§ 130. THE WORSHIP OF MARY. 835
of his verse and sermons.1 He exhausts the vocabulary for words in her praise. She is prefigured in Jacob's ladder, Noah's ark, the brazen serpent, Aaron's rod, the star of Balaam, the pot of manna, Gideon's horn, and other objects of Hebrew history. To each of these his Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary devotes poetic treatment extending in cases to more than one hundred lines and carrying the reader away by their affluence of imagination and the sweetness of the rhythm.
Imitating the Book of Psalms, Bonaventura wrote two psalteries, each consisting of one hundred and fifty parts. Each part of the Minor Psaltery consists of four lines, its opening lines being "Hail Virgin, tree of life; Hail Vir gin, door of liberty; Hail Virgin, dear to God; Hail Virgin, light of the world; Hail Virgin, harbor of life; Hail Virgin, most beautiful." In the Greater Psaltery, Bonaventura paraphrases the one hundred and fifty psalms and introduces into each one Mary's name and her attributes, revelling in ascriptions of her preeminence over men and angels. Here are several selections, but no selection can give any adequate idea of the liberty taken with Scripture. The first Psalm is made to run, " Blessed is the man who loves thee, O Virgin Mary. Thy grace will comfort his soul." The Twenty-third runs, "The Lord directs me, O Virgin mother of God — genetrix dei — because thou hast turned towards me His loving countenance." The first verse of Psalm 121 reads, " I have lifted up my eyes to thee, O Mother of Christ, from whom solace comes to all flesh."
Tender as are Bernard's descriptions of Christ and his work, he nevertheless assigns to Mary the place of mediator between the soul and the Saviour. In Mary there is nothing severe, nothing to be dreaded. She is tender to all, offering milk and wool. If you are terrified at the thunders of the Father, go to Jesus, and if you fear to go to Jesus, then run to Mary. Besought by the sinner, she shows her breasts and
1 These works may not all be genuine. They belong, at least, to Bonaventura's age.
836 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
bosom to the Son, as the Son showed his wounds to the Father. Let her not depart from thine heart. Following her, you will not go astray; beseeching her, you will not de spair; thinking of her, you will not err.1
So also Bonaventura pronounces Mary the mediator be tween us and Christ.2 As God is the lord of revenge — dominus ultionum, — he says in his Greater Psaltery, so Mary is the mother of compassion. She presents the requests of mortals to the Second Person of the Trinity, softening his wrath and winning favors which otherwise would not be secured.
Anselm, whom we are inclined to think of as a sober theologian above his fellows, was no less firm as an advocate of Mary's mediatorial powers. Prayer after prayer does he offer to her, all aflame with devotion. "Help me by thy death and by thine assumption into heaven," he prays. " Come to my aid," he cries, " and intercede for me, O mother of God, to thy sweet Son, for me a sinner."3
The veneration for Mary found a no less remarkable ex pression in the poetry of the Middle Ages. The vast collec tion, Analecta hymnica, published by Dreves and up to this time filling fifteen volumes, gives hundreds and thousands of sacred songs dwelling upon the merits and glories of the Virgin. The plaintive and tender key in which they are written is adapted to move the hardest heart, even though they are full of descriptions which have nothing in the Scrip tures to justify them. Here are two verses taken at random from the thousands : —
A ve Maria, Angelorum dia Cceli rectrix, Virgo Maria
Ave maris stella, Lucens jniseris Deitatis cella, Porta principis.*
Hail, Mary, Mother of God, Ruler of heaven, O Virgin Mary . . . Hail, Star of the Sea, Lighting the wretched Cell of the Deity, Gate of the king.
Where the thinkers and singers of the age were so ardent in their worship of Mary, what could be expected from the
1 De assump., Migne, 183. 430 ; De nativ. Mariw, Migne, 183. 441 ; Super
missus, III., Migne, 183. 70. 2 In Sent., III. 1, 2, Peltier's ed., IV. 63.
3 Omt., LVIIl", LX. Migne, 158. 964, 966. 4 Dreves, Analecta, I. 48 sqq.