When Æsculapius was a helpless infant, and when he was about to be put to death, a voice from the god Apollo was heard, saying:
"Slay not the child with the mother; he is born to do great things; but bear him to the wise centaur Cheiron, and bid him train the boy in all his wisdom and teach him to do brave deeds, that men may praise his name in the generations that shall be hereafter."[149:2]
As we stated above, the story of the Song of the Heavenly Host belongs exclusively to the Luke narrator; none of the other writers of the synoptic Gospels know anything about it, which, if it really happened, seems very strange.
If the reader will turn to the apocryphal Gospel called "Protevangelion" (chapter xiii.), he will there see one of the reasons why it was thought best to leave this Gospel out of the canon of the New Testament. It relates the "Miracles at Mary's labor," similar to the Luke narrator, but in a still more wonderful form. It is probably from this apocryphal Gospel that the Luke narrator copied.
FOOTNOTES:
[147:1] Luke, ii. 8-15.
[147:2] Translated from the original Sanscrit by H. H. Wilson, M. D., F. R. S.
[147:3] All the virgin-born Saviours are born at midnight or early dawn.
[147:4] Vishnu Purana, book v. ch. iii. p. 502.