St Anne and the Virgin Mary

Saint Anne, of David's house and line, was the mother of Mary and grandmother of Jesus according to apocryphal Christian and Islamic tradition. Mary's mother is not named in the canonical gospels, nor in the Quran. In writing, Anne's name and that of her husband Joachim come only from New Testament apocrypha, of which the Gospel of James(written perhaps around 150) seems to be the earliest that mentions them. Modern Orthodox Christian scholars assert that the names were written in the Gospel of James as a result of being known in the Christian community in which that work was composed.