The great
Italian art since the fourteenth century, as well as the Neo-Latin and
German cults of the Virgin Mary were, though apparently still orthodox,
in their innermost essence the outcome of a personal desire for love,
and had therefore abandoned the teaching of the Church and become
Protestant. The fact that the so-called Protestant Church looked askance
at Mary, and that the rather coarse-minded Luther said, in his
annoyance: "Popery has made a goddess of Mary, and is therefore guilty
of idolatry," does not contradict my statement. The true Queen of Heaven
was a conception of the artist and lover, incomprehensible to those who
were only thinkers and moralists.
Through the legitimation of a divine woman open enmity between the
religion of woman and the religion of the Church was avoided. A woman
had stepped between God and humanity as mediator, intercessor and
redeemer. Every metaphysically-loving soul could conceive her as it
pleased, could love her and pray to her without being a heretic and
worshipper of the devil.
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