nations with an iron rod; and her son was taken up to God and to His throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness." Dr. Newman has lately, and in a controversial work, interpreted the latter part of this text of the Blessed Virgin. We have pleasure in quoting his authority, and, in order not to miss any part of its force, we give the passage entire :

:

I do not deny, of course, that, under the image of the Woman, the Church is signified; but what I would maintain is this, that the Holy Apostle would not have spoken of the Church under this particular image, unless there had existed a Blessed Virgin Mary, who was exalted on high, and the object of veneration to all the faithful.

No one doubts that the "man-child" spoken of is an allusion to our Lord: why then is not "the Woman" an allusion to His Mother? This surely is the obvious sense of the words; of course it [sic] has a further sense also, which is the scope of the image; doubtless the child represents the children of the Church. This, I grant, is the real or direct sense [may not both images be intermixed, so that in some parts the direct sense shall refer to Jesus and Mary, and in others to the Church and the faithful? Such double references are common in the prophecies concerning our Lord, e.g., 2 Kings vii. 14]; but what is the sense of the symbol? Who are the woman and the child? I answer, They are not personifications, but persons. This is true of the child, therefore it is true of the woman.

But again not only mother and child, but a serpent is introduced into the vision. Such a meeting of man, woman, and serpent has not been found in Scripture, since the beginning of Scripture, and now it is found in its end. Moreover, in the passage in the Apocalypse, as if to supply before Scripture came to an end what was wanting in its beginning, we are told, and for the first time, that the serpent in Paradise was the evil spirit. If the dragon of S. John is the same as the serpent of Moses, and the man-child is "the seed of the woman," why is not the woman herself she, whose seed the manchild is? And, if the first woman is not an allegory, why is the second? If the first woman is Eve, why is not the second Mary?

But this is not all. The image of the woman, according to Scripture usage, is too bold and prominent for a mere personification. Scripture is not fond of allegories. We have, indeed, frequent figures there, as when the sacred writers speak of the arm or sword of the Lord; and so too when they speak of Jerusalem and Samaria in the feminine; or of the mountains leaping for joy, or of the Church as a bride or as a vine; but they are not much given to dressing up abstract ideas or generalizations in personal attributes. This is the classical rather than the Scriptural style. Xenophon places Hercules between Virtue and Vice, represented as women; Eschylus introduces into his drama Force and Violence; Virgil gives personality to public rumour or Fame, and Plautus to Poverty. So on monuments done in the classical style, we see virtues, vices, rivers, renown, death, and the like turned into human figures of men and women. I do not say there are no instances at all of this method in Scripture, but I say that such poetical compositions are strikingly unlike its usual method. Thus we at once feel

its difference from Scripture, when we betake ourselves to the Pastor of Hermes, and find the Church a woman; to S. Methodius, and find Virtue a woman; and to S. Gregory's poem, and find Virginity again a woman. Scripture deals with types rather than personifications. Israel stands for the chosen people, David for Christ, Jerusalem for heaven. Consider the remarkable representations, dramatic I may call them, in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea; predictions, threatenings, and promises, are acted out by those prophets. Ezekiel is commanded to shave his head, and to divide and scatter his hair; and Ahias tears his garment, and gives ten out of twelve parts of it to Jeroboam. So, too, the structure of the imagery in the Apocalypse is not a mere allegorical creation, but is founded on the Jewish ritual. In like manner, our Lord's bodily cures are visible types of the power of His grace upon the soul; and His prophecy of the last day is conveyed under that of the fall of Jerusalem. Even His parables are not simply ideal, but relations of occurrences, which did or might take place, under which was conveyed a spiritual meaning. The description of Wisdom in the Proverbs, and other sacred books, has brought out the instinct of commentators in this respect. They felt that Wisdom could not be a mere personification, and they determined that it was our Lord; and the later of these books, by their own definite language, warranted that interpretation. Then, when it was found that the Arians used it in derogation of our Lord's divinity, still, unable to tolerate the notion of a mere allegory, commentators applied the description to the Blessed Virgin. Coming back then to the Apocalyptic vision, I ask, If the woman must be some real person, who can it be whom the Apostle saw, and intends, and delineates, but that same Great Mother to whom the chapters in the Proverbs are accommodated? And let it be observed, moreover, that in this passage, from the allusion in it to the history of the fall, she may be said still to be represented under the character of the Second Eve. I make a further remark: it is sometimes asked, Why do not the sacred writers mention cur Lady's greatness? I answer, she was, or may have been alive, when the Apostles and Evangelists wrote;-there was just one book of Scripture certainly written after her death, and that book does (if I may so speak) canonize her.*

Dr. Newman, however, was not the first to see Mary in "the woman clothed with the sun." S. Epiphanius had already interpreted the passage in the same way; and our readers have seen the passage of Cyril Lucar to the same purpose. They will also have already seen from S. Thomas, S. Bernard, and S. John of Damascus, that the true "ark of the covenant" is no other than the Virgin Mother's body, which bore the Lord of all. Now, the obvious sense of the text is certainly that S. John had a vision of heaven, in which he saw Jesus and His

A Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on his recent Eirenicon, p. 62, fol. Compare Essay on Doctrinal Development, p. 384; and Dr. Ullathorne on the Immaculate Conception, p. 77, referred to in the Letter.

Mother in the flesh. It would, indeed, be possible, and even easy, to interpret the passage otherwise, were it not to be taken in connection with the great argument sketched above, as the result, not of one text of Scripture, but of scores. There is consequently not only no reason for rejecting the obvious interpretation, but a most strong reason for accepting it, nay even for insisting upon it. We claim therefore to find Our Lady's bodily exaltation in Scripture, and in no obscure manner. And in doing so we are only following the traditional interpretation of all passages which refer to the first argument, and if the patristic authority for the interpretation which we have given of the Apocalypse is small, neither is the reason far to seek. The number of patristic comments on that book is by no means large, and, moreover, the genius of the book, prophetical and full of imagery as it is, is such that a considerable theological development of doctrine is necessary as a preparation to its interpretation. And, even at this day, the greater part of the vision is still a sealed book, whose contents are only to be guessed at from its title and surroundings.

There is another Scripture doctrine which also points to an anticipated resurrection of the Mother of God. The resurrection of the just is an imitation of the resurrection of Jesus, and stands to it in the relation of effect to cause (1 Cor. xv. per totum; 1 Thess. iv.). The bodies of men rise at the last day by virtue of their union with the body of Christ (John vi. 55-59). "Who eats my flesh and drinks my blood, has life eternal and I will raise him up at the last day. . . . Who eats me shall live on account of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate manna and died. Who eats this bread shall live for ever." Now, as between the flesh of Jesus and of Mary, there existed not a union but a unity. The maternal relation constituted an association altogether singular and special. There should therefore be something in the resurrection of the Blessed Virgin to correspond to the special nature of her union with Jesus. What that something really is we have ample means of judging from all that has been said up to this point. The resurrection of Mary was the same in kind as that of all the just. It differed from theirs by two circumstances, the one connected with the Immaculate Conception, the other with the Divine Maternity. Mary's resurrection was without the antecedent corruption of her body, because she was free from the original stain; and was without delay, because of the union with her risen Son peculiar to herself alone.

We have now arrived at the term of our investigation into

the ecclesiastical records, inspired and uninspired. The inquiry has taught us that the doctrine of the corporal Assumption is contained both expressly and by implication in both rules of faith. That doctrine is therefore remotely definable. Is it also proximately capable of definition? Has the Church put the seal of her sanction on our reasonings from Holy Scripture and tradition? This is the last stage of our journey, and not a long

one.

V. If we place ourselves in the year preceding the definition of the Immaculate Conception, we find the Schola unanimous in putting the integral Assumption and Immaculate Conception in the same grade of certainty.* The Assumption was even more certain extrinsically than the Immaculate Conception. For it was doubted by none, and the Immaculate Conception was inferred from it as from a truth universally recognized. Arguing from effect to cause, theologians proved demonstratively that, since Mary had conquered death, she must also have been free from the sin "by which death came into the world." But not only the theologians reasoned thus; the Church herself connected as mutually dependent Our Lady's death with her Conception. In condemning the proposition, that the Blessed Virgin's death was a punishment of Adam's sin, she affirmed indirectly that Mary's death was unlike that of the rest of mankind; that is, she affirmed indirectly that the second Eve was not included in the sentence- "dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return,"-but was partner with her Son in his victory over him who had the empire (Kparos) of death, that is to say, the devil." The Church has therefore officially endorsed and given an extrinsic value to those theological reasonings which have resulted in finding the Assumption revealed in the Protevangelium.

Again: let us take the converse of what we have just said. We have just seen that the Church prepared the way for the definition of the Immaculate Conception by a declaration that

*Cf. S. Thom., Sum. Theol. III. 27, 1. c. ; Dom. Soto, in 4 Sent. Dist. XLIII. q. 2, a. 1; Suarez, 1. c.; Gotti, de Verit. Relig. XLI., sect. 2; et TT. passim.

"Nemo, præter Christum, est absque peccato originali: hinc Beata Virgo mortua est propter peccatum ex Adamo contractum, omnesque ejus afflictiones in hac vita, sicut et aliorum justorum, fuerunt ultiones peccati actualis vel originalis."-Prop. 73, inter Baianas. (Denzinger, Enchir., ed. 4, n. 953.) It is to be observed that three propositions are here directly condemned. 1. No one, save Christ, is without original sin. 2. Hence the Blessed Virgin died on account of sin contracted from Adam. 3. Hence all her afflictions in this life, as also those of the rest of the just, were punish. ments of sin actual or original.

Mary's death was not caused by sin. If we turn now to the Immaculate Conception, we shall see that the definition of that dogma opens a short and easy path to a definition of the Assumption. The argument is simple and decisive. We will put it in as few words as possible. It is certain de fide Catholica, that the Blessed Virgin has been, by a special grace of God, preserved from all taint of original sin.* It is also certain de fide Catholica, that death, with the subsequent dissolution of the body, is a consequence and punishment of original sin.† Therefore it is certain, and certain de fide, that the Blessed Mary was not subject to death in the way in which that penalty has fallen on the rest of mankind. It will be said, perhaps, that if this argument proves anything, it proves too much; for if death is an effect of sin, and Mary was free from sin, how comes it that she did not escape death?

We cannot here inquire into the reasons from the economy of the Incarnation, which explains the fitness of Our Lady's death, and its place in the mystery of Redemption. It must, for the present, suffice to explain that death has two aspects. It is both a condition of human nature and a punishment of Adam's sin. In the order of Providence preceding the fall, the preternatural gift of immortality of the body was granted to the human race. But in the order of Redemption, to which the Blessed Virgin belongs, that privilege has not been accorded. Hence, although Mary was, by the perfection of her Redemption, exempt from the purely penal part of death, the corruption of the tomb, and delayed resurrection, yet was she, as her Divine Son also, none the less liable to the natural decay of the human organization, and finally to the separation of soul and body. And here is the force of the argument. Mary is certainly dead; she is as certainly not under the power of death, because she was perfectly redeemed; that is, she was preserved from sin and all its penal consequences, one of which is the delay of resurrection, until the end of the world. She is therefore certainly risen; and if it is asked, Whither has she ascended? the nature of the case and the tradition of the Catholic Church answer-She is gone up into Heaven.

*Pius IX., Bulla Ineffabilis. Denzinger, edit. 4, n. 1502.

+ Conc. Milev. II., Can. 1; Araus. II., Can. 2; Trid. Sess. V., Can. 1; Denzinger, 1. c., nn. 64, 145, 670.

On the quality of a conclusion drawn from two revealed premisses, see Suarez de Fide, Disp. III., sect. 11.; and de Lugo de Fide, Disp. I., sect. 13. The reader will have noticed the implied distinction between fides objectiva and fides Catholica. What has been revealed to the Church by Almighty God is fides objectiva; only those truths which have been proposed to the faithful by the Church are fides Catholica.