The chronology of Matthew and the chro nology of Luke, the only evangelists who give an account of the events immediately preceding and immediately following the birth of Christ, are at first sight somewhat confusing, but they are not conflicting, and are quite capable of reconcilement, although in this case, as in so many others, the reconcilement will not wholly square with the popular belief.
After the return to Nazareth, Mary makes but few appearances in the Gospel narrative. We learn that she and Joseph went every year to Jerusalem at the solemn day of the pasdi, and that on one of those occasions they lost Jesus, who was then 12 years old, and did not find him until after a three days' search. We next find her at the marriage feast at Cana in Galilee, where Jesus, at her request, performed his first public miracle by changing water into wine. After this she accompanied Jesus to Capharnaum. Once the mother and brethren of Jesus sought to speak to him, but could not reach him for the crowd. During the passion, Mary stood by the cross of Jesus on Calvary, and from the cross Jesus commended her to John, who from that hour took her to his own. The last mention of her in the New Testament occurs in the Acts of the Apostles i, 14, where it is written that, between Ascension and Pente cost, the apostles were in an upper room in Jerusalem persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. After that time we have no certain information as to where she lived, nor do we know when and where she died. One tradition says that she lived with Saint John at Ephesus and died there; another, that she lived and died at Jerusalem. Baronius, in his gives the date of her death as A.D. 48. In fixing that year he relied on a pas sage in the of Eusebius; but there is grave doubt as to the genuineness of that passage in the and the present tendency is to regard it as a later interpola tion. The general, perhaps even universal, be lief among Catholics is that after her death Mary's body, as well as her soul, was assumed into heaven; but this bodily assumption has not yet been made a matter of faith. The Catholic Church teaches that Mary was conceived with out original, or racial, sin; that she never corn mitted actual, or personal, sin; that she was truly the mother of God; and that she always remained a virgin. The doctrine of the Im
maculate Conception (q.v.) was not explicitly discussed until the 12th century; but it is claimed that it is implicitly contained in the teachings of the early Fathers of the Church. The festival of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin was certainly celebrated in the Greek Church in the 7th century. It was possibly kept in Spain in the same century. It was ob served in Ireland as early as 900, in parts of Italy before 1000, and in England, France and Germany in the 12th century. ,Saint Bernard, himself ai devout client of Mary, upbraided the canons of Lyons for instituting (1140) such a festival without the sanction of the Holy See. He himself did not admit that her conception was sinless. Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican, and Saint Bonaventura, the Fran ciscan, hesitated to accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception on the ground that, un less Mary had been at•some time one of the sinful, she could not truly be said to have been redeemed by Christ. John Duns Scotus, the Franciscan, put forward, on the other hand, the doctrine of preredemption. He held that it was as high a tribute to the merits of Christ to assert that Mary was by Him kept free froM all taint of original sin, as to say that she first contracted sin and was subsequently delivered from it. This view, at first seriously and even angrily contested, gradually spread, and gathered force and momentum with the progress of time. The Council of Trent de clared that in its decrees on original sin it did not include "the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God." At length Pope Pius IX, on 8 Dec. 1854, promulgated the Bull, Ineffabilir Deus, in which is given the authori tative definition, as follows. "We define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Vir gin Mary, from the first instant of her concep tion, was, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the human race, pre served from all stain of original sin, is a doc trine revealed by God, and therefore to be firmly and steadfastly believed by all the faith ful." The dogma of the Immaculate Concep tion is rejected by the general body of Protes tantism, by many schismatics, and by the sect known as Old Catholics-.