The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 8 : § 1. 13-14

Chapter 8 : The Seventh Star or Splendour in the Crown of Excellence of the Mother of God

Continuing our translation of the 1845 reprint of Fr François Poiré's Triple Crown of the Mother of God (1643 French edition).

Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac.(Poggi, 2020)

Mary’s soul was unique in being totally free of any sin

§ 1. The MOTHER OF GOD was exempt from original sin

The third proof, drawn from the nature of original sin

 13   We have made many references to original sin and there is a proof arising from its nature which bears further consideration. I wish I were able to take up a brush and confidently paint this sin in all its garish colours; I would bring into the light of day a monster capable of filling with terror anyone who looked upon it. In the absence of such a skill, however, I will at least try to provide a sketch which may give an idea of its horror.

I seem to see a monster which is horrible in every aspect, propelled out of hell so as to infect the whole world with its noisome toxicity. All the demons have helped to produce this monstrosity with its fearful face, its raging hatred and its merciless schemes. It has a hundred heads, all of them different but equally hideous. Its eyes are globes of fire, its teeth are sharpened razors, its throats are stinking pits and its claws are like fangs of steel. Fumes spew out of its throats and they are so overpowering as to spread darkness and poison through the air. Deep within its bowels burns Greek fire which destroys everything coming near it. The monster’s screams and howls fill everybody with a dread panic. They are driven before it into a grim cavern to be tormented. No-one can escape its fury. 

Now, once the monster has thrown these victims into its dungeons, it attacks them with its teeth and claws. It starts by violently disfiguring their faces,  reshaping them in the image and likeness of Satan. It pulls them and drags them, it carries them off and mutilates them, leaving nothing intact. It puts out the eyes and drives spikes into the ears, it sucks out the brains and rips out their hearts. But this is just the hellish beginning and it is not permitted to go any further in depicting its cruelty.

Footnotes

[1] Gen. iii. 15.

[2] Tract. II, c. 9, § 7.

 14   There you have strange picture, even though it is no more than a sketch and does not show the ugliness in all its reality. Lest you think, however, that I have been conjuring up monsters as we do in fairy tales to frighten children, I am going to present some of the details one by one so that you will see nothing I have said deviates from the truth. I said right at the beginning that this monster was conceived in hell and was then sent out to infect the world. Solomon spoke of this before me[1], saying that it was the Devil’s envy that spewed this horror into the world like a deadly poison. This was the first explosion of his fury when he began to lash out against God and to do everything he could to spite Him. Through this, in one fell swoop he brought death into the souls of Adam and all his posterity. You saw him as a monster with a hundred heads : these are all the types of actual sin that he conceived and propagated. Now it is true that this sin is one in its nature, as the Theologians teach, yet in its potentiality and in its seed are to be found all sins whatsoever. For once the root has been infested, it is inevitable that the whole tree will be affected : the fruit, the flowers, the leaves, the branches and the trunk. The monster’s heads are frightful to behold and their breath is hellish : for in truth the devil himself is not so hideous to behold and the cesspits of hell are not so foul  as one solitary sin is to the eyes and senses of God. The Greek fire that burns within him is nothing other than accursed concupiscence[2], the foremost effect of sin.  In the words of St James[3], it inflameth the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by hell. This means that concupiscence relentlessly lays hold of the brute part of man, making him feel its fires of desire and blinding him with its smoke for as long as this miserable life continues. This monster forces everyone before him, inasmuch as he takes us away from God’s presence, he makes us lose God’s friendship and the grace of His adoption along with any claims we might have to His inheritance; he makes us fall away from our privileged status, losing its benefits and the honour which is ours of being the children of God. This den of darkness where he confines us is on the outskirts of hell; we are obliged to stay here for as long as we remain in the misfortune arising from our birth.

As for his cruelty that I referred to above, please God we have not had to discover what it truly is through our personal experience.  Alas! We bear the marks of it from head to toe, as is evidenced by our darkened understanding, our will inclined to pleasure, our altered senses, our appetites in revolt against reason, and our reason rebelling against God’s will. Note especially the beautiful human face which has been disfigured, signifying that we who were made in the image of God have been altered so as to be the likeness of Satan[4]. This is how the Aeropagite defines original sin when he calls it a habit of dissimilarity with God attached to man from the moment of  his conception.

Footnotes

[1] But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world: And they follow him that are of his side. Sap. ii. 24-26.

[2] For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world. Ioan. ii. 16.

[3] And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is placed among our members, which defileth the whole body, and inflameth the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by hell. Cap. iii. 6.  

[4] Cap. 2 Eccles. hier.

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The Vladimirskaya Icon. >12th century.

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.

 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam. 

© Peter Bloor 2024