Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • The Adoration of the Shepherds

    Ital. L’ Adorazione dei Pastori. Fr. L’Adoration des Bergers. Ger. Die Anbetung der Hirten. The story thus proceeds : When the angels were gone away into heaven, the shepherds came with haste, ” and found Mary, and Joseph, and the young Child lying in a manger.” Being come, they present their pastoral offerings — a […]

  • The Nativity as an Event

    We now come to the Nativity as historically treated, in which time, place, and circumstance have to be considered as in any other actual event. The time was the depth of winter, at midnight ; the place a poor stable. According to some authorities, this stable was the interior of a cavern, still shown at […]

  • The Nativity as a Mystery

    In the first sense, the artist has intended simply to express the advent of the Divinity on earth in the form of an infant, and the motif is clearly taken from a text in the Office of the Virgin, ” Virgo quem genuit adoravit.” In the beautiful words of Jeremy Taylor, ” She blessed him, […]

  • The Nativity

    Ital. Il Presepio. Il Nascimento del Nostro Signore. Fr. La Nativité. Ger. Die Geburt Christi. (Dec. 25.) The birth of our Saviour is related with characteristic simplicity and brevity in the Gospels ; but in the early Christian traditions this great event is preceded and accompanied by several circumstances which have assumed a certain importance […]

  • The Dream of Joseph

    Although the Feast of the Visitation is fixed for the 2nd of July, it was, and is, a received opinion, that Mary began her journey to the hill country but a short time, even a few days, after the annunciation of the angel. It was the sixth month with Elizabeth, and Mary sojourned with her […]

  • Devotional and Historical Representations

    In this volume, as in the former ones, I have adhered to the distinction between the devotional and the historical representations. I class as devotional all those which express a dogma merely ; all the enthroned Madonnas, alone or surrounded by significant accessories or attendant saints ; all the Mystical Coronations and Immaculate Conceptions ; […]

  • The Visitation

    Ital. La Visitazione di Maria. Fr. La Visitation de la Vierge. Ger. Die Heimsuchung Maria. (July 2.) After the annunciation of the angel, the Scripture goes on to relate how ” Mary arose and went up into the hill country with haste, to the house of her cousin Elizabeth, and saluted her.” This meeting of […]

  • The Annunciation as an Event

    Had the Annunciation to Mary been merely mentioned as an awful and incomprehensible vision, it would have been better to have adhered to the mystical style of treatment, or left it alone altogether ; but the Scripture history, by giving the whole narration as a simple fact, a real event, left it free for representation […]

  • The Annunciation as a Mystery

    Considering the importance given to the Annunciation in its mystical sense, it is strange that we do not find it among the very ancient symbolical subjects adopted in the first ages of Christian Art. It does not appear on the sarcophagi, nor in the early Greek carvings and diptychs, nor in the early mosaics — […]

  • The Life of the Virgin Mary from the Annunciation to the Return from Egypt

    THE ANNUNCIATION Ital. L’ Annunciazione. La B. Vergine Annunziata. Fr. L’Annonciation. La Salutation Angélique. Ger. Die Verkündigung. Der englische Gruss. (March 25.) THE second part of the life of the Virgin Mary begins with the Annunciation and ends with the Crucifixion, comprising all those scriptural incidents which connect her history with that of her Divine […]

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