Nothing more is said of Mary till we come to the Acts of the Apostles, where a brief but honourable notice closes her history. In an upper room at Jerusalem "abode Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren."
It is supposed that John took her with him to Ephesus, where she died in an extreme old age. There is a letter of the oecumenical council of Ephesus, importing, that in the fifth century it was believed she was buried there; but some authors think she was buried at Jerusalem.
Section IV.
Brief Account of the extravagant Regard which has been paid to the Virgin Mary at different Periods--the Names by which she has been addressed, and the Festivals instituted to honour her Memory--general Remarks on the Nature and Character of Superstition, particularly that of the Catholics.
After reviewing, as we have done in the preceding pages, the facts which are stated by the evangelists respecting the life of the mother of Jesus, the reader perhaps will not be displeased if he be presented with some of the fictions with which the fancy and the folly of the human race have combined to embellish her history. That she has a claim upon the respect of every age and nation, will not be disputed: but we must condemn as well as compassionate that weakness which has exalted her into an object of worship, and filled the temples, which ought to have been devoted to the service of God, with unauthorized addresses, unscriptural rites, and idolatrous disfigurements.
The first notice we have in history of undue honour being rendered to the Virgin Mary is about the close of the fourth century, when the Collyridians adored her as a goddess; and by various libations and sacrifices sought her protection, and hoped to avert her displeasure.
Soon after this period corruptions multiplied in the church to an extravagant degree, and mankind departed more and more from the simplicity of religion. A disposition to pomp and parade usually marks a decline in piety; for wherever "the beauty of holiness" is preserved, gaudy decorations and splendid formalities will be deemed unnecessary. Surely God is not honoured by a service which he has never instituted, and which is only calculated to divert the mind from the proper business of devotion and the supreme object of religious homage! In the fifth century, therefore, as piety languished, magnificence, with all her costly train, obtruded into notice. The riches of the church increased to an amazing extent; the altars, and chests for the preservation of relics, were made of silver; images adorned, or rather defiled, every niche; and the Virgin Mary, holding the child Jesus in her arms, every where occupied a conspicuous place. She had, besides, universally acquired the title of Θεοτουος, or mother of God, which occasioned the Nestorian controversy.
The idolatrous service of Mary assumed, in the tenth century, new forms of extravagance and absurdity. Among the Latin churches, masses were celebrated every sabbath; and afterward, what is termed the lesser office was performed in honour of St. Mary. There are also indications of the institution of the Rosary and Crown, by which her worshippers were to calculate the number of prayers offered: the former consisted of fifteen repetitions of the Lord's prayer, and a hundred and fifty salutations of the Virgin: the latter, of six or seven repetitions of the Lord's prayer, and six or seven times ten salutations, or Ave Marias.
About the year 1138 a solemn festival was instituted to celebrate the immaculate conception of the Virgin, of whom it was pretended, that her own birth partook of a similar purity to that which attached to her divine offspring. This doctrine was opposed by St. Bernard; but the French churches adopted it, and the superstition of the people contributed to its establishment. The subject was again debated with extreme virulence in the seventeenth century, between the Franciscans and Dominicans, in which the pope interposed a mediatorial power. The opinion of the former, who maintained the doctrine, was declared to have a high degree of probability in its favour, and the latter were required not to oppose it publicly; while the Franciscans were prohibited from treating the Dominican doctrine as erroneous. [[20]]
It is lamentable to see the profusion of eloquence and ingenuity which some of the most penetrating minds have expended on this subject. In all the Catholic writings we meet with impassioned addresses to the Virgin, appeals on her behalf to the feelings of piety, and a frequent celebration of her matchless perfections. The theological oracle of the French church distinctly states that "as the innocence of Jesus Christ is the life and salvation of sinners, so, through the innocence of the holy Virgin, he obtains pardon for the guilty," exhorting his hearers to "cleanse away their sins in the glorious splendour of her incorruptible purity," and adding, that "to undertake to describe the perfections of Mary, would be to fathom a bottomless abyss."