IV. Devotion to Mary since the Reformation

1. In Protestant Churches

The Reformation churches returned in this regard to the standpoint of primitive Christianity. While Luther in 1516 was still so much under the influence of the Scotist tradition as to call Mary (with a play on one interpretation of her name) "the only pure drop in the ocean of human perdition," in 1521, in his exposition of the Magnifubi, he dwelt on the humility of this handmaiden of God, " who is no helping goddess, who gives us nothing,

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in whom rather God as the only giver of all things is to be praised." The fact that he held to the traditional belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary did not lessen his decided opposition to the practise of asking for her intercession.. The same position was taken by the other principal leaders of the German Reformation.

2. Growth of Roman Catholic Devotion

In the Roman Catholic countries, however, devotion to Mary received scarcely even a temporary check. The Jesuit order put a new enthusiasm into this as into all other medieval institutions; and the same tendency was furthered by the foundation of a number of female religious orders bearing her name or specially devoted to her during the sixteenth and eeven- teenth centuries. A certain reaction against this attitude was the result of the freer spirit of Jansenism and similar movements, and of literary undertakings after the middle of the seventeenth century, such as those of ThSophile Raynaud (Diptycha Mariana, Grenoble, 1843), J. de Launoy (1878), and A. Baillet (1693). This opposition was carried still further by the re form movement of the Emperor Joseph. By his orders in 1784, the gold and silver hearts, hands and feet, and other votive offerings were removed from the shrines of Mary and from the churches, and the further distribution of scapulars, medals, and amulets forbidden. After the Congress of Ems (q.v.) and the Synod of Pistoja in 1788, however, Pius VI. defeated the anti-ultramontane opposition, and brought to nothing the hopes of those who had looked for thorough and permanent expulsion of the Jesuit spirit from the Church. Especially in Southern Italy, a more exaggerated devotion than ever surpassed the moat extreme assertions of medieval theologians. In the Gloria di Maria of Liguori (q.v.), which found a wide circulation out side of Italy, Mary's mediatorial power was celebrated as even greater than that of her Son. All this prepared the way for the complete triumph of the upholders of the Immaculate Conception theory decree of Pius IX. in 1854 (see Immaculate Conception). The increasing enthusiasm of the Roman Catholics in devotion to Mary was not, however, so strongly promoted by this decision on a technical point as by other factors, especially the institution of the Feast of the Rosary, on the first Sunday in October (a Dominican institution, ex tended to the whole Church by, Gregory XIII. in 1583), and the introduction by the Jesuits of the May Devotions, by which the entire month of May acquired the character of a season consecrated to the special honor of the Virgin. These latter arose at the end of the eighteenth century in Italy as an ecclesiastical antithesis to the irreligious spring festivals introduced by the French Revolution, and gradually spread to France, Belgium, Austria, and Germany. Pies VII. commended the custom by a brief of Mar. 21, 1815, and attached numerous indulgences to it. A further help to the promotion of Marian devotion has been found in the sodalities or congregations of the blessed Virgin, originating is the sixteenth century but flourishing especially in the later epoch of Jesuit influence (see Confraternities, Religious).