STELLA MARIS: BIBLIJSKIM TRAGOM ASTRALNOG MARIJANSKOG MOTIVA

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the biblical genesis of the stella maris motif, one of the most significant and represented Marian motif in Western Mariological poetry. Describing its Old Testament origin in the forgotten gyno-deities of the earlier periods of Judaism close to the matriarchy, through the New Testament concept of the star of Bethlehem, which, quite unexpectedly, shows Marian impulses, to the value of stars in the Christian cult of the Virgin – we are reconsidering the thesis that the appellation stella maris arose only as a translation mistake by Jerome of Stridon (stella maris instead of the correct stilla maris). Our assumption is that the archetypal memory of the early church of the forgotten female deity in the form of survival returned through the New Testament Virgin Mary, and brought with it into the cult of the Virgin the astral topic, which from there continued its way through literary Mariology.