Page:Ragg Gospel of Barnabas.djvu/12

 x          INTRODUCTION

III. THE LOST GNOSTIC GOSPEL.

i. Historical notices of the lost Gospel : The Legend of St. Barnabas - The Gelasian Decree. ii. Possibility of its use here : Suggested items possibly drawn from it. IV. EXTRACTS FROM DOCUMENTS REATIVE TO BARNABAS.

I. CODICES OF BARNABAS. (i) Barnabas in the eighteenth century - italian and spanish manuscripts

(i) Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century the gospel of Barnabas aroused considerable interest among the learned in England, to whom two different copies of the document were known and, to a certain extent, accessible. One of these was the Italian text, which we now publish for the first time in the ensuing pages ; the other, a Spanish version, professedly translated from the Italian, which has since unfortunately disappeared from view. Story of the Italian MS Our Italian MS. was acquired in Amsterdam by J.F.Cramer ,and lent by him to John Toland in 1709*. Four years later, in 1713 (as the dedicatory preface observes 2 ), Cramer presented his prize to the illustrious connoisseur Prince Eugene of Savoy : and eventually it found its way, in 1738,in company with the rest of that prince's library, into the Hofbibliothek at Vienna, where it now reposes. Further back than the beginning of the eighteenth century we have no certain traces of the Codex, though an ambiguous reference in the preface to the (now lost) copy of the Spanish FOOTNOTES 1- The learned gentleman, says Toland, who has been so kind as to communicate it to me (viz. Mr. Cramer, Counsellor to the King of Prussia,but residing at Amsterdam), had it out of the library of a person of great name and authority in the said city ; who during his life was often heard to put a high value on this piece. Whether as a rarity, or as the model of his religion, I know not. (Nazarenus, chap. v. Cf. below, p. Ixvii.) 2- See below, p. Ixxix. Denis (see p. lxxvi) says that Cramer, being in reduced circumstances at this time, was glad to sell it to the prince.