Legends of the Madonna | Page 8

of the Madonna, and the cruelties
exercised on her unhappy votaries, produced a general destruction of
the most curious and precious remains of antique art. In other respects,
the immediate result was naturally enough a reaction, which not only
reinstated pictures in the veneration of the people, but greatly increased
their influence over the imagination; for it is at this time that we first
hear of a miraculous picture. Among those who most strongly defended
the use of sacred images in the churches, was St. John Damascene, one
of the great lights of the Oriental Church. According to the Greek
legend, he was condemned to lose his right hand, which was
accordingly cut off; but he, full of faith, prostrating himself before a
picture of the Virgin, stretched out the bleeding stump, and with it
touched her lips, and immediately a new hand sprung forth "like a
branch from a tree." Hence, among the Greek effigies of the Virgin,
there is one peculiarly commemorative of this miracle, styled "the

Virgin with three hands." (Didron, Manuel, p. 462.) In the west of
Europe, where the abuses of the image-worship had never yet reached
the wild superstition of the Oriental Christians, the fury of the
Iconoclasts excited horror and consternation. The temperate and
eloquent apology for sacred pictures, addressed by Gregory II. to the
Emperor Leo, had the effect of mitigating the persecution in Italy,
where the work of destruction could not be carried out to the same
extent as in the Byzantine provinces. Hence it is in Italy only that any
important remains of sacred art anterior to the Iconoclast dynasty have
been preserved.[1]
[Footnote 1: It appears, from one of these letters from Gregory II, that it
was the custom at that time (725) to employ religious pictures as a
means of instruction in the schools. He says, that if Lee were to enter a
school in Italy, and to say that he prohibited pictures, the children
would infallibly throw their hornbooks (_Ta volexxe del alfabeto_) at
his head.--v. Bosio, p. 567.]
The second Council of Nice, under the Empress Irene in 787,
condemned the Iconoclasts, and restored the use of the sacred pictures
in the churches. Nevertheless, the controversy still raged till after the
death of Theophilus, the last and the most cruel of the Iconoclasts, in
842. His widow Theodora achieved the final triumph of the orthodox
party, and restored the Virgin to her throne. We must observe, however,
that only pictures were allowed; all sculptured imagery was still
prohibited, and has never since been allowed in the Greek Church,
except in very low relief. The flatter the surface, the more orthodox.
It is, I think, about 886, that we first find the effigy of the Virgin on the
coins of the Greek empire. On a gold coin of Leo VI., the Philosopher,
she stands veiled, and draped, with a noble head, no glory, and the arms
outspread, just as she appears in the old mosaics. On a coin of
Romanus the Younger, she crowns the emperor, having herself the
nimbus; she is draped and veiled. On a coin of Nicephorus Phocus
(who had great pretensions to piety), the Virgin stands, presenting a
cross to the emperor, with the inscription, "Theotokos, be propitious."
On a gold coin of John Zimisces, 975, we first find the Virgin and
Child,--the symbol merely: she holds against her bosom a circular glory,
within which is the head of the Infant Christ. In the successive reigns of
the next two centuries, she almost constantly appears as crowning the

emperor.
Returning to the West, we find that in the succeeding period, from
Charlemagne to the first crusade, the popular devotion to the Virgin,
and the multiplication of sacred pictures, continued steadily to increase;
yet in the tenth and eleventh centuries art was at its lowest ebb. At this
time, the subjects relative to the Virgin were principally the Madonna
and Child, represented according to the Greek form; and those scenes
from the Gospel in which she is introduced, as the Annunciation, the
Nativity, and the Worship of the Magi.
Towards the end of the tenth century the custom of adding the angelic
salutation, the "Ave Maria," to the Lord's prayer, was first introduced;
and by the end of the following century, it had been adopted in the
offices of the Church. This was, at first, intended as a perpetual
reminder of the mystery of the Incarnation, as announced by the angel.
It must have had the effect of keeping the idea of Mary as united with
that of her Son, and as the instrument of the Incarnation, continually in
the minds of the people.
The pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and the crusades in the eleventh and
the twelfth centuries, had a most striking effect on