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Non-canonical Gospel of James

 The Gospel of James (or the Protoevangelium of James) is a 2nd-century infancy gospel telling of the miraculous conception of the Virgin Mary, her upbringing and marriage to Joseph, the journey of the couple to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, and events immediately following. It is the oldest surviving assertion of the perpetual virginity of Mary, meaning her viginity not just prior to the birth of Jesus, but during and afterwards, and, despite being condemned by Pope Innocent I in 405 and rejected by the Gelasian Decree around 500, became a widely influential source of Mariology.

The narrative is made up of three distinct sections with only slight ties to each other:
  1. Chapters 1-17: A biography of Mary, dealing with her miraculous birth and holy infancy and childhood, her engagement to Joseph, and her virginal conception of Jesus;
  2. Chapters 18-20: the birth of Jesus, including proof that Mary continued to be a virgin even after giving birth;
  3. Chapters 22-24: the death of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist.
Mary is presented as an extraordinary child destined for great things from the moment of her conception. Her parents, the wealthy Joachim and his wife Anne, are distressed that they have no children, and Joachim goes into the wilderness to pray, leaving Anne to lament her childless state. God hears Anne's prayer, angels announce the coming child, and in the seventh month of Anne's pregnancy (underlining the exceptional nature of Mary's future life) she is born. Anne dedicates the child to God and vows that she shall be raised in the Temple. Joachim and Anne name the child Mary and when she is three years old they send her to the Temple, where she is fed each day by an angel.


When Mary approaches her twelfth year the priests decide that she can no longer stay in the Temple lest her menstrual blood render it unclean, and God finds a widower, Joseph, to act as her guardian: Joseph is depicted as elderly and the father of grown sons; he has no desire for sexual relations with Mary. He leaves on business, and Mary is called to the Temple to weave the Temple curtain, where one day an angel appears and tells her that she has been chosen to conceive Jesus the Savior, but that she will not give birth as other women do. Joseph returns and finds Mary six months pregnant, and rebukes her, fearing that the priests will assume that he is the guilty party. They do, but the chastity of both is proven in the "test of bitter waters."

The Roman census forces the holy couple to travel to Bethlehem, but Mary's time comes before they can reach the village. Joseph settles Mary in a cave, where she is guided by his sons, while he searches for a midwife, and for an apocalyptic moment as he searches all creation stands still. He returns with a midwife, and as they stand at the mouth of the cave a cloud overshadows it, an intense light fills it, and there is suddenly a baby at Mary's breast. Joseph and the midwife marvel at the miracle, but the second midwife named Salome (the first one was not named) insists on examining Mary, upon which her hand withers as a sign of her lack of faith; Salome prays to God for forgiveness and an angel appears and tells her to touch the Christ Child, upon which her hand is healed.

The gospel concludes with the visit of the three Magi, the massacre of the holy innocents in Bethlehem, the martyrdom of the High Priest Zachariah (father of John the Baptist), and the election of his successor Simeon, and an epilogue, telling the circumstances under which the work was supposedly composed.

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