Woman in Sacred History / A Series of Sketches Drawn from Scriptural, Historical, and Legendary Sources

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

On returning to Nazareth, Mary confronted the danger which beset her situation with the peculiar, silent steadfastness which characterized her. From the brief narrative of Matthew, which mainly respects the feelings of Joseph, we infer that Mary made no effort at self-justification, but calmly resigned herself to the vindication of God in his own time and way. As the private feelings of Mary are recorded only by Luke, and the private experiences of Joseph by Matthew, it is to be supposed that the narrative is derived from these two sources.

We have no other characteristic incident of Mary's conduct; nothing that she said or did during the next eventful scenes of her life. The journey to Bethlehem, the birth-of Jesus, the visit of the shepherds and of the magi, full of the loveliest poetic suggestion, are all silent shrines so far as utterance or action of hers is given to us. That she was peculiarly a silent woman is inferred from the only mention of her, in particular, by St. Luke when recording these wonderful scenes. When the shepherds, sent by angelic visitors, came to Bethlehem, we are told, "And they came with haste, and found Joseph and Mary, and the babe lying in a manger; and when they had seen it they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all that heard it wondered. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart." She is one of those women who are remarkable for the things they do not say.

We next find her at Jerusalem, going with her husband to present her first-born son in the Temple, and to offer the humble sacrifice appointed for the poor. A modern English painting represents her as sheltering in her bosom the two innocent white doves destined to bloody death, emblems of the fate of the holy child whom she presented. Here the sacred story gives an interesting incident.

We catch a glimpse at one of the last of the Hebrew prophetesses in the form of Anna, of whom the narrative says, "She was of great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity, and she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the Temple, but served God with fasting and prayer day and night." She came in and welcomed the holy child. We are introduced also to the last of the prophets. "And behold there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, and the same was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him, and it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. And he came by the Spirit into the Temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms and blessed God and said:—

"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people,
A light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel."

And Joseph and his mother marveled at the things which were spoken of him. The contrast between the helpless babe and the magnificence of his promised destiny kept them in a state of constant astonishment. And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, "Behold this child is set for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be spoken against. Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."

This prophecy must have been a strange enigma to Mary. According to the prediction of the angel, her son was to be a triumphant king, to reign on the throne of his father David, to restore the old national prestige, and to make his people rulers over the whole earth. The great truth that the kingdom was not of this world, and the dominion a moral victory; that it was to be won through rejection, betrayal, denial, torture, and shameful death; that the Jewish nation were to be finally uprooted and scattered,—all this was as much hidden from the eyes of Mary as from those of the whole nation. The gradual unveiling of this mystery was to test every character connected with it by the severest wrench of trial. The latent worldliness and pride of many, seemingly good, would be disclosed, and even the pure mother would be pierced to the very heart with the anguish of disappointed hopes. Such was the prophecy of which the life of Mary was a long fulfillment. The slow perplexity of finding an entirely different destiny for her son from the brilliant one foretold in prophetic symbols was to increase from year to year, till it culminated at the foot of the cross.

The next we see of Mary is the scene in the Temple where she seeks her son. It shows the social and cheerful nature of the boy, and the love in which he was held, that she should have missed him a whole day from her side without alarm, supposing that he was with the other children of the great family caravans traveling festively homeward from Jerusalem. Not finding him, she returns alarmed to Jerusalem, and, after three days of fruitless search, finds him sitting in the school of the doctors of the Temple. Her agitation and suppressed alarm betray themselves in her earnest and grieved words: "Son, why hast thou dealt thus with us? behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." The answer of Jesus was given with an unconscious artlessness, as a child of heaven might speak. "Why did you seek me? Did you not know I would be at my Father's house?"[9] This was doubtless one of those peculiar outflashings of an inward light which sometimes break unconsciously from childhood, and it is said, "They understood not the saying." It was but a gleam of the higher nature, and it was gone in a moment; for it is said immediately after that he went down with them unto Nazareth, and was subject to them; but, it is added significantly, "his mother kept all these sayings and pondered them in her heart." Then came twenty years of obscurity and silence, when Jesus lived the plain, literal life of a village mechanic. "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" they said of him when he appeared in the synagogue of his native village.

How unaccountable to Mary must have appeared that silence! It was as if God had forgotten his promises. The son of her cousin Elisabeth, too, grew up and lived the life of an anchorite in the desert. It appears from his testimony afterwards that he kept up no personal acquaintance with Jesus, and "knew him not," so that a sign from heaven was necessary to enable him to recognize the Messiah.

From the specimens of the village gossip at the time of Christ's first public teaching in Nazareth, it appears that neither in the mother of Christ nor in Christ himself had his townsfolk seen anything to excite expectation. In his last prayer Jesus says to his Father, "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee." In like manner Nazareth knew not Mary and Jesus. "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not."