Part 93 (2/2)

The 25th of March, which was celebrated throughout the ancient Grecian and Roman world, in honor of ”the Mother of the G.o.ds,” was appointed to the honor of the Christian ”Mother of G.o.d,” and is now celebrated in Catholic countries, and called ”Lady day.”[335:4] The festival of the conception of the ”Blessed Virgin Mary” is also held on the very day that the festival of the miraculous conception of the ”Blessed Virgin Juno” was held among the pagans,[335:5] which, says the author of the ”Perennial Calendar,” ”is a remarkable coincidence.”[335:6] It is not such a very ”remarkable coincidence” after all, when we find that, even as early as the time of St. Gregory, Bishop of Neo-Caesarea, who flourished about A. D. 240-250, Pagan festivals were changed into Christian holidays. This saint was commended by his namesake of Nyssa for changing the Pagan festivals into Christian holidays, the better to draw the heathens to the religion of Christ.[335:7]

The month of _May_, which was dedicated to the heathen Virgin Mothers, is also the month of Mary, the Christian Virgin.

Now that we have seen that the wors.h.i.+p of the Virgin and Child was universal for ages before the Christian era, we shall say a few words on the subject of pictures and images of the Madonna--so called.

The most ancient pictures and statues in Italy and other parts of Europe, of what are supposed to be representations of the Virgin _Mary_ and the infant Jesus, are _black_. The infant G.o.d, in the arms of his black mother, his eyes and drapery white, is himself perfectly black.[335:8]

G.o.dfrey Higgins, on whose authority we have stated the above, informs us that, at the time of his writing--1825-1835--images and paintings of this kind were to be seen at the cathedral of Moulins; the famous chapel of ”the Virgin” at Loretto; the church of the Annunciation, the church of St. Lazaro, and the church of St. Stephens, at _Genoa_; St. Francis, at _Pisa_; the church at _Brixen_, in the Tyrol; the church at _Padua_; the church of St. Theodore, at _Munich_--in the two last of which the white of the eyes and teeth, and the studied redness of the lips, are very observable.[336:1]

”The _Bambino_[336:2] at _Rome_ is black,” says Dr. Inman, ”and so are the Virgin and Child at Loretto.”[336:3] Many more are to be seen in Rome, and in innumerable other places; in fact, says Mr. Higgins,

”There is scarcely an old church in Italy where some remains of the wors.h.i.+p of the _black Virgin_, and _black child_, are not met with;” and that ”pictures in great numbers are to be met with, where the white of the eyes, and of the teeth, and the lips a little tinged with red, like the black figures in the museum of the Indian company.”[336:4]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. No. 20]

Fig. No. 20 is a copy of the image of the Virgin of Loretto. Dr. Conyers Middleton, speaking of it, says:

”The mention of Loretto puts me in mind of the surprise that I was in at the first sight of the Holy Image, for its face is as black as a negro's. But I soon recollected, that this very circ.u.mstance of its complexion made it but resemble the more exactly the _old idols of Paganism_.”[336:5]

The reason a.s.signed by the Christian priests for the images being black, is that they are made so by smoke and incense, but, we may ask, if they became black by smoke, why is it that the _white_ drapery, _white_ teeth, and the _white_ of the eyes have not changed in color? Why are the lips of a bright red color? Why, we may also ask, are the black images crowned and adorned with jewels, just as the images of the Hindoo and Egyptian virgins are represented?

When we find that the Virgin Devaki, and the Virgin Isis were represented just as these so-called _ancient Christian_ idols represent Mary, we are led to the conclusion that they are Pagan idols adopted by the Christians.

We may say, in the words of Mr. Lundy, ”what jewels are doing on the neck of this poor and lowly maid, it is not easy to say.”[337:1] The _crown_ is also foreign to early representations of the Madonna and Child, but not so to Devaki and Crishna,[337:2] and Isis and Horus. The _coronation_ of the Virgin Mary is unknown to primitive Christian art, but is common in Pagan art.[337:3] ”It may be well,” says Mr. Lundy, ”to compare some of the oldest _Hindoo_ representations of the subject with the Romish, and see how complete the resemblance is;”[337:4] and Dr.

Inman says that, ”the head-dress, as put on the head of the Virgin Mary, is of Grecian, Egyptian, and Indian origin.”[337:5]

The whole secret of the fact of these early representations of the Virgin Mary and Jesus--so-called--being _black_, crowned, and covered with jewels, is that they are of pre-Christian origin; they are _Isis_ and _Horus_, and perhaps, in some cases, Devaki and Crishna, baptized anew.

The Egyptian ”Queen of Heaven” was wors.h.i.+ped in Europe for centuries before and after the Christian Era.[337:6] Temples and statues were also erected in honor of Isis, one of which was at Bologna, in Italy.

Mr. King tells us that the Emperor Hadrian zealously strove to reanimate the forms of that old religion, whose spirit had long since pa.s.sed away, and it was under his patronage that the creed of the Pharaohs blazed up for a moment with a bright but fict.i.tious l.u.s.tre.[337:7] To this period belongs a beautiful sard, in Mr. King's collection, representing Serapis[337:8] and Isis, with the legend: ”Immaculate is Our Lady Isis.”[337:9]

Mr. King further tells us that:

”The '_Black Virgins_' so highly reverenced in certain French cathedrals during the long night of the middle ages, proved, when at last examined critically, basalt figures of Isis.”[337:10]

And Mr. Bonwick says:

”We may be surprised that, as Europe has _Black_ Madonnas, Egypt had _Black_ images and pictures of Isis. At the same time it is a little odd that the Virgin Mary copies most honored should not only be _Black_, but have a decided _Isis cast_ of feature.”[338:1]

The shrine now known as that of the ”Virgin in Amadon,” in France, was formerly an old Black _Venus_.[338:2]

”To this we may add,” (says Dr. Inman), ”that at the Abbey of Einsiedelen, on Lake Zurich, the object of adoration is an old _black doll_, dressed in gold brocade, and glittering with jewels. She is called, apparently, the Virgin of the Swiss Mountains. My friend, Mr. Newton, also tells me that he saw, over a church door at Ivrea, in Italy, twenty-nine miles from Turin, the fresco of a _Black_ Virgin and child, the former bearing a _triple crown_.”[338:3]

This _triple crown_ is to be seen on the heads of Pagan G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, especially those of the Hindoos.

Dr. Barlow says:

”The doctrine of the Mother of G.o.d was of Egyptian origin. It was brought in along with the wors.h.i.+p of the Madonna by Cyril (Bishop of Alexandria, and the Cyril of Hypatia) and the monks of Alexandria, in the fifth century. The earliest representations of the Madonna have quite a Greco-Egyptian character, and there can be little doubt that Isis nursing Horus was the origin of them all.”[338:4]

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