in that view of her maternal character under which all who heard the word of God and kept it were his brothers and sisters and mother, and that she who surpassed all women in virtue was therefore chosen to be the mother of the Saviour. Justin Martyr admonishes us strongly against looking to any being for help or assistance except God only. Even when speaking of those who confide in their own strength and fortune and other sources of good, he says, in perfect unison with the pervading principles and associations of his whole mind, as far as we can read them in his works, without any modification or exception in favour of the power and influence and intercession of the Virgin, "In that Christ said, Thou art my God, go not far from me, he at the same time. taught that all persons ought to hope in God who made all things, and seek for safety and health from Him alone."*

SECTION II. TATIAN, ATHENAGORAS, THEOPHILUS.

In the same volume with the works of Justin Martyr, the Benedictine editors have published with much care the remains of Tatian, Athenagoras, and Theophilus. These were all learned Christians of the second century; and although they do not stand all on an equal footing, either with each other or with Justin, as examples of purity of doctrine and freedom from errors, yet are they all witnesses, as far as they go, of the opinions prevalent among Christians in their day and we find their editors, the Benedictines, when strenuously endeavouring to defend by ancient testimony some doctrines of the Roman Church,

* Sect. 102, p. 197.

appealing to the works of each of these authors separately.

Tatian, by birth an Assyrian, was a pupil of Justin Martyr: his life was, beyond others, marked by severe austerity. One work of his remains to 'the present time, "An Address to the Greeks;" in which he exposes the follies and immoral tendencies of their theology. In the course of his argument, mentioning many of the females by name whom the Greek poets had immortalized, he compares them with the modest and chaste and retired habits of Christian virgins, who, he says,* as they are occupied with their distaff, speak of heavenly things, and what they learn from God's oracles, far more admirably than Sappho could sing her immoral strains. The question forces itself on our mind as we read such portions of his address as these, Could a Christian writer have here abstained from speaking of the Virgin Mary, if she had been the same object of his invocation, the same source of his hope, the same theme of his praise, as she now is with worshippers in the Roman communion? Could he have passed her by unnamed, without an allusion to her honour on earth, or her exaltation to heaven, and her influence there?

Athenagoras was a Christian philosopher of considerable reputation. His Defence of our holy religion, addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus, was made about A.D. 177. To this we add his treatise on the Resurrection of the dead. In his "Embassy," or "Defence," in language much resembling Justin Martyr's, he expresses his + C. 10, p. 286.

* C. 33, p. 270.

wonder that any should call Christians atheists, who believed in One God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and believed also that there were Angels, created by that Supreme God to be his ministers, and to execute his commands throughout the world. He is here led (in explanation, to the royal personages, of the mystery that God could have a son,) to speak of the eternal existence of the Word with his Father; but he makes no such mention as we might have expected of the incarnation, nor does he allude to the Virgin Mary.

Theophilus addresses a learned Pagan, who had sneered at the religion of Christians. His treatise seems a sort of preliminary or introductory argument, preparing his correspondent for the admission of Christian doctrine, rather than an exposition of the truths of the Gospel. In the following passage he thus speaks of the unity of God:

“We also confess God, but only one-the builder, and maker, and creator of all this universe; and we know that all things are ordained by prescience, but by Him alone and we have learned a holy law; but for our legislator we have the true God, who teaches us to act justly, to be pious, and do good."*

He speaks also of God the Word, begotten from everlasting of the Father.+

He speaks not at all of the Virgin Mary; but it is remarkable, that, in his translation of the third chapter of Genesis, he renders the passage to which our attention has been already drawn, not, as the Roman Vulgate translates it, with reference to the woman, + Lib. ii. c. 22.

* Lib. iii. c. 9.

but to her seed. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it (aró) shall watch thy head, and thou shalt watch his (or its, avrov) heel."†

SECTION III.-IRENEUS, A. D. 180.‡

Justin sealed his faith by his blood, about A. D. 165; and next to him in the noble army of martyrs we must examine the evidence of Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons. Of his works a very small proportion survives in the original Greek; but that little is such as might well make every scholar and divine lament the calamity which theology and literature have sustained by the loss of this writer's own language. It is not, perhaps, beyond the range of hope that future researches may yet recover at least some part of the treasure. Meanwhile we must avail ourselves with thankfulness of the nervous though inelegant version which the Latin translation affords, imperfect and corrupt in many parts as that copy unfortunately is. This, however, is not the place for recommending the remains of Irenæus; and every one at all acquainted with the literature of the early Church knows well how valuable a store of ancient Christian learning is preserved even in the wreck of his works.

Bellarmin and others cite a passage from Irenæus as justifying the invocation of the Virgin Mary. The passage is itself obscure, and has been often acknowledged to be unintelligible; but, to enable the reader to judge for himself, it will be found entire in the

Tnphos. There is a doubt as to the reading here. It is supposed to mean, to watch with a view of injuring.

+ Lib. ii. C. 21.

Ed. Paris, 1710.

note.

The sentence quoted in a mutilated form by Bellarmin, though in itself ungrammatical, sounds to this effect: "As she Eve] was by the discourse of an angel seduced to fly from God, running counter to his word; so [she] Mary by an angelic discourse received the glad tidings that she should carry God, being obedient to his word. Although that one had disobeyed God, but this one was persuaded to obey God, in order that the Virgin Mary might become the advocate of the Virgin Eve!"* To this quotation Bellarmin adds the exclamation, "What can be clearer?"

In whatever sense Irenæus may be supposed to have employed the word here translated "advocata," it is difficult to see how the circumstance of Mary becoming the advocate of Eve, who so many generations before Mary's birth had been removed to the other world, can bear upon the question, Whether it is a Christian's duty now dwelling on earth to invoke the Virgin Mary? Some critics maintain that the word "advocata," found in the Latin version of Ire

"Manifeste itaque in sua propria venientem Dominum et sua propria eum bajulantem conditione quæ bajulatur ab ipso, et recapitulationem ejus quæ in ligno fuit inobedientiæ per eam quæ in ligno est obedientiam facientem et seductionem illam solutam qua seducta est male illa quæ jam viro destinata erat virgo Eva per veritatem evangelizata est bene ab angelo jam sub viro Virgo Maria. Quemadmodum enim illa per angeli sermonem seducta est ut effugeret Deum prævaricata verbum ejus, ita et hæc per angelicum sermonem evangelizata est ut portaret Deum obediens ejus verbo. Etsi ea inobedierat Deo, sed hæc suasa est obedire Deo, uti virginis Evæ virgo Maria fieret advocata. Et quemadmodum astrictum est morti genus humanum per virginem, salvatur per virginem æqua lance disposita virginalis inobedientia per virginalem obedientiam. Adhuc enim protoplasti peccatum per correptionem primogeniti emendacionem accipiens, et serpentis prudentia devicta in columbæ simplicitate, vinculis autem illis resolutis per quæ alligati eramus morti."