495. The Entrance of the Virgin Mary into the Temple: Is it Scriptural? Did it actually happen?

Notice above: In iconography for this Feast, the Virgin Mary is always depicted symbolically as a three year old “adult”, already full-grown spiritually.

Before we talk about this lovely celebration, first let’s demolish a couple of objections to it.

1  It’s not Scriptural.

This is the big Protestant objection. It troubled me before I became Orthodox. If it troubles any here present, it’s time to get past it.

Indeed, unlike most of the Great Feasts of the Church, the story of the Entrance of the Theotokos is found nowhere in the Scriptures. This is not a problem for Orthodoxy, as I’ll explain in a moment.

It is an issue for Protestants, because they are bound (officially, at least) by the Reformation “Sola Scriptura” (Bible alone) theory. It’s a faulty theory. No Church, no denomination functions on “Bible alone”. Otherwise all they would do in church is read the Bible. All have their own traditions. The question is only which tradition to follow: their traditions or The Tradition, if you take my point. I came to see this before I became Orthodox.

A story to illustrate the point: Soon after I became Orthodox, I had occasion to visit a local Lutheran church and was pleased to see, hanging in their narthex, icons of the major feasts of the Church. (The pastor and his wife had a friend who worked in an icon “factory”, and who had given them the icons.) The pastor’s wife asked me “Would you like to have this icon of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary? We can’t use it because it’s not Scriptural.” * I caught my tongue before I said: “But neither is Martin Luther!” That would have been rude and crude. But it was true. For example, the Lutherans love to sing the powerful hymn “A Mighty Fortress is our God”, written by Martin Luther. It’s a great hymn, entirely orthodox. But where do they find that in the Bible? Nowhere. Martin Luther, that great advocate of “Sola Scriptura” was not Sola Scriptura. Lutherans have their own “extra-Sola Scriptura” tradition. (P.S. I took the icon.)

• Actually it is, but that’s another story.

The genuine Tradition of the Orthodox Church has never had this issue. The Holy Scriptures have never stood alone. The Tradition of the Church (Gospel teaching, the Sacraments, the Apostolic ministry and commission) came first. The Scriptures were the first part of the Tradition to be written down, and are the normative part of the Church’s Tradition. This is why the Book of the Gospels always sits in the center of the Altar/Holy Table in every Orthodox church. Anything which is not in accord with the Holy Scriptures is unacceptable.

But there is nothing in the Feast of the Virgin’s Entrance into the Temple that is contrary to the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Scriptures are the books which over time the Church concluded are essential. But there are other scriptures which reinforce the Holy Scriptures. The story of the Entrance of the Virgin Mary into the Temple supports our understanding of the place of the Virgin Mary, her Virginal Conception and Birth of our Savior – her essential role in the Incarnation of Christ.

But there is another issue that I dealt with after I became Orthodox.

2  Is the story true? Did it actually happen?

I heard some Orthodox – even clergy, even some theologians – suggest that the Entrance of the Theotokos was a story invented in the Second Century – pretty, symbolically helpful, but it never happened.

That really troubled me. I am not interested in celebrating nothing. The story of our salvation is grounded in Fact: The Son of God was really incarnate of the Virgin Mary, He really lived and died and rose again. Facts. Truth. Anything – no matter how lovely – that isn’t grounded in Fact, in Truth would diminish the Gospel of Jesus Christ. *

• This is part of modern “un-truth” society: Who cares whether it’s true or not? And yes, I’m talking about politics again.

What originally bothered me was this: It is true that the story of Mary’s Entrance first appeared in the mid-Second Century, about 150 years after the events written therein took place. I thought: That’s a long time. Even if the story wasn’t invented, that left plenty of time for it to get twisted.

The solution: I grew old. And now 150 years no longer seems like such a long time to me.

An overly long illustrative digression

My paternal grandfather was born in 1867, 157 years ago. He told us stories which I remember, stories from 140 years ago and more. How his parents were poor immigrants * from Germany in the 1840s. They landed in Baltimore but then came to Columbus. Grandpa Fred told me that he, like half of his siblings, ran away from home in his teens, because their father Heinrich von Olnhausen – though he was publicly popular, in fact was head of the School Board in Columbus – at home he was a tyrant. I remember Grandpa telling me that he ran away as far as Peoria, Illinois, where he worked  for $1/day – or was it $1/week? I don’t remember.

• As were all of us or our ancestors who came to America to better themselves. And yes, I’m talking about politics again.

In fact Grandpa left a short written account of his youth – about flirting with the girls, going on sleigh rides and more – which I rediscovered about ten years ago and shared with some in the family who are interested in such things. Since then my cousin Jackie has discovered more information about him. We treasure all this because we are family.

Now, here at last is the point: The stories about my grandfather have no significance except to a few of us in his family – but we do remember them. However, what if stories of a similar age concerned the most earth-shaking events in history, significant to all mankind? the Incarnation of the Son of God by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, the salvation of the world, and how all can become children of God, members of His Family. Surely even lesser stories surrounding those events would be preserved very carefully by that Family, our Family.

And so, I believe, they were.

The Protoevangelium

The account of the Entrance of the Theotokos comes from The Protoevangelium (“ First Gospel”), a book attributed to Saint James,  the Brother of the Lord – actually step-brother, son of Joseph by his first marriage, as James explains. It tells the stories of a number of events which took place before the accounts in the Four Gospels, and also fills in many details about events recorded in them. Tradition says James was first Bishop of Jerusalem from the time of Pentecost (c AD 30) till when he was martyred (c AD 62), which gave him plenty of time to pull his thoughts together. In fact, in the Protoevangelium he says he wrote it when there was a disturbance in Jerusalem because of Herod’s death, and he got out of town for a while.

The stories in the early chapters of the Protoevangelium are Family stories, passed down in the Family, beginning with Mary’s Conception by Joachim and Anna in their old age, her Entrance into the Temple, and so on. Stories Mary heard from her parents if they lived that long or from others in the family, which James heard from Mary, and then for many of the events James himself was there. They have the feel of family stories. Like the Gospels they include unnecessary irrelevant details – another evidence they were not invented myths. The Four Gospels are like that, too. As I read the Protoevangelium, it feels to me like it has, as one English scholar J B Philips * wrote of the Gospels, it has “the ring of truth”.

• J B Philips’ little book The Ring of Truth is worth reading.

Now, with all that cleared up, let’s get to the story from the Protoevangelium, which I’ll print here in full, inasmuch as I suspect not many of you have read it – though it is now easily available online.

First a little background: Early chapters of the Protoevangelium tell us that in gratitude for their daughter born to them in their old age, Joachim and Anna (like Hannah with her son Samuel: 1 Samuel, chapter 1) promised God that Mary would be raised in the Temple.

The Story of the Entrance of the Virgin Mary into the Temple

7. And months were added to the child. And the child was two years old, and Joachim said: Let us take her up to the temple of the Lord, that we may pay the vow that we have vowed, lest perhaps the Lord send to us, and our offering be not received. And Anna said: Let us wait for the third year, in order that the child may not forget her father or mother. And Joachim said: So let us wait. And the child was three years old, and Joachim said: Invite the daughters of the Hebrews that are undefiled, and let them take each a lamp, and let them stand with the lamps burning, that the child may not turn back, and her heart not be captivated by  the temple of the Lord. And they did so until they went up into the temple of the Lord. And the priest received her, and kissed her, and blessed her, saying: The Lord has magnified your name in all generations. In you, on the last of the days, the Lord will manifest His redemption to the sons of Israel. And he set her down upon the third step of the altar, and the Lord God sent grace upon her; and she danced with her feet, and all the house of Israel loved her.

8. And her parents went down marvelling, and praising the Lord God, because the child had not turned back. And Mary was in the temple of the Lord as if she were a dove that dwelt there, and she received food from the hand of an angel.”

Text courtesy of New Advent: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0847.html

There were other girls in the Temple, so it seems Mary was not alone there. While she was there, she surely was shaped by the Old Testament Tradition. She learned the Scriptures. How else to explain her hymn (the Song of Mary/ the Magnificat) she sang when she visited Elizabeth, patterned so closely after the Song of Hannah? (1 Samuel chapter 2)

But for now, the image for us to remember is little three year old Mary dancing on the steps of the Altar, all excited as little girls can be. She who was herself to become the living Temple of the Lord knew she belonged in the Temple of the Lord. She had left her home and found her true Home. But how hard it must have been for Joachim and Anna to leave her there.

What was this about an angel feeding her? We’re told no more. It is a mystery.

Tradition says Saints Joachim and Anna died a few years after taking their daughter to the Temple. Coptic tradition says Joachim died when Mary was six years old, and her mother Anna died when Mary was eight.

Hymns for the Feast

For every Feast Day, the Orthodox Church provides us with a multitude of beautiful hymns. Out of curiosity, I checked the Menaion for the Feast of the Entrance and gave up after I’d counted 100 – one hundred!  *Only a few are sung in parish practice, but they’re all sung in most monasteries.

• Any non-Orthodox here present: Please understand that each Orthodox “hymn” is comprised of one verse, usually short. So one Protestant hymn might be compared to perhaps four Orthodox hymns. In Protestant terms, that leaves us Orthodox with about 25 hymns for the Feast.

Here is a small portion of  the First Canon at Matins, demonstrating the length of Orthodox hymns. But don’t count them. Pray them. Even better, find yourself a tune and sing them.

Let us hasten today, honoring the Theotokos with hymns, and let us celebrate a spiritual feast; for she is offered as a gift to God in the temple.

With songs let us hymn the glorious arrival of the Theotokos; for today, as the prophets foretold, she is borne as a gift of great price into the temple, though she is herself the temple of God.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: 

The blameless Anna rejoiced as a mother, bringing a gift of great price to God in the temple; and with her Joachim keeps splendid festival.

Both now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. 

Of old, David, your ancestor, hymned you, O Virgin Bride of God, calling you the daughter of Christ the King; and, having given birth to Him, as a Mother you fed Him with milk as a Baby.

And then for the first time we hear the Katavasia of the Nativity of Christ:

Christ is born, give Him glory. Christ comes from heaven, go out to meet Him. Christ is on earth, be exalted.  O all the earth, sing to the Lord, and sing praises in gladness, O people, for He has been glorified.

Christmas is coming! and this Feast of the Virgin Mary prepares the way.

After Divine Liturgy for her Entrance at Saint Nicholas Church, Cedarburg, my wife summed it up the experience simply and succinctly: “It so nice to sing to Mary. And I’m sure it pleases Jesus, too.”

Courtesy of orthodoxchristianchants.com

Next Week is Friday after Thanksgiving. You think I’m going to be writing a Post? No way. I’m going to be enjoying time with my family. You’ll get a Re-run.

Friday after Next is December 6, Saint Nicholas Day, and we must do something for this wonderful saint. I haven’t decided what yet.