Scripture and tradition agree in attributing to Mary the greatest personal sanctity, and there is no dispute that the Church has always held her to be free from the commission of actual, or personal, sin. Saint Augustine crystallizes this view when he says natura et gratia,' c. 36) that, out of honor to the Lord, he wishes no question to be made of the holy Virgin Mary when sin is treated of. Her complete freedom from actual sin is confirmed by the Council of Trent (Sess. VI, can. 23): "If any one say that man, once justified, can during his whole life avoid all sins, even venial sins, unless by a special divine privilege, as the Church holds in regard to the Blessed Virgin, let him be anathema." In the New Testament Mary is called "the mother of Jesus" (John ii, 1, xix, 25, 26; Acts i, 14) and "mother of my Lord" (Luke i, 43), and there are attributed to her the usual functions of motherhood, namely, conception, gestation, parturition, and giving suck; but she is not specifically designated "mother of God." The belief that that title was properly her due pre railed, however, in the Church from the be ginning. The term eternizes (Lat. Deipara mother of God) was probably first formally ap plied to her toward the end of Cie 3d century by theologians of Alexandria. It occurs, for example, in the works of Origen. It came into common use in the 4th century, being found in the writings of Eusebins, Athanasius, Didymus, and Gregory of Nazianzus. As Saint Cyril of Alexandria put it (De Recta Fide ad Regin., c. 9), "This name efortwot was perfectly familiar to the ancient Fathers.° Nestorius, however, contended that Mary was not right fully called mother of God, as she was the mother, not of God, but of a mere man. Thereupon the Council of Ephesus (431) laid it down as an article of faith that Mary is really and truly the mother of God. The words of the decree are: "If any one does not confess that Emmanuel is truly God and consequently that the holy Virgin is the mother of God (0eor6xov, Dei genitricem) — inasmuch as she gave birth in the flesh to the Word of God made flesh, according to what is written: The word was made flesh) — let him be anathema." This decree was confirmed by several later Councils, e.g., Chalcedon (451) and Constanti nople (553). It may be added that this teach ing was sanctioned in the English Church, for in the first Book of Common Prayer (1549) Mary is called °mother of Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord and God," and it is still ac cepted by many, perhaps most, Anglican divines.
The title ad semper virgo, ever virgin, always a virgin), which represents a very early belief in the Church, was incor porated in the Creed by the Fifth Ecumenical Council of . Constantinople in 553— "qui de coelis descendit et incarnatus de sancta gloriosa Dei genitrice et semper virgine Maria (ix ayzac evd6eov et0T6K01) Kai iteirapeivov Mapiac) natus est ex ea." The doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity, that is, that she re mained a virgin before, during, and after parturition, was further emphasized by the Lateran Council in 649 and by the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 680. It is indisputably orthodox both in the Eastern and the Western Church. It is not accepted by Protestants in general, and has been the object of severe attack by modern Rationalists and infidel Bible critics.
The principal feasts held in honor of the Blessed Virgin are the Purification, 2 February (14 February in the Armenian Church) ; the Annunciation, 25 March; the Visitation, 2 July; the Assumption, 15 August; the Nativity of Mary, 8 September; the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, 21 November; and the Immacu late Conception, 8 December (9 December in the Eastern Church). There are, besides, many minor feasts, some locally celebrated, and others general.
Devotion to the Blessed Virgin has been prev alent in the Church from very early times. It received a fresh impetus from the above mentioned decree of the Council of Ephesus. The relationship of motherhood in which Mary had been declared to stand to God, stamping as authoritative the already existing popular belief, made invocation of her as a powerful intercessor with her divine Son a natural corollary, and devotion to her grew apace. In the Middle Ages it was widespread. In Eng land it was so common and entered to such an extent into practical life that that country was long known as Mary's Dowry. The promi nence which Mary had thus attained in Roman Catholic devotions and in popular estimation produced a reaction among the Reformers. They believed indeed in the birth of Christ from a pure virgin, who was consequently to be honored as His mother; but their fundamental position, that the justification and salvation of sinful man are accomplished through faith in Christ alone, caused them to repudiate the idea of a mediator with the mediator, of any creature coming as intermediary between the soul and Christ. The inevitable result, among Protestants, was an immediate dethronement of the mother from her high place as intercessor with her Son, and the immediate or later denial and striking away of some of her proudest prerogatives. This change of attitude is made evident, for example, in the first Book of Com mon Prayer (1549) of the English Church, in which the words of the Sarum rite, "glorious and ever Virgin Mary," are changed to "glorious and most blessed Virgin Mary,' and still more evident in the second Book (1552) and in the 15th and 22d Articles of Religion (1553). In some sections the Puritan element in Protestant ism carried its feeling against Mary so far as to scruple the singing of the and to abandon the public use of the Apostles' Creed because her name occurs in it. Even as recently as 1898 this spirit of opposition to any honor or invocation of Mary succeeded in securing the rejection of the Mater> from the Hymnary) and the removal of the words, "Son of Mary,' from one of the hymns. Such extremes, however, brought about another reaction. In the 18th century even the Scottish Church introduced the Virgin into the public services in one of its in another restored the use of the in metre, and in recent years authorized the singing of it in prose and the recital of the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds. The English liturgy never abandoned these. Further, it retained, and still retains, in its Calendar, among the "Feasts to he observed,' several festivals of the Blessed Virgin. Many Scottish and English divines have written of Mary in terms of great rever ence, tenderness, and beauty.