none left in the bedchamber, neither little nor great. Then Judith,
standing by the bed, said in her heart, O Lord God of all power,
look, at this present, on the work of my hands for the exaltation
of Jerusalem. For now is the time to help thy inheritance and to
execute my enterprise to the destruction of the enemies that are
risen up against us. Then came she to the pillow of the couch, and
took down the fauchion from thence, and approached his bed, and took
hold of the hair of his head, and said, Strengthen me, O Lord God
of Israel, this day, and she smote twice upon his neck with all her
might, and she took away his head from him and went forth."
She returns to the city in the dim gray of the morning, bearing her
trophy and the canopy and hangings of the bed whereon the enemy lay:
"Then called Judith afar off to the watchmen, Open now the gates,
for God, even our God, is with us to show his power yet in Israel
and his strength against the enemy." A hasty midnight summons brings
together the elders of the city. A fire is kindled, and they gather
round her, as, radiant with triumphant excitement, she breaks forth
in triumph: "Praise, praise, praise God, praise God, I say, for he
has not taken away his mercy from the house of Israel, but hath
destroyed the enemy by my hand this night." And she took the head
out of the bag and showed it to them, and said: "Behold the head
of Holofernes, the chief captain of the army of Assur, and behold
the canopy where he did lie in his drunkenness, and the Lord hath
smitten him by the hand of a woman. As the Lord liveth, who hath
kept me in my way that I went, my countenance hath deceived him to
his destruction, yet he hath not committed sin with me to defile and
shame me."
Then Ozias said, "O daughter, blessed art thou among all the women
of the earth, and blessed be the Lord God which created the heavens
and the earth, which hath directed thee to the cutting off of the
head of our chief enemy. For this thy confidence shall not depart
from the hearts of men which remember the power of God forever. And
God turn these things for a perpetual praise, because thou hast not
spared thy life for the affliction of our nation, but hast avenged
our ruin, walking in a straight way before our God. And all the
people said, Amen, so be it."
The sequel of the story is, that the inspired prophetess directs
her citizens to rush down upon the army in the first confusion of
the loss of its general; and, this advice being followed, a general
panic and rout of the hostile army follows, and the whole camp is
taken and spoiled.
The story ends with a solemn procession of thanksgiving and worship,
the men wreathed with flowers around their armor, and headed by
Judith crowned with a garland of olive leaves, and leading forth a
solemn rhythmic dance while she sings a hymn of victory. This song
of Judith, evidently modeled on the victorious anthem of Deborah
under the same circumstances, is less vigorous and fiery, but more
polished and finished. Had it stood _alone_, it had been thought an
unrivalled composition of its kind. The animus of it is, in some
respects, the same with that of the song of Hannah,--it exults in
the might of God as the protector of the weak and helpless. There
is an intensely feminine exultation in the consciousness that she,
though weak as a woman, has been made the means of overcoming this
strength:--
"Assur came from the mountains of the north,
He came with ten thousands of armies.
The multitudes thereof stopped the torrents.
Their horsemen covered the hills.
He bragged that he would burn up my border,
That he would kill my young men with the sword,
That he would dash the sucking children against the ground,
And make the children a prey and the virgins a spoil;
But the Almighty Lord hath disappointed him by the hand of a woman!
The mighty one did not fall by young men,
Neither did the sons of Titans set upon him,
Nor did high giants set upon him;
But Judith, the daughter of Merari, weakened him with her beauty.
For the exaltation of the oppressed in Israel
She put off her garments of widowhood,
She anointed herself with ointment,
She bound her hair with a fillet,
She took a linen garment to deceive him;
Her sandals ravished his eyes,
Her beauty took his mind prisoner,
So the fauchion passed through his neck.
I will sing unto my God a new song:
O Lord, thou art great and glorious,
Wonderful in strength and invincible.
Let all creatures praise thee,
For thou speakest and they were made,
Thou sentest thy spirit and created them.
There is none can resist thy voice;
The mountains shall be moved from their foundations,
The rocks shall melt like wax at thy presence,
Yet art thou merciful to them that fear thee,
For all sacrifice is too little for a sweet savor unto thee,
All the fat is not enough for burnt-offerings;
But he that feareth the Lord is great at all times."
How magnificent is the conception of the woman here given! Lowly,
devout, given up to loving memories of family life, yet capable in
the hour of danger of rising to the highest inspirations of power.
Poetess, prophetess, inspirer, leader, by the strength of that power
by which the helpless hold the hand of Almighty God and triumph in
his strength, she becomes the deliverer of her people.
WOMEN OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
[Illustration: THE SISTINE MADONNA]
MARY THE MYTHICAL MADONNA.
No woman that ever lived on the face of the earth has been an
object of such wonder, admiration, and worship as Mary the mother
of Jesus. Around her poetry, painting, and music have raised clouds
of ever-shifting colors, splendid as those around the setting sun.
Exalted above earth, she has been shown to us as a goddess, yet
a goddess of a type wholly new. She is not Venus, not Minerva,
not Ceres, nor Vesta. No goddess of classic antiquity or of any
other mythology at all resembles that ideal being whom Christian
art and poetry present to us in Mary. Neither is she like all of
them united. She differs from them as Christian art differs from
classical, wholly and entirely. Other goddesses have been worshiped
for beauty, for grace, for power. Mary has been the Goddess of
Poverty and Sorrow, of Pity and Mercy; and as suffering is about the
only certain thing in human destiny, she has numbered her adorers
in every land and climate and nation. In Mary, womanhood, in its
highest and tenderest development of the MOTHER, has been the
object of worship. Motherhood with large capacities of sorrow, with
the memory of bitter sufferings, with sympathies large enough to
embrace every anguish of humanity!--such an object of veneration has
inconceivable power.
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.
[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.