* Except in one point. He makes Jerome plead love for Christ as the motive for his translation. Did he forget that the author of the Acts of Paul and Thecla had been condemned in spite of his plea that he had invented the Acts out of love for St. Paul?
Protev. 7 Mary, aged three, dances when set down on the third step of the altar, but here (4) she runs up the fifteen steps to the Temple so rapidly that she never looks back ; she is mature at the age of three, remains in the Temple as a paragon of virginal piety, fed daily by one of the angels, and often in conversation with them ; any sick person Avho touches her goes home cured ; her courteous greeting instituted the custom of saying 'Deo gratias ' ; she refuses to be married, and takes the vows of virginity ; Joseph, already a grandfather, is chosen from the widowers to take charge of (not to marry) Mary ; the jealousy of her five maids is rebuked by an angel ; the Annunciation is made when she is working at the purple for the veil of the Temple ; Mary does not hide during her pregnancy, nor does she visit Elizabeth ; * Joseph does not upbraid her, and he apologizes to her for his suspicions ; after she successfully passes the ordeal for virgins, the people kiss her feet and ask her pardon ; the brilliant light in the cave at Bethlehem does not diminish ; Salome adores Jesus t (not simply God, as in Protev. 20), and is not forbidden to declare the wonder of the virgin- birth ; only angels witness the birth, and as soon as Jesus is born He stands on His feet ; the star is the largest ever seen in the world ; the magi offer gifts to 'the blessed Mary and Joseph' as well as to the child ; Mary's fear of Herod's fury (Protev. 22) is omitted.
The second part (18-24) describes with pictur- esque detail the flight to Egypt and the residence of the holy family there. Some of the legends have sprung from the soil of the OT. For example, when ^lary is ten-ified by dragons issuing from a cave (18), the infant Jesus leaves her bosom and confronts them, till they adore him and retire (from Ps 148^). Docile lions accompany and aid their oxen, and wolves leave them untouched (in fulfilment of Is 65^^). Again, when Mary and Jesus entered the Egyptian temple, all the idols bowed and broke (in fulfilment of Is 19^). The OT is enough to explain the last-named legend, without recourse to the later and rather ditt'erent Buddha-legend in the Lalita Vistara (viii.). Athanasius, by the way, welcomes this incident [de Incarnatione Verbi Dei, 36), wliich he accepts without a shadow of suspicion, as a proof of the supreme glory of Jesus. Another pretty legend t occurs in 20-21, where Mary rests from the heat under a tall palm-tree and longs to eat some of the fruit hanging high overhead. Joseph tells her he is more concerned about the lack of water, since their water-skins are empty. ' Then the infant Jesus, resting with happy face in the bosom of his mother, says to the palm, " Bend thy branches, O tree, and refresh my motlier with thy fruit." Immediately, at this word, the palm bowed its crest to the feet of the blessed Mary, and they gathered from it fruits with which all were refreshed. After they had gathered all its fruit, it remained bent, waiting his command to rise at whose command it had bowed down. Then Jesus said to it, " Raise thyself, O palm, be strong, and join the company of my trees which are in the paradise of my Father. And open from thy roots tlie vein of water Avhich lies hidden in the earth ; let the waters flow, that we may be satisfied there- with." At once the palm rose up, and at its root a spring of water began to trickle forth, exceed-
* The cleaving of the mountain to shelter Elizabeth and John the Baptist from Herod's fury, and indeed the whole Zechariah legend, is omitted.
t Tlie angels sing Lk 21'* in adoration of the infant Jesus in the cave ; the ox and the ass in the stable also incessantly adore him (14)--in fulfilment of Is 1* and Hab 'i'^ (LXX, iv ii.i<Tu> Bvo ^OMV yi'aKrS^OT)).
■ : Which passed into the Qu'ran (ed. E. H. Palmer ISBB vL and ix., 1900], xix. 20-26) in a simpler form.
GOSPELS (Ui^CANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UXCANONICAL) 489
ingly clear, cool, and bright.' Next day, before leaving, Jesus rewards the palm by allowing an angel to transplant one of its branches to paradise. ' This palm,' he tells the terrified spectators, ' shall be prepared for all the saints in the place of bliss, as it has been prepared for us in this lonely spot.'
The third part (25-42) describes incidents in the boyhood of Jesus, from the return to Judaea, for the most part on the unpleasant lines of the Gospel of Thomas. The incident of the taming of the lions is new, however (35-36). Jesus, a boy of eight, went out of Jericho one day to the banks of the Jordan, and walked deliberately into a cave where a lioness lay vnth her cubs. The lions adored him. Jesus then improved the occasion by telling the astonished crowd, ' How much better are the beasts than you ! They recognize the Lord and glorify him, while you men, made in God's image and likeness, do not know him ! Beasts recognize me and are tame ; men see me and do not acknowledge me.' Jesus then crosses the Jordan, accompanied by the lions, the waters dividing to right and left (cf. Jos 3'®, 2 K 2^), and dismisses his wild companions in peace.