We must now glance at the Jewish and Mo hammedan traditions respecting her.
We have already a hint during our Lord's ministry of the Jewish calumnies as to his birth. We be not born of fornication' ( John viii. 41), seems to be an insinuation on their parts that he was. This is one of the charges on the part of Celsus that Origen had to refute. Celsus not only states that her husband the carpenter had to put her away for adultery, but he gives the name of the adulterer, speaking of Mary as rinrovo-a ea-6 TWOS o-rparubron VnvOipa -roifvoAct. Lightfoot quotes the same story from the Talmudists (Hebrew and Tal mud Exercitat., Matt. xxvii. 56), who, he says, often vilify her under the name of Satdah, and repeats a story in which she is called Mary the daughter of Heli, and is represented as hanging in torment among the damned, with the great bar of hell's gate hung at her ear (ibid., Luke iii. 23). Similar charges may be found in the Historic yeschua. Naza reni, by Huldric (Leyden 1705), and are well re futed by Wagenseil, in his Tela Ignea Salance hoc est arcani et horribilesadversus Christum Deum et Clzris tianam religionem ANEKAOTOI, Altdorf 1631. The most formal set of accusations against Mary are to be found in a work entitled Toldoa 7esu, which was at one time supposed to be of verygreat antiquity. But Wagenseil has proved it to be a composition of the 13th century. It makes Mary the wife of a good man named Johanan, residing at Bethlehem, and states that she was deceived in the dark by one Joseph Pandera, who pretended to be her husband. Johanan, though advised by Rabbi Simeon to bring his wife before the Sanhedrin, fled with her to Babylon, where she had a son, Jehoshua, who dis covered the art of working miracles by stealing the knowledge of the sacred name from the temple, but being defeated by the superior art of a certain Juda, was crucified, and his body hidden under a water course.
The Mohammedan traditions, on the contrary, treat Mary with the greatest respect. One chapter of the Koran is inscribed with her name, and several others speak not only of her birth, but also of the circumstances which preceded it, of her edu cation in the house of Zacharias and in the temple, and of the miraculous birth of her son. Hossain Vaez, commenting on the Koran, informs us that every child coming into the world is handled and squeezed by the devil until it cries, and that Mary and her son Jesus are the only ones that were pre served from this diabolical handling. an opinion
curiously in accordance with the modern doctrine of the immaculate conception. He also tells us that Anna, the mother of Mary, had devoted her daughter to God from before her birth, and that when she presented her in the temple she said usina the words of the Koran—' Behold the ore sent which I make you, a present from which God is to proceed.' He says that God named her Miriam, a servant of God, and that Zacharias—her appointed guardian—kept her in a chamber of the temple, which was only accessible by a ladder, and of which he always kept the key, and that he fre quently paid her visits, and always found her furnished with the finest fruits of the Holy Land, and when he asked her where they came from, Mary replied, All that you see comes from God, who bestows all things without reckoning and with out number on those on whom he wills.' The Koran appears to confound her with Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, and the commentators on the Koran note the mistake, and try lamely enough to explain it away by saying that Joachim or Amram, the father of the virgin, was the son of Mattheus, and consequently a different person from Amram the father of Moses and Aaron. The Mohammedans accuse the Christians of making Mary the third person of the Trinity. D'Herbelot says that this mistake arises from the Eastern Christians calling her Al Seidat (the lady), and from St. Cyril's having said that she was the complement or supplement of the Trinity.
The Church of Rome must not be charged, except indirectly, with a]] the extravagances which have been held and taught by her members respect ing the Virgin Mary. These vain stories and notions were introduced at a very early date, and for several centuries the authority of the papal chair was exercised for their repression. But age after age fresh stories were invented, fresh pre tended revelations were received, and these gave rise to fresh dissensions and fresh appeals to authority, and at length Rome gave way under the pressure of the popular opinion. This will best appear ii tracing the history of the several festivals which have been instituted in honour of the Virgin Mary.