Both give absurd anecdotes to account for monks wearing shaven crowns; both reasons are different.
In the first Life, the Christian festivals of the Ascension “forty days after Jeschu was stoned,” that of Christmas, and the Circumcision “eight days after,” are spoken of as institutions of the Christian Church.
In the VIIIth Book of the Apostolical Constitutions, the festivals of the Nativity and the Ascension are spoken of,[104] consequently they must have been kept holy from a very early age. But it was not so with the feast of the Circumcision.
The 1st of January was a great day among the heathen. In the Homilies of the Fathers down to the eighth century, the 1st of January is called the “Feast of Satan and Hell,” and the faithful are cautioned against observing it. All participation in the festivities of that day was forbidden by the Council “in Trullo,” in A.D. 692, and again in the Council of Rome, A.D. 744.
Pope Gelasius (A.D. 496) forbade all observance of the day, according to Baronius[105], in the hope of rooting out every remembrance of the pagan ceremonies which were connected with it. In ancient Sacramentaries is a mass on this day, “de prohibendo ab idolis.” Nevertheless, traces of the celebration of the Circumcision of Christ occur in the fourth century; for Zeno, Bishop of Verona (d. A.D. 380), preached a sermon on it. In the ancient Mozarabic Kalendar, in the Martyrology wrongly attributed to St. Jerome, and in the Gelasian Sacramentary, the Circumcision is indicated on January 1. But though noted in the Kalendars, the day was, for the reason of its being observed as a heathen festival, not [pg 073] treated by the Church as a festival till very late. Litanies and penitential offices were appointed for it.
The notice in the Toledoth Jeschu, therefore, points to a time when the feast was observed with outward demonstration of joy, and the sanction of the Church accorded to other festivities.
The Toledoth Jeschu adopts the fable of the Sanhedrim and King having sent out an account of the trial of Jesus to the synagogues throughout the world to obtain from them an expression of opinion. The synagogue of Worms remonstrated against the execution of Christ. “The people of Girmajesa (Germany) and all the neighbouring country round Girmajesa which is now called Wormajesa (Worms), and which lies in the realm of the Emperor, and the little council in the town of Wormajesa, answered the King (Herod) and said, Let Jesus go, and slay him not! Let him live till he falls and perishes of his own accord.”
The synagogues of several cities in the Middle Ages did in fact, produce apocryphal letters which they pretended had been written by their forefathers remonstrating with the Jewish Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, and requesting that Jesus might be spared. An epistle was produced by the Jews of Ulm in A.D. 1348, another by the Jews of Ratisbon about the same date, from the council at Jerusalem to their synagogues.[106] The Jews of Toledo pretended to possess similar letters in the reign of Alfonso the Valiant, A.D. 1072. These letters probably served to protect them from feeling the full stress of persecution which oppressed the Jews elsewhere.
The most astonishing ignorance of Gospel accounts of Christ and the apostles is observable in both anti-evangels. Matthias and Matthew are the same, so are [pg 074] John the Baptist and John the Apostle, whilst Thaddaeus is said to be “also called Paul,” and Simon Peter is confounded with Simon Magus.[107]
These are instances of the confusion of times and persons into which these counter-Gospels have fallen, and they are sufficient to establish their late and worthless character.