sive on the question before us. It is inconceivable that any man accustomed to offer praises to the Virgin, as the Roman Church now does, to confide in her intercession, and to invoke her name in prayer, could have entertained such sentiments as are expressed in the following passage, sentiments which Tertullian repeats in other places, with only some slight variety of expression. "But what reason is there for the answer, which denied his mother and his brethren? The brothers of the Lord had not believed in him, as it is contained in the Gospel, which was before Marcion's time. His mother, in like manner, is not shewn to have adhered to him; whereas other Marys and Marthas were often in his company. By this, finally, their unbelief is made evident. Whilst he was teaching the way of life, whilst he was preaching the kingdom of God, whilst he was engaged in curing sicknesses and evils, at a time when strangers were fixedly intent upon him, then persons so nearly related to him were absent. At last they come up and stand outside the door, and do not enter; not thinking, forsooth, of what was going on there: nor do they wait, just as though they were bringing something more urgent than the business in which he was then chiefly engaged; but, moreover, they interrupt him, and endeavour to recal him from so great a work.

"Now I pray you, Apelles, and you, Marcion, if perchance, when you were playing at chess, or disputing about players or charioteers, you were called away by such a message, would you not have said, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?' Christ was preaching and setting forth God, fulfilling the law and the prophets, dispersing the darkness of so many ages, did he undeservedly employ this

And whilst

L

saying to strike at the unbelief of those who stood without, or to shake off the importunity of those who were calling him away from his work?"*

In another place † he says on the same subject,

Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. He, Christ, with reason felt indignant, that, whilst strangers were bent intently on his discourse, persons so nearly related to him should stand without, seeking, moreover, to call him away from his solemn work."‡

In another treatise § he tells us that Christ was brought forth by a virgin, who was also to be married once after his birth, that in Christ the two titles of sanctity might be distinctly marked, by a mother who was both a virgin and also once married.

This brings us to the end of the second century.

* De carne Christi, vii. p. 315.

+ Adv. Marcionem, iv. 19, p. 433.

Chrysostom (as we shall see when we examine his testimony) employs even stronger language than Tertullian, in reflecting upon the conduct of Mary and the Lord's brothers on this occasion.

§ De Monogamia, vii. p. 529.

CHAPTER III.

EVIDENCE THROUGH THE THIRD CENTURY.

SECTION 1.-EVIDENCE OF ORIGEN, a. d. 230.

*

JEROME informs us that Tertullian lived to a very advanced age. Long, therefore, before his death flourished Origen, one of the most celebrated lights of the primitive Church. He was educated a Christian. Indeed, his father is said to have suffered martyrdom about A. D. 202. Origen was a pupil of Clement of Alexandria. His virtues and his labours have called forth the admiration of all ages; and, though he cannot be implicitly followed as a teacher, what still remains of his works will be delivered down as a rich treasure to succeeding times.

He was a most voluminous writer; and Jerome asked the members of his Church,† "Who is there among us that can read as many books as Origen has composed?" A large proportion of his works are lost, and of those which remain few are preserved in the original Greek. We must often study Origen through the medium of a translation, the accuracy of which we

Benedictine edition by De la Rue, Paris, 1733. De la Rue had completed only part of his preface to the third volume when he died. This was in 1739. He seems to have been as pious and benevolent as he was learned and industrious.

+ Vol. iv. epist. xli. p. 346.

have no means of verifying. Many of the works formerly ascribed to him are unquestionably spurious; and yet are they quoted by Roman Catholic authors and editors of the present day in defence of the worship of saints and angels.* Speaking of one of them still unhappily cited as genuine, we can only repeat the very words which Huet, Bishop of Avranches, so many years ago uttered with regard to that very work: "It is wonderful, that they should be sometimes cited in evidence by some theologians, WITHOUT ANY NOTE OF THEIR BEING FORGERIES."t

It seems impossible to find words which can express more strongly than the words of Origen express the duty and privilege of Christians praying to God alone for all they need, and offering that prayer through the alone mediation of Jesus Christ, the Word and Son of God, our Saviour, to the utter exclusion of all creatures of whatever nature as objects of our prayer, or as intercessors TO BE INVOKED.

Celsus accused the Christians of being atheists, godless men, without a God; and, too well representing the weakness and failings of human nature, urged on them the necessity, at least the expediency, of conciliating those intermediate beings who, as he said, executed the will of the Supreme Being, and might perhaps have much left at their own will and discretion to give or to withhold; and, consequently, the desirableness of

* Dr. Wiseman in his Lectures in Moorfields, and Berrington and Kirk in their joint compilation (from which Dr. Wiseman quoted), cite the "Lament of Origen" as Origen's own work. Pope Gelasius and a Council of seventy assistant Bishops, in the year 494, denounced it as apocryphal.-Berrington and Kirk, London, 1830, p. 403; Lectures by Nicholas Wiseman, D.D. London, 1836, vol. ii. p. 107; Conc. Labb. vol. iv. p. 1265.

+ Origen's Works, vol. iv. p. 326. Appendix.

securing their good offices by praying to them. To these charges and suggestions Origen replies:

66

We must pray to God alone, who is over all things; and we must pray also to the only-begotten and firstborn of every creature, the Word of God; and we must implore Him as our High-priest to carry our prayer, first coming to Him, to his God and our God, to his Father and the Father of those who live agreeably to the word of God."*

With very much to the same effect, and many most sublime passages urging the same doctrine, but which we have not room here to quote at large, we read the following:

"The one God-the God who is over all-is to be propitiated by us, and to be appeased by prayer; the God who is rendered favourable by piety and all virtue. But if he (Celsus) is desirous, after the Supreme God, to propitiate some others also, let him bear in mind, that just as a body in motion is accompanied by the motion of its shadow, so also, by rendering the Supreme God favourable, it follows that the person has all His friends, angels, souls, spirits, favourable also, for they sympathize with those who are worthy of God's favour; and not only do they become kindly affected towards the worthy, but they also join in their work with those who desire to worship the Supreme God; and they propitiate him, and pray with us, and supplicate with us. We therefore boldly say, that, together with men who on principle prefer the better part and pray to God, ten thousands of holy powers join in prayer (xλnto) UNASKED [UNBIDDEN, UNCALLED UPON, UNINVOKED].†

* Cont. Cels. § 8. c. xxvi. vol. i. p. 761.

+ Cont. Cels. lib. viii. § 64. vol. i. p. 789. See also lib. viii. vol. i. p. 786; lib. v. § 4. p. 579; lib. viii. § 17. p. 751.