[Frederica-l] "Lost Gospel of Mary: The Mother of Jesus in Three Ancient Texts"

[Frederica at aol.com]

My new book, "The Lost Gospel of Mary: The Mother of Jesus in Three Ancient 
Texts," will be coming soon from Paraclete Press -- official release date is 
March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, but I was told that they'd have it on 
hand starting today. On my web page you can read an excerpt and description and 
blurbs, and click through to the Amazon page: 

http://www.frederica.com/books/

(The Amazon entry has an earlier version of the subtitle, "The Theotokos 
in...", and we're trying to get this corrected.) 

I know "Lost Gospel" sounds like a surprising title. One of my goals is to 
recover for Christian use a few of the wide range of documents that Christian 
believers cherished in the early centuries. These works weren't regarded as 
Scripture, but they filled a worthy supplemental role. They can be compared to the 
sort of thing found in a Christian bookstore today: commentaries on 
Scripture, histories, prayer collections, inspiring letters, hymns, poetry, and 
life-story narratives (or "gospels") of heroic Christians. 

The one I'm calling "The Gospel of Mary" is a narrative about the Virgin Mary 
that seems to have been passed along orally for some time before taking 
written form prior to AD 150. So it is surprisingly early, especially if you think 
that interest in the Virgin Mary began around the year 1200. In fact, this 
story was *extremely* popular among early Christians in Asia and Africa, and 
scores of ancient copies have been found, in 8 languages. (Not in Latin, however, 
till the 16th century; it was rejected by a pope and so got "lost" to Western 
Christians.) It's a charming tale, simply told, with a "folk" quality. It 
begins with Mary's elderly parents mourning their childlessness, and concludes 
soon after Jesus' birth. It's natural that the first followers of Jesus would 
want to know more about his background and earthly life, and this "Gospel of 
Mary" provided what we could call a "prequel." 

Is it historically reliable? Some of it is, no doubt; in a culture that laid 
so much emphasis on preserving genealogy, for example, there's no reason to 
reject the information that her parents were named Joachim and Anna. And, given 
how many miracles are in the biblical Gospels, it's reasonable that miracles 
could have begun even earlier, just as they continued later and even till this 
day. Nevertheless, even though the early Christians cherished this story, they 
didn't include it in the New Testament (even though they did accept the 
Epistle of James, and the author of this gospel claims to be the same James. Early 
Christians must have had some doubts about that authorship.) But, questions of 
historicity aside, it was loved for depicting the many ways Mary fulfilled 
elements foreshadowed in the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, that she becomes 
the new "Ark of the Covenant," holding within her body the salvation sent by 
God. 

So my book provides a fresh translation of this "Lost Gospel," along with an 
introduction and commentary. Two other early Christian documents about Mary 
are also included. The prayer "Under Your Compassion" was found on a small scrap 
of papyrus and dated at AD 250; it is the earliest recorded prayer addressed 
to Mary, and still used in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches (we'll 
sing it tonight night at Vespers). And the "Annunciation Hymn" (also called 
the "Akathist Hymn"), written by the Syrian poet St. Romanos around AD 250, 
pours out praise and wonder at Mary's role in Christ's Incarnation. These three 
texts show us 3 ways that the early Christians saw Mary: they felt great 
affection for her, they valued her as a prayer warrior, and they celebrated her role 
in God's plan of salvation. I hope by understanding how they saw her, you 
will get to know and love Mary better, too. 

here's the URL to the excerpt pasted in below:

http://www.frederica.com/writings/the-lost-gospel-of-mary-who-was-she.html

********
The Beloved Virgin Mary

Who was she? 

It is hard to see Mary clearly, beneath the conflicting identities she has 
borne over the centuries. To one era she is the flower of femininity, and to 
another the champion of feminism; in one age she is the paragon of obedience, and 
in another the advocate of liberation. Some enthusiasts have been tempted to 
pile her status so high that it rivals that of her Son. Others, aware that 
excessive adulation can be dangerous, do their best to ignore her entirely. 

Behind all that there is a woman nursing a baby. The child in her arms looks 
into her eyes. Years later he will look at her from the cross, through a haze 
of blood and sweat. We do not know, could not comprehend, what went through 
his mind during those hours of cosmic warfare. But from a moment in the St. John’
s account of the Crucifixion we know that, whatever else he thought, he 
thought about her. He asked his good friend John to take care of her. He wanted 
John to become a son to her—to love her the way he did. 

It is not surprising that those who, in St. Paul’s words, put on “the mind 
of Christ” would discover that they loved her too. Though we may picture the 
love of Mary as a medieval development, it actually goes back to the faith’s 
early days. Those first generations of Christians did not include Mary in their 
public preaching of the gospel; they did not expose her to the gaze of the 
world. (Likewise, a celebrity today will object if reporters take photos of his 
family.) But when believers were gathered together in their home community, 
there Mary was cherished. As new members were brought into the Body of Christ, 
they would also begin to share in the love the Christ Child had for his Mother. 

How can we know her the way they did? Our primary source of information about 
Mary is the Scriptures, of course, but the few passages about her have been 
so burdened by competing interpretations that they spark more argument than 
illumination. Just beyond that center, however, there is a wealth of other 
materials that were embraced by the early Christians. You could think of it as 
analogous to the materials found today in a Christian bookstore: stories, prayers, 
artworks, and songs that help enrich the life of faith. By looking at 
materials pertaining to Mary that were popular in those first centuries, we can learn 
something about how the early Christians viewed her. 

In fact, their viewpoint is valuable whenever we seek to understand 
Scripture. Not because these early Christians were necessarily smarter or holier than 
we are, but because they had this practical advantage: they were still living 
in the culture that produced the Christian Scriptures. The Greek of the New 
Testament was their daily business language. They lived in the Middle East, or 
along its gossipy trade routes. Their parents or great-grandparents had been 
alive when Christ walked the earth. The history of these things was the history 
of their backyard, and some things that scholars now struggle to comprehend 
were as familiar and obvious as their own kitchen table. 

And from the first they loved Mary—freely, deeply, and some way 
instinctively. This can puzzle some contemporary Christians, living as they do on the other 
side of centuries of controversy over Mary. It is my hope that, as we stand 
behind these fervent Christians and peer over their shoulders, we will be able 
to see what they see, and come to love her too.

We’ll do that by reading three ancient texts about Mary. In each case we’ll 
begin with some historic background, and then move to consider theological and 
cultural questions (sometimes, uncomfortable questions) that the document 
raises, before entering the complete text. 

The first work is a “Gospel,” or a narrative of Mary’s life, which begins 
with her conception by her mother, Anna, and continues through the birth of 
Jesus. It provided a kind of “prequel” to the biblical Gospels, and was extremely 
popular. It was in written form by AD 150, but I suspect that (like the 
biblical Gospels) it collected stories that were previously in oral circulation. 

If these stories were originally passed along orally, we have no way of 
knowing how far back they might go. We can know at least that we are in the company 
of Christians who lived during the era of persecutions, and well before the 
New Testament was given final form. Yet they were already enthusiastically in 
love with Mary. This book was circulated widely and embraced warmly, and its 
popularity is reflected in the unusually high number of ancient copies and 
translations that have been found. 

Scholars know this text by the modern title bestowed by a sixteenth-century 
translator: the Protevangelium of James. The ancient church knew it by a number 
of different titles, most including a reference to James as its source. I 
have called it the Gospel of Mary because today we expect a title to identify a 
work’s contents, rather than its author. (We’ll explain the use of Lost later 
on.) 

The second text is a very brief prayer to Mary, found on a scrap of papyrus 
in Egypt about a hundred years ago. The artifact is dated at AD 250, though (as 
above) the prayer itself is probably older; the papyrus just represents one 
time it got written down. 

This is the oldest known prayer to Mary. It begins with “Under your 
compassion . . .,” and is still in use. In the Roman Catholic Church it is called “Sub 
tuum praesidium,” and in the Eastern Orthodox Church it is among the closing 
prayers of the evening services. 

The third text is a lengthy, complex, and beautiful hymn written by the 
deacon and hymnographer St. Romanos, who was born in Syria about AD 475. This is 
the best-known of his works, and is regularly cited as the highest achievement 
of Byzantine Christian poetry. Eastern Christians are familiar with it as the 
Akathist Hymn, and they sing it during Lent, near the March 25 feast of the 
Annunciation (that is, the Angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would 
conceive a son). Here I am calling it the Annunciation Hymn, again with the aim 
of identifying its contents. 

Many Western Christians are unfamiliar with Mary, and somewhat leery of her; 
they suspect that it’s possible for devotion to her to get out of hand, and 
even eclipse the honor due to God. It is true that, over time and in other 
lands, praise of the Virgin that had been intended as lovingly poetic developed 
into something more literal, and consequently less healthy. 

In Europe from the twelfth century on, strains of Marian devotion were 
arising that held that she could manipulate or even overrule her Son, that he was 
perpetually enraged but she was merciful, that she could work miracles by her 
own magical powers, that mechanical repetition of prayers to her guaranteed 
salvation, and that she had facilitated Christ’s work by her presence at the 
Crucifixion. The effects of these mistaken ideas lingered for centuries, and have 
not been wholly eliminated. 

But, as we will see, the early Middle-Eastern church is not the medieval 
European church. All that sad confusion lay a thousand years from the time of the 
first love-notes to Mary, the time that we are entering now.



********
Frederica Mathewes-Green
www.frederica.com
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