Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1961, Blaðsíða 109

89
To fear and patience the meekness of true contrition must be
added (llth step).
The 12th step corresponds to humility, which is the true founda-
tion of virtues, in the same way as the 12 apostles are the foundation
of the Christian Faith.
When the virtues have been joined together with humility,
which may be called the glue of the other virtues, we are bound to
thank God for the reerection of the Temple, that is the soul (ac-
cording to St. Paul 1 Gor 3,16-17). The consecration of the Temple
(the soul) is remembered on the 13th step, for the Temple is richly
adorned, when Man, baptized in the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost, is obedient to his baptismal vows and the ten
commandments (3+10).
On the 14th step a prayer was said for unanimity commanded
by God in the Decalogue and the 4 gospels (10+4).
The 15th step (the step of charity) is a lesson to the faithful,
that no one shall get Glory without end who does not show charity
towards his neighbour.
The Blessed Virgin ascended the fifteen steps unaided because
she (more than any other human being) lived according to the
virtues of the steps, and she was taken into eternal Glory. Her pre-
sentation in the Temple was a sign of the glory which was to be hers.
We have tried to give a fair survey of the elements of the text
without any intention of emphasizing the abundance of common-
places. However, though the text has no striking merit of its own,
it fits admirably into a well established, traditional pattern of
symbolism in the ecclesiastical literature of the Middle Ages. But
the problem still demands an answer to the question: has the
author based his text upon current thoughts from many sources,
or has he simply translated a foreign text (perhaps with a few
modifications) ?
The detail that suggested to the author the idea of inserting an
interpretation of the symbolic values of the fifteen steps is, of
course, that the steps of the Temple are said to correspond to the
fifteen Gradual Psalms. This old belief (cf. A Dictionary of the Bible,
IV, 153) is found in the principal source of the first twelve chapters
of the Mariu saga, the Gospel of the Birth of Mary, while Pseudo-