mends her courage at the Cross. Soon afterwards St. Augustine says that, out of reverence, he will make no mention of her when speaking of sin, but he is referring to actual, not original sin. Then came the Nestorian controversy, and the Council of Ephesus. And here it is worth while to remark, that much the same kind of arguments which are urged now against what its opponents are fond of stigmatising as the 'new dogma' were urged by Nestorians and their allies then against the new definition of 0εOTOкòs. It was novel, it did not occur in Scripture or the writings of the Fathers,* it savoured of Eutychian heresy, and had therefore been denounced from the pulpit of his metropolitan cathedral by the second Patriarch in Christendom. It was certainly needless, and it might be dangerous. Every one knew that Christ was God, and that Mary was His Mother; but the adoption of this newfangled formula might be taken to imply that she was the mother of His Divinity, which was blasphemous, or that the two natures were fused into one, which was heretical. The term XρITOTOKÒs, which Nestorius was willing to accept, expressed all that was required, and was free from these grave objections. So men argued then; but experience has abundantly proved the necessity of the definition of Ephesus for guarding the honour of our Lord's Divinity. And so the later definition which our own days have witnessed is designed to exhibit on the one hand the reality of original sin, and on the other the spotless sanctity of that human flesh, hypostatically united to the Godhead, which He took from His Mother's

* This was urged, but was not strictly true.-See Petav. De Inc., v. 15.

womb. Natural reason and natural reverence would combine to tell us that such a belief was most congruous to the dignity of the Incarnation; but it shows the caution with which the public ratification of developments is suffered to proceed, that so many centuries should have intervened between its first suggestion and its formal definition.* "The number of those (so-called) new doctrines will not oppress us, if it takes eight centuries to promulgate even one of them." The disputes between Franciscans and Dominicans on the motive of the Incarnation had no doubt much to do with the ventilation of the question; for it is obvious how much more readily the Scotist theory adapts itself to the Immaculate Conception than the Thomist, though I am of course far from denying that the latter, which is still widely held in the Church, can be reconciled with it. St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas, in questioning the new development, simply represented the conservative element which exists and always must exist in the Church. It is natural and right that every fresh phase of opinion, as it appears, should be challenged and put on the defensive. "Quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes ?" is the inquiry it must expect to be greeted with. And it is bound to justify itself at the bar of ecclesiastical public opinion and theological science, before it can make any claim to direct

It must be remembered that the belief in the Immaculate Nativity of the Blessed Virgin has prevailed universally for centuries, and was expressly acknowledged by St. Bonaventure, and St. Bernard, though spoken of doubtfully by St. Anselm. A similar belief obtains, though not of faith, as to St. John Baptist, and is indicated by the Feast of his Nativity being observed in the Church. Cf. Luke i. 15.

† Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua, p. 395. Longman, 1854.

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 as 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.

d

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 iμoovσios 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.