Anne and Joachim, Saints

▪ mother of Virgin Mary

flourished 1st century BC, Palestine; Western feast day July 26, Eastern feast day July 25

      the parents of the Virgin Mary, according to tradition derived from certain apocryphal writings. Information concerning their lives and names is found in the 2nd-century-AD Protevangelium of James (“First Gospel of James”) and the 3rd-century-AD Evangelium de nativitate Mariae (“Gospel of the Nativity of Mary”). According to these sources, Anne (Hebrew: Ḥannah) was born in Bethlehem, Judaea. She married Joachim, and, although they shared a wealthy and devout life at Nazareth, they eventually lamented their childlessness. Joachim, reproached at the Temple for his sterility, retreated into the countryside to pray, while Anne, grieved by his disappearance and by her barrenness, solemnly promised God that, if given a child, she would dedicate it to the Lord's service. Both received the vision of an angel, who announced that Anne would conceive and bear a most wondrous child.

      The couple rejoiced at the birth of their daughter, whom Anne named Mary. When the child was three years old, Joachim and Anne, in fulfillment of her divine promise, brought Mary to the Temple at Jerusalem, where they left her to be brought up. This event became so important in church doctrine that by 1585 Pope Sixtus V included in the Western church calendar the liturgical feast of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary (Virgin Mary, Presentation of the) (November 21). Although this festival originated early in the East, probably at Jerusalem in 543, its first Western observance was recorded in England in the 11th century.

      The account of their lives startlingly parallels the Old Testament story of the barren Hannah and her conception of Samuel (1 Samuel 1). According to later legends, Joachim died shortly after Mary's birth, and Anne, encouraged by the Holy Spirit, remarried. Anne's cult was fervent in the Eastern church as early as the 4th century, and in the early 8th century Pope Constantine probably introduced her devotion to Rome. Joachim's cult was introduced to the West in the 15th century.

      The Protevangelium became the foundation for establishing the liturgical feasts of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary (September 8) and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (December 8). Many churches, the first dating from the 6th century, were built in Anne's honour. Anne's cult became extremely popular in the Middle Ages and influenced such theologians as Jean de Gerson, Konrad Wimpinar, and Johann Eck (Eck, Johann) (who endorsed the interpolation that Anne in her alleged subsequent marriages became the grandmother of the Apostles John and James [sons of Zebedee], Simon, Jude [Judas], James, son of Alphaeus, and also of James [“the Lord's brother”]). Martin Luther and others vehemently attacked the cult of Anne, which was then promoted by post-Reformation popes. Eastern literature on Anne, going back to the 4th century, does not follow the fantastic legends of medieval Western tradition. Anne is the patron saint of Brittany and Canada and of women in labour.

Additional Reading

Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn (eds.), Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society (1990), covers the fields of art history, literature, religion, and social history.

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