Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/65

Rh Among them we find examples which are not now to be found in Pseudo-Thomas. This raises the question, whether Pseudo-Thomas itself is in its original form. I think not; but at present can only say so much, and that the Pseudo-Matthew account of the infant miracles of Jesus is not so exclusively malevolent as the other. The fiction in chap, xxxv-xxxvi. is really an excellent parable, or might be easily converted into one; and of course is not in the false Thomas.

The epilogue (chap. xlii.) is a pretty family picture, and may be original.

writer of the Protevangel has embodied in his story the greater portion of the incidents contained in this Gospel of Mary's nativity; but the position of Mary is there only secondary after all, and she is not the subject of the book. In course of time, however, Mary began to be regarded as worthy of honour on her own account, and the comparatively independent position she took suggested corresponding literary modifications. Somebody, therefore, drew up the document before us. To give it authority,