THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY
Primitive Christian Worship

The Assumption Of The Virgin Mary

By the Church of England, two festivals are observed in grateful commemoration of two events relating to Mary as the mother of our Lord: -- the announcement of the Saviour's birth by the message of an angel, called, "The Annunciation of the blessed Virgin Mary," and "The Presentation of Christ in the Temple," called also, "The Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin." In the service for the first of these solemnities, we are taught to pray that, as we have known the incarnation of the Son of God by the message of an angel, so by his Cross and Passion we may be brought to the glory of his resurrection. In the second, we humbly beseech the Divine Majesty that, as his only-begotten Son was presented in the Temple in the substance of our flesh, so we may be presented unto Him with pure and clean hearts by the same, his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. These days are observed to commemorate events declared to us on the most sure warrant of Holy Scripture; and these prayers are primitive and evangelical. They pray only to God for spiritual blessings through his Son. The second prayer was used in the Church from very early times, and is still retained in the Roman Breviary (Hus. Brev. Rom. H. 536.); whereas, instead of the first, we find there unhappily a prayer now supplicating that those who offer it, "believing Mary to be truly the Mother of God, might be aided by her intercessions with Him." [V. 496.] In the Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, feasts are observed to the honour of the Virgin Mary, in which the Anglican Church cannot join; such as the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, and the immaculate conception of her by her mother. On the origin and nature of these feasts it is not my intention to dwell. I can only express my regret, that by appointing a service and a collect commemorative of the Conception of the Virgin in her mother's womb, and praying that the observance of that solemnity may procure the votaries an increase of peace, the Church of Rome has given countenance to a superstition, against which at its commencement, so late as the 12th century, St. Bernard strongly remonstrated, in an epistle to the monks of Lyons; a superstition which has been supported and explained by discussions in no way profitable to the head or the heart. [Epist. 174. Paris, 1632, p. 1538.] Of all these institutions however in honour of the Virgin, the Feast of the ASSUMPTION appears to be as it were the crown and the consummation. This festival is kept to celebrate the miraculous taking up (assumptio) of the Virgin Mary into heaven. And its celebration, in Roman Catholic countries, is observed in a manner worthy a cause to which our judgment would give deliberately its sanction; in which our feelings would safely and with satisfaction rest on the firmness of our faith; from joining in which a truly pious mind would have no ground for inward misgiving, nor for the aspiration, Would it were founded in truth! Before such a solemn office of praise and worship were ever admitted among the institutions of the religion of truth, its originators and compilers should have built upon sure grounds; careful too should they also be who now join in the service, and so lend it the countenance of their example; more especially should those sift the evidence well, who, by their doctrine and writings, uphold, and defend, and advance it; lest they prove at the last to love Rome rather than the truth as it is in Jesus. So solemn, so marked, a religious service in the temples and at the altar of HIM who is the truth, a service so exalted above his fellows, ought beyond question to be founded on the most sure warrant of Holy Scripture, or at the least on undisputed historical evidence, as to the alleged matter of fact on which it is built, -- the certain, acknowledged, uninterrupted, and universal testimony of the Church Catholic from the very time. They incur a momentous responsibility who aid in propagating for religious truths the inventions of men. But what is the real state of the case with regard to the fact of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary? It rests (as we shall soon see) on no authentic history; it is supported by no primitive tradition. I profess my surprise to have been great, when I found the most celebrated defenders of the Roman Catholic cause, instead of citing such evidence as would bear with it even the appearance of probability, appealing to histories written more than a thousand years after the alleged event, to forged documents and vague rumours. I was willing to doubt the sufficiency of my research; till I found its defenders, instead of alleging and establishing by evidence what God was by them said to have done, contenting themselves with asserting his omnipotence, in proof that the doctrine implied no impossibility; dwelling on the fitness and reasonableness of his working such a miracle in the honour of her who was chosen to be the mother of his eternal Son; and whilst they took the fact as granted, substituting for argument glowing and fervent descriptions of what might have been the joy in heaven, and what ought to be the feelings of mortals on earth. At every step of the inquiry into the merits of this case, the principle recurs to the mind, that, as men really and in earnest looking onward to a life after this, our duty is to ascertain to the utmost of our power, not what God could do, not what we or others might pronounce it fit that God should do, but what He has done; not what would be agreeable to our feelings, were it true, but what, whether agreeably or adversely to our feelings or wishes, is proved to be true. The very moment a Christian writer refers me from evidence to possibilities, I feel that he knows not the nature of Christianity; he throws me back from the sure and certain hope of the Gospel to the "beautiful fable" of Socrates, -- "It were better to be there than here, IF THESE THINGS ARE TRUE." But let us inquire into the facts of the case. First, I would observe that it is by no means agreed among all who have written upon the subject, what was the place, or what was the time of the Virgin's death. Whilst some have maintained that she breathed her last at Ephesus, the large majority assert that her departure from this world took place at Jerusalem. And as to the time of her death, some have assigned it to the year 48 of the Christian era, about the time at which Paul and Barnabas (as we read in Holy Scripture) returned to Antioch; whilst others refer it to a later date. I am not, however, aware of any supposition which fixes it at a period subsequent to that at which the canon of Scripture closes. Epiphanius indeed, towards the close of the fourth century, reminding us that Scripture is totally and purely silent on the subject as well of Mary's death and burial, as of her having accompanied St. John in his travels or not, without alluding to any tradition as to her assumption, thus sums up his sentiments: "I dare to say nothing; but considering it, I observe silence." [Epiph. vol. i. p. 1043.] Should any of my readers have deliberately adopted as the rule of their faith the present practice of the Church of Rome, I cannot hope that they will take any interest in the following inquiry; but I have been assured, by most sensible and well-informed members of that Church, that there is a very general desire entertained to have this and other questions connected with our subject examined without prejudice, and calmly placed before them. To such persons I trust this chapter may not appear altogether unworthy of their consideration. Those who would turn from it on the principle to which we have here alluded, will find themselves very closely responding to the sentiments professed by St. Bernard, "Exalt her who is exalted above the choirs of angels to the heavenly kingdom. These things the Church sings to me of her, and has taught me to sing the same to others. For my part, what I have received from it, I am secure in holding and delivering; which also, I confess, I am not OVER-SCRUPULOUS in admitting. (Quod non scrupulosius fateor admiserim.) I have received in truth from the Church that that day is to be observed with the highest veneration on which she was TAKEN up (assumpta) from this wicked world, and carrying with her into heaven feasts of the most celebrated joys." Let us then, with the authorized and enjoined service of the Church of Rome for the 15th of August before us, examine the evidence on which that religious service, the most solemn consummation of all the rest, is founded. In the service of the Assumption, more than twice seven times is it reiterated in a very brief space, and with slight variations of expression, that Mary was taken up into heaven; and that, not on any general and indefinite idea of her beatific and glorified state, but with reference to one specific single act of divine favour, performed at a fixed time, effecting her assumption, as it is called, "to-day." [AEs. 595.] "To-day Mary the Virgin ascended the heavens. Rejoice, because she is reigning with Christ for ever." "Mary the Virgin is taken up into heaven, to the ethereal chamber in which the King of kings sits on his starry throne." "The holy mother of God hath been exalted above the choirs of angels to the heavenly realms." "Come, let us worship the King of kings, to whose ethereal heaven the Virgin Mother was taken up to-day." And that it is her bodily ascension, her corporeal assumption into heaven, and not merely the transit of her soul from mortal life to eternal bliss, which the Roman Church maintains and propagates by this service, is put beyond doubt by the service itself. In the fourth and sixth reading, or lesson, for example, we find these sentences: -- "She returned not into the earth but is seated in the heavenly tabernacles." "How could death devour, how could those below receive, how could corruption invade, THAT BODY, in which life was received? For it a direct, plain, and easy path to heaven was prepared." Now, on what authority does this doctrine rest? On what foundation stone is this religious worship built? The holy Scriptures are totally and profoundly silent, as to the time, the place, the manner of Mary's death. Once after the ascension of our Lord, and that within eight days, we find mentioned the name of Mary promiscuously with others; after that, no allusion is made to her in life or in death; and no account, as far as I can find, places her death too late for mention to have been made of it in the Acts of the Apostles. The historian, Nicephorus Callistus, refers it to the 5th year of Claudius, that is about A.D. 47: after which period, events through more than fifteen years are recorded in that book of sacred Scripture. But closing the holy volume, what light does primitive antiquity enable us to throw on this subject? The earliest testimony quoted by the defenders of the doctrine, that Mary was at her death taken up bodily into heaven, is a supposed entry in the Chronicon of Eusebius, opposite the year of our Lord 48. This is cited by Coccius without any remark; and even Baronius rests the date of Mary's assumption upon this testimony. [Vol. i. 403.] The words referred to are these, -- "Mary the Virgin, the mother of Jesus, was taken up into heaven; as some write that it had been revealed to them." Now, suppose for one moment that this came from the pen of Eusebius himself, to what does it amount? A chronologist in the fourth century records that some persons, whom he does not name, not even stating when they lived, had written down, not what they had heard as matter of fact, or received by tradition, but that a revelation had been made to them of a fact alleged to have taken place nearly three centuries before the time of that writer. But instead of this passage deserving the name of Eusebius as its author, it is now on all sides acknowledged to be altogether a palpable interpolation. Suspicions, one would suppose, must have been at a very remote date suggested as to the genuineness of this sentence. Many manuscripts, especially the seven in the Vatican, were known to contain nothing of the kind; and the Roman Catholic editor of the Chronicon at Bordeaux, A.D. 1604, tells us that he was restrained from expunging it, only because nothing certain as to the assumption of the Virgin could be substituted in its stead. [P. 566.] Its spuriousness however can no longer be a question of dispute or doubt; it is excluded from the Milan edition of 1818, by Angelo Maio and John Zohrab; and no trace of it is to be found in the Armenian version, published by the monks of the Armenian convent at Venice, in 1818. The next authority, to which we are referred, is a letter said to have been written by Sophronius the presbyter, about the commencement of the fifth century. The letter used to be ascribed to Jerome; Erasmus referred it to Sophronius; but Baronius says it was written "by an egregious forger of lies," ("egregius mendaciorum concinnator,") who lived after the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches had been condemned. I am not at all anxious to enter upon that point of criticism; that the letter is of very ancient origin cannot be doubted. This document would lead us to conclude, that so far from the tradition regarding the Virgin's assumption being general in the Church, it was a point of grave doubt and discussion among the faithful, many of whom thought it an act of pious forbearance to abstain altogether from pronouncing any opinion on the subject. Whoever penned the letter, and whether we look to the sensible and pious sentiments contained in it, or to its undisputed antiquity, the following extract cannot fail to be interesting. "Many of our people doubt whether Mary was taken up together with her body, or went away, leaving the body. But how, or at what time, or by what persons her most holy body was taken hence, or whither removed, or whether it rose again, is not known; although some will maintain that she is already revived, and is clothed with a blessed immortality with Christ in heavenly places, which very many affirm also of the blessed John, the Evangelist, his servant, to whom being a virgin, the virgin was intrusted by Christ, because in his sepulchre, as it is reported, nothing is found but manna, which also is seen to flow forth. Nevertheless which of these opinions should be thought the more true we doubt. Yet it is better to commit all to God, to whom nothing is impossible, than to wish to define rashly by our own authority any thing, which we do not approve of.... Because nothing is impossible with God, we do not deny that something of the kind was done with regard to the blessed Virgin Mary; although for caution's sake (salva fide) preserving our faith, we ought rather with pious desire to think, than inconsiderately to define, what without danger may remain unknown." This letter, at the earliest, was not written until the beginning of the fifth century. Subsequent writers were not wanting to fill up what this letter declares to have been at its own date unknown, as to the manner and time of Mary's assumption, and the persons employed in effecting it. The first authority appealed to in defence of the tradition relating to the assumption of the Virgin, is usually cited as a well-known work written by Euthymius, who was contemporary with Juvenal, Archbishop of Jerusalem. And the testimony simply quoted as his, offers to us the following account of the miraculous transaction: -- "It has been above said, that the holy Pulcheria built many churches to Christ at Constantinople. Of these, however, there is one which was built in Blachernae, in the beginning of Marcian I's reign of divine memory. These, therefore, namely, Marcian and Pulcheria, when they had built a venerable temple to the greatly to be celebrated and most holy mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, and had decked it with all ornaments, sought her most holy body, which had conceived God. And having sent for Juvenal, Archbishop of Jerusalem, and the bishops of Palestine, who were living in the royal city on account of the synod then held at Chalcedon, they say to them, 'We hear that there is in Jerusalem the first and famous Church of Mary, mother of God and ever Virgin, in the garden called Gethsemane, where her body which bore the Life was deposited in a coffin. We wish, therefore, her relics to be brought here for the protection of this royal city. But Juvenal answered, 'In the holy and divinely inspired Scripture, indeed, nothing is recorded of the departure of holy Mary, mother of God. But from an ancient and most true tradition we have received, that at the time of her glorious falling asleep, all the holy Apostles who were going through the world for the salvation of the nations, in a moment of time borne aloft, came together at Jerusalem. And when they were near her, they had a vision of angels, and divine melody of the highest powers was heard: and thus with divine and more than heavenly glory, she delivered her holy soul into the hands of God in an unspeakable manner. But that which had conceived God being borne with angelic and apostolic psalmody, with funeral rites, was deposited in a coffin in Gethsemane. In this place the chorus and singing of the angels continued for three whole days. But after three days, on the angelic music ceasing, since one of the Apostles had been absent, and came after the third day, and wished to adore the body which had conceived God, the Apostles, who were present, opened the coffin; but the body, pure and every way to be praised, they could not at all find. And when they found only those things in which it had been laid out and placed there, and were filled with an ineffable fragrancy proceeding from those things, they shut the coffin. Being astounded at the miraculous mystery, they could form no other thought, but that He, who in his own person had vouchsafed to be clothed with flesh, and to be made man of the most holy Virgin, and to be born in the flesh, God the Word, and Lord of Glory, and who after birth had preserved her virginity immaculate, had seen it good after she had departed from among the living, to honour her uncontaminated and unpolluted body by a translation before the common and universal resurrection." Such is the passage offered to us in its insulated form, as an extract from Euthymius. To be enabled, however, to estimate its worth, the inquirer must submit to the labour of considerable research. He will not have pursued his investigation far, before he will find, that a thick cloud of uncertainty and doubt hangs over this page of ecclesiastical history. Not that the evidence alleged in support of the reputed miracle can leave us in doubt as to the credibility of the tradition; for that tradition can scarcely be now countenanced by the most zealous and uncompromising maintainers of the assumption of the Virgin. What I would say is, that the question as to the genuineness and authenticity of the works by which the tradition is said to have been preserved, is far more difficult and complicated, than those writers must have believed, who appeal to such testimony without any doubt or qualification. The result of my own inquiries I submit to your candid acceptance. The earliest author in whose reputed writings I have found the tradition, is John Damascenus, a monk of Jerusalem, who flourished somewhat before the middle of the eighth century. The passage is found in the second of three homilies on the "Sleep of the Virgin," a term generally used by the Greeks as an equivalent for the Latin word "Assumptio." The original publication of these homilies in Greek and Latin is comparatively of a late date. Lambecius, whose work is dated 1665, says he was not aware that any one had so published them before his time. But not to raise the question of their genuineness, the preacher's introduction of this passage into his homily is preceded by a very remarkable section, affording a striking example of the manner in which Christian orators used to indulge in addresses and appeals not only to the spirits of departed men, but even to things which never had life. The speaker here in his sermon addresses the tomb of Mary, as though it had ears to hear, and an understanding to comprehend; and then represents the tomb as having a tongue to answer, and as calling forth from the preacher and his congregation an address of admiration and reverence. Such apostrophes as these cannot be too steadily borne in mind, or too carefully weighed, when any argument is sought to be drawn from similar salutations offered by ancient Christian orators to saint, or angel, or the Virgin. The following are among the expressions in which the preacher, in the passage under consideration, addresses the Virgin's tomb: "Thou, O Tomb, of holy things most holy (for I will address thee as a living being), where is the much desired and much beloved body of the mother of God?" [Vol. ii. p. 875.] The answer of the tomb begins thus, "Why seek ye her in a tomb, who has been taken up on high to the heavenly tabernacles?" In reply to this, the preacher first deliberating with his hearers what answer he should make, thus addresses the tomb: "Thy grace indeed is never-failing and eternal," &c. [P. 881.] By the maintainers of the invocation of saints, many a passage far less unequivocal and less cogent than this has been adduced to show, that saints and martyrs were invoked by primitive worshippers. We find John Damascenus thus introducing the passage of Euthymius, "Ye see, beloved fathers and brethren, what answer the all-glorious tomb makes to us; and that these things are so, in the EUTHYMIAC HISTORY, the third book and fortieth chapter, is thus written word for word." [P. 877.] Lambecius maintains, that the history here quoted by John Damascenus was not an ecclesiastical history, written by Euthymius, who died in A.D. 472, but a biographical history concerning Euthymius himself, written by an ecclesiastic, whom he supposes to be Cyril, the monk, who died in A.D. 531. This opinion of Lambecius is combated by Cotelerius; the discussion only adding to the denseness of the cloud which involves the whole tradition. But whether the work quoted had Euthymius for its author or its subject, the work itself is lost; and an epitome only of such a work has come down to our time. In that abridgment the passage quoted by Damascenus is not found. The editor of John Damascenus, Le Quien, in his annotations on this portion of his work, offers to us some very interesting remarks, which bear immediately on the agitated question as to the first observance of the feast of the Assumption, as well as on the tradition itself. Le Quien infers, from the words of Modestus, patriarch of Jerusalem, that scarcely any preachers before him had addressed their congregations on the departure of the Virgin out of this life; he thinks, moreover, that the Feast of the Assumption was at the commencement of the seventh century only recently instituted. Though all later writers affirm that the Virgin was buried in the valley of Jehoshaphat, in the garden of Gethsemane, the same editor says, that this could not have been known to Jerome, who passed a great part of his life in Bethlehem, and yet observes a total silence on the subject; though in his "Epitaph on Paula," [Jerome, Paris, 1706. Vol. iv. p. 670-688, ep. 86.] he enumerates all the places in Palestine consecrated by any remarkable event. Neither, he adds, could it have been known to Epiphanius, who, though he lived long in Palestine, yet declares that nothing was known as to the death or burial of the Virgin. [Vol. ii, p. 858.] Again, in his remarks upon the writings falsely attributed to Melito, the same editor says, that since this Pseudo-Melito speaks many jejune things of the Virgin Mary, (such for example as at the approach of death her exceeding fear of being exposed to the wiles of Satan,) he concludes, from that circumstance, that the work was written before the Council of Ephesus; alleging this very remarkable reason, that "after that time there BEGAN TO BE ENTERTAINED, as was right, not only in the East, but also in the West, a far better estimate of the parent of God." [P. 880.] Many of the remarks of this editor would appear to savour of prejudice had they come from the pen of one who denied the reality of the assumption, or oppugned the honour and worship now paid by members of the Church of Rome to the Virgin. Nor could the suspicion of such prejudice be otherwise than increased by the insinuation which the same editor throws out against the honesty of Archbishop Juvenal, and on the possibility of his having invented the whole story, and so for sinister purposes deceived Marcian and Pulcheria; just as he fabricated the writings which he forged for the purpose of securing the primacy of Palestine; a crime laid to the charge of Juvenal by Leo the Great, in his letter to Maximus, Bishop of Antioch. [P. 879. See Leo. vol. i. p. 1215. Epist. cxix.] s is particularly to be lamented, because the paragraphs omitted in the quotation carry in themselves clear proof that Juvenal's answer, as it now appears in John Damascenus, could not have been made by Juvenal to Marcian and Pulcheria. For in it is quoted from Dionysius the Areopagite by name, a passage still found in the works ascribed to him; whereas by the judgment of the most learned Roman Catholic writers, those spurious works did not make their appearance in Christendom till the beginning of the sixth century, fifty years after the Council of Chalcedon, to assist at which Juvenal is said to have been present in Constantinople when the emperor and empress held the alleged conversation with him. s, rehearsed in this oration of John Damascenus, is as follows: "There were present with the Apostles at that time both the most honoured Timothy the Apostle, and first bishop of the Ephesians, and Dionysius the Areopagite, himself, as the great Dionysius testifies in the laboured words concerning the blessed Hierotheus, himself also then being present, to the above-named apostle Timothy, saying thus, Since with the inspired hierarchs themselves, when we also as thou knowest, and yourself, and many of our holy brethren had come together to the sight of the body which gave the principle of life; and there was present too James the brother of the Lord ([Greek: adelphotheos]), and Peter the chief and the most revered head of the apostles ([Greek: theologon]); then it seemed right, after the spectacle, that all the hierarchs (as each was able) should sing of the boundless goodness of the divine power. After the apostles, as you know, he surpassed all the other sacred persons, wholly carried away, and altogether in an ecstasy, and feeling an entire sympathy with what was sung; and by all by whom he was heard, and seen, and known (and hend why should I speak to you about the things there divinely said, for unless I have even forgotten myself, I know that I have often heard from you some portions also of those inspired canticles? And the royal personages having heard this, requested of Juvenal the archbishop, that the holy coffin, with the clothes of the glorious and all-holy Mary, mother of God, sealed up, might be sent to them. And this, when sent, they deposited in the venerable temple of the Mother of God, built in Blachernae; and these things were so." ble than remarkable, that out of the lessons appointed by the Church of Rome for the feast of the Assumption, to be read to believers assembled in God's house of prayer, three of those lessons are selected and taken entirely from this very oration of John Damascenus. This, then, is the account nearest to the time of the supposed event; and yet can any thing be more vague, and by way of testimony, more worthless? A writer near the middle of the sixth century refe, concerning a miraculous event, said to have taken place nearly four hundred years before, that the body was taken out of a coffin without the knowledge of those who had deposited it there: Whilst the primitive and inspired account, recording most minutely the journeys and proceedings of some of those very persons, and the letters of others, makes no mention at all of any transaction of the kind; and of all the intermediate historians and ecclesiastical writers not one gives the slightest intimation that any rumour of it had reached them. Another authority to which the writers on the assumption of the Virgin appeal, is that of Nicephorus Callistus, who, at the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century, dedicated hIn the fifth year of Claudius, the Virgin at the age of fifty-nine, was made acquainted with her approaching death. Christ himself then descended from heaven with a countless multitude of angels, to take up the soul of his mother; He summoned his disciples by thunder and storm from all parts of the world. The Virgin then bade Peter first, and afterwards the rest of the Apostles, to come with burning torches Sion to Gethsemane, angels preceding, surrounding, and following it. A wonderful thing then took place. The Jews were indignant and enraged, and one more desperately bold than the rest rushed forward, intending to throw down the holy corpse to the ground. Vengeance was not tardy; for his hands were cut off from his armsored whole. At Gethsemane she was put into a tomb, but her Son transferred her to the divine habitation. Nicephorus then refers to Juvenal, Archbishop of Jerusalem, as the authority on which the tradition was received, that the Apostles opened the coffin to enable St. Thomas (the one stated to have been absent) to embrace the body; and then hI am unwilling to trespass upon the patience of my readers by any comment upon such evidence as this. Is it within the verge of credibility that had such an event as Mary's assumption taken place under the extraordinary circumstances which now invest the tradition, or under any circumstances whatever, there would have been a total silence respecting it in the Holy Scriptures? That the writers of the first four centuries should never have referred to such a fact? That the first writer who alludes to it, should have lived in the middle of the fifth century, or later; and that he should have declared in a letter to his contemporaries that the subject was one on which many doubted; and that he himself would not deny it, not because it rested upon probable evidence, but because nothing was impossible with God; and that nothing was known as to the time, the manner, or the persons concerned, even had the assumption taken place? Can we place any confidence in the relation of a writer in the middle of the sixth century, as to a tradition of what an archbishop of Jerusalem attending the council of Chalcedon, had told the sovereigns at Constantinople of a tradition, as to what was said to have happened nearly four hundred years before, whilst in the "Acts" of that Council, not the faintest trace is found of any allusion to the supposed fact or the alleged tradition, though the transactions of that Council in many of its most minute circumstances are recorded, and though the discussions of that Council brought the name and circumstances of the Virgin Mary continually before the minds of all who attended it? Primitive Christian Worship - Preface The Duty of Private Judgment Evidence of the Holy Scriptures Direct Evidence of the Old Testament Evidence of the Old Testament, Continued Evidence of the New Testament Evidence of Primitive Writers Evidence of Apostolic Fathers The Epistle of St. Barnabas The Shepherd of Hermas St. Clement, Bishop of Rome Saint Ignatius Saint Polycarp Evidence of Justin Martyr Evidence of Irenaeus Evidence of Clement of Alexandria Evidence of Tertullian Evidence of Origen Supplementary Section on Origen Evidence of St. Cyprian Evidence of Lactantius Evidence of Eusebius Apostolical Canons and Constitutions Evidence of St. Athanasius State of Worship at the time of the Reformation Service of Thomas Becket Council of Trent Present Service in the Church of Rome Worship of the Virgin Mary Evidence of Holy Scripture Assumption of the Virgin Mary Present Authorized Worship of the Virgin Worship of the Virgin, continued Bonaventura Biel, Damianus, Bernardinus de Bustis, Bernardinus Senensis,&c. Modern Works of Devotion among Roman Catholics Primitive Christian Worship - Conclusion J. Endell Tyler, B.D. Miracles of healing - Christian Miracles or Healing History of Russia: Christian Versus Barbarian History of Japan: Early Christian Martyrs The Jesus of History The Assyrian Origin of Devil Worshippers The Christ Of Dogma The early history of Constantinople