Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/82

lxxviii betrays a degenerate age. The actual Arabic text cannot well claim a great antiquity for several reasons, and if the Arabic was the original we must cease to refer it to the fifth, or sixth century. The rise of Arabic literature was very little earlier than Mohammed, and this book was written when the language was the familiar vehicle for literary composition. In chapter xxiv. the name Matarea is twice mentioned; but this name is Arabic and therefore the present text was not produced until the place had received that appellation from the Mohammedans. When this was I cannot say, but I have failed to discover any certain occurrence of Matarea before the time of Abulfeda (died 1331) in his description of Egypt, and even there the copies appear to differ. The Nubian Geographer, who wrote about 1150, mentions Ain Shems and the balsam which grew near it, but has no allusion to the name of Matarea.

The Arabic Gospel gives the name of Matarea to the sycamore tree. Sozomen seems to place this tree in the Thebaid (Eccles. Hist. v. 21), at a great distance from Matarea. I suppose it was afterwards found convenient to shift the locality of the legendary tree, and if so, the Arabic Gospel was not