Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/70

lxvi of the book is very clear: it was intended to give to Joseph some small share of the glorification, which had been already so liberally bestowed on Mary." While I agree with this in general, I cannot see any reason for suggesting some connection between Joseph's History and Nestorianism. The author is unguarded in some of his statements, as in calling Joseph a priest, but I doubt whether he was identified with any avowed heresy. His notions of death and the unseen world, of merit, and of some other matters, are strange enough, but such as we might expect in the benighted age to which I should assign this document. Whatever that age may be, Mary was already in high honour, and Joseph had an annual commemoration.

It must be noticed that the Arabic text sufficiently differs from the Coptic, for Dulaurier to say the former is an abridged translation: "En comparant les récits de l'ecrivain Arabe avec ceux de l'auteur Copte, on se convaincra que l'ouvrage du premier n'est qu'une traduction abrégée de l'original égyptien."

After the note at p. 113 was printed, I met with the Hebrew confession quoted by Thilo, in the "Book of Life, a manual for the sick and mourners, by Rev. B. H. Ascher," (Second edition, London: 1861)