Justin's Memoirs, through Mary. One of these is the Gospel of James, commonly called the Protevangelium, a work referred to by ecclesiastical writers of the third and fourth centuries,(1) and which Tischendorf even ascribes to the first three decades of the second century,(2) in which Mary is stated to be of the lineage of David.(3) She is also described as of the royal race and family of David in the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary,(4) and in the Gospel of pseudo-Matthew her Davidic descent is prominently mentioned.(5) There can be no doubt that all of these works are based upon earlier originals,(6) and there is no reason why they may not have been drawn from the same source from which Justin derived his version of the genealogy in contradiction to the Synoptics.(7)
In the narrative of the events which preceded the
birth of Jesus, the first Gospel describes the angel as appearing only to Joseph and explaining the supernatural conception,(1) and the author seems to know nothing of any announcement to Mary.(2) The third Gospel, on the contrary, does not mention any such angelic appearance to Joseph, but represents the angel as announcing the conception to Mary herself alone.(3) Justin's Memoirs know of the appearances both to Joseph and to Mary, but the words spoken by the angel on each occasion differ materially from those of both Gospels.(4) In this place, only one point, however, can be noticed. Justin describes the angel as saying to Mary: "'Behold, thou shalt conceive of the Holy Ghost, and shalt bear a son, and he shall be called the Son of the Highest, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins,' as they taught who recorded everything that concerns our Saviour Jesus Christ."(5) Now this is a clear and direct quotation, but besides distinctly differing in form from our Gospels, it presents the important peculiarity that the words, "for he shall save his people from
their sins," are not, in Luke, addressed to Mary at all, but that they occur in the first Gospel in the address of the angel to Joseph.(1)
These words, however, are not accidentally inserted in this place, for we find that they are joined in the same manner to the address of the angel to Mary in the Protevangelium of James: "For the power of the Lord will overshadow thee; wherefore also that holy thing which is born of thee shall be called the Son of the Highest, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins."(2) Tischendorf states his own opinion that this passage is a recollection of the Protevangelium unconsciously added by Justin to the account in Luke,(3) but the arbitrary nature of the limitation "unconsciously" (ohne dass er sich dessen bewusst war) here is evident. There is a point in connection with this which merits a moment's attention. In the text of the Protevangelium, edited by Tischendorf, the angel commences his address to Mary by saying: "Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour before the Lord, and thou shalt conceive of his Word" [——]—].(4) Now Justin,
after quoting the passage above, continues to argue that the Spirit and the power of God must not be misunderstood to mean anything else than the Word, who is also the first born of God as the prophet Moses declared; and it was this which, when it came upon the Virgin and overshadowed her, caused
her to conceive.(1) The occurrence of the singular expression in the Protovangelium and the similar explanation of Justin immediately accompanying a variation from our Gospels, which is equally shared by the apocryphal work, strengthens the suspicion of a similarity of origin. Justin's divergences from the Protevangelium prevent our supposing that, in its present state, it could have been the actual source of his quotations, but the wide differences which exist between the extant MSS. of the Protevangelium show that even the most ancient does not present it in its original form. It is much more probable that Justin had before him a still older work, to which both the Protevangelium and the third Gospel were indebted.(2)