There is a very important fact which must not be overlooked. All the nations dwelling on the shores of the Mediterranean, Semites, and Egyptians, as well as Greeks and Romans, had been accustomed to the worship of female deities. In the minds of the ancient peoples, woman, the symbol of sex, had always been endowed with qualities of magic and mystery. There was something supernatural in her power of bringing forth a living specimen of the race, and in all cults the maternal woman occupied a very important position. Had Christianity suddenly destroyed this ancient and natural need? We know that the Church had assimilated a great number of antique superstitions; nor were the female deities sacrificed. The great Asiatic Mothers had not been forgotten; the very ancient Babylonian Istar (Astarte), Rhea Kybele of Asia Minor, and above all the Egyptian Isis, still lived in the heart of man,—subconsciously, probably—as lofty, sacred memories, but nevertheless influencing his life. The Egyptian Isis with Horus in her lap is the direct model of the Madonna with the Child. She represented earth, bringing forth fruit without fertilisation. "This religious custom (the worship of Isis)," says Flinders Petrie, "exerted a powerful influence on nascent Christianity. It is not too much to say that without the Egyptians we should have had no Madonna in our creed. The cult of Isis was widely spread at the time of the first emperors, when it was fashionable all over the Roman Empire; when later on it merged into that other great religious movement, and fashion and conviction could be combined, its triumph was assured."
Advancing Christianity had depopulated the national pantheon. There must have been a great sense of loss, especially among the lower classes, and it does not require much psychological insight to realise that it was the lack of female deities which more especially roused a feeling of anxiety and distress. The masses were yearning for a goddess, and it was at Ephesus, the classical seat of the hundred-breasted Diana, that the stolen divinity was restored to them. The theologians were divided into three camps. While some of them regarded Mary merely as "the mother of man" others acknowledged her as the "Mother of God," and Nestorius suggested as a compromise the title "Mother of Christ." At the synod of Alexandria, in the year of grace 430, and at the council of Ephesus in 431, Nestorius was found guilty of blasphemy and deprived of his bishopric. Henceforth Mary was Θεοτὁχοϛ, the "Mother of God," and her worship was sanctioned by the Church. "Through Thee the Holy Trinity has been glorified," exclaimed Cyril joyfully, "through Thee the Cross of the Saviour has been raised! Through Thee the angels triumphed, the devils were driven back; the tempter was beaten and human nature uplifted to Heaven; through Thee all intelligent creatures who were committing idolatry, have learned the truth!" Loud rejoicing filled the streets of Ephesus. When the judgment passed on Nestorius was announced, the people exclaimed: "The enemy of the Holy Virgin has been overcome; glory be to the great, the divine Mother of God!" The highest authority in the land had re-established the public worship of the great goddess, who had for many years been worshipped in secrecy. The ancient paganism had triumphed over the spiritual intuition of the loftier minds. According to ancient custom sacrifices were offered at Mary's shrine; the second epoch of her history had begun.
In the East the worship of female divinities was older and more spontaneous than in the Western world, and thus the cult of Mary existed in the Orient long before it penetrated to Italy and thence into the newly Christianised countries. The Virgin, who for the first few hundred years had held a clearly defined position in evangelical history, had become an independent object of worship. Festivals were held in her honour; churches were dedicated to her; the will of the people triumphed in the litany; art took possession of the grateful subject. The tendency to make Mary the equal of Christ grew steadily. Metaphors originally intended for Christ alone were used indifferently for either. We constantly find her addressed as the "archetype, the light of the world, the vine, the mediator, the source of eternal life, etc." Finally she ceased being regarded as a passive participator in the work of salvation, as the Mother of the Saviour, and was accredited with independent saving power. John of Damascus (eighth century) first called Mary σὡτειρα του χὁσμου, and soon after she was styled "Saviour of the World" in the Occident also. With this the cult of Mary had reached its third stage, the stage which interests us; she had become the object of metaphysical love. But before dealing with this third stage, we must glance, in passing, at the ancient Teutonic tribes. They, too, worshipped goddesses and sacred women; virginity, a virtue not appreciated by the Orientals, here stood in high repute. According to Tacitus and others, the Teutons looked upon the Virgin as a mysterious being, approaching divinity more closely than all others. Thus there was here, perhaps, more than on the shores of the Mediterranean, a favourable soil for the cult of Mary. The characteristics of Holda and Freya, as well as their perfect beauty, were transferred to Mary, and Mary's name was substituted for the names of the old auxiliary goddesses. In the oldest German evangelical poems Mary does not yet rank as a divinity, she is merely extolled as the most perfect of all earth-born women. In the "Heliand" (about a.d. 830) she is called "the most beautiful of all women, the loveliest of all maidens"; and the monk Otfried, of Weissenburg (860), calls her, "Of all women to God the most pleasing, the white jewel, the radiant maid."
Mary had now taken her place by the side of God, and was commonly addressed as divine. Anselm of Canterbury explains: "God is the Father of all created things, Mary the Mother of all things recreated.... God begat the creator of the world, Mary gave birth to its Saviour." Peter of Blois declared that the Virgin was the only mediatress between Christ and humanity. "We were sinners and afraid of the wrath of the Father, for He is terrible; but we have the Virgin, in whom there is nothing terrible, for in her is the fulness of mercy and purity." The twelfth century produced the Ave Maria, the angelic salutation, the principal prayer to Mary, which was introduced into all churches. The Italian Franciscan monk, Bonaventura, and Peter Damiani, were above all others instrumental in spreading the worship of the Virgin, and Damiani said of her: "To Thee has been given all power in heaven and on earth." The fresco of the Camposanto at Pisa, ascribed to Orcagna, shows the transfigured Virgin sitting by the side of Christ, not below Him. The numerous legends in which Mary, often regardless of justice and propriety, delivers her faithful worshippers from all manner of dangers, were written during the same period. One of the most famous of these is the legend of Theophilus, the forerunner of Faust. In a German version (by Brun of Schönebeck) dating from the thirteenth century, Theophilus abjures God and all things divine, with the sole exception of Mary, wherefore she saves him from eternal damnation. This poem therefore shows us Mary as absolutely opposed to God.
We have now arrived at the third stage of the cult of Mary; the new, spiritual love, translated into metaphysics, was projected on her; she was approached by her worshippers with the ardent love which hitherto had been the prerogative of earthly women. The two currents, the one arising in ecclesiastical tradition, and the other in the soul of the metaphysical lover, had met; the genuine spiritual cult of Mary was the creation of the great metaphysical lovers, who existed not only in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but are met not infrequently later on; man's irresistible need to raise woman above him and worship her, created the true Madonna, for whose sake romantic souls of all times have "returned home" into the fold of the Church, the true Madonna who at heart is alien to the principles of the Church, but is re-born daily in the soul of the metaphysical lover. The hierarchy knew how to take advantage of and control this adoring love; the metaphysical lover raised his mistress above humanity and prayed before her shrine; religion said: "The celestial woman whom you may lovingly adore is here, with me. All you have to do is to call her by the name I have given her, and the kingdom of Heaven will be yours."
But on the other hand Mary represents to-day, and doubtless will do for a long time to come, a dogmatically acknowledged deity, recognised by the spirit of Protestantism as a remnant of Paganism, and duly detested; the masses in Italy and Spain pray to-day to her image, as in bygone days the masses prayed to the images in Greek and Roman temples. This goddess is unchanging, and from the point of view of the psychologist uninteresting.
It is not difficult to understand why the two conceptions of Mary (more especially in the souls of the monks) were so often inextricably intermingled; circumstances frequently demanded a complete fusion. As late as in the nineteenth century, a romantic poet, Zacharias Werner, said:
Oh, sov'reign lady, mistress of my fortune,
And thou, the Queen and ruler of the heavens,
(I cannot keep you sundered and apart.)