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
to the Ephesians, the former passage adds "the Virgin" after "Mary," but
nothing more.
5. In the Epistle of POLYCARP we find an admonition to virgins (Page
186), how they ought to walk with a spotless and chaste conscience, but
there is no allusion to the Virgin Mary.
JUSTIN MARTYR. In this writer I do not find any passage so much in point
as the following, in which we discover no epithet expressive of honour,
or dignity, or exaltation, though it refers to Mary in her capacity of
the Virgin mother of our Lord:--"He therefore calls Himself the Son of
Man, either from his birth of a virgin, who was of the race of David,
and Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham, or because Abraham himself was the
father of those persons enumerated, from whom Mary drew her origin."
[Trypho, Sec. 100. p. 195.] And a little below he adds, "For Eve being a
virgin and incorrupt, having received the word from the serpent, brought
forth transgression and death; but Mary the Virgin having received faith
and joy (on the angel Gabriel announcing to her the glad tidings, that
the Spirit of the Lord should come upon her, and the power of the
Highest overshadow her) answered, Be it unto me according to thy word.
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