Introduction
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Cambridge University Press 0521581680 - The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England Mary Clayton Excerpt More information Introduction The texts edited in this volume are Old English versions of Latin texts on the birth, childhood, death and assumption of Mary. These Old English texts are late descendants of much older traditions, going back, in the case of the text on Mary's birth and childhood, to the second century after Christ. They are generally classed among the New Testament apocrypha of the Christian church, so called because they are writings associated in some way with the New Testament, either in genre or content. They are, therefore, not part of the canon of the New Testament, in which the Virgin features hardly at all, but they supply what were perceived as gaps in the biblical accounts of Mary. In origin these texts also address christological problems which troubled the contemporary church. Their designation as apocrypha goes back largely to the so-called Gelasian decree, one section of which contains a long list of works to be rejected by the faithful: the origin of this section is disputed, but it seems to have been compiled around 500, perhaps in Italy or Gaul. The list of works forbidden as apocryphal includes a `liber de infantia Saluatoris' and a `liber de natiuitate Saluatoris et de Maria uel obstetrice',1 as well as a `liber qui appellatur Transitus S. Mariae', with textual variants including `adsumptio' and `revelatio'.2 Although the decree does not seem to have 1 DobschuÈtz, ed., Das Decretum Gelasianum, p. 11. DobschuÈtz thinks that the ®rst of these refers to the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the second perhaps a different version of Pseudo- Matthew or a mixed version drawing on Pseudo-Matthew and the De natiuitate Mariae (ibid., pp. 296±7). A translation of the Proteuangelium is more likely, at least for the second text mentioned; the beginning of this deals with Mary's birth and childhood. 2 Ibid., pp. 12 and 203. For a discussion of the transitus texts as apocrypha, see Mimouni, `Les Transitus Mariae sont-ils vraiment des apocryphes?' See also Manns, Le reÂcit, pp. 230±2. 1 © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521581680 - The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England Mary Clayton Excerpt More information Introduction been an of®cial document of the church, it was in¯uential and had an effect on readers of and writers about the apocrypha. Later Western writers, such as Paschasius Radbertus in Carolingian Gaul and álfric in England, show unease about the Marian apocrypha, an attitude they probably derived from the Gelasian decree, but the texts were enormously popular in both the Eastern and Western churches, in¯uencing liturgy, art and literature throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Mimouni suggests that they should be viewed as hagiographic writings3 and such a perspective would better explain their penetration of the liturgy and their survival in large numbers of manuscripts, often legendaries and homili- aries. The manuscript contexts of the Anglo-Saxon texts would certainly also support such a description, as they are found in homiletic and hagiographic collections. The particular circumstances of the origins of the birth and death apocrypha will be treated in more detail in the relevant chapters of this book, but what is striking about both families of texts is the degree to which they are preoccupied with the body of Mary and its foundational role in Christian theology: the divinity can become incarnate in her only if she is a pure virgin, which determines almost all aspects of the stories of Mary's infancy, and since her origins and upbringing `prove' her to be a sinless virgin, then her body has to be spared the ignominy of decaying in the tomb while awaiting the Last Judgement. In this way, Mary offers a model of the recuperated Christian body and the apocrypha are constantly concerned to establish her perfect purity: she is conceived during her father's absence, brought up in the temple, eating only food brought by an angel, and entrusted from there to the care of an old man, before conceiving Jesus miraculously. At her death the fate of her soul is naturally assured and all attention centres on her body; as it is being washed and prepared for burial, it is protected from any impure gaze by a blinding light and is then, in many texts, resurrected and assumed after three days as a sign of its physical perfection. The corruption attendant on sin is inappropriate for this extraordinary body. The apocryphal treatments of Mary's origin and end are modelled on that of Christ and of other biblical ®gures. The texts most in¯uential on the accounts of Mary's birth and childhood include the canonical infancy gospels, while Old Testament accounts are also heavily drawn upon. Mary's 3 Mimouni, `Les Transitus Mariae sont-ils vraiment des apocryphes?' p. 128. 2 © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521581680 - The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England Mary Clayton Excerpt More information Introduction birth is miraculous, although not to the same degree as Christ's, and it is announced in advance to her parents by an angel, just as Christ's birth was announced to her. Pagan in¯uences have been detected also, especially from the cult of Cybele, and it has been argued that the aim of the author of the ®rst of these texts, the Proteuangelium, was to elevate Mary to the level of the virgin-goddesses of the Greco-Roman world.4 After her death, also preceded by an Annunciation scene modelled on that preceding the Incarnation, Mary generally spends three days in the tomb (a new tomb, like that of Christ, in many of the texts) before being resurrected (in some texts only) and assumed from the site of the tomb, the Mount of Olives, the same place from where Christ ascended. Her death is attended by hostilities on the part of the Jews, again probably modelled on the circumstances of Christ's death. Just as Christ descended into hell after his death, so the accounts of Mary's death originally included an account of her being brought to view hell. The birth story of John the Baptist and the death of John the Evangelist, also thought by many to have been assumed, were important too in the development of the Marian legends.5 This volume contains editions of three Old English texts and three Latin texts preserved in manuscripts from Anglo-Saxon England. The Old English texts are a version of part of the Latin Gospel of Pseudo- Matthew, of the assumption narrative known as Transitus B2 or the Transitus of Pseudo-Melito and a composite account, combining most of Transitus W with a different translation of the end of Transitus B2. The Latin texts are a translation of part of the Greek Proteuangelium, a version of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and a version of Transitus W. They are valuable indications of the kinds of Latin texts circulating in Anglo- Saxon England, many others of which must have been lost. No text of Transitus B survives in a manuscript from Anglo-Saxon England, although it was known in England from at least the time of Bede and was used as source for two of the vernacular homilies. As it is dif®cult to obtain, I have, with the kind permission of the Ponti®cia Academia Mariana Internationalis, included a copy of Haibach-Reinisch's edition of this version, without apparatus or notes. 4 See S. Benko, The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology, Studies in the History of Religions 59 (Leiden, 1993), pp. 196±206. 5 On the death of John the Evangelist, see the appendix `La mort et l'assomption de saint Jean l'EvangeÂliste' in Jugie, La mort, pp. 708±26. 3 © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521581680 - The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England Mary Clayton Excerpt More information Introduction There is also in Old English a version of a further part of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, in a Christmas homily known as Vercelli VI, dealing with the miracles on the ¯ight into Egypt. I have not included this here, partly because of the recent edition of the Vercelli Book by Donald Scragg,6 but also because, due to a lacuna in the manuscript, the part of this homily dependent on Pseudo-Matthew is fragmentary and Mary's role is not prominent. I have also not edited, though I have quoted in full, the highly condensed account of Mary's birth and childhood in the Old English Martyrology, even though this is drawn exclusively from the Pseudo-Matthew.7 Again, there is an excellent modern edition of this text and the Martyrology's account is an abbreviation rather than a translation. Three anonymous Old English homilies include an account of an episode which appears to be drawn ultimately from an apocalypse of Mary, in which Mary, Michael and the apostles, after Mary's assumption, are taken to view hell, where they plead for the sinners imprisoned there. Such episodes are originally found attached to transitus texts and are later found as self-contained apocalypses. Again, these texts are not edited here, as the Old English treatments are abbreviated, isolated incidents, set into a different context, and I have discussed them elsewhere.8 The sigla used for the manuscripts containing the Old English texts are those devised by Scragg for the anonymous homilies, `designed to show both the relation between manuscripts in respect of their anony- mous content and the importance of individual manuscripts in the information they offer on the early tradition'.9 Although all of the Old English texts have been edited already,10 only 6 The Vercelli Homilies.