The formation of Christianity took more than one century after the preaching of Christ of Nazareth and his martyrdom on the cross. At first, Christian communities were too busy surviving to seriously think about the nuances of their faith. But as the church took a legal and then a dominant position in society, the problem of a single canonical teaching for all Christians became more and more urgent. And of great importance in this unified teaching was the question of who, in fact, was Jesus himself
Man or God?
Throughout the 4th-6th centuries there were endless disputes that are called Christological. During them, priests and bishops tried to agree on who to consider the Savior - God, man or God-man. But in the latter case - which nature is more important in him, Divine or human. Retelling these theological intricacies is extremely difficult. Moreover, the Christians have not been able to come to any one opinion. Until now, Catholics and Orthodox have different views on the nature of Christ. And in some other Eastern churches they adhere to their own original interpretations.
But that was not all that needed to be agreed upon. After all, there were many people around Christ, with many of whom he was related. It was necessary to understand whether Divine grace spreads to them in some way, and if it does, then how and to whom exactly … And in general - can the God-man have earthly relatives ?!
It must be said here that the favorite pastime of medieval people was the compilation of genealogies. After all, from what kind a person came from, it directly depended on what rights and what property he could claim. The older the family, the more respect, privileges and opportunities. The more noble relatives and ancestors, the stronger the authority.
Of course, there were those who hastened to write down certain names from the main book of medieval Europe - the Bible - in their genealogy. At one time, for example, a theory was seriously developed according to which only one person whose family lineage descended to one of the biblical patriarchs could be a king. True, they soon realized it - after all, it turns out that all the crowned persons are Jews, the attitude towards whom was already extremely ambiguous. The royal genealogies were urgently rewritten, removing the ancient Jewish roots from there.
However, from time to time there were impudent people who calmly recorded Jesus Christ himself as the distant ancestors. When they were asked where such data came from and where the Savior had children in general, they began to refer to some obscure treatises or apocrypha (versions of the Gospels unrecognized by the church), of which there have always been a great many. The situation with the relatives and descendants of Jesus threatened to develop into complete anarchy. The church had to build a harmonious and consistent system that would be accepted by everyone once and for all. And it turned out to be a daunting task.
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Genealogy secrets
Jesus, as it should be, was drawn a beautiful genealogy, according to which he, in full accordance with the Old Testament prophecies, came in a straight line from King David. But a serious problem immediately became clear - the Evangelists Matthew and Luke listed the Savior's ancestors in completely different ways. Even the number of generations did not match. Hundreds of theologians, both in the West and in the East, have fought over how to bring them together. Various versions of the origin of the husband of the Holy Virgin Joseph were put forward, they referred to the mistakes of the translators …
Already in rather late times, around the 16th century, a version arose among Protestants that these were generally two different genealogies. One refers to Joseph and the other refers to the Virgin Mary. It so happened that the spouses came from the same family, which guaranteed the fulfillment of the prophecy, but were in a sufficiently distant relationship that this did not interfere with marriage. However, neither the Catholic, nor the Orthodox, nor even the Anglican Church accepted this version.
More carefully approached the origin and family ties of the Mother of God, because a lot depended on this. Mary was considered the daughter of St. Anne and St. Joachim (the main Gospels did not mention this, and had to rely on the Apocrypha). Based on this, John the Baptist (or the Baptist) turned out to be a second cousin of Christ, like the author of the Apocalypse, John the Theologian. In total, Jesus had about two dozen relatives in this scheme, but all of them were far enough away that this would not show an encroachment on the concept of God-manhood.
However, there were much more serious problems. These are the “brothers of the Lord” mentioned in the Gospels. They were named by name (Simeon, Judas, Jacob, and Josiah), so it was impossible to simply ignore their existence. However, the idea that the Virgin Mary, after the immaculate conception, could give birth to several children in a natural way, did not suit the church fathers. Although some communities easily accepted this concept, judging that, having completed her mission, Mary had the right to live an ordinary human life.
However, the largest churches, Catholic and Orthodox, rejected this version. According to the Orthodox, the so-called "brothers of the Lord" are the children of Joseph the Betrothed, born of St. Joachim (mainly his first wife, before his marriage to Mary. It is believed that he had four sons and two daughters. Catholics believe that this is cousins, however, did not come to a consensus on which side - father or mother.
Immaculate Conception
Many copies were broken around the Virgin Mary herself. So, for example, Bishop Nestorius, a popular theologian from Antioch in the 5th century, insisted that she should not be called the Mother of God. After all, a human being cannot give birth to God, as the less cannot contain the greater.
According to Nestorius, Mary was only the Mother of God, and God the Father breathed everything Divine into the baby directly. The teaching of Nestorius was ultimately condemned, although it was not the most radical. He at least recognized the divine nature of Christ from the moment of conception. And a whole galaxy of early Christian preachers, united under the name of adoptionists, argued that Christ was adopted by God only after the baptism of John the Baptist. And before that, he was the most ordinary person born to an ordinary woman, Maria.
One way or another, but gradually the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception of Christ and the holiness of the Mother of God were formulated and proclaimed by all the main churches. True, this was not enough for the Catholics, and they added the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Mary herself. Her mother, Saint Anna, had been married for 50 years and was sterile. Then an angel appeared to her and her husband and announced the coming miracle. Soon they had a daughter, Mary, who was born in the usual way, but did not have the original sin on herself, which lies with all the descendants of Adam and Eve.
Interestingly, until the 17th century, the Catholic Church condemned and prohibited all such stories. Then she stopped prohibiting. And in the 19th century, Pope Pius IX approved the dogma, and those books that denied it began to prohibit. At the same time, there was a small discord inside the church - it was officially believed that Mary was conceived, even after the angel's message, but in the most ordinary way, like all people. But the doctrine of the Franciscan Order insisted that conception was unusual, sinless. It allegedly happened as a result of a simple hug of the spouses. Well, the Orthodox Church, as from the very beginning, denied such views, and continues to insist that, despite all the merits of the Virgin Mary, the original sin was still on her.
Who Created the Priory of Zion?
Discussions that had died away that the Savior was married and left offspring flared up with renewed vigor in the 20th century. Perhaps the most famous work on this topic is the book "Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", published in 1982. She was far from the first, but the most consistent and complete presentation of the material. And besides, it was this work that pushed the imagination of fiction writer Dan Brown and Hollywood filmmakers, who brought the sensational assumptions to the general public. By the way, the authors of "Holy Blood …" even tried to sue Brown, but lost.
According to the authors of "Holy Blood …" and their supporters, the wife of Jesus Christ was Mary Magdalene. The episodes when Mary Magdalene washes the feet of Jesus and wipes them with her own hair, as well as the famous miracle in Cana of Galilee, when the water turned into wine, are interpreted as a description of the marriage ceremony. They also argue that an unmarried man in Ancient Judea simply could not be perceived as a teacher.
Children were allegedly left from this marriage, who later founded the first dynasty of Frankish kings - the Merovingians. Kings from this dynasty ruled over a large part of Europe until the 8th century, when power passed to the Carolingians. However, supporters of the version about the descendants of Christ claim that in fact the very "holy blood" flowed in the veins of the Carolingians. And then - in the veins of the Habsburgs and other great dynasties (including the Russian Romanovs). So the power over the Old World was held in the hands of the descendants of the Savior. Well, the notorious Holy Grail is not a cup, but the womb of Mary, from which came the great dynasty of the descendants of Christ.
The protection of this sacred power was carried out by a mysterious organization called the Priory of Zion, created back in the 11th century by the leader of the First Crusade, Gottfried of Bouillon (who, by the way, was really related to the Merovingians in the female line). Then the Order of the Templars separated from the Priory, but the organization continued to continuously fulfill its duty until the present day. Moreover, her masters were, among other things, such people as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo and Jean Cocteau.
The most interesting thing is that the Priory of Zion is a real organization. But it was not created in the XI century, but in 1956. It was founded by the infamous French adventurer and hoaxer Pierre Plantard. He really claimed to be a direct descendant of the Merovingians and simultaneously with this "great monarch" predicted by Nostradamus.
Plantard read and praised the book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," but he emphasized that he had never claimed any kind of relationship with Jesus Christ, and the theses of the authors seemed to him doubtful. Still would! Indeed, as sources for their "investigation" they used several fake pseudo-medieval documents made by Plantard!
Wife and student
A new surge of interest in the topic of the possible marriage of Jesus happened recently, when at an international congress a report was read under the modest title "Fragment of the New Coptic Gospel." It was about a manuscript, known since the 1980s, but carefully researched and fully translated only in 2010.
In a text of eight lines in the Said dialect of the Coptic language, scientists were able to make out only fragments of phrases. But what! The greatest sensation was created by the following fragment: "Jesus said to them:" My wife … "Also, the text mentions the mother of Jesus and another Mary, about whom it says:" … may be my disciple. " True, it is not entirely clear whether this is Christ or someone else.
Scientists are very cautious about their findings. Judging by the handwriting, the writing on the papyrus was made in the 4th century. The text is clearly written somewhere after a century and a half after the life of Jesus. So even if all the phrases are read correctly, they only mean that some communities of early Christians could believe that Christ had a wife and write texts about it. After all, until the moment when a single creed was created, it was still far away.
Nevertheless, the papyrus, which was instantly dubbed "The Gospel of the Wife of Jesus", made a splash. Analyzes conducted in 2014 showed that the ink on it is clearly ancient, and not made in our time. But already in 2016, information appeared that the scandalous "Gospel …" may turn out to be a high-quality fake. But who could have done it? And most importantly, why? Perhaps someone really knows the truth about the family secrets of Christ and is trying to communicate it in such an extravagant way? Or vice versa - a prudent businessman is stirring up interest before the release of the next sensational blockbuster?
Magazine: Mysteries of History No. 52, Viktor Banev