The Lost Gospel of Mary:  The Mother of Jesus in Three Ancient Texts
© 2012 Frederica Mathewes-Green
178 pages

We are presently in the season of Advent,  an ideal time to take a look at a question of mine: how do the  Orthodox approach Mary?  I know she’s held in some regard in the Orthodox traditions, because I’ve heard an exquisitely beautiful canon devoted to her.  Frederica Mathews-Greene has been my guide to the Orthodox  before,  so I began this with great interest and was not disappointed. It is not a full book on Mary; instead,  it introduces three ‘texts’ — a Gospel of Mary, a 3rd century prayer, and a similarly ancient hymn —  that indicate that Marian devotion is not a not western Catholic novelty, but  rather part of the early Christian experience which later became exaggerated or ignored altogether by later  traditions.  Mathewes-Green  joins these materials together with historical and theological commentary,  after a clarifying introduction which reveals this Gospel was not “lost”, but simply unknown to the western church.

The Gospel of Mary has the most substance, so I’ll  render a quick precis:  Mary is born after her aging parents, remorseful about their lack of progeny, pledge any child born to God’s service.   Mary is born and enters the service of the Temple at age three,  working there until she nears puberty at which point the priests are commanded by God to summon the area’s widowers to the temple.  Joseph is among that number, and is barked by a dove to be her husband.  Although he has second thoughts when she confesses that’s she’s pregnant, a dream of God assures him that all is well, and he stands by her when the community  tries them for sin.  They survive the trial,  and enroute to Bethlehem for the tax business,  Mary gives birth in a cave.  Jesus is then hidden in an ox manger from  King Herod, who was warned that the king of the Jews had just been born. His cousin John the Baptist is hidden in a mountain, while John’s father is murdered for refusing to say anything.

There are several parallels in the Gospel of Mary to other stories  Christians would be familiar with; a midwife not believing Mary’s virginity until she’d personally tested  it with her hands recalls  Thomas’ doubt in the Resurrection stories, and  Frederica points out that a shrouded baby in a cave  carries far more meaning when the reader looks ahead to see that same body,  again shrouded, again in a cave some thirty-three years later.  As much as I value learning how old Mary’s place among Christian devotion is — regarding her with protective affection, then as an elder sister  — I also enjoyed Mathews-Green’s commentary in general.

I was thinking of accompanying this with Brad Pitre’s Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, but  at the moment I’m more focused on Brothers Karamazov. Perhaps next year..