Chapter 9 The Eighth Star or Splendour of the Crown of Power of the MOTHER OF GOD
She commands the Church’s armies
Continuing our translation of the 1845 reprint of Fr François Poiré's Triple Crown of the Mother of God (1643 French edition).
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| Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac.(Poggi, 2020) |
§ 5. The third Legion of the enemies of God and the Holy Virgin : Heretics
6 The third cohort comprises those who are determined to rip out the most precious stone in the Holy Virgin’s crown, namely her title as MOTHER OF GOD. Ebion of old was the first in this group and, according to the account of Nicephorus[1], maintained that the Saviour was no more than a man, and consequently it was an intolerable abuse to call Mary the MOTHER OF GOD. Manes of Persia features in the history written by Eusebius[2] who said that his name rightly interpreted means someone who had lost his wits and that he was motivated by the Evil one. After more than two hundred years, he argued that the Saviour only had the appearance of a body which he referred to as being like a phantom. This being so, it would show feebleness of mind to think that he might have been in the womb of a woman like other babies.
The wretched Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, comes after both of these but is worse still in his stubborn insolence[3], for although he was by no means a theologian he claimed to show that there were two persons in the Saviour of the world: the Divine and the human. The human person alone was called Christ and he was the son of Mary, who therefore could with reason be called the Mother of Christ, but not the MOTHER OF GOD. As for the other person (whom he called the divine person), he had no mother on Earth but only a Father in heaven. Nestorius had as a supporter one of his own priests, called Anastasius[4]. This man was of a fiery and divisive temperament who, when preaching one day in Constantinople, uttered the following words with remarkable effrontery: no one was to call Mary the MOTHER OF GOD forasmuch as Mary was a woman, and it is impossible that God could come to be born of a woman.
Footnotes
[1] Lib. III Hist., c. 13.
[2] Lib. c. 28.
[3] Vincent. Lirinens., in Commonitorio.
[4] Niceph., Eccl. Hist., lib. XIV, c. 21.
7 I am moving on quickly now so that readers do not have to spend any more time than is necessary on the sort of wickedness they displayed. We now come to the fourth cohort which includes those who do everything they can to fight against the recognition and honour the Church has always given to the Holy Virgin. Amongst these, by far the worst was the Emperor Constantine, nicknamed Copronymus or dung-named. The Greek historian Suidas speaks of him as follows[1]:
The Emperor Constantine was the son of Leo the Iconoclast and his own nickname was Copronymus[2]. This name derives from what happened to him when he was a baby and was taken to be baptised for it is said that he defecated in the sacred font. He was truly a leopard born of a lion, an asp hatching from the egg of a serpent, in a word: a perfect Antichrist issued from the tribe of Dan. He inherited his father’s wickedness no less than his empire, which he proceeded to profane through his vile actions and through the intercourse he kept with Demons, to whom he sold himself a thousand times over, becoming a true instrument of the Devil his father. He prohibited in public the invocation of Saints and he commanded that their relics should be exposed to public ridicule. He did worse than that, however, for he issued explicit commands forbidding the invocation of Mary, saying it was folly to hope for any help from her. He also prohibited people from calling her the MOTHER OF GOD or from offering any sort of honour to her. The following incident illustrates what a clown he was: he had decided one day to demean the Holy Virgin in front of a crowd of people who were listening to him. He took out a purse full of gold coins and asked them what value they would place upon this. Everyone agreed that this was worth a lot. Then he emptied all the coins onto the table and held up the purse again. He then asked what value they would now place upon the purse and the people replied that it was worth very little. Well, he said to them, learn from this that it is the same with Mary : for as long as she carried the Saviour in her womb she was truly precious in God’s eyes and worthy of every honour. But once she was delivered of the rich treasure she bore, there was nothing left to would raise her higher than any other women. This is an example of the behaviour of this wicked man who would, on the other hand, offer every sort of honour to Venus. He would also offer abominable sacrifices involving human victims to his goddess Maura, whom he had chosen as patroness of his sacrileges and his black magic.
The Cathars or Puritans were the accursed seed of Novatus[3] and refused to allow anyone speak of invoking the Holy Virgin4 or of offering her any honour. As for the Albigensian heretics, what I have already written of them should suffice, namely that they strove to a dishonour her in every imaginable way, scornfully portraying her with only one eye and doing everything they could to demean and dishonour her.
Footnotes
[1] Copronymus: from two Greek roots meaning dung or excrement and name.
[2] Also known as Novatian.
[3] Guido, de Catharis.
8 It seems to me that we have now seen more than enough to recognise the spirit behind these people and to decide whether there is any justification for what I proposed earlier, namely that all those who formulated heresies and spat out blasphemies against Heaven have been of necessity servants of Satan and come from his workshop, where they were formed and moulded. In the absence of Satan, no human spirit would be able to produce so much malice and have such a fury against God and His Mother. This being so, if she did not detest people such as these, making war against them to the death, would we not have reason to conclude she had little feeling for the insults and injuries perpetrated against her Son and against the Majesty of God? Would we not say that she was forgetful of the honour that was His due and that the harm suffered by the Church caused very little reaction in her? Since such a thing is not possible, we may in fact picture quite easily the opposition that exists between her and these instruments of iniquity. This opposition is so strong that according to the Patriarch Sophronius[1],
she would never go into the cell of the Abbot Cyriacus, but stayed outside the door along with St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist; she said this was because her enemywas hiding inside.
She was speaking about two books written by the wicked Nestorius, who, without the knowledge of the venerable old man, formed part of another book that he was studying.
According to the same writer[2], she refused to allow Cosmiana, a noble lady but one who was tainted by the heresy of the Acephali or Severians to visit the Holy Sepulchre; but she appeared to this lady along with a group of holy virgins who were following her and said to her, visibly upset: Art thou so bold as to presume thou mayest enter, not being one of us? Having said that, she closed the door in her face. As the lady persisted in asking to be allowed entry, the Holy Virgin replied to her: It is in vain that thou troublest thyself in this way; for until thou enterest into communion with us, it is folly for thee to think thou wilt be able to come in. When Cosmiana understood this, she went to see the Bishop and, having been reconciled with the Church, she was allowed entry by the holy Virgin without any difficulty.
We shall save the remainder for a discussion of the fierce war she has waged throughout history against the heretics and the victories she has gained over them.
Footnotes
[1] Prati spiritualis, c. 66. Generally attributed to Johannes Moschus (550-619), who was accompanied in his travels by Sophronius. See a 1992 English translation by John Wortley: The Spiritual Meadow (Cistercian Publications)
[2] Ibid. c. 47 ; Baron., t. VI.
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SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.
The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
© Peter Bloor 2025
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