altar-candles

Updated: June 5, 2025

I see, indeed, from an interesting article in the Atlantic Monthly for September 1889, entitled "The Black Madonna of Loreto," that black Madonnas were so frequent in ancient Christian art that "some of the early writers of the Church felt obliged to account for it by explaining that the Virgin was of a very dark complexion, as might be proved by the verse of Canticles which says, 'I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. Others maintained that she became black during her sojourn in Egypt. . . . Priests, of to-day, say that extreme age and exposure to the smoke of countless altar-candles have caused that change in complexion which the more naive fathers of the Church attributed to the power of an Egyptian sun"; but the writer ruthlessly disposes of this supposition by pointing out that in nearly all the instances of black Madonnas it is the flesh alone that is entirely black, the crimson of the lips, the white of the eyes, and the draperies having preserved their original colour.

Samuel Butler - Essays on Life, Art and Science