Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/84

lxxx It is needless to carry this discussion further; but I must say a word about the order of events in the book. There is some confusion arising from the misplacing of certain transactions. This defect of arrangement may arise from the compiler having copied different documents without observing that the sequence of events was incomplete. Chapter i. really does not stand first in order of time. Chapter xxvi. seems to have been a transition to another document, but is inconsistent with chapter xxvii., because Joseph is told to go to Nazareth, and the story is resumed at Bethlehem. This parenthesis continues to chapter xxxvi. where the thread of the narrative is taken up again. Very likely what we usually regard as the second part of the book comes from two distinct sources at least. Of the puerilities and absurdities of the book I shall say nothing. As the Arabic Gospel is the largest of all the Gospels of the Infancy, so it is the most marked by credulity, superstition, and folly. The long array of miracles effected by the water in which Christ was washed, or the linen he had worn, will speak for themselves. Ignorance, folly, and mendacity, are here at least as conspicuous as piety.