Books by Edward F. Edinger
Edward F. Edinger, The Christian Archetype
Assumption and Coronation of Mary
The dogmatization of the Assumptio Mariae points to the hieros gamos in the
pleroma, and this in turn implies . . .the future birth of the divine child, who, in accordance with the divine trend towards incarnation, will choose as his birthplace the empirical man.
The metaphysical process is known to the psychology of the unconscious as the
individuation process. 1
The Assumption of Mary lies outside the incarnation cycle and, perhaps for that reason, has no scriptural basis.
It is a product of legend and spontaneous collective belief.
For many centuries celebrated as a Church festival, the Assumption was in 1950 declared an article of faith by Pius XII.
There is no scriptural foundation for the belief which rests on the apocryphal literature of the 3rd and 4th cents. ,and the Tradition of the Catholic Church.
It forms the continuation of the narrative of the DEATH OF THE VIRGIN.
The 13th cent., a period when the cult of the Virgin was ardently fostered, saw the appearance of the Golden Legend, a popular source-book for artists, in which the apocryphal story was retold.
As the apostles were sitting by the Virgin’s tomb on the third day, Christ appeared to them with St. Michael who brought with him the Virgin’s soul.
“And anon the soul came again to the body of Mary, and issued gloriously out of the tomb, and thus was received in the heavenly chamber, and a great company of angels with her.”
The Assumption was first widely represented in 13th cent. Gothic sculpture, especially in the portals of churches dedicated to the Virgin, and was to remain an important devotional theme in religious art. 2
The Coronation in its most usual form shows the Virgin seated beside Christ who is in the act of placing a crown on her head.
She may alternatively be kneeling before him. Or she may be crowned by God the Father. 3 (Figure 29)
For our purposes the Assumption of Mary can be considered as the comprehensive, summarizing image that expresses the fruit of the incarnation cycle taken as a whole, namely, the coniunctio. In the same decade that Jung was announcing the
empirical discovery of the coniunctio archetype, 4 the Pope announced the dogmatization of the Assumption of Mary (1950)-which event Jung considers to be “the most important religious event since the Reformation. “5
This remarkable piece of historical synchronicity underscores the fact that the coniunctio is the relevant symbol for modem man.
The nuptial union in the thalamus (bridal-chamber) signifies the hieros gamos, and this in turn is the first step towards incarnation, towards the birth of the saviour who, since antiquity, was thought of as the filius solis et l71:nae, the filius
sapientiae, and the equivalent of Christ.
When, therefore, a longing for the exaltation of the Mother of God passes through
the people, this tendency, if thought to its logical conclusion, means the desire for the birth of a saviour, a peacemaker, a “mediator pacem faciens inter inimicos. “6
Although he is already born in the pleroma, his birth in time can only be
accomplished when it is perceived, recognized, and declared by man.7
Elsewhere Jung points out that the Assumption of Mary transforms the Trinity of Christian dogma into a quatemity, “thus making a dogmatic reality of those medieval representations of the quatemity which are constructed on the following
pattem”:8
Holy Ghost (Dove) Mary
The Assumption of Mary was prominent in alchemical symbolism which anticipated the relevance of this image for the modem mind.
The symbolism is expressed in condensed form in a picture from Reusner’s Pandora (1588). (Figure 30)
The picture is titled, ”A Mirror Image of the Holy Trinity.”
It represents the coronation of Mary who takes her place with the Holy Trinity.
This event in heaven is mirrored on earth by a strange image representing the extraction of the spirit Mercurius from the prima materia.
The four comers are occupied by the symbols of the four evangelists, the typical figures which constitute the Christian quatemity.
In the lower portion of the picture is a lump of matter out of which a monstrous creature is being pulled by a crowned and haloed figure.
The monster has a haloed human head, human legs, snakes for arms, and wings on the body of a fish.
About this picture Jung writes,
The taking up of the body had long been emphasized as an historical and material event, and the alchemists could therefore make use of the representations of the Assumption in describing the glorification of matter in the opus. The illustration
of this process in Reusner’s Pandora shows, underneath the coronation scene, a kind of shield between the emblems of Matthew and Luke, on which is depicted the extraction of Mercurius from the prima materia. The extracted spirit appears
in monstrous form: the head is surrounded by a halo, and reminds us of the traditional head of Christ, but the arms are snakes and the lower half of the body resembles a stylized fish’s tail.
This is without doubt the anima mundi who has been freed from the shackles of matter, the filius macrocosmi or Mercurius-Anthropos, who, because of his double nature, is not only spiritual and physical but unites in himself the morally highest and lowest.
The illustration in Pandora points to the great secret which the alchemists dimly felt was implicit in the Assumption. The proverbial darkness of sublunary matter has always been associated with the “prince of this world,” the devil. He is the metaphysical figure who is excluded from the Trinity but who, as the counterpart of Christ, is the sine
qua non of the drama of redemption. His equivalent in alchemy is the dark side of Mercurius duplex and . . . the active sulphur. He also conceals himself in the·poisonous dragon, the preliminary, chthonic form of the lapis aethereus .9
In heaven the Trinity is being transformed into a quaternity by the addition of Mary who represents the principle of materiality. On earth, crude matter is being transformed by the extraction (bringing to consciousness) of the autonomous
spirit hidden within it.
Earth and egohood have gained a place in heaven and simultaneously matter is found to have a spiritual dimension. The extraction process begins with a lump of crude matter.
This can be understood as signifying all the problematical realities of incarnated existence.
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,/ … The heartache and the thousand natural shocks/ That flesh is heir to. . . . I . . . . the whips and scorns of time,/ The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, I The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,/ The insolence of office, and the spurns/ That patient merit of the unworthy takes,/. . . To grunt and sweat under a weary life …. 10
Out of the lump, a bizarre creature is being pulled by a crowned and haloed man.
This man can be considered as the “Christified” ego, that is, the ego operating under the aegis of the Self. In heaven the principle of materiality is being glorified.
On earth the task of realizing that glorification is taking place through the redemption and transformation of concrete, personal existence by means of the individuating ego, that is, an ego that is carrying the process of continuing
incarnation.
It is shocking that “the anima mundi who has been freed from the shackles of matter” should be a monstrosity.
This alludes to the fact that the living experience of the Self is an aberration, a joining of opposites that appalls the ego and exposes it to anguish, demoralization and violation of all “reasonable” considerations.
And yet the same event viewed from above is a coronation, demonstrating once again the reciprocal and compensatory relation between the ego and the
unconscious.
The goal of the incarnation cycle, like the goal of individuation, is the coniunctio.
The time has come for the psychic opposites-heaven and earth, male and female, spirit and nature, good and evil-which have long been torn asunder in the Western psyche, to be reconciled. ~Edward F. Edinger, The Christian Archetype, Page 131-137
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