Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/59

Rh the subject, but this also is fictitious. The name of Jerome was already great when the correspondence alluded to was concocted.

I agree, generally, with Bishop Ellicott when he says of the Pseudo-Matthew: "It is scarcely necessary to say that nothing can be made out of such an agglomeration of folly and fraud. The Gospel is built up out of the Protevangel, certain oriental traditions which we afterwards find in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, and the Gospel of Thomas. The additions and embellishments are probably pure fiction, and for the most part do not seem referable to any ancient traditions."

In the first chapter of this book we find Achar as the name of Anna's father, and I do not remember to have seen it elsewhere. It represents Abiathar as high priest when Mary was espoused to Joseph, whereas the Protevangelium calls him Zacharias. Sundry other details of the first portion differ from those of the Protevangelium, and the whole document may be fairly viewed as preparing the way for the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy.

Thilo prints the following prologue, which appears in some copies: "I James the Son of Joseph, having