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(Hist. vii. 32). Within two centuries (431), in the general council held against Nestorius, it was made part of the formal dogmatic teaching of the church. At that time Theodoret, who from his party connections might have been supposed disinclined to its solemn recognition, owned that
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At the same date John of Antioch, who for a while sheltered Nestorius, whose heresy lay in the rejection of the term, said,
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This title no ecclesiastical teacher has put aside. Those who have used it are many and eminent, and those who have not used it have not attacked those who did. Alexander again, one of the fiercest partisans of Nestorius, allows the use of the word, though he considers it dangerous.
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That in festive solemnities, he says,
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If we look for those, in the interval between Origen and the council, to whom Alexander refers, we find it used again and again by the fathers in such of their works as are extant: by {71} Archelans of Mesopotamia, Eusebius of Palestine, Alexander of Egypt, in the third century; in the fourth, by Athanasius many times with emphasis, by Cyril of Palestine, Gregory Nyssen of Cappadocia, Gregory Nazianzen of Cappadocia, Antiochus of Syria, and Ammonius of Thrace; not to speak of the Emperor Julian, who, having no local or ecclesiastical domicile, speaks for the whole of Christendom. Another and earlier emperor, Constantine, in his speech before the assembled bishops at Nicaea, uses the still more explicit title of
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Our God was carried in the womb of Mary, says Ignatius, who was martyred A.D. 106.
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The word of God, says Hippolytus,
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The Maker of all, says Amphilochius,
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She did compass without circumscribing the Sun of justice--the Everlasting is born, says Chrysostom.
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God dwelt in the womb, says Proclus.
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When thou hearest that God speaks from the bush, asks Theodotus,
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Cassian says,
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Mary bore her Author.
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The one God only-begotten, says Hilary,
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The Everlasting, says Ambrose,
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The closed gate, says Jerome,
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That man from heaven, says Capriolus,
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He is made in thee, says Augustine,
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Mother of God had been formally set down as the safe limit of it. No wonder if it became stronger and stronger as time went on, since only in a long period could the fulness of its import be exhausted. And in matter of fact, and as might be anticipated (with the few exceptions which I have noted above, and which I am to treat of below), the current of thought in those early ages did uniformly tend to make much of the Blessed Virgin and to increase her honors, not to circumscribe them. Little jealousy was shown of her in those times; but, when any such niggardness of devotion occurred, then one father or other fell upon the offender, with zeal, not to say with fierceness. Thus St. Jerome inveighs against Helvidius; thus St. Epiphanius denounces Apollinaris, St. Cyril Nestorius, and St. Ambrose Bonosus; on the other hand, each successive insult offered to her by individual adversaries did but bring out more fully the intimate sacred affection with which Christendom regarded her.
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She was alone, and wrought the world's salvation and conceived the redemption of all, says Ambrose; [Footnote 16]
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The rod out of the stem of Jesse, says Jerome,
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The wise woman, says Nilus, who
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The mother of life, of beauty, of majesty, the morning star, according to Antiochus.
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The mystical new heavens,
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according to St. Ephrem.
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The manna which is delicate, bright, sweet, and virgin, {72} which, as though coming from heaven, has poured down on all the people of the churches a food pleasanter than honey,
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Essay on Doctr. Dev.,
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Run through all creation in your thought, he says,
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Hail, mother, clad in light, of the light which sets not, says Theodotus, or some one else at Ephesus--
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And St. Cyril too at Ephesus,
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Hail, Mary, Mother of God, majestic common-treasure of the whole world, the lamp unquenchable, the crown of virginity, the staff of orthodoxy, the indissoluble temple, the dwelling of the illimitable, mother and virgin, through whom he in the holy gospels is called blessed who cometh in the name of the Lord, .... through whom the Holy Trinity is sanctified, through whom angels and archangels rejoice, devils are put to flight, .... and the fallen creature is received up into the heavens, etc, etc.