Between the birth of Christ, and the flight into Egypt, St. Luke records an event to have happened by no means unimportant--the presentation of Christ in { 277} the temple. "And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. And he (Simeon) came by the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, &c. And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign that shall be spoken against, (yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." [Luke ii. 28.] In this incident it is worthy of remark, that Joseph and Mary are both mentioned by name, that they are both called the parents of the young child; that both are equally blessed by Simeon; and that the good old Israelite, illumined by the spirit of prophecy, when he addresses himself immediately to Mary, speaks only of her future sorrow, and does not even most remotely or faintly allude to any exaltation of her above the other daughters of Abraham. "A sword shall pass through thine own soul also," a prophecy, as St. Augustine interprets it, accomplished when she witnessed the sufferings and death of her Son. (See De Sacy, vol. xxxii. p. 138.)
The next occasion on which the name of the Virgin Mary is found in Scripture, is the memorable visit of herself, her husband, and her Son, to Jerusalem, when he was twelve years old. And the manner in which this incident is related by the inspired Evangelist, so far from intimating that Mary was destined to be an object of worship to the believers in her Son, affords { 278} evidence which exhibits strongly a bearing the direct contrary. Here again Joseph and Mary are both called his parents: Joseph is once mentioned by name, and so is Mary. If the language had been so framed as on purpose to take away all distinction of preference or superiority, it could not more successfully have effected its purpose. But not only so, of the three addresses recorded as having been made by our blessed Lord to his beloved mother (and only three are recorded in the New Testament), the first occurs during this visit to Jerusalem. It was in answer to the remonstrance made by Mary, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." [Luke ii. 48.] "How is it that ye sought me? Knew ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"--[or in my Father's house, as some render it.] He lifts up their minds from earth to heaven, from his human to his eternal origin. He makes no distinction here,--"Wist YE not." Again, I would appeal to any dispassionate person to pronounce, whether this reproof, couched in these words, countenances the idea that our blessed Lord intended his human mother to receive such divine honour from his followers to the end of time as the Church of Rome now pays? and whether St. Luke, whose pen wrote this account, could have been made cognizant of any such right invested in the Virgin?