mariologydogmati00pohl - Carmel Apologetics

DIGNITY OF DIVINE MOTHERHOOD 17
based upon His twofold birth, is strongly em-
phasized in the ancient creeds and conciliar defini-
tions.
The so-called Athanasian Creed 3 teaches : " For the
right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man : God, of
the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds
and man, of the substance of His mother, born into the
world." 4 And the Fifth Council of Constantinople
(A. D. 553) defines: "If any one do not confess that
the Word of God has two births, the one before the
worlds from the Father, out of time and incorporeally,
and the other . . . from the holy and glorious Deipara
and ever Virgin Mary, ... let him be anathema." 5
The dignity of Mary's maternal relation to the Second
Person of the Trinity cannot be adequately expressed in
human terms. The Fathers try to explain it by applying
to her certain passages of the Psalms, 6 wherein the beau-
ties of the Ark of the Covenant, the Temple of Solomon,
and the great City of Zion are described in exalted terms.
In fact they regard the Ark of Noe, the Ark of the Cove-
nant, the Golden Bowl, etc., as types of the Blessed
Virgin. 7
3 This creed, known also from its not us." (Denzinger-Bannwart, n.
first word as the Symbolum Qui' 40.)
cunque, '
is an admirable resume 5 " Si quis non confitetur, Dei
of the doctrine of St. Athanasius, Verbi du as esse nativitates (ras
but is not his work. It is of 8vo yevvrjaeis) > unam quidem ante
Western origin, and was written in saecula ex Patre sine tempore in-
Spain, against Priscillianism. Cfr. corporaliter, alteram vero. . . . de
Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, p. sancta gloriosa Dei genitrice (0eo-
255. tokov) st semper virgine Maria,
4 " Est ergo fides recta, ut creda- , . . talis anathema sit." (Denzinmus
et confiteamur, quia D. N. ger-Bannwart, n. 214.)
Iesus Christus Dei Filius Deus et 6 Ps. XVIII, 6; XLV, 5 sqq.;
homo est: Deus est ex substantia LXXXVI, 1 sqq., etc.
Patris ante saecula genitus, et homo 7 On these types cfr. the first of
est ex substantia matris in saeculo St. John Damascene's Homilies on