Pseudo-Mat. adds many details. The star is ‘ larger than any that had been seen since the beginning of the world.’ The ox and the ass ‘incessantly adore him,’ fulfilling the word of Habakkuk the prophet: ‘Between two animals thou shalt be made manifest’ (Hab 32 LXX ty uiow db0 Cawy yracbiion, by slight change in Hebrew text: DN D13Y forwnVn ow),
23. Zacharias is murdered, because he cannot tell the officers of Herod where his son is. 24. A priest hears a voice saying, ‘ Zacharias is murdered’; the body of Zacharias is not found, but his blood ig turned into stone. Simeon is chosen in his place, 25. The author says that he withdrew into the wilderness, because of the commotion that arose about the death of Herod. Doxology.
iv. CHARACTER AND TENDENCIES.—From the summary of contents given above, it will be seen that chs. 1-17 of the Protevangelium are occupied with the story of Mary—her birth and childhood, her life in the temple, and her betrothal to Joseph. In chs. 18-20 the style of the narrative is changed, the direct form is assumed: ‘I, Joseph, was walk- ing,’ ete. The writer, laying aside all reserve, enlarges upon the marvel of the birth of Jesus,
APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS
ee —————— eee
APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS 431
and upon the perpetual virginity of Mary. The remaining portion of this work (chs. 21-25) con- sists of (a) the account of the visit of the Magi, which closely follows the narrative of the canonical Matthew; and (0) the story of the marvellous escape of John from Herod’s massacre, and of the murder of his father Zacharias.
The extravagances of chs. 18-20, the Gnostic tendencies of the narrative, and the abrupt intro- duction of Joseph as the speaker, are sufficient reasons for regarding this section of the Gospel as derived from an independent source. Harnack calls this section Apocryphum Josephi. Some light has been cast upon chs. 22-24, which Harnack calls Apoeryphum Zacharie, by the researches of Berendts (Studien iiber Zacharias - Apokryphen, 1895); he holds that the Protevangelium does not contain these legends in their oldest form. Con- firmation of this theory is found in the fact that Origen (in Matt. tract. 25), who was acquainted with the Book of James, gives a very different account of the martyrdom of Zacharias; _his account may have come from an independent source, but the recognition of this possibility renders no less probable the suggestion of Har- nack (Chron. i. 601) that the BiBdos "IaxwBov to which Origen refers is essentially identical with chs. 1-17 of the Protevangelium. The evidence of Origen, therefore, like the evidence of Justin, yields no proof of the existence of this Gospel in its present form ; he becomes, however, the oldest witness for the yévyyois Maplas, the story of the Nativity of Mary.
The result of the foregoing analysis is to show that in all probability the Protevangelium is a composite work. The facts do not warrant the inference that its author had three separate docu- ments before him of which he made free use, adding his own embellishments ; they point rather in the direction of the conclusion at which Lipsius (Dict. Christ. Biog. ii. 703) arrives by a different course of reasoning. The author’s acquaintance with Jewish customs is manifest to every reader ; but, as Lipsius points out, such incidents as the refusal of Joachim and his sacrifice, the bringing up of Mary in the temple, and the drinking by Joseph of the water of the ordeal, are quite con- trary to Jewish ideas and usages ; moreover, there are traces of Gnostic speculation, especially in the Apocryphum Josephi and the Apocryphum Zach- arie. ‘This curious admixture of intimate know- ledge and gross ignorance of Jewish thought and custom compels us to assume and distinguish be- tween an original Jewish-Christian writing and a Gnostic recast of it.’ *
vy. RELATION TO LATIN RECENSIONS. —1. The Gospel of pseudo-Matthew. ‘This Gospel claims to be Jerome’s translation into Latin of what the holy Evangelist Matthew wrote in Hebrew and ‘set at the head of his Gospel.’ It gives, with variations such as are noted above, the same nar- rative as the Protevangelium ; but, instead of end- ing with the martyrdom of Zacharias, it describes (chs. 18-24) the flight into Egypt, and enlarges upon the marvels of the journey—e.g. the adoration of the infant Jesus by dragons, lions, and panthers ; the bending of a palm-tree at His word, in order that His mother may gather its fruit; the shorten- ing of the way, so that in one day they accomplish what would otherwise have taken thirty days; the
* The secondary character of this Gospel, in so far as it can be compared with the narratives of Matthew and Luke, is recog- nized by critics of various schools, notwithstanding the attempt of Conrady to show that the Evangelists borrowed from it (Die Quellen der kanonischen Kindheitsgeschichte Jesus). ‘It would have been a literary miracle if the opening chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke, with their lifelike touches and tender humanities, had been derived from a work teeming with super- stitious trivialities’ (Dr. T. Nicol in Critical Review, xii. 35).
prostration of the idols when Mary with her child enters the Egyptian temple. The rest of this Gospel, in what Tischendort regards as its complete form (Evang. apocr. 51-112), gives the story of the boyhood of Jesus in a form even more extravagant than the Gospel according to Thomas, an account of which is given below. There is little doubt that, in so far as this Gospel is parallel with the narrative of the Protevangelium, it is independ- ently derived from the same sources. It alone records the special series of miracles wrought in Egypt and on the way thither; in the narratives which it has in common with the Protevangelium there is a marked development of the marvellous nature of the incidents ; the growing exaltation of Mary is also very apparent.