2. The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary.—This short Latin Gospel, entitled the Zvangelium de Nativitate Marie, covers the same ground as the early part of the Gospel of psewdo-Matthew ; its last words describe the birth of Jesus at Beth- lehem. It is found amongst the works of Jerome, and has every appearance of being an orthodox revision of the Latin Gospel of psewdo-Matthew.
vi. DatE.—According to the view taken above of the composite character of this Gospel, the original Jewish-Christian work dates from_the middle of the 2nd century. The Protevangelium in its present form embodies the result of a Gnostic recast, and cannot be earlier than the latter part of the 3rd century. To the 4th cent. or perhaps the 5th must be assigned the Gospel of pseudo-Matthew, of which the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary is a later redaction.
LiTerATURE.—In 1552 Bibliander’s Latin edition was published, Postellus having prepared the text from a Greek MS. In 1840 Suckow issued a separate edition, ew. cod. MS Venetiano. See A. Meyer in Die Apokr. des NT’, p. 47; also Neander Sor., Thilo, Tischendorf, Harnack, Zahn, Borberg, Wright, Orr, in opp. citt. Translation by A, Walker in Ante-Nicene Christian
Library, also by Conybeare from an Armenian MS in Amer.
Journ. of Theol. i. 1897, p. 424ff. Articles by Hilgenfeld in Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol. xii. p. 339f., xiv. p. 87 note; Conrady, Die Quellen der kanonischen Kindheitsgeschichten, and in SK lxii. p. 728 ff.
B. 2. THOMAS, GOSPEL ACCORDING T0.—
i. Evidence of early writers. 1. Hippolytus. 2. Origen, Eusebius, etc. ii. Present form. iii, Summary of contents. iv. Character and tendencies. v. Date. Literature.
i. EVIDENCE OF EARLY WRITERS.—1. A Gospel kara Owuav was, according to Hippolytus (155-235), in use among the Naassenes. A passage, in which they found support for their teaching in regard to the ‘nature of the inward man’ (glow .. . Thy éyrds dvO@pHrov), is quoted from the Gospel: ‘He who seeks me shall find me in children from seven years old; for there will I, who am hidden in the fourteenth zon, be manifest’ (Eué 6 (yrav edpjoe év matdlos dd érav émrd’ éxel yap ev re 6’ alan KpuBduevos pavepoduat).
2, Origen (c. 246) mentions this Gospel (Hom. 4. in Luc.), and Eusebius (c. 324) places it with the Petrine Gospel amongst the ‘heretical’ writings (HE iii. 25). Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) states that the Manichzeans wrote it (Catech. iv. 36), and in a later passage of the same work traces its origin to ‘one of the three base disciples of Moses’ (vi. 31). Later writers refer to the high esteem in which it was held by the Manichzans.
ii. PRESENT FORM.—A Gospel, entitled ‘Thomas the Israelite philosopher’s Account of the Infancy of the Lord’ (Qwua *IopanAlrou piroobpov pyTa eis Ta mavduca TOO Kuplov), is extant in two Greek recen- sions, also in a Latin and in a Syriac version. Tischendorf gives the longer Greek recension
432 APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS
APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS
ee ee A
(Evang. apocr. pp. 140-157), the shorter Greek recension (pp. 158-163), and the Latin version, which Harnack describes as a compilation, with striking resemblances to the apocryphal Gospel of Matthew (pp. 164-180). The Syriac version (Wright, Apoc. Lit. NT, p. 6f.) is a somewhat abbreviated form of the longer Greek recension. (For English translations of the two Greek and the Latin versions, see Walker’s Apocr. Gospels, p. 78 ff. ; and for a detailed account of the varia- tions in the several texts, see Lipsius’ article in Dict. Christ. Biog. ii. 704). None of these four recensions contains the Naassene quotation from this Gospel which is given by Hippolytus. Does he refer to a different Gospel, or to ‘an original Gospel of which the longest extant version con- tains only fragments? The attempt to answer these questions must be deferred until the outline of the contents of these four recensions has been given. But one important piece of evidence is here in place. Nicephorus (d. 599) mentions this Gospel in his Stichometry, and states that it contained 1300 stichot. Therefore, inasmuch as the longest extant recension does not contain half of that number of s¢ichot, it is possible, though not certain, that the copy known to Nicephorus contained the passage quoted by Hippolytus.
ili, SUMMARY OF CONTENTS.—The narratives contained in this Gospel of the Childhood of Jesus consist of (a) stories of His superhuman know- ledge, (6) stories of His superhuman power. The different versions frequently disagree, as well in their statements in regard to the scenes of the miracles and the names of the chief actors, as in the form of the narratives and in the arrange- ment of the various incidents. The following summary is based on the longer Greek recension :—
(a) To his teacher, Zaccheeus, the child Jesus repeats the letters of the alphabet, ‘from the Alpha even to the Omega, clearly and with great exactness’; He questions His teacher about the first letter, and convicts him of ignorance of the nature of Alpha, and therefore of inability to teach others the Beta. ‘Thou hypocrite ! first, if thou knowest, teach the A, and then we shall
' believe thee about the B. . . . And in the hearing of many the child says to Zaccheus: ‘Hear, O teacher, the order of the first letter’ [the old Pheen- iclan A was written ¢ or ], ‘and notice here how it has lines, and a middle stroke crossing those which thou seest common ; (lines) brought together ; the highest part supporting them, and again bringing them under one head 3 with three points [of intersection]; of the same kind ; prin- cipal and subordinate ; of equal length. Thou hast the lines of the A.’ The amazement of Zacchzeus, as he listens to this allegorizing, is thus ex- pressed : ‘That child does not belong to this earth.