Part 12

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.

[6] The sources from which these are drawn are the apocryphal books of the New Testament.

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."

[7] The article is by Rev. F. Meyrick, M. A., one of her Majesty's inspectors of schools, late fellow and tutor of Trinity College, Oxford.

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.

MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS.

From out the cloudy ecstasies of poetry, painting, and religious romance, we grope our way back to the simple story of the New Testament, to find, if possible, by careful study, the lineaments of the real Mary the mother of our Lord. Who and what really was _the woman_ highly favored over all on earth, chosen by God to be the mother of the Redeemer of the world? It is our impression that the true character will be found more sweet, more strong, more wonderful in its perfect naturalness and humanity, than the idealized, superangelic being which has been gradually created by poetry and art.

That the Divine Being, in choosing a woman to be the mother, the educator, and for thirty years the most intimate friend, of his son, should have selected one of rare and peculiar excellences seems only probable. It was from her that the holy child, who was to increase in wisdom and in stature, was to learn from day to day the constant and needed lessons of inexperienced infancy and childhood. Her lips taught him human language; her lessons taught him to read the sacred records of the law and the prophets, and the sacred poetry of the psalms; to her he was "subject," when the ardor of childhood expanding into youth led him to quit her side and spend his time in the temple at the feet of the Doctors of the Law; with her he lived in constant communion during those silent and hidden years of his youth that preceded his mission. A woman so near to Christ, so identified with him in the largest part of his life, cannot but be a subject of the deepest and most absorbing study to the Christian heart. And yet there is in regard to this most interesting subject an utter silence of any authentic tradition, so far as we have studied, of the first two or three centuries. There is nothing related by St. John, with whom Mary lived as with a son after the Saviour's death, except the very brief notices in his Gospel. Upon this subject, as upon that other topic so exciting to the mere human heart, the personal appearance of Jesus, there is a reticence that impresses us like a divine decree of secrecy.

In all that concerns the peculiarly human relations of Jesus, the principle that animated his apostles after the descent of the Holy Spirit was, "Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now, henceforth, know we him no more." His family life with his mother would doubtless have opened lovely pages; but it must remain sealed up among those many things spoken of by St. John, which, if they were recorded, the "world itself could not contain the books that should be written." All that we have, then, to build upon is the brief account given in the Gospels. The first two chapters of St. Matthew and the first two chapters of St. Luke are our only data, except one or two very brief notices in St. John, and one slight mention in the Acts.

In part, our conception of the character of Mary may receive light from her nationality. A fine human being is never the product of one generation, but rather the outcome of a growth of ages. Mary was the offspring and flower of a race selected, centuries before, from the finest physical stock of the world, watched over, trained, and cultured, by Divine oversight, in accordance with every physical and mental law for the production of sound and vigorous mental and bodily conditions. Her blood came to her in a channel of descent over which the laws of Moses had established a watchful care; a race where marriage had been made sacred, family life a vital point, and motherhood invested by Divine command with an especial sanctity. As Mary was in a certain sense a product of the institutes of Moses, so it is an interesting coincidence that she bore the name of his sister, the first and most honored of the line of Hebrew prophetesses,--Mary being the Latin version of the Hebrew Miriam. She had also, as we read, a sister, the wife of Cleopas, who bore the same name,--a custom not infrequent in Jewish families. It is suggested, that, Miriam being a sacred name and held in high traditionary honor, mothers gave it to their daughters, as now in Spain they call them after the Madonna as a sign of good omen.

There is evidence that Mary had not only the sacred name of the first great prophetess, but that she inherited, in the line of descent, the poetic and prophetic temperament. She was of the royal line of David, and poetic visions and capabilities of high enthusiasm were in her very lineage. The traditions of the holy and noble women of her country's history were all open to her as sources of inspiration. Miriam, leading the song of national rejoicing on the shore of the Red Sea; Deborah, mother, judge, inspirer, leader, and poet of her nation; Hannah, the mother who won so noble a son of Heaven by prayer; the daughter of Jephtha, ready to sacrifice herself to her country; Huldah, the prophetess, the interpreter of God's will to kings; Queen Esther, risking her life for her people; and Judith, the beautiful and chaste deliverer of her nation,--these were the spiritual forerunners of Mary, the ideals with whom her youthful thoughts must have been familiar.

The one hymn of Mary's composition which has found place in the sacred records pictures in a striking manner the exalted and poetic side of her nature. It has been compared with the song of Hannah the mother of Samuel, and has been spoken of as taken from it. But there is only that resemblance which sympathy of temperament and a constant contemplation of the same class of religious ideas would produce. It was the exaltation of a noble nature expressing itself in the form and imagery supplied by the traditions and history of her nation. We are reminded that Mary was a daughter of David by certain tones in her magnificent hymn, which remind us of many of the Psalms of that great heart-poet.

Being of royal lineage, Mary undoubtedly cherished in her bosom the traditions of her house with that secret fervor which belongs to enthusiastic natures. We are to suppose her, like all Judæan women, intensely national in her feelings. She identified herself with her country's destiny, lived its life, suffered in its sufferings, and waited and prayed for its deliverance and glories. This was a time of her nation's deep humiliation. The throne and scepter had passed from Judah. Conquered, trodden down, and oppressed, the sacred land was under the rule of Pagan Rome; Herod, the appointed sovereign, was a blaspheming, brutal tyrant, using all his power to humiliate and oppress; and we may imagine Mary as one of the small company of silent mourners, like Simeon, and Anna the prophetess, who pondered the Scriptures and "looked for salvation in Israel." She was betrothed to her cousin Joseph, who was, like herself, of the royal lineage. He was a carpenter, in accordance with that excellent custom of the Jewish law which required every man to be taught a mechanical trade. They were in humble circumstances, and dwelt in a village proverbial for the meanness and poverty of its inhabitants. We can imagine them as _in_, but not _of_, the sordid and vulgar world of Nazareth, living their life of faith and prayer, of mournful memories of past national glory, and longing hopes for the future.

The account of the visitation of the angel to Mary is given by St. Luke, and by him alone. His Gospel was written later than those of Matthew and Mark, and designed for the Greek churches, and it seems but natural that in preparing himself to write upon this theme he should seek information from Mary herself, the fountain-head. Biblical critics discover traces of this communication in the different style of these first two chapters of St. Luke. While the rest of the book is written in pure classic Greek, this is full of Hebraisms, and has all the marks of being translated from the Syro-Chaldaic tongue, which was the popular dialect of Palestine, and in which Mary must have given her narrative.

Let us now look at the simple record. "And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her and said, Hail, highly favored! the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women! And when she saw him she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be."

All these incidents, in their very nature, could be known to Mary alone. She was in solitude, without a human witness; from her the whole detail must have come. It gives not only the interview, but the passing thoughts and emotions of her mind; she was agitated, and cast about what this should mean. We see in all this that serious, calm, and balanced nature which was characteristic of Mary. Habitually living in the contemplation of that spirit-world revealed in the Scriptures, it was no very startling thing to her to see an angel standing by,--her thoughts had walked among the angels too long for that; but his enthusiastic words of promise and blessing agitated her soul.

"And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God, and behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father[8] David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end."

[8] It is remarkable that in this interview the angel, in the same connection, informs Mary that her son shall have no human father, and that David shall be his ancestor. The inference is clear that Mary is herself of the house of David. Coincident with this we find a genealogy of Jesus in this Gospel of Luke differing entirely from the genealogy in Matthew. Very able critics have therefore contended that, as Luke evidently received his account from Mary, the genealogy he gives is that of _her_ ancestry, and that the "_Heli_" who is mentioned in Luke as the ancestor of Jesus was his grandfather, the father of Mary. Very skillful and able Biblical critics have supported this view, among whom are Paulus, Spanheim, and Lightfoot. The latter goes the length of saying that there are no difficulties in these genealogies but what have been made by commentators. In Lightfoot, notes in Luke, third chapter, the argument is given at length, and he adds testimonies to show that Mary was called the daughter of Heli by the early Jewish Rabbins, who traduced her for her pretensions in reference to her son. He quotes three passages from different Rabbins in the Jerusalem Talmud, or "Chigagah," folio 77. 4, where this Mary, mother of Jesus, is denounced as the "daughter of _Heli_ and mother of a pretender."

A weaker woman would have been dazzled and overcome by such a vision,--appealing to all her personal ambition,--and her pride of nation and her religious enthusiasm telling her that she had drawn the prize which had been the high ideal of every Jewish woman from the beginning of time. But Mary faces the great announcement with a countenance of calm inquiry. "Then said Mary to the angel, How shall this be, seeing I am yet a virgin?" And the angel answered and said unto her, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee; the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore, also, that holy progeny which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God; and behold, also, thy cousin Elisabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible."

In this announcement a Jewish betrothed woman must have seen a future of danger to her reputation and her life; for who would believe a story of which there was no mortal witness? But Mary accepted the high destiny and the fearful danger with an entire surrender of herself into God's hands. Her reply is not one of exultation, but of submission. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to his word."

The next step taken by Mary is in accordance with the calmest practical good sense, and displays an energy and a control over other minds which must have been uncommon. She resolves to visit her cousin Elisabeth in the mountain country. The place is supposed to have been near Hebron, and involved a journey of some twenty miles through a rugged country. For a young maiden to find means of performing this journey, which involved attendance and protection, without telling the reason for which she resolved upon it, seems to show that Mary had that kind of character which inspires confidence, and leads those around her to feel that a thing is right and proper because she has determined it.

The scene of the visitation as given in St. Luke shows the height above common thought and emotion on which these holy women moved. Elisabeth, filled with inspired ardor, spoke out with a loud voice and said, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? And blessed be she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which have been promised of the Lord." Then the prophetic fire fell upon Mary, and she broke forth into the immortal psalm which the Church still cherishes as the first hymn of the new dispensation.