Scriptural Mormonism: Bede on Luke 1:28, 30-31 and How Mary is “full of grace”

Monday, March 31, 2025

Bede on Luke 1:28, 30-31 and How Mary is “full of grace”

Rightly is she called ‘full of grace’, who without a doubt contains a grace which no other woman ever merited, in that she will conceive and bear the very author of grace. . . . When he saw that she was troubled by this unusual salutation, he calls by name as if she were intimately known, and bids her not to fear, which is only natural given that he alone had custody over her. And because he had said she was full of grace, he both affirms that same grace more fully and explains it more copiously saying: [Luke 1:31] Behold you will conceive in your womb, and you will bring forth a son, and you will call his /32/ name Jesus. Jesus means ‘saviour’ or ‘salvific’. The angel who was speaking to Joseph explained the mystery of his name, saying: For he will save his people from their sins. He does not say ‘the people of Israel’ but ‘his people’, that is, a people called both from foreskin and from circumcision into the unity of faith, so that after they have been gathered together from different sides there might be one sheepfold and one shepherd. (Bede, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke [trans. Calvin B. Kendall and Faith Wallis; Translated Texts for Historians 85; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2025], 131-32)