The Childhood Gospels stand in the main current of ecclesias- tical doctrine in their view of the ^person of Christ. The Gospel of Thomas shows that the circles in which it found acceptance lield to the doctrine of Christ's human and Divine natures. There are traces that point to a Gnostic origin, and to a concep- tion of Christ in which His true humanity was obscured ; but in the later form in which it was current in the Church, the humanitv and Divinity of our Lord arc alike emphasized. The child Jesus is a boy among boys, taking His part in the usual games and occupations of childhood ; and yet the belief in His supernatural dignity is evidenced by the extraordinary miracles attributed to Him, and by His astonishing knowledge, which drew the confession from His teacher : * This child is not earth- born ; assuredly he was born before the creation of the world ' (ch. 7). The Protevangelium of James, too, it is clear, was written in the interests of orthodoxy, which were imperilled, alike hv the belief current in Jewish-Christian circles that Joseph was the father of Jesus, and by the Gnostic doctrine that, in being born of Mary, Jesus did not partake of her human nature, but passed through her like water through a pipe (Epiphan. Heer. 31. 7). In opposition to this double attack on the gener- ally accepted doctrine, the writer of the Protevaiieieliiim, while not leaving it in doubt that Jesus was born as a human child (the infant took the breast from His mother), sought to make His Divinity secure by depicting Mary as holy from her birth, as fed only on angels* food, as conceiving by the word of the Lord, as bringing forth her child in virginity, and as remaining a virgin to the end. It is noteworthy that, although the primary object of the Protevangelium was to safeguard the orthodox conception of Christ's person against hostile attacks, the method adopted had the result of elevating .Mary above the ordinary levels of humanity, and of initiating a mo\ emcnt which, deriving strength from other sources, terminated in the worship of Mary, the All-Holy mother of God.
vi. Influence.— Although after the 2nd cent, no Gospels were reckoned as authoritative except those now in t*ie Canon, the Apocryphal Gospels continued to be read for purposes of ediKcation, both in public and in private. Those which were distinctly lieretical gradually disappeared as the power of the Church grew, while those which were of a type similar to the canonical Gospels were un- able for any lengthened period to maintain their position alongside their authoritative rivals. Still we find tliat the Gospel according to the Hebrews was read in some quarters in Jerome's day (end of 4th cent.), and was highly esteemed by that Father himself; wliile the vitality of the Gospel of Peter is evidenced by the fact that a lar<;e portion of it was placed in the grave of a monk in the early Middle Ages (8th-12th cent. ). The popularity of the Childhood Gospels was remarkable, especially in the Churches of the East. There the Protevan- gelium was so highly prized as a book of devotion that it was used for reading in public worship, and furnished material for the homilies of preachers. Translations of it circulated in Svriac, Coptic, and Arabic, and, along with other chUdhood legends, its stories, often greatly embellished and exagger- ated, found a place in a comprehensive Gospel of the Infancy and Childhood, the so-called ' Arabic Gospel,' which had a wide circulation not only in the Churches in the East, but in Mohamme'dan circles. Passages from the Protevangelium stand m the lectionaries of the orthodox Church, for use at the festivals held in honour of Mary and of her reputed parents, Joachim and Anna.
In tlie Western Church the Apocryphal Gospels were ii.j.iiii.il with more suspicion. Towards the (A^i^v .11 ill. nil (int. their authority was repudiated in the jiliiiic-i tiiiLis by Jerome and Augustine, the foriiirr cliiiructtTizing certain stories as rx ddira- mentis apocryphorum petita (Tappehorn, Ausser- biblische Nachrichtcn, 15). On the other liand, their contemporaries, Zeno of Verona, and Pru- dentius, the greatest poet of early Christian times, drew from the Protevangelium In their works in
praise of Mary. The combined influence of Jerome and Augustine, however, determined the ecclesias- tical attitude to the Apocryphal Gospels, and the ban of the Church fell upon them under Damasus (382), Innocent I. (405), and Gelasius (496). In the long run this condemnation by ecclesiastical author- ity proved unavailing to check the popular appe- tite for the apocryphal legends ; and by various devices the ^vritings, which had incurred the cen- sure of the Church, were brought back again into public circulation.
Hamack truly remarks that 'the history of apocryphal litera- ture is a proof that the prohibition of books is powerless against a pressing need. In all sections and in all languages of the Church this literature is perhaps the most strongly represented alongside of the canonical writings, in a form, as one would expect, that is aUva.vs changing to suit the taste of the age. It was really apocryphal, that is to say, it had what may be termed a subterranean existence ; but, suppressed and perse- cuted though it was, it always forced its way back to the surface, and at last the public tradition of the Church was defencelesa against it ' iGesch. d. altchr. Litt. I. Ix. note 5).