I. Is It Lawful To Honor Her? 17 1 Although the Immaculate Conception was not formulated into a dogma of faith till 1 854, it is at least implied in Holy Scripture. It is in strict harmony with the place which Mary holds in the economy of Redemption, and has virtually received the pious assent of the faithful from the earliest days of the Church. In Genesis we read: "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head."236 All Catholic commentators, ancient and modern, recognize in [172] the Seed, the Woman and the serpent types of our Savior, of Mary and the devil. God here declares that the enmity of the Seed and that of the Woman toward the tempter were to be identical. Now the enmity of Christ, or the Seed, toward the evil one was absolute and perpetual. Therefore the enmity of Mary, or the Woman, toward the devil never admitted of any momentary reconciliation which would have existed if she were ever subject to original sin. It is worthy of note that as three characters appear on the scene of our fall — Adam, Eve and the rebellious Angel — so three corresponding personages figure in our redemption — Jesus Christ, who is the second Adam;237 Mary, the second Eve, and the Archangel Gabriel. The second Adam was immeasurably superior to the first, Gabriel was superior to the fallen Angel, and hence we are warranted by analogy to conclude that Mary was superior to Eve. But if she had been created in original sin, instead of being superior, she would be inferior to Eve, who was certainly created immaculate. We cannot conceive that the mother of Cain was created superior to the mother of Jesus. It would have been unworthy of a God of infinite purity to have been born of a woman that was even for an instant under the dominion of Satan. The liturgies of the Church, being the established formularies of her public worship, are among the most authoritative 236 Gen. iii. 15.