(1) Gospels relating to the Birth and Infancy of Jesus ; (2) general Gospels, covering His entire life and ministry, from the Birth to the Resurrection, either on the type of Matthew-Luke or of Mark- John ; (3) Gospels of the Passion and Resurrection.
I. Gospels relatisg to the Birth and In- fancy of Jesus.— (a) The Proteyangelium Jacob!. — A certain element of romance attaches to this uncanonical Gospel. During his travels in the East, "William Postel, a French humanist of the 16th cent., who devoted himself to Oriental lan- guages and comparative philology, came across an edifying treatise which was read in several
• For traces of similar epistles of Jesus, cf . Augustine, de Con- sensu evang. 1. 9-10. For the ' epistle of Christ which fell from heaven," cf. G. Morin in Revue Binidictine (1899), p. 217 f., and a monograph on its Eastern version and recension bj' M. Bittner in the Denkschrifien der hail. Akad. der Wissenschaften (PMlos. Hist. Klasse, vol. IL Abth. 1) for 1906.
churches. He procured a copy of the work, and cherished great expectations about his find.* Here was the original prologue to Mark's Gospel, ' evangelii ad hunc diem desiderata basis et funda- mentuin, in quo suppletur summa fide quicquid posset optari.'
Postel's Latin version was published in 1552 by Theodore Bibliander (Proteuangclion seu de natalibxis Jesu Christi et ipsius matris virginis Marioe sermo historicus divi Jacobi minoris . . . ). The Greek text was first published by M. Neander (Apocrypha ; hoc est narrationes de Christo, Maria, Josepho, cognatione et familia Jesa Christi extra Biblia . . . inserto etiam Prutevangelio Jacobi groece, in Oriente nuper reperto, necdum edito hactenus . . . 1563, re-issued in 1567), who did not share Postel's or Bibliander's enthusiasm t for the treatise. One of Tischendorf's MSS (A) was edited by C. A. Suckow in 1840 (Proteiangelium Jacobi ex codice ins. Vene- tiano descripsit, prolegomenis, varietatelectionum, notis criticis inslructum edidit), and a Fa^yfim parchment fragment con- taining 72-101 was published iii 1896 by B. P. Grenfell (An Alex- andrian Erotic Fragment and other Greek Papyri, pp. 13-19). In spite of these and other contributions, however, ' the Greek MSS — the oldest of which is a Bodleian fragment from Egypt of cent, v-vi — are very numerous and verj' incompletely known ; the versions have not been exhaustively studied ; and many important questions, especially those affecting the integrity of the book, must still be regarded as open' (il. R. James, in JThSt xii.[1910-ll] 625).
The work itself professes to be a lo-ropla or Si-ffpiffn (25' ), and the narrative runs as follows.
The first part (1-18^) opens by describing how the wealthy Joachim and his wife Anna lamented over the fact that they had no child. Joachim is told, to his chagrin, by Reuben (the high priest?) that his childlessness disqualifies him from pre- senting his offerings to God. Anna, praying in the garden and looking up to heaven, is reminded afresh of her childlessness by the sight of a sparrow's nest in a laurel bush ; she breaks into the following lament (3 : spoiled in the Syriac, and omitted in the Armenian, version) :
* Woe is me ! who begat me, and what womb produced me? For I was born accursed before the sons of Israel, I am reproached, and they have driven me with Jeers from the Lord's temple.
Woe is me ! what am I like ? I am not like the birds of heaven, for the birds of heaven are fruitful before thee, O Lord.
Woe is me ! what am I like ? I am not like the beasts of the earth, for even the beasts of the earth are fruitful befor« thee, O Lord.
Woe is me ! what am I like? I am not like these waters, for even these waters are fruitful before thee, 0 Lord.
Woe is me ! what am I like ? I am not like this earth, for even this earth bears ita fruits in season and blesses thee, O Lord.'
An angel assures her that God will give her a child, and eventually Mary is bom — the idea of the stoiy corresponding thus to that of John the Baptist's birth in Lk P*-. Anna now proceeds to fulfil her vow of consecrating the child to God.J The baby is not allowed to walk on the common earth till her parents take her, at the age of three, to Jerusalem, M'here she is welcomed by the priest and left in the temple, ' like a dove nestling
* Hallam describes him as ' a man of some parts and_ more reading, but chiefly known ... for mad reveries of fanaticism ' (Introd. to the Literature of Europe^, 1847, i. 468).
t Henry Stephen, in his Introduction au traiti de la con- formiti des merveilles anciennes avee les modemes, ou traiti pr¶tif d I'apologie pour H&rodote (1566), openly expressed his disgust at Postel's production, whose origin and popularity he could explain only as a deliberate manoeuvre of Satan!
X Anna's song of praise (63) is more appropriate than is usually the case with such songs in the Bible :
• I will sing a song to the Lord my God,
for he has visited me and taken from me the reproach ot my
enemies ; the Lord has g^iven me fruit of righteousness, a single fruit but many-sided In his sight. Who wiU tell the sons of Reuben that Anna is suckling ? Hearken, hearken, ye twelve tribes of Israel : Anna is suckling.'