remembrance, the passages quoted with a similar view, as regards the
Virgin Mary, are very few indeed: whilst the passages which intimate
that the early Christians paid her no extraordinary honour (certainly
not more than we of the Anglican Church do now) are innumerable.

I have thought that it might be satisfactory here to refer to each
separately of those earliest writers, whose testimony we have already
examined on the general question of the invocation of saints and angels,
and, as nearly as may be, in the same order.

In the former department of our investigation we first endeavoured to
ascertain the evidence of those five primitive writers, who are called
the Apostolical Fathers; and, with regard to the subject now before us,
the result of our inquiry into the same works is this:

1. In the Epistle ascribed to BARNABAS we find no allusion to Mary.

2. The same must be affirmed of the book called The Shepherd of HERMAS.

3. In CLEMENT of Rome, who speaks of the Lord Jesus having descended
from Abraham according to the flesh, no mention is made of that daughter
of Abraham of whom he was born.

4. IGNATIUS in a passage already quoted (Ad Eph. vii. p. 13 and 16)
speaks of Christ both in his divine and human nature as Son of God and
man, and he mentions the name of Mary, but it is without any adjunct or
observation whatever, "both of Mary and of God." In another place he
speaks of her virgin state, and the fruit of her womb; and of her having
borne our God Jesus the Christ; but he adds no {290} more; not even
calling her "The blessed," or "The Virgin." In the interpolated Epistle