ever, has been solemnly, but with what adequate reason we need not stop to examine, repudiated), was convened at Ephesus in the following year, by the Emperor Theodosius. The proceedings of this assembly were accompanied by lamentable unfairness and violence. Eutyches was acquitted, and restored by this council'; and his accusers were condemned and persecuted; Flavianus, Archbishop of Constantinople, who had summoned the preceding council, being even scourged and exiled. In his distress that patriarch sought the good offices of Leo, Bishop of Rome, who espoused his cause, but who failed nevertheless of inducing Theodosius to convene a General Council. His successor Marcian, however, consented; and in the year 451 the Council of Chalcedon was convened, first meeting at Nice, and by adjournment being removed to Chalcedon. In this council all the proceedings as well of the Council of Constantinople as of Ephesus, were rehearsed at length; and from a close examination of the proceedings of those three councils, only one inference seems deducible, namely, that the invocation and worship of saints and of the Virgin Mary had not then obtained that place in the Christian

1 The sentiments of Eutyches, even as they are recorded by the party who charged him with heresy, seem to imply so much of soundness in his principles, and of moderation in his maintenance of those principles, that one must feel sorrow on finding such a man maintaining error at any time. The following is among the records of transactions rehearsed at Chalcedon: "He, Eutyches, professed that he followed the expositions of the holy and blessed Fathers who formed the Councils of Nicæa and Ephesus, and was ready to subscribe to them. But if any where it might chance, as he said, that our fathers were deceived and led astray, that as for himself he neither accepted nor accused those things, but he only on such points investigated the divine Scriptures as more to be depended upon [ws βεβαιοτέρας.]

Church, which the Church of Rome now assigns to it; a place, however, which the Church of England, among other branches of the Catholic Church, maintains that it has usurped, and cannot, without a sacrifice of the only sound principle of religious worship, be suffered to retain.

The grand question then agitated with too much asperity, and too little charity, was, whether by the incarnation our blessed Saviour became possessed of two natures, the divine and human. Subordinate to this, and necessary for its decision, was involved the . question, What part of his nature, if any, Christ derived from the Virgin Mary? Again and again does this question bring the name, the office, the circumstances, and the nature of that holy and blessed mother of our Lord before these Councils. The name of Mary is continually in the mouth of the accusers, the accused, the judges, and the witnesses; and had Christian pastors then entertained the same feelings of devotion towards her; had they professed the same belief as to her assumption into heaven, and her influence and authority in directing the destinies of man, and in protecting the Church on earth; had they habitually appealed to her with the same prayers for her intercession and good offices, and placed the same confidence in her as we find now exhibited in the authorised services of the Roman Ritual, it is impossible to conceive that no signs, no intimation of such views and feelings, would, either directly or incidentally have shown themselves, somewhere or other, among the manifold and protracted proceedings of these Councils. I have searched diligently, but I can find no expression as to her nature and office, or as to our feelings and conduct towards Mary, in which, as a

Catholic of the Anglican Church, I should not heartily acquiesce. I can find no sentiment implying invocation, or religious worship of any kind, or in any degree; I find no allusion to her assumption.

Pope Leo, who is frequently in these documents1 called Archbishop of Rome, in a letter to Julianus, Bishop of Cos, speaks of Christ as born of "A Virgin," "The blessed Virgin," "The pure, undefiled Virgin ;" and in a letter to the empress Pulcheria, he calls Mary simply "The Virgin Mary." Flavianus, Archbishop of Constantinople, in his Declaration of faith to the Emperor Theodosius, affirms, that Christ was born "of Mary, the Virgin of the same substance with the Father according to his Godhead-of the same substance with his mother according to his manhood 2." He speaks of her afterwards as The holy Virgin.

There is, indeed, one word used in a quotation from Cyril of Alexandria, and adopted in these transactions, which requires a few words of especial observation. The word is theotocos, which the Latins were accustomed to transfer into their works, substituting only Roman instead of Greek characters, but which after2 Vol. vi. p. 539.

3

1 Vol. v. p. 1418.

εOTOKOÇ. To those who would depend upon this word theotocos as a proof of the exalted honour in which the early Christians held the Virgin, and not as indicative of an anxiety to preserve whole and entire the doctrine of the union of perfect God and perfect man in Christ, deriving his manhood through her, I would suggest the necessity of weighing well that argument with this fact before them; that to the Apostle James, called in Scripture the Lord's brother, was assigned the name of Adelphotheos, or God's brother. This name was given to James, not to exalt him above his fellow-apostles, but to declare the faith of those who gave it him in the union of the divine and human nature of Christ.—See Joan. Damascenus, Hom. ii. c. 18. In Dormit. Virg. vol. ii. p. 881. Le Quien, Paris, 1712. The Latin translation renders it Domini frater.

wards the authors of the Church of Rome translated by Deipara, and in more recent ages by Dei Mater, Dei Genetrix, Creatoris Genetrix, &c. employing those terms not in explanation of the twofold nature of Christ's person, as was the case in these Councils, but in exaltation of Mary, his Virgin mother. This word was adopted by Christians in much earlier times than the Council of Chalcedon; but it was employed only to express more strongly the Catholic belief in the union of the divine and human nature in Him who was Son both of God and man; and by no means for the purpose of raising Mary into an object of religious adoration'. The sense in which it was used was explained in the seventh Act of the Council of Constantinople, (repeated at Chalcedon) as given by Cyril of Alexandria. "According to this sense of an unconfused union, we confess the holy Virgin to be theotocos, because that God the Word was made flesh, and became man, and from that very conception united with himself the temple received from her."

Nothing in our present inquiry turns upon the real meaning of that word theotocos. Some who have been among the brightest ornaments of the Anglican Church have adopted the translation, "mother of God," whilst many others among us believe that the original sense would be more correctly conveyed by the expression "mother of Him who was God."

I am induced here to lay side by side, with the

It is curious to remark, that (according to Baluzius) all the ancient books, and all the editions of the records of these councils before the Roman, retained in the Latin translation "theotocos;" and when it was at length translated by "Dei Genetrix," the editor thought it necessary to ask, in justification of the novel form, "Who doubts that this is a good interpretation ?"—Vol. vi. p. 735.

second Article of our Anglican Church, the Confession of Faith from Cyril, first recited at Constantinople, then repeated at Ephesus, and afterwards again rehearsed at Chalcedon; in its last clause the expression occurs which gave rise to these remarks.

But there are other points in the course of these important proceedings to which I would solicit your especial attention, with the view of comparing the sentiments of the Bishop of Rome at that day, and also the expressions employed by other Chief Pastors of Christ's

1 Vol. vi. p. 736.