v. DAtE.—Zahn holds that this Gospel was one of the sources used by Justin Martyr (c. 140), who says (Dial. 88) that Jesus ‘was in the habit of working as a carpenter when among men, making ploughs and yokes’ (dporpa kai gvyd); there is a verbal coincidence with this Gospel which describes Joseph as a carpenter who ‘made ploughs and yokes.’ But Justin, who was a native of Palestine, would scarcely require a written source for this tradition, nor is he likely to have used a, heretical Gospel as an authority. Justin cannot, therefore, be quoted to prove the existence of this Gospel in the first half of the second century ; a legitimate inference from the evidence already given is that in its original form it was written c. 160-180. But Harnack does well to add that it is impossible to say certainly how much of the Gospel in its present form was derived from the longer work. There may, of course, be interpolations in the abbreviated versions of this Gospel.
LITERATURE.—Cotelerius published a fragment from a Paris MS of the 15th cent. in his notes to the Const. Apost. vi. 17; also Mingarelli a larger portion: Nuova raccolta d’opuscoli scientisici, tom. xii., Venet. 764, pp. 73-155. See A. Meyer in Die
Apokr. des NT, p. 63; Conrady in SK, 1908, Heft 3; also Thilo, Tischendorf, Wright, Borberg, Harnack, Zahn, Orr, in opp. citt.
B. 3. CHILDHOOD, ARABIC GOSPEL OF THE.—
i. Sources. . ii. Contents.
iii. Characteristics. Literature. i. SourcES.—This Gospel is entitled in Tischen- dorf’s corrected Latin version (Evang. Apocr. pp. 181-209), Evangelium Infantie Salvatoris Ara- bicum. The Arabic text is a translation from the Syriac. The work is a compilation. The author refers to ‘the book of Joseph, the high priest’ (c. 1), to ‘the Gospel of the Infancy,’ and to ‘the perfect Gospel’ (c. 25), and concludes: ‘ Here endeth the whole Gospel of the Infancy, with the aid of God Most High, according to what we have found in the original.’ For the first part of this Gospel (1-25) the compiler claims the authority of Joseph Caiaphas, whose book Lipsius (Dict. Christ. Biog. ii. 705) identifies with ‘the Gnostic work made use of in the Protevangelium, and which bore the name of Joseph (not Caiaphas, of course, but the husband of Mary)’; the earlier portions of his narrative are to a large extent parallel to the Protevangelium and to the Gospel of pseudo- Matthew; but he also draws largely on ‘the perfect Gospel,’ though he records ‘very many miracles’ of the Lord Jesus which are not found either in it or in less ‘complete’ Gospels of the Infancy. In the second part (26-55) his chief source is the
Gospel according to Thomas. . 4 ii. CoNTENTS.—This Gospel begins by quoting a word of Jesus spoken, when He was lying in His cradle, to Mary His mother : ‘I am Jesus, the Son of God, the Logos, whom thou hast brought forth. Miracles are narrated for which no parallel can be found either in the canonical Gospels or in the apocryphal writings, as, e.g., the Lady Mary gives to the kings from the East one of her child’s swaddling-bands, which ‘the fire was not able to burn or destroy’ (8); a demoniac boy, the son of EXTRA VOL.—28
Date.
an Egyptian priest, is healed by putting upon his head a newly washed garment of the Lord Christ (11); the water in which Mary washes Jesus cleanses from leprosy (17); by witchcraft a youth has been transformed into a mule ; Mary puts Jesus on the mule’s back and asks Him to exert His mighty power, whereupon the animal ‘became a young man, free from every defect’ (21); the Holy Family fall into the hands of two robbers, Titus and Dumachus; Titus bribes Dumachus to let them go free, and Jesus tells His mother that in thirty years ‘these two robbers will be raised upon the cross along with me, Titus on my right hand and Dumachus on my left; and after that day Titus shall go before me into Paradise’ (23); at the age of twelve, Jesus discourses in the temple to astronomers on the heavenly bodies, ‘ their course, direct and retrograde, the twenty-fourths and sixtieths of twenty-fourths, and other things beyond the reach of reason’ (51) ; also to a philo- sopher ‘skilled in treating of natural science’ He explains ‘physics and metaphysics, hyperphysics and hypophysics . . . and other things beyond the reach of any created intellect’ (52); ‘from this day’ (i.e. from His twelfth year) ‘he began to hide his miracles and mysteries and secrets, and to give attention to the law, until he completed his thirtieth year’ (54).
ili. CHARACTERISTICS.—The extracts given from this Gospel prove that its author not only drew largely from his sources, canonical and apocryphal, but also allowed his imagination free play, with the result that his work is a strange conglomerate of authentic Evangelic tradition and the most fantastic legends. In one respect alone does it compare favourably with the apocryphal Gospels it most closely resembles ; from its fabulous stories there is an absence of miracles of vengeance such as are found in the Gospel according to Thomas and the Gospel of pseudo-Matthew. There are many traces of the influence of Gnosticism in this Gospel, but it also contains a clear recognition of the humanity of Jesus: the mother of a dying boy who is healed by ‘the smell of the clothes of the Lord Jesus Christ’ says to Mary: ‘Now I know that the power of God dwelleth in thee, so that thy Son heals those that partake of the same nature with himself’ (30). The central section of this work has been aptly described as ‘ thoroughly Oriental in its character, reminding one of the tales of the Arabian Nights, or of the episodes in the Golden Ass of Apuleius’ (Walker, Apocr. Gospels, x.).