Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1961, Page 110

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Matthew leaves out this detail. It is perhaps also worth noticing
that the Mariu saga is firmly rooted in tradition, and in accordance
with the apocryphal gospels (ed. by C. Tischendorf), when it is
related that Mary was three years old, when offered to the service
of God in the Temple. An inferior tradition has it that she was
seven years old, thus reducing the importance of the marvellous
ascent of the steps.
The number symbolism in the chapters 4 and 5 of the Mariu saga
has parallels elsewhere. The author’s treatment of the numbers
cannot be said to be strikingly original, but the text has none the
less a certain distinction. Some (or most) of the formulas used here
remind us of similar expressions in the learned writings of Hugo
of St. Victor, Durandus, Honorius, and a dozen or more of pro-
minent mediaeval scholars. In his interesting and stimulating book
Medieval Number Symbolism (Columbia UP 1938) Vincent Poster
Hopper has provided us with an abundance of references to ideas
similar to those in the Old Norse text, but not throughout identical.
The possibility that the interpretation of the fifteen steps and
the corresponding qualities may be derived from a sermon delivered
on one of the feasts of the Blessed Virgin cannot altogether be
left out, especially since our text here and there has a homiletic
tone. An investigation along such lines has not proved profitable,
however.
Among the feasts of the Blessed Virgin, one is closely connected
with the theme of Mary’s ascent of the fifteen steps: the Peast of
the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple, Praesentatio
Mariae, November 21. That there might be some sort of connec-
tion between this feast and the Old Norse interpretation, was an
idea that suggested itself immediately. However, we have not
been able to track down any connection, not even with the help
of the illuminating study of the Feast of the Presentation by Mary
Jerome Kishpaugh, O. P. {The Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin
Mary in the Temple: An Historical and Literary Study. The Catholic
University of America Press, Washington D. C. 1941). The faet
that the Feast of the Presentation was not formally introduced into
the Latin Church until 1372, that is about 200 years after the
Mariu saga was composed, leaves out any influence from Con-
tinental writers associated with the promotion of the feast. Now,