J. K. ELLIOTT
IN the New Testament the stories about Jesus’ birth occur in the opening two chapters of the Gospel according to Luke and the Gospel according to Matthew. Both evangelists seem to have composed these chapters independently of the other. The two accounts differ considerably. Matthew’s includes the Magi and the massacre of the innocents; Luke’s relates the story of Jesus’ birth in parallel to the story of the birth of John the Baptist, and includes an account of the visit of Mary to her kinswoman, Elizabeth. Luke tells of the census, and among his dramatis personae are the shepherds, as well as Simeon and Anna the prophetess. Luke’s narrative ends with the visit of Jesus to the Temple at the age of twelve. His account contains several hymns which may have existed independently prior to the writing of this gospel.
But whatever the sources used by these two evangelists, both of them obviously felt the need to preface their accounts of Jesus’ ministry with some details about his coming into the world. This was a need that continued; many later Christian writings elaborate the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth. The non-canonical writings, usually classified as Christian Apocrypha, display great literary and theological imagination in their expansions of the Christmas story. In these later narratives more is written about Mary and her parents in an attempt to explain the unique status of the mother of Jesus.
Anyone attempting to tell Mary’s life story based only on the New Testament comes across many tantalizing gaps. Biographical queries arise: Where was she born? Who were her parents? How was she reared? What about her death? Other questions are theological: Why was this woman chosen to be the mother of Jesus? What was special and unique about her? What example can she set? It was in order to answer questions such as these that, from the second century onwards, Christian imagination and piety produced many (apocryphal) tales about Mary. In Bruce Metzger’s words ‘When people are curious, they usually take steps to satisfy their curiosity, so we should not be surprised that members of the early Church drew up accounts of what they supposed must have taken place’ (Metzger 1987: 166–7). Some of these accounts survived, despite official disapprobation; such works appear separated from books styled ‘canonical’ in listings such as the Gelasian Decree of the fourth to fifth centuries, the List of the Sixty Books of the seventh century, or the Stichometry of Nicephorus, which originated in the fourth century.
The additions found in the apocryphal gospels are not only literary or due to creative storytelling; many reflect a developing theological interest, for example, in Mary’s virginity. And, of course, it was these stories that not only reproduced folk traditions about Mary and developing Mariology but in themselves also fuelled such teachings.
Although theological and apologetic tendencies have shaped some of the material in the apocryphal infancy gospels, it is the narrative and biographical interest that predominates. The dominant theological concerns of the canonical birth stories (such as the fulfilment of prophecy, the Bethlehem versus Nazareth problem, the relationship with the Baptist) are less significant in the apocryphal tradition. These later texts were the popular literature of the pious for many centuries, and their influence in shaping belief, as well as their exposure of the beliefs that shaped their contents, are significant and important for all whose interests lie in the history of Christianity and Christian doctrine.
These developments, investigated in this chapter, focus on three significant texts, which from a wide time-span show how the traditions about Mary were popular, living, and changing. They are the Protevangelium of James (PJ), the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (Ps.-Mt.), and the Gospel of the Birth of Mary (sometimes known as the de Nativitate Mariae, and so referred to below as DNM). Although many centuries separate the final forms of these texts, each draws on its predecessors’ work. They demonstrate how early apocryphal traditions, arising from a nascent New Testament canon, were used in Late Antiquity, then taken up and re-used thereafter. Changes and new, often differing, nuances may be detected and traced. Ultimately the links between these three ‘gospels’ and their later influencing of hagiographical writings on Mary may be plotted.
The book is usually referred to as the Protevangelium, because it tells of events prior to Jesus’ birth and concerns Mary’s parents, Anna and Joachim, her birth, and her upbringing. PJ is one of the most important and influential of the apocryphal gospels. It represents the earliest written elaboration of the canonical infancy narratives that has survived: what has sometimes been described as a midrashic exegesis of Matthew’s and Luke’s birth narratives finds permanent expression in this document. The influence of PJ was immense, and it may be said with some confidence that the developed doctrines of Mariology can be traced to this book.
The purported author (according to its final paragraph) is James of Jerusalem, pseudonymous authorship being an ongoing tradition within Christian writing. As such, he may be James the stepbrother of Jesus by Joseph’s first marriage, but the Gelasian Decree identifies him with James the Less of Mark 15.40. In fact the author is unknown. He is not likely to have been a Jew: there is in PJ a great ignorance not only of Palestinian geography but also of Jewish customs (e.g. Joachim is forbidden to offer his gifts because of his childlessness, an otherwise unknown prohibition; Mary is reared as a ward of the Temple, also an unknown practice; in PJ 21.1 Joseph plans to go ‘from Bethlehem to Judea’!).
Its stories reflect a developing tradition that was ultimately expressed in Christian teaching about the perpetual virginity of Mary; it gave support and impetus to feasts such as the Immaculate Conception of Mary and the Presentation in the Temple.
Together with the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, PJ influenced other and later birth and childhood gospels such as Ps.-Mt. and the Arabic, Armenian, and Latin infancy traditions.
It seems to have been a popular book; over one hundred extant Greek manuscripts, some of them dating from the third century, contain all or part of PJ. Over the centuries translations were made into Syriac, Ethiopic, Georgian, Sahidic, Arabic, Old Church Slavonic, Armenian, and Latin. In some cases (e.g. Ethiopic) the translation is very free, many liberties having been taken with the text. Others such as the Syriac are very literal. The rarity of surviving early Latin translations may be explained on two grounds. First, PJ was prohibited in the West because of its teaching about Joseph’s first marriage. Second, the development of Latin infancy gospels such as Ps.-Mt. and DNM (both of which were commended by introductory letters attributed to Jerome, who had denounced PJ), as well as the story of Joseph the Carpenter, all of which were based on PJ, obviated the need for its survival in Latin, as these other writings served to satisfy the same needs. In the Eastern church PJ continued to enjoy great popularity.
Most scholars now date PJ, or at least the bulk of the first draft of PJ, to the second half of the second century. Attempts to prove that links between Justin (died 165) and PJ (e.g. Apology I.33 and PJ 11.3 link Luke 1.35 and Matt. 1.21; cf. also Dialogue with Trypho 100.5 and PJ 12.2; Apology 1.33, 36 and PJ 11.2) are due to Justin’s familiarity with PJ have not generally been accepted, There is, however, no doubt that a terminus ad quem may be found in the patristic testimony of Origen (died 254) and Clement of Alexandria (died 215). The oldest explicit reference to the existence of PJ is in Origen, on Matt. 10.17 and he is aware of the teaching about Joseph’s first marriage (on Matt. 9.2, 17.1 and of the birth in a cave (c. Cels. 1.51). Clement’s testimony is to be found in Strom. 7.16.93. One early manuscript which contains this text, Bodmer Papyrus V, has been dated to the fourth century and already shows secondary developments.
The Ascension of Isaiah 11, written early in the second century, has a similar account of the birth to that found in PJ, but dependence of one on the other is difficult to prove. Ignatius, ad Eph. 19, implies virginity in partu, and the Odes of Solomon 19 also shows knowledge of this. All that this needs suggest is a common provenance, possible Syrian.
One motive for its having been written seems to have been the defence of aspects of Christianity ridiculed by the second-century philosopher, Celsus c.170. To combat charges of Christianity’s humble origins, PJ is at pains to demonstrate that Jesus’ parents were not poor: Joseph is a building contractor; Mary spins, but not for payment. Another motive may be to defend Jesus’ conception against charges of sexual irregularity: the pregnant Mary’s virginity is vindicated before Joseph and later before the priests. Similarly, the Davidic descent of Mary is stressed (10.3), a significant detail once Joseph is described as only the putative father of Jesus. Jesus’ siblings, known from the canonical Gospels, are now explained as Joseph’s children from an earlier marriage. (Later, Jerome, objecting to such an apologia, preferred to say the siblings were in fact cousins. Jerome’s explanations met with papal approval and were responsible for the decline in the use of PJ in the West. See, e.g., Jerome, Adv. Helv. 13–14.) A strong dogmatic motive lies behind the writing, too. The author wishes to stress that not only is Jesus’ conception virginal but that even his birth preserved Mary’s virginity. Virginity in partu is combined with a belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity. The biographical interest in PJ centres on Mary, her miraculous birth (not her immaculate conception), her youth, and her marriage. Also of relevance for encouraging the enhancement of Mary is that she is seen in PJ as an instrument of divine salvation in her own right.
The main inspiration and sources behind PJ have been the birth stories in Matthew and Luke and the Old Testament. Like Luke 1–2 the language of PJ is heavily influenced by the LXX. The name of Mary’s mother, Anna, may have come from Luke’s birth story, but the figures of Hannah, Samuel’s mother, Susanna in the additions to Daniel, and Manoah’s wife in Judges 13 may also have been models for Anna. The name Joachim may have been suggested by Susanna’s husband in the additions to Daniel, but Manoah and Elkanah in 1 Samuel could have also been models. 1 Samuel in particular seems to have served the author of PJ as a source. The popularity of the LXX version of 1 Samuel and of the story of Susanna in the second century AD seems evident.
A later apocryphon, the Gospel of Ps.-Mt., popularized legends about Mary’s early life in Latin-speaking Christendom in the Middle Ages. The motive for the compiling of this gospel seems to have been to further the veneration of Mary, not least by the inclusion of stories about the Holy Family’s sojourn in Egypt. Much medieval art is indecipherable without reference to books such as Ps.-Mt.
Ps.-Mt. 1–17 is based on PJ, and 26–34, 37–9, and 41 on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. As far as detailed differences between Ps.-Mt. and PJ are concerned, one may note the following: Anna’s father, Achar, is mentioned only in Ps.-Mt.; in Ps.-Mt. Abiathar is High Priest when Mary is espoused to Joseph, in PJ it is Zacharias; Ps.-Mt. embellishes PJ by including the circumcision and purification. Ps.-Mt. does not include the catalepsy of nature (PJ 18), or John the Baptist, or Zacharias, absences which are possibly relevant in discussing the original form of PJ. Among the new details to be found in Ps.-Mt. is the information that Joseph not only had children from his earlier marriage, but also had grandchildren older than Mary (Ps.-Mt. 8). Ps.-Mt. 14 alone has an ox and an ass present at the birth of Jesus in fulfilment of Isaiah 1.3.
By way of introducing the book under good auspices, the compiler has provided it with credentials in the form of pretended letters: (a) from two bishops, Cromatius and Heliodorus, to Jerome; (b) from Jerome to Cromatius and Heliodorus. In some manuscripts these letters are to be found prefacing DNM, but references in them to the infancy of Christ make it more likely that they belong to Ps.-Mt., seeing that DNM stops short at Jesus’ nativity. In so far as it was due to Jerome’s disapproval of the teaching of Joseph’s first marriage that PJ stood condemned in the West, it is somewhat ironic that Ps.-Mt., which also preserves this teaching, was published with prefaces associated with Jerome’s name. Their presence in some manuscripts of DNM may be significant for the reason that at least in that gospel the offending teaching about Joseph’s first marriage is not mentioned. It was the reference to Matthew in letter (a) that encouraged Tischendorf to name this apocryphal work Pseudo-Matthew, following the title in one of his manuscripts (although it is to be noted that at least two other manuscripts have the name of James in the title).
Links between DNM and Ps.-Mt. are strong. In both, Mary at three years of age mounts the fifteen steps of the Temple (Ps.-Mt. 4, DNM 6). But there are occasional differences. For instance, in DNM 8 Mary returns to her parents’ home in Galilee after her espousal, whereas in Ps.-Mt. (and PJ) the parents are not mentioned again after they leave Mary in the care of the Temple. The work seems to have been compiled in Latin, possibly in the sixth century, although the oldest manuscript extant is of the ninth century.
The text known as De Nativitate Mariae (sometimes, less accurately, called the Gospel of the Birth of Mary) was also popular in the West. This book, which probably arose in the ninth century, contains in chapters 1–8 a free adaptation of Ps.-Mt.; chapters 9–10 follow the canonical Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The motive for its composition was to enhance devotion to Mary while avoiding some apocryphal accretions found in the earlier texts that were doubtless deemed inappropriate or offensive.
DNM is less well known than either PJ or Ps.-Mt. and justifies a longer introduction here. It is a tale of two women, one, Anna, formerly sterile, the other, Mary, her virgin daughter, who conceives Jesus. The apocryphon concentrates on Mary’s ancestry, birth, upbringing, betrothal to Joseph, and her pregnancy. It ends abruptly with Jesus’ birth. As such, it may be seen as an encomium to Mary or the extolling of her virtues, and not merely a filling-in of gaps in her biography known from the New Testament canon, which is what we are often told was a motivation behind the composition of many later ‘apocryphal’ books. As a composition, it is dated from before 1000 AD and with a precise terminus post quem of 868–9 by Rita Beyers in her now definitive study of the text of DNM (Beyers 1997a).
DNM is not always included in compendia of non-canonical Christian texts, which usually concentrate on the earliest apocryphal writings. Although it appears in the editions by Fabricius, Jones, Thilo, Tischendorf, de Santos Otero, and Amann, it is barely mentioned by James and is not included in the new, seventh edition of Hennecke. Only now, thanks to Beyers’ work in CCSA, can it be confidently studied; it is given due prominence in the collection of Bovon and Geoltrain (see Beyers 1997b).
Apart from its late date, another reason for its eclipse in modern scholarship and anthologies is that it seems merely to reproduce material known more familiarly in Ps.-Mt. (itself twice as long as DNM) and behind that in PJ. All these texts tell of Mary’s parents, Anna and Joachim, especially Anna’s sterility despite twenty years of marriage, the divine intervention making Anna pregnant with Mary, and Mary’s infancy and childhood, leading up to her own pregnancy. But it would be unfortunate if the distinctive features of DNM were overlooked. At the very least, where it has parallels with these earlier texts, DNM seems to tell its tale in a smooth, almost elegant, manner, expunging much of the blatantly superstitious features of the early Apocrypha. For example, it is unlike Ps.-Mt. which is prone to repetitions: e.g. at Ps.-Mt. 1.1 where reference to Joachim’s largesse is repeated; 3.1–4 (two appearances of an angel to Joachim); 2.3 and 3.5 (an angel appears twice to Anna); there are two angelic visits to Mary (9.1 and 9.2).
DNM may mark a watershed between the texts commonly labelled Apocrypha and the hagiographical writings that were to follow. One major hagiographical work is Jacob de Voragine’s The Golden Legend of the thirteenth century. In that collection, chapter 131 on the birth of Mary repeats much in DNM; it then served to popularize the contents of DNM in the medieval West. And that makes another good reason for studying DNM in these days when ‘reception history’ is a prominent area for investigation and for tracing the influence and adoption of its teachings beyond its own day.
The author of DNM has deliberately avoided the more picaresque elements (i.e. the more characteristically apocryphal) in his retelling of the story about Anna and Joachim and of Mary’s upbringing. DNM is more restrained. Thus, by the date of this book many details seen in PJ and Ps.-Mt. have been toned down; it is now more moderate, and the main message is to exalt Mary’s purity and position.
Among questions that arise is the extent to which we are justified in comparing this ninth- to eleventh-century DNM with parallels in the sixth-century Ps.-Mt. and the second-century PJ. Was there indeed direct literary interaction, or may we be justified in looking only at the traditions emerging from a remembered (and ongoing) oral tradition? What assessment may we make of each apocryphon as a piece of religious literature? Do they succeed in their apparent aims? How does one analyse the writings as examples of a particular genre?
Such analyses depend on our being able to rely on the text in a critical edition. As far as DNM is concerned, we now have access to a large number of extant manuscripts; this rose from twenty-seven in 1934 to sixty-three in 1968; Beyers (1997a: 16) reports that B. Lambert added thirty-six more between 1972 and 1974; in 1997 Beyers herself was able to include even more manuscripts and she has a near exhaustive list (Beyers 1997a: 137–261). Manuscripts that include DNM among their contents happen not to contain other New Testament apocryphal writings although other writings are included: lectionaries, lives of saints, sermons, homilies, or liturgical texts, as well as occasional Marian treatises, such as the Miracles of the Virgin.
Like many another similar apocryphon, DNM is a relentless and obsessive piece of propaganda for a typically monastic way of life in which perpetual virginity, celibacy, and abstention from sexual union are prominent, and in which these ‘virtues’ are deemed superior to institutional marriage and normal procreation. DNM was used in the reformed Dominicans’ lectionary in the thirteenth century. The fifteen Gradual Psalms referred to in the context of Mary’s ascent to the Temple were prominent in many monastic communities’ devotions. Deviation from this monastic standard is branded as sin—‘sin’ thus bearing one definition only. DNM 9.10 even describes Jesus’ uniqueness as Son of God because he was conceived ‘without sinning’! We may compare this to Joachim who sees in the priest’s frontlet in PJ 5.1 that Anna conceived without sexual intercourse having been committed and thus he has ‘not sinned’—meaning that Joachim and Anna did not fall to the ‘sin’ of concupiscence. (Cf. pp. 274, 285 for textual variants in the text about Anna’s conceiving.) The biblical teachings to be ‘fruitful and multiply’ are gratuitously and hypocritically swept away, as too is any acceptance of conventional conjugal rights or even a normal marital state.
The teachings in DNM both reflected and fuelled teachings about virginity, especially in the medieval West. The message here, aimed at the piously credulous, may reflect a particular interpretation of verses in 1 Cor. 7 (not that that chapter is cited in DNM although it is to be found in Ps.-Mt. 7.1 where 1 Cor. 7.32–40 may be behind the reference ‘God is first of all worshipped in chastity’). Note also that Abel and Elijah cited in this context (Ps.-Mt. 7) as celibate virginal precedents are (strangely) absent from DNM. The canonical writings do not describe Mary as a perpetual virgin. They declare only that a virgin (or better, following the Hebrew [not LXX] of Isa. 7.14, a ‘young woman’) will bear a divinely given child. Matt. 1.25 implies the resumption of normal marital relations between Mary and Joseph, albeit only after Jesus’ birth (if that be a correct interpretation of ἕως, ‘until’). At any rate, in Matthew and Luke, Mary is merely the recipient of a miracle facilitated by the Holy Spirit, said to have ‘come upon’ her and by the ‘power of the Most High’ having overshadowed her (Luke 1.35), euphemistic language which is difficult to interpret, except to say that we must understand that Mary’s pregnancy was allegedly caused by supernatural action. Her virginity is not perpetual, and Jesus’ siblings, naturally and unselfconsciously referred to elsewhere in the New Testament Gospels, seem to be Mary’s later offspring. In the New Testament she is not the ‘Blessed Virgin’ of later piety.
In DNM Mary is mainly a passive instrument or vehicle of others’ wills, being vowed to the Lord by her parents, and, according to PJ, protected by them in her bedroom, before being placed under the wardship of the Temple’s priests and, later, handed over into Joseph’s guardianship. Stages in her life seem to be ordained and facilitated by divine power. Throughout the Marian literature she is regularly called just ‘the virgin’, never ‘daughter’, ‘wife’, or ‘mother’ (except at PJ 21.11, i.e. only in the disputed extended text which is not found in the fourth-century Bodmer papyrus of this apocryphon). In DNM she is commonly ‘the Virgin of the Lord’. Her only function is to be a pious religious whose one positive action is to proclaim in DNM 7 that she has vowed not to enter into any union with a man.
DNM extols Mary as virgin par excellence from the start of the work. In Ps.-Mt. we wait until ch. 8 for the first mention of Mary’s virginity. The Carolingians who seem to have been behind much in DNM proclaimed her as the model to follow for their ideal of womanhood. She is portrayed as a headstrong girl determined to fulfil her vow, albeit one allegedly divinely orchestrated, in pursuit of a virginal life. The example found in these Marian Apocrypha later was called upon by the gullibly religious to provide a quasi-biblical precedent for their own monasticism. DNM is consistently and relentlessly used to fuel monastic practices as well as itself reflecting that lifestyle. DNM encourages an extreme asceticism and religiosity and that is its raison d’être.
The blandness of Mary’s characterization is typical of many apocryphal and biblical writings. Normally she is a mere cipher, a two-dimensional person. Other dramatis personae are also cardboard figures, manipulated by the author to represent certain ideals. In addition, the stock human figures in the Apocrypha are remarkably susceptible to the influence of ‘angelic beings’, otherworldly heralds bringing divine announcements. They appear in much Christian literature; in DNM angelic apparitions are seen by Joachim in ch. 3, by Anna in ch. 4, by Mary in ch. 9, and by Joseph in ch. 10. The hallucinations themselves may be compared to Shakespeare’s ghosts, supernatural spirits who interpret the present and foretell future events rather as classical soothsayers do. No wonder then that these supernatural phenomena help brand such literature as ‘apocryphal’ in its commonly understood definitions: ‘magical’, ‘spurious’, or ‘fictitious’.
The author of DNM has added a prefatory letter allegedly from Jerome to Cromatius and Heliodorus—a spurious writing found in other, earlier, Apocrypha in a fuller form. The résumé is in most manuscripts of DNM. Yet another letter preceding that to Cromatius and Heliodorus is included here; this is also by Pseudo-Jerome. In it he suggests that there may be doubts about the historicity of some of the contents to follow. Pseudo-Jerome’s preface thus claims a freedom of interpretation. Although the actual composer of that later letter is not revealed, it was possibly the author of DNM himself who wrote it; this was done in order to extricate himself from having been the one responsible for the writing of such incredible, superstitious material.
If direct copying has played any part whatsoever in the writing or assembling of DNM, then it may be useful to see where this apocryphon has added, omitted, or changed the text of its presumed predecessors, PJ and Ps.-Mt. in particular. In undertaking such an enterprise, it must be readily recognized that the comparing of these three apocrypha is complicated, not least by the fact that the writings are separated by many centuries, unlike our comparing the canonical Gospels, all of which were composed within one generation. Also, while all four canonical Gospels were written in Greek, Ps.-Mt. and DNM were composed in Latin and PJ in Greek. One ought also to take into account other infancy gospels such as the Armenian, Irish, and Arabic traditions, even though in those cases direct linguistic comparisons cannot be convincingly pointed to. Nonetheless, the contents of the storylines can obviously be checked and compared across the parallels. Major expansions or exclusions in the narrative are readily logged and even some minutiae identified.
As a consequence, it remains to be seen the extent to which later texts ‘improve’ on the writing techniques of an earlier source or the extent to which later writings avoid perceived faults or errors of judgement found in the earlier writings. Often a later writing may bowdlerize the earlier accounts to eliminate scandalous or unorthodox ideas. Is the purifying of texts relevant in our reassessing DNM, remembering that Gregory of Tours rewrote the Acts of Andrew, among other things, to avoid ‘all that breeds weariness’ and ‘excessive verbosity’? (Cf. also Pseudo-Prochorus’ rewriting of the Acts of John; Voicu 2011: 416.) One immediate observation is that by stopping his text at 10.3 with the birth of Jesus, DNM has no magi or shepherds, and no tales of Jesus as an infant during the flight to and time in Egypt nor as a child after the Holy Family’s return home.
The role of Mary in the birth narratives may now be examined under the following seven subheadings:
DNM begins with the titles of Mary, and reference to her perpetual virginity. This sets the tone for DNM and makes it differ from its predecessors. The idea of perpetual virginity could have been a well-established doctrine by the time of its composition. If so, that may explain the absence from DNM later of the stories concerning the examination of Mary by the midwives post partem or the water of testing found in the earlier accounts which establish her ongoing virginal state.
DNM relates that Joachim and Anna support pilgrims. Their largesse shows them to be good citizens in accordance with the Merovingian principles which seem to lie behind much of the teaching here. See also Ps.-Mt. 3.4 where the word misericordia refers to their charitable giving, acts compatible with and encouraged by religious communities.
Mary’s birthplace is said in DNM to be Nazareth, Joachim’s home town. Anna’s mother is from Bethlehem. Possibly there was a need to identify both characters with places that became important for Christianity. Anna’s father (Achar) is referred to in Ps.-Mt., not DNM, the deletion of a detail apparently deemed unnecessarily distracting. Both parents are Davidic. (PJ mentions this only in ch. 10 in the context of Mary’s making the veil for the Temple.) Mary is described as of royal lineage in DNM 1.1.
The vague festival that takes Anna and Joachim to Jerusalem becomes more precise as the Feast of Dedication in DNM. In the ‘J’ compilation (which is another apocryphon, the Liber de infantia salvatoris, known from Arundel manuscript 404) this event occurs, improbably, at ‘Easter’!; the Hereford manuscript of the same or similar apocryphon to that in Arundel 404 has the feast as the Purification of the Temple, a detail followed in DNM. This is surely significant, as it is intended to indicate a pure moment for Mary’s parents to visit. In PJ the occasion is, bizarrely, ‘the grand day of the Lord’; in Ps.-Mt. it is a jour de fête.
The scribe R(e)uben who appears in the story represents the children of Israel in PJ. This is not so in Ps.-Mt. The adversary is called Issachar in DNM 2.2. In DNM the High Priest is anonymous at this point. There are often text-critical variations over the name of this participant. Abiathar is named in Ps.-Mt. 7.1, 8.8; but at 8.1 as only a variant to Issachar. R(e)uben appears in Ps.-Mt. 2.1. In PJ we have Zacharias as High Priest at 8.3. Reuben is named at PJ 1.1.
The story in DNM indicates that scripture curses a childless couple; they must produce a male child to avoid incurring divine wrath, but, strangely, nothing is subsequently made of this in the story to follow, when a female is born, albeit one who plays a decisive part in the divine plan. The ‘scripture’ referred to here is from the Old Testament and it is significant that even in a late apocryphon this word is still being used as a reference to the Jewish scriptures. (DNM 9 ends with a reference to the Gospel (singular) but without its being called ‘scripture’, and DNM 10 refers to the ‘evangelists’ but without their writings being named.) This may imply that the sources behind DNM at this point are very early. And what ‘scripture’ is really meant? 1 Sam. 1.6 is one passage that readily comes to mind, but only because in the context Hannah there and her near namesake Anna here are sterile; however, 1 Sam. 1.6 hardly looks like a divine curse on the childless. In 1 Sam. 1 any ‘cursing’ is by Elkanah’s fecund other wife, Peninnah, who torments and humiliates Hannah for her barrenness. Rather, the reference may be to Exod. 23.26: ‘No woman … shall be barren in your land’. (One wonders how actively such teaching would have been encouraged amongst the religious.) Anna’s long-standing barrenness is blamed on God’s having ‘closed her womb’, although, as it transpires, not irretrievably.
The rebuke in the Temple results in Joachim’s absenting himself from society. (Often, but not invariably, in iconography, both Joachim and Anna are shown being cast out.)
There is not so lengthy a lament by Anna in Ps.-Mt. as there is in PJ, possibly because Anna is less important in Ps.-Mt., the emphasis being more on Joachim. It could be that the lament is not there at all in DNM because of its later concentration on Mary. In Ps.-Mt. Anna’s first lament precedes the message from the angel; there is also another lament following the angelic message. In PJ both laments precede the vision of the angel.
A declaration concerning Mary’s future is found in Ps.-Mt.’s protracted tale of the angel’s prophecy to Joachim about his wife’s conception and the birth and life of her offspring.
The accounts differ concerning the duration of Joachim’s absence tending the flocks. DNM gives no time limit or geographical information. What DNM does is to speak of Joachim’s being a man with his own shepherds and the owner of the sheep, thereby enhancing his social status. However, a textual variant omitting suis implies that Joachim retreated to be among shepherds who were keeping watch over their own flocks. In PJ the duration of his absence is a ubiquitous forty-day period; in Ps.-Mt. Joachim is away five months in the mountains before Anna becomes anxious about her husband’s prolonged absence, possibly because the author pictures a herdsman’s protracted periods away from home tending flocks in distant pastures. (In PJ Joachim retreats to a nearby desert and Anna becomes anxious immediately.) Anna’s role is downplayed in DNM and that may be why this work ignores or deletes this detail.
In DNM the angel appears to Joachim first and later to Anna, as in Ps.-Mt.; this order reverses that in PJ which has two sightings of angels by Anna, in the second of which the author reports an appearance to Joachim which, presumably, must have occurred between the two visitations to Anna.
The account in DNM is verbose and concentrates on the role of the angel of the Lord. There is no immediate reaction to the angelic announcement in DNM (or PJ), unlike Ps.-Mt. The use of the euphemism ‘closing the womb’ in DNM 3 recalls the reproach of Anna’s servant in Ps.-Mt. 2. The whole episode in DNM has echoes from the promises to Zechariah regarding John the Baptist in Luke 1.13–15. We may see other links to the New Testament’s birth narratives at DNM 4.3 concerning another Anna in the Temple in Luke 2.37, and at DNM 5.2 which is close to the Magnificat in Luke 1.52. Mary’s career pursues a divine plan even before her birth. In Ps.-Mt. the parents are not told what to call their child. In DNM the naming is part of the divine plan, just as, later, Mary will likewise be told that her child is to be given a preordained name.
In Ps.-Mt. 3 the angel tells Joachim that it is his seed that impregnates Anna whereas in PJ 4.4 and 9 there are textual variants which imply that the pregnancy has already started without Joachim’s involvement. There are thus dissimilarities with the story of Hannah whose conception results unambiguously from intercourse with her husband. Examples of barren women divinely helped are listed in DNM. This detail was popular in Carolingian hagiographies. In the list of barren women given by the angel DNM includes Sarah, Rachel and the mothers of Samson and of Samuel; Rebecca is absent from the list. Ps.-Mt. names no names. PJ 2.9 refers only to Sarah.
In the angelic message to Anna in DNM the proclamation that Mary will be ‘blessed among all women’ anticipates the Annunciation and is an improvement upon the ambiguous phrase in Ps.-Mt. 3.2. At Ps.-Mt. 3:2 Mary may herself be called the Temple of God. The texts here vary between manuscripts supporting in templo and those that read templum. Gijsel (1997: 306 note 3) allows either reading as the ‘original’.
That may imply a direct copying or merely that by the time DNM was composed the phrase it uses had become the norm, thanks to the familiarity of gratia plena from Luke 1.28.
The place where Anna is to meet Joachim in PJ is not at their home but an unspecified gate in Jerusalem. That gate becomes, significantly, the Golden Gate in Ps.-Mt. (despite its apparent inappropriateness as a venue for arriving with a flock of sheep) as it is in DNM where the name ‘golden’ is gratuitously explained. Such a banal and obvious definition belongs with other displays of pedantic and usually redundant erudition elsewhere in this apocryphon.
This reunion of Anna and Joachim at the Golden Gate became a popular subject in iconography (Cartlidge and Elliott 2001).
Only in PJ and the Irish Liber Flavus 22–25 do we read of Mary at six months with their emphasis on the sanctity of her bedchamber. One wonders why that detail was ignored by Ps.-Mt. and DNM. Then we read of Mary at the age of one year found once more only in PJ and the Liber Flavus; again we may ask why it is absent in Ps.-Mt. and DNM.
At Mary’s first birthday we have Anna’s song in PJ 6 (cf. Anna’s prayer at the Temple in Ps.-Mt. 5). Neither is in the shortened story in DNM. The words of Anna seem to have been better placed in PJ, i.e. on Mary’s first birthday rather than when Mary enters the Temple. (There are links to 1 Sam. 2 including 2.21 and to Luke 1.17 found in Ps.-Mt. 5.1; again, surprisingly, these elements are absent from DNM.)
Mary’s ascent of the fifteen steps to reach the Temple during the Presentation (a ‘swift ascent’ according to Ps.-Mt.) recalls the fifteen Gradual Psalms and this is spelled out in DNM in its typically pedantic way. DNM does not repeat the charming detail of Mary’s dancing on the step found in PJ. Mary, even though she is only three years old, walks up the steps to the Temple in DNM, a precocious spiritual activity spoken of as miraculous, ‘a great act’; this episode could indicate the beginnings of a hagiographical approach to her story. By contrast to the regular shortening of the whole story in DNM, there is here a rare expansion of the account of the Presentation with her parents’ being distracted from holding on to Mary while clothing themselves; that is unique. (The changing of clothing was never a requirement of those visiting the Temple.) The parents then leave Mary inside the Temple.
The altar of burnt offerings to which Mary repairs in DNM is said to have been outside the Temple—for once possibly revealing our author’s unexpected knowledge that only priests went to the Holy of Holies within the Temple. According to Beyers (1997a ad. loc.), the altar of burnt offerings was found only in the first Temple; it was outside the Temple proper and there were no steps to it. But if our author knew anything about the history of the Temple he must have thought he was referring to a site where this altar had once stood. However, there were not fifteen steps up to this altar. Generally, we do not expect accurate knowledge of the Temple or first-century Judaism from these apocryphal books.
The presence of children in the Temple in the tale (and also of ‘older women’, according to Ps.-Mt. 6) was not normal, although Elkanah’s son, Samuel, was in the ‘service of the Lord’ being looked after by Eli the Priest, according to 1 Sam. 2.11. Sometimes children were in monasteries in the Middle Ages (Vuong 2011). That practice would have been known to the Merovingians and Carolingians. And for the writers of these Apocrypha the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was doubtless thought of as a monastery. According to Ps.-Mt., Mary’s perpetual adoration as part of her daily routine refers to a devotion introduced by the Merovingians. (It is, however, not in DNM.)
Ps.-Mt., in an interesting and well-written section, clearly depicts the Temple as a monastery and devotes much space to describing Mary’s daily timetable. There is nothing comparable in DNM. This leads to our questioning if its author would have actually had a copy of Ps.-Mt. to hand or would even have known of this apocryphon. Yet another detail in Ps.-Mt. not known to DNM is that Mary is a healer (as regularly in the Arabic Infancy Gospel); this is found at the end of Ps.-Mt. 6 where, as in many of Jesus’ healing miracles, the cure is effected by touch. (Cf. Mary as intercessor, another function applied to her by later Christian practice, found in Ps.-Mt. 8.5 when her fellow virgins ask her to pray for them.) In PJ 8.1 Mary is ‘fed like a dove’. This is not included in Ps.-Mt. although Mary is fed by an angel (Ps.-Mt. 6.2). Mary is not fed by angels in DNM, although in 7.2 she is ‘attended by angels’. By being accepted into the Temple, the Virgin reverses the rejection of her father’s offering by the priests; the priesthood is now on the right path. Once Joachim’s offering is accepted the history of salvation is on course.
Mary’s presence in the Temple came to be seen as a problem due to the defiling of a sanctuary by a menstruating woman; this happened when she reached twelve years according to PJ and Ps.-Mt. but fourteen in DNM. All the other virgins who had been accompanying Mary in the Temple go to families at this time to await normal marriage—but that is not permitted to Mary, she uniquely is virginal. (Some virgins, presumably younger, are still available to chaperone Mary when she returns to the parental home after her nuptials (DNM 8).)
Ps.-Mt. 8 states that by so being and by so doing Mary has started a ‘new order of living’, as if perpetual virginity was invented for her or by her. In Ps.-Mt. 7 the High Priest intends to have Mary as a wife for his son but that detail is dropped from DNM.
In DNM 7.5 it is also reported that Mary must remain a virgin because her parents had committed her to the ‘service of the Lord’ (a state only achieved through virginity, it seems) and because her own vow was widely known and, as such, could not be set aside. Again, DNM points to biblical precedent for this state of affairs by citing Ps. 76.11. The use of scriptural citations in DNM betrays a more faithful acceptance of the biblical narrative than is the case in many an earlier apocryphal writing.
The decision about who can serve as a guardian to Mary is to be resolved in Ps.-Mt. by lottery and the lot falls on the tribe of Judah. PJ sets the scene around Jerusalem with heralds sent out into Judea to gather those with the right franchise. The event takes place in DNM before an altar, possibly the altar of ch. 6 outside the Temple. In Ps.-Mt. the event happens inside the Temple. In DNM the eligible constituency is ‘all the notable citizens’ of Jerusalem. The replacing of the lottery with a consultation in DNM makes the choice of guardian more magical, but less democratic. DNM, like PJ, has Zacharias enter the Holy of Holies for a consultation with God. But, whereas in Ps.-Mt. the High Priest delivers his address to the ‘sons of Israel’ and the auditors are ‘the entire synagogue’, PJ has only the ‘council of the priests’; likewise, DNM restricts the announcement of the result of Zacharias’ consultation to ‘the council of elders’. In PJ it is widowers who bring rods; in Ps.-Mt. and DNM all those eligible for marriage are included—widowers and bachelors.
In Ps.-Mt. all the rods, including Joseph’s, are left overnight in the Holy of Holies before the decisive appearance of a dove on one of them. Inexplicably, the High Priest fails to bring Joseph’s little rod outside with all the others the following morning. There is no ‘sign’ on any of the rods exposed to the crowds. Zacharias then re-enters the Holy of Holies in full regalia; the reply to his prayer by an angelic messenger is given: the High Priest is to fetch the overlooked rod, because the owner of this truncated staff is to be the one to receive Mary, whereupon the identity of its successful owner is revealed—it is, of course, Joseph.
The episode in DNM tells that it is Joseph alone among the eligible men from the house of David who refuses to submit his rod to the priest. When this oversight is detected, a second consultation with God by the High Priest is deemed necessary to make sure that every single eligible candidate has duly handed in his rod. The High Priest is told that only the man who failed to surrender his rod originally is to be Mary’s guardian. Once again, we ask if this was because the author knew the story well from earlier oral traditions or whether he had written texts before him. Either way he clearly retold the tale in his own terms.
PJ and Ps.-Mt. refer to the dove of baptism in the description of the successful rod, belonging to Joseph. DNM with its additional detail of the flowering rod refers specifically to Isaiah (11.1) and also seems to know Num. 17.5 (once again showing his erudite knowledge of the scriptures, i.e. the Old Testament), so both elements, the dove and the flowering, are here.
The winner is to be Mary’s guardian and ostensibly her presumed husband. Marriage to Joseph, despite his reluctance to permit such a liaison, is the only possible option. According to the High Priest in Ps.-Mt. 8.4, ‘To no other can she be joined in matrimony’.
Engagement was a judicial state. In DNM 10.4 we read of events happening ‘four months since the engagement’; and Mary and Joseph in this context are described as behaving like ‘engaged’ couples (cf. Luke 1.27, 2.5 where Mary is described as being ‘betrothed’). To preserve the fiction, Joseph is described as very aged with sons in PJ; in Ps.-Mt. he is obliged to take Mary as his ward only until one of his sons could marry her. Joseph’s children and his grown-up grandchildren are mentioned in Ps.-Mt., as well as in the History of Joseph the Carpenter (where Mary adopts James the Less!); in DNM he is a widower with grown-up children.
In the way the story develops it hardly matters if Mary was formally engaged and then married to Joseph or not, because the union was said never to have been consummated in order to preserve her vow. (Jerome denied that theirs was a true marriage; Augustine and Ambrose allowed it to have been a marriage but it was one that was not consummated.) According to Ps.-Mt., following the nuptials the couple do not live together; Mary and Joseph do go to Joseph’s house but he immediately goes off to his building works in Capernaum. In DNM Joseph remains in Bethlehem (!) after the nuptials to prepare his household for what is needed for a (later) marriage. Mary retreats to her parental home with seven unnamed religious to resume the existence previously enjoyed within the Temple. Anna and Joachim do not appear again in DNM; they made their last appearance when Mary entered the Temple. This contrasts with Ps.-Mt., where in Ps.-Mt. 12 the parents reappear in the story of the water of revelation. Although there are no virgins named in PJ, in Ps.-Mt. there are five named virgins, each supplied with a different type of wool to work with. (Mary’s wool is different from theirs.) We may compare the detail here with Exod. 26.31ff.
DNM omits reference to Mary’s work on the making of a woollen veil for the Temple. It also omits the use of the unique title ‘Queen of Virgins’ found in Ps.-Mt. 8.5, possibly because it was first given, rather bizarrely, as a rebuke by her fellow virgins in fatigationis sermone or in fatigionem sermonis. The title was obviously ideal although its origin in the context when it was first used looks inappropriate. Later, of course, the title ‘Queen of Heaven’ was regularly applied to her.
Ps.-Mt. 9 contains two annunciations, one at a fountain, the other while Mary is working at home on her purple linen, the second occurring three days after the first.
PJ remains close to Luke and has only one annunciation—at a fountain. It is that which we also have in DNM 9.1. The greeting is fuller in Ps.-Mt. than Luke 1.28 and is particularly full in DNM which clearly sees the words as especially significant—even more so than in other Apocrypha. The indoor annunciation eventually became less popular, thanks to the influence of Gen. 24.15–20; Exod. 2.16–22, and even John 4 (Cartlidge 2002: 28–39, 60).
Mary is described by Ps.-Mt. and PJ as ‘frightened’—not by the apparition but by the message she has heard and is about to hear concerning her conception which implies her disbelieving a voice from heaven. This detail, not surprisingly, is absent from DNM.
In Ps.-Mt. 10 Joseph is absent for nine months to prove he could not have been the father of Jesus. At Ps.-Mt. 12.1 he is then surprised by Mary’s pregnancy. This is not in DNM. He is away for six months in PJ and only for three to four months in DNM. Fanciful, superstitious, and exaggerated are legitimate judgements on this body of apocryphal gospels but gnostic they are not. As far as the birth of Jesus is concerned, the emphasis is clearly on the reality of the incarnation. What needs to be emphasized here is that throughout the traditions Mary is visibly pregnant. Elizabeth, Joseph, and the priests all observe her swollen womb. The duration of any absence is inconsequential just as long as Joseph is absent immediately before the ‘wedding’ night and can later return in order to observe Mary’s pregnant state.
The reaction of Joseph to her pregnancy is much longer in Ps.-Mt. and PJ than in DNM, which follows Matthew more closely. Hence it is not surprising that ostensibly docetic or magical elements in PJ, such as the catalepsy of nature or the emanating of a child from bright light, were dropped. Joseph is downgraded in DNM’s narrative.
In PJ Joseph is the first to submit to the priest’s water test to verify Joseph’s and Mary’s explanation that the pregnancy was not the result of a violation of their respective vows. Here it seems that details in Num. 5.11–31 have been adapted, yet misunderstood. Once more, we note that the writers of these Apocrypha were not very familiar with Jewish practices. This episode is not in Ps.-Mt. or DNM. If this strange water test had been known to the authors of the other Apocrypha it must obviously have been too bizarre even for their levels of gullibility.
In PJ the census is for Bethlehemites, which underlines the Davidic descent of Mary and Joseph; in Ps.-Mt., as in Luke, it is for the whole world. DNM has no mention of the census, merely that as Joseph came from Bethlehem he took his fiancée there with the intention to make her fully and finally his wife. This clearly shows, at least at this point in his narrative, that he understands that earlier they had merely been betrothed. We then soon reach the end of the yarn in DNM with a summarizing statement that explains (in its author’s ubiquitously pedantic manner) that Jesus’ name means that he is a saviour. Jesus’ prodigious ability immediately after his birth to stand upright (in Ps.-Mt.) is absent from DNM, but other incredible stories survive, the main superstition about the virgin birth and Mary’s ongoing virginal condition obviously dominating that apocryphon.
However apparently docetic some descriptions of the actual birth of Jesus seem to be, such as when Arundel 404 and Protevangelium 19.16 speak of the light in the cave withdrawing until the baby ‘appears’, these may be no more than a dramatization of teachings that the Light of the World had become incarnate—the Word has indeed become flesh. When we read of the bloodlessness at the parturition in Ps.-Mt. and the painlessness of the childbirth in the Leabhar Breac these are balanced by the main message which is that Mary’s pregnancy was real. The reality of the birth is also evident in Mary’s lactating. Her breasts are ‘gushing’ according to the Leabhar Breac, and she suckles Jesus both in the Arabic Infancy Gospel 3 and even in Arundel 404 (which is often pointed to as having encouraged a docetic understanding of the birth). Other Apocrypha describe the parturition and lactation for the same motive, namely, emphasizing a natural birth.
Unlike the canonical accounts, DNM and Ps.-Mt. do not include a visitation to Elizabeth with its allied blessings and greetings, although this is found in PJ and the Liber Flavus. Many other later apocryphal and canonical traditions are avoided in DNM.
The significance of these three major Apocrypha needs to be re-emphasized in order to show their influence and the influences on them.
As soon as Anna conceives, her child is destined to be the mother of the Son of the Most High. The pregnancy is divinely ordained. The repeated angelic proclamations to Joachim and to Anna also make that clear. Mary’s own destiny is spelled out: she is to be reared in the Temple and later, without the stain of sexual contact, shall, as a virgin, bear a son. PJ 9.7 uses the title ‘Virgin of the Lord’ for the first time, and that is how she is constantly referred to thereafter in this literature.
Another aspect of Mary’s birth gave rise to the doctrine known as the Immaculate Conception. This may be seen most vividly in PJ. The angel tells Anna she will conceive but at 4.4 when an angel speaks to the long-absent Joachim he tells him that his wife is already pregnant, implying a miraculous conception. At 4.9 too the perfect tense (indicating a present reality) is found, although some manuscripts, conscious of the difficulty, both here and at 4.4 have substituted a future tense. Defenders of the future tense, improbably, read Joachim’s ‘resting’ at home after his return as a euphemism that is intended to say that that is when the conception occurred. However, the perfect tense is probably to be preferred in both verses and may be used to support the teaching that Anna’s conception of Mary was indeed without macula. That Anna conceived without sexual intercourse is implied when Joachim sees in the priest’s frontlet that he has not sinned (PJ 5.1).
Stories about Mary influenced the church’s liturgy, just as they themselves had been influenced by early Christian practices. After the Councils of Ephesus in 431 and of Chalcedon in 451 when Mary’s status as theotokos was proclaimed, the Eastern churches began to celebrate Marian festivals. However, according to Harald Buchinger of Regensburg in private communication, there was a Marian feast of the Theotokos in Jerusalem on August 15th, witnessed to by the Armenian lectionary, the lost Greek model for which stems from 417–39. The feast of her birth, based on PJ, seems to have originated in Constantinople in the sixth century; the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, perhaps in the century following; the Conception of Anna from the ninth, as well as the Feast of Anna and Joachim a century later. The West imported some of these from the East, thanks in part to Augustine’s influence. Those include the Purification and Assumption as well as the Annunciation and Nativity. As far as the Presentation is concerned, this became a popular subject for iconic representations. The four Marian Feasts (Nativity, Annunciation, Purification, and Assumption) were adopted by the Roman church at the end of the seventh century under Sergius, according to the testimony of the Liber Pontificalis.
Ps.-Mt. and DNM are obvious successors to PJ, clearly influenced by its stories. Other texts influenced by PJ include the Arabic Infancy Gospel and the Armenian Infancy Gospel, both from the East, and the fifteenth-century Irish Leabhar Breac from the West, as well as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the History of Joseph the Carpenter.
Among the distinctive influences arising from Ps.-Mt. we concentrate on one major theme, monasticism, while noting from A iii, above, that certain Marian festivals arose later than Ps.-Mt., and so it may have contributed to the origin of some observances.
The promotion of or reflection on monasticism is noteworthy. At the time Anna conceives Mary, she and Joachim vow that, if they are granted to become parents, their offspring would be dedicated, like a religious, to the service of the Lord. The monastic origin of some of the Mary materials may be seen in Ps.-Mt. Even at the beginning of the narrative (Ps.-Mt. 1) Joachim is introduced as a pious man whose almsgiving is exemplary: he even supports pilgrims as did many a monastic house. Later, Mary, too, practises almsgiving.
Mary’s monastic upbringing begins even prior to her third birthday when she is presented in the Temple where she is to remain until she is twelve. From her earliest days while she was still in her parental home she is nurtured constantly in the ‘sanctuary of her bedroom’, as her feet must not be contaminated through contact with the earth. PJ had already stressed the undefiled nature of that domestic setting where Mary is attended by ‘the pure daughters of the Hebrews’. In the Temple, later, Mary is attended by fellow virgins and she undertakes monastic rituals. Only Ps.-Mt. 6–7 gives the daily routine of the virgin during her nine years cloistered in the Temple. One can see here the influence of the Benedictine Rule. Day and night her life is characterized by righteousness and prayer: ‘From the morning to the third hour she remained in prayer; from the third to the ninth she was occupied with her weaving; and from the ninth she again applied herself to prayer. She did not retire from praying until there appeared to her an angel of the Lord, from whose hand she used to receive food’. Ps.-Mt. 6.1 refers to perpetual adoration (laus perennis) by Mary. Her communicating with angels occurs here, as it does in other Marian gospels, e.g. DNM mentions Mary’s regular divine visions in the Temple. Throughout her life she had been at home in the company of fellow virgins, including her later time as a ward of the Temple; when Mary leaves the Temple to be the ward of Joseph, other virgins (religious) accompany her. Her life is therefore described as having been regulated in a monastic community until she sets off for Bethlehem to give birth to Jesus.
As far as the influence of the DNM itself is concerned, the greatest is clearly on Jacob of Voragine’s Golden Legend. The appearance of a chapter on Mary’s birth there, dependent as it is on DNM, shows the ongoing significance of this apocryphon. Although late in terms of normal New Testament Apocrypha and therefore excluded from many modern florilegia of such literature, DNM is nonetheless important to study—if for no other reason than it became the basis for chapter 131 in the Golden Legend, even though some details and minutiae were changed: in ch. 1 Issachar is no longer named in the Golden Legend; in DNM 3 Sarah is barren until aged 90, in the Golden Legend she is 80; from DNM 4 there is merely a summary of the angelic message to Anna; DNM 7 is abbreviated in the Golden Legend; from DNM 8 there is now no reference to Joseph’s grown-up children. Among the addenda in the Golden Legend are the many tales relating the miracles of Mary.
The Carolingians’ interest in the patristic exegesis of earlier centuries is said to have rekindled knowledge of scripture. We have already noted Mary’s ascent of the fifteen steps to the altar of burnt offerings in the Temple which is said to parallel the fifteen Gradual Psalms (Pss. 120–34); the many allusions to the Old Testament including the Old Testament Apocrypha are all too evident in the references supplied in the first apparatus to the French and Latin sides of Beyers’ edition of the DNM (1997a: 276–331), e.g. at DNM 2.2 (1 Reg.; Pss.), 3.11 (Isa.; Jer.), 4.1–2 (Tob.); these are seen as due to Carolingian exegesis. The naming of Mary at 3.8 and the divine promise that she will be ‘made eminent by name and work’ is compatible with such teaching.
This chapter has concentrated on the stories leading up to Jesus’ birth. Later, Mary plays a major part during the Holy Family’s flight and sojourn in Egypt. In the Arabic tradition she resumes her activity as a miracle-worker. Other infancy stories concern Jesus as a child in which Jesus’ mother plays a minor role as wife and mother. It is only at the end of her life when the Apocrypha resume their interest in the biography of Mary and they do so, again, from a theological perspective, namely to describe the nature of her death or dormition. The rich array of narratives about her assumption contains many differing accounts of her end-time. Those writings merit a separate study; suffice it to say now that these expose yet another aspect to developing Marian traditions.
Beyers, R. (1997a). Libri de Nativitate Maria: Libellus de Nativitate Sanctae Mariae. Textus et Commentarius (CCSA 9). Brepols: Turnhout.
Beyers, R. (1997b). Livre de la Nativité de Marie, in François Bovon and Pierre Geoltrain (eds), Écrits apocryphes chrétiens I (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade 442). Paris: Gallimard, 141–61.
Cartlidge, D. R. (2002). ‘“How Can this Be?” Picturing the Word Made Flesh’, Bible Review 18/6 (Dec.): 28–39, 60.
Cartlidge, D. R. and Elliott, J. K. (2001). Art and the Christian Apocrypha. London: Routledge.
Elliott, J. K. (1993). The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Elliott, J. K. (2006). A Synopsis of the Apocryphal Nativity and Infancy Gospels (NTTS 34). Leiden: Brill.
Gijsel, Jan (1997). Libri de Nativite Mariae: Pseudo-Matthaei Evangelium. Textus et Commentarius (CCSA 10). Brepols: Turnout.
Metzger, B. M. (1987). The Canon of the New Testament. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Norelli, Enrico (2009). Marie des apocryphes: Enquête sur la mère de Jésus dans le christianisme antique (Christianismes antiques 1). Geneva: Labor et Fides.
Voicu, Sever (2011). ‘Ways to Survival for the Infancy Apocrypha’, in Claire Clivaz et al. (eds), Infancy Gospels. Stories and Identities (WUNT 281). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 401–17.
Vuong, Lily (2011). ‘“Let Us Bring Her Up to the Temple of the Lord”: Exploring the Boundaries of Jewish and Christian Relations through the Presentation of Mary in the Protevangelium of James’, in Claire Clivaz et al. (eds), Infancy Gospels: Stories and Identities (WUNT 281). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 418–32.