With the persecution of Herod and the attempt to save Jesus from them, the story of Mary itself ends. What follows is a completely different story related to John the Baptist and the death of his father Zechariah. This story is taken from the legends of John the Baptist and has nothing to do with the story of Mary. In all likelihood, it was not in the original, since Origen does not know the version given in the Protoevangelium about the murder of Zechariah in the temple, although he refers to the Book of James when speaking about the brothers of Jesus. It was added to the original text in late antiquity (legends about the rescue of Elizabeth in grief and the death of Zachariah were widespread in the Middle Ages). In this story, a miraculous, fairy-tale element is intensified: the mountain partes in front of Elizabeth and hides her with the baby. The death of Zechariah has no basis in canonical texts. Perhaps it was constructed by the author in connection with the words spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew (23.35), where he calls upon the heads of the scribes and Pharisees all the blood of righteousness, "from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the temple and the altar"7. The author of the story of the death of Zechariah connected this death with the persecution of Herod, who demanded the extradition of little John 8. By order of Herod, Zechariah, who had been brought out as high priest (although, according to canonical tradition, he was a priest who performed his duties in line with others, "from the Abian line"), was killed for refusing to say where his son was; His blood was miraculously petrified to testify to the crime. The story of Zechariah is connected at the end with the story of Jesus by the introduction of the high priest Simeon, who is chosen to replace the murdered Zechariah. In the Protoevangelium it is said that this Simeon was prophesied that he would not die until he saw Christ. Here again the narrative uses the Gospel of Luke, which speaks of a man named Simeon who was given such a prophecy (the author of the Proto-Gospel artificially makes him the high priest chosen after the death of Zechariah in order to link the two parts of the narrative and be able to return to Jesus).

The apocrypha ends with the words of James, who declares himself the author of the story, he returned to Jerusalem after the death of Herod, and until then he had been hiding in the desert. It is not clear why he had to go into hiding: after all, Herod was looking for infants in order to destroy the future king of the Jews, and not adults. Perhaps this refers to Herod Antipas, or perhaps the name of James is associated with the legend of his stay in the desert (perhaps the real James was related to the Ebionite Essenes?), and the author of the Protoevangelium introduced this detail for reliability.

On the whole, the Protoevangelium of James is a mixture of various Christian legends, as well as ideas about ancient ancient deities introduced into Christianity. In the Protoevangelium of James, the narrative element prevails over the theological, but even there, under everyday details (or, more precisely, supposedly everyday) and fairy-tale miracles, there is a doctrinal tendency associated with the idea of Jesus as a deity, whose miraculous properties were inherent in his mother. In this work, one can feel the peculiarly processed influence of the Gnostics. It was not just an entertaining read, it met the religious needs of the majority of Christians, for whom the dogmatic disputes between the supporters of Gnosticism and the orthodox trend were incomprehensible: they adapted teachings, sometimes hostile to each other, to their perception of Christianity.

The Protoevangelium of James was created in an environment in which the New Testament Gospels were known and revered, but they were not yet perceived as "canonical": their text could be freely handled, supplemented, and the order of the narrative could be changed. The episode of Christ's birth in the cave shows that along with the New Testament, another tradition was revered.

The story of Mary's birth was extremely popular among Christians in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Church could not recognize the Proto-Gospel as canonical: it was created too late, the fabulous details, although reinterpreted by theologians, contrasted with the narrative of the Gospels of the New Testament. Jerome sharply opposed this work; in the fifth century it was included in the list of forbidden books. Opposition to him was especially strong in the Western Church until the sixteenth century, when Pius V excluded the service of Joachim from the Latin Trebnik, but then it was restored. The Proto-Gospel was especially popular in the East: it was read, interpreted, and provided the basis for a number of feasts of the Mother of God, in particular, the Nativity of the Mother of God, the Entry into the Temple. But even in the East it is sometimes mentioned in the lists of "detached books". The "Tale of Jacob" came to Russia in the twelfth century; as early as the fourteenth century, this story is found in the lists of forbidden books 9. The formation of the cult of the Mother of God contributed to the popularity of this apocrypha. The veneration of Mary absorbed elements of the mystery cult of the Great Mother - a deity that united the images of various pagan goddesses (Isis, Cybele, Astarte, Artemis, etc.), perceived as her hypostases. In the eyes of his worshippers, this deity was not only the ruler of all living things, but also the bearer of supreme justice, the protector of people. This last feature was then especially clearly manifested in the cult of the Mother of God-Intercessor.

The Protoevangelium of James laid the foundation for the creation of various legends about Mary: at the end of the fourth century, an anonymous apocrypha "On the Assumption of Mary" appeared, written in the same vein as the Protoevangelium. It told about the Dormition (not death) and her ascension to heaven. The apocrypha contains a description of many miracles: Jesus himself descended on a cloud with angels to receive her soul. But the soul only temporarily left the body of the Mother of God (hence the concept of "dormition"), then its soul was reunited with the body, and Mary ascended to heaven, acquiring a new, transfigured essence. As in the Protoevangelium of James, in the legend of the Dormition of Mary certain realistic details (for example, it was said that the Apostle Thomas was late for Mary's funeral and wanted to say goodbye to her) are combined with religious symbolism that used the images of the New Testament. Thus, the impending dormition of Mary is announced by the Archangel Gabriel - the one who announced the birth of Jesus to her.

In this way, the news of death becomes the news of the miracle of the new birth that is to happen to her... The apostles learn about the resurrection of Mary in the same way as the disciples of Christ learned about his resurrection in the Gospels - they open the tomb of Mary at the request of Thomas and find it empty. Such a repetition was due to the fact that the author did not have at his disposal the tradition of the last years of Mary's life and created his fairy-tale theological work, using the story of Jesus and filling it with symbolism that emphasized the divinity of Mary in contrast to the rest, even the most righteous, saints and martyrs. Despite such a late appearance of the apocrypha about the Dormition of Mary, from the end of the fifth century the church celebrates the Dormition of the Mother of God.

The protoevangelium of James and the legends that go back to it reflect the changes that took place in the beliefs of Christians during the first centuries of the existence of their teaching. These changes were based both on the influence of ancient pagan cults, many elements of which were absorbed by Christianity, and on the peculiarities of the social psychology of Christians themselves. These features are even more pronounced in the apocrypha about the childhood of Jesus, the analysis of which will be presented in the next chapter.

James' Story of the Birth of Mary[161]

I. In the twelve tribes of Israel there was a certain Jehoiakim, a very rich man, who offered double gifts to God, saying, Let it be of my riches to all the people, and to me as a remission to propitiate the Lord. The great day of the Lord came,162 when the children of Israel brought their gifts. And Reuben came out against him (Jehoiakim), saying, "You must not bring gifts to the first, for you have not made offspring for Israel." And Jehoiakim was very grieved, and began to look at the genealogy of the twelve tribes of the people, saying, "I will seek among the twelve tribes of Israel, whether I am not the only one who has not given offspring to Israel." And when he had investigated, he found out that all the righteous had left offspring to Israel. He also remembered Abraham, how in his last days God had given him a son, Isaac. And Joachim was so bitter, and he did not go to his wife, but went into the wilderness, pitched his tent there, and fasted forty days and forty nights, saying, "I will not come in to eat or drink, until the Lord comes down to me, and prayer will be my food and drink."

And his wife Anna wept and wept and wept, saying, "I will pay my widowhood, I will pay my childlessness." But when the great day of the Lord came, Judith her maidservant said to her, "How long wilt thou torment thy soul? For the great day of the Lord has come, and you must not weep. Take the headband that my lady gave me for my work: it is not fitting for me to wear it, for I am a servant, and the headband bears the sign of royalty,163 Anna answered: depart from me, I will not do this: the Lord has humiliated me. Did not the seducer inspire you to come, so that I also would commit a sin with you? And Judith answered: Why will I persuade you? The Lord has closed your womb so that you will not have offspring in Israel. And Hannah was very grieved, but she took off her garments, adorned her head, put on her wedding garments, and went into the garden, walking about the ninth hour, and saw the laurel, and sat down under it, and began to pray to the Lord, saying, "God of my fathers, bless me, and hearken unto my prayer, as thou didst bless Sarah, and gave her a son, Isaac."

III. And lifting up her eyes to heaven, she saw a sparrow's nest in a tree, and began to weep, saying, "Woe is me, who begat me? What womb brought me into the world? For I have become a curse to the children of Israel, and with mockery they have torn me away from the temple. Woe is me, whom am I like? I am not like the birds of the air, for even the birds of the air have offspring with you, O Lord. Nor am I like dumb creatures, for even dumb creatures have offspring with you, O Lord. Nor am I like these waters, for even the waters bear fruit with you, O Lord. Woe is me, to whom am I like? Nor am I like the earth, for the earth bears fruit according to the season, and blesses thee, O Lord.

IV. And then an angel of the Lord stood before her, and said, "Hannah, Anna, the Lord has hearkened to thy prayer, that thou shalt conceive and bear child, and thy offspring shall be spoken of in all the world." And Anna said, "As the Lord my God lives! If I give birth to a child male or female, I will give it as a gift to my Lord, and it will serve Him all its life. And two messengers came and said to her,