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Gospel of James

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Gospel of James
Date 140-170 AD
Attribution James the Just
Location
Sources Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Luke, Septuagint, extracanonical traditions
Manuscripts
Audience
Theme Virginity of Mary and birth of Jesus

The Gospel of James, also known as the Infancy Gospel of James or the Protoevangelium of James, is an apocryphal Gospel probably written about AD 145, which expands backward in time the infancy stories contained the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and presents a narrative concerning the birth and upbringing of Mary herself. It is the oldest source to assert the virginity of Mary not only prior to but during (and after) the birth of Jesus.[1] The ancient manuscripts that preserve the book have different titles, including "The Birth of Mary", "The Story of the Birth of Saint Mary, Mother of God," and "The Birth of Mary; The Revelation of James."[2]

Authorship and date

The document presents itself as written by James: "I, James, wrote this history in Jerusalem."-XXV[3] Thus the purported author is James the Just, whom the text claims is a son of Joseph from a prior marriage, and thus a stepbrother of Jesus.

Scholars have established that, based on the style of the language and the fact that the author is not aware of contemporary Jewish customs, while the historical James the Just certainly was, the work is pseudepigraphical (not written by the person it is attributed to).[4] For instance the work suggests there were consecrated temple virgins in Judaism, as with Vestal Virgins in pagan Rome, but this is spurious. Celibacy has played little role in Judaism, in which marriage and raising children are understood as holy obligations.[5]

The consensus is that it was actually composed some time in the 2nd century AD. The first mention of it is by Origen of Alexandria in the early 3rd century, who says the text, like that of a "Gospel of Peter", was of dubious, recent appearance and shared with that book the claim that the 'brethren of the Lord' were sons of Joseph by a former wife.[6]

Manuscript tradition

Some indication of the popularity of the Infancy Gospel of James may be drawn from the fact that about one hundred and thirty Greek manuscripts containing it have survived. The Gospel of James was translated into Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, Georgian, Old Slavonic, Armenian, Arabic, Irish and Latin. Though no early Latin versions are known, it was relegated to the apocrypha in the Gelasian decretal, so it must have been known in the West by the fifth century. As with the canonical gospels, the vast majority of the manuscripts come from the 10th century or later. The earliest known manuscript of the text, a papyrus dating to the third or early 4th century, was found in 1958; it is kept in the Bodmer Library, Geneva (Papyrus Bodmer 5). Of the surviving Greek manuscripts, the fullest text is a 10th century codex in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Paris 1454).

Genre

The Gospel of James is one of several surviving Infancy Gospels that give an idea of the miracle literature that was created to satisfy the hunger of early Christians for more detail about the early life of their Saviour. In Greek such an infancy gospel was termed a protevangelion, a "pre-Gospel" narrating events of Jesus' life before those recorded in the four canonical gospels. Such a work was intended to be "apologetic, doctrinal, or simply to satisfy one's curiosity".[7] The literary genre that these works represent shows stylistic features that suggest dates in the 2nd century and later. Other infancy gospels in this tradition include The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (based on the Protoevangelium of James and on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas), and the so-called Arabic Infancy Gospel; all of which were regarded by the Church as apocryphal.

Content

Annunciation to Joachim and Anna, fresco detail by Gaudenzio Ferrari, 1544–45: Extra-canonical legends surrounding Mary's birth became an integral element of Roman Catholicism.

The Gospel of James is in three equal parts, of eight chapters each:

  • the first contains the story of Mary's own unique birth and childhood and assignment to the temple,
  • the second concerns the crisis posed by Mary's sexual maturity, and her assignment to Joseph,
  • the third relates the Nativity of Jesus, with the visit of midwives, hiding of Jesus from Herod the Great in a feeding trough and the parallel hiding in the hills of John the Baptist and his mother (Elizabeth) from Herod Antipas.

One of the work's high points is the Lament of Anna. A primary theme is the work and grace of God in Mary's life, Mary's personal purity, and her perpetual virginity before, during and after the birth of Jesus, as confirmed by the midwife after she gave birth, and tested by "Salome" who is perhaps intended to be Salome, later the disciple of Jesus who is mentioned in the Gospel of Mark as being at the Crucifixion.

This is also the earliest text that explicitly claims that Joseph was a widower, with children, at the time that Mary is entrusted to his care. This feature is mentioned in the text of Origen, who adduces it to demonstrate that the 'brethren of the Lord' were sons of Joseph by a former wife.[6] Since the text was among those that "...are to be avoided by catholics" according to Gelasian Decree, its dismissal may be due[citation needed] in part to this reading of the adelphoi, which corresponded to the developed Eastern Orthodox view rather than the western, i.e., Roman Catholic, view, which treated them as cousins.

Among further traditions not present in the four canonical gospels are the birth of Jesus in a cave, the martyrdom of John the Baptist's father Zachariah during the slaughter of the infants and Joseph's being elderly when Jesus was born. The Nativity reported as taking place in a cave, with its Mithraic overtones, remained in the popular imagination; many Early Renaissance Sienese and Florentine paintings of the Nativity, as well as Byzantine, Greek and Russian icons of the Nativity, show such a setting.

See also

References

  1. ^ Luigi Gambero, "Mary and the fathers of the church: the Blessed Virgin Mary in patristic thought" pp.35-41
  2. ^ Bart D. Ehrman, " Lost Scriptures: Books that did not make it into the New Testament" p.63
  3. ^ http://www.gnosis.org/library/gosjames.htm
  4. ^ Quick Questions (This Rock: August 1990)
  5. ^ [1]
  6. ^ a b Origen of Alexandria. "The Brethren of Jesus". Origen's Commentary on Matthew in Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume IX. But some say, basing it on a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled, or "The Book of James," that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honour of Mary in virginity to the end, so that that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word which said, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee," might not know intercourse with a man after that the Holy Ghost came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the first-fruit among men of the purity which consists in chastity and Mary among women; for it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the first-fruit of virginity. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ http://www.osjoseph.org/stjoseph/apocrypha/
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