strong woman whose maidens are clothed with double garments, Prov. 21:2. She is the queen, of whom the Psalmist says: "The queen stands at thy right hand in vestments of gold" [Psalms 45:9]. This is Jerusalem, our mother, the temple of the Lord, the kingdom of heaven and the city of the Great King; and this whole church, as Augustine, Enchiridion, 41 [Nic. Fathers, 3: 255, 256], says, "is to be understood not only of that part which sojourns here, praising God from the rising to the setting of the sun, and which, after its old captivity, is singing the new song, but also of that part in heaven which, continuing true to the purpose for which it was constituted, has always been loyal to God, and has never felt misery from any fall. This part among the holy angels remains blessed and, as it behooves it to do, helps the part sojourning upon the earth, because she who is to be one by the companionship of eternity is now also one by the bond of love. And this whole church was constituted to worship God. Therefore, neither the whole nor any part of it wishes to be worshipped as God." So far, Augustine.
This is the holy catholic church which Christians profess immediately after professing their faith in the Holy Spirit.[1] First, because, as Augustine says,[2] she is the highest creature,
- ↑ The reference is to the Apostles' Creed, "I believe in the holy catholic church," which is preceded by the confession of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Also the Nicene creed. See Schaff, Creeds, 2:57 sq. With regard to the intercession of the saints in heaven and on earth, the council of Trent, XXV, says: "That the saints who reign together with Christ offer up their own prayers to God for men, and it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and to have recourse to their prayers and help for obtaining benefits from God through his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who is our only Redeemer and Saviour."
- ↑ In the Enchiridion, as quoted above. Augustine makes a similar statement in his sermon to catechumens, Nic. Fathers, 3: 375.
the Canticles to her praise. Albertus Magnus, in his elaborate panegyric of Mary, dwells again and again upon its passages, devoting no less than two hundred and forty pages to the words, "a garden shut up is my sister, my bride," Cant. 4:12. Alanus ab Insulis speaks of the Canticles as referring to the church, but in the highest spiritual sense to Mary, and another of the saner Schoolmen, Rupert of Deutz, fills his commentary on the Canticles with the most tropical language.
