Virgin

The woman known in Christian tradition as the Virgin Mary, or Mary the mother of Jesus, is the most widely venerated female figure in Christianity. The principal sources for her life are the canonical Gospels, especially those of Matthew and Luke, composed in the late first century of the Common Era. These texts present her as a young Jewish woman living in Nazareth in Galilee, betrothed to Joseph, a man of Davidic descent. According to Luke, the angel Gabriel announced that she would conceive a son by the Holy Spirit while remaining a virgin; she consented in the response later called her fiat. Matthew's account similarly states that she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit before she and Joseph lived together, and that Joseph, reassured in a dream, took her as his wife. The New Testament does not record the year or place of her birth, the names of her parents, or any events of her childhood. Apocryphal works of the second century, notably the Protoevangelium of James, name her parents Joachim and Anne and locate her birth and early life in Jerusalem, including a presentation in the Temple; these stories shaped later liturgy and art but are not historically verifiable.

The Gospels associate Mary with several episodes in the life of Jesus. Luke narrates the Visitation to Elizabeth, the birth at Bethlehem, the presentation of the child in the Temple and the prophecy of Simeon, and the finding of Jesus in the Temple at about the age of twelve. John records her presence at the wedding at Cana in Galilee, where Jesus, at her prompting, turned water into wine, and her standing at the cross, where Jesus entrusted her to the beloved disciple. Mark and Matthew mention her among those seeking Jesus during his public ministry and name James, Joses, Judas, and Simon as brothers of Jesus, a point that later became theologically contested. The Acts of the Apostles lists Mary among those who persevered in prayer in Jerusalem after the Ascension. No first-century source describes her death. From the second century onward, Christian writers and local traditions filled the silence. One strand placed her last years at Ephesus in Asia Minor; another kept her in Jerusalem. By the late fourth and fifth centuries the feast of her Dormition was celebrated in the East; corresponding Western belief in her Assumption into heaven developed over subsequent centuries. The Catholic Church defined the Assumption as dogma in 1950. Neither the date nor the place of her death can be established from contemporary historical evidence, and reported tombs, including the traditional Tomb of the Virgin in the Kidron Valley at Jerusalem, remain matters of piety rather than demonstrated fact.

Mary's virginity became a central article of Christian faith. The virginal conception is affirmed in Matthew and Luke and in the ancient creeds. The further doctrine of her perpetual virginity—before, during, and after the birth of Jesus—was widely taught by the Church Fathers and is held by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and some other churches. Most Protestant traditions, reading the Gospel references to brothers of Jesus as uterine siblings, do not accept perpetual virginity. In 431 the Council of Ephesus, opposing Nestorius, proclaimed Mary Theotokos (God-bearer), thereby safeguarding the unity of Christ's person. Later Catholic teaching includes the Immaculate Conception, defined in 1854, which holds that she was preserved from original sin from the first moment of her conception; this formulated dogma is not shared by the Orthodox in the same terms and is rejected by Protestants. Historically, these doctrines rest on theological interpretation and later tradition rather than on documents from Mary's own lifetime.

Devotion to Mary is attested from the early centuries, including the prayer Sub tuum praesidium, preserved on a papyrus often dated to the third or fourth century, and the proliferation of churches dedicated to her after the Council of Ephesus. Medieval Latin Christianity developed an elaborate Marian cult, with feast days, liturgical offices, miracle collections, and pilgrimage shrines. In the modern era, reported apparitions at Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, and many other sites have further shaped popular piety. She is invoked as patron of the Church in Catholic teaching, of mothers and families, of virgins and consecrated women, and of numerous countries, including France, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil, Argentina, Ireland, and the United States under the title of the Immaculate Conception, as well as of sailors, travelers, and the sick. Because the subject was given only as Virgin, it should be observed that Christian hagiography applies that title to many female saints commemorated as virgins, often in conjunction with martyrdom. The figure treated here is the one universally called the Virgin in Christian usage: Mary of Nazareth. Years of birth and death, a confirmed birthplace, and a historically documented burial remain unknown.