The Evolution of Love Part 9

Abandoned in her beauty revel And unawares adore the devil.--

but now a means had been found to adore the beloved, and yet remain faithful to G.o.d. Once in a way it was remembered that the adored, strictly speaking, was the Mother of G.o.d--if for no other reason, for fear of the Inquisition which the Dominicans had founded and placed under the special patronage of Mary--her bodyguard as it were, defending her from the onslaught of minds all too worldly. Very rarely the adored earthly woman was identified with the official Queen of Heaven--(this may have been done occasionally by monks); sometimes as in the case of Michelangelo and Guinicelli, the beloved was the sole G.o.ddess; other poets, among whom we may include Dante and Goethe, conceived her as enthroned by the side of Mary.

At this point I must interrupt my argument, and briefly sketch the position occupied by Mary in the western world from the dawn of Christianity.

_(b) The Queen of Heaven._

During the first two hundred years Mary did not occupy a prominent place in the Christian communities; even in the fourth century she was still regarded as a human woman and denied divinity by St. Chrysostom, who reproached her with vainglory. But in proportion as Christ transcended humanity, and was more dogmatically and formally interpreted by the Church--more especially the Greek Church--the desire for a mediator between the wrathful Deity and sinful humanity grew more p.r.o.nounced, a mediator who, although a human being, could be endowed after the manner of the ancient demi-G.o.ds with super-human virtues. The Mother of the Saviour gradually a.s.sumed this position. She had been an earthly woman, born of earthly parents, and would be able to understand human needs and wishes, and she had become the Mother of G.o.d. Would not her intercession have weight with the Son of G.o.d? Simultaneously with the growing recognition of asceticism, the doctrine of the immaculate conception gained ground; in the course of time this moment was more and more emphasised, and virginity was set up as an ideal.

St. Athanasius (fourth century) had written: "What G.o.d did to Mary is the glory of all virgins; for they are attached as virginal saplings to her who is the root." At the close of the fourth century a long and bitter controversy arose over the question as to whether Mary had remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus. St. Ambrose, St. Jerome and St. Augustine were in favour of this new doctrine. St. Ambrose, the founder of Western music, was the first to praise her perfection in the Latin tongue, and St. Augustine in his treatise _De Natura et Gratia_, maintained that she was the only human being born without original sin.

This was the first important step towards the stripping of the Saviour's mother of her humanity, and establishing her as a divine being. St.

Irenaeus contrasted Eve, the bringer of sin, with Mary, the second Eve, the bringer of salvation, and St. Ambrose said: "From Eve we inherited d.a.m.nation through the fruit of the tree; but Mary has brought us salvation through the gift of the tree, for Christ too, hung on the tree like a fruit."

Hitherto Mary had not been worshipped; all prayers had been addressed to G.o.d and to Christ. The idea of approaching her in prayer appeared for the first time in a pamphlet ent.i.tled "On the Death of Mary," written about the end of the fourth century, and Gregory of n.a.z.ianz pictured Mary in Heaven, caring for the welfare of humanity. The fourth and fifth centuries produced the first hymns to the Virgin, written in Syriac; but orthodox bishops objected to her deification; St. Epipha.n.u.s (end of fourth century) said: "Let us honour Mary by all means, but let us worship only the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost."

This was the position of the evangelical and historical Mary before the famous and decisive Council of Ephesus.

There is a very important fact which must not be overlooked. All the nations dwelling on the sh.o.r.es 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 s.e.x, 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 a.s.similated a great number of antique superst.i.tions; 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 a.s.sured."

Advancing Christianity had depopulated the national pantheon. There must have been a great sense of loss, especially among the lower cla.s.ses, 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 ma.s.ses were yearning for a G.o.ddess, and it was at Ephesus, the cla.s.sical 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 G.o.d," and Nestorius suggested as a compromise the t.i.tle "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 [Greek: Theotochos], the "Mother of G.o.d,"

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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d!" The highest authority in the land had re-established the public worship of the great G.o.ddess, 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 pa.s.sive partic.i.p.ator 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 [Greek: soteira tou chosmou], 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 pa.s.sing, at the ancient Teutonic tribes.

They, too, worshipped G.o.ddesses 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 sh.o.r.es 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 subst.i.tuted for the names of the old auxiliary G.o.ddesses. 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 G.o.d the most pleasing, the white jewel, the radiant maid."

Mary had now taken her place by the side of G.o.d, and was commonly addressed as divine. Anselm of Canterbury explains: "G.o.d is the Father of all created things, Mary the Mother of all things recreated.... G.o.d 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Schonebeck) dating from the thirteenth century, Theophilus abjures G.o.d and all things divine, with the sole exception of Mary, wherefore she saves him from eternal d.a.m.nation. This poem therefore shows us Mary as absolutely opposed to G.o.d.

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 ma.s.ses in Italy and Spain pray to-day to her image, as in bygone days the ma.s.ses prayed to the images in Greek and Roman temples. This G.o.ddess 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; circ.u.mstances 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.)

I shall endeavour to keep them sundered and apart as far as possible, for I am only concerned with man's metaphysical emotion of love and its creation, womanhood deified, and not with Catholic dogmas. With this object in view, I will return to the poets previously quoted, and continue the unfolding of the process of deification. As a rule the metaphysical lovers were content with immortalising their feelings in, very often, excellent verses, raising the beloved mistress above the earth and worshipping her as the culmination of beauty and perfection.

The quite unusual craving to give her a place in the eternal structure of the cosmos animated only one poet, Dante, who, combining the Catholic striving for unity with spontaneous, magnificent woman-worship, created a masterpiece which is unique in literature.

Typical among the later Provencals was Guirot Riquier. Several of his poems which have been preserved to us make it impossible to say whether they are addressed to an earthly woman or to the Queen of Heaven; these poems mark, in a sense, a period of transition. They are exceedingly vague, and it is not worth while to translate them; but as they are dated it is interesting to watch the poet's love growing more and more spiritual and religious, to see him gradually deserting his earthly love for the Lady of Heaven. In one poem he prays to his lady "who is worshipped by all true lovers," to teach him the right way of loving. In the next he repents his all too earthly pa.s.sion:

I often thought I was of true love singing, And knew not that to love my heart was blind, And folly was as love itself enshrined.

But now such love in all my soul is ringing, That though to love and praise her I aspire As is her meed--in vain is my desire.

Henceforth her love alone shall be my guide And my new hope in that great love abide.

For her great love the uttermost shall proffer Of honour, wealth, and earthly joy and bliss, With her to love, my heart will never miss Those who no gifts like her gifts have to offer.

She the fulfilment is of my desire, Therefore I vow myself her true esquire; She'll love me in return--my splendid meed-- If I but love aright in word and deed.

and one of his rather more religious songs ends as follows:

Without true love there is on earth no peace, Love gives us wisdom, faith which will not swerve, A n.o.ble mind and willingness to serve.

How rare a thing on earth in perfect ease!

To Thee, oh Virgin! Mother of all love, I dedicate this song; if thou deniest Me not, thou shall be my "sweet bliss." With Christ I pray Thee, intercede for me above.

In this song, then, he calls Mary "his sweet bliss" (_bel deport_), a name which he had previously given to a certain countess with whom he had been in love. In the next poem, in which earthly love and love of the Madonna are again brought into juxta-position, he commends himself "to the Virgin, the sublime mother of love, on whom all my happiness depends." One of his poems which begins in quite an earthly strain, ends thus:

I feel no jealousy; for he whose soul Is filled with yearning for his heavenly love, Has purest happiness; he is her serf, And he has all things that his heart can crave.

But long before this, in one of his very worldly poems there is a sudden outburst, addressed to the Madonna: "He who does not serve the Mother of G.o.d, knows not the meaning of love." Excellent proof of this intimate connection between earthly and Madonna love is found in the poems of the trouvere Ruteboeuf, who calls Mary his "very sweet lady."

Lanfranc Cigala wrote genuine love-songs to the Virgin. The following are two stanzas from one of his poems:

I worship a celestial maid, Serene and wondrously adorned; And all she does is well; arrayed In n.o.ble love and gentleness.

Her smile is bliss to all who mourn, Her tender love is happiness, And for her kiss the world I scorn.

Lady of Heaven, Thy heart incline To me, and untold bliss is mine.

By day and night my only thought Art, Mary, Thou. I am distraught Say many men, for few can gauge The ardour which consumes my soul.

I care not that they say bereft I am of sense; the world I've left, To worship Thee, love's spring and goal.

But other poems written by Cigala are unmistakably addressed to the celestial Madonna; some of them seem to be written in a penitential mood; he almost seems to repent of his former pa.s.sionate adoration. The same poet, in his love-songs, uses all the metaphors which are commonly used for Mary (or for Christ), "root and climax, flower, fruit and seed of all goodness."

A little older is an erotic hymn to Mary by Peire Guillem of Luserna; I quote a few stanzas:

Thy praise is happiness unmarred, For he who praises Thee, proclaims the truth, Thou art the flower of beauty, love and ruth, Full of compa.s.sion, with all grace bedight, From Thy white hands we gather all delight.

The love of Mary had usurped the peculiar property of the love of woman: it had become the source of poetic and artistic inspiration.

The songs of Aimeric of Peguilhan resemble those of Cigala; the former bewails the decline of the service of woman; he sings of the "root and crown of all n.o.ble things," but it is not quite clear whether he is addressing an earthly or a heavenly lady. "Suffer my love, which asks for no reward!" The terms, "friends" and "lovers" (_amans_) of the Virgin are with these poets convertible terms, and the Virgin is styled "the true friend" (_i.e._, the beloved).

Guilhem of Autpol wrote a fine poem to the Queen of Heaven, beginning:

Thou hope of all sad hearts who yearn for love, Thou stream of loveliness, thou well of grace, Thou dove of peace in fret and restlessness, Thou ray of light to those who, lightless, grope.

Thou house of G.o.d, thou garden of sweet shades, Rest without ceasing, refuge of the sad, Bliss without mourning, flow'r that never fades, Alien to death, and shelter in the mad Whirlpool of life, to all who seek thy port.

Lady of Heaven, in whom all hearts rejoice, Thou roseate dawn and light of Paradise!

Perdigon, among many worldly songs, wrote one to the _regina d'auteza e de senhoria_, which might be translated thus:

Supreme ruler of the world, Thy grace sustains And maintains The world.

Thou fragrant rose, thou fruitful vine, Thou wert the chosen vessel of Mercy divine.

Unsurpa.s.sed in the fusion of his earthly and his celestial lady was Folquet de Lunel. Some of his poems cannot be cla.s.sed with any certainty.

The first poem which obtained a prize at the Academy of Mastersingers of Toulouse was a hymn to Mary.

This very genuine sentimentalism appears strange to us; we cannot enter into the feelings of that period. A modern philologist, Karl Appel, regards Jaufre Rudel's pathetic songs, addressed by him to the Countess of Tripoli: