GOSPELS
939
GOSPELS
Greek Church (Montfaucon, Palceogr. Grcec. p. 304). There are also extant versions of the Gospel of the In- fancy in the Arabic and other languages of the East- ern churches, among which they appear to have pos- sessed a high degree of nuthorit}'.
Although this work is stN'led by Postell the Prote- vanijelium, there is no MS. authority for this title, nor for the fact of its being ascribed to James the apostle. It only appears that the author's name is James. The narrations of this gospel were known to Teitullian {Adcei-s. Gnosi. e. viii), Origen {Com. in Matt. p. 22o), Gregory Nyssen {Oral, in diem Xat. Christ. : 0pp. iii, 340), Epiphanius {[her. 79, § 5), the author of the Jm- ■perfect Work on Mutt., Chrysostom {0]^). vi, 24), and many others among the ancients. (See Suckovv, Be an/, et ind. Protev. Jacobi, Bresl. 1830.)
4. TiiE Gospel of the Nativity of Mary (Lat- in). Although the Latins never evinced the same degree of credulit}' whicli was shown by the Greeks and Orientals in regard to these fabulous productions, and althougli they were generally rejected by the fa- thers, they were again revived about the Gth century. Notwithstanding their contemptuous rejection by Au- gustine and Jerome, and their condemnation by popes Innocent and Gelasius, they still found readers in abundance. Gelasius expressly condemns the book concerning the Natiinti/ nf St. Mary and the Midwije.
The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, wliich most probably, in its present form, dates its origin from the Gth century, has even lieen recommended by the pre- tended authority of St. Jerome. There is a letter ex- tant, said to be written by the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus to Jerome, requesting him to translate out of Hebrew into Latin the history of the Birth (if' Mary, and of the Birth and Infancy of Christ, in order to op- pose the fabulous and heretical accounts of the same contained in the apocrj'phal books. To this Jerome accedes, observing, at the same time, that the real au- thor of the book was not, as the}' supposed, tlie evan- gelist Matthew, but Seleucus the Manichee. Jerome observes that there is some truth in the accounts, of which he furnishes a translation from the original He- brew. These pretended letters of Jerome are now uni- versally acknowledged to be fabrications ; but the apociyphal gospel itself, which is the same in sub- stance with the ri-otevanrjdion of James, is still extant in Jerome's pretended Latin version. This gospel was republished by Mr. Jones from Jerome's works. It is from these Gospels of the Infancy that we have learned the names of tlie parents of the blessed Vir- gin, Joachim (although Bede reads Eli) and Anna. The narratives contained in these gospels were incor- porated in the Golden Legend, a work of the 13th cen- tury, which was translated into all the languages of Europe, and frequently printed. There are extant some metrical accounts of the same in German, which were popular in the era of romance. These legends were, however, severely censured by some eminent divines of the Latin Church, of whom it will be suffi- cient to name Alcuin, in his Homilies, in the 9ti), and Fulbert and Petrus Damianus (bishop of Ostia) in the 11th century. " Some," says tlie latter, " boast of be- ing wiser than they should be when, with superfluous curiosity, they inquire into the names of the parents of the blessed Virgin, for the evangelist would surely not have failed to liave named them if it were profita- ble to mankind" {Sermon on the Nativity'). Eadmer, the monk, in his book on the Excellence of the Virgin, writes in a similar strain (cap. ii, Anselm. 0pp. p. 435, Paris, 1721). Luther also inveighs against the read- ers of these books {IJomil. ed.Walch. tom. xi ; and 7a- hle-Talk, ch. vii, tom. xxii, p. 396).
There were several editions of Jerome's pretended translation published in the fifteenth centur}-, one of them b}- Caxton. It is printed by Thilo from a Paris MS. of the 14th century, and divided by him into twenty-four chapters, after a MS. of the loth century
in the same librarj'. One of the chief objects of the writer of these gospels seems to be to assert the Davidi- cal origin of the Virgin, in opposition to thi' IManichees.
Mr. Jones conceives that the first author of these an- cient legends was a Hellenistic Jew, wlio lived in the second century, but that they were added to and inter- polated by Seleucus at the end of the third, who be- came their reputed author ; and that still further ad- ditions were made by the Nestorians, or some late Christians in India. Lardner {Credibility, vol. viii) so far differs from Mr. Jones as to believe the author not to have been a Jew. That these legendary accounts have not altogether lost their authority appears from the Life of St. Joseph, in the Catholic Magazine for De- cember, 1843).
The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary was received by many of the ancient heretics, and is mentioned by Epiphanius, St. Augustine, and Gelasius. The Gnos- tics and Manichees endeavored to found on its authori- t\' some of their peculiar opinions (such as that Christ was not the Son of God before his baptism, and that he was not of the tribe of Judah, but of that of Levi) ; as did also the Collyridians, who maintained that too much honor could not be paid to the blessed Virgin, and that she was herself born of a virgin, and ought to be wor- shipped with sacrifices.