The art history that has gradually grown up around the personality of the Madonna is entirely mythical. It is a long poem, recorded in many a legend or tradition, and one which one may see represented, scene after scene, in many a shrine and church and monastery devoted to her honor.

According to these apocryphal accounts, the marvels begin before her birth. Her parents, Joachim and Anna, of the royal race of David, are childless, and bitterly grieved on this account. On a great festival-day, when Joachim brings a double offering to the Lord, he is rejected by the priest, saying, "It is not lawful for thee to bring thine offering, since thou hast not begotten issue in Israel." And Joachim was exceedingly sorrowful, and went away into the wilderness, and fasted forty days and forty nights, and said, "Until the Lord my God look upon mine affliction, my only meat shall be prayer." Then follows a long account of the affliction of Anna, and how she sat down under a laurel-tree in the garden, and bemoaned herself and prayed. "And behold, the angel of the Lord stood by her, and said, Anna, thy prayer is heard; thou shalt bring forth, and thy child shall be blessed through the whole world. See, also, thy husband Joachim is coming with his shepherds, for an angel hath comforted him also. And Anna went forth to meet her husband, and Joachim came from the pasture, and they met at the golden gate, and Anna ran and embraced her husband, and said, Now know I that the Lord hath blessed me."

Then comes the birth of the auspicious infant, with all manner of signs of good omen. "And when the child was three years old, Joachim said: Let us invite the daughters of Israel, that they may each take a taper and a lamp, and attend on her, that the child may not turn back from the temple of the Lord. And being come to the temple, they placed her on the first step, and she ascended all the steps to the altar, and the high-priest received her there, and kissed her and blessed her, saying, Mary, the Lord hath magnified thy name to all generations; in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed."

A magnificent picture by Titian, in the Academy at Venice, represents this scene. Everything about it is in gorgeous style, except the little Mary, who is a very literal, earthly, chubby bit of flesh and blood, and not in the least celestial. In the Church of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, however, the child Mary, going up the temple steps, is a perfect little angel with a cloud of golden hair. Then we have flocks of pictures representing the sacred girlhood of Mary. She is vowed to the temple service, and spins and weaves and embroiders the purple and fine linen for sacerdotal purposes. She is represented as looked upon with awe and veneration by all the holy women who remain in the courts of the Lord, especially by the prophetess Anna, who declares to her her high destiny. It is recorded that her life was sustained by the ministry of angels, who daily visited and brought to her the bread of Paradise and the water of the River of Life. It is the tradition of the Greek Church that Mary alone of all her sex was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, and pray before the ark of the covenant.

In her fourteenth year the priest announced to her that it was time for her to be given in marriage, but she declared that she had vowed a life of virginity, and declined. But the high-priest told her that he had received a message from the Lord, and so she submitted. Then the high-priest inquired of the Lord, and was bid to order all the widowers of the people to come, each with his rod in his hand, that the Lord might choose one by a sign. And Joseph the carpenter came with the rest, and presented his rod, and lo! a white dove flew from it, and settled upon his head. According to St. Jerome, however, the tradition has another version. The rods of the candidates were placed in the temple over night, and lo! in the morning Joseph's rod had burst forth in leaves and flowers. The painting by Raphael, in the Brera at Milan, as fresh in color now as if but of yesterday, gives the mediÆval conception of that wedding.

Then come pictures of the wonderful Annunciation, thick as lilies in a meadow. The angel rainbow-wings, bedropped with gold, drift noiselessly like a cloud into the oratory where the holy virgin is in prayer, and bring her the wonderful story. The visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, the birth of the infant Jesus, the visit of the shepherds, the adoration of the Magi, come to our minds with a confused and dazzling memory of all that human art can do, with splendor of colors and richness of fancy, to embellish the theme. The presentation in the temple, the flight into Egypt, the repose by the way, the home-life at Nazareth, each has its clusters of mythical stories that must be understood to read aright the paintings that tell them. We behold angels bending the branches of the trees to give the sacred wanderers fruit,—angels everywhere ministering about the simple offices of life, pouring water to wash the infant, holding the napkin, playing around him. Then come the darker scenes of the passion, the Via Dolorosa, the station by the cross, the sepulchers, in which all of pathos that human art can produce has been employed to celebrate the memory of that mother's sorrows.

There is a very ancient tradition spoken of by St. Ambrose, in the fourth century, as being then generally believed, that Christ, after his resurrection, appeared first to his mother,—she, who had his last cares for anything earthly, was first to welcome his victory over death. The story as given by Mrs. Jameson, in her "Legends of the Madonna," is, that Mary, when all was finished, retired to her solitude to pray, and wait for the promised resurrection; and while she prayed, with the open volume of the prophecies before her, a company of angels entered, waving their palms and singing, and then came Jesus, in white, having in his left hand the standard of the cross as one just returned from Hades, victorious over sin and death, and with him came patriarchs and prophets and holy saints of old. But the mother was not comforted till she heard the voice of her son. Then he raised his hand and blessed her, and said, "I salute thee, O my mother," and she fell upon his neck weeping tears of joy. Then he bade her be comforted, and weep no more, for the pain of death had passed away, and the gates of hell had not prevailed against him; and she thanked him, meekly, on her knees, that he had been pleased to bring redemption to man and make her the humble instrument of his mercy. This legend has something in it so grateful to human sympathies, that the heart involuntarily believes it. Though the sacred record is silent, we may believe that He, who loved his own unto the end, did not forget his mother in her hour of deepest anguish.

After the resurrection, the only mention made of Mary by the Evangelists is an incidental one in the first part of Acts. She is spoken of as remaining in prayer with the small band of Christian disciples, waiting for the promised Spirit which descended upon the day of Pentecost. After this she fades from our view entirely. According to the mythical history, however, her career of wonder and glory is only begun. Imagination blossoms and runs wild in a tropical landscape of poetic glories.

Mary is now the mother of the Christian Church. Before departing on their divine missions, the apostles come and solicit her blessing. The apocryphal books detail, at length, the circumstances of her death and burial, and the ascension of her glorified body to heaven, commonly called the Assumption. We make a few extracts: "And on a certain day the heart of Mary was filled with an inexpressible longing to behold her divine son, and she wept abundantly; and, lo, an angel appeared before her, clothed in light as in a garment, and he saluted her, and said, Hail, O Mary! blessed be he that giveth salvation to Israel! I bring thee here a palm branch, gathered in Paradise; command that it be carried before thy bier on the day of thy death, for in three days thy soul shall leave thy body and thou shalt enter Paradise, where thy son awaits thy coming." Mary requested, in reply, three things,—the name of the angel; that she might once more see the apostles before her departure; and that on leaving the body no evil spirit should have power to affright her soul. The angel declared his name to be the Great and Wonderful, promised the reunion of the apostles around her dying bed, and assured her against the powers of darkness. "And having said these words, the angel departed into heaven; and, lo, the palm branch which he had left shed light in every leaf, and sparkled as the stars of the morning. Then Mary lighted the lamps and prepared her bed, and waited for the hour to come. And in the same instant John, who was preaching in Ephesus, and Peter, who was preaching at Antioch, and all the other apostles, who were dispersed in different parts of the world, were suddenly caught up by a miraculous power, and found themselves before the habitation of Mary. When Mary saw them all around her, she blessed and thanked the Lord, and placed in the hands of St. John the shining palm, and desired that he should bear it at the time of her burial."

It is then recorded that at the third hour of the night there came a sound as of a rushing mighty wind upon the house, and the chamber was filled with a heavenly odor, and Jesus himself appeared with a great train of patriarchs and prophets, who surrounded the dying bed, singing hymns of joy; and Jesus said to his mother, "Arise, my beloved, mine elect, come with me from Lebanon, mine espoused, and receive the crown prepared for thee." And Mary answered, "My heart is ready; in the book is it written of me, Lo, I come to do thy will." Then amid songs of angels, the soul of Mary left her body and passed to the arms of Jesus. A beautiful little picture by Fra Angelico represents this scene. The soul of Mary is seen as an infant in the arms of Jesus, who looks down on it with heavenly tenderness. The lifeless form, as it lies surrounded by the weeping apostles, has that sacred and touching beauty that so often seals with the seal of Heaven the face of the dead. It is a picture painted by the heart, and worthy to be remembered for a lifetime.

Then follows an account of the funeral, and where the body was laid; but, like that of Jesus, it was not destined to see corruption, and on the morning of the third day she rose in immortal youth and beauty, and ascended to heaven amid troops of angels, blowing their silver trumpets and singing as they rose, "Who is she that riseth fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?" The legend goes on to say that Thomas was not present, and that when he arrived he refused to believe in her resurrection, and desired that her tomb should be opened; and when it was opened, it was found full of lilies and roses. Then Thomas, looking up to heaven, beheld her in glory, and she, for the assurance of his faith, threw down to him her girdle.

Thus far the legends.[6] One may stand in the Academy in Venice and see the scene of Mary's ascension in the great picture of Titian, which seems to lift one off one's feet, and fairly draw one upward in its glory of color and its ecstasy of triumphant joy. It is a charming feature in this picture that the holy mother is represented as borne up by myriads of lovely little children. Such a picture is a vivid rendering to the eye of the spirit of the age which produced it.

Once started, the current of enthusiasm for the Madonna passed all bounds, and absorbed into itself all that belonged to the Saviour of mankind. All the pity, the mercy, the sympathy, of Jesus were forgotten and overshadowed in the image of this divine mother. Christ, to the mind of the Middle Ages, was only the awful Judge, whom Michael Angelo painted in his terrific picture grasping thunderbolts, and dealing damnation on the lost, while his pitiful mother hides her eyes from the sight.

Dr. Pusey, in his "Eirenicon," traces the march of mariolatry through all the countries of the world. He shows how to Mary have been ascribed, one after another, all the divine attributes and offices. How she is represented commanding her son in heaven with the authority of a mother; and how he is held to owe to her submissive obedience. How she, being identified with him in all that he is and does, is received with him in the sacrament, and is manifest in the real presence. In short, how, by the enormous growth of an idea, there comes to be at last no God but Mary. Martin Luther describes, in his early experiences, how completely the idea of the true Redeemer was hidden from his mind by this style of representation; that in the ceremony of the mass he trembled, and his knees sunk under him for fear, on account of the presence of Christ the Judge of the earth. When we look back to the earlier ecclesiastical history, we find no trace of all this peculiar veneration. None of the Apocryphal Gospels have higher antiquity than the third or fourth century.

In Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, article Mary, this question is settled by a comprehensive statement.[7] "What," the writer says, "was the origin of this cultus? Certainly not the Bible. There is not a word there from which it could be inferred, nor in the creeds, nor in the fathers of the first five centuries. We may trace every page they have left us, and we shall find nothing of the kind. There is nothing of the sort in the supposed works of Hermas and Barnabas, nor in the real works of Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp; that is, the doctrine is not to be found in the first century. There is nothing in Justin Martyr, Tatian, Anathagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian; that is to say, nothing in the second century."

In the same manner he reviews the authors of the third, the fourth, the fifth century, and shows that there are no traces of this style of feeling. Moreover, he cites passages from the Christian fathers of the first three or four centuries, where Mary is as freely spoken of and criticised, and represented subject to sins of infirmity, as other Christians. Tertullian speaks of her "unbelief." Origen interprets the sword that should pierce through her heart as "unbelief"; and in the fourth century, St. Basil gives the same interpretation; in the fifth century, St. Chrysostom accuses her of excessive ambition and foolish arrogance and vainglory, in wishing to speak with Jesus while engaged in public ministries. Several others are quoted, commenting upon her in a manner that must be painful to the sensibility of even those who never cherished for her a superstitious veneration. No person of delicate appreciation of character can read the brief narrative of the New Testament and not feel that such comments do great injustice to the noblest and loveliest among women.

The character of Mary has suffered by reaction from the idolatrous and fulsome adoration which has been bestowed on her. In the height of the controversy between Protestants and the Romish church there has been a tendency to the side of unjust depreciation on the part of the former to make up for the unscriptural excesses of the latter. What, then, was the true character of Mary, highly favored, and blessed among women? It can only be inferred by the most delicate analysis of the little that the Scripture has given; this we reserve for another article.