The miracles performed by Jesus in the early gospels are healing the sick, feeding the hungry, that is, helping suffering people (in accordance with the ethical requirements of the first Christians). In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter says of Jesus:

“... He went about doing good and healing all who were possessed by the devil, because God was with him" (10:38). In the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, instructing the disciples in their missionary work, Jesus says to his disciples:

"Those who are sick among them, heal" (15). But this no longer seemed enough: in the minds of the mass of believers, Jesus the god was supposed to perform miracles no less impressive than the gods and heroes of pagan legends, mercilessly punish his enemies.

The need to believe in miracles (not only in the miracle of Jesus' resurrection, but also in the possibility of everyday miracles) was combined with the desire to learn the slightest details, everyday details of the life of Jesus, his mother and revered preachers. The early gospels, both New Testament and apocryphal, focused more on Jesus' preaching than on his biographies. In particular, in the New Testament works there are no detailed stories about the childhood of Jesus, about his mother. Specific events are given in these scriptures as a reason for statements and teachings. Only the "passion" of Jesus, his death, his appearance to the disciples (and in the Judeo-Christian apocrypha, his baptism) are described in detail, for this was of primary doctrinal importance.

All these socio-psychological prerequisites led to the appearance of narratives in which the images of the canonical gospels were subjected, in the words of S. S. Averintsev, to "unrestrained coloring and gross vulgarization" 1. However, it was not only the connection with "grassroots literature" that determined the popularity of apocryphal biographies, they also reflected the beliefs of Christians and their ethical ideas, for which the early sacred books provided insufficient support. From the second half of the second century onwards, Christianity created a wide variety of works that supplemented the Gospel stories proper. At the origins of all this literature are two apocrypha of the second century, one of which told about the birth and life of Mary (up to the birth of Jesus), the other about the childhood of Jesus. Both of these gospels are sometimes united in scientific literature by the common name "gospels of childhood".

The mother of Jesus did not occupy any important place in the teachings of the early Christians. The Ebionites, in accordance with their idea of the prophet Jesus, considered his mother to be an ordinary woman, the wife of the carpenter Joseph2. The Gnostics used the image of Mary for their religious and philosophical constructions. Thus, the episode with the Annunciation was interpreted in one of the Gnostic versions as the appearance of Mary in the form of the Archangel Gabriel, Christ the Logos himself, who entered her. The author of the Gospel of Philip mentions Mary, but also in a specific context, emphasizing the symbolism of her name: "For Mary is his mother, his sister, and his companion." Here Philip expresses the Gnostic idea of overcoming earthly multiplicity (separation). The Gnostics were not interested in the biography of Mary - the mother of Jesus, her real life.

In the New Testament Revelation of John, a woman appears in visions giving birth to a child in agony, but this image may not be at all connected with the mother of Jesus: there is nothing earthly, human in him. This woman, "clothed with the sun," is pursued by a dragon who wants to fight "with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (12:1-17), the children of this woman are all Christian believers. Perhaps her image is an echo of the Mother - the holy spirit of Aramaic Christian texts (or a symbol of true faith); the description of it, as well as the description of the harlot sitting on the seven-headed beast (the symbol of Rome), is an allegory that needs to be interpreted, to comprehend its hidden meaning; This image has nothing to do with a real woman.

The Gospel of Mark says nothing about the birth of Jesus, it begins with a description of baptism, just like the Judeo-Christian gospels. Since for Mark Jesus' activity as messiah begins with his baptism and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him, he mentions his earthly mother in passing.

In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Joseph's genealogies are given somewhat different from each other: his family is traced back to David, since, according to Jewish beliefs, the messiah must come from the family of Davidids. When legends about Joseph's descent from this family were formed and genealogies were constructed, Joseph was probably still considered the father of Jesus (although in the Aramaic version of the Gospel of Matthew, according to Epiphanius, this constructed genealogy was absent). However, the same Gospels also set forth the myth of the Immaculate Conception of Jesus by Mary from the Holy Spirit, which began to take shape at the time of their creation. In connection with this myth, designed to emphasize the single essence of God and Christ, the image of Mary begins to stand out in the Christian tradition.

The most detailed account of the Immaculate Conception is in the Gospel of Luke. Its author introduced a description of the Annunciation - the appearance of an angel to Mary, who announced to her the miracle of conception from the Holy Spirit. The Annunciation is, as it were, a duplication of the episode described in Luke earlier - the announcement by an angel to the aged Zachariah about the birth of John (the future John the Baptist). Both characters are surprised by the news, and both ask how this can be. However, then the stories diverge:

Zacharias is punished for doubting, and Mary, having believed, begins to praise God. It is possible that the episode with the Annunciation was introduced by the author of the Gospel of Luke under the influence of the stories about John the Baptist, with which he was well acquainted. He introduces into the narrative Mary's meeting with Elizabeth, the wife of Zachariah, with whom Mary lived for three months before giving birth. In the further exposition in Luke, the mother of Jesus is mentioned in the episode in the Temple in Jerusalem (this episode will be discussed in more detail in the analysis of the Gospel of childhood), but then she practically disappears from the Gospel stories (in the three canonical Gospels, Jesus renounces his mother, calling his disciples mother and brothers.- Mark 3:33-34; Matt. 12:48-50; Luke 8:19-21). The mother of Jesus is not even named among those present at the crucifixion, although Mark lists the names of the women who watched the execution from afar: Mary, the mother of James the Lesser and Josiah, Mary Magdalene and Salome (15.40); Matthew writes the same, only instead of Salome he mentions the mother of the sons of Zebedee (27.56); Luke simply says, "the women who came with Jesus out of Galilee" (23.55). Only according to the Gospel of John, Mary, the mother of Jesus, stands near the cross, and Jesus entrusts her to his beloved disciple (meaning John), in whose name the gospel is written. In the Acts of the Apostles it is mentioned that she remained in prayer after the execution of Jesus together with the apostles and his brothers (1.14). This is almost all the information about it contained in the canon.

The absence of any reliable information about the mother of Jesus in the New Testament tradition gave the opponents of Christians, primarily Orthodox Jews, the opportunity to put forward their own version of her life. This version was set forth by Celsus in the "True Word". Origen polemicized with him, citing extensive quotations from the work of Celsus. Celsus, referring to the stories of the Jews, wrote that Mary was a spinner (one of the least respected female professions in ancient times) and gave birth to an illegitimate son from the Roman soldier Panther. A similar version is contained in the Talmud, where the soldier is called Pandira. In contrast to this legend, we have no reason to see in it some kind of historical nucleus-Christians of the second century spread their stories about the Mother of God, in which there was an increase in supernatural elements in accordance with the general attraction to the miraculous and the tradition of veneration of female deities, which had its roots in deep antiquity, especially in the East.

A detailed account of Mary's childhood and marriage is contained in the so-called "Jacob's Story of the Birth of Mary," or "The Book of James," as Origen called it (Corn. in Matth. X. 17). In scientific literature, this work is usually called the Protoevangelium of James. The popularity of this work was such that, despite its apocryphal nature, in the early Middle Ages it was translated into many languages (Syrian, Coptic, Armenian); several medieval manuscripts have survived (with a long and short edition); the earliest text of the Protoevangelium of James was found on a papyrus in Egypt published in 1958 (Bodmer papyrus). It gives the title: "The Birth of Mary. The Revelation of James". The papyrus dates back to the third century, but the manuscript seems to have also undergone revisions, with some abridgements compared to the supposed original. The proto-Gospel of James, as Origen knew it, was written about 200 A.D., perhaps 150 A.D. The uncertainty of the dating is due to the fact that the author knew the canonical gospels well, therefore, he wrote after the written tradition of the New Testament had already been formed, at the same time some other sources or oral stories were used there, in particular, according to the Proto-Gospel, Jesus was born in a cave. This version of the legend was known to Justin, as well as the version of the descent of Mary herself from the line of David, but it is not clear whether Justin took this information from the Book of James or from oral stories that preceded its writing. The latter is more likely, since we have no other data on Justin's use of this book. In any case, the Protoevangelium was created in the second half to the end of the second century, probably in Egypt.

In the manuscripts of the Proto-Gospel that have come down to us, there are inserts. Thus, at the moment of Jesus' birth, Joseph suddenly begins to speak in the first person; the style of this passage differs from the rest of the text of the Gospel, it was introduced, apparently, from another work written in the name of Joseph. A relatively late insertion is also the prayer of Salome. Both of these passages are absent from the Bodmer papyrus. The Proto-Gospel is written in the name of James, the brother of Jesus and the son of Joseph from his first marriage. The creation of the Gospel, which tells of the miraculous birth of Mary and the still more miraculous birth of Jesus in the name of the eyewitness James, sanctified the legend of the Virgin Birth and was a kind of hidden polemic with those who did not recognize the birth of Jesus by the Holy Spirit; Their teachings seemed to be refuted by one of the most revered Christian figures, the leader of the Jerusalem community.