Gelasius) was to be questioned by any man on pain of incurring an
anathema, Pope Leo says that Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost in
the womb of the Virgin Mary his mother, who brought him forth with the
same virgin purity as she had conceived him. Flavianus, Archbishop of
Constantinople, in his Declaration of faith to the Emperor Theodosius,
affirms, that Christ was born "of Mary, the Virgin--of the same
substance with the Father according to his Godhead--of the same
substance with his mother according to his manhood." [Vol. vi. p. 539.]
He speaks of her afterwards as "The holy Virgin."

There is, indeed, one word used in a quotation from Cyril of Alexandria,
and adopted in these transactions, which requires a few words of
especial observation. The word is _theotocos_[123], which the Latins
were accustomed {323} to transfer into their works, substituting only
Roman instead of Greek characters, but which afterwards the authors of
the Church of Rome translated by Deipara, and in more recent ages by Dei
Mater, Dei Genetrix, Creatoris Genetrix, &c. employing those terms not
in explanation of the twofold nature of Christ's person, as was the case
in these Councils, but in exaltation of Mary, his Virgin mother. This
word was adopted by Christians in much earlier times than the Council of
Chalcedon; but it was employed only to express more strongly the
Catholic belief in the union of the divine and human nature in Him who
was Son both of God and man; and by no means for the purpose of raising
Mary into an object of religious adoration. The sense in which it was
used was explained in the seventh Act of the Council of Constantinople,
(repeated at Chalcedon) as given by Cyril of Alexandria. "According to
this sense of an unconfused union, we confess the holy Virgin to be
theotocos, because that God the Word was made flesh, and became man, and
from that very conception united with himself the temple received from
her."