THE GOSPEL OF THE NATIVI'fY OF MARv.
(Latin). Although the Latins never evinced the same degree of credulity which was shown by the Greeks and Orientals in regard to these fabulous productions, and although they were generally re jected by the fathers, they were again revived about the 6th century. Notwithstanding the con temptuous rejection of them by Augustine and Jerome, and their condemnation by Popes Innocent and Gelasius, they still found readers in abundance. Gelasius expressly condemns the book concerning the Nativity of St. Mary and the Midwife.
The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, which most probably, in its present form, dates-its origin from the 6th century, has been even recommended by the pretended authority of St. Jerome. There is a letter extant, said to be written by the Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus to Jerome, requesting him to translate out of Hebrew into Latin the his tory of the Birth of Mary, and of the Birth ana Infancy of Christ, in order to oppose the fabulous and heretical accounts of the same, contained in the apocryphal books. To this Jerome accedes, observing at the same time that the real author of the book was not, as they supposed, the Evangelist Matthew, but Seleucus the Manichee. Jerome observes that there is some truth in the accounts, of which he furnishes a translation from the original Hebrew. These pretended letters of Jerome are now universally acknowledged to be fabrications ; but the apocryphal gospel itself, which is the same in substance with the 1-lrotevawlion of ,ames, is still extant in Jerome's pretended Latin version. It is from these Gospels of the Infancy that we have learned the names of the parents of the Blessed Virgin, Joachim (although Bede reads Eli) and Anna. The narratives contained in these gospels were incorporated in the Golden Legends, a work of the r3th century, which was translated into all the languages of Europe, and frequently printed. There are extant some metrical accounts of the same in German, which were popular in the era of romance. These /egends were, however, severely censured by some eminent divines of the Latin church, of whom it will be sufficient to name Alcuin, in his Homilies in the 9th, and Fulbert and Petrus Damianus '(bishop of Ostia) in the ith century. Eadmer, the monk, in his book on the Excellence of the Vb.-gin, speaks of them also in the language of censure (cap. ii. Anselm. 0Ap. P. 435, Paris, 1721). Luther also inveighs against the readers of' these books &lona ed. Walch. COM. 1C1. ; and 7'able-Talle, ch. vii. tom. xxii. p. 396).
There were several editions of Jerome's pre tended translation published in the r5th cen tury, one of them by Caxton. It is printed by Thilo from a Paris MS. of the 14th century, and divided by him into twenty-four chapters, after a MS. of the r5th century in the same library.
One of the chief objects of the writer of these gos pels seems to be to assert the Davidical origin of the Virgin, in opposition to the Manichees. An edition was also published by Mr. Jones, who con ceives that the first author of these legends was a Hellenistic Jew, who lived in the 2d century, but that they were added to and interpolated by Seleucus the end of the 3d, who became their reputed author ; and that still further additions were made by the Nestorians, or some late Chris tians in India. Lardner (Credibility, vol. viii.) so far differs from Mr. Jones as to believe the author not to have been a Jew.
The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary was received by many of the ancient heretics. Thb Gnostics and Manichees endeavoured to found on its authority some of their peculiar opinions isuch as that Christ was not the Son of God before his baptism, and that he was not of the tribe of Judah, but of that of Levi) as did also the Collyridians, who main tained that too much honour could not be paid to the Blessed Virgin, and that she was herself born of a virgin, and ought to be worshipped with sac rifices.
Although the GOSPEL OF MARCION, or rather that of St. Luke as corrupted by that heretic in the 2d century, is no longer extant, Professor Hahn has endeavoured to restore it from the ex tracts found in ancient writers, especially Tertullian and Epiphanius. This work has been published by That).
Thilo has also published a collation of a cor rupted Greek GOSPEL OF ST. Jom,r, found in the archives of the Knights Templars in Paris. This work was first noticed (in 1828) by the Danish Bishop Muenter, as well as by Abbe Gregoire, , ex-bishop of Blois. It is a vellum MS. in larg,e ' 4to, said by persons skilled in palography to have been executed in the 13th or 14th century, and to have been copied from a Mount Athos MS. of the 2th. The writing is in gold letters, It is divided into nineteen sections, which are called tope*, and is on this account supposed to have been designed for liturgical use. These sections, corresponding in most instances with our chapters (of which, however, the twentieth an3 twenty-first are omitted), are subdivided into verses, the same as those now in use, and said to have been first invented by Robert Stephen [VERsE]. The omissions and interpolations (which latter are in barbarous Greek) represent the heresies and mysteries of the Knights Templars. N.otwith standing all this, Thilo considers it to be modern, and fabricated since the commencement of the r8th century.
One of the most curious of the apocryphal gos pels is the GOSPEL OF NICODEMIJS, Or ACTS OF