By Fr. Juan Carlos Iscara, SSPX

Is there historical evidence that the early Christians prayed to Our Lady?

There is a bit of a problem when we talk of the “early Church” or the “early Christians.” The beginning of such historical period is clear, the foundation of the Church, Pentecost—but when does that period end? For answering the present question, to be on the safer side, we will restrict ourselves to the evidence for the devotion to Our Lady in the relatively obscure 2nd and 3rd centuries, up to the formal magisterial acknowledgment of the divine maternity in the council of Ephesus, in 431.

In Scripture, Mary appears veiled in the Old Testament prophecies, coming into full light in the first chapters of St. Luke’s Gospel; then, she drifts back into relative obscurity during Christ’s ministry, and reappears into full light in the Apocalypse. This pattern of highlights and obscurities was somehow repeated in the development of Marian doctrine and devotion during the first centuries of the Church.

The first Christians preached one God, incarnate in Christ, both creator and redeemer, in opposition to the multiplicity of pagan gods. At the early stages of this preaching, to have emphasized the person of the Virgin-Mother could have created confusion, unfortunate comparisons, or syncretism with pagan myths. But, on the other hand, Mary’s humanity and maternity had to be emphasized, so as to stress the reality of the Incarnation, of Christ as Man-God, especially against those early heresies which denied the reality of Christ’s humanity.

Therefore, the Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries only progressively stressed the exceptionality of Mary, her holiness, the extraordinary privileges granted by God to carry out her unique and universal mission at the side of her Son. They made clear that their Marian doctrine was not superfluous, or a theological opinion, but necessary to preserve the integrity of the faith, as Mary is intimately united to the mystery of the union of divine and human natures in Christ. Thus, in the very first professions of faith, the confession of Christ was inseparably united to a confession of the exceptionality of Mary.

The first great theologian, St. Irenaeus of Lyon († 202), in developing a parallel between Eve and Mary, stressed this exceptionality. Mary has cooperated in the work of our salvation; she “has become the cause of salvation for herself and the entire human race.” As she is “the pure womb that regenerates men unto God,” she has become “Eve’s advocate” before Christ.

These themes where developed even more by Origen, in the mid-3rd century, not only addressing Mary as “Mother of God,” but, on the basis of her being the “new Eve,” also addressed her as “Mother of the faithful.” Being doubly sanctified by a double consecration (the descent of the Holy Ghost in her soul and of the Son in her womb), she has become an active channel of the Holy Ghost for the sanctification of men.

As the theological understanding of the role of Mary in the economy of salvation developed in these centuries, so did Marian piety in correspondence with it, prompting the recourse to her intercession.

The first evidence of this piety of the faithful is to be found in the decoration and the inscriptions of Christian tombs. The most important and ancient are from the Roman catacomb (Priscilla, Agnes, Coemeterium majus), from the 3rd and 4th centuries, representing the Virgin with Child, or the adoration of the Magi, with a man standing behind the Virgin and pointing to a star, or even the Annunciation.

These are straightforward, “literal” representations of evangelical passages and of the Mother and Child, directly pointing to the mystery of the Incarnation, as the images assert what heresy denied, both the reality of the human nature of Christ, and the divine maternity of Mary. Thus, these images were not objects of veneration, but a sign of recognition, a profession of faith and hope and an invitation to visitors to pray for those buried there.

Around the time when these images began to be painted in the Roman catacombs, that is, by mid-2nd century, a pilgrim came to the City, Abercius, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia Salutaris (a big name for a very small town in what is now Turkey). Being an old man, on returning from his long journey he prepared his tomb, with an inscription that is now in the Lateran Museum. This inscription gives testimony, mostly in veiled terms, not only to the spread of Christianity, to the preeminence of the Roman See, to Baptism and the Eucharist, but it also mentions Our Lady:

Faith everywhere led me forward, and everywhere provided as my food a Fish of exceeding great size, and perfect, which a holy Virgin drew with her hands from a fountain and this faith ever gives to its friends to eat, it having wine of great virtue, and giving it mingled with bread.

The mention of the “Fish” is an acronym for Iēsous Christos, Theou Yios, Sōtēr, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior,” as St. Augustine explains (De Civ. Dei, XVIII:23), and the Virgin is the one who has brought Christ to us.

From almost a century later, we have a fragment of Egyptian papyrus, in Greek, now in John Rylands Library, Manchester, UK. It is dated from c. 250-280, a period of increasingly violent and methodical persecutions (Valerian, Decius, building up to Diocletian). It contains a version of a prayer we still use, the Sub tuum praesidium:

Under your mercy we take refuge, O Mother of God! Our prayers do not despise in our necessities, but from the danger deliver us, only pure, only blessed.

It expresses the faith of the Church regarding Our Lady, in simple, succinct way. She is the Mother of God, the Theotokos, “God-bearer,” Deipara, Dei Genetrix, “birth-giver of God.” She has an unheard-of power of intercession—without giving her yet the title, she is acknowledged as the Mediatrix of all graces. Finally, She is the “only blessed,” especially chosen by God, and She is the “only pure,” perpetually Virgin.

By the end of the 4th century, in the Eastern Roman empire, the first recorded liturgical feast in honor of Our Lady was observed on the day after Christmas.

By the 4th and 5th centuries, the different liturgical prayers in use in the East piled up, in oriental fashion, the terms of praise of Mary and invoked her intercession. For example, in the Antiochene Liturgy of the Twelve Apostles:

Let us make the memorial of the all-holy, immaculate, highly glorious, blessed Lady, Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary by whose prayers and supplications may we be preserved from evil and may mercy be upon us in either world.

Finally, on June 22, 431, the ecumenical council assembled in Ephesus solemnly declared: “If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore that the holy Virgin is the Mother of God (for she bore in a fleshly way the Word of God become flesh), let him be anathema.” The devotion of the people to Our Lady was such that, when this sentence was known through the city, spontaneously a joyous multitude gathered around St. Mary’s Church, where the Council was held, and accompanied the conciliar Fathers back home, in procession, with lighted torches.

Until Ephesus the theological discourse on Mary was closely bound with the expression of Christological truths, but after Ephesus attention focused on Mary herself, and a triumphal veneration of the Theotokos spread like wildfire, in arts, liturgy and popular devotions.

Is there historical evidence that the early Christians rendered cult to the Saints and venerated their relics?

“Cult” is the public manifestation of honor rendered to the memory of a Saint by the community of the faithful, and ratified by the ecclesiastical authority.

From the very early times of the Church, the bodies of martyrs were recuperated by pious faithful, sometimes at the risk of their own lives, and honorably buried. Even their bloodied clothing was reverently collected and preserved. Thus, the Proconsular Acts of the martyrdom of St. Cyprian relate that the faithful of Carthage spread linens before him, to collect the blood to be shed in his beheading.

The martyrs were the first to become the object of the veneration of the local Church, because martyrdom is the highest expression of faith and the most intimate communion in the mystery of Christ. They were solemnly remembered on the anniversaries of their deaths, which Christians regarded as their dies natalis, the day of their birth to Heaven. This periodical commemoration and praise was invariably associated with the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice, as witnessed in the 3rd century by the Apostolic Constitutions. It was joyful Eucharist for the triumph of Christ in one of the members of His Mystical Body.

The eagerness of Christians to honor and commemorate the martyrs is clearly seen in the relation of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp of Smyrna († 155):

We took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already finished their course, and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps (Martyrium Polycarpi, 18).

The same narration clearly states the nature of the cult that is rendered to the martyr:

Christ, indeed, as being the Son of God, we adore; but the martyrs, as disciples and followers of the Lord, we worthily love on account of their extraordinary affection towards their own King and Master, of whom may we also be made companions and fellow disciples! (Martyrium Polycarpi, 17).

The special veneration for the martyrs also manifests itself in the burial inscriptions. Ancient Christian inscriptions abound in prayer formulas for the deceased, asking God’s favor for them—Requiescat in pace, Vivat in Christo, “Rest in peace,” “May he live in Christ.” But as martyrdom had opened the gates of Heaven for them, prayers addressed directly to the martyrs arose spontaneously from the conscience of the Christian people, asking them to intercede for us. Thus, for example, under the basilica of St. Sebastian in Rome, dating from around the year 260, is found an inscription: Paule et Petre, petite pro Victore, “Peter and Paul, pray for Victor.” In the catacomb of Praetextatus, another asks for the intercession of the deceased before God: Succurrite cum judicabitis, “Help us when you come before the judge.” And in the church of S. Sabina, from around the year 300: “Atticus, sleep in peace, secure in your safety, and pray anxiously for our sins.”

St. Augustine clearly set out the distinction between these two forms of prayer.

If we remember the martyrs, taking our places at the Lord’s table, it is not in order to pray for them, as for the other deceased who rest in peace. It is rather so that they pray for us, and that we follow in their footsteps. For they have fulfilled that love which the Lord said cannot be greater. They offered to their brethren that which they received at the Lord’s table.

Besides prayer asking for their intercession, the cult of the saints was also manifested by the veneration of their remains and of their images, a veneration that soon acquired a liturgical character.

Although writing centuries later, St. Thomas Aquinas expresses the rationale for the practice of the Church in this respect since the earliest times:

He who has a certain affection for anyone, venerates whatever of his is left after his death, not only his body and the parts thereof, but even external things, such as his clothes, and such like. Now it is manifest that we should show honor to the saints of God, as being members of Christ, the children and friends of God, and our intercessors. Wherefore in memory of them we ought to honor any relics of theirs in a fitting manner: principally their bodies, which were temples, and organs of the Holy Ghost dwelling and operating in them, and are destined to be likened to the body of Christ by the glory of the Resurrection. Hence God Himself fittingly honors such relics by working miracles at their presence (Summa Theologiae, III, q. 25, a.6).

In the early Church, the catacombs were above all the burial places of the martyrs. Contrary to legend, if Christians in Rome gathered in the catacombs to celebrate the Eucharist, it was less to hide, as the catacombs being very public places, than to be near the tombs of the martyrs. The faithful were eager, and even competitive, to be buried ad martyres, ad sanctos, “close to the martyrs, to the saints.” As St. Paulinus of Nola explained, when deciding to bury his son Celsus close to the martyrs of Complutum, he wished to do it “so that by the closeness to the blood of martyrs, he may draw the virtue that purifies our souls as fire.”

In the circumstances, the tombs themselves became the altars. From this first liturgy, almost dictated by the layout of the catacombs, arose the idea that there could be no real celebration without the protective presence of the body or, at least, of some remains of a martyr.

According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope St. Felix I († 274) transformed the custom into an obligation. At the end of the 4th century, St. Ambrose of Milan respectfully deposited the martyrs’ bodies under the altar:

Let triumphant victims take their place where Christ offers Himself as victim. On the altar, He who suffered for all and, below, those whom He redeemed by His passion.

The 5th Council of Carthage, in 401, formalized this practice, making it compulsory to provide any altar with relics, even going so far as to order the destruction of altars that were not thus provided. Since that date, there can be no question of consecrating an altar without having placed relics there. The solemn translation of the remains of the saints will become part of the liturgy of the dedication of the churches, even to this day.

Unfortunately, misguided popular piety risked turning the cult of relics into superstition. In the 4th century, Vigilantius, a Toulouse priest, even condemned it as idolatry. But then St. Jerome († 420) wrote a scathing letter, Contra Vigilantium, in which he explained that we render honor to the relics of the martyrs in order to adore the One of whom they were martyrs.

All the Fathers of the Church supported with their authority and enlightened with their science such an estimable veneration. In the East, St. John Chrysostom († 407) made himself its inspired cantor:

Do you want to taste inexpressible delights? Come to the tomb of the martyrs, bow humbly before their sacred bones, devoutly kiss the reliquary that contains them, read the combats they have sustained, the edifying features of their faith and their courage […] and you will feel the effects of their powerful intercession with God (Homily I on the Martyrs).

Early Christian piety also honored the images of the saints: paintings in cemeteries, mosaics in the basilicas. These representations were not originally an object of veneration, but part of a decorative setting of glory and an instructive reminder of the virtues to be practiced. It was the East that developed a theology of the icon, after upholding the legitimacy of its veneration against iconoclastic emperors.