'Whose temple she herself was now': Jeremy Taylor and the Daughter of Sion

In this Advent series of Marian reflections from Jeremy Taylor's The Great Exemplar, we turn to the Blessed Virgin's post-Annunciation journey to Saint Elizabeth. At this point, Taylor evokes one of the most significant aspects of the Protoevangelium:

Her haste was in proportion to her joy and desires, but yet went no greater pace than her religion. For as in her journey she came near to Jerusalem, she turned in, that she might visit his temple, whose temple she herself was now; and there, not only to remember the pleasures of religion, which she had felt in continual descents and showers falling on her pious heart, for the space of eleven years' attendance there in her childhood, but also to pay the first fruits of her thanks and joy, and to lay all her glory at his feet, whose humble handmaid she was in the greatest honour of being his blessed mother. Having worshipped, she went on her journey, 'and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth.'

It is, of course, from the Protoevangelium that the account of the child Mary residing in the Temple is received, albeit for a slightly shorter period than the eleven years mentioned by Taylor. Something of Taylor's reference to her experiencing "continual descents and showers falling on her pious heart" might also echo the Protoevangelium:

And Mary was in the temple of the Lord as if she were a dove that dwelt there, and she received food from the hand of an angel.

Other details from the Protoevangelium are, however, not repeated by Taylor. For example, the story of Mary's role in the making of the veil of Temple is not found in Taylor. Likewise, the context given by the Protoevangelium for the Annunciation - Mary filling a pitcher of water - is entirely different to Taylor's account of the Blessed Virgin being at prayer "in her oratory". And the Protoevangelium makes no reference to Mary worshipping in the Temple following the Annunciation - the key point in this passage from Taylor.

While Taylor, therefore, is certainly not slavishly following the details of the Protoevangelium, he does see its pious understanding of the child Mary abiding in the Temple as fitting. This leads him to reflect on that which is mentioned neither in holy Scripture nor the Protoevangelium, the Blessed Virgin's visit to the Temple after the Annunciation.

This, however, surely has very significant scriptural resonances. Mary worshipping in the Temple following the Annunciation coheres with Luke's accounts of both the Presentation and the Holy Family's practice at the Passover:

they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord ... Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.

The conclusion of Luke's Gospel - "And [they] were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God" - and the references in Acts to the early Christian community worshipping in the Temple also have relevance, as does the place of the Temple in Johannine account (now taken much more seriously by scholarship than was conventionally the case in the 20th century).

In other words, Taylor's suggestion of Mary worshipping in the Temple after the Annunciation and before the Visitation to Saint Elizabeth can be seen as owing at least as much to the scriptural accounts as it does to the background provided by the Protoevangelium. 

This wider scriptural context also emphasises Taylor's focus:

that she might visit his temple, whose temple she herself was now ...

This, of course, echoes a profound patristic teaching, such as found in Athanasius of Alexandria:

O dwelling place of God the Word ... You are the ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides.

It was also to be found in Thomas Traherne's praise for the Blessed Virgin being "Tabernacle of the most Glorious Trinity". And as Taylor himself described Mary, just prior to the above extract in which he proclaims her as the Temple, "she, who was now full of God, bearing God in her virgin womb".

Taylor's willingness to evoke the Protoevangelium's account of the child Mary residing in the Temple is probably to be understood by a term that he will use elsewhere in The Great Exemplar with reference to another Marian tradition: "piously believed". It does, however, open us to seeing the Blessed Virgin in the context of a wider scriptural recognition of the significance of the Temple to the Incarnate Word, the Holy Family, and the apostolic community in Jerusalem. It is this which brings us to behold with reverent joy the wonder of the Daughter of Sion as the Temple of the Eternal Word, for she "was now full of God".