lxiii. 16 ; John viii. 41), at least to 
 the popular conception. Christ first reveals God to all as 
 the Father of all in a personal relation, imaged in His own 
 constant filial intimacy—‘ My Father and your Father ’ 
 (John xx. 17). 
 
 N 2 
 
 179 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 crowned, the sovereignty is affected by its origin, 
 and our relation as subjects is not the same when 
 the Queen is our Mother. It may be said at once 
 that there is no illustration, no analogous example, 
 to be derived from our sensible experience. 
 What is—we ask and desire to know—what is the 
 relation we thus come to hold ? We have, for 
 seeming parallel, not unfrequently in history, 
 the sudden aggrandisement of a family from 
 which a queen-consort is taken ; the queen is a 
 different person to her relations, and they en¬ 
 croach upon her as feeling confident of her favour. 
 We have the resuscitation of the persecuted 
 Jewish nation, when the Jewess Esther was made 
 queen of Assuerus. 4 If I have found favour in 
 thy sight, and if it please the king, let my people 
 be given me at my request. And the king held 
 out toward Esther the golden sceptre ’ (Esther 
 viii. 4 ; v. 2). Now Mary, the angel said, had 
 4 found favour ’ with God. 
 
 But the picture belongs to a past age and not 
 to our own surroundings. We might think rather 
 to-day of class feeling and the subjection of races. 
 The lower classes are conscious of a different 
 relation to the government of a country in which 
 there are persons of their own class holding office. 
 The founder of the English colonial empire was 
 long known as 4 the great Commoner,’ and com¬ 
 manded popular allegiance under that title. 
 
 180 
 
MARY MOTHER 
 
 Or we might suppose the altered position of the 
 Jews in Russia or of the Greeks within the 
 dominions of the Turk, when Jew or Greek 
 attained to political eminence. Yet, wherever 
 our imagination may travel, there is no real 
 illustration to be found amid our corrupt condi¬ 
 tions. Power with us is often attained by 
 illegitimate means, and the distribution of favour 
 is not according to justice. The first idea is that 
 there are classes and races unjustly oppressed, 
 and we are thus reminded from the beginning 
 that it is our own world and no other with which 
 we are dealing. 
 
 With the exaltation of Mary, as already 
 observed, justice remains supreme, and her favour 
 is accordant with the Will of God. It is a new and 
 unexampled condition, in the same way as every 
 heavenly appointment traverses our expectation, 
 in the same way as we believe, without under¬ 
 standing it, that 6 the meek shall inherit the 
 earth 5 —and have no illustration of it to adduce. 
 But, at any rate, with our Lady’s exaltation, 
 we have one of ourselves, one of our own race, 
 of our own species, who is Queen of earth and 
 heaven, and further we have one who exercises 
 towards us a mother’s regard. 
 
 Certainly, Mary is our Mother, first of all, as 
 being the Mother of our Lord. Our brother 
 Christ (Matt, xxviii. io, etc.) implies our Mother 
 
 181 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Mary; we are her children because He adopted 
 us into His family. But also Mary herself un¬ 
 doubtedly adopts us. When she accepted the 
 appointment of God in her Annunciation— Fiat 
 mihi secundum verbum tuum — she accepted 
 coincidently every hidden sequel, both the 
 sword that should pierce her soul, and the pangs 
 of her mystical maternity. And she undeniably 
 accepts at the foot of the Cross the son that is 
 there given her—‘ Woman, behold thy son.’ 
 By that adoption, where she stands, she is in 
 travail with a multitudinous progeny, as Christ 
 upon the Cross ‘ died for all * (2 Cor. v. 14). 
 Mary becomes the second Eve and the mother of 
 all living. 1 
 
 The queen rules all, she is queen of all, but she is 
 queen in a somewhat different way within the 
 royal family. At least the human race, if they 
 will accept the relationship —pax hominibus 
 bonae voluntatis , peace through the Incarnation, 
 through Him who was ‘ bom of a woman 5 — 
 belong to the family of Mary. We are £ a chosen 
 generation, a royal priesthood, a purchased people— 
 
 1 The comparison is frequent in Patristic literature. ‘ In 
 sorrow thou shalt bring forth children ’ (Gen. iii. 16), is ful¬ 
 filled in the dolours of our Lady beneath the Cross ; not 
 otherwise in her case. The intacta virginitas is a tradition 
 of the earliest age, e.g., in the Protevangelium Jacobi, which 
 is assigned by Harnack to the end of the second or beginning 
 of the third century. 
 
 182 
 
MARY MOTHER 
 
 populus acquisitions ’ (i Petr. ii. 9). We do 
 not approach Mary, offer her our devotion, pay 
 her our homage, as to a stranger, with shyness 
 and apprehension, but we are counted as her 
 children and confidently expect her favourable 
 * regard. Our attitude is indeed one of loyalty, 
 as her subjects, but before that and more power¬ 
 fully than that, it is an attitude of filial piety. 
 
 The relation carries further (and is thus of 
 itself antecedently probable) what is the leading 
 motive of the Christian symphony—the charity 
 of God towards us. 4 Anyone of you that is a 
 father,’ our Lord expostulates, £ if his son asks 
 him for bread, will he give him a stone ? ’ (Luke 
 xi. 11) . . . 4 It is not the will of your Father in 
 heaven that one of these little ones perish.’ 
 (Matt, xviii. 14) ... 4 The very hairs of your 
 head are all numbered ’ (x. 30). ... 4 Whatso¬ 
 ever you shall ask the Father in My name, He 
 will give you ’ (John xvi. 23). But God, though 
 He has taken our human nature and was found 
 in the likeness of men, yet is He still the great 
 and terrible God (Deut. x. 17), the 4 high and 
 lofty One that inhabiteth eternity ’ (Is. Ivii. 15). 
 
 4 Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord or who 
 shall stand in His holy place ’ (Ps. xxiv. 3) ? 
 Who can say : 4 Here, take me, with the clean 
 hands and the clean heart ’ ? For the poor, 
 the kingdom of heaven is theirs. But for the 
 
 183 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 guilty ? The charity of God, and the wisdom 
 of God, foreseeing our timidity, gave us Mary. 
 In Mary we have a friend at court. ‘ Remember, 
 Virgin Mother of God, within the presence of God, 
 to speak a good word for us and to turn away His 
 anger from us.’ 1 c And the king held out toward 
 Esther the golden sceptre.’ 
 
 Towards ourselves, then, towards her own 
 kin, the rule of Mary is maternal. The character 
 Ex parte of such a rule is expressed by its name. 
 Regmae. ^ n y good mother exercises her authority 
 to protect her children from harm and to give 
 them such moderate and innocent pleasures as 
 they may enjoy without corrupting effect upon 
 themselves. She teaches them gentleness and 
 courage, to do their duty and to fear God. Mary’s 
 maternal rule must have a similar aim. Vitam 
 praesta pur am , Iter para tutum, Monstra te 
 esse matrem . 1 2 * Further, any good mother — it 
 is proverbial—rather favours the weakling and 
 the prodigal, never abandons hope, never loses 
 affection for her child, however far the child 
 may have wandered astray. 4 Can a woman 
 forget her sucking child, that she should not 
 have compassion upon the son of her womb ? ’ 
 (Is. xlix. 15)—the most enduring of compassions, 
 
 1 Gradual of Feast of the Dolours. * 
 
 2 ‘ Make our life pure, give us safe journey, show thyself a 
 
 mother.’ 
 
 184 
 
MARY MOTHER 
 
 and only the ocean of Divine Mercy wider. Such 
 is mother’s love. But the devotion of Mary to 
 her children is even more than that, because she 
 is the Mother of Sorrows, because she stood 
 beneath the Cross of her divine Son and has 
 comprehended the height and depth, the love of 
 Jesus for sinners. What her Son and Lord feels, 
 she feels by sympathy ; she is sensitive to every 
 emotion of the Sacred Heart. Was not its beating 
 first awakened by the beating of her maternal 
 heart ? The blood of its pulse was blood of her 
 own that she gave. Mary has the same regard 
 for sinners that she has learnt to belong to the 
 heart of Jesus— advocata peccatorum —that is, the 
 same regard for humanity at large, whatever 
 our transgressions and estrangement from good¬ 
 ness and truth. Monstra te esse matrem, Sumat 
 per te preces Qui pro nobis natus Tulit esse 
 tuus} 
 
 The operation of Mary’s maternal rule over 
 us is that her patronage shields us from harm, 
 and obtains for us the divine mercy when we 
 have fallen from grace. She is our Queen, for 
 loyalty, for devotion, for honour and majesty ; 
 we offer our homage and beseech her royal 
 favour. But she is our Mother, in whom to 
 confide, whose counsel to seek ; to whom we may 
 
 1 ‘ Show thyself a mother, Offer Him our sighs, Who for 
 us incarnate, Did not thee despise.’ 
 
 185 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 have recourse in any trouble ; to whom we owe 
 filial duty ; we should be mindful of her wishes 
 and pay her loving obedience; next to dis¬ 
 pleasing God, we should be most afraid of dis¬ 
 pleasing our Mother. 
 
 Mary is Mother of our Lord, and we are adopted 
 into His family and own her also as our Mother. 
 It is hard to conceive how all that has been said 
 should not inevitably follow upon that first 
 beginning. Who would quarrel with her being 
 Queen, holding and exercising a real sovereignty, 
 so soon as we learn and understand what is meant 
 by it—that she exercises over us a mother’s care, 
 that the prayers of Mary in heaven are offered 
 up for us, just as were the prayers of our mother 
 who brought us into the world ? Who would 
 doubt that, if Mary is our Mother, we please God 
 most by honouring her, that our Mother’s prayers 
 are heard for us more than the prayers of any 
 other ? God has commanded us to honour 
 father and mother. He honours Himself a 
 mother’s love and a mother’s prayers. 
 
 186 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MARY ADVOCATE 
 
 If Mary exercises a mother’s care over us, if 
 she prays for us, as good mothers pray for their 
 children, if her sovereignty means How 
 precisely this, then the Queen of Heaven and yet le 
 is our Advocate. c Let my people be Q ueen - 
 given me at my request.’ In another aspect it 
 appears incongruous that she should hold both 
 the one and the other title. For a delegated 
 sovereignty, we are taught, has been bestowed 
 upon Mary ; dominion is hers ; she is a queen 
 quite really and truly. Then it would seem she 
 does not make entreaty ; she grants, and others 
 entreat her ; her part is not advocacy but listen¬ 
 ing to prayer, receiving petition and bestowing 
 royal favour upon her suppliants. 
 
 Nor is the representation of her dignity, which 
 would thus be made, altogether inaccurate, but 
 is partly endorsed in Catholic devotional use. 
 For it is common, when invoking the patronage 
 of whatever Saint, to say a Hail Mary at the 
 shrine. Or at another time a Pater, Ave and 
 
 187 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Gloria may be recited in honour of the Saint. 
 In the former case the intercession of the Saint 
 is clearly sought by grace of Mary. In the 
 latter the Saint is distinguished, whether in 
 recognition of past or imprecation of future aid, 
 or simply in act of homage—the Saint is dis¬ 
 tinguished by the intention of the prayer and 
 worship of God, with which is associated, as 
 commonly, the invocation of Mary ; there is 
 petition addressed to Mary, and if the prayers 
 of the Saint which we beseech are offered to 
 God for us, they seem still to pass through the 
 hands of Mary. Or it may be represented that, 
 in asking the Saint’s intercession, we say the 
 Hail Mary as the ordinary device and instru¬ 
 ment of supplication; and then the prayer we 
 say, the prayer that is to ascend by favour of 
 the Saint, is a prayer addressed to the Queen of 
 all Saints. The Saint is our advocate with 
 God, but by way of Mary and precedently 
 therefore with her. In general, supplication 
 is directly addressed to the Blessed Virgin, not 
 asking for advocacy but for benefit and aid ; 
 Funda nos in pace , mites fac et castos, Jesum 
 nobis post hoc exsilium ostende . 1 Quite in accord¬ 
 ance with the use and custom of sovereignty as 
 existing in our own world. 
 
 1 ‘ Stablish us in peace, make us gentle and chaste, show 
 us after this hfe Jesus.’ 
 
 188 
 
MARY ADVOCATE 
 
 When anyone approaches the steps of the 
 throne, it may be merely to offer homage, it 
 may be to present a petition ; it could hardly 
 be to ask for petition to be made. Yet the 
 earthly monarch’s favour is not final, his power 
 is limited : 4 Am I God,’ said King Joram, 
 ‘ to kill and make alive ? ’ (4 Kings v. 7). God 
 is equally over all in earth as over all in heaven. 
 The petition presented to an earthly queen is 
 only obtained if it is according to the Will of 
 God that it should be so. 1 But there is no 
 mention of this in the wording of the petition, 
 and the queen grants the petition without 
 express reference to the Will of God, and execution 
 follows, though it should not be God’s directive 
 purpose but His allowance alone. 
 
 There is a difference doubtless when the earth’s 
 atmosphere is left, within the ether of heaven. 
 As has already been observed in relation to 
 rule in general. The glory of God gives light 
 to the heavenly city in lieu of sun (Apoc. xxi. 23), 
 
 1 That is to say, according to His permissive Will. For 
 many things happen on the earth which God does not will 
 directively. There is evil present with us in its various forms, 
 physical pain and disaster, moral perversion—things allowed 
 by God for a time, but which it would be blasphemy to 
 ascribe to His direction. Nor is the Will of God constantly 
 done, even when indifferent things or positive benefits are 
 originated ; because first of our ignorance what that Will 
 might be, and secondly because we are not perfect in sanctity— 
 there are divergencies from complete accordance. 
 
 189 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 and in that light everything is transacted. The 
 distinction between the permissive and directive 
 Will of God becomes there merely theoretical; 
 for our theologians, but not for the Saints in 
 bliss. Thus the favours that the Queen of 
 Heaven bestows are the ordination of God ; 1 
 her grant of them is her prayer : ‘ Mother of 
 God, pray for us.’ Queen or Advocate is all one. 
 
 But the way is not yet clear. ‘ If any man 
 sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, 
 Tesus Christ the Tust, and He is the 
 
 How our J J 
 
 Lord is our propitiation for our sins’ (i Tohn ii. i). 
 
 One ought, perhaps, out of courtesy 
 to take note of the Protestant’s irrefutable 
 objection. It is our Lord and not our Lady 
 who is Advocate. We need none besides. 
 
 Well, if you press me with the rigour of the 
 letter, we have certainly on Scriptural authority 
 another expressly named. The writer, whose 
 language you adduce, is St. John, and in the 
 Gospel that bears his name we are informed of 
 ‘ another Advocate, the Spirit of truth ’ (John 
 xiv. 16). 2 If you urge that the sense of the 
 title in one reference is different from the sense 
 in the other, notwithstanding that the writer 
 
 1 See above, p. 167. 
 
 2 In the two passages different English equivalents 
 generally appear in translation, but the word employed by 
 St. John is the same— napdKXrjTos, Paraclete, Comforter, 
 Advocate. 
 
 100 
 
MARY ADVOCATE 
 
 is the same, then you make no point by finding 
 the word employed in St. John’s Epistle. Our 
 Lord may be termed our i\dvocate, without 
 being so in the first-hand signification of the 
 word, because the Spirit of truth is not Advocate, 
 you agree, in such first-hand signification. The 
 term is applied to our Lord in the single text, 
 and in what sense it is intended must therefore 
 be discovered from the single text. We have 
 seen above (Ch. IV.) that the Mediation or Inter¬ 
 cession of our Lord was hardly distinguishable 
 from His atoning Sacrifice. So is He revealed 
 in the text under consideration as at once our 
 4 Advocate with the Father ’ and 4 the Pro¬ 
 pitiation for our sins.’ In his apocalyptic 
 vision St. John had beheld 4 a throne set in 
 heaven ’ and 4 in the midst of the throne a Lamb 
 as it had been slain ’ (Apoc. iv. 2 ; v. 6), and 
 the hymn of heaven ran : 4 Thou wast slain and 
 hast purchased us for God by Thy Blood ’ 
 (ver. 9), and the Martyrs had 4 washed their 
 robes and made them white in the Blood of the 
 Lamb ’ (vii. 14). When first innocent blood 
 was shed upon the earth, the blood of the 
 martyred Abel, God said that the voice of the 
 blood cried to Him from the earth (Gen. iv. 10). 
 The Blood of Christ is offered daily on Christian 
 altars and 4 speaketh better things than that of 
 Abel ’ (Hebr. xii. 24). The Precious Blood 
 
 191 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 (i Petr. i. 19) with which we were redeemed, 
 has a voice to plead and propitiate, and Christ 
 is our Advocate as He has 4 by His own blood 
 entered once into the holy place having found 
 for us an eternal ransom ’ (Hebr. ix. 12). 
 
 What this sense has to do with the Queen of 
 Heaven being our Advocate, no sane intelli¬ 
 gence could imagine. It has no more relevance 
 than has the Atonement of Christ in reference 
 to that which was made by Moses on Sinai 
 (Exod. xxxii. 30. Hebr.). 
 
 Our Lady, then, holds various titles which 
 express the several relations towards us of her 
 ( kindness—Refuge of Sinners, Help of 
 
 hour of our Christians, etc. They seem to refer 
 
 death.* . J 
 
 in the mam to the events and circum¬ 
 stances of our present life— ad te suspiramus 
 gementes et fientes in hac lacrymarum voile; 
 though indeed it would be not less but more 
 our deliverance from spiritual foes and perse¬ 
 verance in justice that was intended. Titles 
 that extend to the other world are on their part 
 largely mystical and metaphorical—Gate of 
 Heaven, Star of the Sea, etc. But when Mary 
 is entitled our Advocate, the reference is most 
 generally to our passage from this world into 
 another : 4 Pray for us sinners now and at the 
 hour of our death.’ Our Advocate in attain¬ 
 ing to the Beatific vision : Eia ergo } Advocata 
 
 IQ 3 
 
MARY ADVOCATE 
 
 nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos 
 converte, et Jesum benediction fructum ventris tui 
 nobis post hoc exsilium ostende. 1 Or in escaping 
 eternal reprobation: Flammis ne urar succensus, 
 per te, Virgo , sim defensns in die jndicii? 
 Or in grasping the joys of Paradise: Da per 
 matron me venire ad palmam victor iaeP Or 
 in resisting the last most malignant assault 
 of the enemy: Mary is Help of Christians, and 
 we pray that 4 fortified by her protection we 
 may be strong to win victory from the malig¬ 
 nant foe in death .’ 4 
 
 There is perhaps nothing recondite or of hiero- 
 logical derivation when Mary is entitled our 
 Advocate, and when it is most generally meant 
 that she is so on the borderland between this 
 world and the other. Spes agonizantium , 
 Janna caeli, let her be named. Let it be her 
 office to 4 open our eyes in death.’ 5 But no such 
 exalted topic is needed to introduce. The ex¬ 
 planation is very simple. For when once we 
 have learnt to look to the Mother of God for 
 
 1 * Come, then, our Advocate ; Oh, turn on us those pitying 
 eyes of thine ; And our long exile past. Show us at last Jesus, 
 of thy pure womb the fruit divine.’ 
 
 2 ‘ Leave me not to burn for ever ; Virgin, thou my soul 
 deliver, In the dreadful judgment day.’ 
 
 3 ‘ By Thy Mother, Lord, befriended. Grant me when 
 this life is ended, Palm of victory to attain.’ 
 
 4 Proper of the Feast of our Lady of Dolours. 
 
 6 Vergil, Aen. iv. 244. 
 
 I 93 
 
 O 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 help and succour, it must follow that the greater 
 our need, the more certain is our flying to her. 
 And though in reality we may not have most 
 need of help at the hour of death, we feel our 
 need most then. Death is the king of terrors. 
 It appals beyond all else by its loneliness and 
 its mystery. Solitary, no friend within call, 
 the soul wanders forth into the waste unknown. 
 
 Or what if this be the end ? Memento , homo , 
 quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris . 1 Any 
 hour in life to think of death is to check mirth 
 and gladness, when the cup is at our lips. Death, 
 the king of terrors, so known and so named. 
 The brave man meets it bravely; he nerves 
 himself to meet it. Still the king of terrors. 
 
 ‘ Pray for us, Mother of God, now and at the 
 hour of our death.’ In especial then. It seems 
 to require no explanation, nor need to rest 
 upon revelation or instruction, when Mary is 
 viewed as Advocate chiefly in relation to the 
 promise and peril of a future existence. 
 
 Still, with such predisposition to invoke her 
 aid in such dark hour, and as the consequent 
 practice with long use and wont takes litur¬ 
 gical shape, it could hardly fail to be recognised, 
 hierologically, that Mary would have particular 
 kindness for the agonising soul, as having herself 
 
 1 ‘ Remember, O man, that thou art dust and unto dust 
 shalt thou return.’ 
 
 194 
 
MARY ADVOCATE 
 
 passed through a greater torment— Mater 
 dolorosa. Felices (!) sensus beatae Mariae 
 virginis , qui sine morte meruerunt martyrii 
 fialmam sub cruce Domini. 1 In the inspired 
 record of the history of the Jewish people, there 
 are two pictures of a mother’s despair, which 
 are luminous with horror, the picture of Agar 
 in the wilderness, who laid her child under a 
 bush, and sat down a bowshot distance off, that 
 she might not see her child die of thirst (Gen. 
 xxi. 15, 16) ; and the picture of Respha watching 
 day and night the dead bodies of her murdered 
 children (2 Kings xxi. 10). Painters have 
 endeavoured to depict the station of the Virgin- 
 Mother at the foot of the Cross. None has 
 dared to show her—no one, at least, of the 
 great masters—when the lifeless Body was laid 
 upon the ground. 2 4 As with a sword in my 
 
 bones, my enemies reproach me, while they say 
 daily unto me, Where is thy God’ (Ps. xlii. 10). 
 There has been no torment of desolation like 
 hers, excepting only that of the Man of Sorrows 
 
 1 Proper of the Feast of our Lady of Dolours : ‘ Happy 
 senses of the blessed Virgin Mary that without death 
 merited the palm of martyrdom beneath the cross of the 
 Lord.’ 
 
 2 Rubens in his Descent from the Cross has the grand style, 
 but his conception is vulgarly inadequate. He instinctively 
 as an artist is satisfied with the Descent, and avoids the later 
 tableau. The Pieta, in religious art, would be later, at the 
 Sepulchre, not at the Cross. 
 
 195 0 2 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 whom she bore. But then further. The Passion 
 and Death of her divine Son, that she witnessed 
 and condoled, were for the salvation of each 
 particular human soul. Must not the immacu¬ 
 late heart of the Virgin Mother be moved at the 
 last hour of each one of her adopted children, 
 when eternity is hanging in the balance ? As 
 the tree falls, so shall it lie. ‘ Lost 5 and ‘ saved ’ 
 is heard above as the curtain falls. Hope of 
 the agonising, Advocate of sinners, pray for the 
 dying soul, for whom Christ died. 
 
 But the scenic style of death changes as men 
 change and as their associations change. In 
 
 Modern our later day it is said that people are 
 sentiment. n0 £ a f ra j^ of dying, but only of suffering 
 
 pain, as may happen when they die; the 
 soldier’s terror is not death but being badly 
 wounded. A greater sensitiveness to pain 
 belongs to the advance of civilisation, as to the 
 higher species. The savage does not feel a pang 
 as great as the civilised man, nor does the worm 
 we tread upon. It is nothing to be ashamed of. 
 
 But how is it that the terror of death has gone ? 
 So that, for example, men and women, and 
 even children, now commit suicide for any 
 slight vexation. The social philosopher should 
 have an answer, and our present inquiry is 
 possibly concerned. Is this absence of the fear 
 of death an unexpected and unintended, wholly 
 
 196 
 
MARY ADVOCATE 
 
 unconscious, piece of evidence, testifying to the 
 complete domination that Christianity achieved ? 
 Immortality, which Christianity established, has 
 been the belief of centuries upon centuries, 
 and becomes a nerve-impress in the brain of 
 heredity. The instinct of immortality is trans¬ 
 mitted from father to son, like the elementary 
 notions of number or like a musical ear. 1 Thus 
 Christian belief may be fading or lost, but the 
 instinct here, if only here, remains ; we have 
 not to-day the hesitancy of Cicero or the 
 Sadduceeism of King Ezechias (Is. xxxviii. 10-20). 
 
 This curious contradiction is very conspicuous 
 in the prevalence of suicide. To Christian 
 apprehension suicide is the most horrible of 
 crimes, as it is contained in its very notion that 
 there is no space for repentance after com¬ 
 mission. ‘ I have no part in life but for as long as 
 I go between the pyre and the sword of Achilles’ 
 son.’ 2 And for sin unrepented there is, according 
 to the Christian revelation, nothing but the 
 fearful prospect of the undying worm and the 
 quenchless fire. Anyone who commits suicide 
 cannot believe in the Christian Revelation. Yet 
 it is due to Christianity that the modern suicide 
 
 1 The Arabians are said to divide the tone into thirds, 
 so that they cannot hear a semitone, just as we cannot hear 
 thirds of a tone, though approached in the enharmonic scale. 
 
 2 Euripides, Hecuba, 436, 7. 
 
 197 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 is not afraid of annihilation, but anticipates 
 a change to something better than he has at 
 present. Make him the most irreligious and 
 sceptical—and suicides are not disproportion¬ 
 ately so—he will still at the back of his brain 
 have a fancy of not ending everything. The 
 explanation is, then, partly that the belief in 
 immortality, as observed, has become a heredi¬ 
 tary instinct, partly that the Christianity of 
 sentiment does survive, though not that of 
 revelation. Moral integrity, kindness of heart, 
 the belief in a God and in a future life—that is 
 what is now generally intended by Christianity. 
 It is not, of course, the Christianity of Christ. 
 The Christianity of Christ was a dogmatic con¬ 
 fession. 4 Believe in God, believe also in Me. 5 
 
 In that Christianity the fear of death is found 
 simultaneously with the confidence of immor- 
 • Hope tality. The Virgin-Mother in Catholic 
 of the _ belief assists the departing soul for 
 whose salvation she gave her only 
 Son, the soul for whom Christ died. Why should 
 we not say rather, for whom Christ rose again ? 
 By His resurrection He delivered those who 
 from fear of death were all their lifetime en¬ 
 slaved (Hebr. ii. 15). If we believe that Jesus 
 died and rose again, in the same way those who 
 sleep in Jesus God will bring to life again along 
 with Him (1 Thess. iv. 14). O death, where 
 
 198 
 
MARY ADVOCATE 
 
 is thy sting ? O Hell, where is thy victory ? 
 (i Cor. xv. 55). Deus mens et omnia . 1 We 
 have the assurance of eternal life ; we need no 
 arm of flesh in our hour of final trial. Why 
 should the assistance of our Lady be any con¬ 
 cern to us ? 
 
 Because, again, Christianity is a Revelation. 
 It reveals the immortality of the soul. But 
 it reveals more. We rise again. But observe : 
 ‘ they that have done good, unto the resurrection 
 of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the 
 resurrection of damnation ’ (John v. 29). Death 
 has no terrors to the sincere Christian, as it had 
 none to St. Paul, who deemed death ‘ far better ’ 
 (Phil. i. 23). Only which of us can feel assured 
 within himself of deserving to be so called ? 
 Or at any rate there may be some who have 
 misgivings. It is not death, as Hamlet says, 
 but the dread of the things after death. Where 
 we gain by the assurance of immortality, we 
 undoubtedly lose by the other assurance of 
 judgment to follow. The Revelation that gives 
 us one, gives both. 
 
 It is not, therefore, unnatural for a Christian, 
 or any evidence of lack of faith, to feel afraid 
 of death and to be grateful for any comfort he 
 may get in his last hour. Or let it stand thus. 
 Death is no longer in Christianity the king of 
 
 1 * My God and my all.’ 
 
 199 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 terrors. Happy souls of those born after Christ, 
 who have been instructed in His Revelation, 
 in Christianity; because they die in hope, they 
 depart out of this world in peace. But such 
 peace and happiness are only found in Chris¬ 
 tianity. The record and tradition of Chris¬ 
 tianity inform us of the dignity and office of the 
 Virgin-Mother (as in our first Part), and it is 
 a sure deduction, taught by the responsible 
 teachers and custodians of the divine tradition, 
 that she has a concern for the departing soul, 
 and that she vouchsafes it her assistance. How 
 much of peace and happiness is associated with 
 that assurance, the dying may be able to say. 
 Even then, peace and happiness are not the 
 question. But whether in thought and act 
 we are loyal to the Catholic faith. There may 
 be a calm and beautiful deathbed that no good 
 angel comes near. And it may be due to the 
 prayers of our Lady that the soul is ill at ease : 
 ‘ God be merciful to me a sinner.’ 
 
 Above (p. 174), it was explained that, though 
 Queen of earth and of heaven, our Lady could 
 , not be Queen of Hell, and how neverthe’ 
 
 Power and 
 
 assistance less her rule and exaltation was felt 
 
 of Mary 
 
 beyond the there. But indeed our Lady really 
 
 gT3.V6. 
 
 and actually is Queen of Hell, in that 
 sense in which it is declared in the Creed that 
 our Lord 6 descended into Hell.’ This is, of 
 
 200 
 
MARY ADVOCATE 
 
 course, the Hades of Greek eschatology, Sheol 1 
 in Hebrew, the place of departed souls, as dis¬ 
 tinguished from Elysium or Heaven on the 
 one hand, and from Tartarus or Gehenna on the 
 other. The souls in Purgatory 2 are in such 
 condition that, their time of probation being 
 over, nothing that they can do, not even prayers 
 they offer, can any longer be of avail to them 
 in respect of merit or purgation. On the other 
 hand, they may still have something done for 
 them, and hence they are prayed for and Masses 
 said for them by survivors on earth. But 
 likewise the Saints in bliss may help those 
 suffering 3 in Purgatory, so far as is according 
 
 1 Sheol is apparently used as merely equivalent to the 
 grave, or balancing it in the notional rhythm of Hebrew 
 poetry (Ps. vi. 5 ; xxx. 3, 9 ; lxxxviii. 3, 4 ; Is. xxxviii. 18 ; 
 Os. xiii. 14), but as prophetic of our Lord's death and resurrec¬ 
 tion (Ps. xvi. 10 ; Acts ii. 31) must be taken in the sense of the 
 Creed. 
 
 2 The word is Latin, and therefore absent from the New 
 Testament, and is in fact an ecclesiastical term of later 
 introduction. But it is equivalent to Hades, as there also 
 the souls appear to be under suffering, according to the 
 expression of St. Peter that our Lord ‘ went and preached 
 to the spirits in prison’ (1 Petr. iii. 19). Our Lord seems 
 to speak of ‘ prison ’ in the same reference (Matt. v. 25, 26). 
 
 3 The suffering of Purgatory is said to be very extreme, 
 but its intensity must be greatly mitigated, or its endurance 
 at least assisted, by the consciousness of the sufferer that his 
 salvation, and therefore ultimate bliss, is now secure. One is 
 irresistibly reminded of the expression of St. Paul : ‘ I reckon 
 that the sufferings of this present time are not worth count¬ 
 ing as compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us ’ 
 
 201 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 to the Divine Will. At any rate the Saints are in¬ 
 vited to do so by our prayers, and it is a common¬ 
 place in Catholic devotional practice that the 
 stored merits of Martyrs and Confessors and the 
 4 Indulgences ’ thence obtained may be applied 
 to the benefit of the souls in Purgatory. Such 
 relation must be held in pre-eminent degree by 
 the Queen of all Saints. Mary is our Advocate 
 not only at the hour of death but beyond it. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive of any objection 
 being taken to our having the prayers of the 
 Reason- Mother of our Lord, whether on the 
 
 the title of ground ot the idea being extravagant 
 Advocate. Qr superstitious or dishonouring to God, 
 
 or on any other ground whatever. Unless it 
 be plainly alleged to be impossible that those 
 who still live to God, as Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob (above, p. 163), should pray for us who 
 remain in the earthly life; or impossible, if they 
 might pray for us, that petition of ours should 
 reach them to ask their prayers. Certainly 
 we have no proof of either possibility that could 
 be alleged to satisfy external cavil. But it is 
 surely an innocent idea, and even beautiful, 
 
 (Rom. viii. i8, and similarly elsewhere). Besides, one great 
 part of the suffering is understood to be the temporary 
 separation from the Source of bliss—as the thirst, a thousand 
 times intensified, of a thirsty man who sees water that 
 he cannot reach—and this pain the sufferer must rejoice to 
 have, however extreme. 
 
 202 
 
MARY ADVOCATE 
 
 this of a Jacob’s ladder between earth and 
 heaven, by which our petitions could ascend 
 to those above, and the blessings descend which 
 they obtain for us. One might say more. It 
 is an idea eminently enlarging to the spiritual 
 abilities, eminently spiritualising, making our 
 life here less c of the earth, earthy,’ our con¬ 
 versation more in heaven, a recollection con¬ 
 tinually with us that here we have no abiding 
 city but are citizens of another country, where 
 dwell our friends and where we store our treasure. 
 Are we thereby, through entertaining that idea, 
 less disposed to worship God who is the Splendour 
 of that world of light ? On the other hand, 
 categorically to deny communication between 
 this world and the other is, as Aristotle said 
 (Eth. Nich. i. n), 4 too unsocial, too contrary 
 to the general opinion ’ ; it rests, this denial, 
 on no known facts, whether of experience or 
 testimony; it represents, almost always, an 
 impatience of supernatural ideas altogether, and 
 an ingrained avidity after their disproof and 
 extermination. Unless, indeed, it is merely due 
 to defective spiritual education, the absence of 
 the notion, or denial learnt from a school 
 catechism ; and then it is not militant, it does 
 not denounce or defame. 
 
 That we should have the prayers of Mary is 
 no enlargement beyond what we might have 
 
 203 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 obtained from her in her Galilean home. It 
 cannot, then, surely be called aggrandisement 
 or deification of the Mother of God, such as is 
 alleged against the Church under the name of 
 Mariolatry. No one in possession of his wits 
 could represent it so. And then further. If 
 you deny that we have Mary’s prayers, you 
 deny all that has preceded in this Part. Can 
 you do that ? Mary is Queen because God has 
 crowned her; she is Mother of God. Queen 
 and Mother. But as regards ourselves, her 
 royalty is exercised and her mother’s care for 
 us is displayed by her prayers for us ; her royal 
 favours and her mother’s lessons are her prayers. 
 When all is said, it comes to this as regards 
 ourselves, that Mary is our Advocate. 4 Mother 
 of God, pray for us, grant us a blessing, succour 
 us, make us meek and pure, grant us after this 
 life to behold the face of Jesus.’ What she 
 grants is the will of God for us. Her acts are 
 prayers. 
 
 The assistance of the Virgin-Mother at the 
 hour of death and beyond the grave is fairfy 
 deduced, if her aid is bestowed at all. 
 
 The 
 
 Sabbatine We have, however, no knowledge of 
 indulgence, her action may be in the world 
 
 of her present glory beyond what has been 
 already exhibited, and so in particular regarding 
 the character of her relation towards the souls in 
 
 204 
 
MARY ADVOCATE 
 
 Purgatory, or any action in their regard that 
 belongs to her. Some have alleged that it is 
 her office to conduct the souls to bliss whose 
 term of purification is accomplished, an idea 
 originally suggested, perhaps, by our Lord’s 
 descent into Hell; the action of the Mother 
 imitates and repeats that of her Son ; where 
 He has shown the way, she follows in her later 
 investiture. The so-called Sabbatine Indul¬ 
 gence is covenanted to those who wear the 
 brown scapular of the Carmelite Order. On 
 the Saturday succeeding their death—just as 
 on the day after Good Friday our Lord descended 
 into Hell—Mary journeys into the place of their 
 purgation and gives them release. The Sabba¬ 
 tine Indulgence has no warrant in the authorita¬ 
 tive teaching of the Church. At the same time 
 such 4 revelations ’ of mystical theology are not 
 to be absolutely denied or impugned. Supposing 
 a truly devout wearer of the scapular, it may 
 very well follow that such a degree of sanctity 
 is attained in this life that there is very little 
 Purgatory to pass through, and the Sabbatine 
 Indulgence may be completely in accord with 
 what is independently the rule of divine Justice. 
 But this is liable to be misunderstood, and the 
 majority of claimants would not attain to such 
 
 1 There are some further accompanying observances en¬ 
 joined. 
 
 205 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 devout completeness. The speculation, however, 
 is evidence of a general belief in the care of our 
 Lady extending to the souls in Purgatory, and 
 on that account seemed deserving of mention. 
 There cannot be an exaggeration without an 
 opinion of which it is the exaggeration. Mary 
 is Queen of Hell, i.e ., of Purgatory, in the sense 
 that her care for her adopted children does not 
 end with their death, any more than does our 
 own care for our children or other relatives and 
 friends. 1 We may not only obtain the assist¬ 
 ance of the Blessed Virgin for our friends in this 
 world, but devotions to her may be offered on 
 behalf of the departed. ‘ Eternal rest give to 
 them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine 
 upon them—Holy Mary, pray for them.’ 
 
 1 Among things innocent and even beautiful may surely 
 be included the Catholic practice of pursuing those we have 
 loved and lost with active service of affection. The benefits 
 we endeavour to obtain for the souls in purgatory are corre¬ 
 lative to the help bestowed on us by those in bliss. Nothing 
 is more melancholy than the visit of a Protestant to a loved 
 tomb ; a few flowers laid upon it, and so back again with 
 blinding tears, the prayer of the heart choked back, a dutiful 
 dumbness kept unbroken. Or at most the pilgrim prays at 
 the grave for some benefit for himself, quite abstractedly, 
 as it might be in his own house. What is that to do for his 
 grief and mourning ? 
 
 206 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 Mystical theology is not the same as mysticism, 
 but the name has an earlier parentage. Mys¬ 
 ticism means discovering a hidden mean- What 
 ing in word or action besides that which mystical 
 
 ° _ theology ? 
 
 lies on the surface, through symbolism 
 or by the science of correspondences, which makes 
 of the natural phenomenon and of its expression 
 in language a mere cryptogram to stand for a 
 spiritual reality and to convey a spiritual meaning. 
 In mysticism the miracle of Cana would 
 represent the change of natural into revealed 
 truth ; the two 4 small fishes 5 at the miraculous 
 feeding of Capharnaum would symbolise the 
 divine and human Natures, which are both present 
 in the Sacrament, etc. Some passages of Scripture 
 are openly mystical; we should not think the 
 four living creatures, in Apoc. iv. 6, foil., Ezech. i. 5, 
 foil., to be literally such as they are described. 
 Mysticism is not in itself evil, but it is only to be 
 handled by doctors of great spiritual learning ; 
 otherwise it has a growing fascination, as of a 
 
 207 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 drug, for those who once begin with it, and leads 
 the inexperienced into vast ranges of error. 
 
 Mystical theology, on the other hand, has 
 reference etymologically to the 4 mysteries 5 of the 
 ancient Greek or Egyptian or Magian paganism, 
 and to those who were 4 initiated 5 into the mys¬ 
 teries. It signifies a severer religious exercise 
 and a more intense religious study belonging 
 to an elect few who are called by God to particular 
 dedication. Some of the 4 paradoxes ’ of the 
 Gospel may perhaps belong to it, or are at any 
 rate verified in it more literally and exactly— 4 If 
 anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father 
 and mother ... he cannot be My disciple 5 
 (Luke xiv. 26); 4 Whoever shall smite thee on the 
 right cheek, turn to him also the other ’ (Matt, 
 v. 39) ; 4 Many are called, but few chosen ’ (xx. 
 16), etc. 1 Saints who have been eminent in 
 mystical theology are such as St. John of the 
 Cross, St. Theresa, and chief of all and first of all, 
 St. John the Apostle. 
 
 As applied to the subject in hand, mystical 
 theology would furnish us with some less evident 
 aspects of our Lady’s dignity and office, such as 
 are not perhaps within the range of general 
 
 1 It is dangerous, however, to put a limit to the precepts 
 of our Lord when He is not recorded to have done so Him¬ 
 self, and the paradoxes would in their spirit have a general 
 application. 
 
 208 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 apprehension, and such as there is no general 
 obligation to appreciate or accept. But these 
 additions are understood, or even discovered, by 
 persons of interior mortification, and especially 
 Religious, who have made by divine grace large 
 progress in prayer and contemplation. Some 
 glance into this recondite science seems proper to 
 any sufficient exposition of the doctrine, and can 
 hardly be amiss. Those who feel unable to follow 
 the argument, may rest content with what has 
 preceded. They have already got the ordinary 
 belief and devotional exercise of the Church 
 exposed, and that is the main concern. There 
 may be others who would be interested in learning 
 something of what exists in the particular vocation 
 of the priest, the religious, the contemplative ; 
 as St. Bonaventura said : ‘ I learnt it before the 
 Crucifix.’ To begin, then. 
 
 The Blessed Virgin, in order to become the 
 Mother of God, was made the Bride of the Spirit : 
 c That which is conceived within her is „ .. 
 
 Spiritual 
 
 of the Holy Ghost.’ If all the gifts of gifts by 
 
 Mary : the 
 
 God come to us through Mary, the chief Descent of 
 . _ i * . Pentecost. 
 
 of God s gifts are spiritual. As against 
 the spiritual benefaction, any temporal blessing 
 is without validity and disappears from view. 
 Thus though, in spite of prayers, we suffered 
 disappointment and pain through life, yet it is 
 understood that our Lord’s promise would stand ; 
 
 209 p 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 ‘ Ask and it shall be given you.’ For the parallel 
 between the giving of the earthly father and of 
 the Heavenly, ends thus : ‘ How much more 
 
 shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit 
 to those who ask Him ? 5 (Luke xi. 13); no gift 
 besides is named. The spiritual gift, the gift 
 of the Spirit, if any and beyond any, must come 
 to us through Mary. 1 The beginning was the 
 Descent of Pentecost. According to the startling 
 expression of St. John (vii. 39), ‘ there was no 
 Holy Spirit yet, because Jesus was not yet 
 glorified.’ Now at the Descent of Pentecost, 
 the Blessed Virgin was undoubtedly present 
 (See Part I., p. 47). It has never been otherwise 
 represented in Catholic tradition. 2 Her presence 
 belongs to the miracle. How and why, wants 
 some brief explanation. 
 
 The essence of sin is the deflection of the will. 
 The polarisation, so to speak, is changed. Instead 
 
 1 Not that we can never expect temporal benefits in answer 
 to prayer, but they are subordinated. We desire God’s 
 Will and our own good, and the spiritual benefit must repre¬ 
 sent both, but the temporal need not. The father does not 
 give his child what will be harmful to him. 
 
 2 Failure or hesitation in recognising the truth of the case, 
 may be partly due to our one-sided virile preconception. 
 The Apostolic office is of a special character, not the same 
 as the subsequent clerical, and the Twelve, though chosen 
 to that office, are not the sole chosen altogether, but there 
 are other divine elections, e.g., that of the Baptist. Is it, 
 then, only Apostles who are to receive the Spirit on the 
 day of the promise ? 
 
 210 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 of being centred on God, it is determined by its 
 own appetency under external stimulus ; instead 
 of the rule of right, we get a will that has become 
 self-will. 4 Rebellion,’ said the prophet Samuel 
 (i Kings xv. 23), 4 is the sin of black magic ; 
 because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, 
 He has also rejected thee.’ God and evil are 
 contrary, like sweet and bitter, or substance and 
 void ; there is no possible contact. Thus the soul 
 in sin is out of relation to God, and that not 
 because God turns away from His creature, but 
 because the soul has turned away from Him ; 
 the aversion is the sinner’s own act. Meanwhile 
 the soul, thus disconnected from the Source of 
 good, cannot of itself restore its proper connec¬ 
 tion ; in the language of St. Paul, it is 4 taken 
 captive,’ it is 4 sold into slavery ’ ; the restoration 
 can only be effected by divine grace, and of this 
 it has become incapable. Such terrible impasse , 
 brought about by the sin of our first parents, was 
 overcome in the Divine Counsels through the 
 Incarnation and Sacrifice of the Son of God, 
 who had not, and could not have, that incapacity 
 and disconnection. Atonement was made, and 
 human nature was restored to its original corre¬ 
 spondence with Divinity. 
 
 But, in the first place, in order that this should 
 be done, the Son must take human nature. And 
 yet, once more, His Deity could not have contact 
 
 p 2 
 
 211 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 —could not by a more than physical negation— 
 with evil. In the fulness of time there was 
 found the possibility of a human child that 
 could be conceived without sin by divine election, 
 and our Lord was born of Mary Immaculate (See 
 the next chapter). But even then the union was 
 immediately restored for the one Man alone, 
 the Only-Begotten who had made the Atonement, 
 and others were to partake of the benefit of the 
 Sacrifice that He had made by being incorporated 
 in Him. It does not suffice, however efficacious, 
 that He represents the human race—the second 
 Adam. There is more. In the New Testament 
 we are perpetually meeting with the expression 
 ‘ in Christ,’ as applied to Christians, and as their 
 proper description (John xv. 4; Acts xiii. 39; 
 2 Cor. v. 17 ; Gal. v. 6 ; Eph. i. 3-12 ; Phil. iii. 9 ; 
 1 Petr. v. 10 ; 1 John ii. 28, v. 20, etc.). 1 2 * St. Paul 
 uses in one place the unexpected variation, 
 ‘ of His flesh and of His bones ’ (Eph. v. 30). 
 This incorporation is effected by means of the 
 Sacraments. ‘ As many of you as were bap¬ 
 tised into Christ, clothed yourselves with Christ ’ 
 (Gal. iii. 27) ; 6 He that eateth My flesh and 
 drinketh My blood, abideth in Me 5 (John vi. 
 56). 2 But the virtue of the Sacraments is 
 
 1 The preposition is, however, sometimes otherwise 
 rendered in versions through miscomprehension. 
 
 2 Protestants would give the account of the text, only 
 
 212 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 through the operation of the Holy Spirit, who 
 had therefore to become abiding in the Church. 
 At once the impasse reappears. How is the 
 Spirit to be given where there is admixture of 
 sin ? The correspondence was found a second 
 time in the Blessed Virgin, who had already 
 (at the Annunciation) received the Holy Spirit, 
 and who was full of grace, so that as the Son of 
 God was incarnate by her, so the Spirit might be 
 given to the Church with her— 4 with the women 
 and Mary the Mother of Jesus’ (Acts i. 14). 
 Her presence was the necessary condition of the 
 descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, to 
 bring the Divine Fire into the upper room at all. 
 
 4 Receive ye the Holy Spirit,’ said our Lord to 
 the assembled disciples after His Resurrection, 
 when He 4 breathed upon them ’ (John xx. 22). 1 
 But this was the divine fiat and promise. It did 
 
 less definitely. For them the incorporation is effected by 
 no outward act, but takes place in the consciousness of the 
 believer through an interior act of faith. It would be hard 
 to discover any warrant in Scripture or Tradition for this 
 version. In Scripture the profession of faith in Christ is 
 always immediately followed by Baptism (Acts ii. 38 ; 
 xvi. 33 ; xviii. 8 ; xxii. 16, etc.). But an act of faith alone 
 might suffice when Baptism was precluded, just as it is said 
 that an act of contrition will suffice when the Sacrament of 
 Penance cannot be had. Either case, however, is of the 
 rarest, and belongs to ritual casuistry. 
 
 1 There does not appear to be any evidence that the 
 assembly consisted of the Eleven alone. Nor is Mary 
 absent because unmentioned, though she certainly may be 
 absent. See Part I., chap. iii. p. 47. 
 
 213 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 not take effect till Pentecost was come and the 
 Mother of J esus was there making the correspond¬ 
 ence. 
 
 As at Pentecosf through her presence, so subse¬ 
 quently through her investiture and office. The 
 The Papal s P* r itual powers and prerogatives of the 
 buityi" Church were purchased for us by the 
 Precious Blood of Christ. But their 
 persistence is maintained by the patronage of 
 the Queen of Heaven—‘ we fly to thy patronage, 
 O holy Mother of God.’ The gifts of the Spirit 
 come to us through Mary, whom He made His 
 Bride. They are ‘ new every morning ’ ; they do 
 not fail. Certainly, being such as we are, we may 
 therefore adore the Divine Mercy. Of the fallen 
 Church of Jerusalem God said, in the prophecy 
 of Ezechiel, that ‘ though Noe, Daniel and Job 
 were in it, they should deliver but their own 
 souls by their justice ’ (Ezech. xiv. 14, 20)—their 
 sanctity should not avail to save the Church. 
 The Christian vineyard is watered by the blood 
 of Martyrs, and its tillage is the pains of Con¬ 
 fessors. The bride of the Lamb is arrayed in 
 fine linen, pure and bright, c and the fine linen 
 is the justice of Saints ’ (Apoc. xix. 8). Of both 
 Martyrs and Confessors, of all Saints, Mary is 
 Queen. The Church of Christ is preserved 
 from falling, in accordance with the divine promise 
 and covenant, through the intercession of Mary : 
 
 214 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 4 ut Genitricis Domini nostri intercession sal- 
 vemur .’ 1 More important for the edification 
 of the Church than even the promise to St. Peter : 
 4 1 have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not ’ 
 (Luke xxii. 32), and no Catholic will say other¬ 
 wise— more important is the designation of the 
 Mother of Christendom. The providence of God 
 over His people to preserve the integrity of the 
 tradition, the divine assistance granted to the 
 Vicar of Christ in his office, is within the range 
 of the sovereignty of Mary. Over and over again 
 in the history of Papal rescripts has the supreme 
 Pontiff—and always in proportion to his piety 
 and worthiness—professed himself the client of 
 Mary, and claimed in an especial degree her 
 patronage and protection in his pastoral over¬ 
 sight. 
 
 Similarly the priest does not receive his com¬ 
 mission from our Lady, nor does it reach him 
 through her. But originally for per- The 
 severance in his vocation, and subse- fnd the° od 
 quently for the due exercise of the Mass ‘ 
 sacerdotal office, he depends upon her favour 
 and aid. The devout priest may pray before 
 saying Mass : Sicut dulcissimo Filio tuo in 
 cruce pendenti adstitisti> ita et mihi misero 
 peccatori, et sacerdotibus omnibus hie et in tota 
 
 ! Proper of the Feast of the Assumption : ‘ that we may¬ 
 be saved by the intercession of the Mother of our Lord.’ 
 
 215 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 sancta Ecclesia offerentibus , clementev adsistere 
 dignevis} In the Mass of her Nativity his prayer 
 before offering is that 4 He who was born of a 
 Virgin may on the birthday of His Mother purge 
 us of our offences and make our offering accept¬ 
 able to God.’ 
 
 It has been recently ruled by authority to be 
 erroneous to suppose that Mary has any part 
 in the Sacred Host, as though the Body and 
 Blood of Christ being originally derived from her, 
 she had some part in them sacramentally as well 
 as naturally. An error, however, may often point 
 to a truth of which it is the exaggeration or 
 perversion. The profession of faith drawn up 
 by Pope Gregory VII., which the heretic Beren- 
 garius was induced to subscribe, declared that the 
 bread of the Sacrament was changed by conse¬ 
 cration into the Body of Christ 4 which was born 
 of the Virgin.’ 1 2 Mary is invoked by the priest 
 twice in the Canon of the Mass, once immediately 
 before he consecrates, and again immediately 
 before he communicates. In addition to this, 
 except on the occasion of some particular Feast, 
 in the Sunday and Ferial Mass, he appends to 
 
 1 Indulgenced by Pope Leo XIII. : ‘ As thou didst stand 
 beside Thy Son as He hung upon the Cross, so mercifully 
 deign to stand beside me a miserable sinner, and beside 
 all priests who offer sacrifice here and in all holy Church.’ 
 
 2 Identically St. Ambrose (Lambertini, De Canon. Sand. 
 Lib. iv. c. 31). 
 
 2l6 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 the 4 Prayer,’ to the 4 Secret ’ Prayer, and to the 
 4 Post-Communion ’ Prayer a petition directly 
 in commemoration of the Blessed Virgin. The 
 Mother of God Incarnate has an interest in the 
 making of the Body of Christ in the Mass reflected 
 from that which she took in the conception and 
 birth of the holy Babe ; she adores principally 
 and primarily, with Saints and Angels and with 
 all the faithful, before the Altar, as she adored 
 beside the Manger in Bethlehem; nay, she 
 stands beside the Altar as she stood beside the 
 Cross. Mary is not separate from the Sacrifice 
 of the Mass any more than from the Sacrifice of 
 Calvary ; she has just as much—and just as 
 little—part in one as in the other. But for the 
 priest who offers and for the faithful who adore 
 Mary is Advocate and Helper. When the Body 
 of the Lord is given in Holy Communion, as 
 when it was given in the Nativity, Mary is there. 
 If all the gifts of God come to us through Mary, 
 this supreme gift is not apart from the Mother of 
 Divine Grace. It was once said : 4 When I go to 
 Holy Communion, I put our Lady on my right 
 hand and my Guardian Angel on my left.’ The 
 prayer of devout souls, of those who cultivate 
 the hidden life of union with God, is : 4 Hail, 
 Mary, the Lord is with thee ’ ; not once and 
 again, but always; with thee upon His Altar 
 Throne. 
 
 217 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 A second topic, which naturally succeeds, 
 is this. As devotion to Mary and appreciation 
 
 Mary Diva ^ er °ffi ce belong to Catholic loyalty; 
 
 and as failure in devotion and making 
 less of her, denote or hasten retrogression; so one 
 would imagine that mystical theology in the 
 religious study and meditation of dedicated lives 
 would be able to make addition to what is 
 generally discerned about our Lady, about her 
 glorified person, as she now reigns and ranks 
 highest over all in the radiance of heaven. In the 
 growth and expansion of the Christian life, just 
 as in the development of the Christian creed, the 
 greatness of Mary appears ever larger, and that 
 without departing from the traditional truth of 
 fact, and without sacrificing for a moment the 
 beauty of the traditional delineation— 4 Mary 
 kept all these words, pondering over them in her 
 heart.’ Mary does not change by becoming Queen, 
 but Queen she is more and more discerned to be. 
 
 The notion of sanctity, and indeed the con¬ 
 dition of human regeneration, as just explained, 
 is a deification of human nature (the word is not 
 at all too strong). We are to 4 grow into the 
 measure of the maturity of Christ ’ (Eph. iv. 
 13). We are to be 4 clothed with Christ ’ (Rom. 
 xiii. 14 ; Gal. iii. 27). The unity of Christians 
 in Christ is paralleled with the unity of the 
 Godhead : 4 As thou, Father, art in Me and I in 
 
 218 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 Thee, that they may be one in Us ’ (John xvii. 21), 
 and this unity is through the interpenetration of 
 humanity by the Divine Nature : 4 1 in them 
 and thou in me 5 (ver. 23). We partake of the 
 Body and Blood of Christ and thus 4 dwell in Him 
 and He in us ’ (vi. 56). St. Paul says boldly : 
 4 Now not I, but Christ liveth in me 5 (Gal. ii. 20). 
 The attainment is various and relative. In the 
 higher manifestations of sanctity it is carried 
 to a marvellous reproduction. The Saints give 
 partial transcripts of the character of our Lord ; 
 St. John the Apostle with his 4 Love one another, 5 
 St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anthony of Padua; and 
 let not women be left out—one hardly dares prefer 
 any—but St. Gertrude, St. Rose of Lima. 4 You 
 received me, 5 writes St. Paul (Gal. iv. 14), 4 as 
 Christ Jesus. 5 Thus the veneration we yield 
 to Saints is in reality yielded to the Deity mani¬ 
 fested in them : 4 Laudate Dominion in Sanctis.’ 1 
 
 Obviously such account must apply chiefly 
 and in the highest degree to the Queen of Saints. 
 The degree in which Mary attains to union with 
 Deity is beyond what we can comprehend, as the 
 manner of that union for the glorified spirit is 
 unknown. But it is very fairly gauged by an 
 analogy open to us. With the Nestorianism of 
 Protestant belief, and especially in its modern 
 
 decadence, our Lord has become a human creature 
 1 ‘ Praise the Lord in His Saints.’ 
 
 219 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 irradiated and permeated by Deity—nothing 
 more. The notion which the Protestant forms 
 of the Son of God, transcendently above our 
 stature because so near the divine, is very fairly 
 the account of the glory of 4 the King’s Daughter.’ 1 
 Mary in her glory, while still the handmaid 
 of the Lord, has the rays of Deity reflected from 
 every portion of her being, as the moon reflects 
 the sun’s light. She is Diva , divine. We have 
 no word in Latin or in English to express a union 
 which is not unity, a divinity which is communi¬ 
 cated but not shared. But the subtlety of the 
 Greek language, which is selected by the provi¬ 
 dence of God for theological expression, has the 
 distinction. Mary is not 6 sa but Osla. Or truly 
 and really, as the queens of the ancient world 
 were styled in compliment, she is hia 7 vvcu/ccov — 
 the 4 blessed among women.’ When a Catholic 
 is accused of 4 worshipping ’ the Virgin Mary, 
 let him not be ashamed. He does worship—the 
 Deity with which she is filled. Of lesser Saints 
 it is said even upon earth that they were 4 filled 
 with the Holy Spirit ’ (Luke i. 15 ; Acts iv. 8); 
 xiii. 9, etc.), and how much more, perennially 
 and essentially, Mary in heaven ! 
 
 1 This is almost certainly what lay at the back of Cardinal 
 Newman’s (Protestant) explanation ; above, p. 152, note. 
 He wrote polemically, and his account of the early Church 
 was a parable to apply to the Protestant surroundings of 
 his own time and country. 
 
 220 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 We should not be cautious or chary of speech 
 about our Lady. We live in the midst of a 
 generation that is hostile to the Catholic faith, 
 and both persecutes and derides it; the pollution 
 of Protestantism has not yet exhaled itself 
 away. The more, and not the less, should we 
 constantly proclaim Mary Mother of God and 
 Queen of all. Then it will perhaps some day 
 be understood—or if not, that makes no difference 
 —what is the transcendence of God in the Chris¬ 
 tian Revelation. God, then, does not become 
 less God by taking human flesh, but when (by 
 the Incarnation) the veil is taken away, we are 
 more sensibly awed than before. But consider 
 the obscurer vision of the Mosaic covenant, the 
 epoch of the 4 letter, 5 the 4 shadow, 5 the 4 figure, 5 
 only, when Moses 4 hid his face 5 (Exod. iii. 6), 
 when Elijah 4 wrapped his face in his mantle 5 
 (3 Kings xix. 13), and earlier yet the patriarch 
 Job confessing : 4 1 have heard of Thee by the 
 hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee ; 
 wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust 
 and ashes ’ (Job xlii. 5, 6). Heaven is God’s 
 throne and the earth His footstool. God is 
 immeasurable, ageless, all-lovely and all-wise; 
 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must 
 worship in spirit and in truth, God who has 
 become man— et homo f actus est ex Maria Virgine. 
 Mary said : 4 Magnificat anima mea Dominumf 
 
 221 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 and we do not glorify God by holding aloof from 
 her. How we may derogate from God’s glory is 
 by leaving out Mary altogether, and then putting 
 the Incarnate Word on the level that His Mother 
 should occupy, the pediment of a deified man. 
 
 Impossible to conceive what the glory of Mary 
 is. How are we to do it ? If we, erring, futile, 
 ordinary Christians, are to be c completed up to 
 all the completion of God ’ (7r\7]pco0rjTs si9 irav 
 to 'TrXypco/ia rod P)sov. Eph. iii. 19), what is it to 
 be ? In the end, when all is fulfilled, and God 
 is 6 all in all ’ ? (1 Cor. xv. 24-28). And here is 
 no sinner; the sole child of Adam, save and 
 except the Incarnate Word her Son, who never 
 knew sin; a human nature as it was first formed 
 and designed by its Creator; lily unsmirched, 
 a virgin clay, made for the Potter’s use; chosen, 
 elect, finding favour with God, made Mother of 
 God ; whom the kisses of the God-Babe have 
 kissed—what is she ? If we are to have our life 
 in God, what is she, who never had it else; what 
 from the beginning, what now, where the eternal 
 melodies are heard, sunned by the sunshine of God, 
 face to face ? Mater divinae gratiae , diva Maria} 
 
 The third topic is closely connected. In 
 mystical theology the Queenship of Mary grows 
 larger ; similarly, we should opine, her Maternity. 
 
 1 ‘ Mother of divine grace ’— diva Maria is untranslatable 
 —‘ Mary divine.’ 
 
 222 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 In previous chapters it has been suggested that 
 Mary is originally Queen in the royal line of 
 Judah, being the Mother of Him who Ma ter 
 was 4 born King of the Jews,’ but that, Mundl ' 
 further and beyond, inasmuch as Messiah the 
 King 4 sits upon the throne of His father David 
 and shall rule over the house of David for ever 
 and of His kingdom there shall be no end,’ so 
 Mary, being thus Mother of the eternal King, 
 transcends the earthly limitations and is Queen 
 of heaven as well as queen on earth. The same 
 transcendence follows, or rather precedes, regard¬ 
 ing her Motherhood. Though this is not needful 
 for us to know. Though for our concern it 
 suffices that she is Mother of God, and by adoption 
 and by divine designation our Mother. But to 
 the contemplative her Mother’s glory in her 
 exaltation is beyond this. As Mother of God— 
 Mater Creatoris —her Motherhood attains a uni¬ 
 versal validity. She is not only 4 a mother in 
 Israel’ (Judges v. 7), not only 4 the mother of 
 all living,’ the antitypal Eve (Gen. iii. 20), 
 but universal Mother —Mater mundi. What this 
 should mean in virtue and effect, as related to the 
 potencies and powers of worlds upon worlds, 
 the natural and supernatural, the changing and 
 the eternal, the individual and the archetype, 
 the fleeting forms of life and the laws of being, 
 the temporal and the absolute, the kingdom of 
 
 223 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 nature and the kingdom of grace— qucindo prae - 
 parabat caelos, cider am; quando certa lege et 
 gyro vallabat abyssos . . . cum eo eram cuncta 
 componens 1 —of this we can only gain a dim and 
 shadowy prospect. But evidently the maternal 
 character, the maternal Idea, thus attains its 
 apotheosis and is crowned as supreme constituent 
 under God of all being. The woman, who 
 ‘ brought forth a man-child ’ 2 —and her offspring 
 was the All-Ruler upon the Throne of God 
 (Apoc. xii. 5)—is exalted to the heaven of heavens, 
 clothed with the sun and the moon under her 
 feet, nearest the Throne. To the contemplative 
 it is a marvellous revelation, clearing away many 
 shadows, satisfying many doubts and ques¬ 
 tionings of the soul that would search into the 
 deep things of God. It is consonant with the 
 rest. 4 Weak things of the world has God chosen 
 to confound the things that are mighty ’ (i Cor. 
 i. 27). God is love (1 John iv. 16), and the 
 nearest to God according to His own declaration 
 (Is. xlix. 15) is the love of the mother. If God 
 were power or wisdom or beauty, it might not be 
 
 1 * When He prepared the heavens, I was there ; when 
 with certain law and compass He enclosed the depths. . . 
 
 I was with Him forming all things.’ 
 
 2 vibv appsva. This, which is with St. John ‘ a great 
 wonder in heaven,’ is perhaps the same as the ‘ new thing 
 upon the earth’ of Jeremias (xxxi. 22), though whether the 
 prophet understood the intention and fulfilment of what he 
 wrote, is there by no means sure (See Matt. xiii. 17). 
 
 224 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 so ; but He is not these ; He possesses all these, 
 but He is love ; so the Mother of God is Mary. 
 The greatest (i Cor. xiii. 13) is the mother’s love. 
 
 Let the social philosopher, who argues on 
 sexual relativity and balances between the 
 superiority of one or the equality of both, let him 
 ponder on this. Let him do nothing of the kind. 
 It is hidden from him. 4 I confess to Thee,’ ex¬ 
 claims our Lord (Matt. xi. 25), 4 to Thee, O 
 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast 
 hidden these things from the wise and prudent.’ 
 Only in the light of the Revelation of God, only 
 in the Church of Christ, is truth and peace. We 
 reverence womanhood, motherhood, and the 
 woman and mother has reverence for herself, 
 when Mary’s throne is honoured. Tu gloria 
 Jerusalem , tu laetitia Israel , tu honorificentia 
 populi nostri; 0 Maria, mater clementissima, 
 
 virgo prudentissima, ora pro nobis et intercede pro 
 nobis ad Dominum Jesum Christum . 1 
 
 It remains to depict two aspects of our Lady’s 
 prerogative, which are illustrative and may have 
 special interest as being more decidedly Speculum 
 off the line. As the glory of Mary J ustltiae -‘ 
 appears greater with our spiritual growth, so is 
 
 1 * Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of 
 Israel, thou the honouring of our people ; oh, Mary, mother 
 most merciful, virgin most prudent, pray for us and inter¬ 
 cede for us with Jesus Christ our Lord.’ 
 
 2 Mirror of Justice. 
 
 225 
 
 Q 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 her power to aid us more largely revealed. We 
 depend upon her not only for pardon through her 
 advocacy, but also for progress in justice. Our 
 Lord has indeed redeemed us ; He has revealed 
 to us our Father in heaven ; He has instructed 
 His disciples both in religious doctrine and in 
 social virtue—‘ a new commandment I give you.’ 
 He lived for thirty-three years on earth, and the 
 record of His life, such record as we possess, 
 among other equally beneficent designs in its 
 bestowal, bore on its face this evangel, that Christ 
 is our Pattern. The imitation of Christ is the 
 whole of Christian virtue. 
 
 But, in the first place, there are phases of the 
 life of The Son of God which we should not dare 
 to set ourselves to imitate—His intimate com¬ 
 munion with His Father, His manifestation 
 of divine power. Although by free gift of God 
 these traits also may be exemplified in elect 
 servants : ‘ Greater works than these shall he 
 do who believes in Me ’ (John xiv. 12). 4 If a 
 
 man love Me . . . My Father will love him and 
 We will come to him ’ (ver. 23). And, secondly, 
 the justice of Christ is no doubt our model, the 
 type of perfection, the standard by which to 
 approve and condemn; encouraging to fresh 
 effort, lifting to further heights, keeping the 
 torch aflame ; and while we strive we worship— 
 lab or are est or are. But the model cannot be 
 
 226 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 reproduced. 4 As I have loved you, that you 
 also love one another ’ (xiii. 34)—impossible. 
 4 Be perfect as your Father who is in heaven is 
 perfect 5 (Matt. v. 48)—impossible again. Mean¬ 
 while the very excellence of a moral standard 
 is that it should be unattainable. Once attain, 
 and you may sit with folded hands henceforward. 
 But health is only maintained by activity, 
 and conflict is the condition of human probation. 
 One may say, with Aristotle, that moral virtue 
 is not a perfection but a process ; justice, para¬ 
 doxically, is not itself, but its pursuit. At least, 
 this is so for human nature in its existing im¬ 
 perfection. The imitation of Christ is thus, 
 designedly and for our good, unattainable. 
 
 We may, then, approach the problem, of life 
 from another side and consider with ourselves 
 how, failing to attain, being 4 unprofitable 5 
 servants, we may at least come nearer to our Lord 
 and win His gracious regard. For it is only by 
 His grace that we can in any measure follow the 
 pattern of His life. Now nearest to the Heart of 
 Jesus beyond all question was His Mother. 
 The more we can resemble her, the nearer we 
 shall be. It is true that there is a similar diffi¬ 
 culty as before, that neither can we really hope 
 to attain her devotion, her humility, her single¬ 
 ness and simplicity of heart. But it is possible 
 by prayer and sustained recollection to associate 
 
 227 22 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 ourselves so closely with the Mother of God that 
 she is able to impart to us something of her own 
 nature, A secret lore known to the hidden life. 
 For constant association everywhere produces 
 a certain resemblance of character. Thus like¬ 
 ness of feature is inherited, but we are unable 
 to say how much likeness of disposition, manner, 
 even speech, is so ; how much may be due to the 
 constant intercourse and association of early 
 years. Even feature, it is said, becomes modified 
 as thought and feeling, and thus expression, 
 run on similar lines ; married people are some¬ 
 times seen to have grown like each other. 
 
 We should endeavour, then, to live as much 
 as possible with Mary. To the ordinary mind it 
 may seem mere self-delusion and religious eccen¬ 
 tricity to imagine that anyone can really do so. 
 But the argument no longer regards the ordinary 
 experience, and there are those who live so much 
 in the other world— 4 our conversation is in 
 heaven ’ (Phil. iii. 20)—that the Saints are quite 
 as real personages to them as are their earthly 
 acquaintances ; they have distinct personalities, 
 and are distinguishable through familiarity one 
 from another. With Mary the relation is constant 
 and intimate beyond what is held towards other 
 Saints. She is continually approached for help 
 and succour; her patronage is sought; the daily 
 meditation of her clients dwells upon her story 
 
 228 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 and the record of her acts and favours. She be¬ 
 comes part of their life, her august personality 
 grows into clearer knowledge, and in contact with 
 her their characters are altered and receive some 
 impress of her own. Is this unlikely ? Is it 
 unreal ? The contemplative do not think so ; 
 they are sure of the contrary. And they are 
 not in other relations of life either eccentric or 
 under delusion. At any rate it is with them 
 that we are now concerned. Observe that the 
 cultivation of Mary’s society has all along the 
 design of making us more perfectly to be followers 
 of our Lord. Do we rather say that our life 
 should be hid with Christ in God ? But if we 
 would be with Christ we must live with Mary. 
 
 ‘ Hail, Mary, the Lord is with thee.’ 
 
 The remaining prerogative may appear to be 
 ascribed through speculative reflection rather 
 than through devout study, but illustrates never¬ 
 theless a particular point. In devotion the soul 
 not only learns to discern better, but it finds 
 new things, new relations, new mysteries, coming 
 within its view. The poet speaks of the wonders 
 of the Paradise above, when the listening soul 
 shall 
 
 £ Find new knowledge at each, pause, 
 
 Or some new thing to know.’ 
 
 No one disputes that the appearances of our 
 Lady have been more frequent in the history of 
 
 229 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Christianity than the appearances of any other of 
 the inhabitants of Heaven. This may be allowed 
 
 Lourdes conse( l uen f upon her sovereignty 
 
 and upon her having in consequence 
 more to do with us. It may also be allowed that 
 our Lady is more in our mind ; we are thinking 
 more of her assistance ; and in all such super¬ 
 natural favours the predisposition of the recipient 
 must be taken into account; there is a corre¬ 
 spondence between the revelation and the recep¬ 
 tive condition of the favoured soul to whom it 
 is made. Just as to the Jewish prophet the 
 word of God came in Hebrew and not in Japanese. 
 Still, when such considerations have been ad¬ 
 mitted and allowed, it can be hardly wrong to 
 suppose, as one reason of the greater frequency 
 of the appearances of our Lady, that she alone 
 is able to appear in her own shape, and her appear¬ 
 ances are thus, if we may so express it, simpli¬ 
 fied and made more easy and natural. She alone 
 in her Assumption has anticipated the time of 
 the final Judgment and resurrection of the body. 
 She alone has in heaven a bodily form in which 
 to appear to us. 
 
 When this is said, it does not throw doubt, it 
 must not be imagined to throw doubt, upon the 
 appearances of other Saints. Only in such cases 
 the appearances are apparitions. God permits 
 the particular Saint to appear to us with his 
 
 230 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 proper lineaments, but there is no actual body 
 there. But when our Lady appears, it is her bodily 
 self, as at Capharnaum or Nazareth. 
 
 Nor does it affect this explanation that the 
 ancient patriarch Henoch, the prophet Elias, 
 and possibly Moses (Deut. xxxiv. 6 ; Jude 9), 
 were ‘ translated. 5 If they are at present in 
 possession of their bodies, they could certainly 
 appear by the divine permission, as does Mary ; 
 but they are not likely, being Saints of the old 
 Covenant or anterior to it, to appear to Christians 
 who do not look for them. Is it either altogether 
 certain that translation and assumption are the 
 same thing, so that the grace bestowed upon 
 our Lady would not be unique ? 1 Elias, e.g., is 
 
 1 Pre-eminently obscure is the passage in Jude (9) where 
 the Archangel and Satan are represented as ‘ contending 
 for the body of Moses.’ Not, however, obscurely expressed ; 
 the obscurity belongs to the subject. The incident does not 
 fit in with anything we have otherwise learnt and under¬ 
 stood about the other world. Certainly ‘ the body of Moses’ 
 is not himself. As ‘ no one knows of his sepulchre,’ it is 
 possible to understand that the body is removed beyond the 
 limits of earth. But still separated from the soul, equally 
 as in a natural demise. Perhaps, then, in ‘ translations,’ 
 as of Elias, death having already taken place (as plainly 
 to be inferred from 4 Kings ii. 9-12 ; the prophet, while 
 translated, has no voice to answer his follower), it is only 
 that the body is removed from outrage, or it may be from 
 idolatrous veneration (4 Kings xviii. 4). The body is re¬ 
 served in some sacred place —TrepiaKeirrcp ivl x^PV —till the 
 Judgment. The ‘ dispute ’ concerned the fact that Moses 
 had ‘trespassed’ (Deut. xxxii. 51) and had been refused 
 the Promised Land—had been rejected so far accordingly. 
 
 231 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 seen to be carried up in the chariot of fire, and 
 certainly then his body is not left for burial. 
 But whether it reaches heaven is a further parti¬ 
 cular, and the record hardly seems to take it 
 into account. The Assumption of Mary follows 
 upon the Resurrection and Ascension of her divine 
 Son, and is understood in the Church to imply 
 that her immaculate body was admitted within the 
 eternal Gates that open first to receive the Body 
 of Christ victorious over death and the grave. 
 The first human form that appears in heaven is 
 that which the Son of God has taken upon Him¬ 
 self. The second is that of the Mother of God. 
 It seems at least antecedently probable. 
 
 Some similar rationale must be given of what 
 St. Matthew (xxvii. 52) records among the por¬ 
 tents following upon the expiry of our Saviour, 
 that 6 the veil of the temple was rent in twain 
 from the top to the bottom, and the earth quaked, 
 and the rocks were rent, and the graves were 
 
 His body, as a body of sinful flesh, might therefore be argued 
 to have no claim to that holy keeping, but to belong to 
 Satan, anticipating and expecting the adjudgment of the 
 soul also to him. Satan is ‘ the accuser ’ (etymologically), 
 and though the future is not known to him, he is ready to 
 dispute for any doubtful case, or such as he can make doubtful, 
 as, e.g., Job (Job i. 11). As to a distinction between assump¬ 
 tion and translation, St. John Damascene, apostrophising 
 our Lady, writes ( Horn . 11): ‘Thou hast not gone up to 
 heaven as Elias did, but didst penetrate even to the royal 
 throne of thy Son ’— ox>X o ’HAias d>s els rbv ovpavbv i\r]\vdas, 
 aAA’ tecs avrov rov f3a<ri\iKov Qpbvov rov Tlou (rov etpdouras. 
 
 232 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 opened, and many bodies of the Saints that slept 
 arose, and coming out of their graves after His 
 Resurrection they entered the holy city and 
 appeared to many.’ These Saints would be also 
 pre-Christian. And it does not seem that any¬ 
 thing beyond apparitions is intended here either. 1 
 The Saints appeared in their bodily lineaments 
 but without any resurrection of their bodies. 
 For surely it is inadmissible to suppose that the 
 Resurrection of our Lord was only one out of 
 many that occurred at the same time and of 
 precisely similar character, the dead person 
 stepping alive out of his grave. 2 Even if our 
 Lord was the first to rise, and the other resurrec¬ 
 tions, coming after His, might be presumed to 
 be achieved by His prior victory over death, yet 
 surely the issue is then confused. There would 
 be the same objection to be taken regarding the 
 
 1 It is the Saints and not their bodies that come out of 
 the graves (e|eA0<Wes not i^eXOovra). The opening of the 
 graves appears unmistakably to be connected with the 
 earthquake and the rending of the rocks, portents which 
 take place at the moment of our Lord’s expiry. Thus the 
 opening of the graves cannot be the opportunity of the 
 Saints coming out of them, which did not take place till the 
 Sunday. The rising of the bodies then resolves itself into 
 bodily forms appearing, and the opening of the graves accom¬ 
 panies the rending of the rocks and nothing further. Lastly, 
 one must read the Gospel as a narrative and not as a precis 
 of facts in a legal inquiry. 
 
 2 The subsequent ascensions of these Saints, if their bodies 
 ever really reached heaven, would seem to deserve to be 
 recorded. And there is nothing of the kind. 
 
 233 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Resurrection as that which might be brought 
 in the pagan world regarding the Birth of our 
 Lord from a Virgin Mother (see Pt. I. p. 19), 
 namely, that others had been similarly born; 
 and this objection now launched with the addi¬ 
 tional force that, while any tangible evidence of 
 such births was lacking, the resurrections were 
 established and admitted by Christians them¬ 
 selves. The truth most probably is that there has 
 been only one Resurrection, that of Jesus, and 
 one Assumption, that of Mary. And when 
 Mary appears in subsequent times, there is this 
 special joy and marvel attaching to it, that her 
 actual self is beheld. 
 
 If, then, the appearances of our Lady are thus 
 real appearances and not apparitions, may it 
 be supposed that among the royal prerogatives 
 bestowed upon the Queen of heaven is the power 
 of appearing at will (that is, in our way of speaking; 
 but the will of the inhabitants of heaven is 
 identical with the Will of God and does not 
 outrun it. See chap. iv. p. 166) ? In the case 
 of the apparition of any other Saint, there is 
 required a co-ordinate appointment of divine 
 favour, that a bodily form should be beheld by 
 those to whom the apparition is granted. But if 
 Mary may appear at any time, the entire pro¬ 
 cedure is her own. If she appears, it is Mary, 
 and her body belongs to her, is inseparable from 
 
 234 
 
MARY IN MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 
 
 her. This simplicity of her appearances would, 
 then, further account for their comparative 
 frequency. The speculation, if it is a speculation, 
 belongs to the higher study of the glories of 
 Mary, and is properly included among the dis¬ 
 coveries of mystical theology. 
 
 There is no precise limit to be set to the 
 fresh particulars concerning the person and 
 prerogatives of our Lady which may be distin¬ 
 guished, so soon as we go beyond her relation to 
 the leading and essential doctrines of Christianity. 
 Mary is the Mother of God, and some inevitable 
 deductions are seen to follow upon that title. 
 But if we inquire what Mary is besides this, 
 there is much to discover, there are things of 
 large worth and interest, and there are lesser 
 things. The object of the present chapter has 
 been to make a selection, to give a sufficient 
 number of examples, to put into the picture some 
 of the added effects that spiritual learning and 
 piety have discerned, beyond the ordinary 
 teaching of the Church and yet without wandering 
 from the tradition ; at the same time by the 
 examples given, by their beauty and devotional 
 promise, to make apology, if such were needed, 
 for this esoteric species of doctrine that prayer 
 and meditation may reach—doctrine sometimes 
 viewed with hesitation, and perhaps not unjustly, 
 within the Church, and certainly denounced 
 
 235 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 and reprobated by the world outside beyond all 
 justice and reason. There is nothing, or there is 
 hardly anything, in this chapter which a Catholic 
 is required to believe, or for which the Church 
 as a whole makes itself responsible. You might 
 reject all or nearly all that has been said here and 
 remain a Catholic. But are we then debarred 
 from learning from the meditations of holy 
 persons, and are they forbidden to meditate upon 
 heavenly things and to record for our benefit 
 what they have been permitted to discern ? 
 
 236 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 The Immaculate Conception is the beginning 
 of everything concerning our Lady. But it is 
 also at the present Christian era in 
 
 r The De- 
 
 another aspect the end. The declara- ciarationof 
 
 1854 
 
 tion of the Immaculate Conception 
 was the last large decision of Catholic faith that 
 the Church has reached through the centuries, 
 comparable with and recalling those of her 
 past eventful history. When Pope Pius IX., 
 in 1854, ma de the proclamation, it carried, as 
 if it had been the fourth or fifth century, con¬ 
 fusion to 6 false brethren ’ everywhere. The 
 world had its usual say. The Church, it would 
 seem, in all previous pronouncements, had been 
 discreet and reasonable, though not free from 
 error ; but this was against all the traditions 
 of ecclesiastical procedure ; the largeness and 
 breadth, the dignity, of the Church was now gone. 
 The Church, or rather the Pope, had made a 
 tactical blunder; she had hastened her deca¬ 
 dence ; for no enlightened and rational mind 
 could any longer have anything to do with her. 
 
 237 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Former decisions of Councils, even the declara¬ 
 tion of Trent in favour of Transubstantiation, 
 had some pretence of conformity to Scripture 
 and of being mere development and further 
 determination of current doctrine ; but this 
 was an absolute innovation and novelty ; this 
 had not been the decision of a Council, but the 
 autocratic decree of the reigning Pope. If the 
 Church might require belief in anything whatever 
 that any ambitious and assertive section within 
 her obedience, obtaining the ear of a Pope, 
 might thrust upon her, actum est de republica ; 
 the best men would abandon her immediately. 
 The Protestant world in its day had accused 
 her of superstition and idolatry, of Mariolatry ; 
 the charge was polemical and ex parte , drawn 
 as the statement of the pursuer’s case, perhaps 
 over-drawn, at any rate admitting and expecting 
 reply. But now there was no more doubt. 
 
 ‘ Mother of God ’ at Ephesus was unfortunate, 
 but explainable. c Immaculate ’ could not be 
 explained at all. 
 
 Such was the enlightened judgment of con¬ 
 tinental Europe, not uninteresting to the student 
 of ecclesiastical history, reproducing the age 
 of Cyril or of Leo. In England popular opinion 
 rather missed the point, as it was thought that 
 the Immaculate Conception meant the Birth 
 of Christ from a Virgin Mother (see Pt. I. p. ioi), 
 
 238 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 a tenet which now being ascertained to be 
 Catholic was at once repudiated with all the 
 Protestant violence and obstinacy which the 
 English people can on occasion display. Outside 
 popular opinion, where ignorance was less gross, 
 English Protestants merely now despaired of 
 Rome, and their attentions became more marked 
 in default to the Greek schismatic Church— 
 which belonged to c the unchanging East, 5 and 
 in which Mary was no less exalted. We did 
 not know our part here as they did abroad, and 
 sorely needed a prompter. 
 
 Meanwhile the Blessed Virgin had been held 
 by Catholics to be immaculate from the earliest 
 times, and this title was in fact no novelty 
 but traditional. St. Augustine 1 had refused to 
 allow any mention of sin in connection with the 
 Mother of God. St. Ephrem 2 had named her 
 Immaculate many times over ; St. Epiphanius 3 
 St. Ambrose, 4 etc., had given her the name. The 
 Liturgy of St. James, 5 perhaps the earliest of the 
 Liturgies and looking back to Apostolic times, 
 commemorates her under that title. The defini¬ 
 tion added something, no doubt; it was not 
 meaningless and idle. But it was no such 
 
 1 De Natura et Gratia, c. 36. 
 
 2 Precationes ad Deiparam, iv. mit., etc. 
 
 3 Hcsres, 78. 4 Seym. 22, in Psalm. 118. 
 
 5 r ijs Trauayias, axpavrov, Kal aeinapdevov M apias /J.v7]/j.ovevaavT€S. 
 
 I cannot distinguish between * undefiled ’ and ‘ immaculate.’ 
 
 239 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 innovation as supposed. It did not make Mary 
 immaculate for the faith of Christendom ; she 
 was that already and had been all along. It 
 only fixed the time when her sinlessness began 
 to be, or rather declared that there was no time 
 when it was not; Mary was immaculate from 
 her conception. The three last words express the 
 only thing that was ever disputed and the only 
 thing that was fifty years ago defined. And 
 even this had not been really disputed, as shall 
 be presently shown. 
 
 The dogma of the Immaculate Conception 
 of our Lady does no more than define the sugges¬ 
 tion of the Gospel (see Pt. I. p. 30). Mary is 
 the Virgin, pre-eminently virgin, distinguished 
 by the name, and thence Virgo virginum , immacu¬ 
 late. For if not immaculate, then it might seem 
 that some other might equal or surpass her. 
 Supposing, e.g., the patriarch Job (Job i. 1, 
 22). Or perhaps St. John Baptist, the com¬ 
 monly accepted account of whom, or at least 
 one account, makes him born without original 
 sin through the Visitation of our Lady (Luke 
 i. 44. Cp. Matt. xi. 11). It is said of St. Dominic, 
 and possibly of some other Saint, that he never 
 actually committed sin. The point is not 
 whether these presumptions are true, but whether 
 they might be, whether it is conceivable that 
 they should be, if not in these examples, yet 
 
 240 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 possibly in others ; whether, even without being 
 true, they could possibly be so considered in 
 the Church. If our Lady has on her any the 
 faintest shade of sin (which St. Augustine, we 
 observe, would not allow her to have), then 
 she need not be, she need not be believed to be, 
 the supreme Virgin. But her supremacy is 
 confessed and always was confessed. Therefore 
 it was intended and may be safely declared, 
 that in our belief she is immaculate. 
 
 The same conclusion is reached equally by 
 another route. Why is the Mother of God to be 
 a Virgin, as the inspired record certainly declares 
 her to be ? For the reason that the maiden 
 estate is a higher rank in religion than the other. 
 Marriage is indeed honourable (Hebr. xiii. 4), 
 according to the law of God (Matt. xix. 4), and 
 consecrated by the Sacrament (Eph. v. 32). 
 Nevertheless the Religious is called to virginity. 
 The Monk and the Nun give themselves to God 
 wholly, keeping nothing back; that is their 
 vocation. The Protestant indeed imagines and 
 maintains that there is nothing of higher virtue 
 than the married condition, the home life and 
 conjugal fidelity. But that is not the truth. 
 It is not what St. Paul is commissioned to teach 
 as Christian doctrine. 4 The unmarried woman, 5 
 he writes (1 Cor. vii. 34), 4 cares for the things 
 of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body 
 
 241 R 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 and in spirit; but she that is married cares for 
 the things of the world, how she may please her 
 husband.’ Complete dedication, entire dedication, 
 body soul and spirit given wholly to God, involves 
 the severance of all other ties (Luke xiv. 26). At 
 any rate it involves the abnegation of so absorbing 
 a tie as that of sexual union, the more absorbing 
 the more virtuous and true. The Mother of 
 God is wholly dedicated, and therefore she is 
 the Virgin —Virgo purissima , the most pure Virgin. 
 The dedication is not perfect if the faintest 
 shadow or fleck of sin is present. ‘ Whoever 
 commits sin,’ says our Lord (John viii. 34), 4 is the 
 servant of sin.’ And of original sin St. Paul 
 writes in the fearful language of Rom. vii. 21-24. 
 Obviously, logically, instinctively, this will not 
 do for the Mother of God. Let it be only the 
 flimsiest bondage, let it be but a microbe infection 
 of that ‘ body of death,’ and the dedication has 
 therewith a flaw. If Mary is the Virgin-Mother, 
 as she is, as it is implied that she was obliged 
 to be, then she is also immaculate —sine lobe 
 originali concepta . 1 She has nothing to do with 
 sin at all. The hereditary transmission, by 
 interference of the divine election, was cut off, 
 and Mary goes back to Eve who knew no shame 
 (Gen. ii. 25). 
 
 Mary was a Jewess, one of the Chosen People 
 
 1 * Conceived without original stain/ 
 
 242 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 who alone in pre-Christian times had access to 
 any covenanted grace of God. As a people 
 and in spite of their repeated faithless- 
 
 Natural 
 
 ness, the Jews were thus spiritually selection 
 
 of the 
 
 raised above others. Mary also belonged Mother 
 to the lineage of David. Neither 
 one nor the other circumstance was immaterial. 
 For Christ was to be born King of the Jews and 
 the Son of David. It may be observed, then, 
 that though the election of God is free, yet it 
 generally follows along with a natural pre¬ 
 disposition, that is to say, disturbs in a minimum 
 degree the operation of the natural law, which 
 is not less according to the mind of the Almighty 
 than the supernatural prescission. Thus, e.g., 
 the inspired Evangelists are those who were 
 best qualified by nature for their task among 
 Apostles or the companions of Apostles. Thus 
 again, as a general rule, though there are cer¬ 
 tainly numerous exceptions, persons who exhibit 
 in their lives the notes of Sanctity, and who are 
 subsequently raised to the Church’s altars, have 
 been possessed of a certain degree of education, 
 often even of culture, v/ithout which any extra¬ 
 ordinary gifts would be less easily put to use. 
 The explanation need not be that Saints of 
 obscure birth find a difficulty in obtaining 
 canonisation, though this may also be true . 1 But 
 
 1 Tardius exsurgunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta 
 
 243 R2 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 the natural qualifications are more likely to be 
 present in families that have better opportunities. 
 To God Elizabeth, queen of Hungary, is plain 
 Elizabeth, but this Elizabeth is as a human 
 creature more advanced than Elizabeth the 
 dairymaid. God can make either a Saint, 
 according to His election and foreknowledge; 
 but the first Elizabeth is so made with less dis¬ 
 turbance of the natural order. If there is 
 anything in this suggestion—and even if there 
 is nothing—it must be a most fortunate conjunc¬ 
 tion of circumstances when the Queen of Saints 
 might appear. In our way of speaking, the 
 universe anxiously expected from generation 
 to generation the fortuitous event of a family 
 succession of saintly personalities, which would 
 gradually culminate in an exceptional natural 
 disposition, with the vicious propensities reduced 
 to vanishing point through natural selection. 
 Both the father and mother of Mary are counted 
 by the Church among canonised Saints. The 
 line came direct from Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob, and furnished such elect personalities 
 as those of Ruth, David, Josias, Zorobabel, &c. 
 After the overthrow of the Jewish monarchy the 
 
 domi —* slow rises Worth by poverty depressed.’ Even in 
 the Church to be poor is often to be undiscovered. But 
 this is the particular desire of the Saint both in life and 
 after. 
 
 244 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 names of Mary’s progenitors have no significa¬ 
 tion for us, but we need not presume that the 
 family therefore suffered deterioriation. On the 
 contrary, virtue and piety have better oppor¬ 
 tunity in a humble station than upon a throne. 
 It is no real degradation ; we have not to search 
 among the dregs of the population for the fallen 
 royal house. St. Joseph is no ignorant peasant. 
 To the Jew his religion was an education in 
 itself (2 Tim. iii. 15), and St. Joseph was punctual 
 in the observance of his religion. He is a car¬ 
 penter by trade, but only as St. Paul (the pupil 
 of Gamaliel) was a tent-maker. Handicrafts 
 are not despised in the Palestine of our Lord’s 
 day. His cousin Elizabeth is wife of the priest 
 Zacharias, and is surrounded with some little 
 state (Luke i. 57-64); his own wife Mary is invited 
 to the marriage in Cana (John ii. 1). We must 
 rather hold that the house and lineage of David 
 in its fallen state had all needful opportunity, 
 and advanced in sanctity and the favour of 
 heaven. The family attained its apogee and 
 the second Eve was born. Mary was without 
 taint of original sin. 1 
 
 Not for any merit Mary could show, for it 
 began her life, but 4 that the purpose of God 
 according to election might stand ’ (Rom. ix. n). 
 
 1 The hereditary selection did not make her immaculate, 
 but qualified her to be made so. 
 
 245 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 Not for any merit, unless in the anticipation 
 of Omniscience. But who would cavil ? Grace 
 is free, election is free. At least the Protestant 
 asserts this, if he asserts nothing else. Who 
 would cavil ? Which of us can claim that any 
 grace he has received was merited and not freely 
 given ? 4 The gift of God ’ (Rom. vi. 23). 
 
 Merit, if anywhere, to human understanding, 
 appearing in the family rather. And this again, 
 in reality, by divine election and in the dispensa¬ 
 tion of Providence. 
 
 Not because Mary was the supreme of God’s 
 creation, but to make her so. Purchased for 
 her, and for us in her, by the Sacrifice of Calvary 
 before the Sacrifice was offered. And why not ? 
 The Apostles in the Upper Room certainly 
 partook of the Sacrifice before the Victim was 
 slain. These anticipations do not seem dis¬ 
 cordant with justice even to human under¬ 
 standing, and in the grasp of the Infinite and 
 Eternal—with whom yesterday, to-day and 
 to-morrow are not as with us—they are still 
 more easily acceptable. From the epoch of the 
 Fall itself the coming of the Seed was promised, 
 and with it the reappearance of the Woman— 
 an Eve who should crush the serpent, avenging 
 the Eve whom the serpent had betrayed. As 
 in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive 
 (1 Cor. xv. 22). And as it was through Eve that 
 
 246 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 Adam fell, so of Mary the Redeemer is born. 
 The scheme of human Redemption from its 
 very beginning, in its prophecy and promise, 
 includes Mary. 
 
 Thus the Church applies to Mary the language 
 in which wisdom is extolled (Prov. viii. 23) : 
 4 From eternity I was ordained, and from ancient 
 times, before the world was made, 5 &c. Her 
 Son redeemed Mary also, He died for her also— 
 in the eternal counsels of God, with whom there 
 is no before and after, only effect and cause. 
 Surely this is all reasonable and deserving of 
 consideration ; in the Revelation God gave to 
 the world, when He sent His Son, 4 made of a 
 woman, 5 High Priest of the new order, 4 holy, 
 undefiled, separate from sinners 5 (Hebr. vii. 26) ; 
 separate from sinners, and yet not separate 
 from His mother ; nay, formed of her substance ; 
 she, therefore, without sin. Consider it with 
 honesty and with solemn reverence, and you 
 must say, It is true. 
 
 Was it ever doubted ? Not at least in the 
 general sense of Christendom. The Church 
 declares Mary immaculate. The Church what im- 
 in her definitions does not invent new conception 
 things ; she does not add to the Revela- 1S ' 
 tion, but only declares what the Revelation is ; 
 she defines and does not propound. Yet if 
 there was no dispute, how was there definition, 
 
 247 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 decision, to be made, delimitation between this 
 and that ? The explanation is that there is 
 an ambiguity in speaking of conception —sine 
 labe originali concepta. In one use of the ex¬ 
 pression, in order that Mary should be conceived 
 without sin, her parents must be sinless, and her 
 grandparents, and so on, in an endless retro¬ 
 gression. Like parent, like child. ‘ That which 
 is born of the flesh (i/c ttJs* arapicos) is flesh ’ (aap^, 
 John iii. 6), and St. Joachim and St. Anne had 
 the original taint. Or again, our Lord says that 
 it is only the good tree that can bear good fruit 
 (Matt. vii. 17), and Mary is of the stock of Adam, 
 which is corrupt. If Mary was born of ordinary 
 parents, why should she not be ‘ a child of wrath,’ 
 as St. Paul says (Eph. ii. 3), ‘ like everyone else ’ ? 
 Some have even contended that in order to be 
 immaculate she must not be produced as other 
 children at all, but must have a virgin mother, 
 which condition would also then go back end¬ 
 lessly through the precedent lineage ! But there 
 is another aspect of conception, if not in physio¬ 
 logical science, yet in some other species of 
 philosophy. 
 
 Our feelings, dispositions, mental qualities, are 
 inherited from our progenitors, equally as are 
 the bodily features or the bodily frame ; or if 
 not equally so, it is beyond our capacity to dis¬ 
 cern whether they are less inherited or more. 
 
 248 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 Generation is the greatest of physiological 
 mysteries—the origination of life !—and we do 
 not precisely know either the manner or degree 
 in which this hereditary determination is related 
 to the living organism. But the individualising 
 soul, according to Christian philosophy at any 
 rate, is a special fresh creation of God for every 
 single human creature. The feelings, disposi¬ 
 tions, mental qualities, thereupon, however, are 
 things that belong to the soul (as also does the 
 body, though to appearance less intimately; 
 in the scholastic philosophy the soul is said to 
 be the form of the body) and are appropriated 
 by it, so that they become a part of Me—my 
 feelings, &c. Though generic and inherited, 
 yet becoming therewith individualised, obtain¬ 
 ing an individuality, so that though I resemble 
 my progenitors in this or that, the things are 
 not identical in me, not the same things that 
 were in them ; I am myself and not any one of 
 them ; my feeling and intelligence are mine not 
 theirs. This individuality of form does not 
 prevent the mental dispositions having a generic 
 origin. They are transmitted from parent to 
 child, or, remaining latent in one generation, 
 they may reappear in some more distant descen¬ 
 dant. As much as any bodily feature ; the 
 family chin or the family self-will. Along with 
 these inherited dispositions, then, comes ‘ the 
 
 249 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 body of death,’ the infection of original sin; 
 quite analogously to the inheritance of the 
 bodily organism and of disease in that, phthisis, 
 scrofula, lunacy. In Mary’s conception alone 
 there is a difference, and the difference consists 
 precisely in this, that the individualising soul 
 is guarded from contagion of that evil inheritance; 
 that she inherits otherwise like the rest of us 
 from her ancestry, but in that one particular 
 respect is miraculously excepted; the entail 
 of sin was cut off by a miracle for her alone of 
 humankind. 6 The Most Blessed Virgin Mary, 
 in the first instant of her conception, by a 
 singular privilege and grace of God and in virtue 
 of the merits of Jesus Christ the Saviour of 
 mankind, was preserved exempt from all stain 
 of original sin.’ So runs the Definition of 1854. 
 
 In the early times, then, Mary was held 
 immaculate; she was without sin altogether, 
 Early and therefore without original equally 
 objection. as without actual sin; but the idea 
 
 of conception preceding birth and of its relation 
 to the doctrine, for ages never entered into the 
 mind of anyone. When the time came that it 
 did enter, conception was at first understood 
 in the first of the two senses distinguished 
 above, and the candour and clear intelligence of 
 the ancients immediately discerned the logical 
 objection. They objected, and they deserve 
 
 250 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 no blame. There is neither loyalty nor dis¬ 
 loyalty in logic. Thus St. Bernard of Clairvaux 
 could not be imagined by anyone acquainted 
 with his writings to be unenlightened regarding 
 the excellency of the Mother of God or back¬ 
 ward in devotion among her clients, yet St. 
 Bernard rejected the Immaculate Conception. 
 St. Thomas of Aquin, prince of philosophers of 
 that age, may be alleged to have done the same. 
 Our Lady, it was generally acknowledged, was 
 born immaculate and so remained through life ; 
 there was error in defining more. 
 
 But other logical and philosophical minds 
 insisted on defining more and denied the error. 
 The life of every human creature had an earlier 
 origin than had been taken into account. If the 
 proper life of Mary had contact with sin in that 
 earlier origin, it conflicted with the dignity of the 
 Mother of God; she was not immaculate altogether. 
 We may take some pride to learn that among 
 the theological doctors who perceived this dis¬ 
 crepancy, the earliest belonged to these islands. 
 Duns Scotus, the Irishman, was perhaps the 
 first to give to the true doctrine a logical state¬ 
 ment ; St. Anselm—our Archbishop though not 
 our countryman—still earlier asserted it and 
 became its principal promoter ; an early opponent 
 of St. Bernard’s negative w r as the monk Nicholas 
 of our St. Alban’s Abbey. 
 
 251 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 The course of the controversy is best under¬ 
 stood and its relevance precisely gauged, when 
 a parallel it is considered along with similar 
 example, discussions that preceded it. The 
 
 Hypostatic Union is a phrase of the mean¬ 
 ing of which no one in England, beyond a small 
 percentage of Catholics, has the remotest con¬ 
 ception. It signifies that our Lord, while of 
 double nature , the divine and human, has but 
 a single personality. Like most scientific expres¬ 
 sions of our own age, the word is Greek, and was 
 introduced into Christian philosophy to express 
 anything as it is in itself, independently of the 
 properties and attributes belonging to it. Thus 
 the hypostasis of anything inanimate is no more 
 than its substance. But as applied to a rational 
 living being, it became the individuality, the 
 man himself, who possesses thought and feeling— 
 or even flesh and blood—but is not any one of 
 such things. But now the celebrated St. Cyril 
 of Alexandria asserted that our Lord had a 
 double hypostasis, and that very proposition 
 was later declared to be heretical. Was then 
 a Christian Saint and Doctor to be viewed as a 
 heretic ? By no means. The explanation is 
 a simple one, that to St. Cyril the expression 
 had not the meaning subsequently attaching 
 to it, and that by a double hypostasis he in¬ 
 tended nothing more than a double nature. 
 
 252 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 Indeed, taking the word in itself and apart 
 from its theological determination, there appears 
 to be much to say for St. Cyril’s employment 
 of it. 1 
 
 Precisely the same thing occurs regarding 
 the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of 
 our Lady. Mary was held from the beginning 
 to be immaculate, and when it was denied 
 that she had been conceived without sin, the 
 sense of conception was other than that which 
 belongs to the later definition. Thus, in the 
 sense of the definition, we may justly assert that 
 the Immaculate Conception was never doubted 
 or denied in the Church. 
 
 At any rate, it is only historical incompetence 
 that represents the doctrine as brand new in 
 the nineteenth century. The Festival of our 
 Lady’s Conception was observed in the East as 
 
 1 In the Aristotelian logic hypostasis ( viroaraais ) is the 
 same as rb vttok^i^vov, translated into Latin as sup- 
 positum, the underlying indeterminate subject which re¬ 
 ceives its determination from what may be predicated of it, 
 and as viewed apart from every possible predicate. It is 
 thus different from substance, ovala, which has determina¬ 
 tion, and it is the very antithesis of human personality, the 
 ultimate and most perfect substance. But the philosophy 
 of the Stagyrite was rather utilised by the Church than 
 adopted by it or even adequately comprehended. Any term 
 or expression must be understood in the sense of the writers 
 who employ it, and there is no point in finding fault with 
 the logic of the Church because it is not that of Aristotle, or 
 is not accurately expressed according to his terminology. 
 
 253 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 early as the eighth, or possibly the fifth, century; 
 there is no negative evidence to prevent our sup- 
 The posing it observed before. St. Anselm 
 neither 6 introduced the observance into England, 
 novd ’ and through his influence it came to 
 Lyons, where its introduction was the occasion 
 of St. Bernard’s counter argument already men¬ 
 tioned. The Festival was observed in some 
 other European countries besides, and at length, 
 towards the close of the fourteenth century 
 it reached Rome, and in 1476 the decree of 
 Pope Sixtus IV. excommunicated those who 
 declared heretical the doctrine of the Immacu¬ 
 late Conception, while still refusing to condemn 
 the contrary opinion. This Pontiff granted an 
 indulgence to the Feast which was confirmed by 
 Leo X. Then again, the irregular Council of 
 Basle in 1439 declared for the doctrine, and 
 its decree was adopted and promulgated by 
 that of Avignon eighteen years later, in which 
 the Holy See was represented. The Office of 
 the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was 
 appointed for the universal Church by Pope 
 St. Pius V., who also condemned the proposition 
 that our Lady was not exempt from original 
 sin. Alexander VII. in the seventeenth century 
 asserted the doctrine and anticipated the language 
 of the Definition of the nineteenth. 
 
 So much for novelty. The insinuation of 
 
 254 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 arbitrariness or merely sectional support is 
 answered with even greater ease. Petitions 
 for the definition were numerous 
 
 nor arbi- 
 
 and urgent from every quarter during trarily 
 
 -*rTTT , imposed. 
 
 the Pontificate of Gregory XVI., and 
 Pius IX. soon after his accession appointed a 
 Commission to examine and report on the 
 subject, and addressed from his exile at Gaeta 
 an Encyclical Letter to the Archbishops and 
 Bishops of the Catholic world to learn the senti¬ 
 ment of every diocese. Finally the Pope 
 assembled 150 Archbishops and Bishops in Rome 
 from the most varied quarters of the globe, 
 before whom he laid the Commission’s report. 
 The Commission reported favourably, the 603 
 replies to the Encyclical were favourable, the 
 informal Council (as we may term it, and in the 
 early centuries its numbers were scarcely ex¬ 
 ceeded by Councils that were accepted as 
 ecumenical) approved and petitioned that the 
 Pope should proclaim the dogma. That is the 
 real account. It was the voice of Christendom 
 that asserted the Immaculate Conception of 
 Mary. Securus judicat orbis. 
 
 There are still remaining, however, one or 
 two argumentative objections, or at least specu¬ 
 lative doubts, or let us say curious questions, 
 that demand some notice and reply. It may 
 not unreasonably strike anyone of us with 
 
 255 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 astonishment and awaken our curiosity, when 
 a pronouncement of such solemnity and import- 
 Latepost- ance was delayed for 1800 years after 
 oftheDefi- the first promulgation of the Christian 
 nitlon * faith. St. Bridget represents that our 
 Lady revealed to her the future definition, 
 and explained that it was delayed in order 
 that her clients might have the opportunity 
 of exhibiting their ardour in her cause. As 
 Inkermann was said to have been a soldiers’ 
 battle, so we may assert of the belief in the 
 Immaculate Conception—quite contrary to the 
 representations of the hostile outer world—that 
 its triumph was the work of the faithful at large. 
 The belief grew up in isolated dioceses and in 
 distant provinces without the instigation or 
 even approbation of the Holy See, which tardily 
 followed after ; it was not promoted by Bishops 
 and Divines more than by obscure Religious 
 and the general devotion. When the dogma 
 was finally declared, it was in consequence of 
 a growing volume of appeal that would not be 
 silenced, the voice of a great multitude, like the 
 tempest in pine-clad hills, from age to age as the 
 centuries passed away. There is nothing with 
 which it could be paralleled or compared in the 
 history of Christianity, nothing of such long 
 persistency or of such unanimous acclaim. The 
 decisions of Councils in former ages, decisions 
 
 256 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 of the most vital consequence and of imperative 
 demand, had frequently riven the Church in 
 twain. This declaration cut off no cankered 
 branch at all. 
 
 But the pronouncement is declared impor¬ 
 tant. In what, we may ask—if the history of the 
 dogma has been rightly reviewed—in 
 
 what lay the particular importance of its im¬ 
 portance. 
 
 of formally enunciating it ? But in 
 reality, the same cavil may be raised, and has 
 actually been raised, about almost any other 
 article of Christian belief. Theological and 
 ecclesiastical definitions very generally concern 
 questions of somewhat narrow detail— ; homo- 
 ousios 5 instead of 4 homoiousios ; 5 4 proceeding 
 from ’ instead of 4 through 5 the Son—and natur¬ 
 ally so, because the Revelation in its general 
 terms is plain and indisputable as delivered. 
 Thus the definitions may well be done without, 
 and are in fact quite happily done without, for 
 long periods, until some day the slight difference 
 has hardened and become sharp division. Pope 
 Honorius I. in the seventh century essayed to 
 impose silence on the Monothelite controversy, 1 
 as did Pope Sixtus IV. in the fifteenth on the 
 dispute over the Immaculate Conception. In 
 
 1 It does not appear that the Pope ever expressed his 
 acceptance of the opinion subsequently condemned ; the 
 scandal was rather that he allowed at all its assertion. 
 
 257 s 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 the earlier centuries before Pope Honorius no 
 one needed to be a worse Christian for not know¬ 
 ing whether our Lord possessed a single or a 
 double will, and there was hardly anyone who 
 had ever thought about it. But the day came 
 when this was asserted here and that asserted 
 there, and the matter was grave, because if 
 our Lord had no human will, then He had not 
 truly taken our nature. Just so Mary was 
 always immaculate, 1 no one dreamed of anything 
 else, and it mattered little what the explanation 
 was, because none was sought. But the issue 
 of her immaculate conception was presently 
 raised, and even then decision of the point was 
 nothing urgent, because both sides in the con¬ 
 troversy were agreed upon the same conclusion. 
 Decision was finally taken, because devotion 
 grew, and because the number of those who 
 were jealous for the honour of the Mother of 
 God in this particular was become so largely 
 preponderant in Christendom. Otherwise the 
 matter in dispute might appear at first a some¬ 
 what restricted one, and the real effect of the 
 definition has been to proclaim Mary immaculate 
 —which did not need to be defined because it 
 
 1 The dogma is perhaps accepted by Mahomet (Koran, 
 Sural, Arabic version), and by Luther ( Postillae, p. 336. Ed. 
 1 5 3 5) ; or at least Mary is allowed the same pre-eminence in 
 sanctity that the Church assigned her. 
 
 258 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 was never disputed—rather than to distinguish 
 between conception and birth, which was the 
 formal reference. 
 
 Leaving, then, the question of the Definition 
 not being made before, it may be more perti¬ 
 nent to inquire why it should occur particularly 
 in our own age, and what the ripeness of the 
 harvest might mean in the middle of the nine¬ 
 teenth century. Was it merely that God allows 
 the spiritual as the physical laws of His creating, 
 the laws of mind as those of matter, to work 
 their issue in their own time ; as the coral grows 
 into an island, or as the landslip unforeseen 
 matures and falls ? Or was there some particular 
 providence involved for our age or for that suc¬ 
 ceeding ? Or does the unimpeded natural work¬ 
 ing still bear relation to the beneficent design of 
 the whole (Rom. viii. 28) ? 
 
 The divine purpose in Mary’s exaltation in 
 the past has unmistakeably been to safeguard 
 the faith in the Son of God, who of 
 
 The future 
 
 her became Man. When St. John of the 
 
 Definition. 
 
 wrote against the heresy of his day and 
 declared that ‘Jesus Christ was come in the 
 flesh,’ it introduced of necessity the unique 
 glory of Mary —incarnatus est ex Maria Virgine. 
 At Ephesus the sequelae of Arianism were 
 expelled by the mere name of the Mother of 
 God. In our time Mary is declared sinless from 
 
 259 52 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 her conception, and the faith of Nicaea is further 
 defended. Because there is no longer, with that 
 decision, any possibility of imagining her Son 
 to be but the holiest of humankind ; as the late 
 Protestant Dean Stanley said, ‘ first ’—with 
 Sakya Muni second ! 1 The place of the sinless 
 human being is seen to be already occupied. The 
 Captain of our salvation must be more than that, 
 and He can only be more as being 6 the true God 
 and Eternal Life ’ (i John v. 20 ; cp. John xiv. 6). 
 
 But the immediate result must be and was 
 to bring our Lady into more conspicuous view, 
 and devotion to her has blossomed since in many 
 forms and fashions. In our country a signal 
 example has been the renewal of the dedication of 
 England to the Mother of God. How is this 
 enlargement of court and homage to Mary 
 everywhere to subserve the divine purpose ? It 
 is possible that in the near future the Church is 
 to make some large advance and to undertake 
 a task of heavier burden, in which the aid of her 
 most powerful Protectress will be indispensable. 
 For we are but feeble creatures, even Popes and 
 Cardinals, and stand in hourly need of wiser 
 counsel and protection, if we are to avoid blunder¬ 
 ing and escape disaster ; and with every advance- 
 
 1 Some one praised in his hearing the lofty morality of 
 the Indian hierophant, and Stanley, with an upward glance, 
 murmured : * He was second/ 
 
 260 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 ment made within the kingdom of God the 
 malice and energy of our spiritual foes, creatures 
 so much stronger and more subtle than we, is 
 stimulated to fresh assault. Can we look around 
 us and say, with the two sons of Zebedee : 4 We 
 are able ’ ? But any new enterprise and 
 responsibility, whatever its character and scope, 
 may be safely undertaken under the patronage 
 of Mary the Help of Christians. And if Mary 
 were invoked by all and several, on every ocean 
 and in every clime, in the hour of the dawning 
 triumph, invoked through her latest exaltation 
 and its unanimous acclaim : 6 I am the Immacu¬ 
 late Conception 5 ! 
 
 But there is possible a far other issue. We 
 witness in our generation, outside the Church, 
 the confusion and catastrophe of religious faith 
 altogether. Christianity subsides, and with it 
 goes all belief in God, all prayer and worship. 
 The proclamation of the Christian jubilee was 
 that 4 to the poor the Gospel is preached,’ and 
 the poor no longer hear it. Our Lord bade us 
 suffer the little children to come to Him, and this 
 is now everywhere to be stopped. We live lives 
 of little comfort and dwindle and die, and our 
 hope of immortality is but a reminiscence of 
 ideas that have passed away. There is organised 
 confederation and active propaganda to demolish 
 Christianity first and to abolish God after. There 
 
 261 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 is class hatred and low greed and social and 
 political revolution, triumphant in some countries 
 of Europe and growing to a head in others. 
 With the revolution comes inevitably moral 
 corruption and rebellion against all restraint ; 
 moral order is represented by the Church, and 
 therefore again there is war upon her : le cleri- 
 calisme voila Vennemi. 
 
 Where is it to end, whether the assault from 
 without or the unbelief that opens the gates ? 
 The Church trembled with the shock of the 
 Protestant revolt in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries ; how will she bear the invasion of 
 the new Protestantism, critical, antinomian, 
 materialistic, in the twentieth ? Who will 
 escape the insuck of the vortex, what rank, 
 what class, what order in the world ? Is it 
 history, is it human nature, that the ranks of 
 the clergy, from the lowest to the highest grade, 
 are exempt from a revolt which is spiritual 
 and material both at once ? A prophetic vision 
 might behold the rising flood even surge around 
 the rock on which the Church is built. The 
 sanctuary is invaded, and judgment, if its day 
 has come, must begin at the house of God (i Petr, 
 iv. 17). Suppose that culmination reached, 
 liberalism in College and Congregation ; there 
 is now an added bulwark. The beginning and 
 the end of all, Jesus Christ the self-same for 
 
 262 
 
MARY CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN 
 
 ever, God of the substance of His Father begotten 
 before the worlds, and Man of the substance of 
 His Mother born in the world, the First-born 
 from the dead, the Corner-stone of the Revela¬ 
 tion, the Stone that was made Head of the 
 corner, is still more impregnable to displace, as 
 explained above, when His Mother is declared 
 sinless in the Christian creed. That declaration 
 is firmly grounded, beyond likelihood of rescind- 
 ing. It was Papal, if such be demanded ; it 
 was Catholic—not merely accepted, but promoted 
 and carried, by the universal Church. Consider 
 the case on natural grounds, from a merely 
 human point of view. There is no human 
 institution that will commit open-eyed suicide, 
 and the Church would do that in abrogating the 
 dogma of 1854. Papal and Catholic, if that 
 decision cannot stand, what other had ever 
 better title ? If that be abrogated, the magis- 
 terium of the Church, as custodian of the 
 Revelation, as universal Teacher, comes to an 
 end. The consequence is apparent, and thus 
 the deed could never be done. On natural 
 grounds, observe, and from a merely human 
 point of view. But the Church is not a human 
 institution but divine, and this simple safeguard 
 has been given her from above, that according 
 to the promise the gates of hell may not prevail 
 against her. Christ is the Word of God, to be 
 
 263 
 
THE MOTHER OF JESUS 
 
 adored, and it can never be gainsayed, because 
 Mary Immaculate has already attained the 
 supreme height of humanity. And Christ is 
 Christianity. This is the provision made by 
 God Himself, simple and sublime, like the 
 bursting of the leaf and the fructification of the 
 seed ; possibly against a day of disaster and of 
 doubt, when His enemies shall triumph again, 
 as they triumphed in the age of Julian the 
 Apostate and under the rule of Robespierre; 
 when the dragon shall make war upon the 
 remnant of the seed of the woman (Apoc. xii. 17), 
 the children of Mary. In that day where shall 
 England be found, that once was Mary’s Dowry ? 
 The blood of her martyred Saints, from Thomas 
 Beket to Thomas More, cries aloud, the pardon¬ 
 ing Blood of Jesus pleads for her. Haply ere 
 that time, through the mercy of God, my country¬ 
 men too will have found the young Child 4 with 
 Mary His Mother,’ and have offered Him their 
 gold and themselves. 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISVVOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 LONDON 
 
A SELECTION 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW CATHOLIC WORKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER, & CO., Ltd. 
 
 --- 
 
 THE LAW OF THE CHURCH : A Cyclopaedia of 
 
 Canon Law for the use of English-speaking Countries. By the 
 Rev. Ethelred Taunton. With a New Photogravure 
 Portrait of Pope Pius X. 712 pages. Royal Svo., half-bound, 
 French morocco. Price 25 s. net. 
 
 ‘ This handsome volume is one which reflects credit upon both the compiler and 
 the publishers. It is turned out in first-class style at a comparatively moderate price, 
 and it is no mere common-place to say that it supplies a want that has long been felt. 
 It will prove indispensable in the library of the priest and of the educated Catholic 
 layman, and will establish its claim to be a cyclopaedia of Canon Law for English- 
 speaking countries. ... Its merits are very much in excess of its claims.’— Catholic 
 Herald. 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS OF PERE DIDON, 
 
 Author of 4 The Life of Christ.’ Translated by G. A. Nash, 
 M.A., with Photogravure Portrait. Demy 8vo. Price Js. 6 d. 
 
 1 It was a good thought to collect into one volume these letters—179 in number—- 
 from the pen of the gifted Dominican whose sudden death, a few years ago, brought 
 a shock to the Catholic world. Filled with beautiful and devout thoughts, enriched 
 by golden touches of literary charm, these letters are such as all the world may read 
 with satisfaction. The temptation to quote extracts from this book is great; but 
 it will be best, perhaps, to leave the full feast to its readers, of whom we hope there 
 will be many.’— Universe. 
 
 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF THOMAS A KEMPIS. 
 
 Fcp. 8vo. bound in brown buckram, gilt top, price 5J. net per volume. 
 
 NEW VOLUME. 
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF THE CANONS REGULAR 
 
 OF MOUNT ST. AGNES. Translated into English by 
 J. P. Arthur. 
 
 LIVES OF THE FOLLOWERS OF THE NEW 
 
 - DEVOTION : being the Lives of Gerard Groote, Florentius 
 Radewin, and their Followers. Translated into English by 
 J. P. Arthur. The Translation Revised by the Prior oi 
 Downside. With Photogravure Frontispiece. 
 
2 
 
 A Selection of New Catholic Works 
 
 PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 CHRIST. A New and Complete Translation from the original 
 Latin, by W. Duthoit, D.C. L. Fcp. 8vo. with Portrait. 
 
 A MEDITATION ON THE INCARNATION. Trans¬ 
 
 lated by the Rev. Vincent Scully, C.R.S. 
 
 ANCIENT DEVOTIONS FOR HOLY COMMUNION. 
 
 Collected by S.A.C. With Introduction by Abbot Gasquet. 
 Small crown 8vo. cloth, red edges, 3 s. 6d. net. ; leather, 5 t. 
 net. 
 
 THE UNSEEN WORLD. An Exposition of Catholic 
 
 Theology in its Relation to Modern Spiritism. By the Rev. 
 Alexius M. LPpicier, O.S.M. Crown 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 The subject of ‘ The Unseen World’ is one of undying interest to all sorts and 
 conditions of men, for all alike desire to lift the veil which death draws over their 
 destiny. 
 
 At the present time spiritism is the favourite revealer, but its revelations 
 absolutely contradict the revelations of the Christian Churches. Hence the minds 
 of many are unsettled. Catholics, especially, are looking for an authoritative 
 utterance. Father Lepicier’s book comes with a special warrant of orthodoxy. It 
 bears the Imprimatur of the Master of the Sacred Palace, and of the Papal Vice- 
 Gerent, besides that of the General of a Religious Order. The latter declares the 
 doctrine of the work sane and most opportune. 
 
 THE DANGERS OF SPIRITUALISM. By Godfrey 
 
 Raupert. New and Enlarged Edition. Price 2 s. 6 d. 
 
 THE ANNUAL RETREAT. Meditations and Spiritual 
 
 Conferences for the use of Religious who make their annual 
 retreat privately. By the Rev. Gabriel Bouffier, S.J. 
 Translated by Madame Cecilia. Small 8vo. 3 s. 6 d. 
 
 ‘ The Annual Retreat ’ was written for those religious who had not an opportunity 
 of making their annual retreat of eight days under the direction of a priest, and 
 with their community. This work contains all that is required for each exercise of the 
 day, and thus the exercitant is not distracted as regards the choice of a subject for 
 the hour of meditation. The author has followed the method for the Spiritual 
 Exercises laid down by St. Ignatius Loyola, and he has provided practical and 
 devotional considerations on the great truths of our faith and the daily life of a 
 religious. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE AT THE 
 
 CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. By Johannes Janssen. 
 Translated by M. A. Mitchell and A. M. Christie. Ten 
 volumes. 8 vo. cloth. Vols. IX. and X. now ready. Per two 
 volumes, £1 
 
Published by Kegan Paul , Trench , Triibner , (Sr 5 Ct?., Z/tf'. 3 
 
 THE LIVES OF THE POPES IN THE EARLY 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. By Rev. H. K. Mann, Headmaster of 
 St. Cuthbert’s Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Demy 
 8 vo. Vol. I., Parts I. and II. each 125. net ; Vols. II. and 
 III. each 12s. net. 
 
 Vol. I. Part I. begins with St. Gregory I. (the Great) (590-634), and closes 
 with St. Eugenius I. (654-657). Part II. commences with Vitalian (657-672), and 
 finishes with Hadrian I. (772-795). 
 
 Vol. II. will begin with Leo III. (795-816) and will close with Benedict III. 
 (855-858). Vol. III. will commence with St. Nicholas I. (858-867) and finish with 
 Stephen V. (885-891). These two volumes will contain the lives of the Popes during 
 the period of the Carolingian Empire, i.e., practically the ninth century, and will 
 deal with such important events as the revival of the Empire of the west, the career 
 of Photius and the Greek Schism, and conversion of the Bulgarians and the Slavs. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE POPES. By Dr. Ludwig 
 
 Pastor. Translated from the German by Frederic J. 
 Antrobus. Vols. I. to VI. Further volumes in preparation. 
 Per vol. 1 2 s. net. 
 
 Tablet.—' We can only hope that Pastor’s “ Lives of the Popes ” will find their 
 way not only into our Public Libraries, but also into the hands of every student of 
 history, whether Catholic or Protestant. For the historian of the Middle Ages 
 onward the volumes of Pastor are an absolute necessity. . . . Those who will but 
 taste and see will find the pages of Pastor as interesting as any novel, and at least as 
 instructive as any magazine article.’ 
 
 THE PRIEST, his Character and Work. By James 
 
 Keatinge, Canon of St. George’s Cathedral, Southwark, and 
 late Diocesan Inspector of Schools. With Imprimatur of 
 Cardinal Vaughan. Crown 8 vo. Cloth. Third Impression. 
 $s. net. 
 
 Dr. Barrv in The Tablet. —‘ Canon Keatinge in his delightful and edifying 
 volume has laid us all under a very great obligation. That his pages are pleasant to 
 look at, scholarly in style, packed with experience, bright and amusing, is no small 
 thing. But their merit, beyond all this, I take to be the picture which they outline 
 of the priest himself, as he now lives and moves in our populous centres.’ 
 
 Movfes bs flbgr. KBolo. 
 
 PRAYER. Translated from the French by Madame 
 
 Cecilia. Crown 8 vo. 2 s. 6 d. net. 
 
 THE BEATITUDES. Translated by Madame Cecilia. 
 
 Crown 8 vo. 35. 6 d. net. 
 
 THE MORROW OF LIFE. Translated from the French. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 2 s. 6d. net. 
 
4 
 
 A Selection of New Catholic Works. 
 
 Moths bg /Ifegr. JBolo ,— Continued. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF CALVARY. Translated from the 
 
 French. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 The above four works by Mgr. Bolo are translations of the best known of the 
 devotional and imaginative writings of one of the most popular of Catholic divines. 
 His works have passed through many editions in France, and it is hoped that, in 
 introducing them to English readers, the publishers will be providing a moral and 
 intellectual stimulus that, from its breadth and humanity, will be equally welcome 
 to Catholics and Anglicans. 
 
 CATHOLIC SCRIPTURE MANUALS. Edited by 
 
 Madame Cecilia, Religious of St. Andrew’s Convent, 
 Streatham. With Imprimatur of the Archbishop of West¬ 
 minster. Small 8vo. 
 
 Vol. I. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 
 494 pp. 31. net. 
 
 Vol. II. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. 
 824 pp. 4.r. net. Parts I. and II. only, 2 s. 6d. net. Parts III. and 
 IV. only, 2 s. net. 
 
 Part I. on the origin of the Gospels, life of St. Luke, analysis of St. Luke’s 
 Gospel, tables of miracles and parables, the references to the Old Testament in St. 
 Luke, short biographical notes, and geographical notes on the chief places mentioned 
 in St. Luke's Gospel. 
 
 Part II. contains the text in Latin (Vulgate) and English (Rheims) of St. Luke’s 
 Gospel, together with various tables and full annotations. 
 
 Part III. Additional Notes. 
 
 Part IV. gives ‘ Side Lights ’ on the Gospels in general. 
 
 Book I. will amply cover the ground for the senior Oxford and Cambridge 
 Locals, and the teacher will find in Book II. explanations which will render his 
 lessons interesting. It is proposed to divide the other manuals of this series in the 
 same way. 
 
 Vol. III. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. 
 
 FOR USE WITH THE ABOVE MANUALS. 
 
 THE CATHOLIC SCRIPTURE MANUAL ATLAS. 
 
 Specially prepared with reference to the Manuals for use with 
 all four Gospels. 16 Maps. Small 8vo. cloth, is. 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER, Sc CO., LTD., 
 Dryden House, Gerrard Street, W. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Date Due 
 
 % '*?&***$ 
 
 
 
 
 V-. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 *-* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4»W 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . /t pi f » 
 
 ^ ? : • 
 
 _ \ M 
 
 i\ |Y| 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 LOCI 3 { 
 
 1999 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f> 
 
 
 
 

 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BT601 .W72 
 
 The mother of Jesus in the first age and 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00069 4036