he speak of the Virgin personally, but only of the virginhood of which Christ was born.* Two or three passages will suffice to establish these points; though the full force of the evidence can be felt only by seeing in the very writings of Gregory how many opportunities offered themselves to him for the natural expression of sentiments of reverence and worship towards the Virgin Mary as an object of invocation, where we find very different thoughts suggested. In his first homily on the Canticles† he says, "Think ye that I am speaking of that Solomon who was born of Bathsheba? Another Solomon is signified, who is also himself born OF THE SEED OF DAVID, whose name is Peace, the true King of Israel, whose wisdom is unbounded, or rather whose essence is wisdom and truth." On the mystery, How in Virginhood there could be Birth? he says, "Since one part of Christ is not produced, and the other is produced, the unproduced we call that which is eternal and before the world, and which made all things; the produced, that which, according to the dispensation effected for our sakes, was conformed to the body of our humility. Rather it would be preferable to set forth this idea in the very words of God. We call The Unproduced The Word, who was in the beginning, by whom all things were made, and without whom was nothing that was made; The Produced, Him who became flesh and dwelt among us, whom even when incarnate the effulgent glory shews to be God manifest in the flesh-verily * Ρ. 668. Τὸν τῆς παρθενίας βλασὸν.—Τῆς σαρκὸς φύσιν ἣν διὰ τῆς ἀφθόρου παρθενίας ἀνέλαβεν, i. p. 663. † Vol. i. Hom. i. p. 475. Vol. i. p. 662. God-the only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father." In all these passages, and many others might be added, even when maintaining that the Virgin purity was preserved in the birth of Christ,* there is no mention made of Mary, nor one word uttered in her praise; no reliance placed on her merits, or on the power of her intercession-no invocation of her good offices, or of the mediation of her prayers. With Gregory of Nyssa God in Christ is all in all. CHAPTER III. ST. AMBROSE, A. v. 397. ST. AMBROSE, Bishop of Milan, has ever been held in high esteem by every branch of the Catholic Church, as well as by the Church of Rome. In a collect in the Roman Ritual (a prayer, unjustifiably, as it appears to us, and unholily addressed to his spirit in heaven,) he is called "most excellent Teacher," "Light of the Holy Church," "Lover of the Divine Law." And many of the hymns ascribed to St. Ambrose the Church of Rome has adopted into her service. St. Ambrose was born in France, probably about the year 340: his death is generally referred to the year 397. He became Bishop of Milan in the year 374. Through all the works of St. Ambrose we have not found a single passage which gives the faintest indication that the invocation of the Virgin formed any part of Catholic worship in his time, or that he or his fel *Vol. ii. Orat. ii. Cont. Eunom. p. 537. low-Christians placed any confidence in her mediation, or offered any prayers to Almighty God, hoping for acceptance through her intercession. And this in the case of St. Ambrose is proof of no ordinary weight and character. For not only are his writings interspersed throughout with prayers and supplications to the throne of grace, (in some of which mention is directly made of the incarnation of our Lord in the Virgin Mary by name,) but he has left us many of his own hymns, which, as we have said, the Roman Church has incorporated into her Liturgy. These hymns indeed glow with fervent piety, and are well fitted to lift up the Christian's soul heavenward to his God and It is curious to observe, that whilst the Benedictine editors, who evidently have bestowed much thought and care on the subject, exclude from the catalogue of the hymns of St. Ambrose many ascribed to him in the Roman Breviary; some, which the rigid rule prescribed by those editors has stamped with his name, are given in the Breviary to another. It may not, perhaps, be uninteresting here to have inserted the titles of the twelve hymns allowed by the Benedictine editors to be the genuine productions of St. Ambrose; though with reason they admonish us that probably even these have been subjected to changes and variations in the course of time. 1. Æterne rerum Conditor. 7. Splendor Paternæ Gloriæ. 8. Æterna Christi munera. 9. Somno refectis artubus. 10. Consors Paterni Luminis. 11. O Lux, Beata Trinitas. 12. Fit Porta Christi pervia. The Breviary reckons as hymns of St. Ambrose, 1. Rerum Creator omnium; 2. Te lucis ante terminum; 3. Christe Redemptor omnium; 4. Jam Christus Sol Justitiæ; 5. Audi Benigne Conditor; 6. Ex more docti mystico; 7. Veni Creator Spiritus; 8. Jesu nostra Redemptio; whilst it ascribes O Lux, Beata Trinitas, to St. Gregory. The reader is referred for further information on this subject to the Benedictine edition, vol. ii. p. 1218. Saviour. But in no single line does Ambrose rob that Saviour of his own proper and exclusive honour as our only mediator and advocate; in no one does he make mention of Mary's intercession, under the plea that he is honouring the Saviour when he honours the Mother. Had any such worship of the Virgin prevailed in Christendom as we now see in the Roman Church, surely these fruits of the heart and the pen of the Christian poet would have contained some instances of the fact. These divine songs would surely have afforded ample room for his feelings and his imagination in addresses to the Virgin, had his faith and his understanding sanctioned any mention of her name as an object of religious worship. But the contrary is most strikingly the fact. In the Breviary corrected agreeably to the decree of the Council of Trent, and commanded by Pope Pius, in 1568, to be used throughout the world, many of the hymns are ascribed to their supposed authors. The hymns assigned to St. Ambrose stand out in strong, and at the same time lovely, contrast with the degenerate effusions of later days. No address to Mary is discoverable in any one of them, no prayer to the Supreme Being to hear the intercession of Mary in the Christian's behalf. The addresses of Ambrose are made to God alone, and offered through Christ alone. In these hymns he speaks again and again of the VirginMother, whose honour and joy was Christ; he quotes our Lord's words upon the cross, "Woman, behold thy son;" he speaks of the believer's hope in life and in death; but that hope he describes as being found, not in the patronage, and advocacy, and intercession of the Virgin, but solely in the mercy of God, who for our * Hymn. xii. sakes became man and was born of a pure Virgin. We must also observe, that whereas the hymns of later ages represent Mary as the Bride of the Most High, and speak of the Almighty as her husband, whose wrath she may appease, Ambrose represents the Virgin as the royal palace of chastity, the chamber from which the Son of God proceeded, (alluding to the Psalmist's expression,) the temple in which for a while he dwelt.* But, when he speaks of Him as a bridegroom, the bride is not Mary, but his holy Church; of whom He is at once the Spouse, the Redeemer, and the Builder. † : The works of Ambrose enable us to infer that he considered the Virgin Mary holy and immaculate in her person, and holy and mysterious in her office; blessed among women; and in purity of mind, piety of soul, devotedness to God, attention to friends and relatives in their need, in a word, in all that can adorn the servants of heaven, a bright example for those who would be approved servants of God, especially professed virgins and he strenuously maintains, (though sometimes by arguments which may not be approved by all,) that, after the birth of Christ, Mary remained a virgin. In his work on Virgins, and in his treatise called The Institution of Virgins, he dwells very much upon the excellence of Mary, and he encourages Christian virgins by suggesting the thought of Mary presenting them to our Saviour in heaven; § and had he addressed her by invocation, or offered prayers to God through her intercession, it would appear the most improbable of all • Ps. xix. 5. + Processit aula Virginis Sponsus, Redemptor, Conditor, Vol. ii. pp. 260, 261. § De Virg. lib. ii. c. 2. |