III. ANNA, the Mother of the Blessed Virgin, and Wife to Joachim. The names of Anna and Joachim are not to be met with in the Canonical Scriptures of the New Testament, but they are in books of good antiquity, which indeed are of no great authority, particularly in the Western Church, yet deserve some respect. We see them quoted in the writings of the Fathers. The tradition of the Church has preserved the names of Anna and Joachim; and hath paid suitable honours to their memory, notwithstanding that it hath not adopted every story of their lives, which has been published by the zeal of some ignorant persons. Whatever we know of Joachim and Anna, is handed down to us from the Christians of the East, who have preserved several historical traditions, which the Christians of the West were strangers to.
We read in the Protevangelium, or preparatory Gospel , whereof S. James is said to be the author1, that Joachim intending once upon some solemn day to present his offering in the Temple, was prevented by a Jew, whose name was Reuben; this man told him that it was not lawful for him to do it, because he had no posterity in Israel. Joachim, upon this, was in a great deal of confusion, and retired into the Wilderness, where he continued for forty days and forty nights in fasting and prayer. His Wife Anna stayed at home, afflicting herself before God, upon the account of her own barrenness, and the absence of her Husband Joachim. Upon some great festival day, Judith her maid-servant said to her, How long will you continue thus sorrowful? It is not lawful for you upon this day to afflict yourself; for it is the great day of the Lord. Take this head-dress and wear it; for it does not become me to put it on, who am your servant; but you it does, who are of royal extraction. Anna replied, Be gone, I will not, for the Lord hath humbled me. Her maid was provoked with this answer, and reproached her with her barrenness. Anna upon this laid aside her mourning, dressed her head, and put on her wedding-clothes.
About the ninth hour she came into her garden, and began to beg of God that he would vouchsafe to bless her, and deliver her from the ignominy of barrenness; and as she was thus at her devotions under a lawrel-tree, she look’d up and saw a bird’s nest with young ones in it. This object encreased her grief; she cried unto the Lord, and complained bitterly that she continued barren, while animals of all kinds produced their young, and the earth brought forth its fruit in season, and blessed the Creator. I am, says she, as one who is accursed in Israel: I am reviled, and covered with confusion, and driven from the Temple of my God. To what can I compare myself?
Hereupon, an Angel descended from Heaven, and said to her, Anna, God hath heard your prayer; you shall conceive and bear a Child, and your generation shall be praised throughout all the world. Anna answered, As the Lord my God liveth, if he give me either Son or Daughter, I will consecrate him to the Lord, and he shall serve in his Temple all the days of his life. At the same time two Angels came and declared to her, that God had heard Joachim’s prayer, and that he should return very soon with his flocks. Accordingly, he returned from the mountains, and Anna went to meet him. Some few days after she conceived, and at the end of nine months brought forth Mary, and suckled her with her own milk. At six months old Mary began to go alone; and at the year’s end Anna weaned her, made a great entertainment for the Priests, and offered Mary to them. The Child continued still two years in her Father’s house, and when she was three years old, Joachim and Anna presented her in the Temple, to be brought up and serve the Lord there. This is what we read of Joachim and Anna, in S. James’s Preparatory Gospel.
Mahomet in the Alcoran2, and other Arabians, have preserved several traditions relating to Joachim, Anna, and Mary their Daughter. They say that Anna was the Daughter of Nahor, and Wife of Amram. These words would induce any one naturally to say, that Mahomet believed Amram the Son of Koath, Grand-son of Levi, and Father of Moses, Aaron and Miriam, to be the same with Amram Husband to Anna, and Father of Mary; and consequently, that this false Prophet has confounded the Virgin Mary with Miriam or Mary the Sister of Moses. And upon this is founded the reproach with which he is charged, of having jumbled two persons together, who lived at more than sixteen hundred years distance from one another. It is certain that Mahomet was ignorant enough to fall into such an anachronism.
The Interpreters of the Alcoran endeavour however to excuse Mahomet, by saying that Amram Husband to Anna, and Father to Mary the Mother of Jesus Christ, was indeed of the same family with Aaron and Moses; which in some sort may be defended, because it is said in S. Luke, that Elizabeth was of the sacerdotal Family, of the Daughters of Aaron. They add, that Amram, Father of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was the Son of Mathée; so that their Amram would be the same with our Joachim, Husband to S. Anna.
They say moreover, that Anna being big with Mary, devoted the fruit of her womb to God, without knowing whether what she bore was a Son or Daughter; that God was pleased with her prayer and vow; that Anna being delivered, God himself named Mary; that Anna offered her to Zachary the Priest, who shut her up in one of the chambers of the Temple, the door whereof was so high that there was no going up to it without a ladder, and carried the key always about him.
Zachary Zachary from time to time paid visits to the Blessed Virgin, and as often as he visited her found abundance of fine fruit near her, which grew in the Holy Land, and at times always when it was out of season; which induced him at last to ask Mary how she came by such a variety of beautiful fruits. She answered, All you see comes from God, who provides every thing without any limitation of number or quantity for those who please him.
Some have said that S. Anna had three Husbands; Joachim, by whom she had Mary, our Saviour’s Mother; and Cleophas, by whom she had Mary the Daughter of Cleophas, and Mother of James Minor, Joseph the Just, Simon the Zealot, and Thaddæus; and last of all, Salomas her third Husband, of whom she had a third Daughter named Mary, who was married to Zebedee, and was Mother to S. James Major, and S. John the Evangelist. There are some old verses cited for the confirmation of this genealogy; but both these verses, and they who maintain this opinion, are of too little authority to make way for the reception of it among learned Men. The verses are these,
Anna tribus nupsit, Joachim, Cleophæ, Salomæque, Ex quibus ipsa viris peperit tres Anna Marias. Quas duxere Joseph, Alphæus, Zebedeusq; Prima Jesum; Jacobum, Joseph, cum Simone Judam, Altera dat. Jacobum dat tertia, datque Joannem3.
There is a great deal of probability that the Marys who are mentioned in the Gospel, and are said to have been the Holy Virgin’s Sisters, were her relations only, or other Daughters of Joachim and Anna, born after the Holy Virgin. We know nothing exactly concerning the time of Joachim’s and Anna’s death, nor even of their tomb; tho’ particular monuments are shewn to Travellers, and pains taken to persuade them that these were their sepulchers. The Latins observe the festival of S. Anna upon the 26th of July, and the Greeks that of her conception upon the 9th of December, and that of her marriage with Joseph on the 9th of September.
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