Relic of the Holy Diaper: The Swaddling Clothes of Jesus

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Tags

Aachen, Croatia, Dubrovnik, Germany, Magi, Marienschrein, relic, reliquary, Saint Joseph, Saint Mary, swaddling clothes

Giorgione, The Adoration of the Shepherds, oil on panel (1477), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

The Swaddling Clothes

One of the more remarkable relics on display in the Reliquary Treasury of Dubrovnik Cathedral is the “diaper” of Jesus. The relic is displayed in a bulky silver reliquary, profusely ornamented with winged figures, clunky arabesques, and other decorative accents.[1] While most translations into English describe the relic as a “diaper” or “diapers,” it could more accurately be described as the “swaddling cloth” or “swaddling clothes” of Jesus.[2]

Veneration of Jesus’ swaddling clothes is more frequently associated with Aachen, Germany, where a more famous set of swaddling garments has been kept since the 13th century. Housed in the golden Shrine of Saint Mary (Marienshrein) at Aachen Cathedral, the swaddling clothes (Windel Jesu) were rarely put on public display prior to the 14th century.[3] Since then, the relic has been exhibited in Aachen approximately every seven years.[4] In comparison, the swaddling clothes kept at Dubrovnik Cathedral are regularly displayed in the cathedral’s astonishing treasury of saintly relics.

Marienschrein (Shrine of Saint Mary), gold (1230-1239), Aachen Cathedral, Aachen, Germany

Christmas Stockings

In a paper on Jesus’ swaddling clothes, Sophie Oosterwijk explains that since antiquity, “medical tradition held that the newborn child might develop deformed limbs if left unswaddled; therefore, swaddling clothes were considered absolutely essential not just for ordinary infants but also for the Christ child.”[5] Consequently, until about the 14th century, depictions of the Nativity commonly showed the infant Jesus tightly swaddled, his face serene in a cloth cocoon.[6]

Some paintings of this period, however, show the infant Jesus unswaddled, presumably mere moments after his birth. According to one tradition, Jesus’ struggling parents were forced to reuse Joseph’s hose, the only extra cloth they had at hand, as makeshift swaddling clothes.[7] Paintings inspired by this story frequently portray Joseph removing his shoes and stockings or ripping his hose into strips as Mary waits nearby. “Mary, take my hose and wind your dear baby in them,” Joseph tells Mary in an early 15th century Nativity painting from a church in Lezignan.[8] In another, Joseph seated on the ground with one bare foot extended, carefully cuts his hose into strips with a knife while a recumbent Mary watches from a mattress.[9] Rogier van der Weyden’s famous Columba Altarpiece has also been tied to this tradition, though Joseph’s stockings are portrayed more subtly: two squares of cloth laid in Jesus’ manger have been interpreted as Joseph’s repurposed hose.[10]

Joseph Malouel?, Nativity, oil on tempera (c. 1400), Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp, Belgium (courtesy Wikimedia Commons). Here, Joseph can be seen cutting one of his stockings with a knife as Mary watches and the infant Jesus waits in a manger.

As Oosterwijk observes, the tradition of Joseph and his hose “illustrates the medieval need to explain the details of the Virgin’s reported confinement far away from the comfort of a regular nursery . . . , thus emphasizing Christ’s humility. Instead, it is Joseph in his role of the family provider, rather than that of a natural father, who finds the solution for the lack of swaddling clothes by donating his own hose to cover the newborn Christ with in the cold winter night.”[11]

Adoration of the Magi (panel detail), Columba Altarpiece, oil on oak (c. 1455), Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany. The two squares of cloth padding the manger at left have been interpreted as Joseph’s hose.

God and Man

A curious book titled Excrement in the Late Middle Ages further explores the history and deeper theological meaning of Jesus’ swaddling clothes. As the author, Susan Signe Morrison, notes, while stories about the baby Jesus’s swaddling clothes may seem “obscene or blasphemous,” they were, in fact, “produced within the confines of the sacred.”[12] Miracles associated with Jesus’ swaddling clothes were described in the First Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ — a work condemned as heretical in the fifth century — and in stories describing the return of the Wise Men to their home countries.

Returning to the Christmas story as told in Luke 2:12, Morrison explains that Jesus’s swaddling clothes were provided “not just to keep him warm or to bind him in an imitation of the closeness of the womb.”[13] Rather, “[t]he clothes clearly perform a key function: to collect the filth the human baby ejects.”[14] Morrison further explains that the “enfleshing of Christ is both most sacred (he became man to save us) and most profane (he took on the flesh that emits filth for us).” Morrison concludes, “To be human is to eat; to be fully human, God must digest just as a human does. As Tertullian argued, by taking on the filthy human body, Christ signals his profound humility and compassion. God has divested himself of his omnipotence; what more overt way to do this than to become a helpless, wriggling, filthy infant, utterly dependent upon others for nourishment, shelter, and personal hygiene?”[15]

Bernardino Luini, The Madonna of the Carnation, oil on panel (c. 1515), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

[1] See, e.g., Ante Dračevac, La Cathedrale de Dubrovnik 50 (Françoise Kveder trans., 1988). Dating to the 16th century, the reliquary is the work of local Dubrovnik metalsmiths. Id.

[2] For example, an older guide to the cathedral, translated into French and no longer in print, describes the relic as “des langes de Jésus.” Id.

[3] Joan Carroll Cruz, Relics 23 (1984).

[4] Id.

[5] Sophie Oosterwijk, The Swaddling-Clothes of Christ: A Medieval Relic on Display, 13 Medieval Life 25-30 (2000).

[6] See id. at 25.

[7] Incidentally, Saint Joseph’s hose is also purportedly stored in the Marienshrein, along with Jesus’ swaddling clothes, the robe of Saint Mary, and the beheading cloth of Saint John the Baptist. Photographs of all four relics, which comprise the four great relics of the Marienschrein, can be found here.

[8] Gail McMurray Gibson, “St. Margery: The Book of Margery Kempe,” in Equally in God’s Image: Women in the Middle Ages 152 (Julia Bolton Holloway et al., eds., 1990).

[9] The painting is the Nativity panel of a polyptych by an unknown artist, possibly Jean Malouel, painted c. 1400.

[10] See, e.g., Oosterwijk, supra note 5, at 28.

[11] Id.

[12] Susan Signe Morrison, Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: Sacred Filth and Chaucer’s Fecopoetics 92 (2009).

[13] Id. at 93.

[14] Id.

[15] Id. (internal citations omitted).

The Marienschrein at Aachen Cathedral: Reliquary of the Cloak of the Virgin Mary

19 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by Reliquarian in Art History, Metal Reliquary

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Aachen, Chartres, cloak, Germany, Marienschrein, Nuremberg, relic, reliquary, Saint Mary, stained-glass window, textile, Virgin Mary

The Alba Madonna, Rafael, oil on panel transferred to canvas (1510), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Virgin in a Blue Dress

In his superb book on Christian symbolism, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, George Ferguson writes, “No other figure, except that of Christ Himself, was so often portrayed in Renaissance art as the Virgin Mary.”[1] Ferguson further notes that Saint Mary was traditionally painted wearing blue, the color of truth and a symbol of the sky, heaven, and heavenly love.[2] But did the historical Saint Mary actually wear blue? Evidence preserved in various shrines suggests the Virgin’s blue wardrobe may have been an invention of Medieval and Renaissance artists. These artists expressed their devotion to the Virgin by using a very scarce and very expensive pigment to paint her garments. The pigment, known as ultramarine, was a deep, celestial blue.

Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist, Cima da Conegliano, oil on panel (1492-1495), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The Marienschrein and the Four Great Relics of Aachen

The Marienschrein, or Shrine of Saint Mary, at Aachen Cathedral in Aachen (Aix-La-Chapelle), Germany houses four great relics: the cloak of Saint Mary, the swaddling clothes of the infant Jesus, the beheading cloth of Saint John the Baptist, and the loincloth worn by Jesus at his crucifixion. The relics were rarely displayed publicly before the 14th century; however, since about the mid-14th century, the relics have been removed from the shrine approximately every seven years for public veneration.[3]

Marienschrein (Shrine of Saint Mary), gold (1230-1239), Aachen Cathedral, Aachen, Germany

I am unsure exactly what color the relic of Saint Mary’s cloak is, or appears to be, today. Judging by a picture of the garment taken when it was last displayed in 2007, the cloak appears to be flaxen in color, or yellowish gray, with possible hints of light blue along its hem. It is certainly not the deep blue favored by Renaissance artists, though perhaps it has faded significantly over time. Or perhaps it was never blue to begin with. [NOTE: See update below for additional information.]

One other clue to what color Saint Mary may have worn during her lifetime is preserved 300 miles southwest of Aachen, at Chartres Cathedral in Chartres, France. One of the cathedral’s most famous stained-glass windows, a 12th-century window known as Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière (Our Lady of the Beautiful Glass), depicts the Virgin and Child in a sedes sapientiae (seat of wisdom) arrangement with the Christ Child seated on the lap of the Holy Mother. Victoria Finlay, in her engaging study of color and pigments, Color: A Natural History of the Palette, suggests the window shows the Virgin Mary in a blue veil.[4] “The veil,” she writes, “is a pale color, light enough to allow the sun to flood through and depict the young woman’s purity.”[5] However, “it is unmistakably light blue, and worn over a blue tunic.”[6] She further notes that the glass-makers who created the window in 1150 “would have had the ‘real’ veil to model their design on, which is curious, because when you see the precious relic in its gold nineteenth-century box . . . it is not blue at all. More of an off-white: the faded clothing of the melancholy mother of a martyr.”[7]

The Madonna of the Stars, Jacopo Tintoretto, oil on canvas (second half of the 16th century), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

A Blue More Precious Than Gold

If the Virgin Mary did not wear blue, why did artists regularly paint her in blue garments? Victoria Finlay offers several insights. First, she explains that Saint Mary did not always wear blue in artistic representations. In Russian icons, for example, the Virgin Mary more commonly wore red, and in Byzantine art, she often wore purple.[8] On other occasions, she was portrayed in white to represent her innocence, or black to express her grief.[9] Finlay also observes that artists commonly dressed her in a manner to honor her, and their choice of color was frequently decided by cost and rarity.[10] She writes, “In fifteenth-century Holland, Mary often wore scarlet because that was the most expensive cloth; the earlier Byzantine choice of purple was similarly because this was a valuable dye, and only a few people were important enough to carry it off. So when, in around the thirteenth century, ultramarine arrived in Italy as the most expensive color on the market, it was logical to use it to dress the most precious symbol of the faith.”[11]

Example of ultramarine pigment, Albrecht-Dürer-Haus, Nuremberg, Germany.

The deep, rich ultramarine prized by the artists of the Renaissance derived from lapis lazuli, an intensely blue, semi-precious stone found in only a few places on Earth. For artists such as Michelangelo, Titian, and Dürer, the only source of ultramarine was Afghanistan, a “mythical land so far away that no European . . . had actually been there.”[12] Finlay notes that ultramarine was once “the most valuable paint material in the world,” and artists such as Michelangelo would have had to wait for their patrons to procure it for them because they could not afford it on their own.[13] Given its tremendous cost and unquestionable rarity, then, it is not surprising that so many artists chose to clothe the Virgin Mary in ultramarine. Fortuitously, ultramarine also happens to be a serene and majestic color, one truly appropriate for the Queen of Heaven.

***

[UPDATE, 27 JUNE 2014.] The following description is from the Aachen Pilgrimage 2014 (Heiligtumsfahrt 2014) website: “St. Mary’s robe is an ancient work of domestic embroidery. . . . It is made of naturally coloured linen and is embroidered with vertical and horizontal lines in a grid pattern. In Israel flax and cotton were only to be found on the coast and in the lowlands of Jordan . . . .” The website further notes that the dress is 153 cm long; the seam circumference is 246 cm; and the span of the sleeves is 132 cm. The Aachen Pilgrimage 2014 homepage can be found here. More information about the cloak of Saint Mary can be found here. A picture of the robe can be viewed here.

***

Madonna and Child, Vittore Carapaccio, oil on panel (1505-1510), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Madonna and Child, Jan Gossaert, oil on panel (c. 1532), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Virgin and Child, sandstone with traces of polychrome (c. 1325-1350), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Madonna and Child, stained-glass window, Strasbourg Cathedral, Strasbourg, France.

Aachen Cathedral with High Altar and Pala d’Oro in foreground and Marienschrein (Shrine of Saint Mary) behind. Hanging from the vault above the choir is a wooden medallion of the Madonna and Child carved by Jan van Steffesweert of Maastricht in 1524.

[1] George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art 71 (1954).

[2] Id. at 151.

[3] John Carroll Cruz, Relics 23 (1984).

[4] Victoria Finlay, Color: A Natural History of the Palette 317 (2002).

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Id. at 292-93.

[9] Id. at 293.

[10] Id.

[11] Id.

[12] Id. at 282.

[13] Id. at 287.

Saint Matthias: The Thirteenth Apostle

11 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by Reliquarian in Altarpiece, Stone Reliquary

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

altarpiece, basilica, Germany, Krakow, Poland, reliquary, Saint Helena, Saint James, Saint Mary, Saint Matthias, Saint Peter, Trier, Veit Stoss

Veit Stoss, Saint Mary’s Altar (detail with Saint Matthias), Saint Mary’s Basilica, Krakow, Poland

The Kiss of Judas

Judas Iscariot, one of the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus, infamously betrayed Christ with a kiss in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. Following the Last Supper, Judas led the priests and Temple guards of the Sanhedrin to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he identified Jesus to the gathering crowd with a kiss. His treachery set in motion the events leading to the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus.

Giotto Scrovegni, Kiss of Judas (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Giotto, The Kiss of Judas (1304-06), Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Upon learning that Jesus had been sentenced to death, Judas repented. According to the Gospel of Saint Matthew, “Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.”[1] Judas’s plea fell on deaf ears. “What is that to us?” the chief priests and elders responded.[2] Judas then “cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.”[3] In a conflicting account, retold in the Acts of the Apostles, Peter states that Judas “purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.”[4]

Whatever the manner of his death, Judas’s betrayal opened a void in the ranks of the Apostles. At a gathering of Jesus’ followers, which met shortly after the Ascension, Peter proposed that the vacancy in the Apostolate be filled. Two disciples were nominated: Joseph, who was known as Barsabas, and Matthias.

Once Barsabas and Matthias had been singled out, the group prayed for guidance. “Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.”[5] They then drew lots to select Judas’s replacement. The lot fell on Matthias, “and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.”[6]

Not much is known of Matthias’s life following his election to the Apostolate.[7] Some sources claim he preached first in Judea and then Ethiopia before he was eventually crucified for his faith.[8] Others state he traveled to Ethiopia, where he preached near the sea of Hyssus, and died at Sebastopolis.[9] Still others declare he was stoned and then beheaded in Jerusalem.[10]

Reliquary of Saint Matthias, Trier, Germany

Ultimately, Saint Matthias’s relics were purportedly brought to Rome by Saint Helena – although some speculate that the relics in Rome are those of a different Matthias: Saint Matthias, Bishop of Jerusalem, who died in 120.[11] Some of Saint Matthias the Apostle’s relics were also translated to Trier, where they are currently kept in the crypt of the abbey church of Saint Matthias.

Abbey Church of Saint Matthias, Trier, Germany, prior to Mass

Depictions In Art

Compared with the other Apostles, including Judas, Saint Matthias is infrequently portrayed in works of art. His iconography is also less well-defined. For example, while keys are a sign of Saint Peter and seashells are a common attribute of Saint James, no single symbol has come to distinguish Saint Matthias in the visual shorthand of Christian art.

Veit Stoss and Saint Mary’s Altar

Veit Stoss’s magnificent Saint Mary’s Altar, located at the Basilica of Saint Mary in Krakow, Poland, includes one of the few depictions of Saint Matthias I’ve encountered. Carved in the late 15^th century, Saint Mary’s Altar is the largest gothic altar in the world, measuring approximately 11 m (36 ft) long and 13 m (42.65 ft) high.[12] The altar, or retable, is constructed as a pentaptych consisting of a large central cabinet and two pairs of wings: an inner pair that is hinged and can be used to close the cabinet, and an outer pair that is fixed.[13] The altar is further supported by a predella and is surmounted by a finial of carved baldachins spread between thinly carved pillars.[14]

Veit Stoss, Saint Mary’s Altar, Saint Mary’s Basilica, Krakow, Poland

According to multiple sources, the doors of the altar are ordinarily kept closed during the liturgical year and are only opened for important feasts.[15] On several recent visits to Krakow, however, I noted that the doors were generally opened for a few hours each day to allow visitor’s to view the central scene of Stoss’s masterpiece. The central scene of the open retable depicts two important events in the life of Mary – the Death of the Virgin (or Dormition) and the Assumption – while a variety of Biblical episodes are represented on the wings of the altar.[16]

The Dormition depicts a youthful Mary falling to her knees at the moment of her passing.[17] Unlike more traditional depictions of Mary’s passing (such as the one pictured below), Stoss’s Dormition purposely omits references to death or dying to emphasize the extraordinary nature of Mary’s passage from earthly life.[18] There is no deathbed in Stoss’s scene, although Mary continues to be surrounded by Apostles, including Saint Peter and Saint John.[19]

A traditional depiction of the Death of the Virgin (detail), Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany

Joos van Cleve, The Death of the Virgin (detail) (1520), Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany

In my opinion, in addition to Mary herself, three figures in particular stand out in Stoss’s portrayal of the Dormition. The first is Saint James.[20] Because of his central position and his dark, generous beard, the eye is naturally drawn to James, who stands above Mary, supporting her as she sinks to her knees. He is also one of the few figures that stares out towards to the viewer, seemingly making contact with the world outside the altar. The second is Saint John (pictured below), who stands to the right of Saint James, behind Mary.[21] John is holding a blue cloak or cape, which he is raising in an enigmatic gesture. Some suggest he is lifting it to his face to dry a tear while others argue he is extending it to Mary.[22] The third figure that stands out is purportedly Saint Matthias, whose unusual pose is noteworthy.[23]

Saint John (detail), from Saint Mary’s Altar

Like the representation of Saint James, the figure of Saint Matthias is also centrally located in the scene, although he is arranged even closer to the center of the composition. His position serves as a visual link between Mary and the saints of the Dormition, and the Assumption, which takes place in the sky above his head.[24] Matthias holds his hands outspread, his fingers interlaced, just above Mary’s head in a gesture some have described as one of protection.[25] To me, however, Matthias’s interlaced fingers are reminiscent of a crown, and his gesture is suggestive of a coronation. Matthias almost appears ready to place a crown on the kneeling Mary’s head. Could the arrangement have been intended to evoke Mary’s imminent coronation as Queen of Heaven?

It is interesting to speculate why Veit Stoss might have chosen to place Saint Matthias in so prominent a position on Saint Mary’s Altar. Alternatively, Saint Matthias may be the Apostle whose face, carved in profile, is just visible at the left of the composition. All twelve Apostles are present for Stoss’s Dormition, so Saint Matthias must be among them. In the absence of a clear pictorial tradition, however, identifying Matthias from among Stoss’s crowd of carved Apostles must remain a matter of conjecture. Nevertheless, as Rainer Kahsnitz notes in Carved Splendor: Late Gothic Altarpieces in Southern Germany, Austria, and South Tirol, “Presenting twelve apostles in a single scene—one or two of them young, the rest old and with flowing beards, was a notoriously difficult task for a Late Gothic artist. Only a very few carvers and painters proved themselves up to it.”[26] Of those, Veit Stoss may have been the best.

Interior of Saint Mary’s Basilica, Krakow, Poland, with Veit Stoss’s Saint Mary’s Altar in background

[1] Matthew 27:3 (King James Bible).

[2] Matthew 27:4.

[3] Matthew 27:5.

[4] Acts 1:18 (King James Bible).

[5] Acts 1:24-25.

[6] Acts 1:26.

[7] See “St. Matthias,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, available at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10066a.htm (providing a general overview of sources describing the ministry of Saint Matthias).

[8] Id. (citing Nicephorus, 2 Church History 40, in 1 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Philip Schaff ed., Arthur Cushman McGiffert trans, 1890)).

[9] Id. (citing the The Synopsis of Dorotheus).

[10] Id. (citing Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont, 1 Mémoire pour servir à l’histoire ecclésiastique des six premiers siècle 406-7).

[11] Id. (citing Jean Bolland, Acta Sanctorum, Maii, III (1680)).

[12] Krzysztof Czyzewski, Veit Stoss: Mary’s Altar 10 (Aleksander Ptak et. al, trans. 2007).

[13] See id. at 10-11.

[14] Id. at 11.

[15] See, e.g., Czyzewski, supra note 12, at 11; Teresa Czerniewicz-Umer, Eyewitness Travel: Cracow 96 (2010).

[16] The following scenes are depicted on the internal wings of the altar and are visible when the doors are open: the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and Pentecost. The following scenes are visible when the doors of the altar are closed: the Meeting of Saint Anne and Saint Joachim, the Birth of the Virgin, the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, Christ Among the Doctors, the Capture of Christ, the Crucifixion, the Lamentation, the Entombment, Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalene (Noli me tangere), the Three Marys at the Sepulcher, and the Descent into Hell.

[17] Czyzewski, supra note 12, at 12. In her travel guide to Krakow, Teresa Czerniewicz-Umer opines that the “figure of the youthful Mary is one of the greatest sculptures ever made in Poland.” Czerniewicz-Umer, supra note 15, at 97.

[18] Czyzewski, supra note 12, at 12. In Carved Splendor: Late Gothic Altarpieces in Southern Germany, Austria, and South Tirol, Rainer Kahsnitz states, “In accordance with legendary tradition going back more than five hundred years—the Gospels say nothing about the death of the Virgin—the standard Dormition shows the apostles, miraculously transported from their far-flung missions, convened around Mary’s deathbed . . . .” Rainer Kahsnitz, Carved Splendor: Late Gothic Altarpieces in Southern Germany, Austria, and South Tirol 137 (2006).

[19] Rainer notes that portrayals of Mary kneeling in prayer before her death was a form that “spread from Bohemia to southeast Germany, Austria, and adjacent territories in the late fourteenth century.” Rainer, supra note 19, at 137.

[20] Rainer identifies this figure as possibly being Saint Paul rather than Saint James. Id. at 139.

[21] Rainer identifies this figure as possibly being Saint Philip rather than Saint John. Id. at 140.

[22] See, e.g., Czyzewski, supra note 12, at 29 (featuring a caption reading “St. John raises the rim of his coat to dry a tear,” which accompanies a detail of The Dormition); Czerniewicz-Umer, supra note 15, at 97 (featuring a caption beneath a detail of Saint John stating “the saint is about to put a cape on the fainting Mary”).

[23] Rainer identifies this figure as possibly being Saint John rather than Saint Matthias. Rainer, supra note 19, at 139.

[24] In the Assumption, Christ and Mary are being raised to heaven by angels.

[25] Czyzewski, supra note 12, at 12 (noting that one of the Apostles “protects” Mary with his “hands above Her”).

[26] Rainer, supra note 19, at 140.