Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/61

Rh the Protevangel, but are equally fictitious. Joseph is said to have had not only children, but grand-children older than Mary (chap. viii.). In general the author was either very careless in copying the documents from which he took his materials, or those documents were widely different from such as we now have. Probably both occurred. He uses Scripture rather more freely than several others who preceded him. A good number of his incidents were reproduced in a modified form in the legends and literature of the Middle Ages in Europe; but the older Christian writers appear to say very little that bears on topics peculiar to him. This is precisely what we should expect. In Pseudo-Matth. xiv. we read that the infant Jesus was adored by the ox and ass, in fulfilment of Is. i. 3. It is easy to see that the popular notion of the ox and ass at the nativity comes from this passage, and quite as easy to see that the legend is nothing but a misapplication of Isaiah's words. Similar inventions are not infrequent, and I mention another from this same book. In chap. iii. the angel who appears to Joachim forbids him to call himself his servant, almost in the words of Rev. xx. 9. A reference of this sort is valuable as showing that angel-worship had not become fully developed when the book was written.