INTERNATIONALE or INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN'S ASSOCIATION.
MARY (Gk. Maptdy, Mariam, Maple, Maria, from lleb. .11 iryu in, of uncertain etymology), TuE ..)lorttlia OF JESt's. Apart from what is contained in the narratives of Jesus' birth and childhood (Matt. i.-ii.; Luke i.-ii.), very little is told of Mary in the New Testament. If the genealogy in Luke iii. 23-38 is intended to be that of Mary (which is doubtful), she was descended from David. She was also related to the priestly family to which Elisabeth, mother of John the Baptist, belonged (see Luke i. 5, 36). After her betrothal to Joseph, a carpenter of Nazareth in Galilee, but before her marriage, she was in formed in an angelic vision that she would through miraculous conception give birth to a son who should reign on the Davidic throne and be called the Son of the Highest (Luke i. 26-38). Time marriage to Joseph took place. Jesus, her firstborn son, was horn at Bethlehem, whither she had gone with Joseph in consequence of a census decreed by Augustus (Luke ii. 1-6). Compelled to flee into Egypt with the infant Jesus, Joseph and Mary returned to .Nazareth after the death of Herod the Great (Matt. ii. 13-23). here some have believed that other children, Jesus' brothers and sisters (cf. Mark vi. 3; Matt. xiii. 55), were born; though the belief in her perpetual virginity has been a part of traditional theology from the earliest times. Soon after Jesus began His pub lic ministry the family—Joseph was apparently dead—moved to C'apernam» (John ii. 12; cf. Matt. iv. 13, ix. 1). To what extent Mary ac companied Jesus on His journeys we do not know. That she did not fully comprehend the mission of her son is evident front John ii. 4, if not from Mark iii. 31-35 (ef. Luke ii. 48-49). She witnessed the crucifixion and was then intrusted by Jesus to the care of John, the beloved disciple, who gave her a place in his home (John xix. 25 2i ). The last notice of Mary in the New Testa ment is in Acts i. 14, where she is mentioned as one of the company of disciples who were accustomed to meet in the upper room in Jeru salem soon after the Resurrection.
No more than this is told of her in the New Testament; but the tradition of the Christian Church added considerably to it. There grew up a literature, partly apocryphal (see APOCRYPHA), dealing with her infancy and childhood, with her espousal to Joseph, and with the birth and in famy of Jesus, and with her death and assump tion into heaven. The more her position in the
scheme of redemption vms meditated upon, the more important did she appear. The frequent controversies as to the nature of her Son bore upon her own personality and history; thus the Council of Ephesus (431) really summed up its doctrine against Nestorius in calling Mary the `mother of ( (Ocor6Kos). Festivals celebrated in her honor increased in number; among the older ones, some of which date back to the fifth century, are the Purification, February 2; An mitciatioe. March 25; Assumption, August 15; Nativity, September 8; and Conception, Deeem ber S. The devotion to her not simply as an historical memory, but as a living power, owing to the prevailing force of her intereession with her Son, became so marked in course of time that it was one of the things against which the re formers of the sixteenth century strongly pro tested. It continued to develop, however, in the Roman Catholic Church, and found expression, among many other ways, in the definition in 185-1 of her conception as immaculate, or free front the taint of original sin; and the prayer in which her intercession is invoked (see AVE MARIA) became second only to the Lord's Prayer in frequency of use. Many of the shrines erected in her honor, at places supposed to have been consecrated by apparitions of her presence, have become among the must celebrated pilgrim age places. (in this aspect of the devotion see the articles EiNstEDELN: and eonsult Northcote, Celebrated Sanctuaries of the Ma donna (Loudon, 1868) ; 11udniki, Die beriihnites tcnllfahrlsorte der Bole (Paderborn, 1391). For the subject in general, consult the immense collection of documents in Bourass(2, sunina Aural de Leudibus Beata. Maria' Virginis (13 vols., Paris, 1866 et seq.) ; Schaff, ('rods of Christendom (New York, 1890) ; Kurz, ilari ologie (Regensburg, 1881) ; Lehner, Die Maricn rerchrung la den ersten Jahrhunderten (2d ed., Stuttgart, 1886) ; Jameson, Legends of the Ma donna (London, 1852) ; Northcote, Mary in the Gospels (ih., 1885) ; Newman, Dcrc/opne»t of Christian Doctrine ( ib., 1345).
On the narratives of the infancy of Jesus in the Gospels, consult Reset), "Das Kindheitsevan gelium," in Gebhardt and Ilarnack, Teste and Untersuchungen (Leipzig. 1897) t Ramsay, ll'as Jesus Born in. Bethlehem I (London, 1893). See also ASSUlirTION OF THE VIRGIN; IMMACULATE CONCEPTION; ROSARY; MADONNA.