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The Rosary is a Marian Devotion. This will motivate us to pray the Rosary in proportion to the degree that we are motivated to honor Mary.
The same Gospels that we read today were also reverenced by the early Christians. In a similar spirit, Blessed John Henry Newman (1801 - 1890) set about the task of showing that the beliefs and devotions that we have today regarding Mary are the very same as those practiced by the early Christians.
In one of his manuscripts, Blessed John Newman quotes 12 different early Christian writers and shows that from the very beginning Mary was recognized as a type of “second Eve.” Let’s consider what that implies.
Adam, who was charged by God with the naming of all things, called Eve “the Mother of all the living.” She had her own general relation to the human race and her own special place regarding its trial and its fall in Adam. She cooperated personally in the sin and brought it about. Blessed John Newman observes the following:
In that awful transaction there were three parties concerned: the serpent, the woman, and the man; and at the time of their sentence, an event was announced for the future, in which the three same parties were to meet again: the serpent, the woman, and the man. But it was to be a second Adam and a second Eve, and the new Eve was to be the mother of the new Adam. “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.” The Seed of the woman is the Word Incarnate, and the Woman whose seed or son He is, is His mother Mary. This interpretation and the parallelism it involves, seem to me undeniable but at all events (and this is my point) the parallelism is the doctrine of the Fathers from the earliest times; and, this being established, we are able, by the position and office of Eve in our fall, to determine the position and office of Mary in our restoration.
Whereas Blessed John Newman goes on to quote 12 early Christian writers to illustrate this Marian devotion among the primitive Church, we are going to reproduce only 3 of them here: St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 120 - 165), St. Irenaeus (120 - 200), and Tertullian (160 - 240) These writers were appealed to in the previous chapter to show the integrity of our traditions concerning the written Gospels. We now use them to show that our traditions concerning Mary are equally reliable. The following passage comes from the writings of Blessed John Henry Newman:
Tertullian represents Africa and Rome; St. Justin represents Palestine; and St. Irenaeus Asia Minor and Gaul, or rather he represents St. John the Evangelist, for he had been taught by the Martyr St. Polycarp who was the intimate associate of St. John and of the other Apostles.
St. Justin:
“We know that He, before all creatures, proceeded from the Father by His power and will, …and by means of the Virgin became man, that by what way the disobedience arising from the serpent had its beginning, by that way also it might have an undoing. For Eve, being a virgin and undefiled, conceiving the word that was from the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death; but the Virgin Mary, taking faith and joy, when the Angel told her the good tidings, that the Spirit of the Lord should come upon her and the power of the Highest overshadow her, and therefore the Holy One that was born of her was Son of God, answered, ‘Be it to me according to Thy word.’”
-Tryph 100
Tertullian:
“God recovered His image and likeness, which the devil had seized, by a rival operation. For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had crept the word which was the framer of death. Equally into a virgin was to be introduced the Word of God which was the builder-up of life so that what by that sex had gone into perdition, by the same sex might be brought back to salvation. Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel. The fault which the one committed by believing, the other by believing has blotted out.”
-De Carn. Christ 17
St. Irenaeus:
“With a fitness, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, ‘Behold Thy handmaid, O Lord; be it to me according to Thy word.’ But Eve was disobedient; for she obeyed not, while she was yet a virgin. As she, having indeed Adam for a husband, but as yet being a virgin …becoming disobedient, became the cause of death both to herself and to the whole human race, so also Mary, having the predestined man, and being yet a Virgin, being obedient, became both to herself and to the whole human race the cause of salvation. …And on account of this the Lord said, that the first should be last and the last first. And the Prophet signifies the same, saying, ‘Instead of fathers you have children.’ For, whereas the Lord, when born, was the first-begotten of the dead, and received into His bosom the primitive fathers, He regenerated them into the life of God, He Himself becoming the beginning of the living, since Adam became the beginning of the dying. Therefore also Luke, commencing the line of generations from the Lord, referred it back to Adam, signifying that He regenerated the old fathers, not they Him, into the Gospel of life. And so the knot of Eve’s disobedience received its unloosing through the obedience of Mary; for what Eve, a virgin, bound by incredulity, that Mary, a virgin, unloosed by faith.”
-Adv. Haer. Iii. 22. 34.
And again:
“As Eve by the speech of an Angel was seduced, so as to flee God, transgressing His word, so also Mary received the good tidings by means of the Angel’s speech, so as to bear God within her, being obedient to His word. And, though the one had disobeyed God, yet the other was drawn to obey God; that of the virgin Eve the Virgin Mary might become the advocate. And, as by a virgin the human race had been bound to death, by a virgin it is saved, the balance being preserved, a virgin’s disobedience by a virgin’s obedience.”
-Ibid. v. 19.
The same Gospels that we read today were also reverenced by the early Christians. In a similar spirit, Blessed John Henry Newman (1801 - 1890) set about the task of showing that the beliefs and devotions that we have today regarding Mary are the very same as those practiced by the early Christians.
In one of his manuscripts, Blessed John Newman quotes 12 different early Christian writers and shows that from the very beginning Mary was recognized as a type of “second Eve.” Let’s consider what that implies.
Adam, who was charged by God with the naming of all things, called Eve “the Mother of all the living.” She had her own general relation to the human race and her own special place regarding its trial and its fall in Adam. She cooperated personally in the sin and brought it about. Blessed John Newman observes the following:
In that awful transaction there were three parties concerned: the serpent, the woman, and the man; and at the time of their sentence, an event was announced for the future, in which the three same parties were to meet again: the serpent, the woman, and the man. But it was to be a second Adam and a second Eve, and the new Eve was to be the mother of the new Adam. “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.” The Seed of the woman is the Word Incarnate, and the Woman whose seed or son He is, is His mother Mary. This interpretation and the parallelism it involves, seem to me undeniable but at all events (and this is my point) the parallelism is the doctrine of the Fathers from the earliest times; and, this being established, we are able, by the position and office of Eve in our fall, to determine the position and office of Mary in our restoration.
Whereas Blessed John Newman goes on to quote 12 early Christian writers to illustrate this Marian devotion among the primitive Church, we are going to reproduce only 3 of them here: St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 120 - 165), St. Irenaeus (120 - 200), and Tertullian (160 - 240) These writers were appealed to in the previous chapter to show the integrity of our traditions concerning the written Gospels. We now use them to show that our traditions concerning Mary are equally reliable. The following passage comes from the writings of Blessed John Henry Newman:
Tertullian represents Africa and Rome; St. Justin represents Palestine; and St. Irenaeus Asia Minor and Gaul, or rather he represents St. John the Evangelist, for he had been taught by the Martyr St. Polycarp who was the intimate associate of St. John and of the other Apostles.
St. Justin:
“We know that He, before all creatures, proceeded from the Father by His power and will, …and by means of the Virgin became man, that by what way the disobedience arising from the serpent had its beginning, by that way also it might have an undoing. For Eve, being a virgin and undefiled, conceiving the word that was from the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death; but the Virgin Mary, taking faith and joy, when the Angel told her the good tidings, that the Spirit of the Lord should come upon her and the power of the Highest overshadow her, and therefore the Holy One that was born of her was Son of God, answered, ‘Be it to me according to Thy word.’”
-Tryph 100
Tertullian:
“God recovered His image and likeness, which the devil had seized, by a rival operation. For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had crept the word which was the framer of death. Equally into a virgin was to be introduced the Word of God which was the builder-up of life so that what by that sex had gone into perdition, by the same sex might be brought back to salvation. Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel. The fault which the one committed by believing, the other by believing has blotted out.”
-De Carn. Christ 17
St. Irenaeus:
“With a fitness, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, ‘Behold Thy handmaid, O Lord; be it to me according to Thy word.’ But Eve was disobedient; for she obeyed not, while she was yet a virgin. As she, having indeed Adam for a husband, but as yet being a virgin …becoming disobedient, became the cause of death both to herself and to the whole human race, so also Mary, having the predestined man, and being yet a Virgin, being obedient, became both to herself and to the whole human race the cause of salvation. …And on account of this the Lord said, that the first should be last and the last first. And the Prophet signifies the same, saying, ‘Instead of fathers you have children.’ For, whereas the Lord, when born, was the first-begotten of the dead, and received into His bosom the primitive fathers, He regenerated them into the life of God, He Himself becoming the beginning of the living, since Adam became the beginning of the dying. Therefore also Luke, commencing the line of generations from the Lord, referred it back to Adam, signifying that He regenerated the old fathers, not they Him, into the Gospel of life. And so the knot of Eve’s disobedience received its unloosing through the obedience of Mary; for what Eve, a virgin, bound by incredulity, that Mary, a virgin, unloosed by faith.”
-Adv. Haer. Iii. 22. 34.
And again:
“As Eve by the speech of an Angel was seduced, so as to flee God, transgressing His word, so also Mary received the good tidings by means of the Angel’s speech, so as to bear God within her, being obedient to His word. And, though the one had disobeyed God, yet the other was drawn to obey God; that of the virgin Eve the Virgin Mary might become the advocate. And, as by a virgin the human race had been bound to death, by a virgin it is saved, the balance being preserved, a virgin’s disobedience by a virgin’s obedience.”
-Ibid. v. 19.