as a logical consequence, that she herself is divine, and therefore an object of divine worship. This was not, indeed, the meaning and purpose of the ancient church ; as, in fact, it never asserted that Mary was the mother of the essential, eternal divinity of the Logos. She was, and continues to be, a created being, a human mother, even accord- ing to the Koman and Greek doctrine. But according to the once prevailing conception of her peculiar relation to deity, a certain degree of divine homage to Mary, and some invocation of her powerful intercession with God, seemed unavoidable, and soon became a universal practice. The first instance of the formal invocation of Mary occurs in the prayers of Ephraim Syrus (f 379), addressed to Mary and the saints, and attributed by the tradition of the Syrian church, though perhaps m part incorrectly, to that author. The first more certain example appears in Gregory Nazianzen (f 389), who, in his eulogy on Cyprian, relates of Justina that she besought the virgin Mary to protect her threatened vir- ginity, and at the same time disfigured her beauty by ascetic self-tortures, and thus fortunately escaped the amours of a youthful lover (Cyprian before his conversion)." But, on the other hand, the numerous writings of Athanasius, Basil, Chrys- ostom, and Augustine, furnish no example of an invocation of Mary. Epiphanius even condemned the adoration of Mary, and calls the practice of making offerings to her by the Colly- ' 'Ek Mapi'as ttjs irapbevov, Trjs ^sotSkov. ■ Triv vap^ivov Maplay iKerevovffa fioTjSrrivai (Virginem Mariam supplex obsecrans) TrapS/tvoj KivSuvevovffri. Orat. xviii. de St. Cypriano, torn. i. p. 279, ed. Paris. The earlier and autlientic accounts respecting Cyprian know nothing of any such court* ehip of Cyprian and intercession of Mary. § 82. MAEIOLATKY. 423 ridian women, blasphemous and dangerous to the soul.' The entire silence of history respecting the worship of the Virgin down to the end of the fourth century, proves clearly that it was foreign to the original spirit of Christianity, and belongs among the many innovations of the post-Nicene age. In the beginning of the fifth century, however, the worship of saints appeared in full bloom, and then Mary, by reason of her singular relation to the Lord, was soon placed at the head, as the most blessed queen of the heavenly host. To her was accorded the hyperdulia {virephovXeia) — to anticipate here the later scholastic distinction sanctioned by the council of Trent — that is, the highest degree of veneration, in distinction from mere dulia {SovKeia), which belongs to all saints and angels, and from latria (Xarpeia), which, proj^erly speaking, is due to God alone. From that time numerous churches and altars were dedicated to the holy Mother of God, the perpetual Virgin ; among them also the church at Ephesus in which the anti-Nestorian council of 431 had sat. Justinian I., in a law, implored her intercession with God for the restoration of the Roman empire, and