This religious homage was only gradually developed to its present full-blown idolatry. Its traces in early Christian art are extremely infrequent and obscure. In the numerous mosaics of the fifth and sixth century at Rome and Ravenna, the figure of Mary very rarely occurs, and never but as accessory to the Divine Child in the Nativity or Adoration of the Magi. In these there was no attempt at literal portraiture, but only the expression of the virtues that adorned her character; “that,” as Ambrose expresses it, “the face might be the image of her mind, the model of uprightness.”[520] Indeed, Augustine expressly asserts that we are ignorant of her appearance.[521]
During the seventh century, along with a progressive barbarism of treatment may be observed a gradual exaltation of Mary in the Roman mosaics to those places previously devoted to the image of Christ.[522] In the eighth
century, according to D’Agincourt, “the homage paid to her was no longer distinguished from that rendered to the Lord of all;”[523] and the Council of Constantinople decreed, “that whoever would not avail himself of the intercession of Mary should be accursed.”[524] In extant pictures of the ninth century she is exhibited in bejewelled purple robes as the crowned Queen of Heaven, receiving the homage of the four and twenty elders and of the celestial hosts.[525] In this century also the legend of her bodily assumption to the skies, which has since become such a prominent theme in Roman Catholic art and doctrine, is first represented in the crypts of St. Clement’s at Rome.[526]
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the apotheosis of Mary is complete. In a fresco at Rome, of date 1154 A. D., Popes Callixtus II. and Anastasius IV. are shown embracing her feet in adoration, and transferring to the human mother the homage due alone to the Divine Son. She is now worshipped co-ordinately with Christ, or, indeed, almost to his exclusion, her name being substituted for his in many of the collects of the church. Much of the language of Scripture was also blasphemously perverted from its proper application to her. The glowing images of the Song of Songs, addressed to the church as the spouse of Christ, were also applied to Mary as her right; and one of Rome’s most common and popular books of devotion of this period, the psalter of her “Seraphic Doctor,” St. Bonaventura, has a shocking parody on the book of Psalms, in which the name of God was every-where expunged and that of Mary substituted instead.[527] The Ave Maria, with its human additions, was regarded as of equal importance and value with the Lord’s Prayer, and was made the basis of the vain repetitions of the rosary. Mary now shares the government of heaven and earth, “raised higher than cherubim and seraphim,”[528] throned in glory, sitting on a rainbow, enveloped in an aureole, clothed with the sun, the moon beneath her feet, a crown of stars upon her head,[529] and radiating from her person beams of light,
the proper attribute of deity.[530] She is frequently represented, even in heaven, with the infant Christ in her arms, a mere accessory to indicate her personality, as if to show his relative inferiority.[531] She becomes, too, herself the object of prayer, having a special litany and numerous offices in the liturgy of the church; while her praises are chanted in some of its noblest lyrics. She is addressed as the gate of heaven,[532] the morning star,[533] and the refuge of sinners;[534] and is exhorted to succor the wretched,[535] protect from enemies, receive in the hour of death,[536] and intercede with God for men.[537] She is endowed with the faculty of omniscience and ubiquity, and is made almost to thrust the Eternal from his throne by her usurpation of his divine prerogatives.[538]
But this impious blasphemy seems to have culminated in the Italian frescoes of the fifteenth century, in which the infamous Giulia Farnese is exhibited in the character of the Madonna, and Pope Alexander VI., the execrable Borgia, kneeling as a votary at her feet. The Florentine churches, too, were desecrated by
portraits of well-known harlots, flaunting their meretricious beauty as the personations of the mother of Our Lord. For his denunciation of these profanations and of other impieties Savonarola perished at the stake.[539]
The rapid development of Mariolatry, the great corruption of Christianity, as Hallam has justly called it, may to some extent be regarded as a reaction against the harsh and austere character which was given to Our Lord both in art and dogma. He was enthroned in awful majesty as the dreadful Judge of mankind. Removed from human sympathy, inspiring only terror to the soul, he was no longer Christ the Consoler, but Christ the Avenger.[540] Religion was darkened by dismal bodings of endless doom, and embittered by the fierceness of polemic strife; and the moral atmosphere seemed lurid with the hurtling anathemas of rival sects. To the yearning hearts of mankind; to the multitude of the weary and the heavy laden, to whom the Saviour’s voice, “Come unto me, and I will give you
rest,” was inaudible amid the conflicts of the times; and especially to those bowed down with a sense of sin and sorrow, and trembling at the thought of the severe, inexorable Judge, the gentle gospel of Mary came with a sweet and winning grace that found its way into their inmost souls. All images of tenderness and ruth surrounded her. The blending
Of mother’s love with maiden purity[541]