CHAR A CTERISA TION IN THE PASSION-PLA Y 35 1 



sucked. 1 The mediaeval Virgin is, in short, the folk- vindi- 

 cation of its right to a goddess of its own ethnic type. 



It is true that devotional and catechetical works 

 drew a line albeit occasionally somewhat faint be- 

 tween the power of the Trinity and the power of the 

 Virgin.' 2 Yet for the great mass of the folk mediaeval 

 Christianity presented all the good and all the bad 

 qualities of a polytheism. The Virgin was to the common 

 folk, who were ignorant of scholastic subtleties, a divine 

 being, and no amount of citation from doctrinal treatises 

 can invalidate this conclusion. Nor should we, as 

 students of comparative religion, seek forced reasons for 

 denying it. Mariolatry has, on the whole, been a bene- 

 ficial factor in European civilisation. It appealed to 

 one of the noblest emotions in man ; and it may well 

 be doubted whether the women of to-day would have 

 advanced so far as they have done, had not the worship 

 of a goddess, prepotent in religious feeling, in art, and 

 in the drama, come to help them, however little 

 realised, in their struggle. When the folk heard the 

 Virgin addressed as ' Queen of Heaven ' and ' Mother 

 of all Mercy,' J when they saw her in woodcut and 



1 In this respect the Virgin closely resembles the Indian Maya. She will be 

 found represented as squeezing her breasts in several editions of the Hortulus 

 Animae, or as offering them to Bernard of Clairvaux, Dominic, and other saints in 

 pictures and prints. 



2 What can be said on this point and it is not convincing has been said 

 by J. Janssen (An meine Kritiker, 1882, pp. 36-41). 



3 Cf. "Heuene quene and hell Emperesse" (Legends of Holy Rood, E.E.T.S., 

 pp. 147, 21 1, etc.) We find some very strong expressions used of the Virgin even 

 as early as the Xpio-rds Trdtrxwy, e.g. irdyK\vre, irayKoXXlcrTa Kotiprj Trapdtve 

 (1. 598), 8 irbrva, Kotipy, (re/ifordra irapdfre (1. 646), A.cnroii>a irayKotpave, i^TJrep 

 rov Aoyov (1. 998). The 6eor6Kos in the same play emphasises strongly her own 

 purity, while in the epilogue of the author there is a strong element of Mario- 

 latry (e.g. 11. 2572 et seq., 11. 2597 et seq.} even to the regina celorum = TravTdva<rffa. 

 See also Lehner, Die Marienverehrung in den ersten Jahrhunderten, 1881. 



