Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/50

xlvi 1866, will show that the former is not without his honour: —

" — The Chiesa Cattolica, a clerical paper published at Naples, gives the following as a cheap and infallible remedy for the cholera: 'Apply to the abdomen a picture of St. Joachim, the glorious father of the Holy Virgin. This remedy is unfailing. The malady rarely attacks a person so protected; if it does, it is immediately cured. God sends us the cholera to punish us for our sins; but St. Joachim drives it away! One trial only solicited!'"

Dr. Tischendorf observes that certain recognised religious rites are also derived from apocryphal sources. Still more numerous are the uses to which apocryphal books have been put by painters, sculptors, etc. The well known ox and ass in representations of the nativity have no other origin. But it would be weary work to enumerate all the examples which could be adduced, and therefore I add no more: I only mention these because the subject requires it.

Looking more generally at the influence which the Apocryphal Gospels have exercised and still exercise, we are naturally led to ask how it is to be explained. Why is it that what has been condemned