Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/287

Rh Infancy (chapters xxxvi.-lv.) is somewhat conformed to the Gospel of Thomas. It records what is said to have occurred from the time when Jesus was seven years old until he was twelve, adding a general intimation respecting his life thenceforward to his thirtieth year and his baptism.

The Arabic Gospel is a compilation which may have had either an Arabic, or a Coptic, or a Syriac origin, and was probably not written till the eighth or ninth century. One can hardly see how it savours of Nestorianism however, as some have thought, since this extravagantly exalts that Mary whom the Nestorians were accused of not exalting sufficiently.

Tischendorf's Latin text was revised after the Arabic by Fleischer, and may, therefore, be relied on. The book itself was first published in Arabic and Latin by Dr. Sike in 1697.

The reader cannot fail to observe that the miracles in the second part are of a benevolent character, unlike those which breathe the malevolent spirit of the Gospel of Thomas and its congeners.