According toChristian tradition,Saint Anne was the mother ofMary, the wife ofJoachim and the maternal grandmother ofJesus. Mary's mother is not named in the Bible'scanonical gospels. In writing, Anne's name and that of her husbandJoachim come fromNew Testament apocrypha, of which theGospel of James (written perhaps around 150 AD) seems to be the earliest that mentions them. The mother of Mary is mentioned but not named in theQuran.
Although thecanonical books of the New Testament never mention the mother of the Virgin Mary, traditions about her family, childhood, education, and eventual betrothal to Joseph developed very early in the history of the church. The oldest and most influential source for these is the apocryphalGospel of James, first written inKoine Greek around the middle of the second century AD. In the West, the Gospel of James fell under a cloud in the fourth and fifth centuries when it was accused of "absurdities" byJerome and condemned as untrustworthy byPope Damasus I,Pope Innocent I, andPope Gelasius I.[8] However, despite having been condemned by the Church, it was taken over almostin toto by another apocryphal work, theGospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which popularised most of its stories.[9]
In the 4th century and then much later in the fifteenth century, a belief arose that Mary was conceived of Anne withoutoriginal sin. This belief in theImmaculate Conception states that God preserved Mary's body and soul intact and sinless from her first moment of existence, through the merits of Jesus Christ.[12] The Immaculate Conception, often confused with theAnnunciation of theIncarnation (Mary's virgin birth of Jesus), was madedogma in the Catholic church byPope Pius IX'spapal bull,IneffabilisDeus, in 1854. The 13th centurySpeculum Maius ofVincent of Beauvais incorporates information regarding the life of Saint Anne from an earlier work byHrotsvitha of Gandersheim Abbey.[13]
TheAnna Selbdritt was a type of iconography depicting the three generations of Saint Anne, Mary, and the child Jesus. Emphasizing the humanity of Jesus, it drew on the earlier conventions of theSeat of Wisdom, and was popular in northern Germany in the 1500s.[16] During the High Middle Ages, Saint Anne became increasingly identified as a maritime saint, protecting sailors and fisherman, and invoked against storms.[17]
Two well-known shrines to St. Anne are that ofSte-Anne-d'Auray in Brittany, France; and that ofSte-Anne-de-Beaupré near the city of Québec. The number of visitors to the Basilica of Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré is greatest on St Anne's Feast Day, 26 July, and the Sunday before the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, 8 September. In 1892, Pope Leo XIII sent a relic of St Anne to the church.[17]
By the middle of the 7th century, a distinct feast day, the Conception of St. Anne (Maternity of Holy Anna) celebrating the conception of Mary by Saint Anne, was observed at theMonastery of Saint Sabas.[20] It is now known in the Greek Orthodox Church as the feast of "The Conception by St. Anne of the Most Holy Theotokos", and celebrated on 9 December.[21] In theCatholic Church, the Feast of Saints Anne and Joachim is celebrated on 26 July.
The alleged relics of St. Anne were brought from theHoly Land toConstantinople in 710 and were kept there in the church of St. Sophia as late as 1333.[12] During the 12th and 13th centuries, returning crusaders and pilgrims from the East brought relics of Anne to a number of churches, including most famously those at Apt, in Provence, Ghent, and Chartres.[8] St. Anne's relics have been preserved and venerated in the many cathedrals and monasteries dedicated to her name, for example inAustria, Canada,[28] Germany, Italy,[29] and Greece in the semi-autonomousMount Athos, and the city of Katerini.[30] Medieval and baroque craftsmanship is evidenced in, for example, the metalwork of the life-size reliquaries containing the bones of her forearm. Examples employing folk art techniques are also known.Düren has been the main place of pilgrimage for Anne since 1506, whenPope Julius II decreed that her relics should be kept there, after they were stolen from the church ofSt. Stephen inMainz.
The subject of Joachim and AnneThe Meeting at the Golden Gate was a regular component of artistic cycles of theLife of the Virgin. The couple meet at theGolden Gate ofJerusalem and embrace. They are aware of Anne's pregnancy, of which they have been separately informed by an archangel. This moment stood for the conception of Mary, and the feast was celebrated on the same day as theImmaculate Conception. Artworks representing the Golden Gate and the events leading up to it were influenced by the narrative in the widely readGolden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine. TheBirth of Mary, thePresentation of Mary and theMarriage of the Virgin were usual components of cycles of the Life of the Virgin in which Anne is normally shown here. Her emblem is a door.[15] She is often portrayed wearing red and green, representing love and life.[3]
Anne is never shown as present at theNativity of Christ but is frequently shown with the infant Christ in various subjects. She is sometimes believed to be depicted in scenes of thePresentation of Jesus at the Temple and theCircumcision of Christ, but in the former case, this likely reflects a misidentification through confusion withAnna the Prophetess. There was a tradition that Anne went (separately) to Egypt and rejoined theHoly Family after theirFlight to Egypt. Anne is not seen with the adult Christ, so was regarded as having died during the youth of Jesus.[33] Anne is also shown as the matriarch of theHoly Kinship, the extended family of Jesus, a popular subject in late medieval Germany; some versions of these pictorial and sculptural depictions includeEmerentia who was reputed in the fifteenth century to be Anne's mother. In modern devotions, Anne and her husband are invoked for protection for the unborn.
The role of the Messiah's grandparents in salvation history was commonly depicted in early medieval devotional art in a vertical double-Madonna arrangement known as theVirgin and Child with Saint Anne, and developed into less hierarchical compositions. The painted or sculpted group is called in ItalianMetterza, in FrenchSainte Anne trinitaire, and in GermanAnna selbdritt. Another typical subject has Anne teaching the Virgin Mary the scriptures.
Anne (Arabic:حنة بنت فاقوذ,romanized: Ḥannah bint Faḳūdh) is also revered inIslam, recognized as a highly spiritual woman and as the mother of Mary.She is not named in the Quran, where she is referred to as "the wife of Imran". The Quran describes her remaining childless until her old age. One day, Anne saw a bird feeding its young while sitting in the shade of a tree, which awakened her desire to have children of her own. She prayed for a child and eventually conceived; her husband,Imran, died before the child was born. Expecting the child to be male, Anne vowed to dedicate him to isolation and service in theSecond Temple;[N 1][34][35] however, Anne bore a daughter instead, and named her Mary. Her words upon delivering Mary reflect her status as a greatmystic, realising that while she had wanted a son, this daughter was God's gift to her:[34][35]
When she delivered, she said, “My Lord! I have given birth to a girl,” —and Allah fully knew what she had delivered—“ and the male is not like the female. I have named her Mary, and I seek Your protection for her and her offspring from Satan, the accursed.” So her Lord accepted her graciously and blessed her with a pleasant upbringing—entrusting her to the care of Zachariah...
^"O my Lord! I do dedicate into Thee what is in my womb for Thy special service: So accept this of me: For Thou hearest and knowest all things." (Quran 3:35).
^abcReames, Sherry L., ed. (2003). "Introduction to Legends of St. Anne, Mother of the Virgin Mary".Middle English Legends of Women Saints. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications. Retrieved31 August 2025.
^Holweck, Frederick (1907)."St. Anne".The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Newadvent.org. Retrieved15 August 2013.The renowned Father John of Eck of Ingolstadt, in a sermon on St. Anne (published at Paris in 1579), pretends to know even the names of the parents St. Anne. He calls them Stollanus and Emerentia. He says that St. Anne was born after Stollanus and Emerentia had been childless for twenty years.
^abcHolweck, Frederick (1907)."St. Anne".The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Newadvent.org. Retrieved15 August 2013.
^Butler, Alban (1987). "Anne, Mother of Our Lady". In Michael Walsh (ed.).Lives of the Patron Saints. Kent: Burns and Oates. pp. 53 f. Archived fromthe original on 17 April 2016. Retrieved14 July 2022 – via Mcah.columbia.edu.
^Some writers gave her age at death, as part of a general family chronology, but no generally accepted tradition developed on this point, even during the Middle Ages.
^abWheeler, Brannon M. (2002).Prophets in the Quran: An Introduction to the Quran and Muslim Exegesis. Continuum International.ISBN0-8264-4957-3.
^abDa Costa, Yusuf (2002).The Honor of Women in Islam. LegitMaddie101.ISBN1-930409-06-0.
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