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different kinds of trees there, full of fresh fruits, and the fruits that were hung joyfully

from their branches were of equal beauty, and there were ever- blooming meadows

strewn with variegated and sweet- scented flowers.^35

According to Elisabeth Augspach, Arete’s garden is identified with the ten nuns, whereas

Mary “is adorned with the fruits of virtue.”^36

The identification of the hortus conclusus with ten nuns proved to be a more popular meta-

phor than the Garden- as- Church abstraction, and it was not long before the garden was assim-

ilated to Mary herself. As discussed in earlier chapters, many pagan goddesses were identified

with flowers and fruits, and so it is not surprising that Mary, the Christian mother goddess,

would also come to possess some of these attributes. For example, Saint Ephrem described

Mary as the sinless and inviolate “flower unfading.”^37 In the context of citing precedents in

the Old Testament for events in the New Testament, Saint Jerome explicitly identified Mary

with the hortus conclusus of the “Song of Songs”, as well as with the Garden of Eden, and it was

Jerome who famously described Mary as “a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed.”^38 Mary can

thus be thought of as a nature/ agricultural goddess as well as a mother goddess.

The Virgin Mary as a Nature/ Agricultural Goddess

The Council of Ephesus in 431 ad marked a significant shift in Church doctrine, sanc-

tioning the cult of the Virgin as Theotokos, or “Mother of God.”^39 The cult of the Virgin

expanded most rapidly in the Eastern Church. During the sixth century, around the time

of the Juliana Anicia Codex, the hymn writer Saint Romanos composed the Akathist

(“Standing”) hymns to Mary Theotokos. The third hymn in the service (here slightly

abridged) makes extensive use of agricultural metaphors, reminiscent of the Sumerian love

songs of Inanna and Dumuzi and the biblical “Song of Songs”:

The power of the Most High then overshadowed the Virgin for conception, and

showed Her fruitful womb as a sweet meadow to all who wish to reap

salvation, as they sing: Alleluia!

Rejoice, branch of an Unfading Sprout:

Rejoice, acquisition of Immortal Fruit!

Rejoice, laborer that laborest for the Lover of mankind:

Rejoice, Thou Who givest birth to the Planter of our life!

Rejoice, grainfield yielding a rich crop of mercies:

Rejoice, table bearing a wealth of forgiveness!

Rejoice, Thou Who makest to bloom the garden of delight:

Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded!

Whereas Jerome was the first to identify Mary with the hortus conclusus, and, almost con-

currently, Ambrose equated the hortus conclusus with the Garden of Eden (with Mary as the

“Second Eve”), in the ninth century the Frankish Benedictine monk Paschasius Radbertus

compared the hortus conclusus to the Virgin’s uterus, thus emphasizing Mary’s productive

yet “pristine” womb: