authoritative sanction. There is, perhaps, no subject on which the growth of doctrine has been so gradual as in all that concerns the dignity of the Blessed Virgin in the Gospel dispensation. And this accords with such passages of the Old Testament aş are often considered to have a secondary reference to her. We read, on the one hand, "And so I was established in Sion, and in the holy city also I rested, and my power was in Jerusalem. And I took root in an honourable people, and my abiding place was in the fulness of the Saints." And again, on the other hand, "I was exalted as the cedar on Lebanon, and as the cypress tree on Mount Sion; I was exalted as a palm tree in Cades, and as a rose plant in Jericho. and I stretched forth my branches as the terebinth, and my branches are of honour and of grace." (Ecclus. xxiv. 15, 16, 17, 18, 22.) Yet it still remains true, that Gabriel's salutation is the measure and the record of her greatness. The importance of the question lies of course in its connection with the doctrine of the Incarnation. It has no proper bearing on particular views, moral or theological (such as some of St. Liguori's referred to by Dr. Newman in the Apologia), about her office or prerogatives in the Church. The glories of the Mother are a reflection from the divinity of her Son, and every crown that is wreathed for Mary's brow is laid at Jesus' feet.*

(4.) But we must not imagine, that the principle of development applies only to the less fundamental doctrines of Christianity. It is most conspicuously illustrated in the case of

* For some remarks on Mr. Bright's objections to the Immaculate Conception, see Note at the end of Introduction.

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those two supreme verities on which all the rest depend-the Trinity and the Incarnation. We are reminded of this, as regards the former doctrine, by two of the greatest names respectively in Anglican and in Catholic theology-Petavius the Jesuit, and Bishop Bull. The Defensio Fidei Nicænæ has won for its author a deservedly high reputation, and is quoted respectfully by eminent Catholic divines. But in his controversy with Petavius, though he may have the better of the argument in some detailed instances, he has certainly failed to make out his case as a whole.* All impartial judges, on either side, are now agreed that Petavius is right as to the heterodox language, implying often heterodox notions about the Holy Trinity, which many ante-Nicene writers use. The fact that, in an elaborate treatise on the Holy Ghost, written expressly against heretics, St. Basil studiously refrains from giving Him the name of God (which was first done by the Council of Alexandria in 363) would alone indicate this. So again, Justin Martyr makes the Son inferior to the Father, in His divine nature. Athenagoras and Theophilus of Antioch use language about His Eternal Generation, which sounds thoroughly Sabellian. Origen, who first brings out the reality of our Lord's Human Soul, teaches also its preëxistence, and the final absorption of His human nature into the divine; Hilary and Epiphanius deny the union of His divine nature with His Body during the period between death and resurrection; St. Ambrose, relying on a mistaken reading of Col. ii. 15, also

Cf. infr. Note I. to Chap. III.

denies its union with the Human Soul, though both are implied in the Apostles' Creed. Many Fathers, both Greek and Latin, in arguing with the Arians, treat the unity of Persons in the Holy Trinity as specific rather than numerical. It would be easy to multiply similar examples. The oμoovσios of Nice was fully as much an epoch in the development of doctrine, as the subsequent addition of Filioque to the Nicene Creed. I need scarcely say, that early writers are equally vague, to use the mildest term, on many other subjects. Thus no Greek Father, before the Pelagian heresy, speaks of grace in language that would necessarily discriminate it from aids of the natural order; all before St. Augustine are silent or indistinct on the nature of original sin; St. Anselm's Cur Deus Homo is the first systematic attempt to explain the doctrine of Atonement in its relation to the divine attributes.

And here it may be well to guard against a possible misconception. The growth, or even universal prevalence, of an opinion in the Church is no necessary evidence of its truth.* There are spurious as well as genuine developments. Opinions have flourished for centuries, though without receiving any authoritative sanction, and have passed away. Such, for in

* Still less, of course, is the Church, as such, committed to the belief in any particular miracle or miracles, however widely spread, and however strong may be the evidence. It is worth while to remark this, when even so accomplished and candid a writer as the Dean of Westminster speaks of the assumption of a particular Church to direct the conscience of the world,' as standing or falling with the truth of the tradition about Loretto (Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, p. 443); and Lord Macaulay could use a believer in the blood of St. Januarius,' as a synonyme for a Catholic. That miracles were to continue in the Church, and cannot therefore be rejected wholesale on à priori grounds, though no point of faith, is a direct inference from such passages of the New Testament, as Mark xvi. 17, 18, John xiv. 12, Acts ii. 17, sqq., not to insist on Old Testament prophecies.

stance, was the once universal belief in a millennial reign of Christ on earth, founded on an expectation of His speedy return, which, for wise reasons doubtless, the Apostles were suffered to entertain. It was not till this belief died out, that room was left for the doctrine of Purgatory to occupy men's thoughts. St. Paul had spoken of the fire that should try every man's work, four centuries before the full significance of his words began to be apprehended. We have the first intimations of the doctrine, as now held, in St. Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana, but stated only as a conjectural view. So, again, as regards the state of the lost, St. Augustine felt no scruple in consigning unchristened infants to endless torments. No theologian holds such an opinion now. In the fifteenth century the Council of Florence defined, that those who die in actual or only in original sin will be eternally, but unequally, punished. Later theology teaches, that the punishment of the latter consists solely in their not attaining to the Beatific Vision, for which they have no capabilities, and is consistent with the highest enjoyment of natural beatitude. Balmez applies the same principle to the case of adults, especially among heathen nations, who die with their moral and intellectual faculties feebly developed, and may be regarded as children in character and responsibility. The extreme predestinarian theory, into which St. Augustine was finally driven in his controversy with the Pelagians, but which he would probably have modified had he lived longer, remained for twelve centuries a floating opinion in the Church; it was not till it had been formulized into a system by Jansenius,

and had become the rallying cry of a powerful theological party, that it was authoritatively condemned.* Another opinion which has widely prevailed among Catholics, though borrowed originally from Protestants, but which is now known to be untenable, is a belief in the verbal inspiration of Scripture, first dogmatically laid down in the Formula Consensus Helvetica in 1675, but previously maintained by the great body of the Reformed. Biblical criticism is yet in its infancy, and discoveries like that of the Codex Sinaiticus (now established beyond dispute) may seriously affect it. Should the controversies of our own day ultimately lead to some definition on the meaning and limits of inspiration, or the nature of future retribution-subjects on which the Church has hitherto been silent-this in its turn would open out fresh sources of speculation in other directions. Thus, even a false or imperfect development may have a relative importance, and fulfil a providential office in the evolution of divine truth. There are opinions, again, which prevail, and have prevailed for centuries in the Church, but which have been expressly excluded from a place among articles of faith. Such is the very common belief in a material fire of Purgatory, which, though frequently ranked by Protestant controversialists among Catholic doctrines, was expressly declared, at the

* I am not, of course, forgetful of the controversy raised as to St. Augustine's real meaning; but there can be no doubt that the language of his later writings gave, to say the least, very plausible support to such views as those of Gotteschalk in the ninth century, and of the Jansenists afterwards. SainteBeuve, in his History of Port Royal (vol. ii. p. 129), quotes 'one of the most eloquent of the Catholic orators of our age,' as saying; "Il est vrai qu'il ne pouvait s'empêcher de croire que sur tout un ensemble de points le grand docteur, tout grand qu'il était, avait poussé à l'extréme et avait sans doute erré."