Chapter V: Section IV

Brief Account of the extravagant Regard which has been paid to the
Virgin Mary at different Periods--the Names by which she has been
addressed, and the Festivals instituted to honour her Memory--general
Remarks on the Nature and Character of Superstition, particularly that
of the Catholics.

After reviewing, as we have done in the preceding pages, the _facts_ which are stated by the evangelists respecting the life of the mother of Jesus, the reader perhaps will not be displeased if he be presented with some of the _fictions_ with which the fancy and the folly of the human race have combined to embellish her history. That she has a claim upon the respect of every age and nation, will not be disputed: but we must condemn as well as compassionate that weakness which has exalted her into an object of worship, and filled the temples, which ought to have been devoted to the service of God, with unauthorized addresses, unscriptural rites, and idolatrous disfigurements.

The first notice we have in history of undue honour being rendered to the Virgin Mary is about the close of the fourth century, when the _Collyridians_ adored her as a goddess; and by various libations and sacrifices sought her protection, and hoped to avert her displeasure.

Soon after this period corruptions multiplied in the church to an extravagant degree, and mankind departed more and more from the simplicity of religion. A disposition to pomp and parade usually marks a decline in piety; for wherever "the beauty of holiness" is preserved, gaudy decorations and splendid formalities will be deemed unnecessary. Surely God is not honoured by a service which he has never instituted, and which is only calculated to divert the mind from the proper business of devotion and the supreme object of religious homage! In the fifth century, therefore, as piety languished, magnificence, with all her costly train, obtruded into notice. The riches of the church increased to an amazing extent; the altars, and chests for the preservation of relics, were made of silver; images adorned, or rather defiled, every niche; and the Virgin Mary, holding the child Jesus in her arms, every where occupied a conspicuous place. She had, besides, universally acquired the title of [Greek: Theotouos], or _mother of God_, which occasioned the Nestorian controversy.

The idolatrous service of Mary assumed, in the tenth century, new forms of extravagance and absurdity. Among the Latin churches, masses were celebrated every sabbath; and afterward, what is termed the _lesser office_ was performed in honour of St. Mary. There are also indications of the institution of the _Rosary_ and _Crown_, by which her worshippers were to calculate the number of prayers offered: the former consisted of fifteen repetitions of the Lord's prayer, and a hundred and fifty salutations of the Virgin: the latter, of six or seven repetitions of the Lord's prayer, and six or seven times ten salutations, or Ave Marias.

About the year 1138 a solemn festival was instituted to celebrate the immaculate conception of the Virgin, of whom it was pretended, that her own birth partook of a similar purity to that which attached to her divine offspring. This doctrine was opposed by St. Bernard; but the French churches adopted it, and the superstition of the people contributed to its establishment. The subject was again debated with extreme virulence in the seventeenth century, between the Franciscans and Dominicans, in which the pope interposed a mediatorial power. The opinion of the former, who maintained the doctrine, was declared to have a high degree of probability in its favour, and the latter were required not to oppose it publicly; while the Franciscans were prohibited from treating the Dominican doctrine as erroneous. [20]

It is lamentable to see the profusion of eloquence and ingenuity which some of the most penetrating minds have expended on this subject. In all the Catholic writings we meet with impassioned addresses to the Virgin, appeals on her behalf to the feelings of piety, and a frequent celebration of her matchless perfections. The theological oracle of the French church distinctly states that "as the innocence of Jesus Christ is the life and salvation of sinners, so, through the innocence of the holy Virgin, he obtains pardon for the guilty," exhorting his hearers to "cleanse away their sins in the glorious splendour of her incorruptible purity," and adding, that "to undertake to describe the perfections of Mary, would be to fathom a bottomless abyss."

After representing the Saviour as making particular choice of Mary for himself, Bossuet bestows upon her the epithets of _beloved creature, extraordinary creature, unique and privileged creature_; and continues thus: "The Saviour imparted to his apostles and ministers whatever was most adapted to promote the salvation of mankind; but he communicated to his holy mother whatever was most pleasing, most glorious, and most delightful to himself; consequently, I doubt not that he made Mary innocent. She is his unique, and he is hers. _Dilectus meus mihi et ego illi_ ('my beloved is mine and I am his.') I have only him, and he has only me." I know well that innocence ought not to be easily lavished on our corrupt nature, but it is no profuse expenditure to bestow it upon his mother only: while to refuse to her would surely be too great a reserve.

"No, my brethren, this is not my Saviour's conduct: on Mary, from the moment of her birth, I behold the innocence of Jesus Christ shining and adorning her head. O honour this new ray of light which her divine Son already sheds upon her! 'The night is far spent, the day is at hand;' Jesus will quickly bring this day by his own blessed presence. O happy day! O day without cloud! O day, which the innocence of the divine Jesus will render so serene and pure, when wilt thou come to illuminate the world?--Christians, it approaches; let us rejoice in already discovering its dawn in the birth of the holy Virgin--_Natâ Virgine surrexit aurora_, says the pious father Damien. Can you be astonished after this, if I assert that Mary was without spot from the first moment of her appearance in the world? As the great day of Christ was to be so clear and splendid, was it not proper that even its commencement should be beautiful, and that the serenity of the morning should indicate that of the day? 'It is on this account,' as father Damien observes, 'that Mary, who introduced this illustrious day diffused a brightness over the morning by her nativity--_Maria, veri proevia luminis, nativitate suâ mane clarissimum serenavit_.' Hasten then, brethren, hasten with joy to behold the beginnings of this new day: we shall see it shine in the attractive light of an untarnished purity!"......_Bossuet's Sermon_.

Bossuet had sufficient ingenuity to construct a plausible defence of a sentiment which, however adapted to supply a theme for eloquent declamation, is not to be found in Scripture. "It must be admitted," says he, "that Mary would have been involved in the general ruin of mankind, had not the merciful Physician who heals our diseases determined to imbue her beforehand with his preventing grace. Sin, which like a torrent overflowed the world, would have polluted this holy Virgin with its poisonous waves; but Omnipotence can stop, whenever he pleases, the most impetuous force. Observe with what ardour the sun pursues the vast circuit which Providence has assigned him; and yet you cannot be ignorant that God once caused him to stand still in the midst of heaven at the voice of a man. Those who inhabit the vicinity of Jordan, the celebrated river of Palestine, know with what rapidity it discharges itself into the Dead Sea, if I am correct as to the place; nevertheless, the whole Israelitish army saw it roll back to its source to form a passage for the ark, where their omnipotent Sovereign resided. Is any thing more natural than the consuming effect of heat in fire issuing out of a furnace? And yet was not the impious Nebuchadnezzar surprised with the sight of three happy individuals rejoicing in the midst of the flames which his merciless minions had kindled--but kindled in vain? But notwithstanding all these examples, may we not truly say, that there is no fire which does not burn, that the sun performs his course with unceasing progress, and that no river flows back to its source? We are accustomed to a similar mode of speaking every day, without being checked by these extraordinary occurrences, of which no one is ignorant. Whence does this arise, Christians? Doubtless from the habit of conversing according to the ordinary course of things; though God chooses sometimes to act conformably to the dictates of his own omnipotence, independently of human notions.

"I am not astonished, therefore, that the apostle Paul has expressed himself in such general terms respecting the sin of our first parents' having occasioned the death of all their posterity. According the natural course of things, which the apostle is stating in that place, to be born of the race of Adam necessarily includes, in the ordinary sense of the word, being born in sin. It is not more natural for fire to burn, than for this accursed depravity to infect every one it touches with corruption and death. No poison is more active, no plague more powerful and penetrating. But I maintain, that this curse, however universal, that all these propositions, however general they may be, do not preclude the exceptions which may be made by the Supreme Disposer, or particular interpositions of his authority. And on what occasion, great God, could thine unlimited power, which itself is law, be more properly employed than in conferring peculiar favour upon Mary?" [21]

In the Litanies the Virgin is denominated "the Mother of God, the Queen of Angels, the Refuge of Sinners, the Mother of Mercy, the Gate of Heaven, the Mystic Rose, the Virgin of Virgins," &c. [22]

Father Barry, in his "Paradise opened to Philagia by a hundred Devotions to the Mother of God, of easy performance," says, "It is open to such as confine themselves to their chambers, or carry about them an image of the Virgin, and look steadfastly upon it--who, night and morning, beg her benediction, standing near some of the churches dedicated to her, or contribute to the relief of the poor for her sake--who, out of a pious regard for her, avoid pronouncing the name of Mary when they read, but make use of some other instead of it--who beg of the angels to salute the mother of God in their name, who give honourable appellations to her images, and cast amorous glances at them," &c.

In this work it is expressly stated, that "as many separate devotions to the mother of God as you find in this book, are so many keys of heaven, which will open all paradise to you, provided you only practise them;" and afterward it is added, that "any _one_ of them is sufficient." Take the following specimen: "Salute the holy Virgin wherever you meet her image; repeat the little chaplet of the ten pleasures of the Virgin; often pronounce the name of _Mary_; commission the angels to give your duty to her; cherish a desire to build more churches to her than all the kings of the world put together; wish her a good day every morning, and a good night every evening; say the _Ave Maria_ every day, in honour of the heart of Mary." [23]

In the earliest ages she was called Queen of angels and Mother of God; afterward, the spirit of controversy induced her advocates to adopt every possible device to make her considerable among heretics, and to accustom her devotees to extravagant expressions. She has been represented as the _disposer and depository of God's favours, the treasurer and queen of heaven, the spring and fountain of salvation and life, the mother of light, the intercessor between God and man, the hope of mankind, the ocean of the Deity_! Almost an absolute and sovereign power over her Son our Saviour has been ascribed to her. The psalter, nay the whole Bible, has been applied to her, and proofs by miracles and apparitions furnished, that the virgin appeases the wrath of Christ against sinners, and possesses the power of absolving, binding, and loosening. Temples and altars have been erected, and invocations addressed to her.

The Jesuit, who published the Psalter of our Lady, in French, exhorts the devout Christian who pronounces these words in the introduction, _Holy Lady, open thou my lips_, &c. "to make two signs of the cross when he repeats them, one upon his lips with his thumb, and the other upon himself with his hand, as the priests do when they begin their canonical hours." This method, he assures us, will procure the devotee the honour and happiness of being canon or canoness of heaven; and our lady, to reward so conspicuous and instructive an act of devotion, will admit him into paradise. He gives a pattern of the vows which the devotee is to make "for Jesus and Mary's sake, and for all the lovers of them both, whether male or female." He describes the alliance to be made by him with the _most amiable and honourable mother of all mothers_, the act of repentance and contrition for the reconciliation of himself with her, and all the ceremonies, great and small, by which he may devote himself to the blessed Virgin.

Whoever hopes to obtain the benedictions of the Virgin, must salute her every day, both at his going out and coming in. The legends have transmitted several remarkable instances of the advantages arising from the repetition of the _Ave Maria_--not to mention a thousand day's indulgence granted by some of the popes (Leo X. and Paul V.) to those who shall repeat it at the hour of the _Angelus_.

St. Margarite, of Hungary, said an Ave kneeling before every image of the Virgin she met in her way--St. Catharine, of Sienna, repeated as many Aves as she went up steps to her house.

Fasting on _Saturday_, in honour of the Virgin, is looked upon as a treasure of indulgences and delights, and as an excellent preservative against eternal damnation.

Various festivals are instituted to commemorate her, such as the Purification, the Annunciation, the Visitation, and others.

The fifth of August is the festival of _our Lady of the Snow_. We are informed that the solemnization of it was owing to a miracle. When Liberius was pontiff, a patrician, or Roman nobleman, finding himself old and childless, resolved, with his wife's approbation, to make the blessed Virgin his sole heiress. The vow being made with great devotion, their principal concern, in the next place, was to employ their inheritance conformably to our Lady's will: and accordingly they applied themselves to fasting, praying, giving alms to the poor, and visiting the sick, to know her pleasure.

The Virgin at length appeared to each of them in a dream, and told them "it was her and her Son's will, that they should employ their effects in erecting a church for her on a particular part of the _Mons Esquilinus_, which they should find covered with snow." The pious husband first communicated the revelation to his wife, who told him, with great surprise, that she had had the same revelation that very night. But, supposing the two dreams had not proved alike, an excess of zeal would have been sufficient to have given them all the _conformity_ that was requisite; These two devotees went immediately and declared their dreams to the pope, who perceived that he was a third man in the revelation; for his holiness had been favoured with the same vision. It was no longer questioned, but that heaven was engaged in this affair. The pontiff assembled the clergy together, and there was a solemn procession to Mount Esquiline, on purpose to find out whether the miracle were real or not; when the place specified in the dream was found covered with snow. The ground was exactly of a suitable extent to erect a church upon, which was afterward called _Liberius's Basilica_, and _St. Mary ad præcepe_, (because the manger, which was used as a cradle for our Lady, was brought thither from Bethlehem,) and is now called _St. Mary Major_. Every festival day, the commemoration of this miracle is revived, by letting fall white jessamine leaves, after so artificial a manner, as to imitate the falling of snow upon the ground. [24]

It has even been asserted, that the apostle Peter consecrated a chapel to the Virgin, a story which accords perfectly well with other absurdities. The Spaniards attribute a similar act of devotion to James at _Saragossa_; and some add, that the angels were the architects of the chapel. It is decorated in the most costly manner with silver angels, lamps, and other furniture, with the Virgin magnificently dressed on a marble pillar. The walls are hung with feet, arms, hands, and other parts of the human body, as grateful oblations to the Virgin, for the miraculous cures she is supposed to have performed upon these members.

At _Madrid_, our lady of Atocha resides in a chapel which blazes with a hundred lamps made of gold and silver, and is celebrated for as many miracles as at Loretto and other places. The history of her first settlement at _Liesse_, in Picardy, is thus related. During the crusades, an Egyptian princess resolving to have an image of the Virgin, addressed herself to three gentlemen of Picardy, who were prisoners at Cairo, one of whom made an attempt to paint her, though ignorant of the art. Having failed, he and his companions presented earnest supplications to the Virgin, after which they fell asleep. As soon as they awoke, they found an image of our Lady, accurately performed, which they transmitted to the princess; who, in return, set them at liberty. She was, of course, converted to the Christian faith by this image; and the three gentlemen miraculously escaped out of Egypt, and on a sudden found themselves, by a continuation of the miracle, in Picardy, on the very spot where the church of _our Lady of Liesse_ is now erected.

Her devotees carry representations of the Virgin about them, deck her images with flowers, dress them in silks or other costly ornaments, burn tapers before them, kiss and look upon them with a languishing eye, touch them with their chaplets, rub their handkerchiefs upon them, and salute them with the profoundest veneration.

Her relics are innumerable--such as her wedding ring, handkerchiefs, combs, slippers and goods of every description, as kitchen furniture, toilette, earthenware, lamps; and even, as it is pretended, her gloves, bed, chair, head-clothes, with other rarities.

"Surely," says archbishop Tillotson, "if this _blessed among women, the mother of our Lord_, (for I keep to the titles which the Scripture gives her,) have any sense of what we do here below, she cannot but look down with the greatest disdain upon that sacrilegious and idolatrous worship which is paid to her, to the high dishonour of the great God and our Saviour, and the infinite scandal of his religion. How can she, without indignation, behold how they play the fool in the church of Rome about her; what an idol they make of her image, and with what sottishness they give divine honour to it; how they place her in their idolatrous pictures in equal rank with the blessed Trinity, and turn the salutation of the angel, _Ave Maria, hail Mary, full of grace_, into a kind of prayer; and, in their bead-roll of devotion, repeat it ten times, for once that they say the Lord's prayer, as of greater virtue and efficacy? And, indeed, they almost justle out the devotion due to Almighty God and our blessed Saviour, by their endless idolatry to her.

"So that the greater part of their religion, both public and private, is made up of that which was no part at all of the religion of the apostles and primitive Christians; nay, which plainly contradicts it: for that expressly teacheth us, that there is but one object of our prayers, and one Mediator by whom we are to make our addresses to God. 'There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,' says St. Paul, when he gives a standing rule concerning prayer in the Christian church. And yet, notwithstanding all the care that our blessed Saviour and his apostles could take to prevent gross idolatry of the blessed mother of our Lord, how blindly and wilfully have the church of Rome run into it! and, in despite of the clearest evidence and conviction, do obstinately and impudently persist in it, and justify themselves in so abominable a practice."

In the homage rendered to the Virgin Mary by the Catholics, the servility of superstition appears blended with the zeal of enthusiasm. Having departed from Scripture, that only light which shines upon the path of obedience, and conducts to God, they naturally lose themselves amidst the perplexities of error and the mazes of falsehood: it need not, therefore, occasion surprise though their course should be eccentric, or their conduct preposterous. The passions being chiefly engaged in this service, and kept in exercise by fear or fondness, reason retires; and imagination, supported by these auxiliaries, sways the sceptre. The absurdities, however, to which under such circumstances the human mind becomes addicted, would seem utterly unaccountable, were it not for the gradual manner of their influence. The victory over judgment and common sense is not secured at a blow, but by perpetual insinuation. The hopes or fears of mankind are wrought upon _individually_ from the period of infancy, long previous to the age when reason attains its vigour and maturity,--and _nationally_ by a slow and almost insensible accumulation of frivolous or ridiculous observances from century to century. A natural consciousness of weakness renders man the dupe of deception, and an equal sense of guilt makes him the slave of terror. Hence he readily avails himself of every means which he fancies capable of alleviating his anxieties, and in his eagerness to escape the wretchedness of apprehension or the suffering of evil, flies to unscriptural resources.

The pre-eminence of man over the brute creation arises chiefly from his capacity of knowing God and serving him in the appointed exercises of religion; and yet the perversion of this capacity, by the invention of superstitious ceremonies, has rendered him utterly contemptible. In the services of real piety, he appears elevated to the summit of creation, his nature seems ennobled, and his character encircled with glory; but, in the practices of superstition, he is degraded to the lowest depth of meanness of which an intellectual and immortal being is capable. By the former he soars to "glory, honour, and immortality;" by the latter he sinks to wretchedness and ruin. In the one case he is useful and happy; in the other, inactive, isolated, and full of disquietude; and thus either rises into grandeur or falls into littleness,--is an angel or a brute!

Whoever reviews the several religious errors of the Pagan, Jewish, and Christian communities, will admit, that the history of superstition constitutes one of the most offensive pages in the annals of mankind; he will see the object of worship misrepresented, the universe partitioned into petty sovereignties, and Deity divided, contracted, and localized; religion turned into mockery, and mockery into religion.

It is somewhat difficult to trace the operations and to ascertain the true character of superstition, although it has prevailed so extensively in the world, and produced such extraordinary effects. Amongst other anomalies, this is observable, that it not only has led captive weak and ignorant minds, which being unable to detect a specious sophism, or to depart from a general practice, may easily be supposed incapable of resisting its fascination; but it has been known to seduce and enchain some of the noblest orders of intellect, and the most cultivated of human understandings. Whole nations and successive generations have been subjected to its influence, furnishing ample evidence of that statement, which, if it be not repeated in every page of Scripture, lies at the foundation of all its truths; and into which many of the peculiarities of this principle may be resolved: "The world by wisdom knew not God."

Superstition is unquestionably founded in mean and absurd ideas of the moral attributes of the Deity, which produce corresponding actions, and in assigning to him an arbitrary character, deriving pleasure from what has no connexion with the happiness of the worshipper. A consistent and dignified conduct can only result from a just estimate of the divine perfections, and a correct view of moral obligation. The worship we render to a superior being, must necessarily be shaped and regulated by our conceptions of the nature of God; consequently, mankind will degenerate into error and folly, proportionate to their departure from the representations of Scripture respecting the spirituality of his essence.

To this source may be traced especially the principles and practices of the Romish church, in which reason is outraged, religion caricatured, and God dishonoured. Transubstantiation is a doctrine manifestly absurd and impious; and the practice of presenting those supplications to dead saints, which the Supreme Being alone can hear and answer, is no less ridiculous, as well as subversive of true piety. Perhaps, however, no deviation from common sense is more remarkable than those extravagancies of the Catholics which respect the Virgin Mary; and yet these have not only been practised by the multitude, but defended by men of learning with the utmost subtlety and the warmest zeal. In fact, she has been praised by every Catholic pen for ages; and every term that language could supply has been put in requisition to extol her merits.

Let the view we have given of these misstatements excite us to self-examination, in order that we may discover any incorrectness or deficiency in our own apprehensions of religion, and become vigilant over those errors into which we may be apt to deviate. It will be studying man to some purpose, if the better we are acquainted with the history of the human mind, the greater the circumspection we exercise over ourselves. We shall then be less imposed upon by the speciousness of falsehood, and less betrayed by the weakness of our passions; we shall be led to "present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God," and feel that it is our "_reasonable service_."

Elizabeth.