Mary the Blessed Virgin - Saints & Angels - Catholic Online Mary the Blessed Virgin Author and Publisher - Catholic Online Facts Birth: September 8, Nativity of Mary Death: August 15, Assumption of Mary Take the Saints Trivia Quiz now! Mary, also known as St. Mary the Virgin, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Mary, Mary Mother of God or the Virgin Mary is believed by many to be the greatest of all Christian saints. The Virgin Mother "was, after her Son, exalted by divine grace above all angels and men." Mary is venerated with a special cult, called by St. Thomas Aquinas, hyperdulia, as the holiest of all creatures. The main events of her life are celebrated as liturgical feasts of the universal Church. Mary's life and role in the history of salvation is foreshadowed in the Old Testament, while the events of her life are recorded in the New Testament. Traditionally, she was declared the daughter of Sts. Joachim and Anne. Born in Jerusalem, Mary was presented in the Temple and took a vow of virginity.

Living in Nazareth, Mary was visited by the archangel Gabriel, who announced to her that she would become the Mother of Jesus, by the Holy Spirit. She became betrothed to St. Joseph and went to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who was bearing St. John the Baptist. Acknowledged by Elizabeth as the Mother of God, Mary intoned the Magnificat. When Emperor Augustus declared a census throughout the vast Roman Empire, Mary and St. Joseph went to Bethlehem, his city of lineage, as he belonged to the House of David. There Mary gave birth to Jesus and was visited by the Three Kings. Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple, where St. Simeon rejoiced and Mary received word of sorrows to come later. Warned to flee, St. Joseph and Mary went to Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod. They remained in Egypt until King Herod died and then returned to Nazareth. Nothing is known of Mary's life during the next years except for a visit to the Temple of Jerusalem, at which time Mary and Joseph sought the young Jesus, who was in the Temple with the learned elders.

The first recorded miracle of Jesus was performed at a wedding in Cana, and Mary was instrumental in calling Christ's attention to the need. Mary was present at the Crucifixion in Jerusalem, and there she was given into John the Apostle's care. She was also with the disciples in the days before the Pentecost, and it is believed that she was present at the resurrection and Ascension. No scriptural reference concerns Mary's last years on earth. According to tradition, she went to Ephesus, where she experienced her "dormition." Another tradition states that she remained in Jerusalem. The belief that Mary's body was assumed into heaven is one of the oldest traditions of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII declared this belief Catholic dogma in 1950. The four Catholic dogmas are: Mother of God, Perpetual virginity of Mary, the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary. The feast of the Assumption is celebrated on August 15. The Assumption was the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her earthly life.

According to Pope Pius XII, the Virgin Mary "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." In 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception - that Mary, as the Mother of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, was free of original sin at the moment of her conception. The feast of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated on December 8. The birthday of Mary is an old feast in the Church, celebrated on September 8, since the seventh century. Other feasts that commemorate events in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary are listed in the Appendices. Pope Pius XII dedicated the entire human race to Mary in 1944. The Church has long taught that Mary is truly the Mother of God . The Blessed Virgin Mary may be taken as a patroness of any good activity, for she is often cited as the patroness of all humanity. Mary is also associated with protecting many occupations and locations. St. Paul observed that "God sent His Son, born of a woman," expressing the union of the human and the divine in Christ.

As Christ possesses two natures, human and divine, Mary was the Mother of God in his human nature. This special role of Mary in salvation history is clearly shown in the Gospel where she is seen constantly at her son's side during his soteriological mission. Because of this role, exemplified by her acceptance of Christ into her womb, her offering of him to God at the Temple, her urging him to perform his first miracle, and her standing at the foot of the Cross at Calvary Mary was joined fully in the sacrifice by Christ of himself.

Pope Benedict XV wrote in 1918: "To such an extent did Mary suffer and almost die with her suffering and dying Son; to such extent did she surrender her maternal rights over her Son for man's salvation, and immolated him - insofar as she could in order to appease the justice of God, that we might rightly say she redeemed the human race together with Christ." Mary is entitled to the title of Queen because, as Pope Pius XII expressed it in a 1946 radio speech, "Jesus is King throughout all eternity by nature and by right of conquest: through him, with him, and subordinate to him, Mary is Queen by grace, by divine relationship, by right of conquest, and by singular election." Mary possesses a unique relationship with all three Persons of the Trinity, thereby giving her a claim to the title of Queenship. She was chosen by God the Father to be the Mother of his Son; God the Holy Spirit chose her to be his virginal spouse for the Incarnation of the Son; and God the Son chose her to be his mother, the means of incarnating into the world for the purposes of the redemption of humanity. This Queen is also our Mother.

While she is not our Mother in the physical sense, she is called a spiritual mother, for she conceives, gives birth, and nurtures the spiritual lives of grace for each person. As Mediatrix of All Graces, she is ever present at the side of each person, giving nourishment and hope, from the moment of spiritual birth at Baptism to the moment of death. In art, Mary is traditionall portrayed in blue. Her other attributes are a blue mantle, crown of 12 stars, pregnant woman, roses, and/or woman with child. Hundreds of thousands of pieces of Marian artwork and sculptures have been created over the years from the best and most brilliant artists, like Michelangelo and Botticell, to simple peasant artists. Some of the most early examples of veneration of Mary is documented in the Catacombs of Rome. Catacomb paintings show Mary the Blessed Virgin with her son. The confidence that each person should have in Mary was expressed by Pope Pius IX in the encyclical Ubipriinum : "The foundation of all our confidence. . . is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary.

For God has committed to Mary the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is his will, that we obtain everything through Mary." Legends of St. Anne, Mother of the Virgin Mary: Introduction | Robbins Library Digital Projects Search Search this site: Legends of St. Anne, Mother of the Virgin Mary: Introduction LEGENDS OF ST. ANNE, MOTHER OF THE VIRGIN MARY, INTRODUCTION: FOOTNOTES 1 Numerous illustrations of these medieval images can be found in Interpreting Cultural Symbols, ed. Ashley and Sheingorn. On the theological and social implications of the medieval images of the Holy Kinship and their less matrilineal replacements during the Reformation, see especially Sheingorn's essay in this collection, "Appropriating the Holy Kinship." 2 Gail McMurray Gibson writes eloquently about this aspect of the legend in "The Religion of Childbed," pp. 104-07.

from: Middle English Legends of Women Saints 2003 Although the canonical books of the New Testament never mention the parents of the Virgin Mary, traditions about her family, childhood, education, and eventual betrothal to Joseph developed very early in the history of the church. The oldest and most influential account of this kind is the apocryphal gospel called the Protevangelium of James, first written in Greek around the middle of the second century. The high status of the Protevangelium in the Eastern Church is attested by the survival of numerous manuscripts not only in Greek but also in Coptic (Sahidic), Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Old Church Slavonic, and Arabic translations. In the West, on the other hand, the Protevangelium fell under a cloud in the fourth and fifth centuries when it was accused of "absurdities" by St. Jerome and condemned as untrustworthy by Popes Damasus, Innocent I, and Gelasius.

Jerome's most explicit complaint was that it explained the brothers of Jesus, mentioned most prominently in Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55-56, as Joseph's sons by an earlier marriage. In the interpretation preferred by Jerome and the Western Church, the so-called brothers are interpreted as cousins of Jesus, sons of Mary's sisters, thus allowing both Joseph and Mary to be envisioned as lifelong virgins. The dubious reputation of the Protevangelium in the wake of these condemnations evidently delayed the development of Anne's legend and cult in the West by several centuries. But the stigma was not passed on to the Latin retellings and elaborations of the same narrative that began to circulate under different titles in the early Middle Ages; ironically enough, some of them even buttressed their credentials with prefatory letters supposedly written by Jerome. The most popular of these accounts was the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (sometimes called the History of the Birth of Mary and the Infancy of the Savior), which survives in several distinct recensions and at least 130 manuscripts, the earliest of which date to c. 800.

The various recensions of Pseudo-Matthew gave rise in their turn to dozens of later works, in both Latin and the vernacular, that retold the story of Mary's birth and early life, adapting it to new audiences and purposes. Anne was initially just a minor character in the legend derived from the Protevangelium. But her role was capable of great significance because of what it could imply about the Virgin Mary and about the workings of God in this world. Christians were obviously curious from the start about when and why God had selected Mary for her unique position as the mother of the Redeemer. The legend attempts to answer such questions by borrowing from Biblical stories about other long-awaited children, including Isaac (Genesis 15-18, 21:1-8), Samson (Judges 13), John the Baptist (Luke 1: 5-25, 57-80), and especially Samuel (1 Samuel 1-2); thus Mary becomes both a child of destiny, heralded before birth as a chosen instrument in the redemption of God's people, and a sign of God's favor toward her parents, a virtuous couple who had long been barren.

With the growth of Mary's cult in the twelfth century, a harder and more controversial question began to be raised about her conception and birth. Was she subject to sin like other human beings, making her redemption dependent on Christ's sacrifice, or had she been "immaculate" (unspotted, free from original sin) from the start? The Council of Basel endorsed the latter position in 1438, and Pope Pius IX approved it definitively as a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church in 1854. During the late Middle Ages, however, belief in Mary's immaculate conception was strongly opposed by many theologians, including most Dominicans. Since sexual intercourse was understood as the means by which original sin was transmitted from one generation to another, the legend about the separation of Mary's parents during the year before she was born took on new importance in the context of this dispute. Some versions of the legend support the "immaculist" position, suggesting that Mary was miraculously conceived at the moment when the angel appeared to her mother or (more often) when her parents were reunited at the Golden Gate in Jerusalem and chastely embraced.

In versions preferred by the Dominicans and other maculists, on the other hand, there is no suggestion that she was conceived in anything other than the normal biological fashion, after her parents' reunion. Anne also played a useful role for medieval commentators on the Bible when they attempted to explain the extended family of Jesus. As mentioned earlier, Jerome had argued successfully that the "brothers" mentioned in the Gospels were Jesus's cousins, sons of Mary's sisters. Biblical commentators in the early medieval West went on to identify those sisters with two other Maries mentioned in the Gospels (John 19:25 and Mark 16:1), to take Anne as the mother of all three, and to explain the names of her second and third daughters by creating the theory of the trinubium, or three marriages of Anne. According to the trinubium, Joachim must have died soon after the birth of the Virgin Mary, so that Anne could marry a second husband named Cleophas, by whom she bore Mary Cleophas, and (after Cleophas's death) a third husband named Salome, by whom she bore Mary Salome.

From these three daughters, the theory continued, came Jesus and all six "brothers" or cousins named in the Gospels. James the lesser or younger, Joseph or Joses, Simon, and Jude were explained as the sons of Mary Cleophas, who had married Alpheus; James the Greater and John the Evangelist, as the sons of Mary Salome, who had married Zebedee. Thus Anne became the grandmother of some of the most prominent apostles, as well as Jesus himself. The trinubium theory was condemned in the twelfth century and later by a number of theologians, who felt that multiple marriages and additional children were incompatible with the purity and holiness that must have characterized the Virgin's mother, and some Biblical scholars rejected it on the grounds that it depended on misinterpretations of particular names and details. But the theory had a certain amount of internal logic on its side, given the way the legend equated fertility with blessedness and connected Anne with Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who was granted three more sons and two daughters after she dedicated her firstborn to God's service.

The idea of the holy family as a large and powerful kinship had another advantage in medieval culture, of course, because it conformed so well with that culture's assumptions about family and class. The theory was incorporated into later recensions of Pseudo-Matthew and repeated in the Legenda aurea, and by those means became generally known and widely accepted in the later Middle Ages as part of Anne's life story. Like her legend, the cult of St. Anne was so closely connected with that of the Virgin Mary, especially at the beginning, that it is not easy to tell where the one leaves off and the other begins. In the Eastern church the cult of Anne herself may go back as far as c. 550, when Justinian built a church in Constantinople in her honor. The earliest sign of her veneration in the West is an eighth-century fresco in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome, which shows her with a halo, holding the infant Mary. But not until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is there unmistakable evidence that the Western church was honoring St. Anne in her own right, rather than just an adjunct to Mary.

During those centuries returning crusaders and pilgrims from the East brought relics of Anne to a number of churches, including most famously those at Apt, in Provence, Ghent, and Chartres. By 1300 at least five important English monastic foundations were also claiming to have relics of Anne, and dozens of additional shrines, altars, and chapels had been dedicated to her, both in England and on the Continent. Liturgical commemorations of Anne in the West seem to have followed a similar course of development, except that monastic houses in England played a more central role. The story of Joachim and Anne received at least passing mention in the liturgy for one of the oldest annual feasts of Mary, the Nativity of the Virgin (September 8 in Western calendars), which was included in the Sacramentary of Gelasius (c. 700) and firmly established in Anglo-Saxon England by the ninth or tenth century. Anne's role tended to take on more importance when an annual feast was added to celebrate the Conception of the Virgin (observed exactly nine months earlier - i.e., December 8).

There is good evidence that the Conception was being commemorated at Winchester, Exeter, and Canterbury before the Norman Conquest, and this feast day was revived in the twelfth century through the efforts of Benedictine writers like Eadmer of Canterbury and Anselm of Bury, although it became generally established in England only after 1328 (when it was made obligatory for the whole Province of Canterbury) and was not clearly mandated for the Church as a whole until 1476 (when Pope Sixtus IV confirmed the Council of Basel's ruling on the matter). England also preceded most of the Continent in instituting a separate feast day for Anne herself (July 26). The date traditionally associated with the adoption of this feast is 1382, the year in which Pope Urban VI authorized its celebration throughout England, but it was already being celebrated in the twelfth century in some of the great English monastic churches, most notably those at Worcester and Evesham. The great flowering of Anne's cult among the laity occurred between about 1300 and the Council of Trent in the mid sixteenth century.

By 1540 there were at least 40 medieval churches and chapels under her patronage in England, the majority of which had been dedicated or rededicated to her during the previous two centuries. She also had major shrines at Buxton (Derbyshire) and Wood-Plumpton (Lancashire), and was frequently chosen by prosperous laymen and women as patron saint of their guilds and recipient of special bequests and offerings. As Gail Gibson has shown, such devotion to her seems to have been unusually strong in East Anglia. Many churches had cycles of paintings or tapestries illustrating key scenes from her legend, or portraits of the Holy Kinship that showed Anne surrounded by her daughters and grandsons. Another popular late-medieval image of Anne was the grouping known in German as the Anna Selbdritt ("herself making a third") - a maternal version of the Trinity, in effect, often with Anne seated in a position recalling God the Father on His throne, with the young Virgin Mary on her knee, holding the infant Jesus. 1 Anne appealed in a number of different ways to various groups and classes within the late-medieval church.

As has already been suggested, some theologians found material in her legend to support their arguments about the Immaculate Conception and other issues related to the Incarnation of Christ. Some religious orders, most notably the Carmelites, claimed a special relationship with her and other members of the holy family, which they used to lend prestige to their own institutional history. To many members of the laity, on the other hand, Anne obviously represented an attractive alternative to the standard equation of female saintliness with virginity, persecution, and early death. Envisioned as a holy mother and grandmother, contentedly presiding over a family of well-brought-up daughters and grandsons, she naturally became a patron saint of marriage and the family. A wife whose virtue was ultimately rewarded with fertility, she seemed an appropriate guardian against both lechery and barrenness. In addition, as Ton Brandenbarg has noted, the prominence of genealogies in her legend led to her association with "dynastic sanctity," an ideal with great attractiveness both to aristocrats and to members of the middle class with ambitions for their families.

She was also associated with other bourgeois values, including prosperity, diligence, generosity to the poor, married chastity, and harmonious family life, and (since she was often portrayed with a book, teaching the young Virgin Mary to read) with education, especially for women. But her potential appeal extended even to illiterate peasants, especially insofar as she recalled the figure of the powerful grandmother in folklore, and indeed to anyone who simply needed an intercessor with Jesus and believed in the power of family connections. The Middle English versions of her legend edited here suggest that the cult of Anne developed quite unevenly in different regions or segments of society in England. The two chapters by Mirk remind us how recently she had been added to the calendar in many English churches - and that the impetus for her cult sometimes came from above, not from the grass roots. Mirk's sermon on the Conception is really about Mary, as the final miracle stories show, and Anne receives less attention than Joachim does in the narrative leading up to Mary's birth. Even in his sermon for St. Anne's feast day, Mirk does not present Anne as a saint with her own cult and identity.

The opening section, in which he distinguishes Anne from several women in the Bible with similar names, suggests that he didn't expect his audience to have much prior knowledge of her. When he gives a family lineage, it is the lineage of Anne's husband Joachim, rather than that of Anne herself. And although he repeats the legend of her later marriages, the sermon does not actually focus attention on Anne herself except at the end, and even there the account of her holy lineage in lines 65-71 is taken to prove her potential usefulness as a derivative or subordinate saint, a means of access to Mary, her daughter. The fifteenth-century verse retelling of Anne's life by Osbern Bokenham (1393-1464?), in contrast, shows much more interest in Anne's own character and virtues, and in her human experience. Bokenham, an Austin (Augustinian) friar at Clare Priory in East Anglia, dedicated most of his accounts of female saints to laywomen from prominent families in the vicinity. In the case of St.

Anne, he wrote for Katherine Clopton Denston, daughter and sister of wealthy cloth merchants whose family portraits survive in the parish church of nearby Long Melford, where they were major donors. Katherine and her husband John Denston, a local landowner and civil servant, had just one child, a daughter named after St. Anne, and Bokenham spells out one purpose of his account in the closing lines, when he invokes the saint's help in fulfilling their desire for a second child, a son. 2 But it is clearly not just St. Anne's role as an intercessor that makes her life relevant, in Bokenham's view, to women like his friend Katherine Denston. His account goes well beyond its sources in its sympathetic attention to the marriage between Anne and Joachim - adding passages, for instance, which emphasize how well matched they are in age, rank, and virtue (lines 229-50), how dearly Anne loves her husband (336-49), and how joyful she is when he returns from his long absence (567-73). Thus Bokenham reassuringly suggests through St.

Anne that laypeople can have a good and loving marriage without forfeiting the possibility of holiness. [Mirk]London, British Library MS Cotton Claudius A.ii, fols. 11v-13r, 95v-96v. [Bokenham]London, British Library MS Arundel 327, fols. 27r-39r. Previous editions Mirk, John. Mirk's Festial. Ed. Theodor Erbe. EETS, e.s. 96 (1905). Pp. 15-18, 213-16. Bokenham Horstmann, Carl, ed. Osbern Bokenham's Legenden. In Altenglische Bibliothek, vol. 1. Ed. Eugen Kölbing. Heilbronn: Henninger, 1883. Bokenham, Osbern. Legendys of Hooly Wummen. Ed. Mary S. Serjeantson. EETS o.s. 206. 1938. Pp. 38-58. Translations into modern English Delany, Sheila, trans. and intro.

A Legend of Holy Women. 1992. Pp. 29-41. [For full reference, see Bokenham in General Bibliography, p. 15.] Important sources and analogues in English Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. Chs. 1-5. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325. Ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Rev. and arranged A. Cleveland Coxe. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1867-72. Rpt. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1989. Vol. 8. Pp. 368-71. Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Granger Ryan. Ch. 131, "The Birth of the Virgin." 1993. Vol. 2. Pp. 149-58. Meredith, Peter, ed. The Mary Play from the N. town Manuscript. London and New York: Longman, 1987. Pp.

30-48. Parker, Roscoe E., ed. Middle English Stanzaic Versions of the Life of Saint Anne. EETS o.s. 174. London: Oxford University Press, 1928. Protevangelium of James. Chs. 1-7. In The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation. Ed. J. K. Elliott. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Pp. 48-60. Historical background and commentary Ashley, Kathleen, and Pamela Sheingorn. "Introduction." In Ashley and Sheingorn, Inter-preting Cultural Symbols. Pp. 1-68. Bishop, Edmund. "On the Origins of the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary." In Liturgica Historica: Papers on the Liturgy and Religious Life of the Western Church. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1918. Pp. 238-49. [Originally published in The Downside Review, April 1886.] Brandenbarg, Ton.

"Saint Anne: A Holy Grandmother and Her Children." In Mulder-Bakker, Sanctity and Motherhood. Pp. 31-65. Charland, Paul V. Madame saincte Anne et son culte au moyen âge. 2 vols. Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1911-1913. Gibson, Gail McMurray. "The Religion of Childbed: Some East Anglian Texts and Talismans." In Ashley and Sheingorn. Pp. 95-110. Sheingorn, Pamela. "Appropriating the Holy Kinship: Gender and Family History." In Ashley and Sheingorn. Pp. 169-98. Footnotes LEGENDS OF ST. ANNE, MOTHER OF THE VIRGIN MARY, INTRODUCTION: FOOTNOTES 1 Numerous illustrations of these medieval images can be found in Interpreting Cultural Symbols, ed. Ashley and Sheingorn.

On the theological and social implications of the medieval images of the Holy Kinship and their less matrilineal replacements during the Reformation, see especially Sheingorn's essay in this collection, "Appropriating the Holy Kinship." 2 Gail McMurray Gibson writes eloquently about this aspect of the legend in "The Religion of Childbed," pp. 104-07. share this page Who is the Virgin Mary? | Queen of Heaven Who is the Virgin Mary? by Acharya S/D.M. Murdock Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled Moon Mary: Queen of Heaven "The goddesses have stories to tell. One such story—far too long ignored—is that, in their original, unadulterated form, they were parthenogenetic. The word parthenogenesis comes from the Greek parthenos, 'virgin' more or less, and gignesthai, 'to be born.' It means, essentially, to be born of a virgin—that is, without the participation of a male.

For a goddess to be 'parthenogenetic' thus means that she stands as a primordial creatrix, who requires no male partner to produce the cosmos, earth, life, matter and even other gods out of her own essence. Plentiful evidence shows that in their earliest cults, before they were subsumed under patriarchal pantheons as the wives, sisters and daughters of male gods, various female deities of the ancient Mediterranean world were indeed considered self-generating, virgin creatrixes." Dr. Marguerite Rigoglioso, Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity (1) "There is but one god and goddess, but many are their powers and names: Jupiter, Sol, Apollo, Moses, Christ, Luna, Ceres, Proserpinfa, Tellus, Mary. But have a care in speaking these things. They should be hidden in silence as are the Eleusinian mysteries; sacred things must needs be wrapped in fable and enigma." Konrad Muth (1471-1526) As is the case with Jesus Christ himself, the godman's parents, Joseph and Mary, never appear in the contemporary historical record of the time they allegedly existed.

Nor are they mentioned in non-gospel Christian writings earlier than the purported time of Church father Ignatius (d. 107 CE). Oddly enough, the Islamic sacred text, the Koran, places Jesus and Mary in the same era as Moses, or the 13th century BCE. Arabs believed that Jesus was Joshua, the Old Testament prophet, and that Joshua's mother was "Mirzam," the Miriam of Exodus, sister of Moses and Aaron. (Robertson, CM, 297) In this regard, Joshua is Jesus in Greek, and both Mirzam and Miriam are equivalent to Mariam or Mary. As Strong's Concordance (Gk. 3137) relates: "Mary or Miriam='their rebellion.'" The Persians likewise believed that Joshua's mother was the Mosaic Miriam. Hence, according to Near Eastern tradition there appeared a Jesus, son of Mary, over a thousand years prior to the Christian era. Moreover, like Jesus, who was called "Emmanuel" (Mt.

1:23), a "Persian title of 'the god Immani,' or E-mani,' venerated in Elam as a sacred king-martyr," the Persian savior Mani was said to have been "born of a virgin named Mary." (Walker, 428) The Virgin Goddess In reality, the ancient world abounded with traditions, prophecies, fables and myths of miraculous conceptions and births, long before the Christian era, and the virgin-mother motif is common enough in pre-Christian cultures to demonstrate its unoriginality and non-historicity within Christianity. In early Christian times, Mary herself was believed to have been born of a virgin, which, if taken literally, would represent a virgin [or miraculous] birth prior to Christ, rendering his own nativity unoriginal and mundane, rather than miraculous and divine. One source of Mary's immaculate conception was Christian writer and saint John of Damascus (c. 676-c.

754-787), who asserted that Mary's parents were "filled and purified by the Holy Ghost, and freed from sexual concupiscence." Concerning this matter, the Catholic Encyclopedia ("Immaculate Conception") states that "even the human element" of Mary's origin, "the material of which she was formed, was pure and holy." In other words, Roman Catholic doctrine dictates that, like Jesus, "the Blessed Virgin Mary" was "conceived without sin." (Hackwood, 17) In order to maintain the "uniqueness" of Christ's virgin birth, however, this contention regarding Mary is not taken seriously. What it proves, nonetheless, is that fabulous Christian claims are based on pious speculation, not historical fact, speculation by the faithful that changes from era to era, depending on the need. As it turns out, the Virgin Mary is, like Jesus Christ, a mythical character, founded upon older goddesses.

Following on the heels of goddesses such as Aphrodite, Astarte, Cybele, Demeter, Hathor, Inanna, Ishtar and Isis, Mary is "both virgin and mother, and, like many of them, she gives birth to a half-human, half-divine child, who dies and is reborn." (Baring, 548) Regarding the Great Mother Goddess, upon whom Mary is based and whose names are legion, in Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity (II, 45) Francis Legge says: "Her most prominent characteristics show her to be a personification of the Earth, the mother of all living, ever bringing forth and ever a virgin…" In Pagan and Christian Creeds (159-161), Edward Carpenter recites a long list of virgin mothers: Zeus, Father of the gods, visited Semele…in the form of a thunderstorm; and she gave birth to the great saviour and deliverer Dionysus.

Zeus, again, impregnated Danae in a shower of gold; and the child was Perseus… Devaki, the radiant Virgin of the Hindu mythology , became the wife of the god Vishnu and bore Krishna, the beloved hero and prototype of Christ. With regard to Buddha, St. Jerome says: "It is handed down among the Gymnosophists of India that Buddha, the founder of their system, was brought forth by a Virgin from her side." The Egyptian Isis, with the child Horus on her knee , was honored centuries before the Christian era, and worshipped under the names of "Our Lady," "Queen of Heaven," "Star of the Sea," "Mother of God," and so forth. Before her, Neith the Virgin of the World , whose figure bends from the sky over the earthly plains and the children of men, was acclaimed as mother of the great god Osiris… The old Teutonic goddess Hertha (the Earth) was a Virgin, but was impregnated by the heavenly Spirit (the Sky); and her image with a child in her arms was to be seen in the sacred groves of Germany.

The Scandinavian Frigga, in much the same way, being caught in the embraces of Odin, the All-father, conceived and bore a son, the blessed Balder, healer and saviour of mankind. Quetzalcoatl, the (crucified) saviour of the Aztecs, was the son of Chimalman, the Virgin Queen of Heaven. Even the Chinese had a mother-goddess and virgin with child in her arms; and the ancient Etruscans the same… In addition to the omnipresent mother-and-child imagery beginning at least five millennia ago are the black virgin-mother statues found all over the Mediterranean and especially in Italian churches, representing the very ancient Egyptian goddess Isis, as well as the later Mary, having been refigured or "baptized anew" as the Jewish Mother of God. Concerning this development, in its article the "Virgin Birth of Christ" the Catholic Encyclopedia ("CE") remarks: "A first class of writers have recourse to pagan mythology in order to account for the early Christian tradition concerning the virgin birth of Jesus.

Usener argues that the early Gentile Christians must have attributed to Christ what their pagan ancestors had attributed to their pagan heroes; hence the Divine sonship of Christ is a product of the religious thought of Gentile Christians….

Conrady found in the Virgin Mary a Christian imitation of the Egyptian goddess Isis, the mother of Horus…" Concerning the usurpation of the Virgin Mother by Christianity, which simply constituted the changing of the goddess from one ethnicity to another, in The Paganism in Our Christianity (121-123) apologist Sir Arthur Weigall observes: " …while the story of the death and resurrection of Osiris may have influenced the thought of the earliest Christians in regard to the death and resurrection of our Lord, there can be no doubt that the myths of Isis had a direct bearing upon the elevation of Mary, the mother of Jesus, to her celestial position in the Roman Catholic theology… In her aspect as the mother of Horus, Isis was represented in tens of thousands of statuettes and paintings, holding the divine child in her arms; and when Christianity triumphed these paintings and figures became those of the Madonna and Child without any break in continuity: no archaeologist, in fact, can now tell whether some of these objects represent the one or the other." Like the Christian Mary and Egyptian Isis, the Canaanite goddess Astarte, mentioned in the Old Testament, was the "Virgin of the Sea," as well as the "

blessed Mother and Lady of the Waters." (Baring, 459) Another virgin goddess was the mother of the Phrygian god Attis , whose widespread worship "must have influenced the early Christians." As Weigall (115-116) recounts: Attis was the Good Shepherd, the son of Cybele, the Great Mother, or alternatively, of the Virgin Nana, who conceived him without union with mortal man, as in the story of the Virgin Mary… In Rome the festival of his death and resurrection was annually held from March 22nd to 25th; and the connection of this religion with Christianity is shown by the fact that in Phrygia, Gaul, Italy and other countries where Attis-worship was powerful, the Christians adopted the actual date, March 25th, as the anniversary of our Lord's passion.

The pre-Christian virgin goddess Myrrha was the mother of the god Adonis, who tradition holds was born at Bethlehem, "in the same sacred cave that Christians later claimed as the birthplace of Jesus." Indeed, Myrrha was "identified with Mary by early Christians who called Jesus's mother Myrrh of the Sea." (Walker, 10) Also a product of a virgin birth, the Indian avatar Buddha's conception is portrayed as coming to his mother, Maya, in a dream, similar to the conflicting gospel tales of Joseph's dream or the angel appearing to Mary. Regarding Buddha, in Christianity Before Christ (87) Dr. John Jackson states: " He was said to have been born of the Virgin Maya , or Mary. His incarnation was accomplished by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Virgin Maya.

The infant Buddha, soon after birth, spoke to his mother, saying: 'I will put to an end to the sufferings and sorrows of the world.' As these words are uttered, a mystical light surrounded the infant Messiah." This mythical theme is not uncommon, as the birth through the side of the virgin was also claimed of Jesus by early Christian "heretics." It was likewise said that Julius Caesar was born through the "side of his mother," whence comes the term "Caesarean section." So too was the Egyptian sun god Ra "born from the side of his mother" (Bonwick, 107), a motif that reflects the relationship between the sun and moon. Part of the "lunar phenomenon," the mother's womb symbolizes the moon, in which the solar child can be seen growing.

Hence, Buddha's mother, Maya, was depicted as transparent, as was the pregnant Mary, "as may be seen in Didron's Iconography!" (Massey, 181) Like Buddha's mother, Queen Maya, the carpenter's wife Mary is also a "queen," as in "Queen of Heaven." Precursor of Mary, the immensely popular Isis's status as "Queen of Heaven" was established eons before, and continued well into, the common era. In his Latin novel of the second century ce, The Golden Ass (XI.2), Lucius Apuleius describes Isis's introduction of herself to the "hapless quadruped" as follows: "I am she that is the natural mother of all things, mistress and governess of all the elements, the initial progeny of worlds, chief of the powers divine, queen of heaven, the principal of the gods celestial, the light of the goddesses. At my will the planets of the air, the wholesome winds of the seas and the silences of hell are disposed.

My name, my divinity, is adored throughout the world, in divers manners, in variable customs and in many names, for the Phrygians call me the mother of the gods; the Athenians, Minerva; the Cyprians, Venus; the Candians, Diana; the Sicilians, Proserpina; the Eleusinians, Ceres; some Juno, others Bellona, others Hecate; and principally the Ethiopians who dwell in the Orient, and the Egyptians…do call me Queen Isis." (Siculus, 31fn) As can be seen, Isis was fervently revered as the epitome of Divinity, long before Mary achieved that rank. Mary, Goddess of the Moon The virgin-goddess "Queen of Heaven" is prevalent in the ancient world for the reason that she is astrological or astrotheological, symbolizing the moon, the earth, Venus, Virgo and the dawn. The many goddesses thus resolve themselves to variants on a theme, one of which is the moon, a feature of the ubiquitous sun-god mythos, in which the moon, by mirroring the sun's light, "gives birth" to the sun.

In Christ Lore (30-31), Hackwood describes the astrotheological development of this theme: "The Virgin Mary is called not only the Mother of God, but the Queen of Heaven. This connects her directly with astronomic lore. The ornamentation of many continental churches often includes a representation of the Sun and Moon "in conjunction," the Moon being therein emblematical of the Virgin and Child…. "As the Moon…is the symbol of Mary, Queen of Heaven, so also a bright Star sometimes symbolizes him whose star was seen over Jerusalem by the Wise Men from the East.

"The many depictions of Mary with the crescent moon reflect her status as the ancient moon goddess, exemplified by the Egyptian goddess Isis." In his book dating to the first century BCE on Egyptian antiquities, Greek writer Diodorus Siculus (14-15) affirms that the Egyptian god Osiris symbolizes the sun while his wife/sister, Isis, is the moon: "Now when the ancient Egyptians, awestruck and wondering, turned their eyes to the heavens, they concluded that two gods, the sun and the moon, were primeval and eternal; and they called the former Osiris, the latter Isis, assigning each of these names according to some relevant characteristic… "…Now Isis, in translation, signifies "ancient"—a name bestowed for her ancient and immortal origin. They depict horns on her head, both from the moon's horned appearance when in its crescent, and because the horned cow is sacred to her among the Egyptians." Concerning Isis's prototype, the Egyptian lunar virgin goddess Neith, who predated the Christian era by millennia, in The Ancient Gods (84) Rev.

James observes: …She too was the virgin mother of the Sun-god, having given birth to Re [Ra] as the great cow, and was identified with Isis as the wife of Osiris, later becoming one of the forms of Hathor. Indeed, she was "the Great Goddess, the mother of all the gods."… …She was eternal, self-existing, self-sustaining and all-pervading, personifying the female principle from very early times. She was believed to have brought forth the transcendent Sun-god without the aid of a male partner, very much as in the Memphite Theology Ptah created all things virtually ex nihilo by thinking as the "heart" and commanding as the "tongue." The virgin-mother goddess represents not only the moon but also the constellation of Virgo.

This important information regarding the Virgin is found in ancient texts, such as the Eclogues (37 BCE) of the Roman poet Virgil, in which is described or "prophesied" the "return of the virgin," i.e., Virgo, who would bring about "a new breed of men sent down from heaven," as well as the birth of a boy "in whom…the golden race [shall] arise." This virgin-born "golden boy" is in actuality the sun. Commenting on the Virgo-Sun relationship, the author of Christianity Mythology Unveiled (CMU, 105) notes: In the ancient zodiacs of India and Egypt, there is seen this virgin nursing a male child, with sun rays around his head…which is emblematical of the infant sun at the winter solstice, and of his being then in the sign of the Virgo. Regarding the solar nativity, in The Golden Bough (416) Sir Frazer further explicates: The ritual of the nativity, as it appears to have been celebrated in Syria and Egypt, was remarkable.

The celebrants retired into certain inner shrines, from which at midnight they issued with a loud cry, "The Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing!" The Egyptians even represented the new-born sun by the image of an infant which on his birthday, the winter solstice, they brought forth and exhibited to his worshippers. No doubt the Virgin who thus conceived and bore a son on the twenty-fifth of December was the great Oriental goddess whom the Semites called the Heavenly Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess… As does Latin authority Macrobius (5th cent. CE), the Paschal Chronicle recounts that the newborn sun (Horus) was presented to the public every year at the winter solstice, as a babe in a manger.

The pertinent part of the Chronicle reads as follows: "To this day, Egypt has consecrated the pregnancy of a virgin, and the nativity of her son, whom they annually present in a cradle, to the adoration of the people; and when king Ptolemy, three hundred and fifty years before our Christian era, demanded of the priests the significance of this religious ceremony, they told him it was a mystery." (CMU, 100) The Chronicle author(s) further confirms that Christianity is a continuation of the ancient astrotheological religion when he states that the "Annunciation of our Lady," i.e., the conception of Christ by the Virgin Mary, occurred on March 25th, the vernal equinox, exactly nine months prior to the December 25th birthdate, at the winter solstice.

(CP, 166) While the masses have been kept in the dark, the knowledgeable elite have been aware of what the Virgin truly represents, even as they have attempted sophistically to explain "her" relationship to the "earthly" life of "our Lord." Concerning the astrotheological nature of the gospel story, including the virgin birth/immaculate conception, the famous Christian theologian and saint Albertus Magnus, or Albert the Great (1193?-1280), admitted: "We know that the sign of the celestial Virgin did come to the horizon at the moment where we have fixed the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. All the mysteries of the incarnation of our Saviour Christ; and all the circumstances of his marvellous life, from his conception to his ascension, are to be traced out in the constellations, and are figured in the stars." (CMU, 97-98) The virgin birth thus refers to the hour of midnight, December 25th, when the constellation of Virgo rises on the horizon.

Another example of the ancient astrotheology appears in the observance of the "Assumption of the Virgin," celebrated in Catholicism on August 15th, when the Virgin Mary was "assumed" or "taken up." The observance is not representative of an actual event that happened to an historical character but commemorates the time when the constellation of the Virgin is "rendered invisible by the solar rays." (Higgins, 6) In other words, the summer sun's brightness blots out Virgo. Mary's Nativity, observed on September 8th, occurs when the constellation is visible again. The goddess is not only the moon and Virgo but also the dawn, who daily gives birth to the sun. By eminent Christian Egyptologist E.A. Wallis Budge's assessment (cxiv), the versatile Isis is likewise "the deity of the dawn," which, according to very ancient mythology, would make her "inviolable" and "eternal," i.e., a perpetual virgin. Even Christian writers have understood the connection between the Virgin and the dawn, as exemplified in "one of the homilies of St.

Amedus on the Virgin," which includes the following regarding Mother Mary: "She is the Fountain that waters the whole earth, the Dawn that precedes the True Sun. She is the health (salus) of all, the reconciler (conciliatrix) of the whole world, the inventress of grace, the generatrix of life, the mother of salvation." (Lundy, 221) As is evident, the worship of the Virgin Isis was eventually and nearly seamlessly transformed into that of the Virgin Mary: "The worship of the Virgin as the Theotokos or Mother of God, which was introduced into the Catholic Church about the time of the destruction of the Serapeum, enabled the devotees of Isis to continue unchecked their worship of the mother goddess by merely changing the name of the object of their adoration, and Prof.

Drexler gives a long list of the statues of Isis which thereafter were used, sometimes with unaltered attributes, as those of the Virgin Mary." (Legge, I, 85) As Weigall (204-208) elucidates, Christianity in general constitutes a rehash of Paganism: From Pagan mythology Christianity had unconsciously taken over many a wonderful story and had incorporated it into the life of Jesus… …many of the old heathen gods had been taken into the Church as saints. Castor and Pollux became St. Cosmo and St. Damien; Dionysos, many of whose attributes were attached to St. John the Baptist, still holds his place as St. Denis of Paris… All over Christendom, pagan sacred places were perpetuated by the erection of Christian chapels or churches on the same sites; and there are hundreds of shrines dedicated to the Madonna on ground once sacred to nymphs or goddesses, while the holy wells or springs of heathendom are now the holy wells of the Church. The statues of Jupiter and Apollo became those of St. Peter and St.

Paul; and the figures of Isis were turned into those of the Virgin Mary… Not only was the worship of Isis usurped by that of Mary but also the countless apparitions believed by prior worshippers to be the Egyptian goddess were subsequently asserted to be appearances by the Virgin Mary. Although many Christians feel that such visions of "Mary" and "Jesus" prove the validity of their belief system, the fact is that apparitions of numerous gods and goddesses to their millions of followers have been quite common globally, in a wide variety of cultures, beginning centuries and millennia prior to the Christian era. The purported appearance of a god or goddess does not, therefore, prove the validity of any particular religion, or it would ensue that every faith in which believers have allegedly seen their god or gods would constitute the "one, true religion." In the end, like her Son the Sun, the Virgin Moon Mary is a mythical character based on older goddesses who were themselves astrotheological personifications of celestial and earthly bodies and principles. In its most poetic, feminine manifestation, the ancient astrotheology reached exquisite zeniths befitting the Divine Mother of All, flawlessly formless beyond all cultural camouflage and ethnic exteriority.

Bibliography Anonymous, The Christian Mythology Unveiled, Printed privately, 1842? Baring, Anne and Cashford, Jules, The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, Arkana/Penguin, London, 1993. Bonwick, James, Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought, Falcon's Wing, CO, 1956. Budge, E.A. Wallis, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Dover, NY, 1967. Carpenter, Edward, Pagan and Christian Creeds (1921), Health Research, 1975. Catholic Encyclopedia, Chronicon Paschale: 284-628 AD, trs. Michael and Mary Whitby, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 1989. Dupuis, Charles Francois, The Origin of All Religious Worship, Garland, New York/London, 1984. Doane, Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions (1882), Health Research, WA, 1985. Hackwood, Fredk.

Wm., Christ Lore: Being the Legends, Traditions, Myths, Symbols, Customs & Superstitions of the Christian Church, London, 1902. Higgins, Godfrey, Anacalypsis (1836), A&B Books, NY, 1992. Jackson, John G., Christianity Before Christ, American Atheist Press, Texas, 1985. James, E.O., The Ancient Gods, Putnam, NY, 1960. Legge, Francis, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity: From 330 B.C. To 330 A.D., University Books, NY, 1964. Lundy, John P., Monumental Christianity: The Art and Symbolism of the Primitive Church, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London, 1889. Macrobius, The Saturnalia, tr. Percival Vaughan Davies, Columbia University Press, NY, 1969. Massey, Gerald, Gerald Massey's Lectures, A&B Publishers, NY, 1992.

McCabe, Joseph, The Story of Religious Controversy, Robertson, J.M., Christianity and Mythology, Watts & Co., London, 1910. Rigoglioso, Marguerite. Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity . New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010. Siculus, Diodorus, The Antiquities of Egypt, tr. Edwin Murphy, Transaction Publishers, 1990. Strong's Concordance, #strongs Walker, Barbara, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Harper, San Francisco, 1983. Weigall, Arthur, The Paganism in Our Christianity, Hutchinson & Co., London, 1928. Saint Mary - Blessed Virgin Mary - Mother of Jesus Christ Saint Mary - Blessed Virgin Mary - Mother of Jesus Christ Mary (Aramaic, Hebrew: מרים, Maryām, Miriam; Arabic:مريم, Maryam), commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of Jesus", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee.

She is identified in the New Testament and in Islam as the mother of Jesus through divine intervention.[Mt 1:16,18-25] [Lk 1:26-56] [2:1-7] The canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke describe Mary as a virgin (Greek παρθένος, parthénos). Christians and Muslims believe that she conceived her son miraculously by the agency of the Holy Spirit. This took place when she was already betrothed to Saint Joseph and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage, the formal home-taking ceremony. She married Joseph and accompanied him to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. In keeping with Jewish custom, the betrothal would have taken place when she was around 12, and the birth of Jesus about a year later. The New Testament begins its account of Mary's life with the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and announced her divine selection to be mother of Jesus. Church tradition and early non-biblical writings state that her parents were an elderly couple, Saint Joachim and Saint Anne. The Bible records Mary's role in key events of the life of Jesus from his conception to his Ascension.

Apocryphal writings tell of her subsequent death and bodily assumption into heaven. Christians of the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion believe that Mary, as mother of Jesus, is the Mother of God (Μήτηρ Θεοῦ) and the Theotokos, literally Birthgiver of God. Mary has been an object of veneration in Christianity since the Apostolic Age. Throughout the ages she has been a favorite subject in Christian art, music, and literature. There is significant diversity in the Marian beliefs and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Catholic Church has a number of Marian dogmas, such as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. Catholics refer to her as Our Lady and venerate her as the Queen of Heaven and Mother of the Church; most Protestants do not share these beliefs. Family and Early life 0f Mary The New Testament tells little of Mary's early history. Early non-biblical writings name her parents as Joachim and Anne.

However, in the canonical New Testament the gospel of Luke suggests that Mary's father to be Heli the son of Matthat, although many argue that the genealogy is of Joseph's family.[Lk 3:23] In Luke 3:23 the words "as was supposed" are used in the King James translation. The Koine Greek preceding the translation "as was supposed" is νομίζω pronounced nom-i-zo meaning practice or consider coming from the root word νόμος pronounced nom'-os meaning law. Here Heli is shown as the father-in-law or according to practice of the law of Joseph, the husband of Mary. This is in staunch contrast to Matthew 1:16 which speaks of Joseph's natural father as being Jacob.

Mary was a relative of Elizabeth, wife of the priest Zechariah of the priestly division of Abijah, who was herself part of the lineage of Aaron and so of the tribe of Levi.[16]:p.134 [Lk 1:5] [1:36] In spite of this, some speculate that Mary, like Joseph to whom she was betrothed, was of the House of David and so of the tribe of Judah, and that the genealogy presented in Luke was hers, while Joseph's is given in Matthew. She resided at Nazareth in Galilee, presumably with her parents and during her betrothal-the first stage of a Jewish marriage-the angel Gabriel announced to her that she was to be the mother of the promised Messiah by conceiving him through the Holy Spirit.

When Joseph was told of her conception in a dream by "an angel of the Lord", he was surprised; but the angel told him to be unafraid and take her as his wife, which Joseph did, thereby formally completing the wedding rites.[Mt 1:18-25] Since the angel Gabriel had told Mary (according to Luke)[1:19] that Elizabeth, having previously been barren, was now miraculously pregnant, Mary hurried to visit Elizabeth, who was living with her husband Zechariah in a city of Judah "in the hill country".[Lk 1:39] Once Mary arrived at the house and greeted Elizabeth, Elizabeth proclaimed Mary as "the mother of [her] Lord", and Mary recited a song of thanksgiving commonly known as the Magnificat from its first word in Latin.[Lk 1:46-56] After three months, Mary returned to her house.[Lk 1:56-57] According to the Gospel of Luke, a decree of the Roman emperor Augustus required that Joseph and his betrothed should proceed to Bethlehem for a census.

While they were there, Mary gave birth to Jesus; but because there was no place for them in the inn, she had to use a manger as a cradle.[16]:p.14 [Lk 2:1ff] After eight days, the boy was circumcised according to Jewish law. He was named Jesus in accordance with the instructions that the "angel of the Lord" had given to Joseph after the Annunciation to Mary.[Mt 1:21] [Lu 1:31] These customary ceremonies were followed by Jesus' presentation to the Lord at the Temple in Jerusalem in accordance with the law for firstborn males, then the visit of the Magi, the family's flight into Egypt, their return after the death of King Herod the Great about 2 or 1 BC and taking up residence in Nazareth. [Mt 2] Mary in the life of Jesus Mary is involved in the only event in Jesus' adolescent life that is recorded in the New Testament. At the age of twelve Jesus, having become separated from his parents on their return journey from the Passover celebration in Jerusalem, was found among the teachers in the temple.

:p.210 [Lk 2:41-52] After Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist and his temptations by the devil in the desert, Mary was present when, at her intercession, Jesus worked his first public miracle during the marriage in Cana by turning water into wine.[Jn 2:1-11] Subsequently there are events when Mary is present along with James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, called Jesus' brothers, and unnamed "sisters". [Mt 1:24-25] [12:46] [13:54-56] [27:56] [Mk 3:31] [6:3] [15:40] [16:1] [Jn 2:12] [7:3-5] [Gal 1:19] [Ac 1:14] These passages have been used to challenge the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, however both Catholic and Orthodox churches interpret the words commonly translated "brother" and "sister" as actually meaning close relatives (see Perpetual virginity).

There is also an incident in which Jesus is sometimes interpreted as rejecting his family. "And his mother and his brothers arrived, and standing outside, they sent in a message asking for him[Mk 3:21] ... And looking at those who sat in a circle around him, Jesus said, 'These are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother. [3:31-35] Mary is also depicted as being present during the crucifixion standing near "the disciple whom Jesus loved" along with Mary of Clopas and Mary Magdalene,[Jn 19:25-26] to which list Matthew 27:56 adds "the mother of the sons of Zebedee", presumably the Salome mentioned in Mark 15:40. This representation is called a Stabat Mater. Mary, cradling the dead body of her Son, while not recorded in the Gospel accounts, is a common motif in art, called a "pietà" or "pity". After the Ascension of Jesus In Acts 1:26, especially v.

14, Mary is the only one to be mentioned by name other than the twelve apostles and the candidates of about 120 people gathered, after the Ascension, in the Upper Room on the occasion of the election of Matthias to the vacancy of Judas. (Though it is said that "the women" and Jesus' brothers were there as well, their names are not given.) Some also consider the "chosen lady" mentioned in 2 John 1:1 as Mary. From this time, she disappears from the biblical accounts, although it is held by Catholics that she is again portrayed as the heavenly woman of Revelation.[Rev 12:1] Her death is not recorded in scripture. However, Catholic and Orthodox tradition and doctrine have her assumed (taken bodily) into Heaven. Belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is universal to Catholicism, in both Eastern and Western Catholic Churches, as well as the Eastern Orthodox Church, Coptic Churches, and parts of the Anglican Communion and Continuing Anglican Churches. Later Christian Writings and Traditions According to the apocryphal Gospel of James Mary was the daughter of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne. Before Mary's conception Anna had been barren.

Mary was given to service as a consecrated virgin in the Temple in Jerusalem when she was three years old, much like Hannah took Samuel to the Tabernacle as recorded in the Old Testament. According to Sacred Tradition, Mary died surrounded by the apostles (in either Jerusalem or Ephesus) between three days and 24 years after Christ's ascension. When the apostles later opened her tomb, they found it to be empty and they concluded that she had been assumed into Heaven. Mary's Tomb, an empty tomb in Jerusalem, is attributed to Mary. The Roman Catholic Church teaches Mary's assumption, but does not teach that she necessarily died. The House of the Virgin Mary near Ephesus in Turkey is traditionally considered the place where Mary lived until her assumption. The Gospel of John states that Mary went to live with the Disciple whom Jesus loved,[Jn 19:27] identified as John the Evangelist. Irenaeus and Eusebius of Caesarea wrote in their histories that John later went to Ephesus, which may provide the basis for the early belief that Mary also lived in Ephesus with John.

Christian Devotion Christian devotion to Mary goes back to the 2nd century and predates the emergence of a specific Marian liturgical system in the 5th century, following the First Council of Ephesus in 431. The Council itself was held at a church in Ephesus which had been dedicated to Mary about a hundred years before. In Egypt the veneration of Mary had started in the 3rd century and the term Theotokos was used by Origen, the Alexandrian Father of the Church. The earliest known Marian prayer (the Sub tuum praesidium, or Beneath Thy Protection) is from the 3rd century (perhaps 270), and its text was rediscovered in 1917 on a papyrus in Egypt. Following the Edict of Milan in 313, by the 5th century artistic images of Mary began to appear in public and larger churches were being dedicated to Mary, e.g. S. Maria Maggiore in Rome. Over the centuries, devotion and veneration to Mary has varied greatly among Christian traditions.

For instance, while Protestants show scant attention to Marian prayers or devotions, of all the saints whom the Orthodox venerate, the most honored is Mary, who is considered "more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious than the Seraphim." Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov wrote: "Love and veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the soul of Orthodox piety. A faith in Christ which does not include his mother is another faith, another Christianity from that of the Orthodox church." Although the Catholics and the Orthodox may honor and venerate Mary, they do not view her as divine, nor do they worship her. Catholics view Mary as subordinate to Christ, but uniquely so, in that she is seen as above all other creatures. Similarly Theologian Sergei Bulgakov wrote that although the Orthodox view Mary as "superior to all created beings" and "ceaslessly pray for her intercession" she is not considered a "substitute for the One Mediator" who is Christ. "Let Mary be in honor, but let worship be given to the Lord" he wrote. Similarly, Catholics do not worship Mary, but venerate her.

Catholics use the term hyperdulia for Marian veneration rather than latria that applies to God and dulia for other saints. The definition of the three level hierarchy of latria, hyperdulia and dulia goes back to the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. Devotions to artistic depictions of Mary vary among Christian traditions. There is a long tradition of Roman Catholic Marian art and no image permeates Catholic art as does the image of Madonna and Child. The icon of the Virgin is without doubt the most venerated icon among the Orthodox. Both Roman Catholics and the Orthodox venerate images and icons of Mary, given that the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 permitted their veneration by Catholics with the understanding that those who venerate the image are venerating the reality of the person it represents, and the 842 Synod of Constantinople established the same for the Orthodox. The Orthodox, however, only pray to and venerate flat, two-dimensional icons and not three-dimensional statues.

The Anglican position towards Mary is in general more conciliatory than that of Protestants at large and in a book he wrote about praying with the icons of Mary, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury said: "It is not only that we cannot understand Mary without seeing her as pointing to Christ; we cannot understand Christ without seeing his attention to Mary". Titles of Mary Titles to honor Mary or ask for her intercession are used by some Christian traditions such as the Eastern Orthodox or Catholics, but not others, e.g. the Protestants. Common titles for Mary include Mother of God (Theotokos), The Blessed Virgin Mary (also abbreviated to "BVM"), Our Lady (Notre Dame, Nuestra Señora, Nossa Senhora, Madonna) and the Queen of Heaven (Regina Caeli). Mary is referred to by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Anglican Church, and all Eastern Catholic Churches as Theotokos, a title recognized at the Third Ecumenical Council (held at Ephesus to address the teachings of Nestorius, in 431).

Theotokos (and its Latin equivalents, "Deipara" and "Dei genetrix") literally means "Godbearer". The equivalent phrase "Mater Dei", (Mother of God) is more common in Latin and so also in the other languages used in the Western Catholic Church, but this same phrase in Greek (Μήτηρ Θεοῦ), in the abbreviated form of the first and last letter of the two words (ΜΡ ΘΥ), is the indication attached to her image in Byzantine icons. The Council stated that the Church Fathers "did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God". Some titles have a Biblical basis, for instance the title Queen Mother has been given to Mary since she was the mother of Jesus, who was sometimes referred to as the "King of Kings" due to his lineage of King David. The biblical basis for the term Queen can be seen in the Gospel of Luke 1:32 and the Book of Isaiah 9:6, and Queen Mother from 1 Kings 2:19-20 and Jeremiah 13:18-19.

Other titles have arisen from reported miracles, special appeals or occasions for calling on Mary, e.g. Our Lady of Good Counsel, Our Lady of Navigators or Our Lady of Ransom who protects captives. The three main titles for Mary used by the Orthodox are Theotokos, i.e., Mother of God (Greek Θεοτόκος), Aeiparthenos, i.e. Ever Virgin (Greek ἀειπαρθὲνος), as confirmed in the Fifth Ecumenical Council 553, and Panagia, i.e., All Holy (Greek Παναγία). A large number of titles for Mary are used by Roman Catholics, and these titles have in turn given rise to many artistic depictions, e.g. the title Our Lady of Sorrows has resulted in masterpieces such as Michelangelo's Pietà. Marian feast days (includes lists of feast days) The earliest feasts that relate to Mary grew out of the cycle of feasts that celebrated the Nativity of Jesus.

Given that according to the Gospel of Luke (Luke 2:22-40), forty days after the birth of Jesus, along with the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple Mary was purified according to Jewish customs, the Feast of the Purification began to be celebrated by the 5th century, and became the "Feast of Simeon" in Byzantium. In the 7th and 8th centuries four more Marian feasts were established in the Eastern Church. In the Western Church a feast dedicated to Mary, just before Christmas was celebrated in the Churches of Milan and Ravenna in Italy in the 7th century. The four Roman Marian feasts of Purification, Annunciation, Assumption and Nativity of Mary were gradually and sporadically introduced into England by the 11th century. Over time, the number and nature of feasts (and the associated Titles of Mary) and the venerative practices that accompany them have varied a great deal among diverse Christian traditions. Overall, there are significantly more titles, feasts and venerative Marian practices among Roman Catholics than any other Christians traditions. Some such feasts relate to specific events, e.g.

the Feast of Our Lady of Victory was based on the 1571 victory of the Papal States in the Battle of Lepanto. Differences in feasts may also originate from doctrinal issues - the Feast of the Assumption is such an example. Given that there is no agreement among all Christians on the circumstances of the death, Dormition or Assumption of Mary, the feast of assumption is celebrated among some denominations and not others. While the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Assumption on August 15, some Eastern Catholics celebrate it as Dormition of the Theotokos, and may do so on August 28, if they follow the Julian calendar. The Eastern Orthodox also celebrate it as the Dormition of the Theotokos, one of their 12 Great Feasts. Protestants do not celebrate this, or any other Marian feasts. Christian Doctrines There is significant diversity in the Marian doctrines accepted by various Christian churches. The key Marian doctrines held in Christianity can be briefly outlined as follows: * Mother of God: holds that Mary, as mother of Jesus is therefore Theotokos (God-bearer), or Mother of God.

* Virgin birth of Jesus: states that Mary miraculously conceived Jesus by action of the Holy Spirit while remaining a virgin. * Dormition: the Orthodox understanding of the Assumption. * Assumption: the doctrine which states that Mary was taken bodily into Heaven either at, or before, her death. * Immaculate Conception: states that Mary herself was conceived without original sin. * Perpetual Virginity: holds that Mary remained a virgin all her life, even after the act of giving birth to Jesus.

Question: According to Christian tradition which saint was the mother of the Virgin Mary?
Answer: ANNE