THE DOCTRINE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 331 mystical body; and thus should we progressively mount upward to the spiritual contemplation of the divine essence."1" Particularly did that tendency of devotion which manifested itself in paying honors to the Virgin Mary, in whom men adored the mother of our Saviour, and the ideal of the virgin-life, rise continually to a higher pitch, and lead onward to wilder extravagances. For a long time, already, the opinion had gained currency that she ought to be excepted from the number of human beings under the taint of corruption; that by a special operation of grace she had been preserved immaculate from all sin. But now, many were led, on the same principle, to take still another step, and to maintain that the Virgin Mary came into the world wholly free from original sin. Therefore, many began already to set apart for this glorification of the Virgin Mary, a particular festival,- the festival of the Immaculate Conception. But voices of influence and authority protested against such an innovation, and the dogma lying at the bottom of it. Canonicals of the church at Lyons having introduced such a festival, Bernard of Clairvaux declared himself decidedly opposed to it." On the same principle," he wrote to them," you would be obliged to hold that the conception of her ancestors, in an ascending line, was also a holy one; since otherwise, she could not have descended from them after a worthy manner, and there would be festivals without number.3 But such a frequent celebration of festivals was appropriate only to our final home in heaven; it was unsuitable to a life, far from our true home, like this upon the earth. We ought not to attribute to Mary that which belongs to one Being alone, to him who can make all holy,- and being himself free from sin, purify others from it. Besides him, all who have descended from Adam must say of themselves that which one of them says in the name of all (Psalm 51: 5): 'In sin did my mother conceive me."" The controversy concerning the festival of the Immaculate Conception, and the dogma there with connected, spread also through England and Germany. It was the monks who contended for it; but there were monks also who combated it. Potho, a monk and priest in the monastery of Prüm in the province of Triers, who wrote, after the middle of the twelfth century, a work "On the condition of the house of God,"4 combated, among many other innovations introduced by monks, this festival as the most absurd of all.5 In evidence of the continued controversy on this subject, we have the letters relating to it which passed in the latter times of the twelfth century, between the abbot de la Celle, afterwards bishop of Chartres, and Nicholas, an English monk. The former maintained, as 1 Lib. ii, c. vi, § 4: Nisi, quicquid corporeum ipsius est, a memoria abfogetur, ad contemplandi animus fidem nullatenus sublevatur. Ad exercitationem fidei nostrae, a principali corpore ad mysticum Dominus noster nos voluit traducere, et exinde quasi quibusdam gradibus ad divinae subtilitatis intelligentiam erudire. 2 Ep. 173. 3 De avis et proavis id ipsum posset pro simili causa quilibet flagitare et sic tenderetur in infinitum et festorum non esset numerus. In the Bibl. patr. Lugd. t. xxi. Quod magis absurdum videtur, at the end of the third book. THE DOCTRINE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 332 Bernard had done, that Mary was born with the tinder, the inflammable material, of sin,-lust, warring against reason; but that she was preserved, through the power of grace, from all the excitements of temptation, till at length, after the birth of Christ, she attained to a perfect exemption from the same. He inveighed against the chimeras of the English.2 But the monk Nicholas looked upon that which the abbot de la Celle had said concerning the conflict which lasted in Mary until the conception, as a disparagement of her dignity, and felt himself bound to stand forth in its defence. Although he honored Bernard as a saint, yet he believed that even he, like other holy men, might err on such a single point. He appealed, in proof of this, to the legend concerning an appearance of Bernard after his death.3 Such visions, often susceptible of a very easy explanation, were, as it seems, at this period sometimes resorted to as a divine testimony to the truth and Humbert de Romanis, general of the Dominicans, in his work above cited, denounces those who, instead of adducing texts of Scripture and passages from the fathers, appealed to uncertain dreams and visions for the purpose of defending innovations, to whom he applied the saying of the prophet Hosea (chapter xiii).5 In like manner, Peter de la Celle declared, in this particular case: "I believe, respecting her, the gospel, and not dreams; and if I am in any way wrong, God will reveal this also, in the time and way he pleases."6 The monk Nicholas appealed, moreover, to the fact of a progressive development of the church, which may even introduce innovations for the necessities of devotion." But the abbot de la Celle maintained that any such new institution should proceed regularly from the church of Rome and a general council. He protested against the innovating caprice of individuals. This controversy was continued into the thirteenth century, and passed into the following periods. The antagonists of this extravagant veneration of Mary gained a very important voice on their side, when Thomas Aquinas stood forth as an opponent of that 4 Lib. vi, ep. 23: Quod saeva libidinis incentiva Deo praeoperante nunquam senserit vel ad modicum. Caetera vero impedimenta humanae fragilitatis, quae naturali origine de natura procedunt, ante divinam conceptionem sentire potuit, sed nullatenus consensit. Praeveniente siquidem gratia fomes peccati anhelando supremum spiritum duxit, until this fomes was wholly destroyed through the operation of the Holy Spirit at the conception. * Nec indignetur Anglia levitas, si ea solidior sit Gallica maturitas. Certe expertus sum, somniatores plus esse Anglicos quam Gallos. 3 See his letter, 1. ix, ep. 9: In Claravallensi collegio quidam conversus bene religiosus in visu noctis vidit Abbatem Bernardum niveis indutum vestibus quasi ad mamillam pectoris furvam habere maculam. And when he was asked, why?-he replied: Quia de Dominae nostrae conceptione scripsi non scribenda, signum purgationis meae maculam in pectore porto. The vision was committed to writing, and the document laid before the chapter-general, but it was burnt, maluitque Abbatum universitas virginis periclitari gloriam S. Bernardi opinione. De eruditione praedicatorum, lib. ii, in the section concerning councils. Alii sunt, qui innitentes quibusdam visionibus et somniis incertis intendunt propter illa aliquid ordinare, cum tamen sensus et intentio sanctorum ac tantorum virorum sint hujusmodi phantasiis omnino praeponenda. Lib. ix, ep. 10: Evangelio non somniis de illa credo, et si aliter sapio, et hoc ipsum revelabit Deus, quando voluerit et quomodo voluerit. 7 Nonne eodem spiritu potantur moderni, quo et antiqui? Non erat ab initio nativitas virginis in ecclesia solennis, sed crescente fidelium devotione addita est praeclaris ecclesiae solennitatibus. Quare igitur non similiter et diem conceptionis obtineat sedulitas Christianae devotionis? FESTIVAL OF THE TRINITY. 333 opinion, offering as an argument against it, that the honor due to Christ alone, would thereby suffer injury; inasmuch as he must be acknowledged to be the Saviour of all men; whom all needed, in order to be freed from original sin. As he saw very clearly that nothing could be adduced from Holy Scripture concerning the conception and birth of Mary, he was of the opinion that no decision was to be arrived at here except on grounds of reason and analogy. From these then it might be argued that since on Mary, as the mother of Christ, was conferred greater favor than on any other human being, and since a Jeremiah, a John the Baptist, enjoyed the peculiar privilege of being sanctified from the womb, a like privilege must be attributed also to her. Hence, it might be, that although original sin existed in her, as a nature,2 yet, through the grace imparted to her before her birth, and through the divine providence which accompanied her afterwards through her entire life, this inherited nature was so restrained, that no motion contrary to reason could proceed therefrom. Thus might that, which was potentially present in her, be, notwithstanding, always restrained from any actual putting forth, and thereupon, after the conception of Christ, might follow a perfect exemption, in her case, from all original sin, even in its potential being; which exemption was transferred to her from her Son, as the universal Redeemer. This cautious reserve of the considerate Thomas Aquinas, a man who was in the habit of relying more on the declarations of Scripture than on human conjectures, was a quality of which Raymund Lull, with his bold flights of fancy and speculation, was altogether incapable. Among the necessary prerequisites, in order to Mary's becoming the organ for the incarnation of the Son of God, he reckoned this, that she should be exempt not only from all actual, but also from all original sin: for God and sin could not come together in the same subject. The Holy Spirit had so wrought within her to prepare the way by her sanctification for the incarnation of the Son of God, as the sun by the dawn prepares the way for the day.5 As the festival of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin grew out of that peculiar turn of devotion that originated in the monasteries, the same was the case likewise with another festival, which afterwards came to be very generally observed. It may easily be conceived that the mystical, contemplative bent of the monkish spirit, would first lead to the creation of a festival distinguished from other Christian festivals by the absence of all reference to historical facts; and such was that of the Trinity. Yet if there was something in the Christian consciousness that resisted the introduction of a festival of the Immaculate 1 Hoc derogaret dignitati Christi, secundum quam est universalis omnium Salva tor. * The fomes peccati. 3 Credendum est, quod ex prole redundaverit in matrem totaliter fomite subtracto. Nisi beata virgo fuisset disposita, quod filius Dei de ipsa assumeret carnem, scilicet quod non esset corrupta nec in aliquo pec cato sive actuali sive originali, filius Dei non potuisset ab ipsa assumere carnem, cum Deus et peccatum non possunt concordari in aliquo subjecto. Sic praeparavit viam incarnationis per sanctificationem, sicut sol diem per auroram. In lib. ii, sent. Quaest. 96, t. iv, opp., f. 84. 6 The monk Potho of Pram, near the end 334 THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS. Conception of Mary, there was, on the other hand, an appropriateness in a festival of the Trinity, constituting, as it were, a sort of terminus to the entire cycle of festivals in the year, which would recommend it to general acceptance, and gradually overcome the objections which might be raised on the ground of innovation. For it corresponded with the relation of the doctrine of the Trinity to the sum total of Christian consciousness, that, as this doctrine has for its presupposition the full development of all that is contained in this consciousness, and the Christian consciousness of God arrives, therein, at a statement that exhausts the whole subject-matter; so a festival having reference to this doctrine would form the terminus of the cycle of festivals, commencing with Christ's nativity; and if this festival grew, in the first place, out of the significance which the doctrine of the Trinity had gained for the speculative and mystical theology of these times, yet this solemnity obtained a position, in the entire cycle of church festivals, which was calculated to direct attention to the original and essential significance of this doctrine. As the customs and amusements usually connected with the pagan festivals of December and January had, in spite of every attempt to suppress them, still continued to be observed among Christians, both in the East and the West,' and had attached themselves to the celebration of the Christian festivals in these months- as, for example, to the festival of Christ's circumcision, which was directly opposed to the pagan celebration of January,2-so, in many districts, these customs gradually led to the practice of sportively travestying the offices and rites of the church,-a natural accompaniment of sensuous devotion,as in the festum fatuorum, follorum, hypodiaconorum; abuses which, notwithstanding the various ordinances made in order to suppress them, continued afterwards to spread even more widely.3 We have, in the preceding periods, seen how it came to pass that the idea of the sacraments, understood at first so indefinitely as holy symbols, came to be restricted to a certain series of ecclesiastical transactions; and the practice of the church had already given sanction to the hypothesis, that these sacraments were all comprised under the sacred number seven. It only remained that various other holy signs, to which it had also been customary to apply the name of sacraments,+ should be excluded, and the number seven more distinctly fixed. This was done in the present period, when the idea of the sacrament came to be more exactly and sharply defined by scientific theology. In the instructions given, by bishop Otto of Bamberg, to persons newly bap of the third book of his work De statu domus Dei, mentions the introducing of this festival also among the repentinis novitatibus in ecclesiasticis officiis, which innovations he traces to the juvenilis levitas, by which the vita monastica had allowed itself to be vitiated. 1 Forbidden by the sixty-second canon of the second Trullan council, A. D. 691, directed against maskings and comical processions : Μηδένα άνδρα γυναικείαν στολὴν ἐνδιδύσκεσθαι ἢ γυναῖκα τοῖς ἀν 3 Whoever would like to know more on this subject, may consult Gieseler's Manual of Church History, vol. ii, sect. ii, p. 436, and ff. 2d ed. 4 Thus we find the number twelve mentioned by Damiani. See vol. iii, p. 449. TRANSUBSTANTIATION MORE CLEARLY DEFINED. - 335 tized, in the year 1124,1 the determinate number of seven sacraments is mentioned for the first time. He wished to leave behind him, he said, for the new converts, from whom he was about to separate, these seven sacraments as the pledge, given by our Lord, of his fellowship with the church, in order that, amid the labors and conflicts of the present life, they might not faint and be discouraged.2 The scientific theology of this century now sought to prove the internal necessity of this determinate number of the sacraments. It was customary to ascribe to them a twofold efficiency, one positive, to prepare men for the whole duty of the Christian worship of God; the other negative, to meet and oppose the reactions of sin. At bottom lay the Christian idea, that the present earthly life should, in all its relations, be consecrated and sanctified by religion; and that the spiritual, in like manner with the bodily life, should have its own proper stages of development.3 The peculiar form of the religious spirit, in these times, craved however, for everything, some medium of sensuous representation; and this was not to be a mere symbol, but must be objectively manifested, as the actual bearer of divine powers. Thus, in the first place, the birth to a spiritual life is represented by baptism; next, growth to maturity, by confirmation; finally, nutriment, in order to the preservation of the life and strength, by the Lord's supper. This would suffice, were not man subject, in his bodily and spiritual life, to manifold defects and disturbances. Diseases require their appropriate remedies. Answering to the recovery of health, is penance; to the promotion of reconvalescence, by means of appropriate diet and exercise, the extreme unction. Furthermore, as man belongs, both in a physical and spiritual sense, to some society; so the efficiency of the sacraments must extend, also, to this relation thus ordination and marriage obtain their appropriate place. We have seen how the consciousness of a real communion with Christ in the Lord's supper assumed, in the all-absorbing supernaturalist element of this age, the form of a doctrine of transubstantiation; and how this notion, so firmly established in the whole mode of intuition peculiar to these centuries, could not fail to obtain the victory for it, over the modes of apprehension belonging to other habits and bents of mind. Accordingly, this doctrine was definitively settled for the church, at the Lateran council, in 1215.4 The doctrine of transubstantiation being definitively settled, it must be followed by the determination that, after the miracle produced by the consecration, the "accidents" of bread and wine, without the subject, still remained; and a determination of this sort, though involving a contradiction in language, was still the best suited, at this particular point of view, to avoid such expressions of a gross and fleshly materialism as we saw employed by the zealots opposed to Berengar, as well as the fantastical, Docetic notion, See section i, p. 8. 2 Septem sacramenta ecclesiae, quasi septem significativa dona Spiritus sancti, quibus intendendo in laboribus et certamine hujus vitae non deficere. Canisii lect. antiq., ed. Basnage, t. iii, p. ii, f. 62. To be sure, the chronological date of the first mention of this number seven is uncertain; as we cannot vouch for the accuracy of the report. 3 See, for example, the unfolding of this view by Thomas Aquinas. 4 Transsubstantiatur panis in corpus Christi potestate divina. |