It just dawned on me… Mary lived in the Holy Temple, as far as I’ve always known, yet wouldn’t She have gotten her period at eleven or twelve or so? I’m assuming She was still living there by that time, and She was a woman, ordinary in that sense…Yet women were not allowed to be in the Temple during their bloodflow, considered “unclean” until their monthly was over. How would this have worked for Her, if She was living there? Was there a special exception for Her?
Going by the logic of the
Protoevangelium’s narrative, the Temple priests
were concerned that Mary’s menstruation might make the Temple unclean. That’s why the priests in the story married her off.
She was not the only consecrated virgin to have ever lived in the Temple. I’m sure there were arrangements made for this.
-Tim-
Here’s the thing, actually. The PoJ doesn’t really state that Mary joined a group of cloistered consecrated virgins in the Temple. Quite the contrary, in the world of the PoJ’s narrative, Mary was apparently the only girl living in the Temple - that the priests had to convene a council about what to do when Mary hits puberty.
(You have to keep in mind that the PoJ used the story of Samuel as a model for its depiction of Mary: barren woman miraculously conceives a child; said child is given by its parents back to God. Heck, Mary’s mother has the same name as Samuel’s:
Hannah!)
It’s only in later, Western retellings (the earliest version I’ve read is from the 6th century) that you see these other consecrated proto-nuns appear, and they made their way into the story likely under influence of the rise of monasticism in the West (courtesy of St. Benedict).
Historically speaking, it’s rather uncertain whether there were even cloistered consecrated virgins living in the Jerusalem Temple anyway.
What you do have is this group of female weavers who were part of the Temple maintenance staff and were under its payroll; a tradition found between the lines of the Mishnah (I say ‘between the lines’, because the current version of the Mishnah seems to censor out their existence; for the record, a late 1st century source, the
Apocalypse of Baruch, also implies the existence of these women, so we might assume that the tradition here is historically reliable) claims that these maidens were tasked with the making of the Temple curtain and other textiles used in the Temple.
But these virgin weavers didn’t seem to live in the Temple itself (they apparently only went there for ‘work’ - just like many priests and the other staff), and it’s unclear whether there was a special dedication/consecration involved.
