The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich

[Stone]

I. OUR LADY’S ANCESTORS

Section II

THE ANCESTORS OF ST. ANNE5

I had a detailed vision of the ancestors of St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin. They lived at Mara in the region of Mount Horeb, and were connected spiritually with a kind of very devout Israelites of whom I have seen a great deal. I will relate as much as I can recall about them. I was with these people almost the whole of yesterday, and if I had not been oppressed by so many visits, I should not have forgotten nearly all of what I saw.

These devout Israelites who were connected with the ancestors of St. Anne were called Essenes or Essaees. They have, however, changed their name three times, for they were first called Eskarenes, then Chasidaees, and finally Essenes. Their first name, Eskarenes, came from the word Eskara or Azkara, which is the name for the part of the sacrifice belonging to God, and also for the sweet-smelling incense at the offering of wheaten flour.6 The second name, Chasidaees, means merciful.7  I cannot remember what the name Essenes comes from.8

The way of life of these devout people is an inheritance from the time of Moses and Aaron and in particular from the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant; but it was not until the period between Isaias and Jeremias that their way of life was regularly established. At the beginning there were not many of them; later on, however, their settlements in the Promised Land occupied a space twenty-four hours’ journey long and thirty-six hours’ journey broad. They did not come to the region of the Jordan until later; they lived mostly on the slopes of Mount Horeb and Mount Carmel, the home of Elias. In the lifetime of St. Anne’s grandparents, the Essenes had a spiritual head who lived on Mount Horeb. He was an aged prophet called Archos or Arkas.9

Their organization was very like that of a religious order. All who wished to enter it had to undergo a year’s tests, and the length of time for which they were accepted was decided by prophetic inspirations from above. The real members of the Order, who lived in a community, did not marry but lived in chastity; but there were others (who had formerly been in the Order or were attached to it) who married and carried out in their families, and with their children and household, something similar in many ways to the traditional discipline of the real Essenes. Their relationship with these was like that between the lay members of a Catholic Third Order, or Tertiaries, and the professed priests of the Order. In all important matters,
especially as to the marriages of their relations, these married Essenes always sought instruction and counsel from the aged prophet on Mount Horeb.

St. Anne’s grandparents belonged to this kind of married Essenes. Later there arose a third kind of Essenes who exaggerated everything and fell into great errors, and I saw that the others would have no dealings with them. The real Essenes were specially concerned with prophetic matters, and their head on Mount Horeb was often vouchsafed divine revelations in the cave of Elias respecting the coming of the Messias. He had knowledge of the family from which the mother of the Messias was to come, and at the time that he gave prophetic advice to the grandparents of St. Anne in matters of marriage, he saw that the day of the Lord was approaching. He did not, however, know how long the birth of the Saviour’s mother might still be prevented or delayed by sin, and so he was always preaching penance, mortification, prayer, and inner sacrifice for this intention—pious exercises of which all Essenes had ever given the example.

Until Isaias assembled these people together and gave them a more regular organization, they were scattered about the land of Israel, leading lives of piety and intent on mortification. They wore their clothes without mending them till they fell off their bodies. They fought particularly against sexual immorality, and often by mutual consent lived in continence for long periods, living in huts far removed from their wives. When they lived together as husband and wife, it was only with the intention of producing a holy offspring which might bring nearer the coming of the Saviour. I saw them eating apart from their wives; the wife came to take her meal after the husband had left the table. There were ancestors of St. Anne and of other holy people among these early Essenes.

Jeremias too was connected with them, and the men called ‘Sons of the Prophet’ came from them. They often lived in the desert and round Mount Horeb and Carmel, and later I saw many of them in Egypt. I also saw that for a time they were driven away from Mount Horeb by war and were reassembled by new leaders. The Maccabees also belonged to them. They had a great devotion to Moses, and possessed a sacred piece of his clothing given by him to Aaron, from whom it had come down to them. This was their most precious relic, and I had a vision of some fifteen of them being killed in defending it. Their prophet leaders had knowledge of the secret mysteries of the Ark of the Covenant.

The real Essenes who lived in chastity were indescribably pure and devout. They adopted children and brought them up to lead a very holy life. To be accepted as a member of the regular Order, a boy had to have reached the age of fourteen. Those who had been already tested had to undergo a year’s novitiate, others two years. They did not carry on any form of trade, but exchanged the produce of their agriculture for whatever else they needed. If one of them had committed a grave sin, he was expelled from among them and excommunicated by their head. This excommunication had the force of that pronounced by Peter against Ananias, who was struck dead by it. Their head knew by prophetic inspiration who had committed sin. I also saw some Essenes undergoing penitential punishment; they were obliged to stand in a stiff robe with their arms extended immovably in sleeves lined with thorns.

Mount Horeb was full of little caves, which formed the cells where they lived. An assembly hall of light wattle-work had been built on to the mouth of one of the large caves. Here they came together at eleven o’clock in the morning and ate. Each had a small loaf of bread in front of him with a goblet. The head went from place to place and blessed each one’s bread. After the meal they returned to their separate cells. In this assembly-hall there was an altar on which stood little blessed loaves covered up; they were in some way sacred and were, I think, distributed among the poor.
The Essenes had a great number of doves, which were tame and ate out of their hands. They ate doves, but also used them in their ritual ceremonies. They said something over them and let them fly away. I saw, too, that they released lambs in the desert after saying something over them, as if they were to take their sins on them.10

I saw them go three times a year to the Temple in Jerusalem. They had also priests among them whose special duty was the care of the sacred vestments; they cleaned them, contributed money for them, and also made new ones. I saw them engaged in cattlebreeding and agriculture, but specially in gardening. Mount Horeb was full of gardens and fruit-trees in the spaces between their huts. I saw many of them weaving and plaiting, and also embroidering priests’ vestments. I did not see them producing silk; that came in bundles to be sold to them, and they exchanged other produce for it. In Jerusalem they had a quarter of their own to live in and a separate place in the Temple as well. The other Jews rather disliked them because of their austerity. I saw, too, that they sent presents to the Temple; for example, great bunches of grapes, carried by two people on a pole. They also sent lambs, but not to be slaughtered; I think they just let them run into a garden. I did not see the real Essenes offering bloody sacrifices in these later times. I saw that before they journeyed to the Temple they made a very rigorous preparation by prayer, fasting, and penance, including even scourgings. If one laden with sins went to the Temple and to the Holy of Holies without having made atonement by penance, he usually died on the spot. If on their journey, or in Jerusalem itself, they found anyone who was ill or in any way helpless, they did not go to the Temple until they had given him all the aid in their power.

I saw that, in general, they employed themselves in healing. They gathered herbs and prepared potions. I saw also that those holy people whom I had seen some time before laying sick folk down on a bed of healing plants were Essenes.11 I saw, too, that the Essenes healed the sick by the laying-on of hands, or by stretching themselves on them with arms extended. I saw them also healing at a distance in a wonderful way, for the sick who could not come themselves sent a representative to whom everything was done as it would have been to the sick person. The time was noted, and the distant sick person was cured at that very hour.

I saw that the Essenes on Horeb had in their caves recesses in the walls where bones, carefully wrapped in cotton and silk, were kept as sacred relics behind gratings. They were bones of prophets who had lived here, and also of the children of Israel who had died near here. There were little pots of green plants standing beside them. The Essenes used to light lamps and pray before the bones in veneration of them.

All the unmarried Essenes who lived together in communities on Mount Horeb and elsewhere observed the greatest cleanliness. They wore long white robes. The head of the Essenes on Horeb wore wonderful priestly vestments during solemn religious services, after the manner of the high priest in Jerusalem, only shorter and not so magnificent. When he prayed and prophesied in the cave of Elias on Mount Horeb, he always wore these sacred vestments, which consisted of about eight pieces. Amongst them was a very sacred relic, a sort of dalmatic or scapular, covering the breast and shoulders, which Moses had worn next to his body and had given to Aaron, from whom it had later descended to the Essenes. The prophet Archos, their head on Mount Horeb, always wore this dalmatic next his body when he was clothed in all his vestments and was praying for prophetic enlightenment. The lower part of his body was wrapped in a loin-cloth, while breast and shoulders were covered with this sacred garment, which I will describe as exactly as I can remember. It will probably be clearer if I cut out a sort of pattern of it in paper. [She then quickly cut the shape out of paper put together, saying:] This sacred scapulary had more or less this shape when spread out. Its stuff was woven as stiff as hair-cloth. On the middle of the breast and back was a triangular place of double thickness and as it were quilted. I cannot now say for certain what was between the layers. At the neck of the scapulary a triangular piece was cut out, and a ribbon or little strap ran across the top of the opening. Its lower point was still attached to the scapulary, and the triangle could be let down to hide completely another opening over the breast. The place of double thickness mentioned above was ribbed or quilted, and letters were fastened into it with little pins and on the inside with sharp little hooks sticking out and pricking the breast. On the cut-out triangle (which was also of double thickness) at the neck there was also something like letters. I do not now know what was inside these triangles.

When the priest put on this sacred vestment, the upper triangle exactly covered the lower one. In the middle of the back there was another place where the stuff was quilted and of two thicknesses, and here, too, there were letters and sharp pins. Over his scapulary the head of the Essenes wore a grey woollen tunic, and on this again a large full tunic made of white twisted silk, girt with a broad belt inscribed with letters. He had a kind of stole round the neck crossed over the breast, and it was held fast under the  girdle and hung down below his knees. The stole was fastened with three straps above and below the place where it was crossed. On this he put a vestment not unlike a chasuble which was also made of white twisted silk. [She cut out a pattern of this vestment as it looked when spread out.] The back was narrow and came down to the ground; it had two bells attached to the lower hem, which tinkled with the priest’s movements and called the people to the service. The front was shorter and broader and open from the neck downwards. This front part had large openings on the breast and below it, through which the stole and undergarment could be seen. These openings were held together in places by fastenings ornamented with letters and precious stones. The front and back of this vestment were held together by strips of stuff under the arms. [These were not shown in the pattern which she cut out.]

Round the neck was an upright collar, hooked together in front. The priest’s beard, divided in the middle of the chin, fell down over this collar. Over all this he finally put on a little cloak of white twisted silk. It shimmered and shone and was fastened in front with three clasps ornamented with precious stones on which something was engraved. From both shoulders of his cloak there were fringes, tassels, and fruits hanging. Besides all this, he wore a short maniple on one arm. The head-dress was, as far as I can remember, also of white silk, twisted into a round shape and padded, like a turban, yet resembling our priests’ birettas to a certain extent, for at the top it had ridges like theirs and also a tuft of silk. A little plate of gold set with precious stones was fastened over the forehead.

The Essenes were very austere and frugal in their way of living. They generally ate only fruit, which they often cultivated in their gardens. I saw that Archos usually ate a bitter yellow fruit. About 200 years before Christ’s birth I saw near Jericho a very devout Essene called Chariot. Archos or Arkas, the old prophet on Mount Horeb, ruled over the Essenes for ninety years. I saw how St. Anne’s grandmother questioned him about her own marriage. It is remarkable that it was always about female children that these prophets made predictions, and that Anna’s ancestors and Anna herself had mostly daughters. It was as if the object of all their devotion and prayers was to obtain from God a blessing on pious mothers from
whose descendants the Blessed Virgin, the mother of the Saviour Himself, should spring, as well as the families of His precursor and of His servants and disciples.

The place where the head of the Essenes on Mount Horeb prayed and prophesied was the cave where Elias had dwelt. Many steps led to it up the mountain-side, and one entered the cave through a small cramped opening and down a few steps. The prophet Archos went in alone. For the Essenes this was as if the high priest in the Temple went into the Sanctissimum, for here was their Holy of Holies. Within, there were several mysterious holy things, difficult to describe. I will tell what I can remember of them. I saw Anna’s grandmother seeking counsel from the prophet Archos.

Anna’s grandmother came from Mara in the desert, where her family, which belonged to the married Essenes, owned property. Her name sounded to me like Moruni or Emorun. It was told me that this means something like ‘good mother’ or ‘noble mother’.12 When the time came for her to be married, she had several suitors, and I saw her go to the prophet Archos on Horeb for him to decide whom she was to accept. She went into a separate part of the large assembly-hall and spoke to Archos, who was in the hall, through a grating, as if she were making her confession to him. It was only in this way that women approached the place. I then saw Archos put on his ceremonial vestments, and ascend thus arrayed the many steps to the top of Mount Horeb, where he entered the cave of Elias by the little door and down the steps. He shut the little door of the cave behind him, and opened a hole in the vaulting dimly illuminating the cave, the interior of which had been carefully hollowed out.

Against the wall I saw a little altar carved out of the rock, and noticed, though not quite clearly, several sacred objects on it. On the altar were several pots with low-growing bushes of herbs. They were the herbs which grow as high as the hem of Jesus’ garment.13 I know this herb, it grows with us but less vigorously. The plants gave Archos some sort of indication in his prophetic knowledge according to whether they faded or flourished. In the middle between these little bushes of herbs I saw something like a little tree, taller than them, with leaves that looked yellowish and were twisted like snail-shells. There seemed to me to be little figures on this tree. I cannot now say for certain whether this tree was living or was artificial, like the Tree of Jesse. [On the next day she said:] On this little tree with the twisted leaves could be seen, as on a tree of Jesse or genealogical table, how soon the coming of the Blessed Virgin was to be expected. It looked to me as if it were living and yet it seemed also to be a receptacle, for I saw that a blossoming branch was kept inside it. I think it was Aaron’s rod, which had once been in the Ark of the Covenant. When Archos prayed in the cave of Elias for a revelation on the occasion of a marriage among Our Lady’s ancestors, he took this rod of Aaron into his hand. If the marriage was destined to take its place in Our Lady’s ancestry, the rod put forth a bud which produced one or more flowers, among which single flowers were sometimes marked with the sign of the elect. Certain buds represented particular ancestors of Anna, and when these came to be married, Archos observed the buds in question and uttered his prophecies according to the manner in which they unfolded.

The Essenes of Mount Horeb had, however, another holy relic in the cave of Elias; nothing less than a part of the most holy mystery of the Ark of the Covenant which came into their possession when the Ark fell into the hands of enemies. [She spoke here uncertainly of a quarrel and of a schism among the Levites.] This holy thing, concealed in the Ark of the Covenant in the fear of God, was known only to the holiest of the high priests and to a few prophets, but I think that I learnt that it is in some way mentioned in the littleknown secret books of the old Jewish thinkers.14 It was no longer complete in the new Ark of the Covenant in the Temple as restored by Herod. It was no work of man’s hands, it was a mystery, a most holy secret of the divine blessing on the coming of the Blessed Virgin full of grace, in whom by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost the Word became Flesh and God became Man. Before the Babylonian captivity this holy thing had been whole in the Ark of the Covenant; I now saw part of it here in the possession of the Essenes. It was kept in a chalice of shining brown, which seemed to me to be made of a precious stone. They prophesied, too, with the help of this holy thing, which seemed sometimes to put forth as it were little buds.

Archos, after entering the cave of Elias, shut the door and knelt down in prayer. He looked up to the opening in the vaulting and threw himself face downwards on the ground. I then saw the prophetic knowledge that was given to him. He saw that from under the heart of Emorun, who was seeking his counsel, there grew as it were a rose-tree with three branches, with a rose on each of them. The rose on the second branch was marked with a letter, I think an M. He saw still more. An angel wrote letters on the wall; I saw Archos rise up as if awaking and read these letters. I forget the details. He then went down from the cave, and announced to the maiden who was awaiting his answer that she was to marry and that her sixth suitor was to be her husband. She would bear a child, marked with a sign, who was chosen out as a vessel of election in preparation for the coming of the Saviour.

Hereupon Emorun married her sixth suitor, an Essene called Stolanus; he did not come from Mara, and as a result of his marriage and of his wife’s possessions he was given another name, which I can no longer remember distinctly; it was pronounced in different ways and sounded like Garesha or Sarzirius.15 Stolanus and Emorun had three daughters, called, I remember, Ismeria and Emerentia, and a younger one whose name I think, was Enue. They did not remain long at Mara, but moved later to Ephron. I saw that their daughters Ismeria and Emerentia both married in accordance with the prophetic counsels of the prophet on Horeb. (I can never understand why I have so often heard that Emerentia was the mother of Anna, for I always saw that it was Ismeria.) I will tell in God’s name what I still have in my mind about these daughters of Stolanus and Emorun.16

Emerentia married one Aphras or Ophras, a Levite. Of this marriage was born Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. A second daughter was named Enue like her mother’s sister. At the time of Mary’s birth she was already a widow. There was a third daughter, Rhode, one of whose daughters was Mara, whom I saw present at the death of the Blessed Virgin.

Ismeria married Eliud. They lived after the manner of the married Essenes in the region of Nazareth. They had inherited from their parents the tradition of discipline and continence in married life. Anna was one of their children. The first-born of Ismeria and Eliud was a daughter called Sobe. Because this child did not bear the sign of the promise, they were much distressed and again went to the prophet on Mount Horeb to seek counsel. Archos exhorted them to betake themselves to prayer and sacrifice, and promised them consolation.

After Sobe’s birth, Ismeria remained barren for some eighteen years. When she again became pregnant by God’s blessing, I saw that Ismeria was given a revelation at night. She saw an angel beside her bed writing a letter on the wall. It seems to me that it was again that letter M. Ismeria told her husband of it; he also had seen it in his sleep, but now, while awake, they both saw the sign on the wall. After three months Ismeria gave birth to St. Anne, who came into the world with that sign upon her body In her fifth year Anna was, like Our Lady, taken to the school in the Temple, where she remained twelve years. She was brought home again in her seventeenth year, to find two children there—her little sister Maraha, who had been born while she was away, and a little son of her elder sister Sobe called Eliud. A year after this Ismeria fell mortally ill. As she lay dying she spoke to all her relations and presented Anna to them as the future mistress of the house. Then she spoke once more with Anna alone, telling her that she was a chosen vessel of grace, that she must marry, and must seek counsel from the prophet on Mount Horeb. Then she died.

Sobe, Anna’s elder sister, was married to Salomo. Besides her son Eliud she had a daughter, Mary Salome, who married Zebedee and was the mother of the apostles James and John. Sobe had a second daughter who was an aunt of the bride-groom of Cana and the mother of three of Our Lord’s disciples. Eliud, the son of Sobe and Salomo, was the second husband of the widow Maroni of Naim and the father of the boy raised by Jesus from the dead. Maraha, Anna’s younger sister, was given the homestead in Sephoris when her father Eliud moved to the valley of Zabulon. She married and had a daughter and two sons, Arastaria and Cocharia, who became disciples. Anna had yet a third sister who was very poor and was the wife of a shepherd on Anna’s pastures. She was often in Anna’s house. Enue, the third daughter of Stolanus, married and lived between Bethlehem and Jericho. One of her descendants was with Jesus.



5. Communicated in July and August 1821.

6. This was taken down in August 1821 by the writer from Catherine Emmerich’s words. In July 1840, when preparing the book for printing, he asked a language expert for an explanation of the word Azkara, and was told that Azkarah meant commemoration and is the name of the portion of the unbloody sacrifice, which was burnt on the altar by the priest to the glory of God and to remind Him of His merciful promises. The unbloody sacrifices generally consisted of the finest wheaten flour mixed with oil and sprinkled with incense. The priest burnt as the Azkarah all the incense and also a handful of flour and oil (baked or unbaked). In the case of the shew-bread the incense alone was the Azkarah (Lev. 24.7). The Vulgate translates the word Azkarah alternatively as ‘memoriale’, ‘in memoriam’, or ‘in monumentum’. (CB)
Lev. 24.7, literally: ‘And thou shalt place upon the shew-bread pure incense, and it shall be for the bread as a memorial (azkarah), a burnt offering to the Lord.’ The other references to the word azkarah are in Lev. 2.2, 9, 16; 5.12; 6.8; Num. 5.26 in connection with the burning of a meal-offering (minhah). The connection with the Essenes remains obscure. (SB)

7. Hasid (pI. Hasidim), originally meaning ‘merciful’ (of God), came to mean ‘devout’ of men, and was later in Maccabean times used to designate a specific group of devout and observant Jews who joined the Maccabean party in their light for freedom (I Macc.2.42). These Hasideans (Gk. Asidaioi), as they were then called, are generally believed to be the forerunners of the Pharisees (cf. Lagrange, Le Judaïsme avant Jésus Christ, 1931, pp.
56, 272), and probably of the Essenes (Bonsirven, Le Judaïsme Palestinien, 1935, I, pp. 43, 64), both sects being mentioned by Josephus in Maccabean times (Ant., XIII, v, 9). (SB)

8. They were called Essenoi by Josephus, Esseni by Pliny, and Essaioi by Philo (and six times by Josephus). The origin of the name is uncertain (cf. Lagrange, op. cit., p. 320). Their way of life, as described by AC, is for the most part fully attested by the contemporary historian Josephus (Wars, II, viii, 2-13), as well as by Philo (Quod omnis probus liber sit, 75-88). Pliny’s remarks (Hist. Nat., V, 17) attribute to the Essenes an antiquity of ‘thousands of years’. There is no other evidence of an antiquity beyond Maccabean times. (Most texts in Lagrange, op. cit., pp. 307-17.) Passing references by Josephus are in Ant., XIII, v, 9 and XVIII, i, 5. (SB)

9. The spiritual head on Mount Horeb, Archos, is not mentioned in any of the documents. (SB)

10. It is well known that the Essenes refused to sacrifice animals, but the ritual of releasing them (as described by AC) is one of the few matters that is not documented. In Lev. 14.53 the Law prescribed the freeing of a bird after purification from leprosy, and in 16.22 the ritual of the scapegoat, which was to ‘carry away all their iniquities into an uninhabited land’. (SB)

11. The little daughter of Catherine Emmerich’s brother, who came from the farm of Flamske near Koesfeld to visit her at Dülmen in the winter of 1820, was seized with violent convulsions occurring every evening at thesame time and beginning with distressing choking. These convulsions often lasted until midnight, and Catherine Emmerich, knowing as she did the cause and significance of this and indeed of most other illnesses, was greatly affected by her niece’s sufferings. She prayed many times to be told of a cure for them, and at last was able to describe a certain little flower known to her which she had seen St. Luke pick and use to cure epilepsy. As a result of her minute description of the little flower and of the places where it grew, her physician, Dr. Wesener (the district doctor of Dülmen), found it; she recognized the plant which he brought her as the one she had seen, which she called ‘star-flower’, and he identified it as Cerastium arvense linnaei or Holosteum caryophylleum veterum (Field Mouse-ear Chickweed). It is remarkable that the old herbal Tabernamontani also refers to the use of this plant for epilepsy. On the afternoon of May 22nd, 1821, Catherine Emmerich said in her sleep: ‘Rue [which she had used before] and star-flower sprinkled with holy water should be pressed, and the juice given to the child, surely that could do no harm? I have already been told three times to squeeze it myself and give it to her.’ The writer, in the hope that she might communicate something more definite about this cure, had, unknown to her, wrapped up at home some blossoms of this plant in paper like a relic and pinned the little packet to her dress in the evening. She woke up and said at once: ‘That is not a relic, it is the star-flower.’ She kept the little flower pinned to her dress during the night, and on the morning of May 23rd, 1821, she said: ‘I had no idea why I was lying last night in a field amongst nothing but star-flowers. I saw, too, all kinds of ways in which these flowers were used, and it was said to me, “If men knew the healing power of this plant, it would not grow so plentifully around you”. I saw pictures of it being used in very distant ages. I saw St. Luke wandering about picking these flowers. I saw, too, in a place like the one where Christ fed the 5,000, many sick folk lying on these flowers in the open air, protected by a light shelter above them. The plants were spread out like litter for them to lie on; and arranged with the flowers in the centre under their bodies, and the stalks and leaves pointing outwards. They were suffering from gout, convulsions, and swellings, and had under them round cushions filled with the flowers. I saw their swollen feet being wrapped round with these flowers, and I saw the sick people eating the flowers and drinking water which had been poured on them.

The flowers were larger than those here. It was a picture of a long time ago; the people and the doctors wore long white woolen robes with girdles. I saw that the plants were always blessed before use. I saw also a plant of the same family but more succulent and with rounder, juicier, smoother leaves and pale blue blossoms of the same shape, which is very efficacious in children’s convulsions. It grows in better soil and is not so common. I
think it is called eyebright. I found it once near Dernekamp. It is stronger than the other.’ She then gave the child three flowers to begin with; the second time she was to have five. She said: ‘I see the child’s nature, but cannot rightly describe it; inside she is like a torn garment, which needs a new piece of stuff for each tear.’ (CB)

12. These were Catherine Emmerich’s words on August 16th 1821. The names are here written down as the writer heard them pronounced by her lips, and also her explanation ‘noble mother’. When the writer read this passage to a language expert in 1840, the latter said that it was indeed true that Em romo means a noble mother. (CB)

Em ramah could mean ‘noble mother’, though the adjective ram, usually meaning materially ‘high’ or else ‘proud’ has no obvious parallel in a proper name, except perhaps in Amram (the father of Moses), which may mean ‘noble uncle’. (SB)

13. She unquestionably meant that these herbs were the same as those mentioned by Eusebius in his ecclesiastical history, Book VII, Chapter 18, which he says grew round the statue of Jesus Christ put up by the woman of Caesarea Philippi, who was cured of the issue of blood. The plants acquired the power of healing all kinds of sicknesses as soon as they had grown high enough to touch the hem of the statue’s garment. Eusebius says that this plant is of an unknown species. Catherine Emmerich had spoken before of the statue and of these plants. (CB)

14. In July 1840, some twenty years after this communication, as this book was being prepared for the press, the writer learnt from a language expert that the cabalistic book Zohar contains several references to this matter. (CB)

The Zohar is a rabbinic book, claiming descent from Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai (second century), in the form of a commentary on the Pentateuch, interpreting it throughout, in an enigmatic and esoteric style, according to a mystical sense. The Zohar first became known through the 13th-century Rabbi Moses de Leon, who has often been accused of fabricating the whole thing. Present-day opinion, however, suspends judgment, while emphasizing that the Zohar shows evidence of being a compilation of texts and fragments whose composition probably extended over many centuries, and which is likely to enshrine teaching of the greatest antiquity. The Zohar is one of the principal sources of spiritual interpretation among the Jews, and its main theme may be said to be the significance of every detail in sacred history, and the symbolic reflection in this world of the eternal realities of heaven. With regard to its connection with the statements of AC, see further n. 2, p. 43. (SB)

15. Catherine Emmerich pronounced these and all other name-sounds with her Low-German accent and often hesitatingly. Her pronunciation, she said, only resembled the real names, and it is impossible to be sure how correctly or incorrectly they have been written down. It is all the more astonishing to find elsewhere long afterwards similar names for the same persons. The following is an instance. Several years after Catherine Emmerich’s death the writer found in the Encomium trium Mariarum Bertaudi, Petragorici, Paris, 1529, and in particular in the treatise De cognatione divi Joannis Baptistae cum filiabus et nepotibus beatae Annae, lib. III, f. lii, etc., attached to it, that St. Cyril, the third General of the Carmelite Order, who died in 1224, mentions in a work concerning the ancestors of St. Anne similar visions of branches, buds, and flowers seen by the prophet
of whom counsel was sought. He further states that Stolanus was also called Agarim or Garizi, names which reproduce sounds recognizable in the above-mentioned Garesha or Sarziri. On the other hand, in this account it is a Carmelite on Mount Carmel instead of an Essene on Mount Horeb of whom counsel is sought. Seventeen years after the death of Catherine Emmerich the writer was reading, on the feast of Corpus Christi, 1840, the life of Our Lady’s holy mother in the Actis Sanctorum, Tom. VI, Julii, where Joannes Eckius in his homily on St. Anne says that Stolanus is called by tradition Stolan, and that the Roman Breviary of 1536 and several Breviaries printed before the reign of Pius V mention a daughter Gaziri, while others call her Garzim. A philological friend who was kind enough to read my proofs, observed: ‘It is surprising that the names Gaziri, Garzi (the final m has been added), Garsha or Garesha (all three forms are correct, though formed from different verbs) all agree in meaning “outcast”, and that Agari(m) in Arabic also conveys the idea of flight and banishment. Stolanus in Greek contains the idea of wandering. Sarssir means starling and thus also signifies a
wandering bird.’ (CB)

The Hebrew root g-r-sh and the corresponding Arabic root g-sh-r convey the idea of banishment. The Hebrew ger (and its Arabic equivalent) means a ‘stranger’. The Greek stolos means a ‘journey’ (cf. apostolos). Zurzûr is the Arabic for a ‘starling’, being derived apparently from the bird’s noise. (SB)

16. It is certainly true that the writers who follow tradition generally give Emerentia as the mother of St. Anne; but they give the wife of Stolanus as Emerentia, whereas Catherine Emmerich calls her Emorun. According to tradition, Emerentia, the wife of Stolanus, bore Ismeria, the mother of Elisabeth, and Anna, the mother of the Blessed Virgin. Yet according to Catherine Emmerich’s account, Anna is the granddaughter, not the daughter,
of Stolanus. If this is a mistake of hers, the reason for it may be that the humble visionary has confused her own visions with the account which she had heard from her childhood of the traditional descent of St. Anne.

The name Emerentia is perhaps nothing more than the Latinized form of the name (heard by her) of Emorun. But being either ignorant or forgetful of this, and having always heard of the names Emerentia and Ismeria as being traditionally in close association with Stolanus as the nearest relations of Anna before her marriage, she may have described them as daughters of Stolanus At the same time it was very noticeable that she never confused any of the countless names which came to her ears except in extreme illness and distress. We are, however, inclined to suppose that there must be some error here, for tradition in general mentions St. Elisabeth as being a niece of St. Anne’s, whereas according to Catherine Emmerich’s account Elisabeth is the niece of Anna’s mother, which would seem to make Elisabeth almost older than Anna, who is called a late-born child. Since the writer cannot explain the error which may possibly have crept in, he begs the kind reader to accept it with patience and thus make amends for the writer’s lack of that Christian virtue in his difficult and often interrupted task of compiling an account of these visions. (CB)