It is not said anywhere that St. Anna instructed her daughter.  It has even been regarded as unorthodox to suppose that the Virgin, enriched from her birth, and before her birth, with all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, required instruction from any one.  Nevertheless, the subject of the “Education of the Virgin” has been often represented in later times.  There is a beautiful example by Murillo; while Anna teaches her child to read, angels hover over them with wreaths of roses. (Madrid Gal.) Another by Rubens, in which, as it is said, he represented his young wife, Helena Forman. (Musee, Antwerp.) There is also a picture in which St. Anna ministers to her daughter, and is intent on braiding and adorning her long golden hair, while the angels look on with devout admiration. (Vienna, Lichtenstein Gal.) In all these examples Mary is represented as a girl of ten or twelve years old.  Now, as the legend expressly relates that she was three years old when she became an inmate of the temple, such representations must be considered as incorrect.

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The narrative thus proceeds:—­

“And when the child was three years old, Joachim said, ’Let us invite the daughters of Israel, and they shall take each a taper or a lamp, and attend on her, that the child may not turn back from the temple of the Lord.’  And being come to the temple, they placed her on the first step, and she ascended alone all the steps to the altar:  and the high priest received her there, kissed her, and blessed her, saying, ’Mary, the Lord hath magnified thy name to all generations, and in thee shall be made known the redemption of the children of Israel.’  And being placed before the altar, she danced with her feet, so that all the house of Israel rejoiced with her, and loved her.  Then her parents returned home, blessing God because the maiden had not turned back from the temple.”

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Such is the incident, which, in artistic representation, is sometimes styled the “Dedication,” but more generally “THE PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN.”

It is a subject of great importance, not only as a principal incident in a series of the Life of the Virgin, but because this consecration of Mary to the service of the temple being taken in a general sense, it has often been given in a separate form, particularly for the nunneries.  Hence it has happened that we find “The Presentation of the Virgin” among some of the most precious examples of ancient and modern art.

The motif does not vary.  The child Mary, sometimes in a blue, but oftener in a white vesture, with long golden hair, ascends the steps which lead to the porch of the temple, which steps are always fifteen in number.  She ought to be an infant of three years of age; but in many pictures she is represented older, veiled, and with a taper in her hand instead of a lamp, like a young nun; but this is a fault.  The “fifteen steps” rest on a passage in Josephus, who says, “between the wall which separated the men from the women, and the great porch of the temple, were fifteen steps;” and these are the steps which Mary is supposed to ascend.