. . . it was the miraculous
lactation of Saint Bernard that supplies the clearest example of the
transmission of divine wisdom through the absorption of a liquid issuing from
an image. According to the tradition, Bernard of Clairvaux was rewarded for his
devotion to the Virgin by a miracle: as shown in a representation of the
Madonna and Child in the Church of Saint-Vorles de Châtillon-sur Seine, as he
was praying at the foot of the Virgin, she springs to life, projecting three
drops of milk into his mouth. As Victor I. Stoichita shows, in his fine work on
the visionary experience in the painting of Spain’s Golden Age, this episode
was to become one of the most popular features in the thirteenth- to the
eighteenth-century representations of Saint Bernard’s life. However, the
miracle is, quite unexpectedly, absent from the canonical work on his life, and
it was quite possibly a medieval iconographic invention, deriving from his ninth
sermon on the Song of Songs:
Men with an urge to frequent
prayer will have experience of what I say. Often enough when we approach the
altar to pray our hearts are dry and lukewarm. But if we persevere, there comes
an unexpected infusion of grace, our beast expands as it were, and our interior
is filled with an overflowing love; and if somebody should press upon it then,
this milk of sweet fecundity would gush forth in streaming richness. Let us
hear the Bridegroom: “You have received my love, what you asked for, and here
is a sign to show you, your breasts are better than wine; henceforth you will
know that have received the kiss because you will be conscious of having
conceived. That explains the expansion of your breasts, filled with a milky
richness far surpassing that the wine of the worldly knowledge that can
intoxicate indeed but with curiosity, not charity; it fills but does not
nourish; puffs up but does not build up; pampers but does not strengthen.
In fact, two centuries were to
pass after the saint’s death before an account of the lactation was actually
consigned to writing. The first written reference is an episcopal letter of
indulgence dated October 4, 1340, in which the author of the report preceding
the notarized act clearly emphasizes the role of the image in the transmission
of the divine virtus:
In the Church
of Saint-Vorles du château de Chtillon-sur Seine, in the diocese of Langres,
there stands, since time immemorial, an image made in reverence and honor of
the Blessed Virgin Mary, who, as it is reported more fully in the life of Saint
Bernard, miraculously offered her Son to him in this church, saying: “Bernard,
receive my Son, the Redeemer of the World,” and, among other things, instructed
him in the Catholic faith, miraculously speaking to him, making him see
divinely the entire Passion of Christ, and then, going beyond all human power,
as if this were the natural mother of Christ, the image took its hand to its
breast and brought forth from it instantly and miraculously three drops of
milk, flowing from the breast of the said image into the open mouth of its
faithful saint, Bernard. Having received these drops from the very breast of
the said image, and having become the orator of Mary, Mother of god, the
professor of Christ, His Son, the faithful confessor of God’s Army, and the
chaste lover of Mary, he composed several works of praise to the King of Heaven.
(Cited in Arabeyre, “La lactation de saint Bernard,” p. 176) (Jérémie Koering, Iconophages:
A History of Ingesting Images [trans. Nicholas Huckle; New York: Zone
Books, 2024], 150, 151-52)
Here are the images of the lactation of Saint Bernard on pp.
154-55, 157-58:
We should note in passing that, particularly
popular among Catholics at the time of the Counter-Reformation, this iconography
prefigures certain sculpted depictions of the Madonna and Child during the
Baroque period. These representations were sometimes supplied with a hydraulic
device allowing for the pouring of milk or water and intended to simulate,
likely for purposes of religious instruction, a miraculous lactation promised
to the pious. Such systems were specifically designed to sate the thirst of the
faithful, as we can see from this Madonna and Child from Saint Margarethen near
Grieskirchen in Upper Austria (fig. 2.14). Here, the tube is set within the
breast, and, rather than being pointed towards the infant Christ, it points in
the opposite direction towards a potential drinker. Few artifacts embody, as literally
as this one, the idea that images are endowed with nutritive power. (Jérémie
Koering, Iconophages: A History of Ingesting Images [trans. Nicholas Huckle;
New York: Zone Books, 2024], 156, 160)
Here is the image of the statue with the hydraulic device as
referenced above: on p. 159:
