o definite date for the composition of this Gospel can be fixed. Lipsius is content to say that it was compiled ‘comparatively late, but probably earlier than the Mahometan times.’
LiTERATURE.—In 1697 Henricus Sike published an Arabic text with Latin translation: Hv. Inf. vel Liber apocryphus de Infantia Salvatoris. See Fabricius, Jones, Schmid, Thilo, Tischendorf, in opp. citt.
B. 4. JOSEPH THE CARPENTER, ARABIC HISTORY OF.— i. Sources. ii. Contents. iii. Characteristics. Date. Literature.
i. SourcEs.—This Gospel is entitled in Tischen- dorf’s Latin version (Hvang. Apocr. pp. 122-139), Historia Josephi Fabri Lignarit ; his edition takes note of variations in the Sahidie and Memphitic dialects of the Coptic, from which language the Arabic text was a recension. The author relates briefly the life of Joseph, and at greater length his death and burial; he also represents Jesus as uttering lengthy and rhapsodical lamentations. For the greater part of his narrative there is no
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parallel in other writings, but in the sections which describe the choice of Joseph to be the guardian of Mary, his betrothal to her, Herod’s search for the children, and the flight into Egypt, the author is in close agreement with the Protevangelium. If he used it as a source, he omitted the portents which it describes as accompanying these events ; it is more probable, however, that his source was the earlier Jewish-Christian tradition, for the rest of his work does not suggest that Gnostic em- bellishments would have been distasteful to him. There are more distinct traces of his dependence upon the Gospel according to Thomas in the account given of Joseph’s perplexity and the words of the angel (17); Lipsius (Dict. Christ. Biog. ii. 706) adds that in the Coptic recension ‘the use made of the Gospel of Thomas is still more evident.’
ii. CoNTENTS.—In the introduction to this his- tory the author states that it was related by our Lord to His disciples on the Mount of Olives. The speaker throughout is Jesus, who says of His mother; ‘I chose her of my own will, with the concurrence of my Father, and the counsel of the Holy Spirit. And I was made flesh of her, by a mystery which transcends the grasp of created reason’ (5), a mystery which ‘no creature can penetrate or understand, except myself, and my Father, and the Holy Spirit, constituting one essence with myself’ (14).* Joseph before his death asks Jesus for pardon (17); Jesus sees Death and Gehenna approaching: ‘accordingly I drove back Death and all the host of servants which accompanied him’ (21); when Joseph died, ‘he had fulfilled a hundred and eleven years; never did a tooth in his mouth hurt him, nor was his eyesight rendered less sharp’ (29); of Joseph’s body Jesus says: ‘ Not a single limb of it shall be broken, nor shall any hair of thy head be changed. Nothing of thy body shall perish, O my father Joseph, but it will remain entire and uncorrupted even until the banquet of the thousand years’ (26).
ili. CHARACTERISTICS.—The motive of this his- tory is revealed in words spoken by the Apostles to Jesus: ‘Thou hast ordered us to go into all the world and preach the holy gospel ; and thou hast said: Relate to them the death of my father Joseph, and celebrate to him with annual solem- nity a festival and sacred day. And whosoever shall take anything away from this narrative, or add anything to it, commits sin’ (30). There is another reference to the day of Joseph’s com- memoration (26); the work is doubtless, as Lipsius suggests, ‘a festal lection for St. Joseph’s day.’
The words of Jesus to Mary, ‘Thou, O my virgin mother, must look for the same end of life as other mortals,’ point to a date of composition earlier than the 5th cent., when the Assumption of Mary was taught. Tischendorf decides for the 4th century.
LITERATURE.—In 1722 Wallin published an Arabic text with Latin translation. See Tischendorf, Hofmann, in opp. citt.
B. 5. MARY, THE DEPARTURE OF .— i. Versions. ii. Summary of contents. iii. Characteristics. Date. Literature.
i, VERSIONS. — Tischendorf published in his Apocalypses Apocryphe the Greek text of a work sometimes described as the Evangelium Joannis ; its full title is, The Account of St. John the Theo- logian of the Falling Asleep of the Holy Mother of God. 'Two Latin versions are printed by Tischen- dorf, and the writing is generally known as the Transitus Marie or The Departure of Mary. Wright has edited three recensions of a Syriac
* The words in italics are omitted in the Coptic version.
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text. Arabic, Sahidic, and Ethiopic versions are also extant. Lipsius finds the nearest approxima- tion to the original text in the Greek and in the Syriac versions known as Band C. Syriac B was edited by Wright (Journal of Sacred Literature, 1865), and Syriac C is published in_his Contribu- tions to the Apocr. Lit. of the NT, pp. 24-41. Walker’s translation of the Greek text is used in the following section (‘Ante- Nicene Christian Library,’ Apocryphal Gospels, ete. p. 504ff.).
ii, SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. — ‘The all-holy glorious mother of God and ever-virgin Mary’ voes to ‘the holy tomb of our Lord’ to burn incense’ and to pray. She is invisible to the guards. Gabriel informs her that her re uest is cranted: ‘thou having left the world, shalt go to the heavenly places to thy Son, into the true and everlasting life.’