from slavery, and brought it out of darkness, glorifying it with his own light; he himself dried in it the fountain of impure thoughts. For its own earthly remedies, that is, its own justifications, alone could not cure and heal it from such an unseen wound; but by the heavenly and divine nature of the gift of the Holy Ghost, by this medicine alone, could man obtain healing and attain to life, being cleansed in the heart by the Holy Spirit. . . . As the blind man, had he not cried out, and as the woman with the issue of blood, had she not come to the Lord, would not have been healed; so a man, unless of his own will and his whole choice, he comes to the Lord, and with the full assurance of faith prays, does not obtain a remedy. What is the reason that they, believing, were immediately healed, but we do not yet see in truth, and are not healed of our secret passions; and yet the Lord has more care for the immortal soul than for the body? For if the Lord, when he came on earth, attended to the corruptible bodies, how much more the immortal soul made after his own likeness? It is through our want of faith, through our divisions, because we do not love him with all our heart, nor in truth believe on him, we have not yet obtained our spiritual healing and salvation. Let us believe on him

therefore, and let us draw nigh to him in truth, that he may speedily work a cure in us; for he has promised to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him, and to open to them that knock, and that those who seek shall find; and he is incapable of falsehood who promises. To Him be glory and power for ever. Amen."

In Macarius there is no trace of any other Giver to whom we should apply than God—no Virgin to whom, or through whom, we should apply, no mediator except the Lord Jesus Christ only.

SECTION IV.-EPIPHANIUS, A.D. 370.*

EPIPHANIUS was Bishop of Salamis, in the island of Cyprus, a few years after the middle of the fourth century. We shall, probably, be safe in fixing the date of his testimony at about A.D. 370. Many Christian writers appear from time to time in subsequent years of the same name; a circumstance, among others, with reason represented as the cause of works having been ascribed to him which evidently have no pretensions to so high antiquity.

Among his genuine productions, the most important is his work on the heresies which had then already appeared in the world to distract the peace of the Church. In ascertaining the testimony borne by Epiphanius on the question of the invocation of the Virgin Mary, our attention will of necessity be chiefly directed to his dicussion of the heresies relative to Mary herself; and, indeed, there are few passages besides that call for any examination.† The panegyric on the mother of God, bound up with his works, is confessedly of a much later date.

Epiphanius, with many others of that age, as we have already seen, regarded those Christians as guilty of heresy who would believe that the blessed Virgin lived with Joseph as his wife after she had given birth to our Lord; and he always speaks of her with reverence, because of the mystery of the Saviour's incarnation, which she was the chosen mortal instrument of effecting. His anxiety throughout seems to be to give her the honour due to her office and character; he speaks with indignation of those who could * Paris, 1622.

+ See Fabricius, vol. viii. p. 275; and Oudin, vol. ii. p. 318.

entertain disparaging views of her unsullied purity and holiness; he had no doubt of her future perfect bliss, both body and soul, in the eternal kingdom of her Son. But of her "immaculate conception," her "assumption into heaven," her " exaltation to glory above the highest angels," her " omnipotent intercession with the Almighty," the Church's "prayers to God for the blessings of her mediation," of her being the "channel through which every blessing must flow that comes from heaven to man," of the faithful "suppliantly invoking her, and flying to her prayers, help, and assistance,”of all these points Epiphanius seems to have known nothing. On the contrary, his testimony appears to be conclusive against the existence of any such doctrines prevailing in the Church as a body, or among Catholic Christians individually, in his time. But the reader will judge for himself how far this inference is justified. We are not aware of having omitted a single passage which could throw any additional light on the subject. The following extract is taken from his arguments against the heresy of Marcion (p. 352).

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"Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God.' He accuses not all flesh. For how could that flesh be accused which never committed any of the above-mentioned acts? But I will But I will prove the point by other arguments. Who,' he says, will lay anything to the charge of God's elect?' How will the holy Mary with her flesh not inherit the kingdom of God, who was never guilty of fornication, or uncleanness, or adultery, or any of those irremediable works of the flesh ?"

In his dissertations on those heresies which related to the nature, character, and office of the Virgin, he confesses that he had great difficulty in ascer

taining the precise views of the misbelievers; and that some opinions reported to him were so monstrous in absurdity and impiety, that he could scarcely bring himself to believe what he had heard. Epiphanius then mentions three distinct heresies:

First, the heresy of those who denied the perfect incarnation of Christ; some of whom maintained that he brought his body with him from heaven.*

Secondly, of those who held that after Christ's birth Mary lived with Joseph as his wife.+

Thirdly, those who on certain days religiously offered cakes to Mary, and worshipped her.‡

In his work on these heresies, he quotes in full the letters which he had written to his fathers, brothers, and children in Christ, who lived in Arabia, and who had been troubled by these false doctrines. With regard to Mary, whilst he indignantly asks, How could any one dare to speak disparagingly of her, who was selected out of so many thousands to be the mother of our Lord? and whilst he urges that those who honour God will honour his saints, he declares, that, as to her death || and burial, he will affirm nothing, because the Scripture is so silent on the point as not even to tell us whether St. John took her with him in his journeys to those countries through which he preached the Gospel. He refers to some histories of the life of Mary, and shews clearly that he had heard strange opinions concerning her and Joseph; he believed the report which made Joseph upwards of eighty years of age when Mary was espoused to him.

Among his observations on the first of these heresies, he says, "The body of the Saviour born of says,¶

Mary, according to the Scripture, was a human and a true body. It was a true body, since it was the same with our own; for Mary is our sister, since we all came from Adam.”

He afterwards proceeds to say, that "just as the perverse views of some heretics denying the Godhead of the Saviour, and severing him from the Father, drove others to the opposite error, and provoked them to say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost were one and the same person; so the unworthy doctrines reflecting on the Virgin drove some persons to the opposite extreme, and provoked them to pay her divine worship-making her a deity-offering cakes in her name-assembling together and striving to honour her beyond due measure.”

Having then referred to the worship paid to Jephtha's daughter and to the daughter of Pharaoh, as instances of the tendency of mankind to superstition and turning to evil from good, ever restless and fond of novelty, he immediately adds these very striking expressions:

"For whether the holy Virgin be dead and buried, in that case her death is in honour, her end in purity, and her crown in virginhood; or whether she was slain (as it is written, a sword shall pierce through her soul also), her glory is among martyrs, and the holy body of her, by whom light rose on the world, is in the midst of blessings; or whether she remained, (for it is not impossible for God to do whatsoever he wishes, for HER END IS NOT KNOWN,) we must not honour the saints beyond due measure, but honour their Lord. Let, then, the error of those deceived people cease. Mary a deity, nor deriving her body from heaven, but from the intercourse of a man and woman; determined, as Isaac was, by promise. And let no one make offer

For neither is