Legends of the Madonna, as represented in the fine artsForming the third series of Sacred and legendary art . urches of Rome and Carthage declared_^, all tended to multiply and disseminate far and widethroughouT Christendom those images of the Virgin which^exhibited her-as-Mother of the Godhead. At length theecclesiastical authorities, headed by Pope Gregory the Great,stamped them as orthodox : and as the cross had been theprimeval symbol which distinguisliecl the Christian from thePagah7^othe image of the Virgin Mother and her Child nowbecame the symbol which distinguished the
Legends of the Madonna, as represented in the fine artsForming the third series of Sacred and legendary art . urches of Rome and Carthage declared_^, all tended to multiply and disseminate far and widethroughouT Christendom those images of the Virgin which^exhibited her-as-Mother of the Godhead. At length theecclesiastical authorities, headed by Pope Gregory the Great,stamped them as orthodox : and as the cross had been theprimeval symbol which distinguisliecl the Christian from thePagah7^othe image of the Virgin Mother and her Child nowbecame the symbol which distinguished the jZJatholic Chris-tian from the Nestorian Dissenter. Thus it appears that if the first religious representations ofthe Virgin and Child were not a consequence of the Nestorianschism, yet the consecration of such effigies as the visibleform of a theological dogma to the purposes of worship andecclesiastical decoration must date from the Council of Ephesusin 431; and their popularity and general diffusion throughoutthe western Churches, from the pontificate of Gregory in thebeginning of the seventh 31 Virgo Deipara. (From a Painting in the Catacombs. 7th Century.) In the most ancient of these effigies which remain, we haveclearly only a symbol; a half figure, veiled, with handsoutspread, and the half figure of a child placed against her K 66 LEGENDS OF THE MADONNA. bosom, without any sentiment, without even the action ofsustaining him. Such was the formal but quite intelligiblesign ; but it soon became more, it became a representation. Asit was in the East that the cause of the Virgin first triumphed,we might naturally expect to find the earliest examples inthe old Greek churches; but these must have perished in thefurious onslaught made bj the Iconoclasts on all the sacred726 to 840. images. The controversy between the image-worshippers andthe imacce-breakers, which distracted the East for more thana century, did not, however, extend to the west of find the pr
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