Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/502

 VIRGIL

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VIRGIN

Syagrius, Bishop of Autun, succeeded Lizier as Bishop of Aries. In his great zeal for the conversion of the numerous Jews whom trade attracted to Pro- vence, Virgilius did not hesitate to employ force; whereupon St. Gregory the Great wTote (591) to Vir- gihus and to Tlieodore, Bishop of Marseilles, praising their good intentions but recommending them to con- fine their zeal to prayer and preaching. On 1 Aug., 595, St. Gregory extended to VirgiUus the title of pontifical vicar, granted to the bishops of Aries by Pope Zosimus (519); this dignity made him the inter- mediary between the Galhc episcopate and the Apos- tohc See. King Childebert was ui'ged by the pope to assist Virgihus in exterminating simony from the Churches of Gaul and Germania. St. Gregorj' several times requested Vu'gilius (596, 601) to extend a wel- come to Augustine and his monks whom he was send- ing to England. On another occasion he recom- mended to his protection a monastery belonging to the Patrimony of the Roman Church of which Lizier had taken possession. In a letter to Virgihus and to Syagrius, Bishop of Autun, the pope complains (July, 599) of their negUgence in not pieventing the mar- riage of Syagria, a woman who, having embraced the rehgious life, had been violently given in marriage. In 601 St. Gregory advised Virgihus to as.semble a council against simony and to induce the Bishop of Marseilles to reform his house. On 23 Aug., 613, Boniface IV sent the paUium to VirgiUus's successor Florian.

M.iBlLLON, Acta SS. O.S.B., II (Paris, 1669); Acta SS.. Mar., I, 397^02 (Paris, 1865) ; Andhien, Un insigne plagiat: faussete des actes de S. Virgile in Bulletin de la Societe scientifique des Basses-Alpes, III (Digne. 18S8); St. Gregobt, Epistola: in P. L., LXXVir. Albanes and Chevauer, Gallia Christiana noviasima, Aries (Valence, 1900).

Antoine Degert. Virgil, Polydore. See Vergil, Poltdore.

Virgin Birth of Christ, the dogma which teaches that the Blessed Mother of Jesus Christ was a vu-gin before, during, and after the conception and birth of her Divine Son.

I. The Virgin Birth in Catholic Theology. — The virginity of our Blessed Lady was defined under anathema in the third canon of the Lateran Council held in the time of Pope Martin I, A. D. 649. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, as recited in the Mass, expresses beUef in Christ "incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary "; the Apostles' Creed professes that Jesus Christ "was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary"; the older form of the same creed uses the expression: "born of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary". These professions show: (1) That the body of Jesus Christ was not sent down from Heaven, nor taken from earth, as was that of Adam, but that its matter was supplied by Mary; (2) that Mary co-operated in the formation of Christ's body as every other mother co-operates in the formation of the bod'y of her child, since otherwise Christ could not be said to be born of Mary, just as Eve cannot be said to be born of .\dam; (3) that the germ in whose development and growth into the Infant Jesus, Mary co-operated, was fecundated not by any human action, but by the Divine power attributed to the Holy Ghost; (4) that the super- natural influence of the Holy Ghost extended to the birth of Jesus Christ, not merely preserving Mary's integrity, but also causing Christ's birth or external generation to reflect his eternal birth from the Father in this, that "the Light from T-ight" proceeded from his mother's womb as a light sh(>d on the world; that the "power of the Most High" passed through the barriers of nature without injuring them; that "the body of the Word" formed by the Holy Ghost pene- trated another bodv after the manner of spirits.

The perpetual virginity of our Blessed Lady was taught and proposed to our belief not merely by the

councils and creeds, but also by the early Fathers. The words of the prophet Isaias (vii, 14) are under- stood in this sense by St. Irenaeus (III, 21 ; see Euseb., H. E., V, viii), Origen (Adv. Cels., I, 35), TertulUan (Adv. Marcion., Ill, 13;Adv. Judaeos, IX), St. Justin (Dial. con. Tryph., 84), St. Chrysostom (Hom. v in Matth., n. 3; in Isa., VII, n. 5); St. Epiphanius (Haer.,xxviii, n. 7), Eusebius (Demonstrat. ev., VIII, i), Rufinus (Lib. fid., 43), St. Basil (in Isa., vii, 14; Hom. in S. General. Christi, n. 4, if St. Basil be the author of these two passages), St. Jerome and Theo- doretus (in Isa., vii, 14), St. Isidore (Adv. Judaeos, I, X, n. 3), St. Ildefonsus (De perpetua \nrginit. s. Mari*, iii) St. Jerome devotes his entire treatise against Helvidius to the perpetual virginity of Our Blessed Lady (see especially nn. 4, 13, 18); the con- trary doctrine is called madness and blasphemy by Gennadius (De dogm. eccl., Ixix), madne,ss by Origen (in Luc, h. vii), sacrilege by St. Ambrose (De instit. virg., V, xxxv), impiety and smacking of atheism by Philostorgius (VI, 2), perfidy by St. Bede (hom. v, and xxii), full of blasphemies by the author of Prse- destin. (i, 84), perfidy of the Jews by Pope Siricius (ep. ix, 3), heresy by St. Augustine (t)e Hasr. h.,lvi). St. Epiphanius probably excels all others in his invectives against the opponents of Our Lady's virginity (Haer., l.xxviii, 1, 11, 23).

There can be no doubt as to the Church's teaching and as to the existence of an early Christian tradition maintaining the perpetual virginity of our Blessed Lady and consequently the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. The mystery of the virginal conception is furthermore taught by the third Gospel and confirmed by the first. According to St. Luke (i, 34, 35), "Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." The inter- course of man is excluded in the conception of Our Blessed Lord. According to St. Matthew, St. Joseph, when perplexed by the pregnancy of ]\Iary, is told by the angel: "Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost" (i, 20).

II. Sources of this Doctrine. — Whence did the Evangehsts derive their information? As far as we know, only two created beings were witnesses of the annunciation, the angel and the Blessed Virgin. Later on the angel informed St. Joseph concerning the mystery. We do not know whether Elizabeth, though "filled with the Holy Ghost", learned the full truth supernaturally, but we may suppose that Mary confided the secret both to her friend and her spouse, thus completing the partial revelation received by both. Between these data and the story of the Evangehsts there is a gap which cannot be filled from any express clue furnished by either Scripture or tradition. If we compare the narrative of the first Evangelist with that of the third, we find that St. Matthew may have drawn his information from the knowledge of St. Joseph independently of any infor- mation furnished by Mary. The first Gospel merely states (i, 18): "When as his mother Mary was es- poused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child, of the Holy Ghost." St. Joseph could supply these facts either from personal knowledge or from the words of the angel: "That which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost." Tlie narrative of St. Luke, on the other hand, must ultimately be traced back to the testimony of Our Blessed Lady, unless we are preparc^d to admit unnecessarily another independent revelation. The evangehst himself points to Mary as the source of his account of the infancy of Jesus, when he says that Mary kept all these words in her heart (ii, 19, 61).