Mary of Nazareth (, , ) is a 2012 Italian-German-Spanish television movie directed by Giacomo Campiotti. It focuses on life events of Mary of Nazareth, Mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene.
Plot
In the late first century BC, a group of marauders raid a Jewish neighborhood and abduct several young girls. A couple, Joachim and Anna, manage to hide their young daughter before the raiders burst into their home and use a dog in an attempt to sniff out any girls they could kidnap. Despite the dog visible to the little girl from her hiding place, it inexplicably fails to notice her scent and the raiders leave the home. Unable to understand how the dog could possibly fail to pick up their daughter, Joachim states that their daughter, Mary, is a mystery. Shortly afterwards, they bring her to the Temple in Jerusalem to live under the care of an elder doctor, Simeon.
Some years later, a young carpenter, Joseph, approaches Mary and asks for her hand in marriage. He also asks her parents, and while Joachim is less enthusiastic about the idea, Anna is more encouraging. They are eventually betrothed, considered legally married while Joseph builds their home after which they were to have their wedding ceremony and begin to live together.
During this time, Mary is visited by an angel named Gabriel who announces that she was to conceive by the power of God and give birth to a son to be named Jesus, and who was to sit on the throne of David his ancestor. When she presses the angel as to how this was to be possible, she is told that nothing was impossible for God, and in fact, her kinswoman Elizabeth, who was elderly and thought to be barren, was in the sixth month of her pregnancy. With that, Mary accedes to the divine will. She shortly leaves for Ain Karem to visit Elizabeth, whose unborn child leaps in her womb at Mary's greeting. She stays with Elizabeth for three months before returning to Nazareth.
Upon her return, Mary is now visibly with child, and is scorned as a disgrace by the people of Nazareth. Joseph is quite understandably upset, but unwilling to subject Mary to the death penalty for adultery, he dismisses her quietly. However, an angel appears to him in a dream and tells him to not fear to take Mary as his wife, and that the child she bears was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Joseph subsequently goes through with the marriage ceremony and takes Mary into the home he built for them.
As Mary's due date approaches, a decree is issued from Caesar Augustus ordering a census of the Empire, and everyone was to register in their ancestral town. Joseph, being of the line of David, is therefore required to register in Bethlehem in Judaea. Mary goes with him to register, and after several days' journey, they arrive only to find all accommodations full, with none willing to give up their place for a pregnant woman. However, a maidservant points them in the direction of a cave used as a stable and although it is no luxury, it will provide shelter. Thankful for this, Joseph takes Mary there, where she gives birth to her son. While there, they receive the homage of shepherds who had received word of this event from a host of angels in the fields. Magi also arrive from the East bearing gifts for the newborn, having been led there by the appearance of a new star. Forty days after Jesus' birth, Joseph brings Mary and Jesus to the Temple for Mary's ceremony of purification after childbirth, and there she meets her old mentor Simeon, who praises God for the child, and warns Mary that a sword will pierce her own soul.
Prior to their arrival in Bethlehem, the Magi from the East had stopped by Herod's palace in Jerusalem to inquire about the new star. Herod, upon learning that it was the sign of a new king, had asked the Magi find out and tell him so that Herod may also worship him. But after the Magi are warned to return home by another route, Herod orders the destruction of all infants in Bethlehem. However, an angel warns Joseph, and he takes Mary and the child and they flee to Egypt where Jesus spends his early years. Upon Herod's death, an angel again speaks to Joseph, and the family returns to Nazareth.
Years later, Elizabeth's son John is baptizing and preaching repentance in preparation for the coming of one greater than he. He is confronted by Herod's son Antipas, his wife Herodias, and a prostitute working at the Herodian court, Magdalen. John admonishes Antipas to put away Herodias as she is married to his brother, and so are living in a sinful union, and he also warns Magdalen of her sinful lifestyle.