Gospel of James

The Gospel of James, also sometimes known as the Infancy Gospel of James or the Protoevangelium of James, is an apocryphal Gospel probably written about CE 150. The Gospel of James may be the earliest surviving document attesting the veneration of Mary by stating her perpetual virginity^[1] and presenting her as the new Eve.^[2]

Authorship and date

The document presents itself as written by James: "I, James, wrote this history in Jerusalem." 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 apparently not aware of contemporary Jewish customs while James the Just certainly was, the work is pseudepigraphical (written by someone other than the person it claims to be written by).^[3] The echoes and parallels of the Old Testament appear to derive from its Greek translation, the Septuagint, as opposed to the Hebrew Masoretic Text, which is noticeable due to several peculiarities and variations present in the Septuagint. It apparently embellishes what is told of events surrounding Mary, prior to and at the moment of Jesus' birth, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

The consensus is that it was actually composed some time in the 2nd century CE. The first mention of it is by Origen of Alexandria in the early third 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.^[4]

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. As with the canonical gospels, the vast majority of the manuscripts come from the tenth century or later. The earliest known manuscript of the text, a papyrus dating to the third or early fourth 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 tenth century codex in the Bibliotheque 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".^[5] The literary genre that these works represent shows stylistic features that suggest dates in the second 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 becoming a woman and thus her imminent pollution of the temple, her assignment to Joseph as guardian and the tests of her virginity,
• the third relates the Nativity, 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.

Besides the perpetual virginity of Mary, 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.^[4] Since the text was among those "which are to be avoided by catholics" according to Gelasian Decree, its dismissal may be due 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

External links

• Early Christian Writings website: Infancy Gospel of James
• St. Joseph in Apocrypha, from "Oblates of St. Joseph".