A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Ann, Saint
ANN, SAINT,
The mother of the Virgin Mary, was the daughter of Matthias, a priest of Bethlehem, of the family of Aaron. She was married, it is stated, to St. Joachim, and after an unfruitful union of twenty-two years, gave birth to Mary, the mother of our Saviour. It is remarkable that the name of Ann is not once mentioned in the Scriptures, nor in the writings of the fathers of the first three centuries of the Christian era; and that the time of her death is as uncertain as the events of her life; and yet the feast of Saint Ann was celebrated by the Greeks as early as the sixth century, the day being July 25th. Justinian erected a church in her honour at Constantinople, in the year 550, but it does not appear that Saint Ann was then asserted to be the mother of the virgin, although, according to Codrinus, this character was assigned to her without a question in 705, when the second emperor Justinian, built another church in her name. Among the Latins, the worship of Saint Ann was not introduced until a much later period.