manual, the Progymnasmata provides instructions and examples of common characteristics for encomium writing. Family, national origin, upbringing, achievements, and virtuous deeds are several aspects commonly found in Greco-Roman encomiums, all of which Hock sees as being directly addressed in the Protevangelium.76 Consistent with Hock’s claim, Mary Foskett argues that the driving force behind the narrative is “praise of Mary—rather than the need to defend her.”77
The deliberate focus on Mary and her extraordinary features has also convinced Stephen Shoemaker that the main motivation of the text must be the extolling of Mary for her own sake, rather than, for example, Christological reasons that sought to confirm Jesus’ divinity though his mother’s virginal birth. No doubt, the Protevangelium addresses these concerns by making clear that Jesus was truly born of a virgin, but the narrative’s focus is wholly devoted to Mary;78 indeed Jesus seldom appears and only in the context of his mother giving birth to him. Mary no longer functions as the protagonist in the final section of the narrative (22–25), but Jesus is absent also. The reality of Jesus’ virgin birth need not require an entire book to demonstrate what can easily be made plain in a single chapter.
Authorship, Sources, and Literary Unity
The epilogue of the Protevangelium attributes the work to James, the brother of Jesus and the bishop of Jerusalem (Matt 13:55; Mark 6:3; Gal 1:19; Acts 15:13–21) and sets the time of its composition during the period in which Herod was king of Judea (25:1–4). The Protevangelium, however, is a pseudonymous work and as such, its authorship, as well as date and provenance are difficult to determine with precision and have spurred some debate among modern scholars. While more recent trends in apocrypha scholarship have cautioned against offering exact identities about authors and intended readers/audiences,79 especially based on approaching texts through “mirror reading,”80 some general inferences can certainly be made of the author’s educational exposure and cultural background. For example, like Matthew and Luke, the author has a clear knowledge of the Septuagint, as evident in the close affinities between the depiction of Mary and the biblical matriarchs including Sarah (Gen 18, 20–21) and Hannah (1 Sam 1–2) mentioned above, but also because the tone, thought, language, usages, and motifs found in the Protevangelium resemble Septuagint texts too closely to be coincidental.81 Other Hellenistic Jewish sources such as Susanna (Dan 13:1–64), Tobit, and Judith also seem to have a deep influence on the Protevangelium in terms of style and motifs.
Literary elements and social conventions from Greco-Roman romances also have been detected in the Protevangelium. In particular, Hock has argued that Anna’s lament in the garden (3:2–8), Joseph’s wailing in response to Mary’s condition (13:1–5), and the bitter water test (16:3–8) all parallel the style, language, and motifs found in the Greek romances of Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe and Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Clitophon.82 In the former case, Daphnis’s lament also takes place in a garden (4.28.3). In Achilles Tatius’s novel, Clitophon expresses a lament closely resembling Joseph’s (5.11.3) and Leucippe is also required to take a water test to prove her purity (8.3.3; 6.1–5; 13.1—14.2). Furthermore, Hock argues that certain Greco-Roman conventions may also help understand details that would be understood easily by the audience of the Protevangelium, but might be lost on a modern reader. For example, he cites Chloe’s discussion with her mother Nape, who warns that her virginity might be more safeguarded at home spinning rather than out frolicking on the hillsides, as an aid to understanding why Mary rushes home to her threads upon hearing a bodiless voice (Prot. Jas. 11:1–4). For Hock, Greek novels share with the Protevangelium a deep concern for sexual purity, providing insight not only into the intentions of the writing but also, by implication, the audience who valued and “read” these works.
Questions regarding specific sources for the text have also proven difficult to answer. Given that the Protevangelium can be divided into three main parts and at two points the narrative switches to the first person (chaps. 18 and 25), albeit with two different first person voices, has led some to suspect multiple sources. At the end of the nineteenth century Adolf von Harnack was the first to suggest the Protevangelium was a composite text when he posited three independent sources each with differing dates of composition: a biography of Mary’s nativity, which informed the beginning of the text’s description of her lineage, miraculous birth, upbringing by her parents and the temple priests, engagement to Joseph, and conception of Jesus (chaps. 1–17; early third century); a Joseph source comprising Joseph’s first-person experience of time suspension and Mary’s postpartum inspection (chaps. 18–20; late second century); and a Zechariah source, which offers an account of Zechariah’s death (chaps. 21–24; second century).83
Von Harnack’s source theory was convincing and left unchallenged for some time until the discovery of the Bodmer Miscellaneous Codex in the mid-twentieth century, which proved that the text comprised all three sections (minus the “suspension of time” passage of chapter 18) at a very early date.84 More recent trends too have seen a shift away from multiple source theories and have argued instead for the literary unity of the text. Hock notes that many of the discrepancies observed about the Protevangelium could be explained persuasively as various oral traditions available to the author as well as arguments dependent upon rhetorical reasoning.85 Specifically, Bovon has argued that the switch from third to first person supports the overall goals of the text and makes even more emphatic the importance of the moment being described, namely the birth of Jesus.86 Perhaps the strongest and initial catalyst for the shifting trend can be attributed to de Strycker and Elliott who argue that the vocabulary and compositional structure of the text point clearly to a unified work.87 Hock too observes the consistency of the text’s syntax and word choice as evidence for literary unity, but makes the argument for concordance from a different perspective. Looking to the dominant theme of purity as the binding agent, Hock writes that “it is difficult to imagine anyone more pure than Mary” and that it is this overarching concern for her purity that informs the Protevangelium thematically and structurally.88
No new or substantial arguments have been made to shift discussion away from the current consensus that the Protevangelium is a unified text. In fact, various recent studies on the Protevangelium have presumed the text is coherent and such unity is used as a springboard or justification for other inquiries into the text, especially ones that employ literary analysis.89 Important to note, however, is that the arguments for literary unity in the text do not exclude the use of sources by the author or the editing of the narrative at a later date. The author shows clear signs of literary influence from a number of different sources; the literary unity of the text simply holds the position that the Protevangelium can be read as a coherent whole.
Mary’s Characterization as Virginal and Pure
Even the most cursory reading of the Protevangelium will reveal the deep and overarching theme of Mary’s extreme and unparalleled purity. As a narrative devoted to providing more information about the mother of Jesus, every aspect of Mary’s character is defined by her purity and every detail disclosed is for the purpose of enhancing her status. Perhaps most obviously, Mary’s perpetual virginity dominates most discussions regarding her purity and has often been used as justification for viewing her as the New Eve, since she alone is immune to the curse placed on the primordial woman of Genesis (Gen 2:16) because of her extraordinary virginity.90 No doubt, Mary is emphatically declared to be a virgin before, during, and after the birth of Jesus. This claim is not simply vocalized by various characters throughout the narrative, but actually imbedded in her title as the Virgin of the Lord, an honor bestowed upon her the moment she leaves the sacred space of the Jerusalem temple (9:7). Every scene in the Protevangelium is carefully constructed either to ensure that her sexual purity is safeguarded or to verify that it is still intact.
Three specific scenarios in particular stand out as tests and proof of Mary’s virginal state.91 The first occurs when she is questioned harshly by Joseph about her pregnant state after he has been away for several months wherein he implies Mary was deceived and corrupted in a manner liken to Eve (13:1–7). Mary speaks only eight times throughout the entire narrative so it is especially significant that three of these occurrences involve defenses of her purity and innocence.92
