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£6 13s. 4d. for serving the cure. There are in that parish sixteen Protestant families. Shane Lishawe and Walter Fitzgerald, both Mass-priests, frequent that parish and say Mass there. Leixlipe. The church and chauncel are ruinous. tithes are impropriate, worth ... per annum. Mr. Gerrott Whyte is farmer; Thomas Keatinge, clerk, is curate. For serving the cure he hath £4 per annum. All the parishioners, except one or two families, are recusants.

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Confie. The church and chauncel are in good repair. The tithes, being worth ... per annum, are impropriate, held by Mr. Fagan of Feltrim. The said Keatinge is curate; for serving the cure he hath £4 per annum. All the parishioners are

recusants.

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"Donacamper. The church and chauncel are in reasonable good repair. The tithes are impropriate, worth per annum, held by Mr. Allen, of St. Wolston's; the said Keatinge is curate. "Trisledillon. [No returns.]

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Straffan. The body of the church is ruinous; the chauncel is well covered, but wants glazing and necessary ornaments. The tithes, being worth £36 per annum, are impropriate, belonging to Mr. James Duffe of Dublin, merchant. Edward Pierse, clerk, is vicar there, whose vicarage there is worth £12 per annum. There are not above ten persons that frequent divine service in that parish.

"Teagtoe. No returns.]

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Laraghbrine. The church is in good repair, but the roof of the chauncel is uncovered, The tithes are worth £100 per annum, belonging to Mr. John Parker, prebend of Mynothe; the foresaid Thomas Keatinge is vicar there, the same being worth £10 per annum. All the parishioners are recusants. "Kildroght. [No returns.]

"Killadowan. [No returns.]

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Kinneigh. The church and chauncel are altogether ruinous. The great tithes, being worth £18 per annum, belong to the Lord Bishop of Kildare and the Vicars Choral of St. Patrick's. All the parishioners are recusants. James Kean, clerk, is vicar there, his vicarage being worth £9 per annum; John Walshe, clerk, serves the cure for him, for which he hath £4 per

annum.

"LAUNCELOT DUBLIN".

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86

THE SECOND EVE.

A CYNICAL philosopher might ask the self-evolving hierophants
of the "Bible-and-the-Bible-only" school, what importance, if
any, they may attach to the last verse in the last chapter of St.
John's gospel. Did the son of Zebedee and Salome undertake
to supply, if not all, at least the most salient,-omissions of the
synoptics? or, confining himself to the polemical occasion of
his writing, choose from his unlimited store of theantropical
facts only what was essential to establish the philosophy of the
Divine Spirit against the Cerinthian myths, and to confound the
Nicolaites and the rest of "antichrists"? What about the
'many other signs" that "are not written in this book"? The
divine mystagogue is of opinion that the world itself could not
contain the "many other things "-if they were written; and this
assertion must ex rei natura be extended to the three synoptical
gospels; and thus, at the very outset, the "written word, the only
rule", etc., is reduced to an absurdity. If we extend our faith to the
things that are written because we know the disciples' testimony
to be true, for the same formal reason we should believe in the
many other things" not written, were they but known to us.
And if this be true of facts, may it not also be true of theoretical
truths? of the innumerable preachments and explanations, the
doctrinal applications of, the immediate and mediate deductions
from, those truths or first principles? Christianity had already
taken possession of the known world ere the Evangelists or
Sacred Epistolographers had written a single line; so that the
question resolves itself simply to this: Is there, or is there not,
from the history of dogma an à priori evidence, strong and inde-
feasible, in favour of Tradition, as bringing unto us, and bearing
on to the end of time, a floating mass of unwritten truth? Again,
is not your theory of the written word expressly condemned by
the written word itself? and do you not more conform to the
Demiurgos of the platonics than to the Logos of John, by that
very contradictio in terminis-" The Bible and the Bible only"-
that silly old maid and effete foster-mother of the "no-popery
cries, of which we have had so gushing a plenitude in these
latter days? That the "moral contents of Christianity
alone of any real importance, is a first principle of that school of
which Strauss and Renan are the representives; this, however,
would not be an answer, but a mere evasion of our philosopher's
query. If his biblical friends were of sufficiently stoical a tem-
perament, they would fall back on the saving clause of old about
"all things under the sun", etc.; or perhaps on the principle
which Voltaire adopted from a heathen author,-which would

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be, by the way, but a legitimate conclusion from their own first premiss, that "incredulity is the beginning of wisdom". Our imaginary philosopher himself would be the last person to expect a more satisfactory parry to his cruel hit. His question answered itself; between Catholicity and pyrrhonism there is no medium. Mid the darkness, then, that covers the earth, and the mist the people, we look around for a suitable oasis whereon to rest while we apply our principles. The star of Jacob has arisen to guide our path; the Catholic world is all astir; "ipse dies pulchro distinguitur ordine rerum"; and we are compelled to follow in the wake of Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthassar, over the dreary desert, on to the Cave of Bethlehem! Here at once is recognized the second great epoch in the theological history (so to speak) of man. The old order is reversed; the "first-born of every creature comes to new-create man's first creation, and the mercy of the second seasons the justice of the first. This is no prosopopoeia; we are in presence of the Second Adam; and we see thus early the force of the doctrinal truth of St. Paul's antitheses in his epistle to the Romans and his first epistle to the Corinthians. But does not this fact immediately force upon our observation another one, not inconsequential, because necessarily correlative? Another syncresis is presented in the person of the second Eve,-" They found the Child with Mary". On reading the 15th verse of Genes. iii. with this simple sentence, the inseparable connection of the two contrasts, alluded to, becomes evident. We assert then, in the first place, that there is no doctrinal point more strongly affirmed by Tradition than the antithesis between the first and the second Eve. This will lend additional interest to a further consideration as to the natural consequences of such antithesis. As to the bibliolaters to whom, in the beginning of this article, we adverted, we merely say here" tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet". But to men of " High Church" tastes we might say: Give up at present the thought of reviving the dreams of Usher; do not declare Rome the intruder, and Augustine, sent from thence, a schismatic; feel your way; instead of basing your apostolical foundations merely upon a vague text of St. Paul, or an epigram of Martial, let us appeal to those of whom we all boast as the parent stock-let us call up the spirits of the mighty dead who witnessed for Christianity in the first two or three centuries; we may all become syncretists for the nonce, and hear what they have to say, and see how far we are their kinsmen in the matter. If we take the patristic literature of the prae-Nicene period, the predominant, substantive idea of the Blessed Virgin is universally this: she is the Second Eve. In one of the latest flowers of his own golden anthology, Dr. Newman justly calls this the

10

the

"rudimental teaching of antiquity"; and indeed, for didactical
purposes, this aspect of the Virgin's person and office may be
said to have held the place which, after Ephesus, was assigned
to "Theotocos". To understand the rationale of the title
"Second Eve", we must recal to mind the supernatural relation
of Adam and Eve to their posterity, and their own mutual rela-
tion in the Fall. With Adam, as the head and representative,
lay the actual, immediate fate of the human race. Eve was
given to him as a coadjutor; but her co-operation was not
necessary for good or evil. Her specific relation to the human
race was implied in that title of her dignity, "Mother of all the
living". Thus far in theory. Now, although Eve, as a non-
necessary cause, would not à priori be expected to determine,
even mediately, the good or evil of our spiritual destiny, yet, de
facto, she became the efficacious cause of the evil; the whole
thing may be morally ascribed to her, by reason of her active,
positive, sufficient agency in regard to Adam, the necessary cause;
-that is to say, judging after the event, Eve's part was a con-
dition sine
qua non. Now, the "woman" mentioned in the 15th
verse of Genesis iii., is, according to the doctrine of antiquity,
Mary, the mother of the Second Adam-the "seed of the
woman"; hence the title of " Second Eve". If we compare
history of the Fall with the prophecy in the 15th verse of same
chapter of Genesis, the exegetical result is to come to one inevi-
table conclusion, that, viz., the parts of the various actors are to
be diametrically reversed, relatively to the result of each. Eve
entered upon her office in a state of absolute sinlessness and
grace; she failed; she inaugurated the reign of sin. Mary
entered upon the same office; she did not fail, but inaugurated
the reign of Grace. The second Eve then, of necessity, should
be equally endowed as the first; should be from the very begin-
ning created in sinlessness and grace to fit her for the office. It
would be an alogism to say that thus much, at least, was not
required from the nature of the case in se and absolutely, as well
as relatively, in the parallelism of the Fathers. We have referred
to the active agency of the first Eve. The active parts, likewise,
of the second Eve and the Second Adam in the work of restora-
tion were synergistic. As the history of the Incarnation stands,
Mary is a sine qua non to its accomplishment. She could not
then be less than Eve; the Mother of God too could not be less
than the mother of men. The second Eve was to crush the
serpent, as the serpent crushed the first Eve; but for this the
second Eve could never be in his malefic power, as the first was;
that is to say, the antecedent grace, necessarily given in the
cases of both Eves for their person and office,-while it failed in
the first instance, should be triumphant in the case of the second

Eve. And this is simply and solely the Immaculate Conception.
Of the first Eve it is written," bone of my bone"; of the second
Eve,-
‚—" full of grace” (KεXaρITWμέvη).

66

In referring to the Fathers, we select passages to be reckoned non numero sed pondere"; and will but indicate the substantive sense in each, referring our readers to the originals.

St. Justin M. (A.D. 120—165), Tryph. 100; Irenaeus (120200), adv. haer. iii. 22, 34; Tertullian (160-240), De Carn. Christ. 17. These three fathers represent respectively Palestine, Asia Minor and Gaul, Africa and Rome. Justin speaks of the Virgin as the means whereby the work of the serpent was undone. Irenaeus, the disciple of Polycarp, who was the intimate associate of St. John, says that the Virgin was "to the whole human race the cause of salvation". The testimony of Tertullian is to the same effect,—that Mary "blotted out" Eve's fault, etc. As Dr. Newman, in his answer to the "Eirenicon", points out, these fathers speak of the Virgin not as a mere physical instrument, but as an active agent and responsible cause, co-operating in the privileges of her personal sanctity, as well as in the privileges of her dignity as Mother of God. In Justin and Tertullian we have witnesses of the received doctrine in the East and West. That this doctrine should be found by them extended over so extensive an area before the year 200, so similar in all its parts, so complete in its unity, is an evidence of its apostolical origin. In matter of Tradition, the earlier the testimony, the more valuable and weighty it is; and in the whole range of prae-Nicene literature there is nothing that can be brought to impinge on the testimony of these fathers, but everything to corroborate it.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386) says that life came from the Virgin as death came through Eve. (Cat. xii.) St. Ephrem, the Syrian, gives testimony to the same effect (Op. Syr. ii. p. 317-8), and also describes (Op. iii. p. 607) Mary as the agency whereby we are "translated from death to life". St. Epiphanius is witness for Palestine and Egyt for the fourth century. Commenting on the antitheses in the title and office of the first and the second Eve, this great Father does not hesitate to say: "Eve became a cause of death to man,...and Mary a cause of life" (Haer. 78).

St. Jerome, too, witnesses for the fourth and beginning of the fifth centuries. There is hardly one of his didactical works bearing ever so remotely on our subject, that will not be found replete with such sayings as: "Death by Eve, life by Mary"; "by one woman death, by one woman life", etc.; so that the reader could almost fancy himself in the midst of St. Paul's fifth chapter to the Romans. This testimony of St. Jerome is cosmo

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