the Nativity or the Adoration of the Magi. There is no attempt at
individuality or portraiture. St. Augustine says expressly, that there
existed in his time no _authentic_ portrait of the Virgin; but it
is inferred from his account that, authentic or not, such pictures
did then exist, since there were already disputes concerning their
authenticity. There were at this period received symbols of the person
and character of Christ, as the lamb, the vine, the fish, &c., but
not, as far as I can learn, any such accepted symbols of the Virgin
Mary. Further, it is the opinion of the learned in ecclesiastical
antiquities that, previous to the first Council of Ephesus, it was the
custom to represent the figure of the Virgin alone without the Child;
but that none of these original effigies remain to us, only supposed
copies of a later date.[1] And this is all I have been able to
discover relative to her in connection with the sacred imagery of the
first four centuries of our era.

[Footnote 1: Vide "_Memorie dell' Immagine di M.V. dell' Imprunela_."
Florence, 1714.]

* * * * *

The condemnation of Nestorius by the Council of Ephesus, in the year
431, forms a most important epoch in the history of religious art.
I have given further on a sketch of this celebrated schism, and its
immediate and progressive results. It may be thus summed up here. The
Nestorians maintained, that in Christ the two natures of God and man
remained separate, and that Mary, his human mother, was parent of
the man, but not of the God; consequently the title which, during
the previous century, had been popularly applied to her, "Theotokos"
(Mother of God), was improper and profane. The party opposed to