Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

NOTE 1. Whereas the Virgin Mother of God, by the surpassing integrity and holiness of her life, crushed not only the head but also the body of the serpent: hence that most ancient serpent employed all the arts of death he could, either to prohibit or to destroy the due cult and veneration to be rendered to her. For besides the fact that at times there have arisen heretics — and especially certain women, as St. Epiphanius relates in his heresies 78 and 79 — who venerated the Virgin Mother of God as if she were some divinity, and offered libations and sacrifices to her; there have been various heretics in almost every century who were enemies and assailers of Marian cult. For since of the most blessed Virgin the Church rightly sings: You alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world, no one ought wonder if all the heresies that arise cease not to rage and do battle against her glory. For, to pass over others, the Lutherans and Calvinists have burned with the most bitter hatred against the cultivators of the cult of the Blessed Virgin.

Hence Luther in his Postilla on the Nativity and Annunciation of Mary writes, no less mendaciously than impudently: The Papists have made Mary a Goddess, and have recourse to her more than to Christ, and ask and expect more from her. Melanchthon in his Apology of the Confession says that it is cried out among the Papists that Mary has succeeded in the place of Christ, because they place more confidence in her than in Christ, and pray more to her than to Christ, as if Christ were only Judge and not Propitiator. Calvin in his Harmony, chapter 2 of John, says: We have adorned Mary with the spoils of Christ, and do not think her sufficiently honored unless she be made a Goddess.

NOTE 2. That the intercession of the Blessed Virgin is far more excellent and efficacious than any intercession of the Saints, and this for a manifold cause. First indeed, because she is the Mother of God, and therefore her petition before God is most efficacious: whence the Seraphic Doctor Bonaventure, in The Mirror of the Blessed Virgin Mary, chapter 8, says no less devoutly than splendidly: Because the Lord most powerful is with you, therefore you too are most powerful with him; you are most powerful through him, most powerful before him: so that she can truly say that word of Ecclesiasticus 21: My power is in Jerusalem. And in chapter 5 he says that it is an abyss calling upon an abyss when the Mother of God calls upon her Son for us: and he reports there that Augustine spoke of her thus: As you are more powerful with God, so are you more solicitous than all the Saints for us. Second, because she is holier than all the other Saints, not only men but also Angels, as St. Ephrem teaches in his Praises of the Virgin, writing: Holier than the Cherubim, holier than the Seraphim, and without any comparison more glorious than all the rest of the supernal hosts. Whence Peter Damian in his sermon On the Annunciation says: Consider the Seraphim, and soar above the dignity of that higher nature; behold and see that whatever is greater is less than the Virgin, and that only the Maker surpasses this work. Third, because although she prays to God through Christ, just as the other Saints do, nevertheless it is not improbable that other Saints also pray to Christ through the mediation of the Blessed Virgin herself: whence St. Bernard in his sermon On the Nativity of Mary says: If you would have recourse to the Father, he gave you a Mediator, namely Christ: but perhaps even in him you fear to approach the divine Majesty, and wish to have an advocate with him? Have recourse to Mary, etc. Many other reasons could be directed toward establishing the same truth, whereby it may be found that the most blessed Virgin is deservedly and by right celebrated by the faithful with a special devotion, inasmuch as she has with God a far more excellent affinity than the rest of the Saints.

NOTE 3. Since most of the holy Fathers write that the Blessed Virgin is omnipotent with God, a mediatrix, the restorer of the human race, and things of this kind; these are to be taken according to the sense of accommodation, so that she is called omnipotent in a qualified sense, or by a certain divine assistance, whereby a creature can indeed accomplish something on account of a special assistance and concurrence of God operating and producing those things which are asked and implored from that creature: which manner of omnipotence some of the holy Fathers attribute to the Blessed Virgin; especially St. Anselm, book On the Praises of the Virgin, chapter 12: God so exalted you, that he endowed you with all things possible with himself. And further below, praying to the Blessed Virgin: You will it, he says, and in no way can it fail to come to pass. Peter Damian, sermon 2 On the Nativity of Mary: He who is mighty has done great things for you, and there has been given to you all power in heaven and in earth, and nothing is impossible to you, to whom it is possible to raise up even the desperate unto the hope of beatitude; for how could any power oppress you? etc. And immediately after: For you depart to that golden altar of reconciliation, not only asking, but even commanding. A Lady, not a handmaid. By a similar reasoning she is called mediatrix and restorer of the human race: not indeed immediately, but mediately through Christ the Lord, because indeed by his benefit we have had this most mighty Mediator and Redeemer.

NOTE 4. In the year 375⟦?⟧ there arose in Arabia the heresy of the Collyridians, who worshipped the Virgin Mother of God as God, and offered in her name a cake of bread by the hands of women. For to that sex that sect entrusted the duties of the priesthood: nay rather, women were accustomed to constitute this sect. St. Epiphanius refutes it in heresy 78, showing first that no woman, from the time the world was founded, has been anointed to the priesthood: which when he had proved from the Old Testament, he adds this from the New: If the priesthood were commanded to women, or if it were permitted them to perform some ceremonial office in the Church, to none rather than to Mary ought the office of priest to have been committed in the New Testament: she to whom such honor was given, that with her lap and bosom she received the King of all⟦?⟧ and the heavenly God, and the Son of God. Whose eternal temple and dwelling, as it were, was prepared by the singular benignity of God for the incarnation of the divine Word, assuredly by a great and stupendous mystery. The third thing was deemed far more useful to God: nor was the power even of baptizing granted to her: since otherwise Christ might rather have been baptized by her than by John. He then shows that the Blessed Virgin is not to be adored: Holy was the body of Mary, he says, I confess; yet she was not God. She was both virgin and goddess-like; yet by no means set forth to us for adoration, but piously adoring him who, born of her own flesh, had descended from heaven and from the paternal bosom. This the holy Gospel also wished to warn us of, in which Christ speaks thus: What is it to me and to you, woman? my hour is not yet come. He called her woman for this reason, lest anyone believe the Blessed Virgin to be of some more excellent nature. And further below: Although she be a certain chosen and surpassing being⟦?⟧, nevertheless she is a woman, and of the same nature as the rest: although she has been honored in mind and feeling with the amplest honors: even as the bodies of the rest of the saints, or whatever they brought that was more illustrious unto glory and splendor. He adds below: She was granted to the prayers of Joachim and Anna, yet so that she had no other condition of being born than the rest of mortals, but that she came forth from the common seed and from the womb of her mother. Finally he establishes this rule of religious cult: Let one Mary be honored⟦?⟧: but let the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be adored: let no one wish to adore Mary. And below: Let Mary be in honor, let the Lord be adored. By which words of St. Epiphanius the religious cult of the Virgin Mother of God is affirmed, and superstition condemned. The honor of Mary loves judgment. Wherefore she is never to be compared with God, nor celebrated together with Christ in praise, nor are those things to be attributed to her which belong to God alone or to the God-Man. Thus must the Mother of the Lord be honored, says St. Bernard; he admonishes well:

but the honor of the Queen loves judgment. The royal Virgin needs not a tawny⟦?⟧ honor, heaped up with titles of gold⟦?⟧ and dignified with mitres. Honor indeed the integrity of her flesh, the sanctity⟦?⟧ of her life, the wondrous⟦?⟧ fruitfulness in the Virgin; reverence her divine offspring. Extol her ignorant of concupiscence in conceiving and of pain in bringing forth... Magnify her, the finder of grace, the mediatrix of salvation, the restorer of the ages. Rejoice finally in her exaltation above the choirs of Angels unto the celestial realms. This the Church sings to me of her, and taught me to chant the same.

These things having been premised, two remain to be determined: First, that the Virgin Mother of God is to be venerated with a cult far more noble than all the other Saints: Second, that her intercession with God is far more potent and efficacious than that of the other Saints; which two things we shall weigh in one single Conclusion by the authority of the holy Fathers.

Last Conclusion. — THE MOST BLESSED VIRGIN IS TO BE HONORED WITH THE CULT OF HYPERDULIA, AND TO BE INVOKED BEFORE ALL OTHER SAINTS.

Proof of the first part: the adoration and cult of hyperdulia is that which is rendered to a rational creature on account of its preeminent dignity and sanctity, inferior indeed to the divine, but raised above the sanctity of the other creatures: but such is the dignity and sanctity of the most blessed Virgin: for, says St. Anselm, On the Praises of Mary, chapter 9: For the pure holiness and most holy purity of her most pious heart, transcending with incomparable sublimity all the purity or holiness of every creature, merited this, that she should most benignly become the Restorer of those more lost. — The same is had from Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, in his Epistle to John, Bishop of Synada, which was approved in the seventh Council, act 1, where among other things he writes: her we venerate and magnify as properly and truly the Mother of the true God, and we judge her superior to the whole visible and invisible creation. — Similar things were written by Theodore, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in his Synodal Epistle, which the same seventh Council approved in act 3. For in that Epistle he says: She who is the true⟦?⟧ Mother of God, and remained a Virgin as much before as after childbirth; and has been made in glory and splendor more excellent than every nature both intelligible and sensible. — Hence Basil of Seleucia, Orat. 33, says: If Paul said of other Saints that the world was not worthy of them, what shall we say of the Mother of God, who shines so much more splendidly than the Martyrs, as the Sun surpasses all the stars in brightness? Wherefore deservedly in the Collectanea of Anastasius the Librarian, p. 73, we read this profession: Whoever honors not, and adores not, the blessed one above every creature and above human nature — except him who was born of her — ever a Virgin, namely the Mother of our Lord, let him be anathema.

The second part is also proved; namely, that the holy Fathers vie with one another in proclaiming that the Virgin Mother of God is not only to be venerated before all the other Saints, but also to be invoked and entreated, since they call her the Mother of mercy, the hope and consolation of the wretched and afflicted, and likewise the restorer of salvation, the most powerful mediatrix with God. Thus before all others Basil of Seleucia, in his Oration on the Annunciation: Hail full of grace, he says, mediatrix between God and men, that the wall of enmity may be torn down, and earthly things joined to heavenly. — The same writes Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, in his Sermon on the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin, where among other things he says: No one filled with the knowledge of God except through you, O most holy one: no one saved except through you, O Mother of God: no one delivered from dangers except through you, beloved⟦?⟧ Mother of God. Then he subjoins: Since you obtain maternal favor with God, you procure pardon beyond measure for those who sin beyond measure. Nor can it be that you are not heard, since toward you God obeys in all things, and through all things, and in all things, as to his true and immaculate Mother. Whence the afflicted rightly flees to you for refuge; the weak clings to you; he who is assailed by war opposes you to his enemies. Your moving of indignation, wrath, and affliction, the sending forth of many Angels: you turn away just threatening and the sentence of due condemnation, greatly loving that people who are called by the name of your Son. — To these Arnold of Chartres gives most excellent assent, On the Praises of the Virgin, where among other passages, in which he treats especially of the mediation of the Virgin and her most powerful intercession, he has this: Mother and Son exchange before the Father among themselves the offices of piety, and fortify with wondrous pleas the business of man's redemption: and establish between themselves an inviolable testament of our reconciliation. Mary immolates herself to Christ in spirit, and beseeches for the salvation of the world; the Son obtains it, the Father grants it.

Hence St. Augustine, Sermon 18 On the Saints, which is On the Annunciation, which some attribute to St. Fulgentius, thus invokes the Virgin Mother of God:

Receive our prayers within the sanctuary of your hearing, and carry back to us the antidote of reconciliation. May that be excusable through you which we press upon you through you: may that become obtainable which we ask with faithful mind. Accept what we offer: restore again what we ask: because you are the only hope of sinners. Through you we hope for pardon of offenses, and in you, most blessed one, is our expectation of rewards.

To all these the Seraphic Doctor will add a splendid crown in his Mirror of the Blessed Virgin Mary; especially in lesson 5, where among other things he has this:

Who can measure the immensity of Mary? Behold what is said in Ecclesiasticus: The height of heaven, the breadth of the earth, and the depth of the abyss, who has measured them? Heaven is Mary, both because she abounded in celestial purity, celestial clarity, and other celestial virtues; and because she was the most lofty seat of God, as the Prophet testifies, who says: The Lord has prepared his seat in heaven. Earth also was Mary, by which she brought forth for us that fruit, of which the same Prophet says: The earth has yielded her fruits. Mary is also an abyss in her most profound goodness and mercy. Whence also, while she intercedes with her Son for us his most profound mercy, she calls as it were abyss upon abyss. Therefore heaven is Mary, earth is Mary, the abyss is Mary. Who has measured the height of this heaven, who the breadth of this earth, who the depth of this abyss; who, I say, has measured the immensity of Mary, except that One alone who wrought her, not only in grace and in glory, but also in mercy, so lofty, so holy, so profound? Whence Blessed Bernard speaks especially of her mercy: Who can investigate the length, and breadth, and height, and depth of your mercy, O blessed one? For its length assists all who invoke her even unto the last day: its breadth fills the whole world, that all the earth may be full even of her mercy: but its sublimity found the restoration of the supernal city; and its depth obtained redemption for those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death.

And further below, when he had said that the grace of the Blessed Virgin was most useful to herself, because it was delightful to her in mind, miraculous in her Son, glorious in her kingdom: delightful in her spiritual soul, miraculous in her virginal offspring, glorious in her eternal⟦?⟧ diadem; he adds:

but certainly, most dear ones, the grace of Mary was not only most useful to herself, but also to us; nay rather, to the whole human race: for the grace of Mary gathers the wicked, fattens the good, liberates all: gathers from fault, fattens with grace, liberates from eternal death. I say therefore, that the grace of Mary gathers unto mercy, gathers the wicked unto the Church... O truly great is the grace of Mary! whereby many of those > are gathered unto mercy who are left by Doctors and Rectors as incorrigible; and therefore Blessed Bernard says well: Mary, you embrace with maternal affection the sinner despised by the whole world, you cherish him, nor do you forsake him, until you reconcile the wretch to the dreadful Judge.... By the suffrage of the grace of Mary (the good) are fattened with the unctions of grace; they are fattened, I say, with the fatness of the Holy Spirit, whereby even he desired to be fattened who said: Let my soul be filled as with marrow and fatness. O who could estimate how many souls, by the help of the grace of Mary, have been fattened through grace; nay certainly who could estimate how great was the fattening of graces in Mary herself, by whose grace so many thousands of souls have been fattened? Likewise the grace of Mary liberates from eternal death all who are liberated... Whence Anselm says: What, he says, shall I worthily render back to the Mother of God and of my Lord? Through whose fruitfulness I, a captive, was redeemed; through whose childbearing I was exempted from eternal death; through whose offspring, though lost, I was restored, and from the exile of misery led back to the fatherland of eternal beatitude? O then, Mother of grace, make us sons of grace: grant that through your most true grace we may be gathered unto the pardon of remission, be fattened through the grace of devotion, and be liberated from the death of damnation. Through our Lord, etc.