The growing cult of devotion to the Virgin Mary in the medieval period led to fine-grained theological divisions on the issue. But was her sinlessness in this life because she was born without “original sin”? After all, according to Western theology, every human being was born with original sin, the “genetic” consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Within Western theology, it was generally recognised from the time of Saint Ambrose that Mary never committed a sin. Virgin and Child tempera on panel painting by Antonio Veneziano, circa 1380. In short, Mary was said to be a virgin because of an accident of translation when “young woman” became “virgin”. Whereas “almah” means only “young woman”, the Greek word “parthenos” means physically “a virgin intacta”. In the Greek Old Testament, the original Hebrew word “almah” had been translated as “parthenos”, thence into the Latin Bible as “virgo” and into English as “virgin”. Matthew was using the Greek version of the Old Testament. In proof of this, Matthew quoted a prophecy from the Old Testament that a “virgin will conceive and bear a son and he will be called Emmanuel”. She was said to be “with child from the Holy Spirit”. The gospel of Matthew is the only one to tell us Mary was pregnant before she and Joseph had sex.
In spite of their differences, Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God Here, then, are five things we do know about her.
Indeed, Mary is mentioned more often in the Qur'an than in the New Testament. She is present at a wedding where Jesus turns water into wine she makes an attempt to see her son while he is teaching and she is there at his crucifixion. Outside of the accounts of the birth of Jesus that only occur in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, she is specifically mentioned at only three other events in the life of her son. In the New Testament, there is nothing about her birth, death, appearance or age. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is unquestionably the senior saint within the Christian tradition.
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