Immaculate Sarah: Echoes of the Eve/Mary Dichotomy in the Zohar

Abstract

The dichotomy between Sarah and Eve in the Zohar evokes the well-known dichotomy between Mary and Eve in medieval Christianity. Though many rabbinic texts posit that the nonagenarian Sarah never menstruated until three angels arrived to announce the birth of Isaac, the Zohar interprets Sarah’s amenorrhea as a mark of her sanctity and unique status among women. Untainted by menstruation, Sarah is able to achieve a level of sanctity denied Eve and her other descendants. Sarah was free of the stain of impurity, just as Mary was free of the stain of concupiscence. This notion of Sarah emerges among Kabbalists at the same moment that the Immaculate Conception became popular in Catalonia and Castile. Maria Immaculada was a prominent symbol in thirteenth-century religious polemic, Castilian poetry, and Gothic sculpture. Jewish Mystics acculturated this newly ubiquitous symbol to create a Jewish heroine with features that bring an essential difference between medieval Judaism and Christianity into high relief.