REFERENCES TO THE PROTEVANGELION.
[This Gospel is ascribed to James. The allusions to it in the ancient
Fathers are frequent, and their expressions indicate that it had
obtained a very general credit in the Christian world. The controversies
founded upon it chiefly relate to the age of Joseph at the birth of
Christ, and to his being a widower with children, before his marriage
with the Virgin. It seems material to remark, that the legends of the
latter ages affirm the virginity of Joseph, notwithstanding Epiphanius,
Hilary, Chrysostom, Cyril, Euthymius, Thephylaet, Occumenius, and indeed
all the Latin Fathers till Ambrose, and the Greek Fathers afterwards,
maintain the opinions of Joseph's age and family, founded upon their
belief in the authenticity of this book. It is supposed to have been
originally composed in Hebrew. Postellus brought the MS. of this Gospel
from the Levant, translated it into Latin, and sent it to Oporimus,
a printer at Basil, where Bibliander, a Protestant Divine, and the
Professor of Divinity at Zurich, caused it to be printed in 1552.
Postellus asserts that it was publicly read as canonical in the eastern
churches they making no doubt that James was the author, of it. It is,
nevertheless considered apocryphal by some of the most learned divines in
the Protestant and Catholic churches.]
THE FIRST GOSPEL OF
THE INFANCY OF JESUS CHRIST.
CHAPTER I.
1 Caiphas relates that Jesus, when in his cradle,
informed his mother that he was the Son of God.
5 Joseph and Mary going to Bethlehem to be taxed, Mary's
time of bringing forth arrives, and she goes into a cave.
8 Joseph fetches in a Hebrew woman. The cave filled with
great lights.
11 The infant born,
17 and cures the woman.
19 Arrival of the shepherds.
THE following accounts we found
in the book of Joseph the
high-priest, called by some
Caiphas:
2 He relates, that Jesus spake
even when he was in the cradle,
and said to his mother: