“Et de coelis in gloria Patris adventum ejus ad recapitulanda universa et resuscitandam omnem carnem humani generis, UT Christo Jesu Domino nostro et Deo, et Salvatori, et Regi, secundum placitum Patris invisibilis, ’omne genu curvet coelestium, et terrestrium, et infernorum, et omnis lingua confiteatur ei,’ et judicium justum in omnibus faciat; spiritalia quidem nequitiae, et angelos transgresses, atque apostatas factos, et impios et injustos et iniquos, et blasphemos homines in aeternum ignem mittat;—­Justis autem et aequis et praecepta ejus servantibus et in dilectione ejus perseverantibus, quibusdam quidem ab initio, quibusdam autem ex poenitentia, vitam donans, incorruptelam loco muneris CONFERAT, et claritatem aeternam CIRCUMDET.”—­Irenaei liber i. cap. x. p. 48.  Interpretatio Vetus.]

Another expression of Irenaeus is appealed to by Bellarmin, and continues to be cited at the present day in defence of the invocation of saints; the precise bearing of which upon the subject I confess myself unable to see, whilst I am very far from understanding the passage from which it is an extract.  Bellarmin cites the passage not to show that the saints in glory pray for us,—­that argument he had dismissed before,—­but to prove that they are to be invoked by us.  The insulated passage as quoted by him is this:  “And as she (Eve) was induced to fly from God, so she (Mary) was persuaded to obey God, that of the Virgin Eve the Virgin Mary might become the advocate.”  After the quotation he says, “What can be clearer?” [Benedict, lib. v. cap. xix. p. 316.]

In whatever sense we may suppose Irenaeus to have employed the word here translated “advocata,” it is difficult to see how the circumstance of Mary becoming the advocate of Eve, who lived so many generations before her, can bear upon the question, Is it lawful and right for us, now dwelling on the earth, to invoke those saints whom we believe to be in heaven?  I will not dwell on the argument urged very cogently by some critics on this passage, that the word “advocata,” found {121} in the Latin version of Irenaeus, is the translation of the original word, now lost [[Greek:  paraklaetos]—­paraclete], which, by the early writers, was used for “comforter and consoler,” or “restorer;” because, as I have above intimated, whatever may have been the word employed by Irenaeus, the passage proves nothing as to the lawfulness of our praying to the saints.  If the angels at God’s bidding minister unto the heirs of salvation; or further, if they plead our cause with God, that would be no reason why we should invoke them and pray to them.  This distinction between what they may do for us, and what we ought to do with regard to them, is an essential distinction, and must not be lost sight of.  We shall have occasion hereafter to refer to it repeatedly, especially in the instances of Origen and Cyprian.  I will now do no more than copy in a note the entire passage from which the sentence now under consideration has been extracted, that the reader may judge whether on such a passage, the original of which, in whatever words Irenaeus may have expressed himself, is utterly lost, any reliance can satisfactorily be placed.