vili. See next article. J. B. Mayor.
MARY (THE VIRGIN). —This subject may be considered under four heads: (A) the story ot her life as it is given (1) in the NT, (2) in the Apocry- phal Gospels and elsewhere; (B) the history of ae respecting her; (C) her place in Liturgi- ology ; (D) her place in Art.
A. 1. What we are told in the Bible about Mary falls naturally into two portions—that which pre- cedes, and that which follows the baptism of our
Lord. (a) All that we know of the former is in- eluded in the earlier chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke. These agree in the main facts, that Jesus was ‘conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,’ that His mother was espoused to Joseph, that the birth took place at Bethlehem towards the end of the reign of Herod the Great, that Nazareth was the subsequent home of the Holy Family, that previous intimation of the supernatural birth had been given through the instrumentality of angels, that Jesus was descended from David, as shown in the appended genealogies. To these facts St. Matthew adds that the marriage
of Joseph and Mary was carried out after the doubts of the former had been set at rest by an angelic vision; that wise men from the East, undet the guidance of a star, came to offer their gifts at the cradle of the infant Saviour; that the children at Bethlehem were massacred owing to Herod’s jealousy, Jesus and His parents having previously taken refuge in Egypt, from whence they returned on the death of erod, and settled at Nazareth in consequence of a divine warning. St. Luke adds the story of the birth of John, the Forerunner; the statement that Mary was already living at Nazareth when the angel Gabriel an- nounced to her that she should be the mother of the Messiah; the visit of Mary to her cousir Elisabeth, and her reception by the latter as the destined mother of the Lord; Mary’s song of
raise; the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethania to be enrolled there as belonging to the family of David; the birth in the stable; the announcement to the shepherds ; the cireumcision ; the purification in the temple; the blessing of Simeon and Anna; the return to Nazareth; the visit to the temple when Jesus was twelve years old; His questioning of the doctors; His answer to Mary’s complaint (‘Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing’), in the words, ‘How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be in my Father’s house?’ and lastly, the general statement as to the Son’s humility and the thought- ful pondering of the mother. *
It is a significant fact that the story of the Infaney is confined to these two Gospels. We may explain its omission in the Fourth Gospel by the consideration that this, being evidently supplementary to the others, often omits details which were assumed to be already familiar to the reader. But in the case of St. Mark we are forced to the conclusion, either that he was un- acquainted with the details of our Lord’s life previous to the preaching of John, or that, know- ing them, he did not regard them as an essential part of the Gospel message. The general impres- sion left by all the Gospels certainly is that during our Lord’s life the secret of His miraculous birth had been communicated to very few. Thus we read in Mt 13% ‘Isnot this the carpenter’s son?’ Lk 4% ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ Jn 6 “15 not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?’ And so in Jn 1® Philip says to Nathanael, ‘We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph’ ; and both the genealogies of our Lord are traced to David through Joseph ‘the son of David.’+ Nor have we any evidence that the mysterious truth was generally known during the apostolic age. No allusion is made to it in the Acts or the Epistles,t and the ‘woman clothed with the sun’ in ee 12, though interpreted by some of the Virgin, is plainly intended to symbolize the Church. St. Paul, St.
* Resch thinks (Kindheitsevangelium, Leipzig, 1895) that both evangelists borrowed from the same source, the BisAcs γινίσιως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ mentioned by St. Matthew (1!), which we may suppose to have been published after the Virgin's death, about A.D. 60. He accounts for the differences between them by supposing that St. Luke purposely omitted those incidents which had been already selected by St. Matthew as showing the fulfilment of Hebrew prophecy, while he preferred himself to dwell on that part of the story which possessed the widest human interest. Prof. W. M. Ramsay, on the other hand, thinks that Luke's account is directly due to Mary herself (Waa ΟΣ ὅτι at Bethlehem? pp. 73-88).
' It is true that Gal 44 ‘When the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law,’ has been cited as such an allusion; but the phrase there used γενόμενον ix γυναικός may be merely an equivalent of ys»%701 γυναικῶν found inJob 141 a are 11), Lk 7%, or at most it may refer to the promise [) nd,