THE GOSPEL OF THE BIRTH OF MARY

CHAPTER 1


1. The parentage of Mary. 7. Joachim her father, and Anna her mother, go to Jerusalem to the feast of dedication. 9. Issachar the high priest reproaches Joachim for being childless.

1. The blessed and ever glorious Virgin Mary, descended from the royal race and family of David, was born in the city of Nazareth and educated at Jerusalem in the temple of the Lord.

From the earliest Church times this Gospel (or one bearing this name) was attributed to St. Matthew and received as authentic by some but not all of the ancient Christian communities. A few clearly corrupted copies were in circulation, for the sect of the Collyridians imagined that Mary herself was born of a virgin, and they established the worship and offering of manchet bread and cracknels, or fine wafers, as sacrifices to her. (The relatively recent Roman Catholic dogma in 1952 of the Immaculate Conception affirms only that Mary was conceived without Original Sin by a special grace of God, not that she herself was born of a virgin. The Eastern Orthodox Church never believed in this doctrine as stated, but only that Mary lived without actual sin. However, the whole Church has always believed emphatically in the Virgin Birth of Christ.)
This translation is made from a copy in the works of Jerome, a Church Father in the fourth century. His contemporary, Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, also mentions a gospel under this title.


From a corrupted copy, a native of Britain named Faustus who became Bishop of Riez in Provence, endeavored to prove that Christ was not the Son of God until after his baptism, and that he was not of the house of David and the tribe of Judah, because, according to the version of this gospel he cited, the Virgin herself was not of this tribe, but of the tribe of Levi; her father being priest of the name of Joachim.
Jerome's copy is considered the most accurate; thus it begins with the synopsis, "The blessed and ever glorious Virgin Mary, descended from the royal race and family of David, was born in the city of Nazareth and educated at Jerusalem in the temple of the Lord."

2. Her father's name was Joachim, and her mother's name was Anna. The family of her father was of Galilee and the city of Nazareth. The family of her mother was of Bethlehem.

Because Jesus is the Son of God (God the Son), the Church considers it theologically proper to call Mary "the Mother of God." The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates her as "the Theotokos, the Birth-Giver of God." In the same vein, its Liturgy of Preparation commemorates "the holy and righteous Ancestors of God, Joachim and Anna."

3. Their lives were plain and right in the sight of the Lord, pious and faultless before men. For they divided all their substance into three parts:
This does not necessarily mean three equal parts.

4. One of which they devoted to the temple and officers of the temple; another they distributed among strangers and persons in poor circumstances; and the third they reserved for themselves and the uses of their own family.

5. In this manner they lived for about twenty years chastely, in the favor of God and the esteem of men, without any children.
"...they lived for about twenty years chastely." That is, devoutly and in marital fidelity. If it meant without sexual relations, their vow "that if God should favor them with any offspring" (verse 6) would be an unreasonable expectation.

6. But they vowed that if God should favor them with any offspring, they would devote it to the service of the Lord; on which account they went at every feast in the year to the temple of the Lord.

7. [New paragraph in the oldest extant manuscripts] And it came to pass that when the feast of the dedication drew near, Joachim, with others of his tribe, went up to Jerusalem, and at that time Issachar was high priest;

The Old Testament festivals of the Jewish calendar are: the Feast of Passover, held on the fourteenth of the first month, Abib (April) and commemorates the Exodus from Egypt; it is mentioned in Leviticus 23:6, Numbers 9:5, Joshua 5:10, 2 Kings 23:22, 2 Chronicles 35:1, Matthew 26:17, Luke 2:41 and 22:15, and Hebrews 11:28.


The Feast of Pentecost, held at the end of the wheat harvest, the sixth of the third month, Sivan (June), commemorates the giving of the Law; it is mentioned in Exodus 23:16 and 34:22, Leviticus 23:16, Numbers 28:26, Deuteronomy 16:10, and Acts 2:1.


The Feast of Trumpets, held the first of the seventh month, Ethanim (October), is mentioned in Leviticus 23:24, Numbers 29:1,, and Nehemiah 8:2.

The Feast of Tabernacles, held from the fifteenth to the twenty-second of the seventh month, Ethanim (October), when the people dwelt in booths to commemorate life in the wilderness and thanksgiving for the harvest; it is mentioned in Leviticus 23:34,39, Numbers 29:12, Deuteronomy 16:13, 2 Chronicles 8:13, Ezra 3:4, Nehemiah 8:14, Zechariah 14:16, and John 7:2.


The Feast of Purim, held the fourteenth and fifteenth of the twelfth month, Adar (March), commemorates the deliverance of the Jews from Haman; it is mentioned in Esther 9:17,22 and 26.
However, the Feast of Dedication mentioned here in the Gospel of the Birth of Mary, held the twenty-fifth of the ninth month, Chisien (December), commemorates an event found only in the Apocrypha -- the reconsecration of the Temple at Jerusalem after its pollution by the Syrians. It is mentioned in the Bible only in John 10:22.

8. Who, when he saw Joachim along with the rest of his neighbors, bringing his offering, despised both him and his offerings, and asked him,
9. Why he, who had no children, would presume to appear among those who had? Adding, that his offerings could never be acceptable to God, who had judged him unworthy to have children; for the Scripture said, Cursed is every one who shall not beget a male in Israel.
10. He further said that he ought first to be free from that curse by begetting some offspring and then come with his offerings into the presence of God.
11. But Joachim, being much confounded with the shame of such reproach, retired to the shepherds, who wee with the cattle in their pastures;
12. For he was not inclined to return home, for fear that his neighbors, who were present and heard all this from the high-priest, should publicly reproach him in the same manner.

It is difficult for us to imagine how infertility should cause such shame, but among the Jews it was considered a curse, as attested to by the following references: "But Sarai (Sarah, wife of Abraham) was barren; she had no child" (Genesis 11:30); "And Abram (Abraham) said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless... Behold, to me thou hast given no seed..." (Genesis 15:2,3); "And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manosah; and his wife was barren, and bare not" (Judges 13:2); "And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hanna had no children" (1 Samuel 1:2); "Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death" (2 Samuel 6:23); "And he said, What then is to be done for her? And Gehazi answered, Verily she hath no child, and her husband is old" (2 Kings 4:14); "And they (Elizabeth and Zacharias, parents of John the Baptist) had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years" (Luke 1:7).

This Old Testament curse is the rationale behind the taunt made to Jesus in Luke 20:27-33: "Then came to him certain of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection; and they asked him, saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If any man's brother die, having a wife, and he die without children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. There were therefore seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and died without children. And the second took her to wife, and he died childless. And the third took her; and in like manner the seven also: and they left no children, and died. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she?"