Life of the Blessed Virgin

In those remote times when the world was still in its infancy, when our first fathers, 
trembling and amazed, heard under the majestic shades of Eden the awful voice of 
Jahweh condemning them to exile, to labor and to death in punishment of their mad 
disobedience, a mysterious prediction, wherein the pitying kindness of the Creator 
was manifested through the wrath of the offended Deity, came to raise the drooping 
spirits of those two frail creatures who had sinned.

A daughter of Eve, it was said, a woman of masculine courage, was to crush the head
 of the serpent beneath her feet, and to regenerate forever a guilty race; that woman was 
Mary.  Thenceforward, it was a tradition amongst the antediluvian tribes that a woman 
should come to repair the evil, which another had done.

This consoling tradition, which kept up the hopes of a fallen race, had not yet been effaced
 from the minds of men at the time of their grand dispersion on the plains of Sennaar; they 
carried with them over seas and mountains that sweet, though distant hope, together with the
 religion of Noah and the wreck of art and science saved from the waters of the Deluge.  
While the Egyptians are usually given credit for astronomy, among other sciences, it was
 said by Josephus that the Egyptians derived their first astronomical knowledge from the 
traditions saved from the Deluge, and that Abraham instructed them in arithmetic and astrology.

In after times, when the primitive religion faded away, and the ancient traditions were 
shrouded in obscurity, that of the Virgin and the Messiah resisted, almost alone, the action 
of time, and reared itself up on the ruin of ancient creeds, swallowed up in the fables of 
polytheism, like the evergreen which grows amid the ruins of what was once Babylon the 
Great. They're as but one single tree found amid those ruins, miraculously preserved from 
ancient days.

Let us survey the various regions of the globe; let us search from north to south, from east 
to west, the religious chronicles of the nations, and we shall find the Virgin promised and her 
divine maternity at the basis of almost all theologies.

In Tibet, in Japan, and in a portion of the eastern peninsula of India, it is said the god Fo, 
to save mankind, became incarnate in the womb of the young betrothed of a king, the nymph 
Lhamoghinprul, the fairest and holiest of women. 

Another who is reckoned amongst the sons of Heaven is the Emperor Hoang-Ti, whose 
mother conceived by a flash of lightning.  And the emperor   Yao, who lived at the 
time of the Deluge, had for his mother a Virgin who conceived from the beam of a star; 
while Yu, the head of the first Chinese dynasty, owed his life to a pearl. (The emblem of 
light throughout the entire East, the pearl is called by the Tartars "globe of light", and by 
the Persians "production of light".) This pearl had fallen from Heaven into the chaste 
bosom of a young maiden. 

Heou-Tsi, chief of the dynasty of Tcheou, changed not by his birth the virginity of his 
mother, who conceived him by divine operation, one day as she was in prayer, and 
brought him forth without effort and without pain in a deserted grotto, where lambs 
and oxen warmed him with their breath. 

The most popular goddess of the Celestial Empire, SchingMou, conceived at the simple 
touch of a water-flower; her son, brought up under the roof of a poor fisherman, became a 
great man, and wrought miracles.

The lamas say that Buddha is born of the Virgin Maha-Mahai.  Sommonokhodom, who 
became prince, legislator and the god of  Siam, likewise owes his life to a Virgin 
made fruitful by the rays of the sun.  Isis of the Druids was to bring forth the future 
Savior.  The Brahmins teach that when a god assumes human flesh, he is conceived in the
 womb of a Virgin, by divine operation. 

Jagrenat, the seventh incarnation of Brahma, is represented in the shape of a pyramid. 
Without hands and without feet, because he lost them, say the Brahmins, trying to carry 
the world in order to save it.  He too was born of a Virgin. And Chrichna was said to have 
been born of a Virgin in a grotto where angels and shepherds came to adore him in his cradle.

Zoroaster, the famous prophet of the Magi, is the fruit of a nocturnal vision wherein a 
brilliant messenger from Oromazes deposits at the feet of a maiden the most magnificent 
raiment, and then a celestial light falls upon the face of the sleeper who becomes fair as 
the day-star.

In Paraguay, the Maceniques who inhabit the shores of Lake Zarayas relate that at a very
 remote period a woman of rare beauty became a mother yet remained a Virgin.  Her son, 
after having wrought many extraordinary miracles, ascended one day into the open air, in 
presence of his disciples, and transformed himself into a Sun.

Let all these scattered fragments of many creeds be brought together and they will make 
up, in nearly all its details, the history of the Virgin and her divine Son.

The Virgin Mary, notwithstanding the royal blood, which flows through her veins, is of
 obscure condition like the mother of Zoroasteri like her, too, she receives the visit of an angel
 bearing a message from Heaven.  Born of a Virgin who conceives him during a fervent prayer,
 and brings him forth without hurt or pain in a poor stable, our divine Savior, like the first-born
 of the noble and pious Kiang Yuen, dwelt amongst the lower classes like the Son of the Chinese
 goddess; angels and shepherds come to render him homage, as to Chrichnao on the very night
of his birth then after having stilled the tempest, walked on the water expelled demons, and 
raised the dead to life, he ascended triumphantly into Heaven in the presence of five hundred 
disciples, whose dazzled eyes lost him in the clouds, precisely as is related by the savage tribes 
of Paraguay. 

It is assuredly very strange that these marvelous legends--which have not been copied from 
the evangelical chronicles of the Christian faith, are manifestly more ancient--yet these forms, 
when taken together, the real life of the Son of Food.  And it is certain that the Apostles had 
nothing to do with the conformities remarked between the evangelical facts and the traditions 
fabulous or not, of the ancient nations.  How then to explain these analogies?

It is not by chance that the mystery of the incarnation of a god in the womb of a Virgin is one 
of the fundamental doctrines of Asia.  It is not by chance that the privileged women who 
bear in their womb that emanation of the Divinity are always chaste, beautiful and holy; that 
hey have glorious and mysterious names, which signify, in all these ancient tongues expected 
beauty, immaculate Virgin faithful Virgin, delight of mankind or polar star.  And that they are 
all so much alike that one would say they were molded on a far-off type hidden from us by the 
darkness of time.  Finally, it is not by chance that a luminous ray unites the divine and human 
nature.

These notions wherein the stamp of a primitive time is so plainly visible, evidently ascend to 
the birth of the world.  The antediluvian patriarchs that chain of men who lived in the age of 
cedars of old, wishing to form for themselves an idea of the woman blessed amongst all others, 
whose miraculous maternity was to save mankind, represented her to themselves under the 
likeness of Eve before her fall; they gave her a majestic and saintly beauty which could awake
in the minds of men no other feeling save that of religious veneration; they made her a mild 
and veiled star, whose dawn was to precede that of the Sun of Justice.

The means whereby God gave fecundity to that virginal womb are strikingly alike, amongst 
the different nations of the world.  Cast a glance over all the old religions, and you will there 
find a sacred fire.  But the fire was, for the Persians, the terrestrial emblem of the sun and the 
sun himself was but the dwelling of the Most High, the glorious tent of the God of Heaven. 
(The Persians suppose that the throne of God is in the sun, and hence their veneration for that 
Star.)

The Hebrews, who shared in this belief, recognized the divine presence, or the Shekinah, 
in the radiant cloud, which overhung the cherubim of the mercy seat.  They believed that God 
clothed Himself with light as with a garment, when manifesting Himself to men, on solemn 
occasions.  It was the opinion of the Synagogue, supported by the tradition of the Temple, 
that in the midst of the wild rosebush, which burned without being consumed, when Moses, 
that great shepherd of men, was tending on Mount Horeb the flocks of his Arab father-in law, 
there was seen a very lovely face, resembling nothing that is seen here below; and that this 
celestial Image, clearer than the flame and more brilliant than the lightning, was without doubt 
the Image of the Eternal God.  With this premise, it is not difficult to understand the drift of 
the opinion, so generally diffused, that a luminous ray was to impart fecundity to the womb 
of the favored Virgin who was the expectation of all people.

With this graceful tradition of a pure Virgin admitted to a divine union, surrounded by 
impenetrable mystery, was connected that of a Savior God, born of her womb, who was to 
labor for the salvation of the world.

Worship, that demonstration of love, that homage of gratitude which Adam and Eve were 
to render to God immediately after their creation, was in Eden composed only of innocent 
prayers and ablations of fruits and flowers.  Man was not immortal in this world, as the 
pure spirits are, for a body formed of dust must needs return to dust; he was so only by 
a favor, without precedent and conditionally granted, whereby he was elevated to and 
maintained in a position far above his proper sphere.

In the delicious garden where he had placed mortal man, God planted the tree of life, 
a plant of celestial origin, which had the property of repelling death--as the laurel, according 
to the ancients, keeps off the thunder.  To that mysterious tree was attached the immortality of 
the human species away from that protecting tree, death again seized his prey, and man was 
hurled from the height of heaven into his perishable tenement of clay.

But when they had infringed upon the precept which the Lord had imposed like a sweet 
yoke upon them; when they had lost, with the immortalizing fruits of the tree of life, their 
talisman against death, and descended from the charming hills of Eden to a land bristling 
with briers and thorns, a land whose Virgin bosom they must open to nourish themselves; 
they added to the gift of fruits and wild flowers produced by the land of exile; to their Creator 
were now offered a sacrifice of the first fruits of their flocks.

This merits attention.  Adam, who joined to the perfection of the human form an intelligent 
and elevated mind wherein the Lord had planted the germ of all virtue and of all knowledge, 
could not be devoid of humanity.  His mistaken complaisance to Eve shows him loving even 
to weakness, and therefore susceptible in some degree, of kindly feelings and affections.  How 
could it then occur to him that the Creator would take pleasure in the violent death of his 
creatures or that an act of destruction was an act of piety?

The immolation of animals, which has not the slightest connection with the vows and prayers
 of man, and which the purely vegetable food of the first patriarchs left unharmed, must needs 
have excited a thousand feelings of disgust and repugnance in the mind of our Heavenly Father.  
Long had these poor, dumb creatures, devoid of reason, but very capable of attachment, composed 
in  Eden the court of that solitary king, Adam. He then seated himself at the same table, slept on 
the same mossy hillocks quenched his thirst at the same spring, and his prayer ascended to Heaven, 
at early dawn and evening's close, with the warbling of the birds that seemed to sing, in their turn, 
the morning or evening hymn.  Those companions of his happier days, involved in his misfortune, 
now shared his exile.  Some, giving way 'to the ferocious instinct which in Paradise had remained 
undeveloped, fled to the depth of the wilderness or the secret caverns of the mountains, whence 
they soon waged deadly warfare against their former master.  Others, mild and inoffensive by 
nature, established themselves around the grotto of their lord, to whom they offered, to satisfy 
his wants and soothe his caress their milk, their labor, their fleece, and their melodious concerts.

The time that Adam and Eve remained in the terrestrial paradise is not exactly known; it must 
nevertheless have been of some duration.  The Persians and the Chinese have it that the first 
man was in  Paradise for many ages.  According to the Arabs and the Rabbins a day was equal 
to a thousand years.

However that may be, it was in Eden that Adam learned to distinguish and to call by name 
all the birds of the air, the beasts of the earth, and the fishes of the water it was there he learned 
the virtues of plants and what God chose to teach him concerning the course of the stars.  We 
must then conclude that all this was not the work of a day.

The span of time enabled the first man to establish his supremacy over the animals subject 
to him, and to attach him to his humble dependents by the ties of habit.  When he turned upon 
them, he committed a sin so enormous by its aggravating circumstances and its disastrous 
consequences that in order to express its full extent, the Hebrew tradition relates that the sun 
hid his face in horror.  It is in remembrance too of the sin of Eve, at sight of which according 
to the Jews, the sun hid his light that the Jewish women are specially charged to light the lamps, 
which burn in every house during the Sabbath night.  "It is just," say the Hebrew doctors, "that 
women should rekindle the flame which they have extinguished, and that they be charged with 
that trouble, in expiation of their sin."

The justice of God demanded a punishment proportionate to the offence.  Man was to die, 
until a Divine Being, predestined before the birth of time to the work of our redemption, took 
it upon himself to make satisfaction for us all.  Thenceforward he was called the Messiah, and 
revealed as a Savior, at the very moment when the voice of God. --That Voice which rends the 
cedars--pronounced the sentence of the three offenders.

"Because thou hast done this things," said God to the serpent, (who showed himself proud 
of our ruin), "the seed of the woman--that is, to say, her offspring--shall crush thy head."

And the Hebrew tradition adds that God, touched by the repentance of our first parents, had 
it revealed to them by an angel that from their race should arise a just man who would annihilate 
the pernicious effects of the tree of knowledge, by means of a voluntary oblation, and would be 
the salvation of those who put their trust in Him.

God ripens His councils by ages, for a thousand years are to Him but as one day; but man is 
eager to obtain, for he lasts on earth but a short time.  It appears that Eve had concluded, from 
the words of the angel, that she was to be the mother of the promised Redeemer.

The just persons of the race of Seth, those pure solitary and contemplative men called in 
Scripture "the children of God", (and in the Assyrian legends 'genii"), long flattered themselves 
with a similar hope.  And the Jewish tradition represents them as wandering on the heights 
around the Garden of Eden, whose gigantic cedars they wistfully admired.  The lofty cedars 
of  Eden have remained traditionally in the memory of the Hebrews who have made the 
terrestrial paradise their Heaven.  In many of their epitaphs we read these words "He is gone 
down to the garden of Eden to those who are amongst the cedars." These people flattered 
themselves the while that from amongst themselves should arise a just man who would obtain 
admission for them.

But it was not the name of a Virgin of the primitive times that was written in the immutable 
decrees of the Eternal; and the earth, still quivering under the divine malediction, had need of 
being washed as by the ablution of a baptism, before the foot of Him who was to bring the 
glad tidings should leave its sacred impress on the mountains.

When the earth had absorbed the waters of the Deluge, and the winds had dried it up, the 
new human family, springing into life under more favorable auspices, hastened to re-establish 
the worship of Enos.  Noah joined there to the seven precepts, which bear his name, not 
forgetting the historical and religious traditions, which his long existence prior to the Deluge
had enabled him to gather.  He told how man was formed of clay, his rebellion, his fall, and 
his future reparation, which the world was to owe to the miraculous maternity of a new Eve.

The Indians, the Chinese, the Peruvians, and even the Hurons, acknowledge that the first 
man was formed of clay.  The Brahmins, who make representations of their paradise, place 
therein a tree whose fruit would confer immortality if it could be eaten.

At that remote period God was worshipped in a manner worthy of Him, and with ideas 
so clear, so sublime, so uniform and so simple, that they had evidently emanated from Him.  
Altars were erected at the confluence of rivers in the shade of forests, on the summits of 
mountains, by the green sea-wave, and on the sandy moor where the wormwood tree spreads 
its leaves to the desert wind.  The soft moonlight illumined, from the first, those rural temples, 
which had no other bounds than the horizon, no other roof than the firmament with all its stars.

Nevertheless in the postdiluvian worship remained the fresh and dreary remembrance of the 
submersion of the globe; a remembrance of which traces are found in most of the religious festivals 
of antiquity, history has preserved proofs of the displacing of rivers after the Deluge, in many lands.  
People tended to congregate on the higher tablelands as though in dread of the plains.  In vain, it 
seemed, did the rainbow span the clouds to encourage the children of men, with its soft mellow 
hues.  The avenging hand of an angry God had fallen so crushingly that man, whose heart still 
palpitated with fear remembering the risk he had run, was more disposed to fear his Sovereign 
Master with a mighty fear than to love Him with confiding love; he had learned to fear God.

Like a drowning mariner he eagerly sought around him some helping object, which might 
interpose between them, and ward off, if need be, that just but terrible wrath.  Noah had spoken 
to them of an influential and divine Being whose tenseness for men was infinite, and who was 
to plead their cause before the Eternal, and take upon himself their crimes but who was that 
privileged mediator, that powerful advocate?  They knew not.  The descendants of Shem 
believed that they had found him in the stars which cheered their solitary watch, and which 
they supposed inhabited by celestial spirits, they engaged those spirits to protect them, and 
kindled fires in their honor on the mountaintops.

In the lapse of time the shades thickened, religions became burdened with rites; the worship 
of the true God was gradually intermixed with idolatry.  The few truths, which escaped were 
carefully concealed from the multitude, which lavished its senseless adoration on stones, trees,
 and on animals.  And hope began to build the cradles of the Messiah.

Not all of the heathen nations took the mystery of the Messiah as an already accomplished 
fact.  The Druids, just before the Christian era, were still raising altars in the gloomy forests 
of Gaul, to the "Virgin who is to bring forth."

The Chinese - instructed by Confucius, whom had himself, found that oracle in old traditions - 
expected the Holy One, born of a Virgin, and Son of God, who was to die for the salvation of the 
solemn embassy, less than half a century after the death of the Man-God.  According to the ancient 
sages of China, the Holy One, the miraculous man, will renew the universe, change its morals expiate 
the sins of the world, and die overwhelmed with sorrow and opprobrium.

The Magi, on the faith of Zoroaster, studied the constellations in quest of the star of Jacob, 
which was to guide them to the cradle of Christ.  For he had prophesied to the Magi the birth 
of the Messiah, sprung from a Virgin, adding that at the time of his birth there should arise an 
unknown star to guide them to his cradle, and he commanded them to bring presents with them 
when they went.  Another prediction of Zoroaster mentioned a great prophet who was to reform 
the world as well in religion as in justice, and to whom kings and princes were to be submissive.

The Brahmins sighed for the glorious avatar of him who was to purge the world of sin, and 
begged it of Wichnou, laying on his jeweled altar odorous stuffs of sweet basil, a plant beloved 
by the Indian god.

The haughty children of Romulus, those idolaters par excellence who had created whole 
legions of gods, read in the books so jealously and so wisely kept by the sibyl of Cunes, "the 
virgin, the divine infant, the adoration of the shepherds, the serpent crushed and the golden 
age restored to the earth."

Finally, about the time of the Messiah, all the nations of the East were in expectation of a 
future Savior.  But what were those glimmering rays, powerless to dispel the darkness of 
idolatry, when compared with the blaze of light, which illumined the chosen people?

We are struck with amazement at sight of that prophetic chain of which the first link was 
fixed to the cradle of the world, and the last settles down at the sepulcher of Christ.  The 
threat of Jaweh to the serpent contains the first prediction of the Messiah.  We have further 
said, and the Jewish traditions confirm it, that this prediction was more fully explained in 
after times to the exiled of Eden , when they had conciliated Heaven by penance.

Noah, who was adopted by God as inheritor of the faith, transmitted to Shem his revelations, 
that Shem, whose life was nearly as long as that of his ancestors might repeat them to the fathers 
of the faithful.

Then it was that a mysterious benediction, wherein the promise of the Messiah was contained 
made it manifest that the blessed seed promised to Eve should be also the seed and the offspring 
of Abraham.  The primitive traditions were very soon succeeded by the great prediction of Jacob.  
The expiring patriarch who has seen in spirit the state of the twelve tribes when in Palestine, 
announces to his sons assembled round his death-bed that Judah has been chosen, from amongst 
his brethren, to be the root of the kings of Israel and the father of that "Schilo" so long promised,
who was to be the King of kings and the Lord of lords.  "Schilo" is understood to mean the Messiah.  
The coming of Christ is pointed out in a precise manner: he shall arise from amid the ruins of his 
country when the scepter, the legislative power, shall rest in the hand of strangers.

The prophet saved from the waters of the Nile , who was divinely called to gather and 
consign to writing the history of the first ages and the ancient traditions of mankind - traditions 
whose remembrance was still vivid amongst the nations - fails not to lend the weight of his 
imposing testimony to the prophecy of Jacob.  "A prophet," says Moses, speaking to the people 
of God, "shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me: him you 
shall hear according to all things, whatsoever he shall speak to you.  And it shall be, that even
some which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people.

It was predicted by the prophets of Ecclesiastes, "The law which man studies in this world is 
but vanity, in comparison to that of the Messiah." (Ec. 9:8) And it is of the Messiah that the 
synagogue has always clearly understood this text.

Towards the end of the mission of Moses, and while Israel was still encamped in the deserts 
Balaam A Chaldean seer, came to strengthen in his turn the expectation of the Messiahs and to 
point out in a clear and precise manners the period of his coming.  Standing on a precipitous 
height, actuated by the spirit of God, he perceived an admirable vision, and his phrases interrupted 
by solemn pauses are flung without order or art to the mountain wind like fragments of a mysterious 
dialogue kept up in a whisper with the invisible powers.  "I shall see him... but not now.  I shall 
behold him... but not nigh.  A Star shall come forth from Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel … 
out of Jacob shall come him that shall have dominions…"

Much time rolls away without further promise, and the prophecies are either confided to tradition, 
which faithfully preserves them, or else consigned to the sacred books. Israel maintains an obscure but 
ceaseless struggle against the idolatrous nations, which surround and press in upon its tribes.  But 
through all these vicissitudes, the people forgot not the coming of Christ they live in the faith of the 
Messiahs in default of new revelations their very life becomes prophetic.

Political and religious institutions, local customs and private habits all tend to the same end, all flow 
from the same sources all is linked to the generation of the Savior born of a Virgin of Judah.

There is nothing but the present incredulity of the Jews to equal in depth the faith of their fathers.  
The grand business with the men of those days was the coming of the Messiahs they who died at a 
period remote from that which was to see the fulfillment of the divine promises, departed in the firm
persuasion that they should one day be fulfilled.  Standing on the threshold of eternity they hailed from
afar that consoling hope, even as the great prophet, Moses, saluted with a sigh that land of milk and 
honey which the Lord did not permit him to enter.

From the time of David, and under the kings of his race, the thread of prophecy is renewed, 
and the mystery of the Virgin and the Messiah is made more manifest than ever by magnificent 
predictions clearer than the Sun.

A holy king, preferred by the God of Israel saw the virginity of Mary and the extraordinary birth 
of the Son of God.  "Thy birth", said David "unsullied by sin, shall be pure as the morning dew." 
Then raising his eyes higher, he beholds Him whom God has given him for a Son, according to t
he flesh, seated at the right hand of Jahweh, on a throne more lasting than sky or stars.

In the earlier prophecies, the blessed Virgin though always pointed out, was yet left somewhat 
in the shade, and, so to speak, on the verge of the picture.  But from the time of David the radiant 
figure of Mary is no longer undefined, and she who was to transfuse into the veins of the Man-God 
the blood of Abraham, of Jacob, and of Jesse the Just, begins to be clearly defined.  David had 
spoken of her virginal maternity; Solomon took delight in tracing her image in colors so enchanting 
as to far outstrip the graceful descriptions of the  Eastern Peri, those smiling and vapory divinities 
that visit the dreams of Arabian shepherds.

He sees her rise amid the daughters of Judah like a lily among thorns; her eyes are soft and 
mild as those of the dove from her lips red as a fillet of scarlet, comes a voice clear and melodious 
as the sound of the harp which inspires Israel in the battle. Her step is ethereal as the breath of 
perfumes; and her beauty is radiant as that of the rising morn.  Her tastes are simple and poetical; 
she loves to wander in the fresh valleys when the vines a-re in blossom and the figs hang like 
clusters of emeralds from the leafless branches; her looks seek out the red roses of the pomegranate 
and the tree of paradise, and she hears with delight the plaintive song of the turtle.

Silent and collected, she seeks not every eye, and conceals herself within her dwelling like the 
dove, which makes her nest in the cleft of the rock.  She is chosen for a mystical marriage, preferable 
to all the Virgins and queens of nations; he, whom her soul loveth; promises a crown to her and the 
blissful tie, whereby she is united to her royal spouse is stronger than death. (It is agreed by all the 
holy fathers that the Canticle of Canticles is but one continued allegory of the Mother of Jesus.)

Elias, praying on Mount Carmel for the cessation of that long drought which, for three years, parched 
the earth and dried up every spring, discovers the promised Virgin under the form of a transparent cloud 
arising from the bosom of the waters to announce the return of rain.  The declamations of the people salute 
this propitious omen, and the prophet, who penetrates divine things, builds a chapel to the future Queen of 
Heaven.  He dedicated the chapel built by him, on  Mt. Carmel, to the Virgin who was to bring forth.  The 
chapel was called Semnoeum, which means a place consecrated to an empress, which can only refer to 
Mary, Empress of Heaven and Earth.

Everything that happens in this world has its preceding sign.  When the sun is about to rise, the horizon 
is colored with a thousand hues, and the East appears all on fire.  The figures of the Old Testament are the 
signs, which announce the rising of the Sun of Justice, and of the Star of the Sea.  To Christ, the Son of God, 
belongs strength and power; to Mary, grace and kindness.  She is the tree of life planted in the abodes of men 
by the hands of God Himself, and the pledge of happiness far beyond that which our first parents enjoyed in Eden. 

Like that enchanting figure which an ancient painter composed by borrowing a thousand detached 
beauties from the loveliest women of Greece, so the chaste spouse of the Holy Ghost united, in her 
own persons all that had been most admirable in the celebrated women of the old law.  Fair as Rachel 
and Sarah, she united to the prudence of Abigail the heroic courage of Esther; and is like Susannah, 
chaste as the lily flower whose name she bears.  The ancients attribute to the lily the power of nullifying 
enchantments and warding off danger.  Judith encircled her brows with a garland of lilies, so as to make 
her way without fear.

The wild roses, emblematical of modest maidens who shed their sweet perfume in solitude, and who 
are made resplendent by contact with the Deity, these are the most striking image of Mary, that mystical 
rose of the new law.

Yet in Mary's and in Jesus' veins flows also the blood of those four illustrious women who alone 
were mentioned in the genealogy of Matthew.  Luke mentions none at all.  None of these was ordinary 
or average, none was virginal before entering the "line", and it appears that none was Hebrew by birth, 
but by marriage only.  Their names were Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and "the wife of Uriah".

Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Judah, presumably a Canaanite woman whose first two husbands 
died, leaving no heir, and Judah feared to give her his third and final son, lest he also should die, yet the 
law required this "levirate" marriage.  Tamar grew tired of waiting, desiring to fulfill her function of bearing 
a child and heir, so she disguised herself and tricked her widowed father-in-law Judah into thinking she 
was a prostitute by the wayside, and was soon found with child. (Genesis 38)

Rahab was a prostitute, a Canaanite woman of the city of Jericho, who helped Joshua and his men 
to take the city, by hiding them in her house - for which they in turn saved her and her household alive.  
She afterward married the Hebrew Salmon, father of Boaz.

Ruth was a native of Moab, which was east of Bethlehem , across the Dead Sea.  She also was 
widowed, and when her Hebrew mother-in-law Naomi decided to return to her native Bethlehem, 
Ruth went with her.  Here she met the well-to-do Boaz as she was gleaning barley sheaves in his 
fields; and by following- the advice set forth by Naomi, they were afterward married.

The fourth was probably a woman from northern Syria, near Damascus, as these people were called 
Hittites.  She was Bathsheba, the beautiful wife of Uriah the Hittite, whom David saw bathing on a rooftop, 
and whose beauty he coveted.  He later ordered her husband sent to the battlefront to certain death, and 
married Bathsheba, who became the mother of Solomon.

And now there is "Mary, of whom Jesus was born", and the female side of the genealogy is complete.  
For in her were untied all the perfections of those who had gone before, and these she lifted up to God, 
that mankind might be redeemed from its hopeless state.  After an expectation of four thousand years, the 
time marked out by so many prophecies at length arrives; the shadows of the ancient law disappear, and 
Mary arises on the horizon of Judea like the star which heralds the approach of day.

A woman destined from all eternity to save the world by deifying our nature, and to bear in her chaste 
womb Him whose tent is the sun, and whose steps are over the highest heavens; a woman expected from 
the beginning of the world, revealed by God even in Paradise, and the acknowledged end of all the holy 
generations who succeeded each other from the days of the Patriarchs, she can be no ordinary creature, and 
must needs have special qualities.  The pious belief of the immaculate conception of Mary is the result of 
that sentiment of respect.

The misfortune of Eden inherent in the human race is common to all, and the Scripture makes no 
exception in favor of any son of Adam.  But the piety of the faithful cannot bear the idea that the Mother 
of our Lord should be submitted to the condemnation whereby mankind as a whole was stamped.  
Notwithstanding the silence of the Gospel, it has therefore been generally supposed that the Virgin, 
in anticipation of her divine maternity, has been restrained, so to speak, on the verge of the dread 
abyss hollowed under our feet by the fatal disobedience of our first parents, and that her conception 
is immaculate as her life.

This belief, which the Greeks borrowed from Palestine and adopted with enthusiasm, gave rise 
to the institution of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, which was celebrated with great pomp in 
Constantinople, from the sixth century.  We find in the "Menees" (secret practices) so ancient in use 
among the Greeks, these words, which clearly prove their belief in the Immaculate Conceptions "By a 
special dispensation, the Lord decreed that the blessed Virgin should be as pure, from the first moment 
of her existence, as was suitable and becoming for her who was to conceive and to bring forth Jesus 
Christ, the Word made flesh."

In the West, on the contrary, this doctrine met powerful opponents, for St. Anselm, St. Bernard, 
St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas d'Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, and many other pious and learned doctors, 
all great theologians, and moreover devoted to the service of Mary, have maintained that she was 
conceived by man and subjected to the common law, although she was very soon entirely purified 
there from by a special and excellent grace which commenced her glorious state of "Mother of God".

But the belief in the Immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin prevailed, at length, over the opinion 
of the great doctors of the middle age; what the eagles of the school had not seen was revealed to the simple.  
The writings of the doctors and of the apostles were again searched; a more careful examination was made 
of what has been handed down to us regarding the, greatness and glory of Mary, and the investigation served 
to throw a more vivid light on that doubtful point in the life of the Mother of Jesus.

In fact, going back to the Apostles, we find already the title of "blessed and immaculate" applied to 
Mary, as brought out by St. James the Major, and St. Mark, in their liturgies.

The Apostle St. Andrew, quoted by the Babylonian Abdias, expresses himself in these terms; "Even
as the first Adam was made of the earth before it was cursed, so was the second Adam formed of a pure 
Virgin who was never under the ban."

The saints and martyrs who lived in the third century, St. Hippolytus, Origen, and St. Denis of Alexandria 
all give to the blessed Virgin the qualification of pure and Immaculate.  St. Cyprian is more precise, and says 
clearly that "there is a great difference between the rest of mortals and the Virgin, and that she has nothing in 
common with them but nature, - not sin."

In the fourth century, St. Ambrose compares the Virgin "to a bright and luminous stem, whereon has never 
been either the knot of original sin or the bark of actual sin"; St. John Chrisostom, proclaims her most holy 
immaculate, blessed above all creatures; St. Jerome poetically calls her the day-cloud which never knew 
darkness St. Basil, whom the defenders of the Immaculate Conception are proud to regard as their leader - 
these have never varied regarding that stainless purity which so well becomes the Queen of Angels.

Islamism itself declares for the Immaculate Conception, and the Arab Commentators on the Koran 
have adopted in their own way, the opinion of the Catholic theologians who have pronounced in favor 
of that doctrine "Every descendant of Adam from the moment that he comes into the world is touched by 
Satan; Jesus and Mary are alone excepted; for God interposed between them and Satan a veil which preserved 
them from his fatal touch."

These testimonies in favor of the Immaculate Conception became weaker and less abundant in the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries; few writers of any note then took this view of the subject, and several 
men of eminent piety and learning maintained the contrary opinion.  But notwithstanding, the feast of the
Conception of the Virgin was established in many kingdoms.

William the Conqueror established this festival in Normandy as early as the year 1074; it was
instituted, say the chroniclers, because of the holy apparition seen by an ecclesiastic worthy of credit, 
who found himself exposed to the peril of the sea during a storm.  Her feast provided pious themes for
poetry to the land of minstrels.

From Normandy the feast of the Conception passed over to the English.  The first council of Oxford, 
held by the archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1222, placed it in the number of holidays to be observed. 

Finally a manuscript of the thirteenth century found in the library of the Dominicans of Dijon fixes
the festival of the Conception of our Lady on the 8th of December, which shows that in St. Dominick's 
time the feast was already being celebrated in nearly all the church.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary had been banished from the pulpits and schools 
for a very long period of time, when some theologians undertook to revive it.  The Franciscans wrote 
many volumes in defense of the Immaculate Conception.  The learned body at the university of Sorbonne 
in France, which was then called "the firmament of science, the prop of truth and piety in the   church of 
God," decreed that all those who should be promoted to the degree of doctor were to engage themselves 
by oath to maintain this pious belief.  So, in succession, did certain other Catholic universities of Europe.  
This is the decree of Sorbonne. We resolve and declare that no one shall be admitted for the future into 
our Faculty, until he swears to maintain all his life this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception."

The Dominicans showed themselves almost alone hostile to the pious doctrine, which was embraced 
by many other Orders.

But the Council of Bale in 1429 declared that the doctrine which teaches the Immaculate Conception 
is to be approved, held, and followed by all Catholics so no one shall be hereafter permitted to preach 
or teach the contrary..." and the shield of religion took its stand before the Blessed Virgin.  In the words 
of Bousset "the Church does not oblige us to believe it immaculate but she makes us understand that that 
belief is very pleasing to her. "Spain protested that they had observed this festival from the seventh 
century, and it was again instituted in the 13th century in those provinces of Spain, which had shaken 
off the 500-year yoke of Islamism.

The Birth of Mary

About the time when the religion and prosperity of the Hebrews was on the declines at the period pointed out by the prophets, and when the royal scepter was in strangers' hands according to the great prediction of Jacob, there was in Nazareth, a city of Lower Galilee not far from Mount Carmel, a just man named Joachim, of the tribe of Judah and the race of David by Nathan.  The Rabbins and certain Fathers of the Church say the father of Mary had two names, Heli and Joachim.  The Arabs and Muslims know him under the name of Amram, son of Matheus and distinguish him from another Amram, father of Mary (Miriam) the sister of Moses.

The wife of Joachim who according, to the opinion of St. Augustine was of the priestly tribe, was called Anne, or Hannah, a name which in Hebrew signifies "graceful".  According to the Proto-gospel of St. James, and the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, Joachim was of the race of David Justin who flourished only fifty years after the death of John the Apostles and who was born in Palestine and in a position to collect traditions still quite recent, likewise says that Mary was descended in a direct line from David.

They were both just before Jahweh and walked in the way of His commandments with a perfect heart, but the Lord seemed to have turned His face away from them for a great blessing was wanting unto them; they were childless, and therefore sorrowful, because in Israel barrenness was a disgrace.

Joachim who loved his wife for her exceeding mildness and her eminent virtues would not increase her misfortune by giving her those letters of divorce, which the law then granted quite easily that abuse of divorce that was so loudly censured by our Lord, for they taught that a wife might be put away for the most trifling cause.  But he kept her with him and that pious pair, humbly resigned to the divine behest, passed their days in labors prayers and alms-deeds.

The divine Wisdom had prepared all things to separate from the corrupt mass of human nature the mother of all grace.  The allotted number of the patriarchs and prophets was already complete, and the mountains rose whereon that mystical City of God was to be placed. His right hand had prepared the incomparable treasures of His divinity, to portion and endow her.  A thousand angels were ready to guard and protect her, and to serve her as their lady and royal mistress.  He prepared for her a royal line of ancestors; he gave her parents. holy and perfect beyond all the men and women of that age, for had there been any greater saints or more fit to be the parents of her whom He chose to be mother of the Incarnate God, there is no doubt but the divine Majesty would have chosen them.

He disposed them for their office by numberless graces and blessings enriched them with all virtues and illumined their minds by divine wisdom and the various gifts of the Holy Spirit.  They, having been apprised of the admirable daughter who was to be given them, the work of the first conceptions that was that of the pure body of Mary, were executed.

For the execution of this decree the holy archangel Gabriel was sent to make it known to each.  He appeared in corporal form to St. Anne when she was in fervent prayer, petitioning for the coming of the world's Savior, the Salvation of mankind.  She saw this celestial prince so radiant in glory and in beauty that she was troubled with a holy fear, accompanied however, by an interior joy which, his presence caused her by reason of the lights which he communicated to her soul.

The saintly Anne prostrated herself with profound humility to honor the ambassador of heaven; but he prevented her from so humbling herself, saying, "Continue your prayers and supplications, and have no other care, for the same Lord will decree the accomplishment of your desire.  Walk in the narrow way of justice, raise your heart and mind to the things of heaven, pray always for the coming of the Messiah, and rejoice in the Lord, Who is thy salvation." Thereupon the angel disappeared, having left Anne much inward light for the penetration of various mysteries of the Sacred Scriptures, filled her soul with consolation, and renewed the fervor of her spirit.

The archangel neither appeared nor spoke to St. Joachim in corporal form as he did to St. Anne; but the man of God, heard himself thus addressed in a dream "Joachim, blessed be thou among men; persevere in thy desires, and practice justice and perfection.  It is the will of God that thou receive thy spouse, for the Almighty hath filled her soul with benedictions..."

The story was thus preserved in the Apocryphal "Book of the Birth of Blessed Mary, and of the Childhood of Christ", from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, Chapter III

“The angel which had already appeared to him while awake, appeared to him in sleep, saying, 'I am an angel and am given thee by God as a guardian; go down in confidence, and return to Anna, because the kind acts which thou and thy wife Anna have done are rehearsed in the presence of the Most High; and God will give you such fruit as neither the prophets nor any saint ever had from the beginning, nor shall have.

“Now when Joachim had awaked from sleep, he called all his herdsmen to him, and told them the dream.  And they adored the Lord, and said to him, 'Take heed not to condemn the sayings of the angel any further.  But arise, let us go hence and let us return at a slow pace, feeding our flocks.

“When they had tarried the space of some days on their return, and were now nigh behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Anna as she stood and prayed saying to hers 'Go to the gate which is called the Golden Gates and meet thy husband in the way, for today he will return to thee.'

“She therefore went out in haste to meet him, with her maidens, praying to the Lords she stood in the gate a long time waiting for him.  When she was growing faint, with very long expectation, she raised her eyes and saw Joachim

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afar off coming with his flocks; she met him, and hung upon his neck giving thanks to God, and saying, "I was a widow, and lo, I am not one now I was barren, and, behold, I hav