printing. It is probable that all the editions were printed in Germany, and after the invention of typography.
The edition from which the annexed illustration was taken was roughly printed on one side of the paper, but in a very black ink. In other editions, which were printed from entirely different blocks, differing both in the size of the block and in the positions of the figures, the ink is of the customary rusty brown. The copy in black is supposed to have been printed on a press, and at a later date.
The object of the book is to show the reasonableness of the story of the Incarnation, and to defend the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The bad taste of the author is more signally shown in the text than in the pictures. Arguments in support of the dogma are wrested from sacred history and heathen mythology, and the writings of the fathers of the church. The book is a curious compend of piety and unconscious irreverence, of high scholarship and gross stupidity, as will be more clearly shown by the following translation of the legends that explain the pictures on the opposite page.
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Temple of Venus, with a man gazing at a lamp. If the light at the temple of Venus cannot be extinguished, why should not the Virgin generate without the seed of Venus? Augustine de Civitate Dei, xxi, 7. Two Human Figures and a Statue. If a human being can be changed into stone, why, by divine power, should not the Virgin generate? Albertus de Minoralium, i, in fine. |
A man gazing at water that reflects the moon. If Seleucus in Persia finds [reflected] light from the moon, why should not the Virgin, pregnant by a beautiful star, generate? Augustine de Civitate Dei, xx, 6. Two men sawing a stone on which appear two human heads. If man can be painted on stone by the power of heaven, why should not the Virgin generate by the assistance of the Holy Spirit? Albertus de Minoralium, ii, 1. |
The book begins with representations of St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Gregory and St. Augustine. St. Ambrose, who is duly quoted from his Hexameron, book ii, chapter 41, assigns reasons for the Immaculate Conception, by illogical reference to a bird without a mate. St. Augustine, who is represented as seated at a table, reading from his work, De Mirabilibus, book iii, chapter 12, asserts the Immaculate Conception because many animals are produced without mating. St. Jerome and
