The Annunciation of the Theotokos

Icons of Gabriel’s Annunciation to the Virgin are quite old; we see evidence of this theme as early as the 2^nd century catacombs of Priscilla (1). The story is complete in the Biblical account and needs no elucidation, theologically; however, there are features of the divine mystery in Eastern iconography that can only be drawn from the Protevangelion of James (or PJ). It has been noted that although this apocryphal text was the source of imagery for Mary for both East and West well through the Middle Ages, it is scarcely known today, except to scholars (2)

Much of the legend is similar to the Latin text, the Gospel of the Birth of Mary, which was explained in the last chapter on Mary’s Presentation in the Temple. As noted there, the PJ (written about 150 CE) was primarily a testament to the perpetual virginity of Mary. One scholar of the PJ, Ronal Hock, divides the Infancy narrative into three parts. The first eight chapters detail the story of Mary’s birth and dedication to temple life. The next sections opens with the crisis posed by Mary’s pollution of the temple by virtue of her becoming a woman. We will examine these middle eight chapters shortly. The last eight chapters explain the miraculous birth of Christ. (3)

Although the PJ may have been written for the purpose of synthesizing or creating a harmony between Matthew and Luke, it was circulated in an era before the four canonical gospels were considered to be the sole source of sacred scripture. In addition to weaving together threads from both Matthew and Luke, the author expands his gospel considerably; and several other stories emerge. Although not canonical, these kinds of texts were the popular literature for the pious for many centuries. (4) The high status of the PJ in the Eastern churches is attested by the survival of its translation into many languages: from Greek, it was translated into Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Old Church Slavonic, and Arabic.

In the West, the PJ fell into disfavor in the 4^th and 5^th centuries because of Jerome’s complaint that Joseph had sons by a former marriage. It was condemned as untrustworthy by Pope Innocent I, but it re-emerged in the Middle Ages under a variety of different titles, such as Pseudo-Matthew, and the Golden Legend (where it appears in both the lives of the Virgin and her mother Anne). (5). Although these Latin infancy narratives were source material for tradition of much of Roman Catholic Mariology, both the Eastern and Western churches are indebted to the PJ for the earliest traditions about Mary. The teaching of this text includes the Davidic descent of Mary, itself of apologetic significance once the Davidic descent of Jesus through Joseph was rendered insignificant due to his foster-parentage. The principle interest of the author is Mary; in particular, her special consecration to God and her unique vocation in carrying out the divine intention for her life.

In the story, Mary leaves the temple at age 12, after an angel instructs the high priest

Zechariah (which here is interpreted to be the Zechariah of Luke 1, that is, Elizabeth’s husband) to gather together the widowers of Judea. Widowers are chosen because of Mary’s vow of perpetual virginity. It is intended, in other words, that her husband be her guardian. The miracle of the rods (see previous chapter) indicates Joseph is “chosen by lot to take the virgin of the Lord into [his] care and protection.” (6) Joseph initially objects, however. “I already have sons and I’m an old man” (7); but he is persuaded that it is his duty to take her. After escorting her to his home, he immediately departs for work, presumably in another part of the country. Then follows a most intriguing and vital narrative in the text.

The council of priests have decided that a new veil must be made for the temple. They call together “the uncontaminated virgins from the tribe [i.e., house] of David” (8). It was at this same time that “Zechariah became mute, and Samuel took his place” until he later regained his speech. The author is here reminding us of the account in Luke (1:22-23) wherein Zechariah is rendered mute for his doubt at the announcement by the angel Gabriel that he would father John the Baptist, or Forerunner. The high priest Samuel instructs the maidens chosen to weave the temple veil to “cast lots” to decide who will spin which threads for the veil; in particular, who will spin “the true purple.” (9) The purple, as well as the scarlet, skeins fell to the lot of Mary. By this incident, the author of PJ is telling us that she received the purple, the most royal of colors, as a sign that the long-prophesied Messiah, the King and Savior of his people, was to spring from the house (her body) of David. (10). There is a beautiful mosaic from the Kariye Djami in Constantinople which shows the priest giving the royal threads to Mary (11)

We are told in Ez.26: 31-37 that the veil (which must have been very heavy and of great size) had images of the cherubim woven into it and served as a partition between the place of prayer and the Holy of Holies. At the crucifixion of Christ, it was this veil (by implication, woven by the Mother of God) that was torn in two, exposing the Holy of Holies (Mat. 27:51; Luke 23:45).

Mary then takes her threads home and is spinning them when she is approached by the angel Gabriel. In the PJ, there is first a “pre-anunciation” scene. It occurs when Mary goes to the well to fetch water. She hears a voice saying, “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.” Mary looks around but does not see anyone. Frightened, she goes back inside and “taking up the purple, she sat down in her house and began to spin.” (12). The angel then appears visually to her, telling her initially not to be afraid. “You have found favor in the sight of the Lord of all.” The annunciation story then proceeds along the same vein as outlined in Matthew and Luke. And Mary gives her Fiat: “May it happen with me just as you have said.” The author then immediately continues the story of Mary’s role in weaving the temple veil. “And she finished the purple and the scarlet and took them up to the high priest.” (13) Accepting them from her, he congratulates her saying, “God has extolled your name” and he then prophesies that she will be remembered “by all the generations of earth.” (14)

After Mary leaves the temple, she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, a story similar to the canonical account. She later returns home and is in her sixth month when Joseph comes back, and finding her pregnant, is greatly distressed. What follows is a story which serves as a vindication for them both: when Joseph is accused by the high priest of defiling the virgin in his care, Mary and Joseph are both put through an ordeal of drinking polluted water that would harm them if they were guilty. After the “judgment of water”, (perhaps similar to that described in Num. 5:11-31) they emerge victorious, Joseph is convinced that Mary has truly conceived by the Holy Spirit, and they leave for Bethlehem for the census (15)

By the sixth century various feasts celebrating the life of Mary were added to the liturgical calendar including the Annunciation; artistic representations of this event have been popular ever since. In the West there are a variety of images that portray Mary spinning, reading, or in prayer, often with an open volume of Scripture. Generally the dove is present and the angel Gabriel is holding a branch of lilies, representing her purity.

In the East, the accepted version of the Annunciation icon was concluded by the 8^th century, and remains unchanged to this day. The principle features are the Virgin, with a skein of red or purple wool in her hand; the angel Gabriel, with his left hand holding a staff, symbolizing his role as messenger; and a circle of light (usually a half-circle) at the top of the icon with rays of light streaming down onto Mary. Gabriel’s right hand is extended in the traditional Greek iconographic blessing, forming the Greek letters for the name of Jesus Christ. Sometimes the light conceals/reveals the figure of a dove. The equilibrium of these three figures form a triangle with the Virgin “as its apogee and the angel and dove as opposite points that nevertheless converge on her.” (16) A trinitarian theme is reinforced by three rays of light proceeding from the dove or from the half-circle. This is the Annunciation scene that appears on the “royal doors” of the iconostasis of nearly every Orthodox church in the world. (17). The royal doors are the doors separating the sanctuary from the rest of the church.

Mary is pictured as either standing or sitting, usually on a platform, with purple or red

skeins falling from her fingers. Her head has a slight bow to indicate her acceptance to the divine request. Gabriel is usually presented with one wing raised and feet positioned as if running, indicating he has just appeared from divine realms. There is light streaming from heaven but there is no source of natural light in the icon, nor any shadows. Typical of Byzantine or Russian iconography, each image appears to be its own source of light. The threads Mary is holding reveal that it was she who wove the temple veil that would later be rent from top to bottom when her Son hung on the cross. Her acceptance of God’s will in this and in all things is represented by her upraised and open hand, or in some cases, by placing her hand upon her heart.

According to tradition (18) Mary conceived on a Friday, and in our own time, the feast of the Annunciations sometimes falls on Good Friday. On these days, the significance of the torn veil reminds us that just as Christ has passed beyond the veil to dwell eternally within the bosom of God, so we too may enter his sanctuary because he has parted the veil to the Holy of Holies for us. For he is our Holy of Holies and the Virgin, his first sanctuary. St. Andrew of Crete, in his Great Canon, sang to her: “As from purple silk, O undefiled Virgin, the spiritual robe of Emmanuel, His flesh, was woven in thy womb. Therefore, we honor thee as Theotokos in very truth.” (l9) Using the same imagery, St. John Damascus explains that, having entered the world by means of the Virgin, the King of glory “is clothed with the purple of his flesh.” (20)

Rowan Williams, in his magnificent little book on Marian meditations called “Ponder These Things: Praying with Icons of the Virgin” has given us a reflection on this apocryphal story that is rich in meaning. Mary, who spins the “sanctuary veil…the sign of the unbridgeable gulf between sinful humanity and the holy God” is also preparing herself to become the sanctuary. “From the sanctuary of heaven, from the terrifying emptiness between the cherubim on the ark, God enters another sanctuary, the holy place of a human body”(21)

Because of her answer: “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38) Mary opens the door of the sanctuary to us. The early Church fathers saw her Fiat as the definitive word which linked the Old Covenant with the New. As Israel’s first believer, she depicts the new believing community of Christians who will also embrace the Divine Word. St. Gregory of Nyssa (4^th century) reminds us that, in this sense, we are all virgins: “What was achieved in the body of Mary, the inviolate Virgin, by the perfect divinity of Christ which shone forth in that Virgin, the same will happen in the soul of everyone…who follows Reason (Logos) as a guide.” (22)

In his monumental study on the Holy Spirit called The Comforter, Bulgakov calls the Annunciation the first Pentecost of the Mother of God, which precedes the divine Incarnation:

[T]he divine conception is accomplished by the divine inhabitation of the Logos through the Holy Spirit, who in this sense…is sometimes called His Mother: by his inhabitation of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit identifies… in some sense in her Divine Maternity” (23) Bulgakov has noted that Mary’s connection to God in the Annunciation icon vividly demonstrates her special relationship with the Holy Spirit. His interpretation of Luke 1:35 (“The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”) is that Mary has been made “transparent” to the Holy Spirit through her period of preparation in the temple. “The permeation of Mary’s being by the Spirit was so complete that she should be regarded not just as a supremely spiritual person, but as the ‘Spirit-bearing Person.’” (24) In a sense, she was the living temple, the Spirit’s “living abode.” (25) Bulgakov’s Mariology, outlined in his classic work, The Burning Bush (26) makes it clear that dogmatic theology of Mary is an unfinished business: “to this day [the church] has not realized the treasure of revelation concerning the Mother of God.” (27)

In Bulgakov’s theology, the term “Motherhood of God” (bogomaterinstvo) is more than a statement about Christology. Mary could not have given birth to the Divine Word by virtue of her humanity alone: a human being does not generate the divine. Her divine Motherhood is a Spirit-filled mystery and demonstrates an active participation on her part. Mary cannot be separated from the presence of God made flesh among us, inaugurated at her Fiat, brought to fullness at Pentecost, and now permeating and sanctifying creation. As a visible image of the Holy Spirit, she is “the perfectly sanctified, revivified, deified human being,” (28) carrying on the Holy Spirit’s work of nurturing and sanctifying the world; that is, continuing to give life as it did on the first day of creation, when it “brooded” over the face of the waters. Bulgakov sees the Spirit’s work as a kind of mothering, brought to perfection in the perfect human mother. In Mary’s womb there is a spaciousness, as there is a spaciousness to her presence in the Church.

There is a charming apocryphal legend from the Gospel of Bartholomew (early 5^th century) which tells the following story: After the Ascension of Jesus, there was an occasion when the apostles were gathered together with Mary and they begged her to describe the divine conception by which God “whom the heavens could not contain” descended to her. Mary replies that she cannot describe it, or else fire would come out of her mouth and consume the whole earth. But they continue to insist and indeed, when she begins her story, fire emanates from her mouth and Jesus descends from heaven to prevent the creation from catching on fire. Rosemary Ruether has seen in this archetypal story a woman whose maternity represents more than simply a submissive virgin who accepted the message of the angel Gabriel in her heart. “It is the birthing of the divine power through which the world itself was created.” (29)

In one of the canons which recount the mysteries of Mary, the faithful sing: “O Virgin, past understanding are thy wonders! Strange is the manner of thy birth; strange is the manner of thy growing. Strange and most marvelous are all things concerning thee…. everything unutterable for humanity.” (30)

Paul Evdokimov, a student of Bulgakov’s who advances his work in many ways, sees this feast as inaugurating the economy of salvation; thus he calls the Annunciation the “Feast of the Root.”(31) Through this “mariological root” we are all initiated into a second birth:

“According to the Fathers, the phrase in the creed, “born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,” also applies to the mystery of the second birth of every believer who is born ex fide et Spiritu Sancto, for the faith of every Christian is enrooted in the universal value of the fiat of the Virgin…[Likewise] the gospel story [in] Luke 8:19-21 means that…[everyone] is given the grace of giving birth to Christ in [his] soul, of identifying himself with the Theotokos, according to a spiritual analogy.” (32)

Evdokimov, like Bulgakov, stresses that Mary’s womb was not a passive recepticle. He quotes the homily of Nicholas Cabasilas (1320-1390) who praised the magnificent moment of her Annunciation: “Without the consent of the Immaculate, without the agreement of her faith, the plan [of salvation]was as unrealizable as it would have been without the intervention of the three divine Persons themselves.” (33) Likewise, in 19^th century Russia, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow has said:

“During the days of the creation of the world, when God uttered his living and mighty words, “Let there be,” the Creator’s words brought creatures into existence. But on that day, unique in the existence of the world when Holy Mary uttered her humble Let it be, I would hardly dare to express what took place then—the word of the creature caused the Creator to descend into the world.” (34)

In the visionary understanding of Mary found in the work of St. Angela of Foligno and Hildegaard, it appears that the Annunciation was an important event that may have actually changed the Virgin Mother ontologically. Angela, who had numerous visions of Mary, sees Mary’s lengthy preparation for the virginal conception as integral to her Fiat, for she had already given her promise: “While she prayed, making this promise [of her virginity], divine light abounded in her more fully…In this same light she was granted the most perfect manifestation of who God is and who she was.” (35)

Hildegaard, whose visions hold great archetypal symbolism for much future analysis, sees the Virgin, much like Bulgakov in the East, that is, as an extension of the Holy Spirit’s work in Genesis. “The Virgin bore a Son by the warmth of the Holy Spirit brooding over her.” (36) At her Annunciation, Hildegaard explains, Mary experienced the divine energy in the form of a rush of cosmic waters, like the origin of creation, because the Spirit was again re-creating the universe through her pregnancy. (37) One of her beautiful poems praises her:

“O form of woman, sister of Wisdom, How great is your glory! For in you there rose a life unquenchable That death shall never stifle. Wisdom exalted you to make All creatures fairer in your beauty Than they were when the world was born.” (38)

Ouspensky notes that since the 2^nd century “a deep theological penetration into the dogmatic essence of the image” of this icon has been present to the Church. He stresses that the entire movement of the Annunciation icon emphasizes that the consent of the Theotokos is an active opening of herself, to be penetrated completely by the design of God. Because of her voluntary and independent participation in the divine Annunciation, we all enter, through “Her Person” into the mystery of Salvation. (39)

“And thus she received the word, and in the due time of the fulfillment according to the body’s course she brought forth the priceless pearl…And just as the pearl comes of the two natures, namely lightning and water, the occult signs of the sea; so also our Lord Jesus Christ proceeds, without fusion and without mutation, from the pure and chaste and undefiled, holy Virgin Mary…” Gregory the WonderWorker, First Homily on the Annunciation (40)

“The captain of heaven was sent to the living Pavilion of the Glory, to make ready an everlasting Dwelling for the Maker. And coming before her he cried: ‘Hail, fiery throne, more glorious by far than the living creatures with four faces. Hail, thou Seat of the King of Heaven, hail, uncut mountain and precious vessel. For in thee the whole fullness of the Godhead has come to dwell bodily…Hail, thou who art full of grace: the Lord is with thee.” Vigil, Annunciation, Great Compline (41)

“All the rich among the people shall seek your favor. Behind her the virgins shall be led to the king, her friends shall be brought to you with gladness and joy, Allelulia! My heart overflows with good tidings; I sing my song to the king. Glory be to God.” Entrance Hymn, Annunciation feast, (42)