Chapter IX: Part 9

_Das Kapital_ proposes to show up historically and critically the
whole mechanism of capitalist economy. The first volume deals with the
processes of producing capital, the second with the circulation of
capital, the third with the movements of capital as a whole, whilst
the fourth gives the history of the theories concerning capital.
Capital is, according to Marx, the means of appropriating
_surplus-value_ as distinguished from ground rent (rent on every kind
of terrestrial property, such as land, mines, rivers, &c., based upon
the monopolist nature of such property). Surplus-value is created in
the process of production only, it is this part of the value of the
newly created product which is not given to the workman as a
return--the _wage_--of the labour-force he expended in working. If at
first taken by the employer, it is in the different phases of economic
intercourse split up into the profit of industrial enterprise,
commercial or merchants' profit, interest and ground rent. The value
of every commodity consists in the labour expended on it, and is
measured according to the time occupied by the labour employed on its
production. Labour in itself has no value, being only the measure of
value, but the labour-force of the workman has a value, the value of
the means required to maintain the worker in normal conditions of
social existence. Thus, in distinction to other commodities, in the
determination of the value of labour-force, besides the purely
economical, a _moral_ and _historical_ element enter. If to-day the
worker receives a wage which covers the bare necessaries of life, he
is underpaid--he does not receive the real value of his labour-force.
For the value of any commodity is determined by its socially necessary
costs of production (or in this case, maintenance). "Socially
necessary" means, further, that no more labour is embodied in a
commodity than is required by applying labour-force, tools, &c., of
average or normal efficiency, and that the commodity is produced in
such quantity as is required to meet the effective demand for it. As
this generally cannot be known in advance, the market value of a
commodity only gravitates round its (abstract) value. But in the long
run an equalization takes place, and for his further deductions Marx
assumes that commodities exchange according to their value.

That part of an industrial capital which is employed for
installations, machines, raw and auxiliary materials, is called by
Marx _constant capital_, for the value of it or of its wear and tear
reappears in equal proportions in the value of the new product. It is
otherwise with labour. The new value of the product must by necessity
be always higher than the value of the employed labour-force. Hence
the capital employed in buying labour-force, i.e. in wages, is called
_variable capital_. It is the tendency of capitalist production to
reduce the amount spent in wages and to increase the amount invested
in machines, &c. For with natural and social, legal and other
limitations of the working day, and the opposition to unlimited
reduction of wages, it is not possible otherwise to cheapen production
and beat competition. According to the proportion of constant to
variable capital, Marx distinguishes capitals of _lowest average_ and
_highest composition_, the highest composition being that where
proportionately the least amount of variable (wages) capital is
employed.

The ratio of the wages which workmen receive to the surplus-value
which they produce Marx calls the _rate of surplus-value_; that of the
surplus-value produced to the whole capital employed is the _rate of
profit_. It is evident, then, that at the same time the rate of
surplus-value can increase and the rate of profit decrease, and this
in fact is the case. There is a continuous tendency of the rates of
profit to decrease, and only by some counteracting forces is their
decrease temporarily interrupted, protracted, or even sometimes
reversed. Besides, by competition and movement of capitals the rates
of profit in the different branches of trade are pressed towards an
_equalization_ in the shape of an _average rate of profits_. This
average rate of profits, added to the actual cost price of a given
commodity, constitutes its _price of production_, and it is this price
of production which appears to the empirical mind of the business man
as the value of the commodity. The real law of value, on the contrary,
disappears from the surface in a society where, as to-day, commodities
are bought and sold against money and not exchanged against other
commodities. Nevertheless, according to Marx, it is also to-day this
law of value ("labour-value") which in the last resort rules the
prices and profits.

The tendency to cheapen production by increasing the relative
proportion of constant capital--the fixed capital of the classical
economist plus that portion of the circulating capital which consists
of raw and auxiliary materials, &c.--leads to a continuous increase in
the size of private enterprises, to their growing concentration. It is
the larger enterprise that beats and swallows the smaller. The number
of dependent workmen--"proletarians"--is thus continually growing,
whilst employment only periodically keeps pace with their number.
Capital alternately attracts and repels workmen, and creates a
constant surplus-population of workmen--a _reserve-army_ for its
requirements--which helps to lower wages and to keep the whole class
in economic dependency. A decreasing number of capitalists usurp and
monopolize all the benefits of industrial progress, whilst the mass of
misery, of oppression, of servitude, of depravation, and of
exploitation increases. But at the same time the working class
continuously grows in numbers, and is disciplined, united and
organized by the very mechanism of the capitalist mode of production.
The centralization of the means of production and the socialization of
the mode of production reach a point where they will become
incompatible with their capitalist integument. Then the knell of
capitalist private property will have been rung. Those who used to
expropriate will be expropriated. Individual property will again be
established based upon co-operation and common ownership of the earth
and the means of production produced by labour.

These are the principal outlines of _Das Kapital_. Its purely economic
deductions are dominated throughout by the _theory of surplus-value_.
Its leading sociological principle is the _materialist conception of
history_. This theory is in _Das Kapital_ only laid down by
implication, but it has been more connectedly explained in the preface
of _Zur Kritik_ and several works of Engels. According to it the
material basis of life, the manner in which life and its requirements
are produced, determines in the last instance the social ideas and
institutions of the time or historical epoch, so that fundamental
changes in the former produce in the long run also fundamental changes
in the latter. A set of social institutions answer to a given mode of
production, and periods where the institutions no longer answer to the
mode of production are periods of social revolution, which go on until
sufficient adjustment has taken place. The main _subjective_ forces of
the struggle between the old order and the new are _the classes_ into
which society is divided after the dissolution of the communistic or
semi-communistic tribes and the creation of states. And as long as
society is divided into classes a class war will persist, sometimes in
a more latent or disguised, sometimes in a more open or acute form,
according to circumstances. In advanced capitalist society the classes
between whom the decisive war takes place are the capitalist owners of
the means of production and the non-propertied or wage-earning
workers, the "proletariate." But the proletariate cannot free itself
without freeing all other oppressed classes, and thus its victory
means the end of exploitation and political repression altogether.
Consequently the state as a repressive power will die out, and a free
association will take its place.

Almost from the first _Das Kapital_ and the publications of Marx and
Engels connected with it have been subjected to all kinds of
criticisms. The originality of its leading ideas has been disputed,
the ideas themselves have been declared to be false or only partially
true, and consequently leading to wrong conclusions; and it has been
said of many of Marx's statements that they are incorrect, and that
many of the statistics upon which he bases his deductions do not
prove what he wants them to prove. In regard to the first point, it
must be conceded that the _disjecta membra_ of Marx's value theory and
of his materialist conception of history are already to be found in
the writings of former socialists and sociologists. It may even be
said that just those points of the Marxist doctrine which have become
popular are in a very small degree the produce of Marx's genius, and
that what really belongs to Marx, the methodical conjunction and
elaboration of these points, as well as the finer deductions drawn
from their application, are generally ignored. But this is an
experience repeated over and over again in the history of deductive
sciences, and is quite irrelevant for the question of Marx's place in
the history of socialism and social science.

It must further be admitted that in several places the statistical
evidence upon which Marx bases his deductions is insufficient or
inconclusive. Moreover--and this is one of the most damaging
admissions--it repeatedly happens that he points out all the phenomena
connected with a certain question, but afterwards ignores some of them
and proceeds as if they did not exist. Thus, e.g., he speaks at the
end of the first volume, where he sketches the historical tendency of
capitalist accumulation, of the decreasing number of magnates of
capital as of an established fact. But all statistics show that the
number of capitalists does not decrease, but increase; and in other
places in _Das Kapital_ this fact is indeed fully admitted, and even
accentuated. Marx was, as the third volume shows, also quite aware
that limited liability companies play an important part in the
distribution of wealth. But he leaves this factor, too, quite out of
sight, and confuses the concentration of private enterprises with the
centralization of fortunes and capitals. By these and other omissions,
quite apart from developments he could not well foresee, he announces
a coming evolution which is very unlikely to take place in the way
described.

In this and in other features of his work a _dualism_ reveals itself
which is also often observable in his actions in life--the alternating
predominance of the spirit of the scholar and the spirit of the
radical revolutionary. Marx originally entitled his great social work
_Criticism of Political Economy_, and this is still the sub-title of
_Das Kapital_. But the conception of _critic_ or _criticize_ has with
Marx a very pronounced meaning. He uses them mostly as identical with
fundamentally opposing. Much as he had mocked the "critical criticism"
of the Bauers, he is in this respect yet of their breed and relapses
into their habits. He retained in principle the Hegelian dialectical
method, of which he said that in order to be rationally employed it
must be "turned upside down," i.e. put upon a materialist basis. But
as a matter of fact he has in many respects contravened against this
prescription. Strict materialist dialectics cannot conclude much
beyond actual facts. Dialectical materialism is revolutionary in the
sense that it recognizes no finality, but otherwise it is necessarily
positivist in the general meaning of that term. But Marx's opposition
to modern society was fundamental and revolutionary, answering to that
of the proletarian to the _bourgeois_. And here we come to the main
and fatal contradiction of his work. He wanted to proceed, and to a
very great extent did proceed, scientifically. Nothing was to be
deduced from preconceived ideas; from the observed evolutionary laws
and forces of modern society alone were conclusions to be drawn. And
yet the final conclusion of the work, as already noted, is a
preconceived idea; it is the announcement of a state of society
logically opposed to the given one. Imperceptibly the dialectical
movement of _ideas_ is substituted for the dialectical movement of
facts, and the real movement of facts is only considered so far as is
compatible with the former. Science is violated in the service of
speculation. The picture given at the end of the first volume answers
to a conception arrived at by speculative socialism in the 'forties.
True, Marx calls this chapter "the historical tendency of capitalist
accumulation," and "tendency" does not necessarily mean realization in
every detail. But on the whole the language used there is much too
absolute to allow of the interpretation that Marx only wanted to give
a speculative picture of the goal to which capitalist accumulation
would lead if unhampered by socialist counteraction. The epithet
"historical" indicates rather that the passage in question was meant
to give in the main the true outline of the forthcoming social
revolution. We are led to this conclusion also by the fact that, in
language which is not in the least conditional, it is there said that
the change of capitalist property into social property will mean "only
the expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass of the people." In
short, the principal reason for the undeniable contradictions in _Das
Kapital_ is to be found in the fact that where Marx has to do with
details or subordinate subjects he mostly notices the important
changes which actual evolution had brought about since the time of his
first socialist writings, and thus himself states how far their
presuppositions have been corrected by facts. But when he comes to
general conclusions, he adheres in the main to the original
propositions based upon the old uncorrected presuppositions. Besides,
the complex character of modern society is greatly under-estimated, so
that, e.g., such important features as the influence of the changes of
traffic and aggregation on modern life are scarcely considered at all;
and industrial and political problems are viewed only from the aspect
of class antagonism, and never under their administrative aspect. With
regard to the theory of surplus-value and its foundation, the theory
of labour-value, so much may be safely said that, its premisses
accepted, it is most ingeniously and most consistently worked out. And
since its principal contention is in any case so far true that the
wage-earning workers as a whole produce more than they receive, the
theory has the great merit of demonstrating in an admirably lucid way
the relations between wages and surplus-produce and the growth and
movements of capital. But the theory of labour-value as the
determining factor of the exchange or market value of commodities can
with justification be disputed, and is surely not more true than those
theories of value based on social demand or utility. Marx himself, in
placing in the third volume what he calls the _law of value_ in the
background and setting out the formation of the "price of production"
as the empirical determinator of prices in modern society, justifies
those who look upon the conception of labour-value as an abstract
formula which does not apply to individual exchanges of commodities at
all, but which only serves to show an imagined typical example of what
in reality to-day is only true with regard to the production of the
whole of social wealth. Thus understood, the conception of
labour-value is quite unobjectionable, but it loses much of the
significance attributed to it by most of the disciples of Marx and
occasionally by Marx himself. It is a means of analysing and
exemplifying surplus labour, but quite inconclusive as to the proof of
the surplus value, or as an indication of the degree of the
exploitation of the workers. This becomes the more apparent the more
the reader advances in the second and third volumes of _Das Kapital_,
where commercial capital, money capital and ground rent are dealt
with. Though full of fine observations and deductions, they form, from
a revolutionary standpoint, an anti-climax to the first volume. It is
difficult to see how, after all that is explained there on the
functions of the classes that stand between industrial employers and
workers, Marx could have returned to those sweeping conclusions with
which the first volume ends.

The great scientific achievement of Marx lies, then, not in these
conclusions, but in the _details_ and yet more in the _method_ and
_principles_ of his investigations in his _philosophy of history_.
Here he has, as is now generally admitted, broken new ground and
opened new ways and new outlooks. Nobody before him had so clearly
shown the rôle of the productive agencies in historical evolution;
nobody so masterfully exhibited their great determining influence on
the forms and ideologies of social organisms. The passages and
chapters dealing with this subject form, notwithstanding occasional
exaggerations, the crowning parts of his works. If he has been justly
compared with Darwin, it is in these respects that he ranks with that
great genius, not through his value theory, ingenious though it be.
With the great theorist of biological transformation he had also in
common the indefatigable way in which he made painstaking studies of
the minutest details connected with his researches. In the same year
as Darwin's epoch-making work on the origin of species there appeared
also Marx's work _Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie_, where he
explains in concise sentences in the preface that philosophy of
history which has for the theory of the transformation or evolution of
social organisms the same significance that the argument of Darwin had
for the theory of the transformation of biological organisms.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The main writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are
as follow (we give only the titles of the original works and of their
English translations): (1) Of Karl Marx alone: _La Misère de la
philosophie, réponse à la philosophie de la misère de M. Proudhon_
(Paris, 1847; new ed., 1892; English ed., _The Poverty of Philosophy_,
London, 1900); _Lohnarbeit und Kapital_, pamphlet, written 1848 (new
ed., Berlin, 1891); English ed., _Wage, Labour and Capital_ (London,
1900); _Die Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich, 1848 to 1850_ (Berlin, 1895);
_Der Achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte_ (New York, 1852; 3rd
ed., Hamburg, 1889; Eng. ed., New York, 1889); _Enthüllungen über den
Kölner Kommunistenprozess_ (Basel, 1852; new ed., Zürich-Berlin,
1885); "European Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions" (reprints from
the _New York Tribune_, 1851-1852; London, 1897); "The Eastern
Question" (reprints from the _New York Tribune_, 1853-1856; London,
1898); _Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie_ (Berlin, 1859; new ed.,
Stuttgart, 1897); _Herr Vogt_ (London, 1860); _Inaugural Address of
the International Working Men's Association_ (London, 1864); _Value,
Price and Profit_ (written 1865, published London, 1898); _Das
Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie_ (3 vols., Hamburg, 1867,
1885 and 1895; Eng. ed. of 1st vol., 1886); _The Civil War in France,
1871_ (London, 1871; new ed., 1894); _L'Alliance de la démocratie
socialiste_ (London, 1873); articles printed or reprinted in
_Rheinische Zeitung_ (1842-1843), _Deutsch-französische Jahrbücher_
(Paris, 1844), _Das westphälische Dampfboot_ (Bielefeld und Paderborn,
1845-1848), _Der Gesellschaftsspiegel_ (Elberfeld, 1846), _Deutsche
brüsseler Zeitung_ (Brussels, 1847), _Neue rheinische Zeitung_ (daily,
Cologne, 1848-1849; monthly, Hamburg, 1850), _The People_ (London,
1852-1858), _The New York Tribune_ (New York, 1853-1860), _The Free
Press_ (Sheffield and London, 1856-1857), _Das Volk_ (London, 1859),
_Der Vorbote_ (Geneva, 1866-1875), _Der Volkstaat_ (Leipzig,
1869-1876), _Die Neue Zeit_ (Stuttgart, 1883, sqq.); _Sozialistische
Monatshefte_ (Berlin, 1895, sqq.). (2) Of Friedrich Engels alone: _Die
Lage der arbeitenden Klassen in England_ (Leipzig, 1845; new ed.,
Stuttgart, 1892; Eng. ed., London, 1892); _Zur Wohnungsfrage_
(Leipzig, 1873-1874; new ed., Zürich-Berlin, 1887); _Herrn Eugen
Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft_ (Leipzig, 1877; 3rd ed.,
Stuttgart, 1894). Three chapters of the first-named are published in
English under the title Socialism, _Utopian and Scientific_ (London,
1892). _Der Ursprung des Eigenthums, der Familie und des Staates_
(Zürich and Stuttgart, 1885 and 1892); _Ludwig Feuerbach und der
Ausgang der klassischen deutschen Philosophie_ (Stuttgart, 1886).
Introductions to most of the posthumous works of K. Marx and articles
in the same periodicals as Marx. (3) Of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
together: _Die heilige Familie oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik_
(Frankfurt, 1845); _Manifest der kommunistischen Partei_ (London,
1848; Eng. ed., 1848 and 1888). (4) With regard to Marx generally, his
theory and his school, see J. Stammhammer, _Bibliographie des
Sozialismus und Kommunismus_ (Jena, 1893); and Th. G. Masaryk, _Die
philosophischen und soziologischen Grundlagen des Marxismus_ (Vienna,
1899). Much biographical and bibliographical information on Marx and
Engels is to be found in Dr Franz Mehring, _Geschichte der deutschen
Sozialdemokratie_ (Stuttgart, 1897-1898), and in the collection,
edited also by Dr Fr. Mehring, _Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels und Ferdinand Lassalle_ (Stuttgart, 1902).
Of the criticisms of Marx's economics, one of the most comprehensive
is E. von Boehm-Bawerk's _Karl Marx and the Close of his System_
(London, 1898). Marx's historic theory is, apart from Masaryk, very
exhaustively analysed by R. Stammler in _Wirthschaft und Recht_
(Leipzig, 1896). (E. Bn.)

MARY[1] ([Greek: Maria, Mariam]), the mother of Jesus. At the time when the gospel history begins, she had her home in Galilee, at the village of Nazareth. Of her parentage nothing is recorded in any extant historical document of the 1st century, for the genealogy in Luke iii. (cf. i. 27) is manifestly that of Joseph. In early life she became the wife of Joseph (q.v.) and the mother of Jesus Christ; that she afterwards had other children is a natural inference from Matt. i. 25, which the evangelists, who frequently allude to "the brethren of the Lord," are at no pains to obviate. The few incidents mentioned in Scripture regarding her show that she followed our Lord to the very close of His earthly career with unfailing motherliness, but the "Magnificat" assigned to her in Luke i. is the only passage which would distinctly imply on her part a high prophetic appreciation of His divine mission. It is however doubtful whether Luke really intended to assign this hymn to Mary or to Elizabeth (cf. especially _Niceta of Remesiana_ by A. E. Burn, Cambridge, 1905; Harnack's "Das Magnificat der Elizabeth" in the _Sitzungsberichte_ of the Berlin Academy for 1900, and Burkitt's "Who spoke the Magnificat?" in the _Journal of Theological Studies_, Jan. 1906). The original text of Luke probably mentioned no name in introducing the Magnificat; scribes supplied the ambiguity by inserting, some Mary, others Elizabeth. It is doubtful which represents the intention of the writer: there is perhaps more to be said for the view that he meant to assign the Magnificat to Elizabeth. Mary was present at the Crucifixion, where she was commended by Jesus to the care of the apostle John (John xix. 26, 27), Joseph having apparently died before this time. Mary is mentioned in Acts i. 14 as having been among those who continued in prayer along with the apostles at Jerusalem during the interval between the Ascension and Pentecost. There is no allusion in the New Testament to the time or place of her death.

The subsequent growth of ecclesiastical tradition and belief regarding Mary will be traced must conveniently under the separate heads of (1) her perpetual virginity, (2) her absolute sinlessness, (3) her peculiar relation to the Godhead, which specially fits her for successful intercession on behalf of mankind.

_Her Perpetual Virginity._--This doctrine was, to say the least, of no importance in the eyes of the evangelists, and so far as extant writings go there is no evidence of its having been anywhere taught within the pale of the Catholic Church of the first three centuries. On the contrary, to Tertullian the fact of Mary's marriage after the birth of Christ is a useful argument for the reality of the Incarnation against gnostic notions, and Origen relies upon the references to the Lord's brethren as disproving the Docetism with which he had to contend. The [Greek: aeiparthenia] though very ancient, is in reality a doctrine of non-Catholic origin, and first occurs in a work proscribed by the earliest papal _Index librorum prohibitorum_ (attributed to Gelasius) as heretical,--the so-called _Protevangelium Jacobi_, written, it is generally admitted, within the 2nd century. According to this very early source, which seems to have formed the basis of the later _Liber de infantia Mariae et Christi salvatoris_ and _Evangelium de nativitate Mariae_, the name of Mary's father was Joachim (in the _Liber de infantia_ a shepherd of the tribe of Judah, living in Jerusalem); he had long been married to Anna her mother, whose continual childlessness had become a cause of much humiliation and sorrow to them both. The birth of a daughter was at last angelically predicted to each parent separately. From her third to her twelfth year "Mary was in the Temple as if she were a dove that dwelt there, and she received food from the hand of an angel." When she became of nubile age a guardian was sought for her by the priests among the widowers of Israel "lest she should defile the sanctuary of the Lord"; and Joseph, an elderly man with a family, was indicated for this charge by a miraculous token. Some time afterwards the annunciation took place; when the Virgin's pregnancy was discovered, Joseph and she were brought before the high priest, and, though asserting their innocence in all sincerity, were acquitted only after they had been tried with "the water of the ordeal of the Lord" (Num. v. 11). Numerous details regarding the birth at Bethlehem are then given. The perpetual physical virginity of Mary, naïvely insisted upon in this apocryphon, is alluded to only with a half belief and a "some say" by Clement of Alexandria (_Strom._ vii. 16), but became of much importance to the leaders of the Church in the 4th century, as for example to Ambrose, who sees in Ezek. xliv. 1-3 a prophetic indication of so great a mystery.[2] Those who continued to believe that Mary, after the miraculous birth of Jesus, had become the mother of other children by Joseph came accordingly to be spoken of as her enemies--Antidicomarianitae (Epiphanius) or Antidicomaritae (Augustine)--and the first-mentioned author devotes a whole chapter (ch. 78) of his great work upon heresies to their confutation. For holding the same view Bonosus of Sardica was condemned by the synod of Capua in 391. To Jerome the perpetual virginity not only of Mary but even of Joseph appeared of so much consequence that while a young man he wrote (387) the long and vehement tract _Against Helvidius_, in which he was the first to broach the theory (which has since gained wide currency) that the brethren of our Lord were children neither of Mary by her husband nor of Joseph by a former marriage, but of another Mary, sister to the Virgin and wife of Clopas or Alphaeus. At last the epithet of [Greek: haei parthenos] was authoritatively applied to the Virgin by the council of Chalcedon in 451, and the doctrine implied has ever since been an undisputed point of orthodoxy both in the Eastern and in the Roman Churches, some even seeking to hold the Anglican Church committed to it on account of the general declaration (in the _Homilies_) of concurrence in the decisions of the first four general councils.

_Her Absolute Sinlessness._--While much of the apocryphal literature of the early sects in which she is repeatedly spoken of as "undefiled before God" would seem to encourage some such doctrine as this, many passages from the acknowledged fathers of the Church could be cited to show that it was originally quite unknown to Catholicism. Even Augustine repeatedly asserts that she was born in original sin (_De gen. ad lit._ x. 18); and the _locus classicus_ regarding her possible immunity from actual transgression, on which the subsequent doctrine of Lombardus and his commentators was based, is simply an extremely guarded passage (_De nat. et grat._ ch. 36), in which, while contradicting the assertion of Pelagius that many had lived free from sin, he wishes exception to be made in favour of "the holy Virgin Mary, of whom out of honour to the Lord I wish no question to be made where sins are treated of--for how do we know what mode of grace wholly to conquer sin may have been bestowed upon her who was found meet to conceive and bear Him of whom it is certain that He had no sin." A writer so late as Anselm (_Cur deus homo_, ii. 16), declares that "the Virgin herself whence He (Christ) was assumed was conceived in iniquity, and in sin did her mother conceive her, and with original sin was she born, because she too sinned in Adam in whom all sinned," and the same view was expressed by Damiani. For the growth of the modern Roman doctrine of the immaculate conception from the time in the 12th century, when the canons of Lyons sought to institute a festival in honour of her "holy conception," and were remonstrated with by Bernard, see IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. The epithets applied to her in the Greek Church are such as [Greek: amolyntos, panagnos, hagia, panagia]; but in the East generally no clear distinction is drawn between immunity from actual sin and original sinlessness.

_Her Peculiar Relation to the Godhead, which specially fits Her for Successful Intercession on Behalf of Mankind._--It seems probable that the epithet [Greek: theotokos] ("Mother of God") was first applied to Mary by theologians of Alexandria towards the close of the 3rd century; but it does not occur in any genuine extant writing of that period, unless we are to assign an early date to the apocryphal _Transitus Mariae_, in which the word is of frequent occurrence. In the 4th century it is met with frequently, being used by Eusebius, Athanasius, Didymus and Gregory of Nazianzus,--the latter declaring that the man who believes not Mary to have been [Greek: theotokos] has no part in God (_Orat._ li. p. 738).[3] If its use was first recommended by a desire to bring into prominence the divinity of the Incarnate Word, there can be no doubt that latterly the expression came to be valued as directly honourable to Mary herself and as corresponding to the greatly increased esteem in which she personally was held throughout the Catholic world, so that when Nestorius and others began to dispute its propriety, in the following century, their temerity was resented, not as an attack upon the established orthodox doctrine of the Nicene creed, but as threatening a more vulnerable and more tender part of the popular faith. It is sufficient in illustration of the drift of theological opinion to refer to the first sermon of Proclus, preached on a certain festival of the Virgin ([Greek: panêgyris parthenikê]) at Constantinople about the year 430 or to that of Cyril of Alexandria delivered in the church of the Virgin Mary at the opening of the council of Ephesus in 431. In the former the orator speaks of "the holy Virgin and Mother of God" as "the spotless treasure-house of virginity, the spiritual paradise of the second Adam; the workshop in which two natures were welded together ... the one bridge between God and men";[4] in the latter she is saluted as the "mother and virgin," "through whom ([Greek: di' hês]) the Trinity is glorified and worshipped, the cross of the Saviour exalted and honoured, through whom heaven triumphs, the angels are made glad, devils driven forth, the tempter overcome, and the fallen creature raised up even to heaven." The response which such language found in the popular heart was sufficiently shown by the shouts of joy with which the Ephesian mob heard of the deposition of Nestorius, escorting his judges with torches and incense to their homes, and celebrating the occasion by a general illumination. The causes which in the preceding century had led to this exaltation of the Mother of God in the esteem of the Catholic world are not far to seek. On the one hand the solution of the Arian controversy, however correct it may have been theoretically, undoubtedly had the practical effect of relegating the God-man redeemer for ordinary minds into a far away region of "remote and awful Godhead," so that the need for a mediator to deal with the very Mediator could not fail to be felt. On the other hand, the religious instincts of mankind are very ready to pay worship, in grosser or more refined forms, to the idea of womanhood; at all events many of those who became professing Christians at the political fall of Paganism entered the Church with such instincts (derived from the nature-religions in which they had been brought up) very fully developed. Probably it ought to be added that the comparative colourlessness with which the character of Mary is presented, not only in the canonical gospels but even in the most copious of the apocrypha, left greater scope for the untrammelled exercise of devout imagination than was possible in the case of Christ, in the circumstances of whose humiliation and in whose recorded utterances there were many things which the religious consciousness found difficulty in understanding or in adapting to itself. At all events, from the time of the council of Ephesus, to exhibit figures of the Virgin and Child became the approved expression of orthodoxy, and the relationship of motherhood in which Mary had been formally declared to stand to God[5] was instinctively felt to give the fullest and freest sanction of the Church to that invocation of her aid which had previously been resorted to only hesitatingly and occasionally. Previously to the council of Ephesus, indeed, the practice had obtained complete recognition, so far as we know, in those circles only in which one or other of the numerous redactions of the _Transitus Mariae_ passed current.[6] There we read of Mary's prayer to Christ: "Do Thou bestow Thine aid upon every man calling upon, or praying to, or naming the name of Thine handmaid"; to which His answer is, "Every soul that calls upon Thy name shall not be ashamed, but shall find mercy and support and confidence both in the world that now is and in that which is to come in the presence of My Father in the heavens." But Gregory of Nazianzus also, in his panegyric upon Justina, mentions with incidental approval that in her hour of peril she "implored Mary the Virgin to come to the aid of a virgin in her danger."[7] Of the growth of the Marian cultus, alike in the East and in the West, after the decision at Ephesus it would be impossible to trace the history, however slightly, within the limits of the present article. Justinian in one of his laws bespeaks her advocacy for the empire, and he inscribes the high altar in the new church of St Sophia with her name. Narses looks to her for directions on the field of battle. The emperor Heraclius bears her image on his banner. John of Damascus speaks of her as the sovereign lady to whom the whole creation has been made subject by her son. Peter Damian recognizes her as the most exalted of all creatures, and apostrophizes her as deified and endowed with all power in heaven and in earth, yet not forgetful of our race.[8] In a word, popular devotion gradually developed the entire system of doctrine and practice which Protestant controversialists are accustomed to call by the name of Mariolatry. With reference to this much-disputed phrase it is always to be kept in mind that the directly authoritative documents, alike of the Greek and of the Roman Church, distinguish formally between _latria_ and _dulia_, and declare that the "worship" to be paid to the mother of God must never exceed that superlative degree of _dulia_ which is vaguely described as _hyperdulia_. But the comparative reserve shown by the council of Trent in its decrees, and even in its catechism,[9] on this subject has not been observed by individual theologians, and in view of the fact of the canonization of some of these (such as Liguori)--a fact guaranteeing the absence of erroneous teaching from their writings--it does not seem unfair, to hold the Roman Church responsible for the natural interpretations and just inferences which may be drawn even from apparently exaggerated expressions in such works as the well-known _Glories of Mary_ and others frequently quoted in controversial literature. There is a good _résumé_ of Catholic developments of the cultus of Mary in Pusey's _Eirenicon_.

The following are the principal feasts of the Virgin in the order in
which they occur in the ecclesiastical year. (1) That of the
Presentation (_Praesentatio B. V. M._, [Greek: ta eisodia tês
theotokou]), to commemorate the beginning of her stay in the Temple,
as recorded in the _Protevangelium Jacobi_. It is believed to have
originated in the East in the 8th century, the earliest allusion to it
being made by George of Nicomedia (9th century); Manuel Comnenus made
it universal for the Eastern Empire, and in the modern Greek Church it
is one of the five great festivals in honour of the Deipara. It was
introduced into the Western Church late in the 14th century, and,
after having been withdrawn from the calendar by Pius V., was restored
by Sixtus V., the day observed in both East and West being the 21st of
November. It is not mentioned in the English calendar. (2) The Feast
of the Conception (_Conceptio B. V. M._, _Conceptio immaculata B. V.
M._, [Greek: sullêpsis tês hagias Hannês]), observed by the Roman
Catholic Church on the 8th of December, and by all the Eastern
Churches on the 9th of December, has already been explained; in the
Greek Church it only ranks as one of the middle festivals of Mary. (3)
The Feast of the Purification (_Occursus_, _Obviatio_, _Praesentatio_,
_Festum SS Simeonis et Annae_, _Purificatio_, _Candelaria_, [Greek:
hupapantê], [Greek: hupantê]) is otherwise known as CANDLEMAS. (4) The
Feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary (_Annunciatio_, [Greek:
Euaggelismos]). It may be mentioned that at the council of Toledo in
656 it was decreed that this festival should be observed on the 18th
of December, in order to keep clear of Lent. (5) The Feast of the
Visitation (_Visitatio B. V. M._) was instituted by Urban VI.,
promulgated in 1389 by Boniface IX., and reappointed by the council of
Basel in 1441 in commemoration of the visit paid by Mary to Elizabeth.
It is observed on the 2nd of July, and has been retained in the
English calendar. (6) The Feast of the Assumption (_Dormitio_,
_Pausatio_, _Transitus_, _Depositio_, _Migratio_, _Assumptio_, [Greek:
kaimêsis], [Greek: metastasis], [Greek: analêpsis]) has reference to
the apocryphal story related in several forms in various documents of
the 4th century condemned by Pope Gelasius. Their general purport is
that as the time drew nigh for "the most blessed Virgin" (who is also
spoken of as "Holy Mary," "the queen of all the saints," "the holy
spotless Mother of God") to leave the world, the apostles were
miraculously assembled round her deathbed at Bethlehem on the Lord's
Day, whereupon Christ descended with a multitude of angels and
received her soul. After "the spotless and precious body" had been
laid in the tomb, "suddenly there shone round them (the apostles) a
miraculous light," and it was taken up into heaven. The first Catholic
writer who relates this story is Gregory of Tours (c. 590); Epiphanius
two centuries earlier had declared that nothing was known as to the
circumstances of Mary's death and burial; and one of the documents of
the council of Ephesus implies a belief that she was buried in that
city. The Sleep of the Theotokos is observed in the Greek Church as a
great festival on the 15th of August; the Armenian Church also
commemorates it, but the Ethiopic Church celebrates her death and
burial on two separate days. The earliest allusion to the existence of
such a festival in the Western Church seems to be that found in the
proceedings of the synod of Salzburg in 800; it is also spoken of in
the thirty-sixth canon of the reforming synod of Mainz, held in 813.
It was not at that time universal, being mentioned as doubtful in the
capitularies of Charlemagne. The doctrine of the bodily assumption of
the Virgin into heaven, although extensively believed, and indeed
flowing as a natural theological consequence from that of her
sinlessness, has never been declared to be "de fide" by the Church of
Rome, and is still merely a "pia sententia." (7) The Nativity of Mary
(_Nativitas_, [Greek: genethlion tês theotokou]) observed on the 8th
of September, is first mentioned in one of the homilies of Andrew of
Crete (c. 750), and with the Feasts of the Purification, the
Annunciation and the Assumption, it was appointed to be observed by
the synod of Salzburg in 800, but seems to have been unknown at that
time in the Gallican Church, and even two centuries later it was by no
means general in Italy. In the Roman Catholic Church a large number of
minor festivals in honour of the Virgin are locally celebrated; and
all the Saturdays of the year as well as the entire month of May are
also regarded as sacred to her.

The chief apocryphal writings concerned with Mary are the following:
(1) The _Portevangelium Jacobi_, with its derivatives the _De
nativitate Mariae_, the _Evangelium Ps.-Matthaei_, the _Historia
Josephi fabri lignarii_ (all edited by Tischendorf, _Evangelia
apocrypha_; cf. Harnack, _Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur_,
p. 20 seq. and _Chronologie_, i. 598 sqq.). (2) _Evangelium Mariae_
(see _Sitzungsberichte der Berlinischen Akademie der Wissenschaften_
1896, pp. 839-847). (3) [Greek: Iôannou tou theologou logos eis tên
koimêsin tês theotokou], which appears in Latin under the title of the
_Transitus Mariae_ (ed. Tischendorf, _Apocalypses apocryphae_ and
_Evangelia apocrypha_, and see Bonnet, _Zeitschr. f. wissensch.
Theol._, 1880, pp. 222-247). (J. S. Bl.; K. L.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The name (Heb. [Hebrew: Miriam]), that of the sister of Moses and
Aaron, is of uncertain etymology; many interpretations have been
suggested, including _Stella maris_ ("star of the sea"), which,
though it has attained considerable currency through Jerome (the
_Onomasticon_), may be at once dismissed. It seems to have been very
common among the Jews in New Testament times: besides the subject of
the present notice there are mentioned (1) "Mary (the wife) of
Clopas," who was perhaps the mother of James "the little" ([Greek: ho
mikros]) and of Joses; (2) Mary Magdalene, i.e. of Magdala; (3) Mary
of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus; (4) Mary, the mother of
Mark; and (5) Mary, an otherwise unknown benefactress of the apostle
Paul (Rom. xvi. 6).

[2] _De Inst. Virg._, "quæ est hæc porta nisi Maria? ... per quam
Christus intravit in hunc mundum, quando virginali fusus est partu et
genitalia virginitatis claustra non solvit."

[3] See Gieseler (_KG._, Bd. i. Abth. 1), who points out instances in
which anti-Arianizing zeal went so far as to call David [Greek:
theopatôr] and James [Greek: adelphotheos].

[4] Labbé, _Conc._ iii. 51. Considerable extracts are given by
Augusti (_Denkw._ iii.); see also Milman (_Lat. Christ._ i. 185), who
characterizes much of it as a "wild labyrinth of untranslatable
metaphor."

[5] The term [Greek: theotokas] does not actually occur in the canons
of Ephesus. It is found, however, in the creed of Chalcedon.

[6] It is true that Irenaeus (_Haer._ v. 19, 1) in the passage in
which he draws his well-known parallel and contrast between the first
and second Eve (cf. Justin, _Dial. c. Tryph._ 100), to the effect
that "as the human race fell into bondage to death by a virgin, so is
it rescued by a virgin," takes occasion to speak of Mary as the
"advocata" of Eve; but it seems certain that this word is a
translation of the Greek [Greek: sunêgoros], and implies hostility
and rebuke rather than advocacy.

[7] It is probable that the commemorations and invocations of the
Virgin which occur in the present texts of the ancient liturgies of
"St James" and "St Mark" are due to interpolation. In this connexion
ought also to be noted the chapter in Epiphanius (_Haer._, 79)
against the "Collyridians," certain women in Thrace, Scythia and
Arabia, who were in the habit of worshipping the Virgin ([Greek: haei
parthenon]) as a goddess, the offering of a cake ([Greek: kallurida
tina]) being one of the features of their worship. He rebukes them
for offering the worship which was due to the Trinity alone; "let
Mary be held in honour, but by no means worshipped." The cultus was
probably a relic of heathenism; cf. Jer. xliv. 19.

[8] "Numquid quia ita deificata, ideo nostrae humanitatis oblita es?
Nequaquam, Domina.... Data est tibi omnis potestas in coelo et in
terra. Nil tibi impossibile." _Serm. de nativ. Mariae_, ap. Gieseler,
_KG._, Bd. ii. Abth. 1.

[9] The points taught in the catechism are--that she is truly the
Mother of God, and the second Eve, by whose means we have received
blessing and life; that she is the Mother of Pity, and very specially
our advocate; that her merits are highly exalted, and that her
dispositions towards us are extremely gracious; that her images are
of the utmost utility. In the _Missal_ her intercessions (though
alluded to in the canon and elsewhere) are seldom directly appealed
to except in the Litany and in some of the later offices, such as
those for the 8th of September and for the Festival of the Seven
Sorrows (decree by Benedict XIII. in 1727). Noteworthy are the
versicles in the office for the 8th of December (The Feast of the
Immaculate Conception), "Tota pulchra es, Maria, et macula originalis
non est in te," and "Gloriosa dicta sunt de te, Maria, quia fecit
tibi magna qui potens est."

MARY, known as MARY MAGDALENE, a woman mentioned in the Gospels, first in Luke viii. 2, as one of a company who "healed of evil spirits and infirmities ... ministered unto them (Jesus and the apostles) of their substance." It is said that seven demons were cast out of her, but this need not imply simply one occasion. Her name implies that she came from Magdala (el-Mejdel, 3 m. N.W. from Tiberias: in Matt. XV. 39 the right reading is not Magdala by Magadan). She went with Jesus on the last journey to Jerusalem, witnessed the Crucifixion, followed to the burial, and returned to prepare spices. John XX. gives an account of her finding the tomb empty and of her interview with the risen Jesus. Mary of Magdala has been confounded (1) with the unnamed fallen woman who in Simon's house anointed Christ's feet (Luke vii. 37); (2) with Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus and Martha.

MARY I., queen of England (1516-1558), unpleasantly remembered as "the Bloody Mary" on account of the religious persecutions which prevailed during her reign, was the daughter of Henry VIII. and Catherine of Aragon, born in the earlier years of their married life, when as yet no cloud had darkened the prospect of Henry's reign. Her birth occurred at Greenwich, on Monday, the 18th February 1516, and she was baptized on the following Wednesday, Cardinal Wolsey standing as her godfather. She seems to have been a singularly precocious child, and is reported in July 1520, when scarcely four and a half years old, as entertaining some visitors by a performance on the virginals. When she was little over nine she was addressed in a complimentary Latin oration by commissioners sent over from Flanders on commercial matters, and replied to them in the same language "with as much assurance and facility as if she had been twelve years old" (Gayangos, iii. pt. 1, 82). Her father was proud of her achievements. About the same time that she replied to the commissioners in Latin he was arranging that she should learn Spanish, Italian and French. A great part, however, of the credit of her early education was undoubtedly due to her mother, who not only consulted the Spanish scholar Vives upon the subject, but was herself Mary's first teacher in Latin. She was also well instructed in music, and among her principal recreations as she grew up was that of playing on the virginals and lute.

It was a misfortune that she shared with high-born ladies generally in those days that her prospects in life were made a matter of sordid bargaining from the first. Mary was little more than two years old when she was proposed in marriage to the dauphin, son of Francis I. Three years afterwards the French alliance was broken off, and in 1522 she was affianced to her cousin the young emperor Charles V. by the Treaty of Windsor. No one, perhaps, seriously expected either of these arrangements to endure; and, though we read in grave state papers of some curious compliments and love tokens (really the mere counters of diplomacy) professedly sent by the girl of nine to her powerful cousin, not many years passed away before Charles released himself from this engagement and made a more convenient match. In 1526 a rearrangement was made of the royal household, and it was thought right to give Mary an establishment of her own along with a council on the borders of Wales, for the better government of the Marches. For some years she accordingly kept her court at Ludlow, while new arrangements were made for the disposal of her hand. She was now proposed as a wife, not for the dauphin as before, but for his father Francis I., who had just been redeemed from captivity at Madrid, and who was only too glad of an alliance with England to mitigate the severe conditions imposed on him by the emperor. Wolsey, however, on this occasion, only made use of the princess as a bait to enhance the terms of the compact, and left Francis free in the end to marry the emperor's sister.

It was during this negotiation, as Henry afterwards pretended, that the question was first raised whether Henry's own marriage with Catherine was a lawful one. Grammont, bishop of Tarbes, who was one of the ambassadors sent over by Francis to ask the princess in marriage, had, it was said, started an objection that she might possibly be considered illegitimate on account of her mother having been once the wife of her father's brother. The statement was a mere pretence to shield the king when the unpopularity of the divorce became apparent. It is proved to be untrue by the strongest evidence, for we have pretty full contemporary records of the whole negotiation. On the contrary, it is quite clear that Henry, who had already for some time conceived the project of a divorce, kept the matter a dead secret, and was particularly anxious that the French ambassadors should not know it, while he used his daughter's hand as a bait for a new alliance. The alliance itself, however, was actually concluded by a treaty dated Westminster, the 30th of April 1527, in which it was provided, as regards the Princess Mary, that she should be married either to Francis himself or to his second son Henry duke of Orleans. But the real object was only to lay the foundation of a perfect mutual understanding between the two kings, which Wolsey soon after went into France to confirm.

During the next nine years the life of Mary, as well as that of her mother, was rendered miserable by the conduct of Henry VIII. in seeking a divorce. During most of that period mother and daughter seem to have been kept apart. Possibly Queen Catherine had the harder trial; but Mary's was scarcely less severe. Removed from court and treated as a bastard, she was, on the birth of Anne Boleyn's daughter, required to give up the dignity of princess and acknowledge the illegitimacy of her own birth. On her refusal her household was broken up, and she was sent to Hatfield to act as lady-in-waiting to her own infant half-sister. Nor was even this the worst of her trials; her very life was in danger from the hatred of Anne Boleyn. Her health, moreover, was indifferent, and even when she was seriously ill, although Henry sent his own physician, Dr Buttes, to attend her, he declined to let her mother visit her. So also at her mother's death, in January 1536, she was forbidden to take a last farewell of her. But in May following another change occurred. Anne Boleyn, the real cause of all her miseries, fell under the king's displeasure and was put to death. Mary was then urged to make a humble submission to her father as the means of recovering his favour, and after a good deal of correspondence with the king's secretary, Cromwell, she actually did so. The terms exacted of her were bitter in the extreme, but there was no chance of making life tolerable otherwise, if indeed she was permitted to live at all; and the poor friendless girl, absolutely at the mercy of a father who could brook no contradiction, at length subscribed an act of submission, acknowledging the king as "Supreme Head of the Church of England under Christ," repudiating the pope's authority, and confessing that the marriage between her father and mother "was by God's law and man's law incestuous and unlawful."