The contents of these fragments correspond partly with what we know elsewhere * of the ' questions of Bartholomew ' (for the Ethiopia and Coptic versions and recensions of this litera- ture, cf. Lichtenhan in ZNTW, 1902, p. 234 f., and Haase, p. 22 f.). They also throw some light upon what lies behind the remark of Epiphanius in the 11th cent, (de Vita beatae Virginia, 25) that the holy apostle Bartholomew said, ' The holy Mother of God made a will.' There seems to be some connexion between the Gospel, whose fragments we have just cited, and the sources of the later Mary literature which is preserved in Sahidic and Coptic fragments (see below). Tbe Coptic fragments glorify
* There is another allusion in pseudo-Dionysius the Areopag^te {de Myst. theologia, i. § 3 : ' Bartholomew says that theology is both large and small, and that the gospel la broad and large and, again, contracted').
504 GOSPELS (Uls^CANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
the primacy of Peter and the prestige of Marj', with Gnostic and Egyptian colouring (Revillout, Les Apocrpphes copies, 185 f.); they begin with an unsympathetic denunciation of Judas by Jesus, one of the first things the Lord does, apparently, being to reproach the traitor in Anient! and confirm his eternal doom. The Gospel from which they are taken was a Gospel of Bartholo- mew, for that Apostle spealts in the first person.
According to Wiliuart and Tisserant, the Jerusalem MS ap- proximates more than the others to the primitive text. The original Greek Gospel of Bartholomew, thej' conclude, appeared ' vers le IV* sifecle, dans quelque secte chritienne en marge de r^glise d' Alexandria.' It was on the basis of this that the Coptic Bartholomew compositions, whether in the form of Gospel or of Apocah^jse, developed the literature whose debris is now being recovered in still larger quantities.
(e) The Gospel of Nicodemus. — The Gospel of Nicodemus really belongs to the uncanonical Acts. The Acts of Pilate and its allied literature go back to the 4th or 5th cent. — possibly, in some primitive form, even to the beginning of the 2nd ; but while Nicodemus is associated with the Acta (in one Greek edition of the text, they pro- fess to be a translation of what Nicodemus wrote in Hebrew ; in another Greek edition, Nicodemus is a Koman toparch who translates the Hebrew record of a Jew named iEneas ; in the Latin version, .^neas is a Christian Jew who translates the Hebrew record of Nicodemus), they are never styled 'a Gospel of Nicodemus' till the 13th century. It has been conjectured that the title was due to the patriotism of the British, who claimed Nicodemus as their chief apostle ('quae coniectura inde aliquam probabilitatem habet quod antiquissima omnium recentiorum versionum est anglosaxonica : id quod documento est quanto honore opus istud iam pridem in Anglia habitum sit,' Tischendorf, i. p. Ix, n. 3) ; but wherever and whenever it arose, it is quite adventitious.
Critical editions are promised by von Dobschiitz {HDB iii. 545) and in the French series (cf. p. 479).
(/) The Gospel of Gamaliel. — In one of the Coptic Gospel fragments edited by Revillout {Patrologia Orient, ii. 172 f.), the phrase occurs, ' I, Gamaliel, followed them (i.e. Pilate, etc.) in the midst of the crowd,' and it has been conjectured [e.g. by Ladeuze, Bevue d'histoire eceUsiastique, vii. 252 f.,Haase, 11 f., and Baumstark in BB, 1906, pp. 245-265) that if these fragments belonged originally to the Gospel of the Twelve, or if some other frag- ments of the later Pilate literature can be referred to such a source, there must have been a Gospel of Gamaliel in existence, perhaps as a special recension of the original Gospel of the Twelve. To this some critics (e.g. Ladeuze and Baum- stark) further propose to relegate one or more of the Sahidic fragments which have been al- ready referred to (cf. p. 500), placing the com- position not earlier than the 5th cent., since it implies the Acta Pilati. The ramifications of the Pilate literature still await investigation, especially in the light of recent finds (cf. Haase, pp. 12f., 67 f.). It would be curious if it could be proved that there was a tendency to use the Gamaliel of Ac 5^^'* in favour of Christianity, as was the case with Pilate. But the period of this Gospel is very late and its reconstruction unusually hypothetical. ' Si I'Evangile de Gamaliel est un sermon compost au monastl^re de Senoudah, comme porte k le croire la provenance des manuscrits, il n'est pas Strange qu'on y ait voulu mettre en Evidence, dans I'exposd de la vie du Christ, le role de Barth^lemy dont on se flattait de poss6der le corps au monastfere, et qu'on s'y soit servi des apocryphes d6j^ txistants sous le nom de cet ap6tre ' (Ladeuze, loc. cit. 265). The fragments which may be conjecturally assigned to this Gospel (?) tally with the Coptic Bartholomew fragments in several features, e.g. the description of Christ in Anienti, the appearance of Christ after the Kesurrection to his mother Mary first of all (cf. p. 605), the narrative of the death of Mary, and the bless-
ing pronounced on Peter as the archbishop of the whole world. Ladeuze's suggestion meets the main requirements of the case better than Revil- lout's conjecture (BB, 1904, pp. 167 ff., 321 iX.) that some primitive orthodox Gospel of the Twelve (see above) professes to have been edited by Gamaliel, the teacher of St. Paul, who had become a Christian (cf. Zahn's Gesch. des Kanons, ii. 673 f.). Even if the fragments are assigned to a ' Gospel,' they repre- sent a late compilation, based primarily on the Johannine narrative, and expanded on the basis of legends drawn possibly from a special source. The tradition of Gamaliel's conversion is noted in Clem. Becogn. i. 65 and quoted by Photius (Bihliotheca, 171) from earlier written sources : ' Reperi quoque in eodem illo codice, Pauli in lege magistrum Gamalielum et credidisse, et baptizatum fuisse. Nicodemum item nocturnum (quondam) amicum, diurnum etiam redditum, martyrioque coronatum, quem et Gamalielis patruelem haec testatur historia. Baptizatum vero utrumque a Joanne et Petro, una cum Gamalielis filio, cui Abibo nomen.' Nicodemus became a martyr to JeAvish fury, on this tradition ; once the idea of his conversion and authorship of a Gospel was started, it was not unnatural that Gamaliel should also be brought inside the Christian circle.