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Un daa symboiaa suivants apparcttra sur ia darnlAra imaga da chaqua microficha, salon la caa: la symbols -^ signifia "A SUIVRE", la symbols V signifia "FIN". rrata o >elure. 3 32X Maps, piatas. charts, ate. may ba filmad at diffarant raduction ratios. Thoaa too larga to ba antlraiy includad in ona axposura ara filmad baglnning in tha uppar laft hand corner, laft to right and top to bottom, as many framaa as raquirad. Tha following diagrams iilustrata tha mathod: 1 2 3 Laa cartas, planchas. tabiaaux. ate. pauvant Atra filmte i das taux da rMuction diffArants. Lorsqua la documant ast trop grand pour Atra raproduit an un saul clich*. 11 ast film* i partir da I'angia supAriaur gaucha. da gaucha A droita. at da haut an baa. an pranant la ncmbra d'imagas nAcassaira. Las diagrammas suivants iilustrant la mithoda. 1 2 3 4 5 6 \ O! A^u- : iViiiu [\U[] nvfiji ivn-^: \ I ')irii I li \\'[ \ i fi m S^t^ I ?!» HISTORY or TBI DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIKGIN MARY, MOTHER OF GOD. CHAPTER I. OUrOIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE DEVOTION TO MABT. The invocation of Saints, wliich heretics impute to us as idolatry, and which a Protestant minister has been pleased to set down as the maladij of tlie Christians of the fourth century^ is so far from being of modern date that it may, in truth, be regarded as of Apos- tolical tradition and of Jewish origin. The Hebrews sought counsel and miraculous cures of the dead, when those dead had been accred- ited prophets of the Lord. The prophets were their saints, and saints who read the future clearly, from the depths of the sepulchral cave where they slept beside their fathei-s. Behold Saul with the witch of Endor ; the ghost of Samuel, though conjured up by en- chantments which the law of Moses condemns, appeared by God's permission, to terrify the reprobate monarch. The prophet, shroud- ed in his mantle, emerges slowly from the earth in awful majes+3'- ; the sorceress utters a cry of teri'or at sight of the illustrious shade which she takes for a God. Saul, bowing down before him who was so long the supreme judge of Israel, questions him on the issue of the battle which he is going to fight with the Philistines ; and the m X'lim'^W !>"' ■ ii'VrV(;>'^ •mi/ CUAP. 1.] BLESSED VIROnf liAnY. Asia, who never pass tlvrough Bagdad Avitliout turning aside to pray there. At the foot of Orontos, whose rich foliage waves over a thousand silvery streams which reflect the splendour of the Asiatic sun, there is a city — once royal and magnificent — lying extended amid ruined columns, prostrate temples, and mausoleums of red granite with inscriptions written in some language long unknown: it is Ecbatana, the ancient capital of the Medes, now the obscure Ilamadan. At one of the extremities of the fallen city rises a brick monument, the door of which, according to the old sepulchral style of the country, is veiy small and made of one solid stona : it is the tomb of a young queen, fair and virtuous, who braved death to save her people — the noble Esther, who wiiS laid there on a bed of ivory overlaid with gold, embalmed in musk and amber, and wrapped in a shroud of Chinese silk,* beside the ^ eat Hebrew patriot Mardochai.f This illustrious tomb, which the Jews of Persia regard as a place of peculiar sanctity, and to which they repair in crowds at the time of the feast of Phurira,J is still, and has been for two thousand years, the term of a pilgrimage. In the middle ages, under the Saracen domination, the Arabs having threatened the Jews with a general massacre during a grievous drought which prevailed all over Syria and Palestine, if rain did not fall on a day appointed, they gathered in great num- bers around the tomb of Zachary, which is still to be seen in the * He built bcr a mausolcnra after the manner of tlie Iranians, (Iran ".is, before Cyrus, tlie true name of tlio vast kingdom which is now called Persia,) fill ' h'v skull with musk and amber, wrapped her body in Chinese silk, placed her, as « igs are placed, on a throne of ivory, and hung her crown above her ; then they paintud tlio door of the tomb red and blue." (Firdousi, Book of Kings, Kci Khosrou.) •f Travels of Sir Robert Ker Porter in Persia avd Armenia. The present toinb of Esther and of Mardochai occupies the same place as did the old, which was destroyed by Tamerlane. X This festival, which was instituted at Suza by Mardocha* and Esther, was solemnly celebrated on the 14th or 15th day of the month of Adcr, which is our February moon. The Jews had formerly a custom of making a wooden cross on which they painted Aman, and dragged it through the city, so that every one might see it. Tliey afterwards burnt it, and threw the ashes into the river. The emperor Theodosins forbade them to enact this comedy, fearing that it might possibly Lave reference to the death of Christ. Y i' i.\ Ta lIISTOUy OV THK UKVOTION TO THE CHAP. J. vicinity of Jerusalem, fusted nncl pmyed for several days in sack- cloth and ashes, in order to obtain from God, through tlie intercession of that prophet, that he might save them from certain death by making it rain upon the earth. The custom of applying to the living the merits of the dead, la of Hebrew oi-igin; the proof of this is found in a liturgj' of the synagogue of Venice. In the office entitled Mazir nechamot, (^remembrance of sovh,) we find a prayer conceived in the following terms : " Hear us, O Jehovah, for the sake of those who loved thee and are now no more ; hear us, for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, Jacol), Sara, Rachel," &c. The invocation of saints is not, then, a CaiJiolic invention. Besides the saints, the Jews prayed to the angels, whom the ancient Arabs also invoked, and to whom the Assyrians offered sacrifice, attributing to them charming functions on the earth.* Jacob confesses himself indebted to an angel for deliverance fi'om the evils which threatened him, and beseeches him to bless his children : Angelus qui cripuit me de ainctis malis lenedicat pueris istis.\ This prayer is addressed to an angel. It is even thought that the Jews carried the worship of the angels too far, since they are suspected of adoring them.;}; This veneration, or worship, never ceased amongst the modern Jews till the time of the pretended Reformation, when they abandoned it in order to conciliate tlie German innovators. There exists in the Vatican library a Hebrew manuscript containing a litany composed by R. Eliezer Hakalir, wherein is said to the angel Actariel: "Deliver Israel from all afliiction, and quickly procure its redemption." Similar favoura m m m it rti!" * Amongst the Persians, every month was under the protection of an angel ; to the nngels was confided the care of seas, rivers, springs, pastures, flocks, trees, herbs, fruits, flowers, and seeds ; they also guided the stars ; prayers were offered to the angels soliciting their protection in danger. Tlie modern Persians still sacrifice to the angel of the moon. (Firdousi, ^ooAq/"Ar«n^s. — Chardin, Voyage en Perse.) ■\ Genesis xlviii., v. 1 G. J Tlie author of the Preaching of St. Peter, which is very ancient, cited by St, Clement of Alexandria, makes that Apostle say that we must not adore God witii the Jews, because, althou,:^h they profess to acknowledge but ore God, they adore th» »ngels. (Clem. Alex., b v.) 1 r! ^?^ OIIAV. I.] TO THE MOTIIKIl (lOD. are naked of Btirachiol, Watliiiil, and other princea of the licavenly. cotirt. The litany ended l)y saying to JMlchael : " Prince of mercy, pray for Israel, that it may bo greatly exalted." Tiio tombs of the martyrs were very early venerated by the Christians of Asia; the fii-st to which pilgrimage was made wa^ most probably that of St. John the Baptist, which, after the Holy Sepulchre and the tomb of the Blessed Virgin, is the most rospectod by Orientals of all creeds. The body of the precursor of the man- God was at Samaria, where it was visited by St. Paula in the fourtli centurj^ and his head, carefully embalmed by his disciples, was at Hems, whence it was transported to Damascus in the reign of Tlu'odosius. It was placed in a superb church bearing the title of St. Zachary, which took, thenceforward, that of St. John. The calij)!! Abdelmelek took forcible possession of this church, and now the venerated tomb of him Avho was a projjJiet ami more than a prophet, is enclosed within a Turkish mosque ; but it is neither solitary nor ^vithont honour ; the Mussulmans come there from all parts on pilgrimage, and the celebrated Saadi himself relates, in his Guliatan, that, going to pray there, he met with princes from Arabia. At the close of the first century, the faithful of Asia Minor were wont to repair in gi-eat numbere to Ephesus to visit the tomb of St. John the Evangelist, the dust of which, carefully gathered, was said to effect marvellous cures.* St. Stephen, the first martyr, whose relics wrought so many miracles, as attested by St. Augustine, and who died before the Blessed Virgin, was likewise very early invoked by the primitive Christians, who also venerated the blessed i-eniains of St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp.f St. Aster of Amasia has preserved to us, in a m fs r/^. U * St. Augiistiiio speaks of the mirnculoiis cures wrought by dust from the tomb of St. John the Evangelist. There is now seen amongst the ruins of Ej)hesus, tlie church of St. John, of which the Turks had made a mosque. f The history of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, written in the form of a letter, in the name of the church of Smyrna, by those who had tiicmselves witnessed it, and addressed to the church of Philomel, contains these words : " We took fi'om the lire his bones, more precious than gold or jewels, and we put them in a suitable place, where wo hope to as.^cmble every year to celebrate the festival of the Lord's martyr, to the end that those who come after us may bo encouraged to prepare for similar '. \ 1 I i i^ I P^'lPJ!^ msTouy OF niB devotiox to- ff-fi % fiori.ion on tlio murtyrs, tlic pniyop iiddrossed l»y u Christiim of the tonnciiK* St. John Clirysostom, on liia side, osscrtfl tliut In his time th(! tonilrt of tho -"irtyrs constituted tho fmrcst orniiuK'nt of royal citicH; tlmt tho days wliich wore conseo.Mted to thtjni wero (hiy.Hot'joy ; that tlie great men ot' tho empire, nnd oven tho emperor himself, laid awide tho proud insignia of their po\rer before they dared to cross the threshold of tho sacred places which contained tho revered sepulchres of the servants of tho crucified God " How much more illustrious," exclaims the groat Christian orator, " are the momimenta erected to old men who were ])oor and humblo while on earth, than tho tombs of the mightiest kings ! Around tho tombs of kings reign silence and solitude ; hero do multitudes throng with prayer and homage."f IJehold, then, tho worship of didla, (of saints,) which Protestants style idolatrous and detestable — behold what it wi\s in those ages which they tliemselves call tho ages by excellence, the pure age<9.\ As to the worship of hijperduUa^ (of the Blessed ^'irg;n,) which without being adoration — wliich God forbid it was! — is far superior to that of tho saints, it commenced, apparently, at her very tomb. Tho Jewish doctors have preserved to us, in the Talmud, a historical fact long unknown, which establishes the high antiquity of this pious veneration so much blasphemed. A tradition of tho temple, recorded in their Toldos — that book wherein the Virgin is so grossly abused, and which they early circuhited through Greece, Pereia, and every place where it could at all injure Christianity — relates that the Xazarenes, who came to pray at the tomb of the mother of Jesus, undei'weut a violent persecution from the princes of the synagogue, and that a hundred Christians, kinsfolk of Jesus Christ, w(!r*' put to death for having raised an oratory over her tomb.§ This act of barbarous fimaticism of which they boast, being quite conformable to their treatment of St. Stephen, St. James, and St. Paul, and tho oratory erected over a venerated tomb being in no way obnoxious to their customs and traditions, this fact, it seems to us, may be h}} m ^.^w >t A * St. Cypriiin, Epist. 28. j" St. Cliry.sost., Ilom. 66 ad pop. Antioch. \ Diiille, ill hi.s book of Latin Tradition*, b. it., ch. 16 § Toldos Jfuldr., p. 115 rvi !t:r )^ «r^ Il I m ^^^ IIISTOKY OF THE DEVOTION [chap, l jy. V '^ m m X:>f WiH msl ml m&^' I regarded as authentic, even Avitliput any very great stretch of crediility. Tradition, supported by religious monuments, asserts that the worship of Mary is of Apostohc tradition. St. Peter, on his way to Antioch, raised, it is said, in or . of the cities of ancient Phoenicia, an oratory to the Blessed Virgin, and gave it a solemn consecration ; St. John the Apostle placed the beautiful church of Lydda under the invocation of his adoptive mother; the first church of Milan was dedicated to Mary by St. Barnabas the Apostle. Our Lady of the Pilhr^ in Spain, and Om' Lady of Carmd^ in Syria, dispute the priority with these churches, and their claims are more boldly advanced, though more contestable. According to the Spanish tradition,* the Blessed Virgin should have appeared to St. James, before her death, on the ijanks of the Ebro, and commanded him to build a church on that spot. According to the Syrian tradition, the prophet Agabus, the same Avho predicted the famine which took place under Claudius, slundd have erected, also in the Virgin's lifetime, ;\at church which is seen from so far at sea, and Avhere pilgiims and travellers of all religions and of every region receive, in the name of Mary, such affecting hospitality. Without disputing the antiquity of these two sanctuaries, very venerable indeed, and justly revered by all nations, we must be permitted to say that it is very unhkely that the Blessed Virgin, the humblest of the daughters of Eve, would have solicited the Apostles, during her lifetime, to build churches in her honour. That the gratitude of nations and the piety of the Apostles may have erected them after her death, is both simple and natural, but that she gave orders for any during her life is extremely doubtful. As to the oratory of Carmel, Flavins Josephus, who particularly mentions the disciples of Ellas in connection with Vespasian, (to whom one of them promised the empire,) nowhere says that they were then converted to Christianity, and the contrary is inferred from his recital. This negative authority is very important. * Cronologia sacra . . . al ano 35 de Crista. •'^ V'/^>Y i oiiAP. n.] BLESSED VIBOIN MART. lirst ^txiah flf t^t §Mim ta Itarii. BKFORE OONBTANTINI. CHAPTER n. THE BA.8T. — ii>OLB. i As we Lave already observed, the devotion to the Mother *of God had its ori.oin at her very tomb, and the first lamp lighted in honour of Mary was a sepulchral lamp, around which the Christians of Jerusalem came to pray. This, it would seem, did not last long ; the synagogue — oppressive, like all dominations beset by the fear of sudden overthrow, and suspicious, like all who are conscious of evil-doing — became alarmed at the simple homage rendered to the mother of the young prophet whom it had not only refused, after all his miracles, to acknowledge as the Messiah, but audaciously crucified, as a seditious man and an impostor, between two thieves. It extinguished the lamps, silenced the hymns, and mercilessly killed the first servants of Mary; so, at least, we are informed by the synagogue itself, and we know that it was very fit to do it. This was done a little through fanaticism, a little through self-love, and a little through fear. The Jewish authorities would not that that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had unjustly condemned to an ignominious death, should arise, he and his, from the obloqny of the Golgotha. It was annoying to hear that the Galilean whom they called a son of Belial, and whose miracles they treated as vain illusions, was truly God, and his mother a great saint ; and then it feared that this new worship, connected with the religion of the tombs, and supported by the incontestable miracles wrought by the Apostles in Jerusalem, might operate injuriously on the JicJde mind of the multitude and provoke a dangerous reaction in favour of the crucified prophet. In fine, as it frankly acknowledged to Peter and John, it had no wish to be called on by the people to account for the blood of Jesus. IG n nr* i t I Mi 1 till 1 \<^ ^%!S^ HISTORY OF THE DEVOTION TO THE [ciiAP. n. \h For all these reasons, the senators and chief priests took another step on the slippery road of guilt, in order to justify the abominable sentence which they had wrung from the Romans, and they openly boasted of having stifled in the bud the devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Their iniquitous hopes were defeated. The most furious tyrants, even when most implicitly obeyed in the gloomy caprices of their cruelty, cannot kill remembrance, that flower of the soul which blooms, mysterious and consoling, in the inaccessible region of ideas, and is but rooted the more firmly by the wind of perse- cution. The memory of the Virgin-mother resisted this Jewish hurricane ; people sang no more in her grotto, but they went there to weep, and the tears which devotion sheds are equal tc the incense of Saba, which, itself, trickles like tears from the pierce '. bark, Violently uprooted by the sacrilegious hands of the ] -.••inces of the reprobate people of God, the veneration of Mary was transplanted by the Apostles to the still idolatrous land of the stranger. In th'eir own lifetime they saw it beginning to appear in Syria, Meso- potamia, Asia Minor, Egypt and Spain. It is true, that this devotion, so tender and so poetical, which was to replace the , impure and seductive woi-ship of the divinities of Olympus, shone, at first but like a small star on the zenith of a few cities ; for Christianity was, in the beginning, only the religion of cities, and of the common people in those cities. Paganism, repudiated by all serious minds, despised by philosophers, I'idiculed on the stage, where men publicly read the last w>ll and testament of Jiipitei^ deceased, and scoffed at in the true Voltairian style by the young Ejiicureans of the imperial court,* retained, nevertheless, an incredible number of partisans ; connected with numerous interests, defended l)y prejudice and by ancient supei-stitions, attractive from the splendour of its festivals. and mingled with every glorious recollection, it still dazzled, though on its decline. Proud of its advantages, it did not, at first, conde- scend to fear the carpenter's son and the young spinner of JSktzareth .} * Most people are familiar with the sarcastic jost of that courtier of Nero, who, being scolded and threatened by an old priestess for having {{illcd one of her sacred geese, threw her two gold pieces, saying, " There, you can bny both gods and geese.' f See Celsus. ,J W.- ,^\o: cr^' OKAP. U.] BLESSED VmOIN' MART. 11 hem ? it saw them not. The religion of the poor J mother advanced, noiselessly, by the rough and How could it :. God and his h >1 toilsome medium of the people ; it addressed itself especially to the artisan, the woman, the slave, to all, in fine, who were weak and lowly, and oppressed by pagan society— that society so profoundly selfish, so avaricious, so effeminate and corrupt, and which was briUiant and cold as its marble gods. It was soon perceived that the moral vorld — that old decrepit Titan — was growing young again under the mighty though secret influence of a regenerating charm. "What magician had restored to that new .^on the fresh, warm blood of its earlier years ? What new Prometheus had scaled the heights of heaven to bring down to man, frozen to death by selfishness, a spark of the sacred fire ? For there was no overlooking the fact that society was pregnant of something sti'ange and grand which was to restore its pristine love- liness and strength ; it was becoming again, to all appearance, what it was in the days so lamented by Horace, when it despised pomp, honoured the gods, and esteemed poverty as an honour. Invisible, but pei"severing hands, seemed ali'eady to have raised from their ruins, where they lay beneath the grass of ages, the altar of chastity, and the austere temples of Faith, Honour, and Virtue. Beneficence, long unhonoured with the smoke of sacrifice, in the frantic pureuit of material pleasures, began once more, it seems, to be mysteiiously respected. The old equality of the age of Saturn re-appeared here and there ou the earth. In fine, Humanity bore hi her arms the children whom the elegant matrons of pagan society exposed on the banks of the river, in the depths of the forest, and on the verge of the precipice, where the eagles, dogs, and wild beasts tore them to pieces.* Charity, sustaining with one vigorous arm the old man panting under his load of toil, extended the other to the infirm creatures abandoned on the stej)s of the temples. O, gods of Greece, wandering gods who were sheltered beneath the cottage-roof of Philemon and Baucis, did you again traverse the * Philo gives details of this abominable citstoin of exposing helpless abaudoued children, which are enough to make one's hair stand oa end. It was only the Jewi who then condemned this barbarous practice. I • >i!EiM»IAUY. 13 propriety ? No ; for they assemble tlirice in tlie day, and sometimes in the night,* to pray in common, '^•ith uplifted hands, to- an unknown God ; and, on the altar of their ancient household deities, where the lamp still burns,f may be seen the graceful image of a young Asiatic woman, half veiled in a light blue drapery, J holding in her arms a divine infant. That woman, with the calm, deep eyes, is the Inspirer of chastity, modesty, devotion, mercy; the guardian of honour, the protectress of ]u)me ; in a word, that sweet Virgin Mary to whom the Greeks have given the beautiful name of Panagia^ which means all holy. Asia claims the honour of having placed the first oratory and chapel under the invocation of Mary; the most ancient of these shrines was Our Lady of Tortosa, which St. Peter himself founded, according to the Eastern traditions, on the coasts of Phoenicia. These early Syrian churches were, at first, but very simple struc- tures, with cedar roofs and latticed windows. The altar was turned towards the west, like that of Jerusalem, and during the day a wooden screen concealed the sanctuary, in memory of the famous veil of t'ae Holy of Holies. There were crosses in those churches ; and there were also, at a very early period, pictures of Mary, for tradition relates that her image was painted on one of the pillars in the beautiful church of Lydda, which had been dedicated to her by her adopted son, and that St. Luke presented to the cathedral of Antioch a portrait of the Virgin painted by himself This image. "^rm Y * The first Cliristians met to pray at the hours of Tierce, Sexte, and None, as mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles ; they passed the niglit in pra3'cr on tlie eve of great festivals, singing hymns in honour of Jesus Christ, as St. Basil and Socrates testify. f The gods which were indiscriminately named Lares or Penates were the tutelary gods of houses. They had tlitir own distinct worsliip. Wine and incense were offered to them ; they were crowned with flowers, and a lamp was kept burning before their little statues. There was found, under ground, in Lyons, in l.'JOS, a co]iper lamp with two sockets, the chain sealed in a piece of marble, bearing this iuscripiion : Lnribu3 Mcrum. P. F. Uomuiii — h'hich signifies, Puhlicce fdlcitali liomanorum. X In the oldest pictures of the Virgin, being those painted on wood, whose high antiquity is indisi)utable, she wears almost always a blue veil. dj I I viiiji'^^'f^ ^' ,! • i 1. 1 I! ? W I- i': sO to 10 §J 14 ^il niSTOBY OP THE DEVOTION TO THE [chap. n. to whicli tlie mother of God was believed to have attached signal graces, became so famous that the Empress Pulcheria had it brought to Constantinople, where she built a magnificent church to place it in. Edessa, the capital city of that king Abgarus who was on the point of making war on the Jews to revenge the death of our Lord, and who was only prevented from doing so through fear of the Romans, their masters, as Eusebius tells us, had also, in the firet century, its church of Our Lady, adorned with a miraculous image. Egypt boasts of having had, about the same time. Our Lady of Alexandria, and Saragossa in Spain, then called Caesar Augusta, its famous shrine of Our Lady of the Pillar. But no where was the devotion to Mary carried on with such enthusiastic fervour as in Asia Minor. Ephesus, where the memory of the Blessed Virgin was still fresh and vivid, soon built in honour of Mary the Miriam, a superb cathedral, wherein was held, in the fifth century, the famous council which confirmed her proud title of Mother of God. This example was followed from one end of the immense Roman provinces to the other. Phrygia, having become Christian, con- signed to oblivion those Trojan gods sung by Homer ; Cappadocia suffered those sacred fires to die away which the Persians had kindled side by side with the elegant temples of the Grecian deities; and the caverns, whose gloomy vaults had so recently witnessed the bloody mysteries of Mithra,*' became, during the religious persecutions — which no where broke out with greater fury than amongst those Greek colonies — a place of refuge for the Christians and their proscribed God. At length, the gods of Greece — those indigenous deities, sprung from the sparkling foam of the ^gean sea, born under the still-existing palms of the * The worship of Mithra, before it reached Greece or Rome, had passed from Persia into Cappadocia, where Strabo, who travelled there, says that he saw a great number of the priests of Mithra. The mysteries of Mithra, which were celebrated in the depth of caverns, were something horrible, according to the holy Fathers. Ilumau victims were there sacrificed, as appears from a fact mentioned by Socrates in his EcL-lesiiistical History, viz., that the Christians of Alexandria having discovered a den which had been long closed up, and in which the Mithraic mysteries were said to have been formerly celebrated, they found therein human skulls and boues which they took out to show to the people of that great city. s mm OllAP. U.] BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. 15 Cyclades, or cradled in the shade of the woods which crown the lofty mountains of Crete — were abandoned for the God who died on Calvary, and the humble Virgin of Nazareth; so truly, so entirely abandoned, that Pliny the younger, on his arrival in Bythinin, of which province he had been named governor, wrote to Trajan that Christianity had not only invaded the cities, but the rural districts, so much so that he had found the temples of the gods of the empire completely deserted* Asia Minor possessed, from the earliest times, miraculous images of Our Lady. The two most famous were that of Didynia, where St. Basil, during the reign of Julian, went to pray for the afflicted Church, and that of Sosopoli, an image painted on wood, from which there oozed out a marvellous oil, which operated the aston- ishing cures referred to in the second council of Nice. Greece, that brilliant land of arts and letters, was not more tardy in honouring Mary. In the time of St. Paul, Corinth, where Greek liberty, like an expiring lamp, had given one last brilliant flash, was converted almost entirely to Christianity. The faithful met, at first, in the vast halls of private houses, where the Virgin was solemnly invoked. By degrees, the temples of Paganism were deserted, and after the lapse of a hundred years the curious traveller made Lis way alone up the steep sides of the Acro-Ceraunes to visit the tem- ple of Venus, whose lofty porticos, rising above the surrounding sea of green foliage, were traced on the Grecian sky, so deeply, darkly blue. The protecting goddess of the Corinthians had been dethroned by the holy woman who re-established in that effeminate country modesty, so long unknown, and maternity, so long despised. Thanks to her, the pure pleasures of the domestic circle, the touching joys of home, were easily substituted for the shameful disorders, the gigan- tic orgies, the depraved morals of that small republic which had ever led the van in the march of corruption. Corinth transfigured be- came a Christian Sparta, and the eulogy pronounced on its Church by St. Clement, the pope, towards the end of the first cenlury, gives a marvellous idea of its fervour. * riinv, lib. X , epist. 97. '^ t.?r r"-.i t=»'. '« _^ u- :or 16 IIISTOBT OF THE DEVOTION TO THB [chap. U. Pl U M Arcadia, whose forests were peopled with rural gods, and where every grotto, every murmuring spring had its altar, likewise abjured, though not 80 promptly, the worship of Pan and the Niiiads for the veneration of the humble Virgin, whose divine child was pleased to receive his firat homage from simple shepherds. But as ancient su- perstitions are more difficult to eradicate from rural districts than from any other places, it was long ^elieved in the Arcadian hamlets that Diana still followed the chase in the depth of the great forests of Menales and Lyceum. Young and credulous shepherdesses, divi- ded between the Christian faith and their ancestral superstitions, sometimes imagined that they saw, by the flickering light of the moon, fair white Dryads amongst the trees. Naiads bending pensively over the springs, or playful elves dancing on the buttercups and daisies in the meadows. But, about the time of Constantine, the Blessed Virgin had definitely prevailed over deified nature ; and the numerous churches bearing her name, which still adorn the rustic scenes of the land of the ancient Pelages, attest the profound devo- tion of the Arcadians to the Virgin Mother. Elida, too, vei y early built a church in honour of the Blessed Vir- gin on the banks of its romantic river, the Alpheus, and as it was surrounded by noble vineyards, it received the name of Our Lady of Grapes. Macedonia preceded Greece proper in the veneration of Mary. Thessalonica had a bishopric even in the time of the Apostles, and its church was a superb edifice with jasper columns, dedicated by the pious Macedonians to the Blessed Virgin ; this structure is still to be seen, but the Turks have converted it into a mosque.* Nero, travelling in the Peloponnesus, did not dare to cross the fron tiers of Laconia ; the stern gloom of Sparta inspired him v/ith fear. The mild, sweet Virgin of Galilee was more valiant than Caesar ; she passed the Eurotes, which hides its waves under rose-bays, and presented herself to the people of Leonidas, whose ancient virtue was preserved in the bitter, but invigorating waters of poverty. She was welcomed with enthusiasm, and that brave people hastened to C" 1I.J ni.KSSKD VIUOIN JIAUY. 17 build the fairest church of Greece in honour of that young foreign Virgin who came to teach the daughtei-s of Sparta to cast down their eyes. Ever since that time, Mary reigns in Sparta Avith absolute power ; for her are culled the earliest violets that bloom by the Eurota's atreara ; it is before her im"ge, rudely painted in red and blue on the walls of their dwellings, that the young Lacedemonians nightly light a lamp of clay or bronze ; a pious act which is duly noticed when the Grecian women pronounce the funeral enlogium of the dead. Finally, the inhabitants of Laconia substituted the name of Christ and the Virgin wherever their ancestors introduced the name of Jupiter in affirmation, and this oatii has become of such common use that even the Turks of Misistra, prior to the Greek revolution, instead of swear.'ng by Allah and by Mahomet, like the other Mus- sulmen, swore, like the Greeks of Sparta, by the Blessed Virgin.* Athens, the elegant and learned, celebrated for its monuments, the finest m the world, and ita schools, which were frequented by the flower of the studious youth of Europe and Asia — Athens was slower in being converted to Christianity than the other countries of Greece. From the earliest times, however, it had had a bishop and a church dedicated to Mary, Our Lady Spiliotissa, or our Lady of the Grotto ; but polytheism was sheltered tinder the brilliant aegis of Minerva, and Athens was at the same time full of Christian churches and of idols. It was \» one of these churches that Julian filled the office of lector, by command of the Emperor Constantius ; but it was in the Parthenon that he was to plan the revival of idol- atry, while reading Homer. That the devotion to the Blessed Virgin had a po-werful influence on the spread of the Gospel in Greece and in Asia, is a fact which the habits and tastes of the Levantines would have rendered prob-^ - ble even were it not attested, before all the bishops of the East, by St. Cyril, at tlie first council of Ephesus, in a discourse which is still extant. " Hail, Mary, Mother of God !" said that holy and learned bishop ; " it is through you that, in the cities, the towns, and the Y r 11^; nr ^ijAcJ 1,4 ^^ ^^ ^1 insToiiY or THE devotion to tiik [chap, islamls, of tlioso who Imvo received the true faith, numeroua churehca have been founded 1"* Beyond the great sea, several tribes of Arabs were converted to Christianity, and greatly honoured Mary, the Sultana oflieaven, as they still call her. Seated in the shade of the date-trees or tama- rinds, which flourish best on the margin of brackish streams, and in- haling with delight the freshness which the night brings in those burning region8,f the story-tellers of the Christian t.'ibes, by the light of those etei-nal lamps of God which they suppose fastened by cliaiiis of gold to the vault of the flrmament,| related the principa"; facts in the life of the Blessed Virgin, colouring them with that mar- vellous tint so pleasing to the sons of Ishmael. They told, accord- ing to the Arab gospel of the holy childhood and the traditions of the desert, how the holy angels came to bring to the Virgin, in the temple where Zachary, her guardian, had placed her, delicious dates, amber grapes, figs sweeter than honey, and odorous flowers gathered in the celestial gardens where limpid streams and green trees abound ; for Paradise, in warm climates, is always composed of fresh watei-s and cool shades. And there, they recite, in their own peculiar style, the prodigies of the birth of Jesijs, which they still call (Mussul- men as they have since become) al milad — the hirth by excelkiice They placed the scoje in the desert, on the banks of a stream and at the foot of a withered palm-tree, which was suddenly covered witli leaves and fruit at the bidding of the angel Gabriel, whom God had sent to console Mary. These marvellous tales increasing their ven- eration for the Blessed Virgin, they believed, in time, that they might adore, in heaven, her whom angels had served on earth, and they offered lier, in fact, oblations of cakes made of flour and honey ; * S. Cyr. Alex. Oivr., v. v., \\ 2. f Whilst the sun is above t!ie horizon, ns the heat is excessive in their climate, th'' Arabs usually remain under their tents. They go out when .sunset draws near, and tlien enjoy the charnis of a lovelier sky and cooler air. The niglit is partly for tiieni what the day is for us. Hence tlieir ]>oets never extol the charms of a fine day ; but the words, " Leili ! leili ! O nij^ht ! O night 1" are repented in all their songs. (Sal«., note on the 7th rh. of tiie Koran.') \ The iirst sky is of pure silver ; it is from its beantifnl vault tliat the stars are sus- pended with strong chains of gold. {JSI'oran,thelcr;cn(l of Mtihomvt, by Savary, p. 15 ' m s?r> ^- 1^ «r^ m^mmm CUAV. II. J UM'MSEU VIKCIIN MAKV. 10 tj^A-S*^ ht'iioe their niinie c>f colhjridian-t, from the Greek word colhjn' (caki'). St. Epipluuuus warmly rebukes them for this worship, which excoeih^l the prescribed limits, exi)laiuiiig to tliem that oblation and sftcrifice are only to be ofl'ered to GoiL Ou the other hand, the idolatrous Arabs had placed the image of IMary in the Caaba, amongst the angels, whom they represented un- der the figure of young women, and called the daughters of God* INIary, whom they had made this sister of those pure spirits, came in for u share of the divine honoura paid to them. They sacrificed to her victims adorned with leaves and flowers ; they offered to hei the fii-st of their crops, together with the fii-st dates from their trees, and, in golden vases, the frothy milk of the sacred camels.f The image of the Blessed Virgin with the divine child in her arms re- mained in the temple of Mecca till the time of IMahomet, who had it removed with the genii and the angels. The holy name of Mary began to be invoked amongst the nations who dwell between the Caspian and the Euxine seas ; but the shrines of Judea and the scenes of the Redemption were, alas ! profaned by Greek and Syrian idols which were only overthrown under Constan- tine. The statue of Jupiter was sacrilegiously raised on the spot where the weeping Mary saw Jesus crucified, and it was to Adonis that sacrifice was offered in the cave of Bethlehem. * Geliuk'ddin, note on the ICtli ch. of tlio Koran. f Tlic idolatrous Arabs had several she-camels cousccrnted to the gods of the Caa- ba ; the cream of their mill; served to make libations. (Savary, in a note on tlie 5th ch. of the Koran.) The inhabitants of Mecca offered one portion of their fruits and of their tloeka to Qod, another to their idols. (Gcladcddin, note ou tho 6Ui ch. of the Koran.) ^T: ^^^ m^:. ^^^ v$tr V v 1 ) pM^ &\ 20 IUSTkUY ok the devotion to TIIK CHAPTER III. TRI WEBT.-THI OATAOOUIt. TiiK sncrcd vine of Cliristianity already flourished in Asia so as to extend its hrnnchcs over a multitude of nations ;* but it did not tako root so quickly in the West. Rome, thoroughly idolatrous — Rome, drunk with the blood of martyra, which she shed like water — Rome protected polytheism with all her power, and her power extended over an entire world ! In the cast, a mysterious sign, which made Satan tremble in the depth of the fiery abyss, announced that the king- dom of God was near ; but in Italy, and the regions beyond the Alps, Christianity was, as yet, in the condition of a secret society ; people wore received into its ranks with all manner of caution and even mystery ; its membei-s recognized each other by certain signs ; and, doubtless, the sign of the cross, the origin of which is unknown, avos one of those mysterious signs, which revealed an unknown Chnstian to ln« brethren scattered through the crowd. It was not that the Christians were so few in the regions of the West ; they were already sufT-ciently numerous to form armies ; but pei-secuted by idolatrous governors, tracked like wild beasts, and finding no protection in the Roman laws, which recognized only to punish them, they lived isolated as drops vpon the grass, as a dexo fir.ni the Lord, wJiich waiteth not for man, nor tarriethfor the children of men.} The first Latin churches were domestic chapels, and the ilrst altars, portable wooden chests like the Ark, having the same form and the same iron rings.| Those primitive churches of Rome, which were * We learn from Arnobus and Eusebius that the Gospel, durinpf the three first cen- turies, had spreac! ;'ar beyond the limits of the Roman empire, amongst the Persians, tlie I'arthians, the Scytliians, and many other natiqns whom they do not name. (Ariinb., Adv. Gentes, lib. ii. ch. 12. — Euseb., Dcmonst.Evang. 1. iii. ch. 5. T Micheas, ch. v., v. 7. X One of these altars, whereon St. Peter was tlionarht to have celebrated the divin. inysterits, and wliich Pope St. Sylvester inclosed under the liiijh altar of St. John ii Lateral!, was examined on the 29lh of ]\[areli, 1G58, under Alexander VII,, l)y the L'avalier IJaromiiii, in coLi;ert with the chief sacristan of the church ; it is four palms W /ir?^^?7r^ '~ii % } Sri i OIlAl'. IK.J IILI>HK1> VIIIUIX MAKY. 1?1 ill cxiHti'iu-o bi'foro the luii fil of St. Paul, woro oompoHod (ihiofly of (ii'«'(,'k8 and t'onvcrted Jowh; hut tin* Koinan people soon licardHpoak of that nuw law which »aid that all iin a art* brothrou, that th«'y ar»j all o